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Hey Guys,
So it's been a few busy days since I posted about my time in London and I've been having an absolute blast. On Tuesday morning I started out on my Top Deck Tour around Europe it is the Mega European tour lasting 49days.
My last day in London before my tour started I ventured out to the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum, which are both very accessible by train and free to get into. I have to say they where both brilliant, very crowded but still so much fun, out of all of it the exhibitions the dinosaurs were my favourite. The exhibit had multiple full scale dinosaurs from bones and fossils on display, motorised models and lots of information it made me feel like a big kid and you have to be crazy not to love dinosaurs. After getting a late start that morning and spending hours at the museums I didn't have much time left over to see any other sights of London so I called it an early night and headed back to my hotel and started packing to get ready for my European tour.
While I was in London I
was staying at the Best Western Burns Hotel in Earls Court and when it comes down to it you are just paying for the location and access to the tube, the room and bathroom where clean but small and I was momentarily scared the dinky elevator was going to plunge me to my death but otherwise is was a very basic 2 star hotel. What I hadn't realised prior to booking my accommodation was where my tour was leaving from which just so happened to be on the other side of London and I had to be there bright and early at 6am.
Day 1 - The day of the tour arrived and I was up at 4am to shower and get ready, thanks to jet lag my body still thought I got to have a sleep in so it was a relatively easy morning, though the weather like all my days in London was rainy and miserable. Due to the early start and not wanting to get lost I decided to catch a cab to the wombats hostel across the city from where the tour was leaving and all I can really say about that is,
expensive.
I met up with the tour group and loaded onto the coach leaving at 7am we drove from London to Dover to catch the ferry to France, due to the weather the ride over was choppy and not the best for the likes of us, including myself who suffer from motion sickness. The trip across took a few hours and I'm almost certain everyone was grateful to be in France after that boat ride, we loaded back onto the coach and drove from Calais to Paris arriving at 6pm. On our drive into Paris we where informed that we had been upgraded from our hostel to a hotel for our 2 nights in Paris, which at the time we where all pretty thrilled about… That was until we arrived there in what could only be referred to as the ghetto part of Paris, it was dirty and the location sucked, rather disappointing as I was really looking forward to this part of my trip. After dropping off our bags we walked up the street for dinner where we ate snails (the texture is a lot like mussels, the taste is of butter and garlic), French onion soup and
a chicken in sauce dish all of it was tasty and just what was needed after a long day of travel.
After dinner we jumped onto the coach and did a city of lights tour through Paris seeing all the main attractions lit up at night, all of which was stunning. One thing you should keep in mind though is that during the summer months in Europe unlike Australia the sun doesn't set before 10pm and it rises very early in the morning, so anything like night tours expect them to be very late. Sometimes after a full day of travel you really cannot appreciate what you are being shown when you are that tired, I know I sure didn't.
Day 2 – free day in Paris
After talking to some people I had met up with on the ride into Paris and being tired and frankly unimpressed with the dirty and smelliness of the place the night before I decided to skip the “main” attractions like The Louvre and Arc De Triomphe and instead headed south to Las Catacombs and I am so glad we did, the tour was surreal, the tunnels underground filled
with hundreds of thousands of skulls and bones were an experience like no other, we did leave a bit later than we had hoped and ended up waiting about 2.5 hours in line but it was so worth it, the others I went with would agree as well, just a tip if you want to go to any attractions in Paris go early in the morning and get there at least an hour before it opens, that way you are certain to get in and the wait will be very short. Afterwards we made our way to the Eiffel Tower to meet up with our bike tour, however we got lost and couldn't locate the group, ending up missing it which I am grateful for because after 3hrs bike riding in the sun half the tour came back sunburnt like tomatoes!.
Instead we when to a delicious Italian restaurant and ate pizza and pasta carbonara for lunch before walking over to the Champs Élysées where we shopped and spent the afternoon people watching, by 7pm we had to be back at the Eiffel Tower for a picnic dinner provided by Top Deck before driving to the Latin Quarter to
watch a cabaret show called “Paradis Latin Cabaret.” To sum it up, half naked men and women, cancan, dancing, singing, trapeze, unicycle, sexy, fun, fantastic! I wish I was half as talented as those performers who made me want to run away and join the cabaret, the equivalent of an adult circus. A great way to round out our day in Paris. We headed back to the hotel for a good night sleep, Switzerland bound in the morning!
Aside from our accommodation location and distance from the attractions which was terrible in itself, Paris was in my opinion average at best, the attractions are stunning but the lines to see them are ridiculous, the gypsies and thieves make you too paranoid to be able to really enjoy yourself and once you're away from the main attractions the city is very dirty and it smells bad. I rate Paris a 5/10.
Next stop Switzerland!
Until next time
-K
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Kimmi
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Paris
Totally agree! I hated Paris for the very reasons you stated. Love reading what you're up to xx