Eurostar to London

April 2 dawned and we prepared to bid 'adieu' to Paris and begin the next part of our European holiday in London. We had tickets for the Eurostar train from Paris to London, so we awoke, grabbed our bags and checked out of our hotel. Thanks to British Airways inability to deliver our bags yet, we only had The Big Blue Rolling Duffel, so we opted to save some Euros and use the Metro to get to Gare du Nord instead of taking a cab as we originally thought we would need to.

As our Metro passes had expired, we had to buy new Metro tickets, but that wasn't too difficult and we quickly found our way to Gare du Nord. We struggled a little to find the Eurostar terminal, not because of problems with the language, but because there was very little signage. We also had issues as we had bought our Eurostar tickets through a travel agent and had been told we had to check in and exchange our vouchers for real tickets, which turned out not to be true. The check-in line was quick, but the security lines were fairly long and slow, mainly because multiple check-in lines were merged together for security and that caused backups. After emptying our pockets, we were through French immigration (and the kids got their first passport stamp!) and then through UK immigration and then through the metal detectors and into the Eurostar terminal.

We were at the station pretty early so we found some seats and then Janie and Alex went to buy us some breakfast. We knew we'd be served something on the train, but we were all pretty hungry, so Janie found some pastries and bottles of water. J. R. purchased a London guidebook at a book shop so we could begin replanning what we were going to do in London. We ate our pastries and then waited to board the train. About a half-hour before, our train was called and we turned in our tickets and took our bags to the train. We had booked the Leisure Select class, which gave us more comfortable seating and four of us were seated together in one set of seats, with another seat across the aisle. No one was using the other seat across the aisle so Alex joined his brother over there for the train ride.

The train rolled out of Paris on time and soon we were racing across the French countryside. We were served a light breakfast on the way and spent our time looking out the window, reading our books and talking. Soon we were in the English Channel tunnel and across into England. It was a short trip from there to King's Cross station in London.

King's Cross

At King's Cross, J. R. went to get London Underground passes so we could get from King's Cross to our hotel at County Hall. Since he wasn't sure what we needed, he ended up having to stand in line instead of using the automated ticket machines, but in the end it worked out since the agent was very helpful and saved us a good deal of money on our 'non-peak' tickets for our three days in London.

With our tickets in hand, we headed into the Tube, Minded the Gap, and were on our way to Waterloo, which was the closest stop to our hotel. We exited Waterloo station and started walking towards the London Eye, which we knew to be near our hotel. We got a little lost so J. R. got on my mobile to call the hotel, but just as he got connected, we saw the sign for the hotel and went inside. Our rooms were not ready, which we expected, but they had a place to drop off Duffel, so that was fine. We then headed back outside and decided to see what the queue was like for the London Eye, which was right outside.