Arriving in Paris

Brigitte and I left Limal this morning. Stéphane dropped us at Ottiginies at 9am so we could catch our local train into Brussels MIDI where we would catch our train to Paris. The journey is only about 1.5 hours and so we arrived at Gare du Nord just after midday, we grabbed something to eat and drink as Ian’s train from London was scheduled to arrive at 12.48pm.

Poor Ian had been quite stressed as his flight was delayed two hours departing Melbourne. This meant the time he had to get from Heathrow to St. Pancras was halved. Luckily, the pilot made up some time during the flight from Perth to London but it didn’t give him a lot of wiggle room. Ian caught the Heathrow Express to Paddington and then got a taxi across to St Pancras. The good news is that he made the train and therefore arrived in Paris as scheduled.

We caught a taxi to our hotel and were pleased to discover that our rooms were ready. After a shower and a bit of a rest we set out to explore the neighbourhood. We walked up to Place St Augustin where many of the buildings, including the impressive church, have been meticulously restored and cleaned. We then continued up to Parc Monceau where we wandered around with the many locals out enjoying a sunny Sunday afternoon. Afterwards we found a nice bar to stop and have a drink at before we headed back down to Place St Augustin, where we found a restaurant so we could have an early dinner.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel as we were all ready for an early night.Read more