I am never flying from London to Paris again!

We are safely back from our trip to Paris (pictures here). It was lots of fun and possibly the best trip yet. The funny thing is that we are not running out of things to see and do after visiting four times. It really is an amazing place. The best thing about Paris is the way it can take your breath away when you least expect it. You can be strolling down a quaint little cafe lined street and when you turn a corner you find a display of unspeakable beauty. It could be building, or a statue, or a garden, or a view of the city. It seems like there are millions of visual treasures just waiting to be found.

I won't go into too much detail about everything we did. I did that last year, it took me forever, and I am sure that nobody read it all. This year there is even more to report on. Again the inner nerd in us asserted itself and we wore step meters to see how many steps we were doing each day. It was over 30000 steps every day (about eight miles). When we weren't walking around we were eating, and we more than made up for the exercise with the food that we ate.

I would like to take a minute and talk about what a pleasure it is to take the train from London to Paris. Air travel has become such a headache (especially recently here in England). You now have to be at the airport more than two hours before your flight. You cannot take any reasonably sized hand baggage, and you practically have to be strip searched before you can get on the plane. The London airports are mostly outside of the city (especially the ones that the cheap airlines use: Luton and Stansted). This means that you either have to drive and pay extortionate parking expenses while you are away, or you have to take an expensive train from London to the airport (for Luton and Stansted airports, this is a 45 minute ride). Add to all that the fact that all of the London airports seem to be way over booked, and there are always delays.

The train was such a refreshing change. It leaves from Waterloo station in the heart of London. You only have to be there 30 minutes before departure. You carry all of your bags with you onto the train (they are all x-rayed on your way through security). You sit in a comfortable seat with plenty of legroom and nice big windows. The ride is smooth and quiet. There is a bar/cafe carriage where you can get coffee, drinks and snacks (I was especially excited about the Belgian beer available). You are transported to Gare du Nord in the heart of Paris instead of the sleazy Charles DeGaul airport that is way outside of the city. Instead of feeling utterly exhausted and dispirited when you reach you destination, you are rested, relaxed and ready to go. Instead of eating dinner and going to bed when we arrived in Paris, we were energised after dinner and went out to a really cool Jazz club.

The bottom line is that your holiday can begin the moment you sit down on the Eurostar train, but if you are flying your holiday won't begin until the day after the flight.

JE