Goodbye London, Hello Paris!

Our London hotel arranged for a transportation service to pick us up and take us to St. Pancras International Train Station at 7:00 a.m.  It is a huge station, but the driver took us to the side entrance closest to Eurostar which made it much easier for us.  The station was bustling with travelers.  We got a scone and yogurt parfait at a restaurant inside St. Pancras and waited until the designated time when we could enter the Eurostar line to go inside.  Eurostar is actually it's own station within St. Pancras.

~ Inside the Eurostar Station ~

~ Our boarding platform was #9 ~

Our departure was scheduled for 10:31 a.m.  We were in coach 4, seats 37 & 38.

~ Eurostar logo on the side of our coach ~

Jerry getting onboard with our luggage.  There are no porters.  Travelers are responsible for handling their own luggage.  Good thing Jerry is healthy and strong!  The Eurostar ride was 3 hours and 20 minutes with our arrival in Paris at 1:50 p.m.  

Our arrival at Paris Gare du Nord train station [10th Arrondissement] was daunting.  It is a huge station, very crowded with people [all of whom seemed to speak only French] and all the signage is French.  To our disadvantage, Jerry and I don't speak any French, so we just kept walking through the station until Jerry finally spotted an exit.  Outside we found a G-7 taxi. The driver was from Morocco, but spoke English.  

The traffic was horrendous with no lane designations on the larger streets.  It seemed like every driver had to fend for himself, but amazingly we didn't see any accidents.  We finally arrived at our hotel [in the 7th Arrondissement, left bank] safe and sound.  The streets around the hotel were very narrow with cars parked on both sides, allowing for only one lane of through traffic with bicyclists and motorcyclists weaving in and out.  Like London, buildings make use of every square inch of property and no space is left wasted.  Paris is an old, historic city with not a lot of new buildings.  They maintain, preserve and repurpose, but not demolish.  The architecture is beautiful.

Our hotel - Hotel De L'Universite

Our room #11 was smaller than the hotel room in London but very nice and clean.  The hotel itself was smaller too, but I actually liked it better.  I find it hard to believe all the hype circulating right now about Paris being infested with bed bugs, because we didn't see any sign of them.

Staircase to our room on the second floor.

We got out belongings situated then it was time to get ready for our 6:45 p.m. sight-seeing dinner cruise on the River Seine.  I pre-booked it before we left home thru 'Come to Paris' and I highly recommend them.  It was a lovely 1 hour 15 minute cruise that departed from Port de Solferino which was just a short 15 minute walk from our hotel.  It's actually why I chose the hotel.

Side view of Musée d'Orsay - a museum housed in a former railway station built between 1889 and 1900.  We boarded the dinner cruise boat across the street from it.

Front view of museum.  Paris has over 140 museums, but a visit to the Louvre or Musée d'Orsay usually tops the list.  The Beaux-Arts museum includes French Art dating from 1848 to 1914 that includes paintings, sculptures, furniture and photography.  We didn't have time to tour it though.

The dinner cruise boat making the turn-around to approach the boarding area.

Parked at the boarding area.

A peek inside the windows.

To be continued...