First Day in Paris: Metro to the Hotel

We arrived in the afternoon after the 4 hour train ride from Amsterdam. The train was comfortable and peaceful, but that ended the moment we arrived. Gare de Nord was packed and crazy with travelers and commuters alike.  We hurried through the crowds first to the ticket machine to purchase Metro tickets, which didn’t work as the machine only seemed to accept French credit and atm cards. So, I had to dive right into using my very rusty French with a ticket agent. He seemed to understand my request and we now have two Metro passes for our time here.

The next challenge was to get to the correct Metro stop. I had already plotted out our route and, at least on paper, it seemed easy.

Don’t you love how paper can do that?

But what paper doesn’t tell you is that it is necessary to walk a long ways through crowds of rush hour Parisians, dragging suitcases and trying to interpret the multitude of directional signs within the huge Gare du Nord train station.

Of course, then we got to the platform for the first train and it was easy from there on out…except if you count the 942 flights of stairs we had to climb or descend to get to the actual platform.

But we made it to the first train, and after swiftly discovering that we were headed in the wrong direction, and making the ever-so-easy switch to the correct platform (leave train, go down two flights of stairs, up two other flights…with suitcases in tow) we settled into the correct train and were on our way.

To the transfer station where we had to get off, and hike through 765 more stairwells, up and down until we reached our correct train.

We made it on and settled in for the long ride to the stop near our hotel.

Now, Parisians are renown for a certain style, a certain je ne sais quoi? A certain flair. And it was evident on the train. The people, even coming home from work on a train all had a look and style that seemed almost second nature.

I suspected that my current state of profusely sweating, bedraggled, slightly wild-eyed determination fit right in.

That must have been why they gave me so much room on the train.