London in the rearview mirror

Today we leave London with promises to return.  It's been a fun visit, and there's so much more to see!

We decided to get to Paris by way of the Eurostar train through the Chunnel.  The train travels at high speeds, and actual time under the channel is only 20 minutes.  Thank goodness.  The whole trip was just 2 hours and 15 minutes.  People go to Paris from London, and to London from Paris, just for the day.

I purchased the tickets for the train months in advance, and paid only about $55 U.S. per person.  The price goes up the nearer you get to departure.  I checked to see what the price would be to book a week ahead, and for the same train, same seats, it would cost $181.00 per person.  Same day sales were even higher - $220 for seats.  It's definitely worth booking well in advance.  I think they allowed tickets sales for dates 4 months out.

We cashed in the remaining balance on our Oyster cards at the train station while we waited.
Lunch was purchased on the train, almost always an expensive and not very tasty option.

We took a cab to the apartment we're renting for the next 6 nights in the 7th arrondisement. 

Map courtesy of  PlanetWare.com

The map isn't very clear, but the river cuts through the middle of the city, and the neighborhood is on the lower side - the left bank, and includes the Eiffel Tower, Les Invalides, Ecole Militaire, and the Rodin museum. 

I found the apartment on vrbo.com.  It met our criteria of two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and two bathrooms aren't necessarily the norm in Europe, so that narrowed our choices considerably.  It's in a mostly residential area, although there seem to be a few foreign embassies and government offices in the neighborhood.  There are police guarding the gates, so we feel super-safe here!  Our place is on the second floor, and decorated in an elaborate french provincial style.  There are murals on the walls, mirrors everywhere, velvet couches and gilt framed paintings.  Luckily the kitchen has all of the appliances we need for cooking, because that's the plan - we'll be eating "in" as much as we can while in Paris.

The first order of business was to secure groceries, including wine, for dinner.  We don't have a big supermarket very near, but we have a few convenience stores, which seem to carry most everything.  There is also a butcher shop (boucherie) and a bakery (boulangerie).   The convenience stores will be open on Sunday, but not the specialty stores, so we bought food with two dinners in mind.

Dinner was chicken, garlic, onion and sausage cooked in a tomato sauce, and served over rice.  Rick loves to cook, so dinners are sometimes more involved on vacation than they are at home.  We're buying inexpensive wines in the neighborhood, mostly from the Cotes du Rhone and Bordeaux regions, and finding that a good wine can be bought here for about $10, sometimes less.  We'll be doing some extensive comparisons over the next few weeks!

After dinner we decided to walk over to the Eiffel Tower.  It was still light, so it should have been an easy hike.  The streets in this neighborhood are not laid out in straight lines.  They seem to bend and wind around at some lunatic traffic engineer's whim.  It took far longer to get to the tower than we thought it would, and it was very dark by the time we got to the park in front of it.  The park lawn was filled with couples, groups of friends or families having picnics or just drinking wine in the nice weather.  At the stroke of 9 the lights of the tower started twinkling, and kept twinkling for 10 minutes.  It was a magical sight.