Day 9 - London to Paris

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The train to Paris was uneventful, 20 minutes through the Channel Tunnel and we arrived in France travelling through wheat and corn fields with small villages dotted around.

On arrival in Paris we were tole the Gran De Nord train station was worth looking at, but I didn’t see why. Maybe coming off the train we were in the wrong part.

My first experience of Paris is that of a grubby city, grifters abound begging for money so you need to be careful.

Our hotel (Hotel Annexe, in Rue Taylor) is clean, although small (read...Shoe box). It has the smallest elevator I have ever seen, only 2 of us just fit inside.

We ventured out on the train into the Eiffel Tower and managed to work out the Paris Metro to at least get us there. The Tower is magnificent, after seeing it in pictures, TV and Movies so many times I thought it would just be the same, but in real life it is even more amazing. We plan to take the lift to the top tomorrow first thing when (hopefully) the lines are shorter.

We made it back to the hotel via the Metro and ventured out in the local area for dinner. I did not realise how challenging it would be to dine with a menu in a different language and after looking at the menus in the windows of a few cafes, we settled on a cafe which had a menu in English and French. (Not as brave as we could have been, I know.) :-)

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