Boating on the Seine River

If you look at any website that details about the Tourism in Paris, you would find one of the must see items to be 'Boating on Seine River'. These services are offered by many Cruise companies here and have the boats moving around every hour from one of the boarding points bordering the Seine River.

Seine is a river that runs right in the middle of Paris. It connects major tourist attractions and so through this boat ride a viewer gets the pleasure of seeing all things in an hours time and enjoying the cruise as well.

Last week we had been to one such cruise and I would say I was highly disappointed with it. I wanted to be on the cruise in the evening time to enjoy the city at night. My room mate argued that if it is in the night we will hardly be able to take the pictures and its not worth it. The same argument has been concurred with my lead Nicolas who said you gotta visit both the times, one in the daytime , once in the night. So I didn't argue much and went on with it. So around 3:30 P.M we reached the Beatuex stop at Eiffel.

We saw many boats parked across the shore line and there was nice cool breeze all around. First after getting the tickets, when you enter they ask you to pose for a picture. These are not for you, mind you. These pictures are meant to be taken for advertising their cruise all round the paris. Folks, anytime you see a picture of me and my friend in a mock boxing pose pasted across the walls of a Bar or Brasserie/Motel/Gare don't freak out. Its definitely us.

The boat has two sections. First half is fully covered with glass domes having room heaters in it and the other end we have open seating arrangement. There are no fixed seats and anybody can get seated anywhere or keep moving around once the cruise starts. Beside every seat you have a a huge arm-length device with a speaker and some dialing options numbering from 1 to 9 placed in a nice holder with a wire like extension that you can easily pick up and put it to your ear while sitting. Each number corresponds to one language 1 for France, 2 for English etc. As the cruise proceeds you can listen to the running commentary by pressing the appropriate options. You are foretold in the beginning that the commentary would be on at the prominent places.

Anyways, as we reached some nice places, we were torn between two choices - should we listen to the commentary or try getting the pics. When I say try getting the pics, I really mean 'Try', because until and unless you have those SLR cameras the ordinary compact ones are not worth a dime. You cannot get the whole shot in a nice angle. And top of that you have the boat too coming in the background. What happens is this as boat approaches some place really nice we sit down, listen to the commentary and then go about photo business. These are the times when announcements are made that there is going to be commentary. There are times when there is no announcements but commentary would be still running.

From time to time you would be hard pressed to check if something is running or not. By the time we realized the cruise is over, I got a feeling that we had been missed out on few of the places like - Arche De Triumphe for instance. We didn't see that and nor did we catch Statue of Liberty as promised in the cruise map. It was a very dissatisfying feeling. Firstly though we did get to see some of the magnificent monuments such as Louvre, Eiffel, State Building, Notre Dame the feeling doesn't last long until and unless they give a pause to let people sink in the commentary and take photos. This need not be a very long pause of course, even a 2-3 minutes stop is sufficient. Secondly the pictures as already mentioned above doesn't do real justice to the way they are meant to be taken.

Overall my conclusion is this. Paris is called City of Lights for a reason. All throughout the city, you would see mind numbing varieties of lamps, with modern bulbs inside. Every monument has been adorned with highly researched planned arrangements of light to enhance the glory and rich history that they present. In light, (pun intended) of this I strongly feel one should take the cruise in the evening, layback and enjoy the splendour that the city has got to offer. Since you know the camera is worthless to you to be in the picture, you will better start focusing on places along with the commentary. That's a win-win situation if you ask me thereby enjoying the whole cruise MUCH more.

Again, I don't completely want to rule off going in the morning excepting one needs to take a lunch cruise/private party kind of boating trip. That would be somewhere around 55 - 100 Euros. With these options you are given appropriate breaks and the cruise is much longer. I stuck to the 10 Euro thing and its not worth it.

I await Nikmo to come and make sure he enjoys the way it is meant to be. Eagerly waiting for the next weekend to make the trip again.

Here are some of the pics -

Bauteux Parisians - supposedly the best

About to get into the boat

Louvre Meuseum

Captial State Building

Near Champs - Elysse