I See London I See France
Ah Paris and London!! Two full port days, four long train rides, about 8 sights to see, and 1 exhausted traveler. A few days ago we ported in Le Havre, France. It's a quaint little town about 2 hours from Paris that I only saw from the windows of the taxicab taking us to and from the train station. We boarded the train a bright and early 8:44am to breeze through the countryside of France on the Euro-rail. We arrived at the Gard de St. Lazarre roughly 11:00am and we were on a mission. First plan of attack was to get to L'Arc de Triomphe. We scrambled out of the station and in Amazing Race fashion scurried down Rue Haussman for our 40-minute jaunt to the famous monument. Little did we know it would take 40 minutes to actually walk through town, so we learned and next time we will take the Metro since it's a fairly easy system to follow. My rusty French guided us as far as I could muster. 
It's sad I forgot so much of it. Even though we did lose 40 minutes in the walk, we experienced the beauty of the metropolitan Paris as we walked briskly through the city. The monument (L'arc de Triomphe) was a sight to see and MUCH larger than any monument of a similar name in various cities. There were about 8 points of streets coming off this round-a-bout where the monument stood at it's center. You could take a lift to the top for wonderful views, but we didn't want to take any more time and miss the biggest attraction in Paris (the Eiffel Tower). 
This time we did take the metro, which took a little figuring out, and we even had a little "subutainment" that brought me back to home in NYC. All of a sudden we were hearing the intro to La Donna Mobile and then Lucien Pavarotti's voice was blaring out. I turn around to find a velvet curtain strung up between 2 poles with a boom box underneath and dancing around on top was a puppet version of the real artist. It was hi-larious. 
We left the train and saw the Eiffel Tower in the distance. We stopped for a little food at a fabulous creperie where I had a ham and cheese crepe and a cappuccino with some French cream on top. Yum!! We were off to the tower and time was running out. The tower was an amazing sight to see in person. At its base just looking up was breathtaking. We even stood underneath and looked into its belly. This is one huge monument. We paid the hefty price to take the lifts to the highest point. My knees got a little week as we climbed through the center of the tower. From the top there were stunning views of this gorgeously sunny day we had in Paris. From the viewfinder of my video camera/digital camera I saw the Louvre, Notre Dame du Paris, the Seine stretching out over the countryside, L'Arc de Triomphe from above, and various other beautiful gardens and monuments throughout the city. Unfortunately with the time it took to get the tickets and get to the top, which was all we had time to see and we had to scurry back to catch our train. We took the lift to the second level of the tower and the line looked too long to take the transfer lift to get to the ground, so we took the stairs. AHA!! Bad idea! We forgot we were still pretty high on the tower and how many stairs it actually entailed. We made good time and it took us about 10-15 minutes to get down. We cabbed it to the rail station to catch our train just on time. It was one of those classic Euro-rail trains you see in the movies with the private cabins of about 8 seats with the doors and all. I was imagining we were on the Harry Potter train for a moment. We made it back to the ship in plenty of time with lots of pictures. There was no real time to shop in Paris or take in the town of Le Havre. Maybe next time.
London however was a different experience. Sadly we found out that next day we would have to exchange our currency into the British Pound. It's about 2 to 1 right now. Yikes!! So every price tag was actually double of what it was. To give an example, we stopped for lunch at ole Micky D's today and the value meal was 3.49 in British Pounds. Well, that isn't such a value in the US at $7.00 for the meal.
Our economy sucks folks. Anyway, with that aside and accepted we docked in another little town on the English coast called Harwich (pronounced hair-witch). The train was conveniently dockside. Literally you walked off the ship and onto the train. It was about an hour and a half to London where it drops you off at Liverpool Street. We "tubed" it to our first point of interest, the Buckingham Palace. The Tube is what is the subway for New Yorkers. It's literally a tube. It was fascinating. Also everything was in ENGLISH and fully understandable! Yay!! We've been in ports now for just over a month where there's a huge language barrier. It's nice to hear a language you can fully understand. We arrived at the Green Park station (literally a green park), and walked to the palace. It was dress rehearsal day for the queen. Next Saturday she'll be parading through on some special event from Scotland Yard to the palace. All the guardsmen were out in their fuzzy hats and uniforms lining the street for a good mile. There were people everywhere. We heard the marching band in the distance as it approached, but alas we had to keep moving since we had an even shorter time here than in Paris. See, it's an embark day and although the ship leaves at 6pm, we had to be back on board and in our boat drill places by 4:30pm. Yuck!! We lost a good hour and a half of sightseeing because of a safety function. Boo!! Anyway, we strolled through St. James Park on Birdcage Walk to the financial district equivalent of Wall Street called Downey Street. Over in this area we saw the infamous Big Ben and the Parliament buildings. Also the Westminster Abbey in the distance. We walked through the area to Trafalgar Square. We had our pit stop at McD's and strolled to the Thames River where the huge Ferris wheel is located. We "tubed" again to London Bridge. Now I always thought London Bridge was the quintessential bridge with the towers on both ends. After all there IS a nursery rhyme for it. Nope. London Bridge is just a regular bridge, but from London Bridge you can see the infamous Tower Bridge (ahh) that you see in photographs. We crossed that bridge when we came to it (ba-dum-ching), and made our way back to Liverpool Street to catch the train we needed at 2:15pm. A day ended short, but a fabulous one at that. Sunny and HOT!! Yay!! The days are getting longer too. The sun doesn't set now until 10:15pm!!! Love it!! On our way to the station we passed The Monument. Literally called The Monument. It seems there are a lot of literal names for places out here. Green Park for a green park, Tower Bridge for a bridge with towers at both ends, and The Monument to commemorate the great fire of London 1666 (there's also a balcony at the top, but we did not have time to climb all the stairs). We arrived at the station in PLENTY of time so we relaxed with a few Strombrough Ales (a good English cider). We were nice and cheery-o getting on the train and some of us passed out from exhaustion about mid-trip. When I woke up we were in a little piece of countryside about a half hour's drive from port (only 10 minutes to go by train). 
Evidently we were sitting there for about 30 minutes already. There was an overhead power problem on the Harwich line and we were told to get off and take a bus or wait for the next train. Problem!! We took the earlier train because the next train would make us late for boat drill. It started at 4:45pm and the train would put us into Harwich at 4:49pm. The train we were already on would get us there at 3:49pm, which is PLENTY of time. Nope. We had to leave. There were other crew on board and passengers heading back to the ship for the 5:30pm all aboard. Only the 6 of us had to participate in the boat drill. The other crew didn't have this function and the passengers were mostly people extending from the last cruise to go into Scandinavia. So, we got on the next train and ran to places at boat drill literally boarding the ship as the alarms were sounding. We did make it though and now I'm thankful for a sea day of rest. Whew!! Pictures are to follow when I figure out which ports I can get some quick and cheap Internet to upload since it takes forever on this ship. It has been an amazing couple days so now I say au revoir and cheers.
It's sad I forgot so much of it. Even though we did lose 40 minutes in the walk, we experienced the beauty of the metropolitan Paris as we walked briskly through the city. The monument (L'arc de Triomphe) was a sight to see and MUCH larger than any monument of a similar name in various cities. There were about 8 points of streets coming off this round-a-bout where the monument stood at it's center. You could take a lift to the top for wonderful views, but we didn't want to take any more time and miss the biggest attraction in Paris (the Eiffel Tower). 
This time we did take the metro, which took a little figuring out, and we even had a little "subutainment" that brought me back to home in NYC. All of a sudden we were hearing the intro to La Donna Mobile and then Lucien Pavarotti's voice was blaring out. I turn around to find a velvet curtain strung up between 2 poles with a boom box underneath and dancing around on top was a puppet version of the real artist. It was hi-larious. 
We left the train and saw the Eiffel Tower in the distance. We stopped for a little food at a fabulous creperie where I had a ham and cheese crepe and a cappuccino with some French cream on top. Yum!! We were off to the tower and time was running out. The tower was an amazing sight to see in person. At its base just looking up was breathtaking. We even stood underneath and looked into its belly. This is one huge monument. We paid the hefty price to take the lifts to the highest point. My knees got a little week as we climbed through the center of the tower. From the top there were stunning views of this gorgeously sunny day we had in Paris. From the viewfinder of my video camera/digital camera I saw the Louvre, Notre Dame du Paris, the Seine stretching out over the countryside, L'Arc de Triomphe from above, and various other beautiful gardens and monuments throughout the city. Unfortunately with the time it took to get the tickets and get to the top, which was all we had time to see and we had to scurry back to catch our train. We took the lift to the second level of the tower and the line looked too long to take the transfer lift to get to the ground, so we took the stairs. AHA!! Bad idea! We forgot we were still pretty high on the tower and how many stairs it actually entailed. We made good time and it took us about 10-15 minutes to get down. We cabbed it to the rail station to catch our train just on time. It was one of those classic Euro-rail trains you see in the movies with the private cabins of about 8 seats with the doors and all. I was imagining we were on the Harry Potter train for a moment. We made it back to the ship in plenty of time with lots of pictures. There was no real time to shop in Paris or take in the town of Le Havre. Maybe next time.London however was a different experience. Sadly we found out that next day we would have to exchange our currency into the British Pound. It's about 2 to 1 right now. Yikes!! So every price tag was actually double of what it was. To give an example, we stopped for lunch at ole Micky D's today and the value meal was 3.49 in British Pounds. Well, that isn't such a value in the US at $7.00 for the meal.
Our economy sucks folks. Anyway, with that aside and accepted we docked in another little town on the English coast called Harwich (pronounced hair-witch). The train was conveniently dockside. Literally you walked off the ship and onto the train. It was about an hour and a half to London where it drops you off at Liverpool Street. We "tubed" it to our first point of interest, the Buckingham Palace. The Tube is what is the subway for New Yorkers. It's literally a tube. It was fascinating. Also everything was in ENGLISH and fully understandable! Yay!! We've been in ports now for just over a month where there's a huge language barrier. It's nice to hear a language you can fully understand. We arrived at the Green Park station (literally a green park), and walked to the palace. It was dress rehearsal day for the queen. Next Saturday she'll be parading through on some special event from Scotland Yard to the palace. All the guardsmen were out in their fuzzy hats and uniforms lining the street for a good mile. There were people everywhere. We heard the marching band in the distance as it approached, but alas we had to keep moving since we had an even shorter time here than in Paris. See, it's an embark day and although the ship leaves at 6pm, we had to be back on board and in our boat drill places by 4:30pm. Yuck!! We lost a good hour and a half of sightseeing because of a safety function. Boo!! Anyway, we strolled through St. James Park on Birdcage Walk to the financial district equivalent of Wall Street called Downey Street. Over in this area we saw the infamous Big Ben and the Parliament buildings. Also the Westminster Abbey in the distance. We walked through the area to Trafalgar Square. We had our pit stop at McD's and strolled to the Thames River where the huge Ferris wheel is located. We "tubed" again to London Bridge. Now I always thought London Bridge was the quintessential bridge with the towers on both ends. After all there IS a nursery rhyme for it. Nope. London Bridge is just a regular bridge, but from London Bridge you can see the infamous Tower Bridge (ahh) that you see in photographs. We crossed that bridge when we came to it (ba-dum-ching), and made our way back to Liverpool Street to catch the train we needed at 2:15pm. A day ended short, but a fabulous one at that. Sunny and HOT!! Yay!! The days are getting longer too. The sun doesn't set now until 10:15pm!!! Love it!! On our way to the station we passed The Monument. Literally called The Monument. It seems there are a lot of literal names for places out here. Green Park for a green park, Tower Bridge for a bridge with towers at both ends, and The Monument to commemorate the great fire of London 1666 (there's also a balcony at the top, but we did not have time to climb all the stairs). We arrived at the station in PLENTY of time so we relaxed with a few Strombrough Ales (a good English cider). We were nice and cheery-o getting on the train and some of us passed out from exhaustion about mid-trip. When I woke up we were in a little piece of countryside about a half hour's drive from port (only 10 minutes to go by train). 
Evidently we were sitting there for about 30 minutes already. There was an overhead power problem on the Harwich line and we were told to get off and take a bus or wait for the next train. Problem!! We took the earlier train because the next train would make us late for boat drill. It started at 4:45pm and the train would put us into Harwich at 4:49pm. The train we were already on would get us there at 3:49pm, which is PLENTY of time. Nope. We had to leave. There were other crew on board and passengers heading back to the ship for the 5:30pm all aboard. Only the 6 of us had to participate in the boat drill. The other crew didn't have this function and the passengers were mostly people extending from the last cruise to go into Scandinavia. So, we got on the next train and ran to places at boat drill literally boarding the ship as the alarms were sounding. We did make it though and now I'm thankful for a sea day of rest. Whew!! Pictures are to follow when I figure out which ports I can get some quick and cheap Internet to upload since it takes forever on this ship. It has been an amazing couple days so now I say au revoir and cheers.
posted by Chris | 9:42 AM
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