A Collection of Daily Wisdom by Dennis Sylvester Hurd since September 2003.

(Jump to Sunday the 25th.) The Globetrotter's Inn is sort of a spin on a hostel for mature folks. We read about it in the travel section of the Vancouver Sun this fall. It's sort of the way that Jay and I travel anyway. It's not lack of funds that keeps us from staying in a Hilton. Well ... the funds are a definite part, but more importantly, it's avoiding the boring, sameness of chains. Why would someone wish to go to a standardized hotel room that appears the same as hundreds of thousands all over the world. It's nice to know you're not at home when travelling.

Anyway, I was just starting to say about the breakfast buffet at the place we're in. It's sort of a fun, communal way of starting the day. You get a chance to see and at minimum, say 'Good Morning' to the fellow guests.

The morning proved to be sunny. The sky was blue so our first chore was to go up in it. We bought 3-day passes on the Underground and popped out at the London Eye this morning a half an hour before many of the other tourists did. It was beautiful and I'm awed by engineering enough to have enjoyed it merely for the mechanical aspects.

London city seems small and easily 'walkable'. Combine that and our passes and we've chosen to forgo the bus tour and explore on our own. We ended up at Piccadilly Circle. We ate lunch there but didn't end up at a matinee performance of any show. I'd love to see Phantom of the Opera though.

Tonight, we're keeping close to home, so we can get up early and do some more exploration bright and early tomorrow.

Labels: Eurotrip 2005, London

You know how some things can go very smoothly and come off without a hitch. That sort of describes today. Getting up early was not nearly as hard as I would have expected. You have to remember that by 'early' I mean just a bit before 7:30. We ate. We checked out and walked right to one Metro line at Republic Square. Within 15 minutes we'd departed at the end of the line which led right into the Euroline bus station. We had to wait about a half hour before leaving Paris. It was like clockwork.

The bus was big and comfortable. It also headed for Chalis and a ferry crossing to the English coast. On the ferry we had a great, late lunch and then walked around the ferry a bit before we headed past the white cliffs of Dover and into the port. Our bus was stopped by customs for a check, but even that went without incident.

We got into London a bit late, but we had made reservations at Globetrotter Inn, the only of our trip, before we left Canada. So, we knew there was a room waiting. From Victoria Station we got the District Line to Stamford Book and proceeded right into our room. We grabbed fast food and were quite tired. But, it was a perfect day in many respects.

Labels: Eurotrip 2005, London, Paris

We saved the Louvre for our last day here. I've never walked this much in my life. Even though we're learning the Metro routes, we must've walked three or four kilometers just inside the museum. The Egyptian holdings are very large which helps explain the French accents used by archaeologists in Hollywood movies. The logistics of moving so many visitors through so many objects was superb. We even splurges for a sit-down lunch of salmon; whether it was from BC, I don't know.

We didn't finish the museum until nearly three o'clock. Then, we walked down through the Tuileries towards the Arc de Triomphe. It was miles away, but I love Paris because of it's grand layout. Capitalism benefits consumers but when citizens leave city planning to market forces, they end up with a mess. Nature is random but the greatness of cities comes from straight lines!

Tonight we pack up early. We have to get out of bed earlier than we have been recently. Eurobus suggests getting to the station an hour before our 10:00 am start.

I hope to ride around on double-decker busses and give my poor tennis shoes a great in London.

Labels: Eurotrip 2005, Paris

We hit Sacre-Coeur du Montmartre this morning. It was nice seeing the part of town that was mountainous. In the evening we walked down the Champs Elysees. When I become a multi-millionaire, I'll make sure I have a shop on that avenue.

Labels: Eurotrip 2005, mountains, Paris

We had only booked to stay in our second hotel here for two nights. We decided to change scenery by staying more 'uptown' for the last two nights. Unfortunately, they didn't have an opening for tonight. This is still busy season in Europe and this meant our hotel couldn't find a place for us tonight. We were without a place to stay so, Jay went out 'hunting' in our area but across from one main street. We're in Luna Park Hotel. It's very cheap as it doesn't have an elevator and we have to walk up to the third floor on a tiring, winding staircase. Still the window looks out onto a little place where three or four lanes come together each filled with traditional little shops. It's fine.

In the morning, we will pack up and walk a few streets north for our remaining two nights in Paris. Speaking of remaining time, we'd heard that North Station was the location for the departures of Eurostar to London. How fun it would be to race through the Chunnel, we thought. So, we went to the station to purchase ahead for Friday. It was a bit shocking to hear it would cost us more than E500, or about $750.00 Canadian to go one way! We decided it would be even MORE FUN to take a bus as the per price ticket was only E61 or $90.00 Canadian instead. The trip will last from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm rather than the train's time of less than two hours. It will be much better being able to see actual scenery. Isn't it strange how cost can change one's idea of fun?

Today we also did a bit of exploring by subway. The three-day, unlimited tourist pass tickets will finish at midnight. I like Paris. I also don't feel so embarrassed for Manhattan because of the rat-warren den of its subway stations.

Labels: Eurotrip 2005, Paris

Today was. I'm writing at 10:22 happily but with feet that hurt. We did lots of things in Paris today. We started by finding another hotel but unfortunately can't check in until the day after tomorrow. There's nothing much wrong with this one other than the below-standard towels and lack of WiFi.

We went back to the Eiffel Tower first. Yesterday, we walked around it but today we wanted to go up it. Although there were fewer people in the area, only one 'leg' of the tower was open. In total we waited an hour and a half. There are two 'stages' and then the 'top'. We went directly to the second platform by an escalator that runs at an angle up a leg. We spent some time there before taking an elevator. The way I was positioned, I wasn't aligned with a support. I am not usually afraid of height, but I was a bit unnerved! There only appeared a spider-web of steel beams which didn't look as if they offered a place to stand. Yikes. The view was much greater than it looked from the bottom.

From there, we travelled to the Champs-Elysees and the Arc de Triomph. We also popped out at various Metro stations just to look around. This was how we saw the National Museum of Music as well as the Opera area.

We rode back out to the Eiffel Tower after dark just to see how it looks at night. Jay was correct in insisting that we stay to the turn of the hour. The strobe lights started at 9:00.

We had dinner and now it's time to call it a day.

Labels: Eurotrip 2005, Paris

As soon as we got up, we remembered we hadn't bought breakfast as part of our stay at the hotel. We walked a block or two around the hotel area and didn't find anything we thought would suffice and went back in to get the 6E50 breakfast at the hotel.

We also thought we might be able to do Euro 14.00 cheaper at a hotel right next door and therefore packed up. We later brought the bags there at only 9:00 am. We left them downstairs as the room wasn't guaranteed to be free until 2:00 pm.

We initially thought we'd do a tourist bus to get our general orientation. Then after waiting we decided to check to see if Metro had tourist fares. We instead got 3-day unlimited passes for 18 Euros. We tried them out by going to the Eiffel Tower. What fantastic weather! We couldn't have ordered it any better.

Later in the afternoon we went back to Notre Dame by subway. One final trip was out to Place de Clichy. Wouldn't you know, there really is a Moulin Rouge!

Labels: Eurotrip 2005, Paris