CootieGirl and I did a LOT of walking in London last week. Each day we counted our steps and the longest day of walking was most definitely our day in Paris. Despite taking the metro system quite a bit, we still ended up walking at least 8 miles (CG’s pedometer says it was over 9 miles, but mine says 8 miles). On our lightest day we still got in almost 2.5 miles of walking. My pedometer states we walked 32 miles during our vacation, including travel days. Considering I walk maybe 7 miles a week in my normal daily life (thanks, desk job), and you’ll understand why I lost weight during our vacation. My body hasn’t seen that kind of exercise in a long time.
The day we went to Paris was a long one, but it was on my bucket list of cities to visit, so I knew I wanted to make the most of it. I just took CootieGirl along for the company.
We got up super early in the morning to catch a cab to St Pancras train station to board a train for Paris. The train departed at 7:30 a.m. so we had to get there by 6:30 a.m. which meant leaving the flat no later than 6:00 a.m. Which meant getting up at 5 a.m. to get ready to go! Oofa!
Fortunately, we made it with plenty of time to spare and boarded the train, on which we had assigned seats. Back when Denis and I were dating I used to take Amtrak from DC to NYC all the time to spend time with him, and Amtrak has nothing on Eurostar. Eurostar trains are NICE. CG and I quickly fell asleep once the train got underway, and next thing we knew we were arriving in France!
First up was making our way to Atelier Des Lumieres for an immersive Van Gogh exhibit. When I first told CG about it she balked and said she didn’t want to go, but in the end it was a really interesting exhibit and we both enjoyed it. The exhibit basically projects Van Gogh paints on the walls and the floors so that you feel like you are in the paintings themselves. Here’s a small sample of some video that I took. It does not do the exhibit justice in any way, but still provides a sample:
We then began walking up the Seine River towards the Pont Neuf bridge so that we could cross over on our way to the Louvre. The Seine was lovely and if we had had more time I’m sure CG and I would have enjoyed sitting along the water just enjoying the sunshine.
Once across the river we made our way west and finally happened upon the pyramid at the Louvre. We had no intention of actually going into the museum (no time), but we did take pictures and made fun of all the people taking pictures of themselves “holding” the pyramid. They had actual perches you could stand on to take this kind of picture and we thought it hilarious that every single perch had someone on it taking just such a picture.
By this time it was nearly lunch time, so we popped into a sidewalk cafe where we ate crepes and I had a glass of French white wine. You can’t go to Paris and not have crepes and wine! We sat for a good long while in the cafe, people watching and enjoying the warm sunshine. CG also had her pocket-sized sketchbook, which she took out to draw the large building across the corner from where we sat. It was a nice relaxing hour or so.
A couple years ago they tore down the famous love locks bridge, but people have found other ways to leave their locks in Paris. I spotted at least one barricade covered in locks during our walks around the city.
From there we quickly made our way to Brigitte Tanaka, which is the smallest shop in Paris. I had read about the shop at least five years ago (when it was owned by someone else) and knew that should I ever go to Paris, I would find that shop. Cut to 2019 and I found it! The shop is just as small as the picture implies – the shop is as wide as those doors, and only about 3-4″ deep once inside. The new owner sells high end gifts and jewelry.
Then it was off to the Eiffel Tower. Now all this time I had a strict itinerary and time table – and my little sheet of paper treated us very, very well. I had noted each metro stop, each direction to walk once we disembarked, and even how long it would take between locations we were visiting. CG was very happy whenever she saw “for photo only” because she knew it meant we wouldn’t be sticking around long. *lol*
We got back on the metro and rode to the Arc De Triomphe, which is huge, with traffic just as crazy as the videos you might have seen. Cars going everywhere, no order whatsoever, and an accident just waiting to happen! After watching traffic for a bit we began walking down the Champs Elysee, making our way to Laduree for macarons. The line was long, but this was another bucket list thing for me, and so we patiently waited for our turn to peruse the decadent treats. Macarons are expensive, but that didn’t stop me from buying a box of 12 of them to take with us.
From there the race was on to get back to the train station to catch our Eurostar ride back to London. We made it through customs pretty quickly and boarded the train. On the way back to London I had upgraded our seats and while they were slightly nicer seats, the meal that came with the trainfare left something to be desired. Two bites of cold chicken and some cole slaw. Okay.
We got back to London around 9:30 p.m. and once through security we hopped in a cab back to the flat, arriving just after 10 p.m. and more than ready to collapse into bed for the night!
