Another full on day. Oooosh. I’m sure our bodies will eventually give up, hopefully that’s on the flight home in 6 weeks time!
As I said in my last blog, I had Richard & Laura’s wedding yesterday in a tiny village called St. Michael. I haven’t seen two people so in love with each other for so long, and was beautiful to see them both enjoying each others company so much, despite all the formalities of their big day.
This morning we were up at the crack of dawn, and in a taxi to Ashford to catch the Eurorail to Paris. The total journey was 2.5hrs, so was expecting at least an hour underwater in the chunnel. However after about 20 minutes we resurfaced and it took us awhile to realise we were actually in France, and not the UK. Blasting through the country side was amazing as these train gets up to 300kms/hour!
We got into Paris’ Gare du Nord (North Train Station) around 12:30, and realised how close it was to the Palais Garnier, the opera theatre that Phantom of the Opera is based on. We jumped on a two-day hop-on hop-off bus, and headed straight for Palais Garnier. We had pre-booked our tour tickets so went straight inside, stashed our suitcases, and explored the 1,979-seat opera house.
Today was election day for France, so everywhere we looked there were news crews, hoards of police and military, and as I write this now at 12:20am there are screams and chants coming in our window as the new president was announced a few hours ago.
After arriving at the magnificent Hotel de Sers, we headed 5 minutes down the road to the Eiffel Tower. While we had seen it a couple of times already while making our way to the hotel, nothing compares to standing right underneath this monstrosity looking up.
After my father and sister set the bar of walking only a few years ago, we too decided to flag the lifts, and opt for the stairs instead. Besides, the line to the ‘stairs only’ was about 2minutes, as opposed to the line below, which we were told would be at least 2 hours!
And there was a great sense of accomplishment when arriving at the second floor (half way up). The view from here was amazing, but it doesn’t compare to the very top, so we jumped into the lift to the top (we would have walked, but it’s lifts only from here).
After arriving at the top, there’s only one thing to do, a glass of champagne looking over one of the greatest cities in Europe.
Everything I’d read said it would be strange to not see someone being proposed to while at the top, and infact we saw two couples. After spending half an hour at the top, enjoying the views, we headed back for the stairs and wandered back to the ground. A quick walk over the road provided some great vantage points of the Eiffel Tower, and we arrived just as it was lit up in all its glory.
We then decided to head back to our hotel, Hotel de Sers, and ordered room service of French Fries, and popped the cork on our Veuve we bought in Dubai on the way over.
Goodnight Paris, we’ll see you again tomorrow.