Day 3 – Seine River Cruise

It’s the Independence day for Pondicherry – A Union territory that was ruled by French once and given independence on Aug 16th, 1950.

And this was the last day of our trip in Paris. And August 16th was my Birthday as well :-). I started my day with a Birthday wish from Mani and a very good breakfast. Mani had booked the Seine River Cruise and we headed off directly to the boarding point that was behind the Eiffel Tower. It was a one hour cruise crossing all of the major attractions that we had been to in the last 3 days.

After the Cruise, finished a quick lunch at the Subway and took the train to Montparnasse. This is a big station in Paris and had pretty good number of shops & restaurants inside the station

There is a Montparnasse tower right opposite the station and we took a visit there. The tower was 201 meters high and an open terrace available to view the city 360 degrees.

There is also a shopping mall ‘lafayette Galleria Mall’ and we spent few hours in the Mall. I got some gifts& presents from Mani that he purchased at the Galleria Mall. I love shopping and this mall was no different to me J – I spent few hours doing some window shopping. We tried a new snack at the Café along with coffee. I don’t remember the name of the snack – it was looking like the Quinoa style but mint flavored with raisins.

We had to take the Artesia Night Train to Venice from Paris Bercy Station. The Metro would have been the best option to go to Paris Bercy Station but we had more bags to carry and going down the stairs to catch the Metro would be very difficult. The bus was the best option for us but definitely a long route when compared to Metro. As usual Mani figured out the bus routes pretty fast and we had to take 2 bus to reach the Paris Bercy. If not for the luggage’s, the bus journey is another good way to go around Paris.

We reached 2 hours before to the Paris Bercy and did an assumption that the Bercy station will be as big as Montparnasse with many restaurants. Our plan was to dine at the station and board the train. Unfortunately Bercy had no restaurants available and Mani went in search for food near the station. Lucky enough we were able to get a Pizza and had early dinner.

The Artesia train to Venice started on time at 8.30 PM from Paris. The train was very comfortable and I had a good night sleep after all the long walk tours we did in Paris. We will be spending the next 2 days in Venice and I’ll catch you all with my Venice story shortly…