London to Paris

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We departed from London at 6:15am, and make the long journey to Dover, finally arriving there at 10am. The ferry crossing took around two hours. I was sitting next to a guy called Stu, who was from Dunedin. He was here with two of his workmates, Nicola and Suzanne.

We had quite an in-depth chat about things, holidays, work, home-life, and that. He was real cool guy. Also, once arrived in France, us guys on the outer seats had to move forward to the seat in front of us, and introduce ourselves to whoever was sitting there. I guess it was a good way to start the introductions, though did get a bit repitive, as I just kept saying the same old stuff.

We had two stops in France, before arriving at Paris mid afternoon. Our first night's accomodation wasn't too bad. It was at Champigny-sur-Marne, just outside Paris.

The campsite consisted for us of quite large wooden cabins. There were four to each cabin, and Stu and I were with Dylan and Karl. We got everything sorted there, before making our way to the marquee where our dinner was to be. There were quite a few sitting out at the picnic tables, so I joined them and we had a chat.

It was a real hot day today, and I was in shorts. Not mine, but Karl's. I'd forgotten to pack mine!!! After a while one of the camp reps came out with a tray of snails (escargots) and some pink champagne as a welcome to us all. A lot of the girls were a bit squeamish about eating a snail, but I took it in my stride, as did some of the others, and had it no problem. The champagne was nice too, even though I normally hate champagne.

We had dinner, and then got ready to go for our Paris at Night tour. We were driven around all the sights, which looked amazing at night, and we even did two laps of the Place Charles de Gaulle roundabout, which is home to the Arc de Triomphe. Apparently, all insurance is void on this roundabout, so if anyone has an accident then tough. Twelve different roads join here, forming the shape of a star, so it's always busy, though all traffic on the roundabout has to give way to any traffic joining the roundabout.

So the trick to getting onto this mental stretch of road, as we found out, was to basically floor it, and hope everyone stops for you, which they should do. Craig put on the 'Mission: Impossible' theme music, and away we went. Thankfully there were no problems, but Craig wasn't happy with it, so he turned the coach round a few streets and went back onto the Arc de Triomphe again. After a few more near misses, we drove through more of the streets. We passed many of the historical buildings, one of which Paul had said to us that in the wall of one of the buildings people have said they can see a ghost in the wall damage. As we drove past we were like 'we can't see anything at all', and so Paul said, 'OK, well check out the view on the other side then', and we all looked to our right and there was the Eiffel Tower, fully illuminated. We all went 'Wow!'. They were pleased with the reaction that got.

We got off and took a few snaps before driving round to the Palais de Chaillot, where we got some great views of the Eiffel Tower again, and the Jardins du Trocadero. It was packed. The tower looked amazing. When illuminated, it looked as if it was made from matches, and then the lighting changed and started flashing. I think it was something they did for Millennium night, and it looked awesome at night. I think they must have done it especially for us.

We then drove back to our campsite, and retired to the bar. Not many came to the bar at first, but in the end, the whole tour group of 50 were there, our chairs in a circle so we could see each other and chat. It was a good night.

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Photos

Paris
Ecole Militaire, Place Joffre.

Paris
Tour Eiffel, taken from Place Joffre.

Paris
Tour Eiffel, taken from Palais de Chaillot.

Paris
Tour Eiffel, taken from Palais de Chaillot.

Paris
Tour Eiffel, taken from Palais de Chaillot.