Our morning started early as we finished packing and taking care of the things necessary to leave our London flat in good condition. We boarded the tube to head for St. Pancras station and the famed Eurostar for a 2 hour high speed journey to Paris. I was excited about traveling on Eurostar, my first high speed train journey. It was so good that it nearly disappointed. That is, the ride is smooth and the scenery flows by almost like watching a film on fast forward. The journey through the Chunnel came unannounced and the only difference was that it was dark outside! We arrived in Paris at exactly the scheduled time and we disembarked for our first visit to this famous city.
Things were a bit different for us here because our friends Alex and Karla met us at the station and served as tour guides for our first afternoon and evening in Paris. After a nice lunch we checked into our hotel and then hopped the Metro for the Arc de Triomphe, one of the iconic symbols of Paris. From there we walked down the one of the beautiful boulevards of Paris, the Champs-Elysees. We enjoyed seeing the many shops for big name retailers along the way. Even more we enjoyed people watching as we walked quite a distance to the opposite end of the boulevard.
We took a bit of a side trip to walk past some of the embassies as well as President Sarkozy's residence. Something was going on in the courtyard there, solders dressed in ceremonial uniforms were preparing to greet some, I think, dignitary. We stopped to watch through the iron gate but a guard came over and encouraged us to move along. Being an agreeable group, we took his advice!
From there it was through a pretty park and across the grounds of the Louvre. We plan on visiting there in a few days, but today we just walked through on our way to Notre-Dame. Unfortunately, we got there just a bit too late to tour the inside so we settled for some outside photos for now.
Along the way we walked across a bridge over the River Seine. The sides of this bridge are covered with padlocks of love. Couples take a padlock, write their names on it and then throw the key into the river. It was fun seeing all the padlocks and I think it is a better idea than carving hearts and initials on trees like we did in the old days.
After a nice supper we headed back to our hotel room. Ready for a long night's sleep.
You can see lots of photos from our trip my photo album.
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