Our train departed from London St Pancras at a near-exceedingly early 610 a.m., which required leaving the house a little over an hour before. The journey itself spans a little over 2.5 hours in total, an hour of which it takes to cross beneath the channel.
We arrived in Paris Nord around 9, four hours after leaving the house. In Texas, you'd need that amount of time to drive from Houston to Dallas. Here, we managed to get into a whole other country.
First stop was an elegant tea-room on Rue de Rivoli called La Maison Angelina.
There we dined on a spread of buttery, flaky pastries & hot chocolate so thick & rich that I wouldn't be surprised it's made by melting chocolate ice-cream. Decadent.
From there we walked through the Jardin des Tuileries toward the Louvre, which we stopped to gaze at from afar & decided would be best to tour some other time.
My stunning fiancée.
Nearby there's a bridge called Pont du Carousel, which we crossed to get to the other side of the Seine & plot our next move.
Which was a brief amble further south through the VIe arrondissement...
Toward St.-Sulpice Church.
Outside we came across a fire station & photographed for the Stacers:
Mmmm....lunch. Actually, I don't think I took any pictures of our lunch. We ate delicious tartine at a place called Cuisine de Bar on Rue du Cherche-Midi, which is run by the Poilâne bakery.
The food was so good I didn't consider stopping to take a photo. From there we hopped a short ride on the Metro to Cathédrale Notre-Dame
The cathedral is every bit as impressive (& swarmed by tourists) as in the pictures.
Because of the crowds, we decided against waiting in a near endless line to enter the church, instead pausing on a bench outside to look at the facade for a spell.
After resting our legs a bit, we crossed the Pont au Double & turned westward for a long, scenic riverside stroll.
A particularly nice spot.
We came up on the Pont des Arts, a metallic pedestrian bridge linking the Palais du Louvre with the Institut de France...
to see that it was covered in padlocks.
In recent years couples have begun attaching these to the bridge as a romantic gesture. As such, enterprising capitalists have set up small booths to cater to the couples, selling locks & offering pens to write on them. When in Rome, right?
The weather then looked to be taking a turn for the worse, so we made tracks to the Eiffel Tower, hoping to squeeze in a gander before getting soaked.
No luck with the rain, but still we saw the Tower.
Then it was back on the Metro.
Food became our priority, as we'd planned to buy fixings for a picnic on the train back to London. On the way to find food, I saw an Invader tag!!!
Eventually we happened upon just the right places & stocked ourselves with baguette, brie, wine, & tart.
Vittles packed, we turned to Paris Nord,
boarded the Eurostar, & dug in to our Parisian fare.
Back in St Pancras just before 10 p.m. Not a bad day's work.
