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Day 4: March 26, 2024
After a super early start (5am!!), everybody boarded the coach to St Pancras International, where we boarded the Eurostar which, since 1994 has been shuttling people to and from the UK and mainland Europe. It was far easier to find our seats, all in the same carriage, than it was to cram our sizeable luggage into the minimal storage racks! Blink, and you missed the speedy two-and-a-quarter-hour-long journey, and the 31.5-mile-long tunnel ‘sous lLa Manche’: under the English Channel!
Once we had arrived in Paris, our coach driver had managed to park directly opposite the main entrance which was a godsend in the pouring rain! We made it to our hotel and freshened up before joining our local guide, Régine, who told us all about some of the famous landmarks in Paris, as we were driven steadily past them. We saw so many sites but these included the Eiffel Tower (where we just had to have a photo stop, despite the heavens opening, as we stepped out of the coach!), the Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral, the Champs-Élysées, les Invalides, Place de la Concorde and the École Militaire. It was s bit surreal to see tiered seating behing erected, ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games which open here, in July! We then took the Métro as we made our way to a really stylish restaurant called Flams, sampling savoury and sweet versions of an Alsatian dish called Flammenkuechen that is a bit like a ‘skinny’ pizza. Finally, back to the hotel for some deserved sleep and sweet Parisian dreams!