TWO TRAVEL DAYS

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After two days of travel, we are finally at our first stop, Paris. This is really only a stopover on the way to Spain. We are in a decent Hilton close to Gare de Lyon, which is the train station we leave out of tomorrow for Barcelona. We are currently getting ready for our first dinner of this vacation (United lounge and train food do not count as meals)

Our journey started with a quick Lyft ride to the Amtrak station in Providence. It was then on to Boston on the train, and then a bus directly to the airport. We have been flying out of Boston because they have this great non-stop to London, which is so much less expensive than flying directly to Paris or Barcelona. Even when you add the cost of the train from London to Paris it is still cheaper. Unfortunately, United is canceling the service October 29. We have to fly home through Newark.

The plane did not leave until 11 pm, so we hung out in the lounge for a few hours and ate and drank prosecco. The food is not anywhere near as good as the United Polaris Lounge in Newark, but it is better than eating dinner at 11:30 at night on the plane. We did have a great conversation with the bartender, she even helped us with our Spanish. We are going to Spain after all.

The flight was unremarkable, just as any flight on a plane should be. I will say I did manage to sleep more than usual on the flight over. We arrived at Heathrow around 10 am, and then it was through customs, collected our luggage, then on to the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station. The express takes 15 minutes to get to London, as opposed to 1 hour by taxi. We did have to take a taxis from Paddington to the Eurostar station.

Travel Trip: It is really the best way to get to London, whether you are transferring to a train or spending some time there, it’s cheaper and convenient. When making your way to the Heathrow express, DO NOT TAKE THE ELEVATORS, they are slow and crowded, save yourself 10 minutes or more and take the escalators.

We upgraded ourselves to business class for the train over to Paris. Honestly, it isn’t much different than Standard Premium and the extra you pay isn’t worth the benefit of the business lounge, which other than the ability to make your own cocktails, isn’t even as good as an Acela Lounge.

The service and the food on the train is far superior to that of Amtrak. We started with a class of actual champagne. Then they served our first course, a fennel and quinoa salad. Much to my surprise it was pretty good, I love fennel but not typically a huge fan of quinoa. They had two choices for the main course; Jerry had the smoked duck salad, and I had the Cod. Both were really good. We dined under the English Channel.

The Eurostar takes about 2 ½ hours to get to Paris we both took a little cat nap after lunch. We arrived in Gare de Nord and headed for the taxi stand. Security is quite tight regarding the taxi’s they do not tolerate gypsy drivers at all. The line was huge and was taking about an hour to get through. Fortunately, since we had a bit of luggage, we got taken out of the back of the line and into a van (no, not a white van with no windows) and off to our hotel. It did cost more, but we didn’t have to wait an hour and we did have a lot of luggage, so a small taxi was just never going to work.

Traffic was a bit heavy, and we were in a bit of a hurry. There was the usual protest at one of the plaza’s, this one was regarding the Middle East War. We made it to the hotel just fine but were pressed for time. Hint don’t make a dinner reservation for 8 when your train gets in at 6.

The hotel is very nice, and we were upgraded to a Junior Suite. They actually get what it means to be a Hilton Diamond member in Europe. Unlike Pittsburg, which gave us the worst room possible. The staff is friendly and very helpful, and it is only 2 blocks from tomorrows train station.

It is currently 11:30 pm, and we are running out of steam so I will need to discuss our first dinner tomorrow before I post today’s blog.

Friday Morning, and up at 6 to get ready for the trip to Barcelona. Things will slow down (at least from a travel perspective) after today.

Le Train Bleu

Our first dinner was at the iconic Le Train Bleu, located inside the Gar de Lyon. The interiors were beautiful, and the food was excellent. We certainly kicked our vacation off in high gear, at least from a gastronomical perspective. I had made the reservation three months in advance, which is a good thing, it was packed. In fact, the woman at the front desk of our hotel said reservations were very hard to get in the first place. English was not spoken much here, so our survival French was needed. The menu was in English, but much was lost in translation. They actually had menu’s in multiple languages not just French and English.

We started naturally with a glass of champagne, toasted our 16^th anniversary of our wedding (we have been together for 21 years) and vacation. There was a bit of a mix up in the ordering, we almost got an entire bottle, Jerry was looking at the wrong page when ordering so our server thought we wanted a bottle not a couple of glasses. That was easily rectified, and our champagne was delivered. Since we were very tired, we were restrained in our ordering and only had two courses each. I had a mushroom tart (cold dish). What made this dish was the mushroom cream on the top. Jerry had a Salmon with confit leeks and a puree (that we have no idea what it was) with a dash of espelette (French Basque paprika). The lost in translation here was that instead of confit of leeks, the menu read Salmon Confit, which it clearly was not.

Both starters were very good (not the dish of the day) but a great start. The biggest “lost in translation” of the night was on Jerry’s main course. The English menu stated “a la Royale” hare. Naturally, we assumed this meant some type of rabbit. Rabbit it was not. Instead, it was a baked country pate in a fabulous pepper sauce. It was served with a creamy bowl of tagliolini and when you combined the pasta with the sauce, heaven.

I ordered something I generally don’t care for, but it was clearly the specialty of the house. Roasted leg of lamb. While I love lamb, I am not a huge fan of leg, it is typically very gamey, this however tasted like rack of lamb and was cooked a perfect medium rare. The legs flew out of the kitchen direct to the trolley where it was carved off the bone right onto your plate. It was served with gratin dauphinois (our favorite style of potatoes in any cuisine). The kicker was the roasted garlic, about half a head, yum yum. This was clearly the dish of the day.

A dinner this good would not be complete with out a wonderful bottle of Burgundy from Baune. It was the perfect end to a very long two days of travel.

Tomorrow the 9:47 TGV to Barcelona.

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