London and Thursday in Paris

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Wednesday was another really early start as we had to be at the Bus Station in the middle of Paris at 6.45am to get our tickets etc. for our pre-booked day trip to London.
I’ve probably said it before but apart from being a bit grubby, the Paris metro is just fantastic. Not sure what time it starts, I think it around 5.30am, but there was one rolling into our station at Les Gobelins (which is right outside our front door) as we got to the platform at about 6.20am.
Got to the bus station and everything went smoothly – tickets picked up and taken to Paris North railway station by bus, then through customs and immigration, then onto the Eurostar fast train to London. I use the phrase ‘fast train’ advisedly as, man!!!!!, does it fly. There was no speed indication board as we had seen on some German trains last time we were over this way but it was fast – and very very smooth.
We bought some breakfast, just light continental type breakie – juice, croissant, fresh fruit and a cuppa, on the train due to the early start, and got to London after about 2 and a half hours travel. It was dark when we left Paris at 8am but soon got light and we watched the French countryside speed past. Again, not unlike driving through NZ countryside, even saw lots of sheep in paddocks, except the towns we pass are obviously European in architecture and that is the most noticeable difference.
20 minutes under the English Channel and we were in England where things changed again. Farming areas still the same but the villages and towns obviously different architecture. It was a bit spooky suddenly being in another country after coming up out of the bowels of the earth!!!
Arrived at St. Pancras Station at around 9.30am English time and boy oh boy was it cold. We got tickets to one of the ‘hop on hop off’ buses and a ticket for a Thames cruise as part of our package so we decided that the best bet was to go once right around the big circuit and take in as much as we could and then stop at some places we wanted to re-visit.
To see the sights on the bus you have to, of course, sit on the open top deck. We froze, even though the sun was shinning. We donned jersey and jackets and gloves and Joy eventually bought a beanie, and we still froze. I lost all circulation in my fingers and toes which wasn’t fun but we sure saw a lot of London and managed to see most everything that we wanted to in the 3 hour circuit. The only place we would have like to have seen a little closer up was Buckingham Palace but we only had a few hours as we had to be back at St. Pancras Station at 7.15pm for the Eurostar home. Lots of good photos and video taken from the top of the bus.
Things that struck us – many of the places were a lot smaller than we imagined from seeing them on TV etc. Piccadilly Circus is a very small square and we always imagined to be quite large, however Trafalgar Square was large and impressive.
The other thing that really struck us was just how impractical these old cities are for cars and buses. The centre of London is diabolical and at one point we were in a traffic jam on the bus where we advanced less the 50 metres in 20 minutes and this wasn’t, apparently, peak time.
Anyway, that aside we had a ball and then got off the bus at the London Eye, the huge ‘Ferris wheel’ for want of a better term, right by the Thames and paid our money to do the once round. It takes about 25 minutes to do one revolution and the views are truly amazing. We had a great day for visibility, thank goodness.
After a quick bite for lunch, and I wont mention where that was but suffice to say it was right beside the Eye and also very, very close to the Thames River cruise wharf. We walked to the wharf and took our cruise which was just great. We saw some of the things we had already seen but from a completely different perspective. We were starting to run out of time as it does take a long time to get anywhere in the middle of London so we could only do the Westminster to Tower Bridge and return part of the cruise but it was fun and was made more so by the crew member doing the running commentary. We could best describe them (as there was a different one each way) as real ‘old geezers’ who sounded like they should with their cockney type accents and a sense of humour to match. We were hit by a rain squall that shot across the city for about 5 minutes at one stage, but we could see it coming and all took shelter in the covered part of the boat while it blew through and didn’t even get wet.
After getting off the cruise boat we walked over the road to Westminster Abbey, past the Big Ben clock at the house of parliament (even got it chiming 5pm on video) and Joy got the photos she wanted of the Abbey. There was a service going on inside so we couldn’t visit inside unfortunately.
Then came the highlight of the day. We looked at the time and the distance away from St. Pancras and Joy really wanted to visit Hard Rock Café to get a London Tshirt so I stood on the side of the road and hailed a real London cab. We got what I can only describe as a typical London cabbie and I asked him if he could get us to Hard Rock, wait while Joy ran in and bought a Tshirt and then get us to St. Pancras Station in time. ‘Yeah Guv, no wurries’ was the reply and off we went. This guy was brilliant and chatted away the whole 45 minutes or so we were in his cab. He pointed out things of interest to us and discussed everything from the Rugby World Cup to the mess the Labour Govt. had made of England. We had a ball!!! Got the Hard Rock Tshirt and got to St. Pancras on time through absolutely crazy peak hour traffic with this amazing running commentary from our cabbie…….. FANTASTIC experience.
The fare was 25 ‘quid’ and he got a 5 pound tip for being brilliant. Well worth every penny for the experience alone. It is something simple maybe but is something we will never forget.
Train ride back to Paris was in the dark of course so some reading and dozing on the way and got into Paris at 11.15pm. By the time we walked to the metro and got all across Paris to our station it was after midnight BUT WHAT A FANTASTIC DAY!!!!!!!!
Thursday was SUPPOSED to be Joy’s ‘walking photography’ tour of the Latin quarter of Paris. She had prebooked (and even paid a deposit) for this. We waited outside our apartment from just before 9am until just after 9.30am but no sign of our man. We didn’t have a phone contact, just an email, and we came back up to the apartment to check his website for phone numbers but nothing there.
Needless to say we, and especially Joy, were not impressed and we fired off a suitable email to him before we replanned our day and hit the metro for the Pantheon and other places in, again, sunny but freezing cold weather.
We did an awful lot of walking again but did some of things we had run out of time for, visited the Pantheon and amazing structure that started out as a church but was converted to a monument to the ‘Men of the Republic’, and amazing building.
We then walked to the Seine, navigating our way through the narrow streets, via a street market that sold just about everything including the biggest scallops I have ever seen. They were at least 2 or 3 times bigger than anything I have ever seen in NZ and cost only 7.50 euro per kilo (shell included).
After lunch at a lovely little sidewalk café we did an hour long cruise on the River Seine. We saw many things we had already seen but, again, from a completely different perspective.
We then walked some more and visited The Louvre. This is apparently the biggest ‘Monument Building’ in Paris and believe me when I say it is HUGE!! Joy had some art works she especially wanted to see and my sister Denise had helped with some locations so we were able to see ‘Venus de Milo’, ‘Mona Lisa’ and some others without too much mucking around. Of course we took in zillions of other works of art while navigating to the specific pieces we wanted to see.
So a day that started with a bit of a ‘let down’ ended up being another really great day and we were able to see and do some things we thought we might have had to miss.
Took the metro back to the apartment for our last ride on it and there was a very apologetic email from Joy’s photography man trying to explain what had happened with the ‘no show’. Anyway he is going to refund the deposit and that’s the best we could hope for I suppose.
Joy I starting to pack up as I sit and crash this blog out as we leave for Paris North railway station at 5.15am in the morning ……. Yes you read correctly. I have booked a taxi for that time as we need to be at the station at 5.40am for our 6am train to Germany and our stay with Gabi and Christine in Rendsburg. Means a 4am wake up call from the alarm clock so we can shower etc. and pack everything and get it down the 5 flights of stairs to the street, REALLY looking forward to that.
So that’s PARIS for us. Just have to pack and do some cleaning in the apartment and it is onwards and upwards.
It has been a great stay in a place we haven’t been to before with many highlights along the way that we have tried to share with you.
Hope you have enjoyed it nearly as much as we have!!!
Catch you from Germany in the next day or so.

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