Day Eight, June 11th.
After such a late night this morning was a killer. We had to be at the bus by 5:30 am and at the train station by 6:00am for a 8:30am train. We stumbled out the door of our hotel with sleep in our eyes, luggage in one hand and a bagged breakfast in the other. We got to St. Pancreas station and Needles and I wander across to street with Trevor to King Cross station to visit Platform 9 3/4 which is famed in the Harry Potter books and movies.
We did a quick photo and back to our station to await our travels on the Eurostar. We decided during our wait to grab some coffee and food. Finished just in time for our guide to notice he had read the tickets wrong and our 8:30 am trip was going to be leaving in about 10 min. We grabbed all of our luggage and ran to security and up to platform 2. We made it on the train, stowed our luggage and found our seats.
The train was amazingly fast and quiet. I however didn't like when we went through a tunnel your ears felt like they were going to pop. Occasionally there would be a roar past the train which was another train traveling in the opposite direction. It was neat to see a full length train pass by in a matter of 2 to 3 seconds. The overall trip to Paris only took a little over 2 hours.When we arrived at the Metro station it was literally a matter of seconds before a Gypsy approached our group looking for a hand out. We pulled all of our luggage into a group to best keep our eye on it while several went for a bathroom visit. After meeting our guide Corena, Trevor went to look for our bus and we headed out for our guided tour of Paris. The city was very congested and a times 3 lanes of traffic had 4 lanes of traffic. Motorbikes and scooter were everywhere dodging in and out of traffic, horns honking and tire screeching all the while we we trying to be guided through the city.
Our 3 hour tour ended up being a little less and our guide wasn't very impressive. We stopped at a coffee place and most of the group went in a placed their order at the bar and then set down in the outside seating. It was only after this we were instructed by our guide that this was the only shop in Paris we could do this.Traditionally if you order from the bar you then take your food or drink to go and are charged a to go price. If you want to set you set yourself and have a waiter come to you. Therefore you are charged differently for eating in. Also we were told that in order to avoid hardship of communicating with others in Paris the first word out of your mouth should be Bonjour or Hello. If you fail to do this the person might act like they don't speak English or give you the time of day. Pretty much after this I was content to just pack it up and head home. We drove by several of the iconic Paris attractions such as the Place de la Concorde, Champs-Elysee's, Arc de Triomphe, Arc de Triomphe de Carrousel, Eiffel Tower, Les Invalides where Neapoleon is entombed, Notre Dam Cathedral and last but not least the Statue of Liberty.When we got settled into the Median Hotel Porte de Versailles and then went to a bakery across the street to grab a quick bite to tide us over until diner. We got a salad and some sort of sandwich with ham, gravy and cheese. It was very good and you could tell the bread was fresh.
We travelled via the Metro since we had a scheduled diner in the Latin Quarter at a reataurant names Cafe Latin. We had salad, duck breast in a honey and xeres sauce with sauteed potatoes and Tart Tatin, upside down apple pie. I enjoyed the food but Needles mentioned the duck was tough and this was not her favorite meal. After wandering around some more we ended our day with a trip to Shakespeare's and Company Book Store before returning to the hotel.
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