Paris and London: Europe sans automobile

Paris, France
We were excited to get to France --- but on the same token, we were a little saddened to drop off our reliable – but somewhat annoying – Peugeot 207 SW. We loved having a car, but on the same token, we were getting tired of the driving. Rather, Marcus was getting tired of the driving stick shift, especially in traffic, and Christy was tired of not being able to help and drive, especially in Germany, where she could potentially drive realllll fast. She claims to have been scarred as a teen while trying to learn stick shift in the forest preserve, which is why she never mastered that skill.

We dropped off our car at the Auto Lease depot near the Charles de Gaulle airport. Our car tallied out at 9494 km… when we picked it up it only had 24km on the spedometer. So, it was quite a feat to drive thT far over 79 days! Luckily, the office also had a shuttle that took us to the RER station, which was outside one of the airport terminals. We bought our tickets to the city – which were all one price – a little under 8 euros for transit to the city centre. Unfortunately, the powers that be had decided that weekend was the best time to perform some rail upgrades, so we were shuttled onto a bus, and then dropped off at the next RER station. We had no idea what we were doing! We gradually worked it out that the RER was a light rail commuter line, which also had overlapping stations with the various Paris Metro stations. This is how we figured out we could transfer at the Gare du Nord station downtown. We were in the thick of the Gare du Nord station, and several Parisians also stopped to ask us if we needed help – talk about unexpected! As luck would have it, we would only need to transfer there, before reaching our final Paris metro line stop. About 15 minutes later, we were at our station, and only had to walk three blocks before reaching our hotel, the Hilton Arc de Triomphe. Don't bother staying there, it's a nightmare on every level - from snotty staff, to bad food, small rooms, to a horrid Exec Lounge. As much as we complained, we also had a great time in the Exec Lounge, where we met three fun couples from the U.S. We had a grand old time – and somehow always had more champagne bottles at our table when they cut off the free alcohol at 8:55pm! By the last night we were there, we found where the chintzy Hilton had hidden the spirits and tried armagnacs – delicious!

For those of you who have not been to Paris before, it is a really pretty city which it is why it is used in all of the romantic movies. However, it is also a city where you really do not neccessarily hear a lot of French being spoken due to the waves - and waves - of tourists walking around with their guidebooks tucked under their arms. Anything that is remotely famous in Paris has a line around the block --- and that you never see in the movies! What we like about Paris, however, is that there is so much more to see than just the famous sights. Walking the streets and boulevards you come across so many magnificent buildings, cafes, parks and shops. We walked many of the streets with no agenda, and just planned to visit a neighborhood, where you would soon be able to find where the hip macaroon shops were or where the REALLY good bakeries were. And that’s how we determined where we would eat each day --- we judged by the locals waiting patiently in line where we should eat. This ranged from crepes, to bakeries with chorizo/chevre stuffed bread, to sandwiches, and everything was divine! The one thing we still cannot figure out is how exactly people there stay so skinny…

So, what else did we do in Paris? We had a blast just walking the streets. We really liked our Sunday walk through St. Germain, Montparnasse, and the Latin Quarter. We covered a huge amount of ground, and our legs were killing us by the end of the day, since we just kept walking. Our stategy must have had us looking somewhat local (we never had guidebooks tucked under our arms) and with Marcus’ hat – we had several people ask us for directions! We saw so many neat little cafes, stores and found three small antique/flea markets. Paris is great on Sundays – although all the stores were closed both Saturday and Sunday! We also found a small festival promoting travel to the SE region of France right along the Seine river. It was so adorable – they were handing out bags of fresh produce and fruit from the region, and they had vendors selling artisanal foods – lots of foie gras, wines, breads, cheeses, sausages. It was wonderful – and then that’s when we decided the next time we come to France we’ll rent an apartment. Since we had a little much the night before in the Lounge, we did not buy a bottle of wine and sit on the edge of the Seine like many Parisians were doing. We were destined to keep walking. We then hit an amazing sight – we have no idea really what it was – some type of Brasilian festival in front of a large museum/monument. There were ladies dressed in massive bright hoop dresses, accompanied by men on drums who were singing and drumming. There were three policemen looking nervous and trying to control what seemed to be a large rapidly forming group – especially when we saw the large masses coming down the boulevard – there was a double decker bus that had a live band performing on it. It seemed to be a singer many people knew – they were all screaming with excitement! The bus had more walking drummers in front and behind, and eventually stopped at the monument/museum. We stopped for awhile and watched, not knowing what it ever was, but having fun in the moment.

Another day we spent shopping. We started off the day on the Champs Elysees – we had been there before and had a great time. Sadly, this time, we did not think it was the best shopping area. There seemed not to be as many shops, perhaps since we heard stores are charged exorbitant rental rates to have a shop located on the famous stretch. We did find some good shopping at Gap – but how silly would that have been when we’ll be in the U.S. soon?!? We then followed the Rue de St. Honore, which also had us walking down the equivalent of Oak Street in Chicago – all the VERY high end stores were located here. We had some pretty good people watching --- including watching a photo shoot outside Chanel. We also stumbled upon the President’s residence which was along this same stretch – who knew? No one seemed to be there lingering to take pictures like in the U.S. with the White House – but there were guards everywhere. We wished the Sarkozy’s well – they have enough drama going on with the retirement age and Roma issues at the moment. Vive le France we wanted to tell them!

Another day we wandered along to Notre Dame, taking a long meandering walk along the Seine to get there. We stopped to look at all the vendors selling items at the side of the river – and found some cute prints and posters – but we never made it back there for the funny vintage absinthe prints and posters. Notre Dame in the morning was a mob scene – there was a really long line to get into the church, and we could not imagine how long it would take to go to the top steeple. So having seen it, we took a bunch of pictures, including one of the crowds, and kept walking through the parks adjacent to the church. It was simply stunning in the bright sunshine, especially with all the fall foliage. Paris in the fall! We carried onto the Ile de St. Louis, which is a small island in the Seine connected to Notre Dame and the mainland by small footbridges. It had a lovely small main street, which was packed with small boutiques, shops, patisseries and bakeries. We had a good time wandering the small shops there, and found a few odds and ends to bring back with us! That afternoon, Christy went on a quest to find her Parisian shoes – she was looking for driving moccasins. She was unable to find any – which was a shame - to her, at least.

And then, it was off to London! We had pre-booked an Eurostar early morning departure a few weeks prior, and we obtained a really good price of about 33 euros each, which seemed reasonable to us for a fast connection to London in 2:20! Security at the Gare du Nord station seemed to be heavy – although we noted it is a major train station with both Eurostar and regional trains going everywhere. Check in for the Eurostar was easy and we were through pretty quickly. The ride was really smooth – and fast. Soon enough, we were in central London, and ahead again in time – and it was lunchtime!

London, England
Once we reached the St. Pancras station, we made a beeline for the London tube, which was connected to the Eurostar via a drop off point. We had been reminiscing for weeks about our next destination – the Gourmet Burger Station, which has several outlets in London. It was a restaurant dreamed up by a New Zealander, and has some of the best combinations of burgers we have had in ages. So we zipped over to the Canary Wharf branch, and arrived ahead of the lunch rush crowd to find a seat where our three suitcases would not get in anyone's way. By this time, our mouths were watering with the thought of the amazing sounding burgers – and we both ordered the avocado bacon burgers. We often end up doing that – we like the same foods!

That night, we spent with our friends Mel and James, plus baby Emily, at their flat. During the afternoon, we took a walk around the neighborhood, and found ourselves wandering around the local ASDA (grocery store chain). We gawked at the amount of variety within the store … we had a choice of 7 hummus brands! We could find English magazines! We could find some really cool beer flavors (Banana Bread, Sheep’s Dark, and even IPAs!), and even found a new spice packet by Ortega called "Mexican potatoes spice blend". Admittedly, we went a little crazy, but, it was fun. That night, we had a great time catching up with them over a fine dinner cooked by Mel.

We spent the next day trekking through the rain in London to get to the Hilton Terminal 4 airport hotel. Since we had an early flight out to Helsinki, we figured it made more sense to simply sleep closer to the airport given the early hour and the tube transit time. The hotel was actually nice – and we found ourselves actually wanting more time there.

We were glad to have had time in both Paris and London, but were glad to leave when we did. A few days later in Paris there was a massive government workers strike protesting the new retirement age. Then, we kept reading news that both countries were upping their security due to a variety of potential terrorist strikes. Ikes! We both agreed, though, while we love Paris, we prefer London. We love seeing the different cultures and accents (and English television too!). What a brilliant place!

Next Up: Freezing in Helsinki, Finland and Tallin, Estonia