Paris

On Wednesday 7th May, we set off for our two month European adventure.

We caught the train from Worcester Park station to Vauxhall where we changed to the tube to King's Cross station.  Through passport control and onto the Eurostar train to Paris.

Upon arriving at Gare du Nord in Paris, we found a McDonalds across the road from the station to use their wifi to look up the directions for our accommodation, as I had forgotten to print them out earlier!

The tube map for Paris was intense!  It made London's look like a country village map.  I finally got my head around it and we made our way to the appropriate platform.  With one line change on the way, we soon arrived at our destination stop, only to realise I had no further directions after the street address, which was apparently four minutes walk from the stop. The only problem was we had no idea in which direction we should be walking for four minutes!

After walking for about twenty minutes and asking a few people for directions, we eventually came to the studio apartment where we were staying for the next three nights.

It was as small as we'd expected it to be, but had everything we needed, even tea bags, which was greatly appreciated.  The bed was one that pulled down out of a cupboard in the wall, but it was very comfortable.

We went for an exploratory walk around the neighbourhood and soon came to the River Seine and not far away we could see The Eiffel Tower, so we decided to walk to it.  It was about ten minutes walk from where we were staying.

The look of utter joy on my little girl's face was priceless.  She said she couldn't believe she was actually at the Eiffel Tower!

We had an impromptu picnic tea of American Hot dogs on the grass in front of the tower.

A great end to the first day of our long adventure.