And through the Chunnel I went

From London to Paris

AUGUST 14, 2012

This trip has been very much about planning at the very last moment.  In fact, my original hostel bookings had my staying in London only til Monday morning, however, it felt like I just wasn't done yet and as you know already I made an incredible trip to Bath, Stonehenge and Windsor castle with that extra day.  After that, I truly felt my time was drawing to an end in London.  I went on line and booked travel to Paris and 4 nights in a hostel.  I'm figuring there should be nearly as much to do in Paris as there was in London, and I can always book more nights if I want. I went for the cheapest train ride to Paris that I could find, and so I ended up with a 16:22 ride out of town.  Fair enough, that gives me a few more hours in London to catch some items that were on the B list.

CHURCHILL WAR ROOMS

There's not much more to say than that this should be on your A list if you are ever in London and have not seen it.  It is a two part adventure for £16.50.  The beginning and ending of the self guided audio tour is a walk through the underground shelter that Churchill and his staff had for six years.  

It was nearly fully equipped with conference rooms, phones, kitchen, offices, bedrooms, everything, but a flushing toilet.  

In the middle of the tour is the Churchill museum.  It stretches throughout his life and his family heritage.  It bounces around different times of his life in no particular order: his wartime rise to prime minister, early triumphs and setbacks as a politician, death and back through childhood, and his ancestral line (he's related to the Duke of Marlborough, and thus the late princess Diana).  The combination of replayed speeches, signs, and audio gives you a great glimpse into this man.  Additionally, in the middle of the museum, there is a great interactive timeline where you can go to virtually any year, month and most days and see key happenings.  A true history buff could spend all day.

Here a just a handful of the plackards with quotes from Churchill.

 And the history table

SOHO

I was in the neighborhood, so I gave a brief walk through.  Nothing to exciting, but I'm sure I missed the interesting stuff.  Of course,  late at night this area is probably rocking as there are plenty of bars and restaurants around, and a few less than kid friendly establishments.  

Of course, there's always these guys to keep you in the right moral spirits should you stray too far.

BRITISH MUSEUM

My time was getting short (it was 14:50 and my train was to leave at 16:22).  I was a quick walk away from my hostel, which is only about 2 blocks away from the British Museum, so I decided if the price was right, that I'd at least stop in to see what the museum was all about.  The price was very agreeable, free, and the speed walking was on (bad form and all).  By 15:30, I had walked through 90% of the museum taking note of the various types of stuff.  Parts of the Pantheon being the best, and a statue from Easter island also stuck out.  The rest was a combination of random stuff, like the history of the horse, Egyptian ruins, pottery, jewelry, and the other usual stuff that I'll be quite happy to see in a museum when I'm 120 and hiking around cities is less of an option than it is now.  

TRAIN TO PARIS

I bolt out of the museum, and hurry the two blocks to my hostel to pick up my bags.  Ring the doorbell. Wait a minute.  Irma the doorbell.  Wait a minute.  Ring the doorbell.  I'm hoping at this point in time that someone is home.  They finally answer the door and quickly I grab my stuff, and off to the tube to get to the international train station. I make it to the station for the train ride at 13:52, and immediately read that check-in ends 30 minutes prior to train departure, so I run like the dickens to find check-in, whew, no issues even though I'm clearly a couple minutes late.  Of course there is still security to go through, passport check (yeah another stamp!!), and the boarding process.  I make it with just a couple minutes to spare.  I need to plan better :) 

As I'm doing all of this, I hear some less than appealing news in the background.  My 3 hour journey was going to become a nearly 5 hour journey as there was theft of cables on the high speed line!  Who, really, seriously, truly, honestly, steals cables from a high speed train line??  Fortunately, as we were on our way, we were rewarded with the news that we would one of 4 lucky trains to make it on the high speed line, and only be delayed 20-30 minutes.  Giddy up!!!  The trip under the channel went really quickly.  An announcer came on and said welcome to France, and that was that.  It was a none event, I was sort of hoping for something a little more memorable.  

On a random note, something that I didnt expect was the ear popping that happens everytime the train enters and leaves tunnels.  It makes sense, when you think about it.  It just however wasn't something that I thought of, especially when it's so rarely happened when flying.  Oh, and I dont know why, but I consistently end up facing backwards on these trains.  Maybe I'm doing my trip in reverse and I just don't know it yet.