Tickets on thalys were booked a day before this trip. Started the day without plans or itinerary, departed ghent at about 0625hr, arrived gare du nord before 10am.

Without a clue on what to do, enquired at the tourism counter and decided on L’open tour which was a hop on and off bus with 4 different routes to cover the entire Paris. Due to the limited time, we took the yellow and green routes which met our needs to cover the places we wanted to visit. Prices on this bus were reasonable. €32 for 1 day; €36 for 2 days; €40 for 3 days and no worries about how to get around different places of interest let alone taking the metro.

Paris is beautiful but gypsies are everywhere. Always be careful of valuables and do not let them corner or distract you with street performances, tricks, hypnotism.

We covered many placed in the tour bus within 3hrs, but missed taking pics of arc du triomphe before we stopped at Eiffel due to the rain. We had lunch at one of the street bistros near the Eiffel Tower stop and continued taking pics of the tower. Hopped on the bus again and headed for shopping at printemps!

As the traffic in Paris is really bad at peak hours especially when raining, we almost missed our train at 1825hr back to ghent. Thankfully we made it at the last minute as we ran from the tour bus stop to the train station.