Welcome to London Town

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We have left the European mainland.

Sadly, our stay in Paris was all too short but this family holiday must come to a close now and that will be in London. We depart for home from Heathrow airport on Sunday evening.

We boarded the Eurostar train to London from Gare du Nord around 11:00am after passing though border control and security checks. The Eurostar train seemed to be a bit older, noisier and nowhere near as smooth as the French TGV train. Still it moved quite fast and we were in London about 2.5 hours after we left Paris. Apart from that, things seemed the same as the ride into Paris - the weather was cool, dreary and damp, the countryside was flat, green and punctuated by fields of yellow daffodils.

With a little less than an hour more to go on our journey we entered the Channel Tunnel. We travelled through the tunnel for about 20-25 minutes and then emerged in the UK. Not much of a change in the weather, unsurprisingly.

We got off the Eurostar train at St, Pancras International Train Station, hopped onto a London Underground train to Paddington and arrived in driving rain and hail! Wonderful.

Luckily our hotel was only a short walk and the weather passed over relatively quickly. After checking in, we went for a troll through Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens, walked past the Albert Monument and Royal Albert Hall, and headed to the London Museum off science. We only had a few hours there but the kids (and adults) loved it. We did the "Legend of Apollo" 4D movie and interacted with a lot of the museum features on space, the environment and climate change.

We are in London so dinner was at an Indian restaurant, The Mughals, of course. The food was great. There will be no wine in London. After buying and enjoying local wines through our journey in Italy and France, we can't bring ourselves to buying any wine here. It is all imported in any case. Beer, however, is a different matter...

After dinner, the kids went back to the hotel room to relax. They were excited about watching English-speaking television for the first time in a month. Sue and Damian dropped into the Sussex Hotel across the street for a quiet drink while kids watched "Million Pound Drop."

Tomorrow we jump on the Big Bus Tour of London. Hopefully the weather won't be too bad for our last 2 days of vacation.

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