London to Paris via Lille

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An early rise and early breakfast to catch the 8:53am from St Pancras (Kings Cross) in London to Lille, France. A 20 minute tube to the station from Earls Court and a short walk with a few sets of steps to contend with and we found the Eurostar departure point, checking in with only a few minutes to spare.

Inside the train you could imagine yourself on a plane, 2 seats either side of the centre aisle. Your ears even keep popping! We weren't issued seats together, but a kind lady agreed to move when Karina asked if we could sit together. Plenty of kids but as I update this blog about an hour into the trip it's relatively quiet.

Just finished our 3-4hr stop-over in Lille, a little city about 1hr by train from Paris. We were annoyed to find there were no lockers at the station as we were told, so we dragged our bags down to the next main street to find something for lunch. We then took turns minding the bags while we each went and explored a few blocks each side of our lunch spot. Not a great deal to see - the city is obviously a lot larger than we expected, but I suspect is somewhat representative of like-sized cities. We've tried to memorise a few key phrases from our French phrase book, but Karina is already better at it than me having studied it at school, and it's starting to come back to her. Fortunately all I've needed so far is "Merci". Sitting on the train waiting for it to depart for Paris.

Arrived in Paris (Nord) around 4:30pm and managed to find our way to he apartment without too much trouble - 2 stops on the subway and a 10 min walk. All I can say is - WOW! Not only is our room very impressive (nice & new & modern & spacious) but it's also right on the Siene (not that we can see it from our room of course), a few minutes walk from Notre Dame!!!

We dumped our bags and went for a walk to find something cheap for dinner. Talk about spoiled for choice - hundreds and hundreds of restaurants and a few takeaways, all within a few blocks. Lots & lots of people of course, all out enjoying the sights and sounds and food! We ended up eating at a French restaurant with a 3 course set menu for EUR10. After a leisurely stroll back past Notre Dame and along the Siene (the size and number of river cruise boats at night is ridiculous) we got back around 10pm ready to crash.

At some stage I'll add some photos to earlier blogs...

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