This was THE BIG TRIP. It's been in the works in various forms for about 20 years, but for the last 7-10 years it has been the trip we would take when the kids were about 16 years old. In the past 2 years it's been the trip we would take for their 16th birthday.
Again--a lot of things I would do differently.
- ideally this would have been better as two week-long trips, but that wasn't possible with airfares as they are.
- fewer cathedrals. Although Chartres was lovely, and possibly was the cathedral to see "if you see only one cathedral in France," it in fact was one of at least 5 cathedrals we saw on this trip and really at least one too many. A palace (even crowded Versailles) would have been a better addition to our list of sites.
- there was a bit of an effort put into trying to keep the itinerary loose to suit our mood on any given day. Nice and needed, but played out as a lack of planning overall. For some reason, I could never get my head around how to organize everything we wanted to do into logical groupings, Pete is not good at this and our styles clashed in the planning phase. Generally this is something I do about a week or two before leaving on a trip, but between family emergencies and work, this wasn't possible.
- I still need to learn the lesson of giving up the day's plans when I get that little feeling we should. We planned to use our Paris museum passes on Tuesday and Wednesday, but even though I had a feeling Tuesday morning that we should sleep in instead, we went ahead with the early day. This backfired a bit that day, but also let us in for unexpected closings on Thursday that were a big disappointment to Zack and me.
- on that note-do not underestimate the impact of Catholic holidays in Paris. Major sites are open, but many smaller sites are closed and so are many businesses. Montparnasse was a ghost town and I now have to figure out how Zack and I will see the Paris catacombs someday as they were closed and it was our last day.
- Check to see what weekday museums are closed in each city you visit. Tuesdays in Paris, but Mondays in Angers...
- sit everyone (or at least all the adults) down for a talk when things are not working or you're angry. Say all the unreasonable, unfair and petty things rolling around your head and be willing to have a big fight about it. Believe me, it's worth it. It gets it up and out in the open so you can work together to get things moving in the right direction. I waited until several days in and then again almost at the end. Things got better and could have sooner if I had spoken up sooner.
- remember that Liz doesn't do well on the red eye.
This will look familiar to those who followed me on FB during the trip, but I can put up the pictures now.
Thursday-Friday
Very bumpy flight overnight with no sleep for k, z and me. Glad I had taken Dramamine, since flights have been giving me motion sickness in the past few years. Had hoped it would make me drowsy enough to sleep but nope! Watched Gravity, which masked the bumpiness a bit actually. Don't remember what else I watched, but there were a lot of choices and they also fed us twice, so the time went by. No more red eye flights in my future unless my doctor can give me something to knock me out.
We looked a lot like the walking dead on Friday, but did manage to find the flat and deal with transit passes thanks to a more awake Pete. We grabbed lunch at Wagamama (wicked expensive and the food was only so-so) and then shopped for supplies at the Waitrose grocery and settled into our flat for a while.
I'd read that the first night is a good time to see Big Ben and the Eye lit up, so we took a bus from our corner over that way and walked along the Thames for a while. We then walked over to Piccadilly Circus to browse a bit and hit a diner for dinner.
Saturday
The British Museum and a meet up with friends for lunch and shopping at Forbidden Planet! We did the one hour tour at the British Museum which took us 3-4 hours. You can see that HERE.
We went over to the museum via Kings Cross, so stopped at platform 9 3/4 on our way. Toured the museum for about an hour, then met up with Robyn, Abby and Ezra out front. Hit a pub for fish and chips. Wonderful! Our first good meal in London.
Back to the museum to finish up--hit the Rosetta Stone as our feet gave out. The guys were pretty tired on the Tube home.
Rested up a bit and then went to see a friend of Pete's via the London Overground train, which we could also catch at Shepherd's Bush. Pete went to college with JP and the families had never met. The kids all got along and I thoroughly enjoyed Jon's wife Susan. We talked and talked over pizza at Pizza Express. Don't laugh, the pizza was terrific, go there if you're in London.
Sunday
We had plans to see Pete's aunt and cousins in Crouch End and Camden Market was nearby so we took a long bus ride from our door to Camden. Really long. Camden Market was ok, but not as fun as we hoped it would be. It would have been better for a lunch visit as there were a lot of interesting food stands but the shopping was mostly tourist tees and trinkets. Katie did pick up a nice watch on a chain to wear around her neck. There was a cool store with lots of old sewing machines in the windows and we liked walking along the canal.
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| Katie tries on a deer stalker hat, getting her Sherlock on. |
A short tube ride to Crouch End to meet Pete's family. We had a nice visit and good pizza. On the way back to the tube, we made a quick side trip to the "Ally Pally" for an excellent view of London (and the tower Dr Who climbs in the Idiot's Lantern episode). It's also the site of the first BBC broadcast.
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| Dr Who tower |
Monday
Stratford upon Avon and Shakespeare all day.
Despite the original forecast, the weather was fantastic. In fact, we had nice warm weather for almost all of our London stay.
I had been to Stratford when I went to London in high school, but I barely remembered anything about that trip in general and Stratford specifically. I did remember The Dirty Duck/Black Swan pub and we planned for lunch there.
It was a quaint fun village in full bloom so the gardens were beautiful. I remain impressed that this is a real town, not a created historical town like Williamsburg or Bethpage, which have many houses that were moved to a spot. That you can walk right in through that door from 1242 and get your fingers all over it.
It was a mostly fun day with a bit of strife at lunch, when the pub didn't look as familiar to me as I thought it would. It all worked out when we nabbed a table out front in the great weather and wonderful view of the river.
Wished we had more time to add a tour of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Next time!
Lazy evening. Dinner at the flat? Played around with the TV and found a game show (after QI which we knew already) called-Connections maybe?, so hard. Would never survive on US TV. But another night we found the dumbest game show ever too, so that made us feel better.
Tuesday
Started with a run for me, not a common site in London I guess. I garnered a few stares and one man who stood right in front of me. I turned off the main street and found a nice neighborhood park. Lots of dog walkers out and all dogs seem to be off the leash. We missed our Toby every time we saw a cute little dog. :(
After everyone else was up and dressed we visited the Tower of London. I know it was on the itinerary when I went back in '83, but I didn't remember a thing about it and I know we weren't able to see the Crown Jewels. I got severe eye rolls when I told the kids that we should take the tour but I was vindicated when our guide was funny and gruesome as well as informative.
Then lots of climbing of towers. They must have been in fantastic shape back then.
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| Zack caught enjoying himself |
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| Tower Bridge, which we didn't climb |
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| The ravens of legend |
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| We liked the buses |
After saying our goodbyes to Charlie, we went back over to Piccadilly Circus to visit Hamley's toy store with 5 floors of toys and a candy store.
While heading back to the flat, I mentioned it might be a good night for a curry, which Pete had wanted us to see. Sadly, we ended up in a typical Indian restaurant rather than the kind curry place he had been talking about, the food was good, but far too spicy for Zack.
Wednesday
And our last full day in London.
Westminster Abbey, I did the entire thing with all of the audio tour. Zack skipped around. Katie skipped the tour and meandered on her own. Pete took his time then skipped to the end when he'd had enough. Lost Zack for a few minutes. No casualties. This was mostly for me as I love cathedrals and graveyards and it was a thrill. THIS was my favorite grave.
Grabbed a quick lunch at Pret A Manger, which you see all over town (and can also find in DC). Next on to far off Upton Park to the Who Shop. Over priced but fun to browse shop. Inexpensive "museum" where we got some fun pictures. Friendly well informed staff.
Back to Shepherd's Bush to the grocery to pick up some dinner and lunch items and to the flat to rest and get laundry and packing done. We were too tired to be night owls this trip.
Thursday
Sweet 16!!
So where else for breakfast than Speedy's and then a visit to 221B Baker Street? (Bone up on your Sherlock if you are not following this.)
There is a museum at the actual 221B--it's not really the door right next to Speedy's--and Katie and Zack spent a good hour there while Pete and I stroll over to Regent's Park. There was a hard but brief rain while we were there, but a large tree helped us out.
We saw many goslings and one baby swan. All nicely fuzzy.
We headed back to the flat to finish packing and tidying before catching the Eurostar to Paris. As we headed out the door to the Tube station we got our first real London rain and it was not kidding--torrential! But we were out of it pretty quickly and into the mass transit system for the rest of the day.
The Eurostar is very fast (180mph) and very comfy. It's under the channel for about 20 minutes and it was less unnerving than I expected it to be. Wicked expensive, but still cheaper than flying and an easy trip.
The Metro was harder to manage than the Tube system. For the Tube, Pete and I had week-long passes that covered the buses and trains and the kids had discount student passes that let them ride the bus for free and the train for 75p.
The Metro uses carne, little tickets you buy in 10 packs, and had to be doled out as we went along. It's also dirtier, the people are more pushy and there is graffiti everywhere (and I don't mean street art--I mean graffiti). And, like most of Paris, it smells. So not as fun to get around.
Our apartment was at the foot of Sacre Coeur and a walk up a steep hill. Then up a winding 27 steps. The apartment was darling. Perfect and well stocked with goodies by our host. The neighborhood, not as darling. Particularly filthy. But a nice cafe right across the street helped a lot and two of the best brasseries right down the block. So, we made the best of it.
Once we settled in for a bit, we headed up the stairs to Sacre Coeur for a wonderful view of Paris and the amazing church itself. It is worth the visit, just ignore all the beer drinkers and bottles. Really.
Back down to the cafe for dinner. I had crepes and did so every day but one for the rest of the trip. Yummmmm. All of the food, everywhere was great. Care is taken even by the smallest food stand.
Once more up the hill to see the lights of Paris and it was magical. The Eiffel Tower looked just as I hoped it would. It truly was a sight I will never forget and exactly how I wanted to spend my first night in Paris.
More on Paris in my next post.
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