Our stay in London ended Wednesday with a visit of the Tower of London. We took a tour with the Yeoman Warders- the guys that use to take people to get their heads chopped off. The tour was great as we saw the first castle built in London by William of Normandy and learned the bloody history of the place through Henry VIII and beyond. We also stopped by the Jewel House to view the crowned jewels. Afterwards, we walked around the tower grounds and exhibits, took a few pictures of the Tower Bridge, and enjoyed a traditional lunch of fish and chips. We ran out of time to visit St. Paul's Cathedral, but we will have a second chance when we return to London at the end of our trip.
After visiting the Tower of London, it was time to grab our bags from the hostel and make our way to the train station. After an easy 2 1/2 hour journey we hopped off the train and into the language barrier. Contrary to popular belief, everyone the Gare du Nord train station does not speak English, and Mastercard and Visa are not always where you want to be. After wandering around dazed, confused, and a little culture shocked, we made it to the ticket counter, found an ATM, and managed to get on the right metro. After finding our hotel, we comforted ourselves with some late night McDonald's (it's much cheaper than eating French) and got some much needed rest.
Thursday morning, we started out with breakfast from a local bakery - chocolate filled croissants have become our breakfast of choice. We began with a walking tour across a quarter of Paris through Chinatown and a variety of Parisian streets until we reached the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was all that Disney made it out to be, and more! After Notre Dame, we set on another cross-town journey by foot to see the Catacombs. On the way we saw bunches of military and police bearing large machine guns and riot control gear. We were a little worried about the possibility of martial law but apparently this is normal. Go France. We got to the Catacombs at 4:01 - a minute after they close but the people admitted us anyway. The Catacombs were very spooky. Walls of thousands and thousands of skulls and bones lined the streets of Paris far underground. This made for some creepy pictures for sure!
After the catacombs we finally used the metro to go to the Eiffel Tower. It looks just like we imagined - truly magical. We took the standard photos, but decided not to go up to the top (cheap). We then walked to the Arc de Triomphe and took some more pictures of this awesome French monument. After walking through nearly 3/4's of Paris, we decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel. Our next adventure was eating a cheap dinner in the City of Light. We figured our best bet was the local Monoprix. Thirty minutes later we left with 2 ham sandwiches, a bag of chips, juice, bananas, peaches, yogurt, and 2 days worth of the now standard chocolate croissants for a mere 7 Euro!
We woke up early on Friday in an attempt to beat the crowds to Versaille. We took the Paris RER (regional train) to Versailles and got there soon after it opened. It is a spectacular place. We can't believe that the old kings needed so much. Everything was so ornate on the walls and ceilings. And by the looks on the paintings, they thought very highly of themselves, haha. We were also able to tour the gardens which were also very nice, although many of the flowers and plants were not in full bloom yet. After the Chateaux we got pizza for lunch at a local restaurant. The pizza was a pretty good size so we split it to the chagrin of our waitress. It was very good though and our first real taste of local cuisine (Italian in France??).
We then napped back at the hostel and prepared for an evening at the Louvre. The museum is free to students on Friday nights and we took advantage of this. The actual Louvre Palace was spectacular - just as impressive as the works it contained. We saw the Mona Lisa of course, but honestly it seemed less impressive than many of the other works. We also realized that our art history knowledge was not quite up to par.
After our art history lesson of the evening, we set off on our seemingly neverending quest in search of the golden arches (a.k.a. a McDonald's with free wireless). The second myth we have busted on our trip is that the internet is everywhere in Europe. Our search took us nearly two hours, but on the way we were able to see the Musee D'Orsay, the National Assembly, Invalides, and a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower at dusk. Finally, like a mirage in the desert, we saw the elusive yellow M glowing in the distance. After munching down on our second 'cultural' meal of the day, we were able to do some much needed catching up online. After getting our internet fix, we went back to the hostel and crashed.
Today (Saturday) we got up bright and early to catch our high speed TGV train to Tours, France- our home base for visiting the Loire Valley. We had a near disaster with our arrival in Tours this morning- the train stopped at what looked to be the Tours station, but the door didn't stay open long and we didn't make it out in time with our large bags. We were a bit concerned, when the train started to pull away from the station but we had no choice but to stay on board. Of course we were unsure of what was going on because all of the announcements and signs were only in French! We made the decision to just get off at the next stop wherever that may be, fortunately this was actually the correct station located one minute from our hotel- whew!!
Tours is turning out to be a very interesting town- they actually have a medieval town center and large cathedral that we are going to check out tomorrow before we leave. We booked a tour to visit three chateaus this afternoon, along with a little wine tasting! We have been mooching internet outside of McDonald's (our new favorite European restaurant) while we wait for our tour van. We should be able to update later before we embark on our 18 hour train journey to Madrid.
Au revoir!
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