On to Paris the City of Love
Posted 06-20-2013 at 09:56 AM by Fortoggie
It was about 8:00 am, when we arrived at the Waterloo station to take the Chunnel train to Paris. It was a relief to be able to sit down and know that you wouldn't have to be active for a couple of hours. We were worn to a frazzle after being on the tour circuit in London for eight days.
The train eased out of the station and quickly picked up speed as we headed through the English countryside. It took about an hour of speeds up to a 100 miles per hour to get us to the Cliffs of Dover and then we slowed down as the train went down under the English Channel.
Down under for close to 30 miles, in one of the most marvelous of modern engineering feats. The train seemed to be moving at about 60 to 70 miles per hour during this part of the journey.
Then we emerged into bright sunlight on the shores of France, immediately the train picked up speed, I mean really picked up, until we were cruising at 185 miles per hour. The fields were flat and the grain was as high your knee, but I couldn't tell if the wind was blowing the grain or if it was the speed that we were travelling.
I worried about a cow are a horse wandering in front of the train but then realized that they must have thought that possibility through and taken precautions to reduce the hazard to zero. I was impressed by how smooth the rails were and that you didn't feel any bumps.
As we rolled into the station in Paris, it was clear that a lot of other people had Paris in mind. The four of us took a taxi to the hotel, got lunch at a nearby sidewalk cafe and then took another taxi to Montmartre. Lucky for us the artists and the the tourists were there in numbers, which created a sense of excitement. It was also nice to be able to get a good overview of the city from this elevated height. Montmartre is a destination in itself so we spent several hours there , trying to absorb and understand the long history of the area. Actually it was too much to take in and I find myself studying the places we visited after we returned. As you know there are truckloads of history about every facet of the ," City of Love."
It was breakfast at the hotel and then we took a double decker bus for a tour around the city. In the heart of downtown, I was surprised to see as many as fifty small motorcycles lined up at the intersections waiting for the the light to change. This to me suggests a major lifestyle difference and a different mindset than we have here in the U.S.,
Afterwards it was on through the Arc de Triomphe and then to the Eiffel Tower. Big cities have too much to see in just a few days. A city like Paris could take a lifetime to learn it's whole history and to absorb it's culture.
The train eased out of the station and quickly picked up speed as we headed through the English countryside. It took about an hour of speeds up to a 100 miles per hour to get us to the Cliffs of Dover and then we slowed down as the train went down under the English Channel.
Down under for close to 30 miles, in one of the most marvelous of modern engineering feats. The train seemed to be moving at about 60 to 70 miles per hour during this part of the journey.
Then we emerged into bright sunlight on the shores of France, immediately the train picked up speed, I mean really picked up, until we were cruising at 185 miles per hour. The fields were flat and the grain was as high your knee, but I couldn't tell if the wind was blowing the grain or if it was the speed that we were travelling.
I worried about a cow are a horse wandering in front of the train but then realized that they must have thought that possibility through and taken precautions to reduce the hazard to zero. I was impressed by how smooth the rails were and that you didn't feel any bumps.
As we rolled into the station in Paris, it was clear that a lot of other people had Paris in mind. The four of us took a taxi to the hotel, got lunch at a nearby sidewalk cafe and then took another taxi to Montmartre. Lucky for us the artists and the the tourists were there in numbers, which created a sense of excitement. It was also nice to be able to get a good overview of the city from this elevated height. Montmartre is a destination in itself so we spent several hours there , trying to absorb and understand the long history of the area. Actually it was too much to take in and I find myself studying the places we visited after we returned. As you know there are truckloads of history about every facet of the ," City of Love."
It was breakfast at the hotel and then we took a double decker bus for a tour around the city. In the heart of downtown, I was surprised to see as many as fifty small motorcycles lined up at the intersections waiting for the the light to change. This to me suggests a major lifestyle difference and a different mindset than we have here in the U.S.,
Afterwards it was on through the Arc de Triomphe and then to the Eiffel Tower. Big cities have too much to see in just a few days. A city like Paris could take a lifetime to learn it's whole history and to absorb it's culture.
Total Comments 0
