Next Stop Paris!

Our final morning in London was an early wake up call and departure. We met in the lobby at 5:30 a.m. and boarded a bus that took us to the St. Patras train station. This is a very old building that has a 5-star restaurant and apartments above ground and a very large train station below. The brick exterior was used for King's Cross in the Harry Potter movies. Across the road was the actual King's Cross rail station which was a very modern building. David or tour director took us across to King's so that we could see Platform 9 3/4 and take photos.

We boarded a Eurostar train and rode a few hours to Paris. Part of the time is through the Chunnel. I noticed that when we boarded the train the announcer spoke in English first and then French. When we arrived in Paris he spoke in French first and then English. It was about 12:00 p.m. when we arrived.

It was on to another bus and then off at the Moulin Rouge which was in the heart of the red light district. We walked through this district and then up many stairs toward Monmartre which is a lovely little art community with quaint buildings, restaurants, and interesting little shops. There is a basilica there called Sacre Couer at the top of a hill with a wonderful view of Paris. We walked through the church and saw beautiful mosaics. Afterward we ate lunch. We got to sit outside of the restaurant just like you would imagine. All of the chairs are on one side of the table so that everyone can watch the street as people go by. The only disapponting part was that our waiter was a little rude with us when we told him we wanted to share our sandwiches and just wanted water to drink.

We spent an hour or so souvenir shopping and sharing a very yummy crepe filled with Nutella and whipped creme. The crepe was made fresh right in front of us and was deliciious.

It was time for dinner and we had quite the adventure trying to catch the Metro during rush hour. The trains were so crowded that it took us three trains before we could all finally get on, and then we were pressed up against total strangers like sardines in a can. It's a good thing none of us were claustrophobic! That was by far the most stressful part of the trip so far (except for riding in the taxi).

Dinner was in a cute little restaurant with bright colors and a mosaic floor and mirror. We had pork roast, red potatoes and salad which was mainly very large leaves of curly lettuce.

Our hotel is outside of Paris and it was about an hour drive to get there. Apparently it is fairly close to Disneyland Paris and we saw a number of signs on the highway as we approached the exit for our hotel. Our room is smaller than the one we had in London, but it is till quite nice.

I had written the previous day's blog on the train, so all I had to do was upload it using the app for this website. But when I went to the actual website to view my blog and upload a few photos, it was all in French! No matter how I tried to get Google to stop thinking I spoke French, it would always give me the French version of the website. It asked me if I wanted to translate the website to English, so I said yes. That was a bad decision since the translation was horrific and I spent the next two hours trying to edit the translation and upload photos. Ahhh...the joys of working with a tablet in a foreign country and a slow internet connection.