Trip Recap - Day 5 London to Paris

Day 5 was a travel day. Since we'd be sleeping in so late we had asked for a wake up call. Getting up at 8am proved to be difficult but we managed. We ate breakfast in our hotel and then packed up and headed out. We managed to find our way to the St. Pancras (which I kept wanting to call Pancreas) station, and I managed to keep my luggage with me this time!

The EuroRail ride was uneventful. I kept thinking we'd notice going under the English Channel. Yet, at one point I said to Chris "When are we going to go through the English Channel" and he said "I think we just did!". Sure enough, at that point we looked outside and the signs were now in French! The train took us to Gard du Nord station in Paris which was a zoo! We had some minor issues figuring out how to get tickets for the Metro but eventually we procured the necessary tickets and hopped on the Metro to La Motte - Piquet - Grenelle. We walked in circles for a bit but eventually found our way to the Hotel Ares Eiffel, our home for the next few days. We checked in and dropped our bags in the lovely, but extremely small, room and took off to find the Eiffel Tower!

Along the way we stopped in at Le Bosquet, another Rick Steve's recommendation, and enjoyed a pitcher of Rose' and a Croque Monsieur. The group at the table next to us also had their Rick Steve's book out, they were from San Francisco. I hope he gets a commission for that!

Soon we were back walking and found our way to the Trocadero and enjoyed the amazing views of the Eiffel Tower.



We then decided that we still had time to go up in the Eiffel Tower before they closed it for the night and we stood in like for about an hour just to get tickets! I decided that the 2nd floor was high enough, and I'm glad we didn't try to go to the top. Once you got to the 2nd floor you had to wait in another line for 30 minutes just to get the next elevator. So instead we explored the 2nd floor, enjoyed the amazing views, and then walked down the stairs back to the ground. I think my favorite part was walking through the stairwell. At every floor there were these great signs about the tower.


And everytime the elevator went by we'd catch a glimpse of the guy driving it.


The views from the ground were also pretty amazing.



We opted to stop in for a pint before turning in for the night and found ourselves at a cafe near our hotel. We grabbed a great spot on the street and ordered 2 beers. When the bill came we realized that we'd just paid about $35 for 2 beers.

Lesson learned again.