L'amour!

Monday 20th July


Seeing as we didn't have a huge amount to do today, we slept in until about 11am and made our way across to St Pancras station (with all our luggage) to get on the Eurostar to Paris. Pretty much zero border control - the officials stamped our passports with barely a glance and waved us on through.


The trip to Paris was uneventful. We had paid about 20 Euros more to get better seats on the train, so we got a meal and free drinks. I thought it was pretty much a tunnel all the way through but you travel through the English countryside quite a lot, then about 20 minutes under the Channel. You go through quite a lot of tunnels anyway, so when you actually go under the Channel it seems like just another tunnel and then all of a sudden you're in the French countryside - you can tell because they drive on the other side of the road to England, plus the architecture is different.



Once we got to Paris, I had investigated earlier and found that the hotel was pretty much right next to a Metro station (Paris' version of the subway) so we got some three-day tickets (which was an adventure in itself because of our lack of French knowledge) and hopped on the Metro to the Hotel. We were staying at the Best Western Aramis St Germain. The room was quite small (which from what we heard was to be expected from Paris or any European city) but comfortable and clean and convenient enough to everything. After we got settled in to the room, we went for a walk around the block to get a feel for the place and had Maccas for dinner.


So we don't have many photos of today but here are some random ones from London...


Mel with one of the guards at Windsor Castle


One of the lights at Windsor Castle - note the castle on top.


One of the tour guides/helpers at Windsor Castle


In one of the rooms at the Tower of London


One of the monuments in London - of particular interest to Paul because his Grandmother was one of the Women in WWII

Another random monument - this one is for Captain James Cook

A black cab that isn't black but Mel liked it because of the Union Jack on it

A random guard in London

Self Explanatory

The Tower Bridge

A monument to Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham Palace

Big Ben

The London Eye

A shop on Portobello Road - this one's for you Tracey Langham (it's a Scottish shop with a cafe inside called Charlie's)