Paris – Eurostar & Notre Dame
April 24-25, 2017
We were off to Paris – FINALLY!!! A year later than planned but we were headed there. Yippee!!!! Our journey there would be with the Eurostar (re-doing the experience, as last time was not relaxing).
Eurostar
Check in with the Eurostar is so easy, if you’ve booked online (add link) then you can go to the ticket machines, pop in your booking reference = tickets printed. Voila!! Then you just pop through the barriers, have your bags scanned through security, passport check and wait in the transit area for boarding to commence. Your ticket, of course, states which carriage an seat your in. Depending on your carriage as to whether you take the left or right escalator/travelator and find your carriage & seat. Away we go. Smoothly pulling our of St Pancras, you see a little bit of London before then heading through the Thames tunnel. Once out the other side you see quite a bit of the southern England countryside, follow along a motor way or two, through a couple of other tunnels. Then you reach the coast, you travel through England for about 30-40 minutes before reaching the Eurotunnel. The tunnel itself is quite: dark – go figure. You’re in the tunnel for about half an hour.
This time we started our movie watching just as we were leaving St Pancras – “A View to A Kill” (James Bond for those not in the know) and why that one you may ask? Because James (Roger Moore) has lunch on the Eiffel Tower and then chases May Day (Grace Jones) up the stairs and she jumps off into the waiting boat on the river. We were getting prepared for the lunch the next day. Our movie snack was V and Cookie Time Triple Chocolate Cookies.
Intermission was once we arrived in France and went to the onboard bar/café for a drink. The café/bar onboard takes pounds & euros and well stocked with few options in drink and food. Hot and cold food & drink. The muffins are yummy, the coffee isn’t too bad for being instant and the alcohol is chilled. Excellent.
There was free wifi on the train to Paris and with the ‘homepage’ you track your journey to see where you are and how fast you’re going.
Paris – 1st Evening
We arrived in Paris on time, at Gard du Nord. PARIS!!! The excitement was beginning. Our hotel was only about a mile up the road from the station. Thanks to screen shots on the ipad from google maps it was easy and straight forward to find. (Highly recommend doing this if you don’t have roaming for data or not sure where wifi would be at your destination.
It was a little interesting walking to or hotel. Our hotel was pleasant and the check-in smooth. We dropped our bags off and set out to find somewhere to eat. Dinner was grilled salmon and salad at a little restaurant up a side street from our hotel – delicious.
Notre Dame
Tuesday morning, we were up bright and early to catch the worm – so to speak – more like the warm croissants and pain au raisins down stairs at breakfast; mmmmmm.
Our first stop for today’s itinerary was Notre Dame. To get there and around for the next couple of days we would be taking the Paris Metro – which by the way is cheaper than the Underground.
Notre Dame was pretty, large and impressive. But also a little of the same. When you start seeing more and more Cathedrals, many end up just being very similar looking, especially inside. But outside with the two towers high above the square/courtyard in front IT IS impressive.
Entry to the Cathedral is free, but to go up the tower is €10, we decided not to, as we would be going up the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe.
We walked from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower, along the Riverside and saw the Love Locks Bridge (well they have move them from the actually bridge to be fencing round a monument a bit before the bridge. There are thousands of them.
See the next post for the next stage of our Paris adventure….
S&S
xoxoxo
FitBit Data. 25/04: 17.97KM’s – SRT 27,485; SJT 23,401