Our journey to Paris began at 2:30am – I should say, I was up and didn’t want to go back to sleep for fear of missing our 5:30am meeting time at St. Pancras International Train Station. We walked the route the day before…from hotel to train station…to be doubly sure we knew where we were going. For those of you who know me, that’s my OCD coming out – always early for everything. We left the hotel at 5am and after a short 15-minute walk, we were at our assigned meeting point inside the terminal. Yes, we were the first ones there. By 6am our entire tour group had assembled, and through casual conversation, met many very nice folks. Our tour operator was late – didn’t apologize for the tardiness & group confusion – quite troubling, though we still made the train on time after going through several phases of security screening.
The distance between London & Paris is 295 miles. We made it in just over two hours. The Eurostarr was a very comfortable ride, and we enjoyed a multi-course breakfast enroute. The landscape in northern France reminded us of Wisconsin & Iowa – rolling green hills – lots of agriculture – manicured farmland – neat, tiny communities along the way – very clean.
With a 1-hour time change ahead, we arrived in Paris shortly after 9am, where a coach was waiting for our small group – 43 to be exact.
Jumping ahead here. I cannot do Paris any justice with this blog today. For those of you who’ve been there, you already know it’s a massive city with literally hundreds of sites one could visit. We barely scratched the surface. The Eiffel Tower was our primary objective and we were able to spend some quality time there, but beyond that, I can’t offer anything for first-time visitors beyond recommending you schedule at least a week (maybe two) to truly do the city justice. I will say in comparison to London…it was easier to get around in terms of topography, but traffic and crowds were just as heavy.
Paris itself seemed a bit impersonal. I can’t say in general that Paris is a rude city as many foreigners claim it is, as we really weren’t there long enough to form a general opinion…the few true French folks we dealt with were very nice to us. The city’s not as clean as London based on what we saw between the train station and the Tower – the river just adjacent was quite polluted with logs, plastic bottles and other floating debris. With that said, the river cruise we took was good, giving us an opportunity to get some good photos of other landmarks nearby.
Back to the train station by 6pm - extremely long security lines. We boarded our coach and were rolling by 7:30 - setting our clocks back 1 hour, we arrived in London and were back in our hotel room by 9:30 - totally exhausted.
A few photos from the day:
The distance between London & Paris is 295 miles. We made it in just over two hours. The Eurostarr was a very comfortable ride, and we enjoyed a multi-course breakfast enroute. The landscape in northern France reminded us of Wisconsin & Iowa – rolling green hills – lots of agriculture – manicured farmland – neat, tiny communities along the way – very clean.
With a 1-hour time change ahead, we arrived in Paris shortly after 9am, where a coach was waiting for our small group – 43 to be exact.
Jumping ahead here. I cannot do Paris any justice with this blog today. For those of you who’ve been there, you already know it’s a massive city with literally hundreds of sites one could visit. We barely scratched the surface. The Eiffel Tower was our primary objective and we were able to spend some quality time there, but beyond that, I can’t offer anything for first-time visitors beyond recommending you schedule at least a week (maybe two) to truly do the city justice. I will say in comparison to London…it was easier to get around in terms of topography, but traffic and crowds were just as heavy.
Paris itself seemed a bit impersonal. I can’t say in general that Paris is a rude city as many foreigners claim it is, as we really weren’t there long enough to form a general opinion…the few true French folks we dealt with were very nice to us. The city’s not as clean as London based on what we saw between the train station and the Tower – the river just adjacent was quite polluted with logs, plastic bottles and other floating debris. With that said, the river cruise we took was good, giving us an opportunity to get some good photos of other landmarks nearby.
Back to the train station by 6pm - extremely long security lines. We boarded our coach and were rolling by 7:30 - setting our clocks back 1 hour, we arrived in London and were back in our hotel room by 9:30 - totally exhausted.
A few photos from the day:
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