Christmas in Paris

We celebrated the birth of Christ in Paris this year. Although that may sound like an exotic holiday, traveling to Chicago from Appleton is further than Paris is from Oxford. Since we have no family nearby, we thought that we would take advantage of the winter travel deals. We purchased the holiday from Thomas Cook and got three nights for the price of two (breakfasts included) and a Eurostar train ride from London to Paris with a return trip.

http://www.oxfordtube.com/

Here comes our ride.

St. Pancras Station is huge!

We woke up early on the 23rd, Lori's birthday, and drove to the nearby park and ride to catch the Oxford Tube coach to London. We were the first in line so Matthew claimed the front seats on the upper deck. Due to the early hour, traffic was light and we made good time to the Marble Arch in London. A short ride on the underground (with 1 transfer) took us to St. Pancras rail station.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Pancras_railway_station

The massive train station was built in the 1800's but is well kept; clean and modern. We ate breakfast and waited patiently for our departure time. Even though the Eurostar carries more people to continental Europe than all airlines combined, we passed through security, border control, and found our seats pretty quickly. Our seats were in club configuration, two pairs of seats facing each other over a table. We shared our table with a young french lady who quietly read and slept the entire journey.

182 MPH across France.

What a comfortable ride.

The ride through the tunnel only took 20 minutes and was anticlimactic. It did not seem as if we were 100 metres below sea level under the English Channel. The train traveled 186 mph and only took about 2.5 hours to make the journey. What a smooth ride!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurostar

Gare du Nord. Welcome to Paris. This is the same rail station that we saw in Mr. Bean's Holiday.

Gare du Nord, the train station in Paris, was the exact opposite of the station in London. It was dirty, people begging throughout, the concrete was crumbling; in Lori's words, "It is not as posh as I was expecting!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gare_du_Nord

We purchased Paris Metro ticket to ride the underground to our hotel. The Metro was also dirty, the train cars old, and the signage poor. We made one wrong turn at our connecting stop which made us backtrack up and down at least 8 sets of stairs; carrying our suitcases. I think that everyone rides the Metro. We saw ladies in furs carrying bags from designer stores, families, and homeless people. We were the only people on our train with suitcases. The ride was quick and our Metro stop a very short walk from the hotel.

http://www.paris-tourist-information.co.uk/images/maps/paris-metro-map.pdf

Our hotel, Hotel Rochester, was very nice. If you look at their website (link below), our room was on the third floor next to the sign. The concierge made us dinner reservations at a nearby restaurant. We wanted to eat at 6:30 (Lori hoped for 5:30) but the restaurant didn't open until 7:30 so we settled for 8:00. We were tired when we arrived and the chef's specialty was foie gras! Lori and I had the Chateaubriand and Matthew ate a Caesar salad with prawns on top. We experienced some authentic French indignation when we told the waiter that we did not want dessert. He huffed, snatched our menus, and stomped off! Welcome to Paris - can we go home now?

Matthew in the lobby of our hotel.

http://www.hrochester.com/en/
http://www.boudoirparis.fr/fr/plan-et-acces.html

Matthew in the lobby of our hotel.

Waking up late, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast at the hotel consisting of eggs, sausage, bacon, breads, cheese, as well as many types of fish (that we didn't try). Matthew had hot chocolate and dill pickles all three mornings with his other breakfast foods.

Hot chocolate and pickles, yum!

We walked up Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe and bought 2 day tickets on Les Cars Rouge, a double-decker tour bus service that allows customers to hop on and hop off at the sights. We rode as far as the Tour Eiffel and decided to visit. We rode to the second floor on the elevator and enjoyed the view in all directions. 

Waiting for our bus.

An impressive 1,086 feet tall. When it was built, it was the tallest structure in the world. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champs-%C3%89lys%C3%A9es

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe
http://www.carsrouges.com/
http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/

The Seine as seen from the second floor of the Eiffel Tower.

After the tower, we rode the bus around to see the Louvre Museum, the church of Notre Dame, and many other sights. The entire route took a little over 2 hours when the traffic was light. We noticed that the traffic gets heavier as the sun goes down. Paris must be an evening town. After dark, we rode the bus again to see the city lights.

Paris is beautiful at night.

On Christmas morning, we wished the staff Joyeux Noel, ate breakfast, and read the story of Christ's birth from the book of Luke. We rode the bus to Notre Dame to hear the organist play Christmas songs on the pipe organ and visited the Paris Christmas Market on Champs Elysses. We found a locally made Christmas bauble for our U.K. adventure tree.

Notre Dame.

French Matthew on one of our many bus trips.

The trip home consisted of taking the metro back to Gare du Nord. We had premium club seats on the way home so the staff served us a hot meal with china, sliver, and real glasses. I think I prefer the train over air travel. We arrived back in London on Boxing Day, one of the biggest shopping days of the year, only to find the underground workers on strike. Our tube ride to Victoria Station was extremely full of people. Paris was fun, but it was good to be home.

The Metro ride back to the train station was much more pleasant. We even had live music (see the accordion player in the background?).

French Matthew back at Gare du Nord.