Day 5: London, England to Paris, France

Day 5   London, England ---> Paris, France    6/27/11

The alarm went off at 5:00 am in anticipation of the group leaving by 6:00 am. The group did very well and we got out in good time. Even early in the morning, it took time for our bus to get through the traffic to go to St Pancras station.

We got off and went through control, leaving England. We waited about an hour and then boarded our Eurostar train, heading for Paris, France.

June and Sharon outside the Eurostar

The ladies inside the Eurostar

Everyone got in and managed to get their stuff on the train. We had a pleasant journey of a couple of hours or so and arrived in Paris, most of us sleeping in small intervals. We got out and went to our bus. The bus went through the traffic and headed for the outskirts of Paris to a town called Grigny. We stayed at the Best Hotel. The students got their rooms and were surprised at the differences between the hotel in England and the two star hotel they were in now.  They noticed that there was no air conditioning and the cleanliness was not at the same level as what they had seen before. We rested at the hotel for a couple of hours before going back to Paris to eat and see the Paris by night tour.

We got on the train at Grigny Central station and took the train towards Paris. Just like we did in London, we had to take a train to a place where the metro could take us the rest of the way into Paris.

We ate at a new spot called Hippopotamus. It looks like a new chain restaurant, as I have seen a couple of them in Paris. We had meat and potatoes and it was very well prepared. Easily the best meal we've had so far on the trip.

Afterward, we took the metro to see the Eiffel tower. It was a warm evening and the sky was at a good color to show off the tower. The crowd enjoyed it and we spent about half an hour taking pictures at the Trocodillo location. We walked down and got in line to group the tower. Everyone got tickets to up to the middle level, but you had to buy another ticket to go to the top.

   

The Eiffel Tower from Trocodillo

The group was suppose to meet at 11:00 pm but was late since it took awhile to go up to the top. Some people thought the time changed to meet was 11:30 and so by the time we had everyone, we were too late to do the Paris by night tour. We did get to see some of  it on the way home, but missed out on some other sites we would see later. The crowds were certainly throwing off our schedule. We got home late and everyone went to bed.