Day 182: London

Flight number 33 is brought to you.... Wait a minute, hold the phone - we were asking the Eurostar train from Paris to London. What a great way to travel.

We took a short train in the morning to Gare Nord. Passport control and customs were upstairs and it felt just like an airport, though we were still carrying all of our bags.

A short wait in the lounge later and we were on the train heading North under the English Channel. Awesome.

Beth and I spent the whole two and a half hour ride formulating our plan for London. We'd been talking a lot about it lately, but for some reason it just wasn't clicking in my head, which is unusual for me. I think part of it was that Beth has the expertise in London, and as a result I'd spent very little time researching it.

I had bought a French language map of London at the station before we left, and with my trusty sharpie, I began circling the sights and streets we wanted to see. We have half a day today and just two full days after that. We knew there were a few sights that were must see and a few neighbourhoods that were just walk. By the time we reached the shores of England, things just clicked and we suddenly had a solid plan for the first day and a half.

We arrived at King's Cross right on time and after a short walk and a few minutes we spotted our hotel which was right across the street. Luckily, our room was ready, as it was just before noon when we got there. The room was a surprise - clean and bright and not as small as I'd thought. I mean, for $400 a night, you'd think you'd be in a palatial room, but this is London and we'd gotten a pretty good deal at this place that's in a great location for us.

We went back to King's Cross station to ask the Tourist Information Centre people some questions. We'd read that single use fares on the subway were almost $10 Canadian per person. However, we had a very friendly lady at the TIC and she told us about the Oyster Cards that are used for local transport. You just load a £5 (just double for Canadian dollars ok?!) deposit, then £6.80 per day for adults and half for kids and you get unlimited use of the tube and all buses....that sounded like a bargain compared to what we'd read. She set us up with the cards and helped us with a bunch of other stuff, and we felt much better about our plan.

We decided to tackle the heart of modern London via a Rick Steves walk covering "West London". We took the Piccadilly tube to Leicester Square (do me a favour when you see Beth, ask her how "lie-Chester" square was...I've been intentionally mispronouncing place names and she's been acting like a true Brit and getting offended!).

Anyway, we got to LieChester Square in a matter of minutes, and suddenly we were in Craig Fantasy Land (trademark, patent pending!) - we were in the middle of the square, listening to a pretty nice solo acoustic guitar busker, totally surrounded by tons of movie theaters! In fact, this is the square where they have a lot of the red carpet movie premieres.... London just moved to #1!

It was lunch time, and we spotted a fish and chips place, which was on our list, so we made it so. Luckily, we had the foresight to split two orders of cod and chips - the portions were massive!

Lies in the square to the East, we headed for Covent a Gardens, on the way, we stopped In at Stanford's, a great travel bookshop and picked up a little Christmas ornament shaped like a globe - how apropos.

Covent Garden was grand (I'm really picking up the language here!). There were magicians, comedians, a small band and an opera singer who was really quite good.

The girls did a bit of shopping and I was able to acquire some genuine English wine gums that seemed to fall through a hole in my pocket....

Leaving, we turned North, heading towards Charing Cross Road. The route brought us through the really funky, cool "7 dials" part of town (named after a little monument that has 7 sun dials on top, pointing to the seven streets that meet in the little quiet roundabout in the middle).

We stopped in at a little music shop on Denmark Street, a street full of music oriented shops as well as a place famous for launching the careers of some of England's biggest musical acts.

Next up was SoHo Square, followed by a tour through SoHo, an area that features the gay section of town, as well as a seedier area mixed with porn shops and cool restaurants.

Out of nowhere, we turned right onto Carnaby Street which ended at the Liberty Department Store - a high end, niche department store if I'd ever seen one. The place was made out of the wood from two large naval ships and had a really cool interior look. The first price tag I checked, a scarf (what, I wanted to see what Beth would be getting us into!) had a price tags of £378! Ok, moving on....

We stopped at Starbucks where I got "Greegg".... Interesting. Our hotel doesn't have wifi and I don't have a SIM card for this short visit, so we have to rely on some free wifi services to get stuff posted and communication with home. Our house minder, Christine, has been fantastic (well, we've heard that from Christine herself... But we trust her :-)). Going for this long of a trip brings certain challenges - furnace cleaning and startup, cars run every once in awhile, gardening, mail, security, dealing with a cleaner that seems to make her own schedule.... Thank you Christine!

From the Liberty, we went west then turned south onto Regent Street. Wow. What a sight. Beautiful edifices with some Christmas decorations strung between hanging over the road. Bright red double decker buses zooming down the road. High end stores galore.

 I saw a humongous retail espresso and espresso accessories shop that I'm pretty sure, dressed as we were, we would not be allowed to enter ("get out you stew-peed Americans, with your leggings, sweatshirts and back packs... I spit in your general direction!") (technically, that was British, as it was done in a Monty Pythonesque outrageous Frenchaccent).
We stopped in at the very famous Hamleys (nicknamed by Papa as the "Pick of the Crop" of London - that's a joke only readers of this blog from Oakville will get...) which is a seven story toy story rivalling FAO Shwartz in Mahatten.

There were tons of drones on display. I mean, who would want a drone? It's kind of useless... Sure, you could control it with your phone, and you know, see video that the drone was filming, but that sounds, totally, useless.... I mean, unless you built houses and like.... Could justify... You know... Using it on one of your job sites...for.... Periodic inspections? Really stupid.... You know.... Unless....

They also had a lot of non adult toys that I had no interest in, but the girls, you know them, they insisted on looking through the entire Lego section, and the Harry Potter section, the Lord of the Rings section, the Star Wars section, the Game of Thrones Section.... It was so boring, but I managed to suffer through it, praise be to Gandalf...

The kids wanted to do a pub for dinner, so pub it was! It didn't take to long to,find one, and soon, Beth and I were sipping on a fine pint and half pint of Noble.... Good stuff.

At dinner, we talked about what would be our top five cities to live in for a year. We also talked about top five cities we wanted to visit that we hadn't been to. I was kind of in awe how big the girls' worlds were now.... Here they were rhyming off cities that I think 6 months ago they would not have known, and they talked about the cities now like they had a good idea of what those new places were all about.

The girls were exhausted and they were really trying our patience before and after dinner (does the moment they woke up this morning qualify as "before dinner"). They wavered between ecstatic to be in London to biting and scratching each other (ok, maybe not... But they were for sure elbowing and issuing dulcet toned expletives).

We got them back to King's Cross at a decent hour and they were in bed at 8:00 (9:00 Paris time). That's when I decided to have a shower. D'oh! Whoever designed the drain (sloping the pan to the chintzy glass sliding door side of the shower, really?) didn't account for potential drain blockages. Within two minutes of starting the shower, water was running out the shower, into the bathroom and then into the room. What a cluster fuck.

Yada, yada, yada, we were in a much bigger room down the hall and in bed by 8:45, so at the end of the day, it wasn't a big deal. They even gave us wifi (for one device...hah!) as an apology. Despite the bumps, we are pumped to be in London. The first time I came here was a whirlwind (meeting Beth for a weekend - she was here on business for a month) and I feel like I got to know a great aspect of London today.

Day 181: Last day in Paris

Last day in Paris. The end of our trip is coming up way too fast. We had zero plans today... We just wanted an nice relaxing day to take it all in.

We let the girls sleep in a bit, though, if it were up to Abby, I think she would have kept sleeping until well into the afternoon. The cities take their tolls on you... There's so much to see and so much visual stimulation, and we invariably walk a ton so it adds up.

We decided to start our day at the iconic heart, if not the actual Center, of Paris, the Arc de Triomphe. We took one of the RER lines which are basically double decker commuter trains that turn into subways in the city. It's amazing how many people are in the metro system at any given time. The excellent transport system in Paris is what allows the city not to feel like the most densely populated city in Europe that it is.

I think the views from the monument that sits at the top of the Champs Élysées are the best in Paris.

I loved staring down at all of the major streets that radiate to and from the huge, chaotic roundabout below.

We looked down at our next target, the famous shopping street that leads down in a straight line through the Place de la Concorde, the Tuileries Garden and right to the Louvres.

On the way back down, we saw a presentation on all of the other "arches" built around the world, both before and after this monument. Lo and behold, a slide came up showing the Prince's Gate at the Ex. Very cool.

Walking around the square inside the roundabout, you get an appreciation for how big and ornate the arch really is. Though Napolean didn't survive until its completion, agreeing with the architect to put it where it is (rather than the original plan of putting it at Bastille Place) was a decision that showed great foresight considering the city wasn't anywhere as close to its current size.

We began walking down the extra wide boulevard of the Champs Élysées. Although there are a lot of high end shops, I would say it's not as upmarket as Omotesando and beyond. There are certainly more expensive areas in Paris in the 1st and 2nd arrondissement. Nonetheless, we did find a "public" toilet that was $3 per person. Abby and I decided we could hold out until later!

I love envisioning the loops of the final day of the Tour de France each year, zooming up and down the cobbled streets until the final sprint on the final lap. It doesn't look like it, but at sixty kilometers or more per hour on a bike, the way up hill on the wide street would be brutal.

Towards the bottom of the street, the shops and buildings disappear to a wider park area on both sides. Today, they were in the throws of setting up a massive Christmas display for a kilometer on both sides of the street. They were also constructing a large Ferris wheel at the Place de la Concorde for the winter season. Paris would be an incredible experience at Christmas for sure.

I wanted to see the fountain up close that features in the Tour broadcast as they do each lap. There is one fountain on each side of the rectangular roundabout that sits in the middle of Place de la Concorde.

In the middle, is the oldest relic in the city - the 3,300 year old Luxor Egyptian obelisk - similar to ones we'd seen throughout Rome and even Istanbul.

Continuing, we reached the beginning of the Tuileries - the large, flat park area that reminds me of the Washington Mall. I love how all the parks have a hard, dirt and gravel mix for their main walking areas. It's a low cost, easy to maintain surface that does well in rain or sun. Why do we have parks full of grass that we have to pay municipal workers to cut once a month...

We stopped by one of the two artificial lakes in the park for some chillaxing. Robin earned two Euros for a sorely needed 10 minute neck rub.

We turned North, back into the streets of Paris just before we got to the Louvres. It was time to search for a place to eat. It didn't take long before we found a suitable place with Cycling branded beer. That's me on the label obviously....

We worked our way towards the Opera area. The Opera building is huge, and sits perched in front of a large, busy criss cross of roads that just serves to accentuate the dominance of the building. Beth and I stayed near here the last time we were in Paris, so we'd been in and around this neighbourhood quite a bit.

Stumbling on the Passage du Jouffroy, one of the dozens of covered shopping arcades in Paris was a nice little surprise. We followed it up and down, then across the street where the covered streets full of shops continued in another incarnation.

We followed the streets and the people, all the way down to Les Halles, which we seem to keep popping into. The girls enjoyed some more shopping, and I was able to catch Robin trying out some high heeled boots. Oh my god...

Continuing towards the Seine, we eventually emerged onto Pont neuf, the departure point for our boat trip up and down the Seine. We figured dusk would be a good time to go and watch the city transition to night time.

It was pretty chilly on the river, but, we're Canadian and it was a good time to remember what that meant.

The views of the city from the river were spectacular.

When we turned around at the Eiffel Tower, we were headed East, away from the setting sun. For the half hour ride back, the sun did us a huge favour by slowing its traditional rate of setting. The sky went from yellow, to orange, to pink to purple and we just stared in amazement at the city.

The view of Notre Dame as we circled around Ile de Cite was spectacular in the early evening. I love that building.

Beth was on a desperate mission to have Beef Bourginon, but the busy places near Gare du Nord didn't have it, and the only place that did was a sketchy-ish Brasserie run by a Chinese family that looked right out of Roadhouse, so we lost our mojo. We ended up going to a grocery store and picking up healthy-ish options and eating in the room.

It was not exactly a send off dinner, but man, we're finding that eating out in Europe is more like eating out at home, and you know how tired that can be after two weeks. It's funny, the thought of eating at restaurants every meal never phased me much in Asia, but I've really had it.... Bring on Costco, Young's produce, Dimpflmyer (don't care about spelling!) and home cooking!

At least Beth did have a massive bottle of red wine as an au revoir to Paris!

Day 180: Montmartre to Eiffel

Warning! There are a shitload of pictures of the Eiffel Tower in this post...some real, some not. However, rest assured, I only posted 10% of the ones that were taken (at the girls' insistence) and I only took one picture every 10,000 times one of the girls said "look Daddy, the Eiffel towerrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!".

You've been warned....

But first, we had to check out Montmartre. I had fond memories of Montmartre from our last trip, and not because I visited any of the cabaret bars....at least not during the day. The highest hill In Paris with the beautiful Sacré-Cœur church on top (you can see the church from pretty much any viewpoint in Paris) features an eclectic mix of bistros, cafes, cabaret and artists... What could go wrong?

On the little alley leading up to the base of the park area, there were two groups of guys doing the "3 cups and a ball scam". The girls were checking out souvenir shops (Jesus Christ, Robin needs to go in every tourist shop here.... And there are well over 200,000 of them!.... But I digress) so I stood and observed from afar. It's shocking that people fall for this scam. It's really easy to spot who the "fake gamblers" are, and I could also spot the one or two scouts who were looking around for cops. Yet, sure enough, lots of tourists going by stopped to check out the game, and half of them placed bets. Shockingly, 90% lost (they have to let some people win other than the undercover scam artists I guess). That was fun watching though! At one point, one of the groups had a scout come in and signal and they packed the game up in seconds and were gone. I didn't see any cops, and the other group stayed out, so maybe it was a territorial issue.

You can take a little funicular up the hill to the church, but we took our time, going up the curving steps that surround the gardens of the approach. The grounds that lay beneath the church are beautiful. This whole area used to be pretty seedy, but, as with every city you go to these days, expensive real estate prices have driven everything up market. Now, it's a very desirable area to live, as well as a huge tourist attraction.

There was a guy playing accordion near the top - he was playing Pachelbel's Cannon, which drew a tear from Beth as it was apparently our wedding song.

The guy was pretty good, and with the ambiance of the setting, we were happy to sit there and zone out, listening to the tunes.

The church was pretty crowded... Poor Christians - the few hundred people faithfully listening to the priest give his sermon were surrounded by thousands of tourists milling about. You would think they could do the mosque thing and close the place during mass.

Although Sacré-Cœur was built fairly recently (well, from a European way of looking at history - finished in 1914... Bad timing to have just finished installing stained glass!), it is a stunning piece of architecture. It was built mostly using travertine, so the whole places leaches white calcite, which helps it maintain the stunning white colour even after all these years.

The interior is just as amazing - the dome, the beautiful organ, the stained glass and all the little details - fantastic.

We walked outside among the throngs, and headed West to the artist's square.

The Place du Tertre is the central square that is full of artists - from real pros to outright amateurs. The whole feel of the place is pretty eclectic and a lot of fun. The girls watched one guy doing an oil painting of the basillica in earth tones, though when I tried to offer him 100 Euros for a painting he had listed for 120, he gruffly said "Non! Piss of you cheap American".... Well, I may have embellished and added the last five words, but it certainly sounded like that. Maybe that was a good reminder that was saying "dude....we're out of wall space and we can't afford any more framing!".

We sat in a cafe and people watched - what a great place for people watching.

The girls scratched "eat crepes in an outdoor cafe while watching French artists in berets" off their bucket list.

And since it was just about 12, Beth and I scratched "have a glass of wine and/or bottle of beer while watching French artists in Berets" off our list!

We did some of the Rick Steves walk through the area. What a nice, quiet little neighbourhood when you're away from the crowds.

We descended the hill towards our destination station, Pigalle.

I spotted a tag.... Not a genuine Invader, but there are many copies. Robin volunteered to go take "one" picture. I lamented after she promised to take "one"picture. I got distracted and she came back a minute later and handed me the phone "done!". When I checked at the end of the day, here's what I saw on the camera roll....

Pigalle, or "Pig Alley", a nickname anointed by WWII allied soldiers with too much testosterone and per diem, is stocked full of sex shops and nude dance bars. The girls eyes were pretty wide walking by those shops on the way to the metro.

We caught the metro all the way down and under the Seine to the left bank. We cruised West, aiming for the Eiffel Tower, but first, we needed picnic stuff and a Starbucks. I must be getting closer to home... It's Greg again!

The girls were squealing for the last ten minutes of the walk, as they caught glimpses of the Eiffel Tower here and there. Finally, with picnic food in hand, we saw the famous symbol of Paris, and the avatar for teenage girls around the world.

We sat down in the sun under the tower. It was a dream come true for the girls.

Abby insisted on setting up the picnic "properly", so we let her have at it.

With stomachs full, the girls took it all in.

Just before four, it was time to head over to our meeting place for our skip the line tickets.

I guess the skip the line was worth it, although the lines to get in didn't look that long. I think next time.... Nah, I'm not going up again. The tower is best viewed from the ground, or from the river, or from across the river. Two times is plenty.

Beth was a little tired after the picnic wine...hic... So the girls and I...hic.... Took the elevator up to the third level observation deck...hic...

I liked the view down to the square below from the open first deck interior observation area. The tower really occupies a huge piece of land.

As we were ready to leave, the sun was starting to set.

We opted for the stairs down, and I'm glad we did. Every couple of flights down, they had a little story board on other towers and structures. It linked our trip.... Here we were near the end, and we saw a board comparing the Tokyo Tower to the Eiffel Tower....

.... Then the Patronas Towers from KL were featured....

By the time we were down and settled to go, the tower was completely lit up.... It was really stunning to see at dusk.

Paris is an inspirational place. They really believed in the Field of Dreams concept of "if you build it, they will come". So much of the beauty and spectacular function of the city was built in the last hundred and fifty years. Much of it was controversial at the time, and it all took a lot of money to build. I hope Toronto is not beyond continued inspiration.

The girls were so happy with their Eiffel experience - a dream come true.

And I was proud to share their excitement with Beth - this trip has been our dream, and we have experienced more than we thought possible in such a short time.

When we got back to the hotel, I unloaded my bag and was amazed at all the shit junk crap amazing souvenirs the kids picked up today. I don't know how they've done it, but Paris is a marketing machine and they owe it all to the guy who beat out other competing ideas like building a giant guillotine for the world fair.

Imagine if that guy had one the competition? Heads would have rolled.....