Leaving Ripon & the UK

Tonight, Sunday, we have been packing up our bags because tomorrow we leave lovely Yorkshire to drive to St Pancras and the Eurostar to Paris. We will stay the night at the Moxy Hotel at Charles de Gaulle Airport and pick up our French rental car. We are headed to Carteret on the coast of Normandy for 10 days by the sea.

But today was special because Chris and Stu dropped by on their way to York and had lunch with us at the Ripon Inn. It was originally the Ripon Spa Hotel, an Edwardian-era establishment built in 1906 to serve visitors to the city's spa. It has five acres of gardens which were only hinted at from its many dining rooms. Anyway it was wonderful to see them. Thanks for coming!

The next day was a blur. Leaving Bishopton at 8am, we made good progress to arrive at St Pancras shortly after 1pm. The Google Maps app was a godsend and got us into London and to the station without much bother- other than the crowded roads, frequent road works and people doing odd things.

Then having returned our rental car, there was the Eurostar. Look, it’s a great way to get across the channel, but like all things in these days of mass travel, it’s mightily over subscribed. I bought some cashews and some chocolate almond thingies so we happily munched on those as we forged on to Gare du Nord. France is only a stones throw from old Blighty, but a world away in culture. Get off the train and you feel it immediately. I had forgotten how well the French do things. The French are more careful, have more attention to finer details and civilities, about which they care a lot. In sniffing the air at Gare du Nord (although not on the CDGVal to the airport which was a little too close for the smell test) and the revamped Charles de Gaulle Terminal 2, I discerned a bit more openness and a relaxation of social protocols than on my last visit. I am thinking that this may be a consequence of their extraordinary Olympics which was carried out with such elan, and for which they were mightily praised.

So dear reader, we made it out of the wonderful UK and into Paris, then on to Charles de Gaulle where our hotel Moxey was a mercifully short walk from Terminal 2. It was 9:45pm and we were hungry, tired and a bit travel-buzzed. The kitchen was about to close but we managed to share a delicious burger and some indifferent chips before retiring to our room. There ended a day of our lives given over to movement through a vast amount of space in a very short time although it paradoxically felt endless. Amen to all that.Читать далее