Day 4: June 27, 2024

Today we left the hotel very early to travel to St Pancras International station to catch the Eurostar train to Paris. On the UK's only international train the security is like an airport, and you have to arrive 2 hours before the train leaves - as our train was at 8am, we had to be there by 6am! Everything went smoothly though and we arrived in Paris at 11.30am (1hr ahead of UK time). Everything has been in confusion in Paris for the last few months, due to preparations for the Olympics, and this visit did not disappoint. The bus that came to take us to our hotel was not a touring coach, but a regular city bus, so our bags went into a van, and we rode in the bus, without air condtioning on this really hot day! We arrived at our hotel and put our bags into a storage room, but were told that here too the air-condtioning had broken down that day, and would not be fixed until the following morning. We went to a nearby store to get some snacks and then took the RER (suburban trains) into the centre of Paris. The group visited the Louvre, where miraculously (for the first time ever when I have taken a group), there were no queues to get in with pre-booked tickets. After the visit we took some photos by the 'Pyramid', the glass entrance to the Louvre. Then we travelled by métro (subway) to our dinner restaurant opposite the cathedral of Notre Dame. Usually I consider this one of the best restaurants we eat at in Paris, but this time they gave us a VERY peculiar looking meal , which caused a lot of merriment. After dinner we had some free time to look around the 'Latin Quarter' and do some shopping before going back to our hotel to check in. Because of the lack of air conditioning, many of the group did what Europeans do when it's hot, and sat outside on the terrace for a while.