A night cruise

This is my third or is it fourth(?) entry on Paris, and believe it or not, Day 1 has just reached its night time. Babah came back from his afternoon tour to our hotel room just about Maghrib time with LOTS of food and milk for the children.

He said Metro system was just like the tubes in London. While eating, Babah suggested that we should all go out for a boat ride along River Seine. Hating to disappoint Babah, who wished to see the lit up Paris at night, we all wrapped up warmly and took an underground train from Gare du Nord and stopped at Cite.

A 'sightseeing' boat as seen during the day

So far so good. The train was not crammed, probably because it was already 8.30pm. We didn't bring the push chair that night because we doubt that there was any lift at the stations and we didn't want to carry any extra weight.

When we came out of Cite station, we just found ourselves in the middle of an alley. Didn't know which way to turn, Babah just had to ask someone. That someone was kind enough to give us the direction - but in French!

An hour later and after asking two more people, we reached the above place, Pont Neuf (meaning New Bridge; but actually the oldest bridge in Paris!). Babah said if we couldn't find the place, we will just call it a quit and go back to the hotel. We walked passed (underneath, rather) the bridge, when suddenly Babah saw a huge Bateux-mouches (I hope means Boat) on the opposite bank.

A similar looking bateux-mouches that we were riding

Imagine we had to run up the steps. Ran along the bridge. Go down the steps on the other side of the bank. And all that while Babah carrying Sarah, and Amar was carried by me.

We got to the other side thinking that we could catch the 10pm cruise. But that boat was full so we had to wait for the next cruise at 10.30pm.

Palais Petit
(I think! I wasn't paying much attention to the tourist guide)

The cruise was all worth it. Although it was way past the children's bedtime, Sarah was alright that night. Amar was slightly restless at the beginning. But he fell asleep soon after we started our journey. So he was alright too. (hehe)

Most of the building by River Seine were flooded with lights. Only for our pleasure.

Le Concierge
(This one I'm pretty definite. I remember the point that the building has once been used as prison!)

The boat was a HUGE double decker boat. There must have been like a hundred of us on the same boat. And there were lots more space to be filled up. We sat on the open top deck. It was quite chilly to tell the truth.

There were 37 bridges on River Seine. It felt like there were hundreds of them. And each one has different style. I guess one could write a very looooonnnggg entry on the bridges alone.

The highlight of our boat tour was of course The Eiffel Tower. It was my first time and it was just, Wow! I have no other words to describe my feelings at that time.

That night alone, we saw a lot of interesting buildings and structures along River Seine. They were all amazing and carefully described by our tourist guide in French and English (Even though I wasn't listening that very much). We were so glad that we actually made it to Pont Neuf earlier on. Indeed, we've had a very satisfactory first day in Paris.