St. Pancras Station from the outside.
And the inside after a multi-million update to become the British station for the Eurostar service.
EUROSTAR - WOW - 5 hours from the door of Tom and Ann's flat in London to the door of the flat in Paris. That includes the tube ride at both ends, ticketing, immigration and customs and the train ride. On a train that travels at 211 mph between London and Dover, slows down to 60mph through the chunnel, then back up to 250 mph in France.
After an early morning start from High Barnet we arrived at St. Pancras station where we boarded the Eurostar. Thank you, ANN for using your knowledge from past trips with 3 little ones. She simply took all 9 of our passports and handed them to the Immigration Officer. He looked at each one, pointed to the person he saw pictured on the passport and motioned them through the gate.
We arrived in Paris with 5 hungry kids, in spite of bringing lots of snacks onto the train. Between the metro stop and the flat were several cafes, bakeries and a McDonald's. SO, our second meal in London was at a BurgerKing and our first meal in Paris was at McD's. So much for the international experience. We more than made up for it, but that's for a later blog.
After getting settled in at the flat, we all rode the Metro to Notre Dame.
At this point we had been in England, and now France for 2 weeks and we had seen less than 8 hours of sunshine.
Note to everyone - "Seasonal Affective Disorder" is VERY REAL !! Carol says that she knew something was wrong when she walked into Notre Dame, looked up and said to herself, "Yeah, it's another church." Mentally she then slapped herself on the back of the head. Our fellow NCIS fans will understand.
Emily found a little joy, right here in the middle of winter.
Ann and Carol went grocery shopping. Tom and the rest of us stopped at his favorite charcuterie for two roast chickens. Quiet dinner at "home." And to bed. Preparing for an early start Thursday.
Carol and I and our kids got out early and went to the Louvre. Unfortunately, our "early" wasn't nearly early enough. The line was over 90 minutes long just to get in. And that gave us a pretty good idea of how crowded it would be.
Marianne, a dear friend and co-worker of Carol's had given us two wonderful guide books, one for London and one for Paris. The Paris one had several walking tours in it. So we took a walking tour of that part of Paris. Across the square from the Louvre we found the Jardin du Palais-Royal an 18th Century arcade surrounding a large courtyard and gardens. In the courtyard are "The Columns" by Daniel Burren. An outdoor sculpture consisting of black and white columns. Didn't impress me much as "art" but the kids had a ball.
Through the garden
and along some streets with the original mosaics
to Rue de Beaujolais and on to the Opera Palais Garnier.
Rue de la Paix, which is full of elegant jewelry shops led us to Place Vendome which is the home of more high end jewelry stores, banks, the famous Ritz Hotel and many French fashion design houses. The column with Napoleon on top was erected in 1810, fashioned after the Trajan Column in Rome.
We enjoyed the view and the window shopping.
Only window shopping.
All the shop doors were guarded by liveried gentleman who did not appear to be welcoming such as us.
Next we went to Place de la Concorde - a huge square/park where the mass executions of the French Revolution took place. There was a big holiday carnival which looked like fun. BUT I had to go to the bathroom so we ran through it to the Champs-Elysees which the guide books say is the most elegant avenue in Paris.
NOT AT CHRISTMAS TIME.
We thought we had been transported to Gatlinburg, TN. Complete with rides, hot dog stands AND pay toilets.
With THAT emergency over, everybody realized that they were hungry. I refused to go to another McD's or BK's.
This IS PARIS !
We crossed the river and headed toward the Eiffel Tower.
We knew the food at the Eiffel Tower would be very expensive. So we stopped someone on the street and asked about someplace to eat. He said we would be in tourist territory from where we were all the way to the Eiffel Tower and the food would be "bad and expensive". But if we walked a few blocks out of our way we might find something. All we saw were fancy restaurants with valet parking.
THEN - LOOK - JUST DOWN THIS STREET - A DOMINO'S !!
We ran two blocks to find that it was delivery only. Weird Paris zoning.
We were about to give up and go to a Starbuck's. But I stopped a young lady walking while eating what looked like a baguette stuffed with meat and cheese and asked her where she had purchased it. She told us which street to turn on. She said, "There will be a pastry shop on the left. DO NOT GO THERE!. Half a block past it is the sandwich shop." We found it. Emily and I had a grilled cheese thingie. But with incredible bread and, of course, really incredible cheese, it was heaven on a plate. Andrew had quiche and Carol had a chicken cheese grilled sandwich. All excellent, reasonably - for Paris - priced and served by friendly people.
Speaking of friendly people. This is as good a place as any to tell you about our experience with the French people. We went expecting arrogant, Anglo hating snobs who would completely ignore, or worse, English speaking tourists.
From one end of Paris to the other, we approached shop clerks, museum guides, metro employees and many, many citizens and said, "Pardon-moi. Parlez-vous anglais ?" Which was pretty much the total of our French.
In EVERY SINGLE CASE - except one, a valet parking attendant in front of a fancy restaurant - we were greeted with a huge smile, a gesture of two fingers close together and a "Ah, a wee bit." And then they stayed talking to us until we figured out the answer to our question.
There were one or two who scowled at me and said some variation of, "Of course, but why would I ? YOU are in FRANCE." Then they'd laugh and help us.
I would not hesitate to go back, even without my French speaking son, Tom as a guide. He was very helpful. But we spent several days on our own and got along fine.
Warmed by the restaurant and the food, we headed back out to walk to the Eiffel Tower.
We postponed going up because of the fog. Another day, we hope.
Back on the Metro and after a change of trains, to the apartment.
ONE MORE TIME - I hope SOMEBODY is paying attention - our first day in Paris and we didn't do ANYTHING (the Louvre) we had planned. We had a WONDERFUL day with "Plan B" which wasn't even a plan until after we decided not to do the Louvre.
Life is ALWAYS good. Even when it doesn't go as planned.
