The flight from Athens to Paris departed on time. We took the airport bus from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Gare Montparnasse to meet our Host who will be leading us to his apartment we will be staying for the night. It took us more than an hour to finally locate our Host – a big mistake, we all forgot to ask how we could identify one another.

Incident at Montparnasse: We arrived on time as we stood with our luggage looked around for just a young man. We only knew him by his name. We were told to meet him at Gare Montparnasse but there were no specifics as in whether to meet inside the building, outside by the entrance or up the escalator. A young man paced up and down with a file in his hand and was looking around. We started feeling uncomfortable as we held our luggage closer and were on our guard. My mother kept taking the escalator up into Gare Montparnasse but returned uncertain. After almost an hour, the young man approached us only to realize that we were the ones he was to meet.

Image taken from Google.

Rush before sunset and storm

As soon as we settled into the apartment, we raced to Notre-Dame. Our previous trips to Notre-Dame, we always seem to be in a rush. So this time, we intended to make full use of our time.

Notre-Dame de Paris

This medieval Catholic cathedral is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and drew one of the longest tourist queues in Paris. The interior of the Cathedral is huge and contains 17th- to 19th-century altar pieces and important relics.

Tips: Queue can be long. Admission to the Cathedral is free. Photography is permitted in the cathedral but flash not encouraged. There is no time limit to remain inside the Cathedral.

As we left the Cathedral, it became cloudy. But stubborn me, I just wanted so badly to see that Obelisk which I saw years ago. We literally tracked the Obelisk down on foot. We found it and managed to shoot a few photos and rushed back to Montparnasse before it started to pour. Well, we were in luck. The heavens held back the rain until we did all our grocery shopping and got up the lift to our apartment then it started storming throughout the night until the next morning. There goes my intended night shot of the Eiffel Tower.