London – Page 2 – It's all about the coffee

Au Revoir Charlie

Today is a relocation day. We are leaving Paris and heading back to London for a night so Sharon and Emma can get their flight back to Sydney tomorrow night, and I can get my flight to Copenhagen.

We had mostly packed yesterday afternoon so we would be ready early. We had to checkout by 11 and our train wasn’t till 3 so we had a few hours to look around. We used stasher.com to find somewhere near Gare Du Nord to keep our luggage for a few hours whilst we looked around. I’d been super stressed about our ability to get across Paris on Bastille Day, but need not of worried as the traffic was less than normal. Apparently it doesn’t get crazy until sun down. It will also be insanely crazy on Sunday with France in the final for the World Cup. I expected to see tri-colours everywhere but it seemed quite subdued and really just felt like a normal Saturday morning.

Gare Du Nord was its usual eclectic mix of grimy streets, strange smells, throngs of people, back packers, dodgy characters, beggars and shite souvenir peddlers. One dodgy looking bloke was just hanging around the subway entrance looking to push past someone and get through on their subway ticket for free. I’d seen a few people do that over the past week and could spot their MO getting close to people and trying to follow them through. I blocked him from trying this as Emma went through.

As soon as we had dumped the luggage we got a train back to Gare Saint Lazare to check out the Primtemps Haussmann department store. The less time I spend at Gare du Nord the happier I’ll be.

This department store (Primtemps Haussmann) is wonderful. The true Parisian shopping experience and prices to match. They have a roof garden with a great view but unfortunately it’s closed today. We settled on coffee and a cake. Again sigh….. this was a commercial Nespresso machine. Ok and consistent as Nespresso always is, but not worth €5 a pop.

This store also has a pretty spectacular food and grocery area which we wandered and oogled all the nice looking food products for a bit. For lunch we grabbed some packaged sandwiches from the local carrefor supermarket to take on the train and avoid paying Eurostar prices for substandard food, and also to avoid joining the expected far-queue at the restaurant car on the train.

Cookie kit in a glass jar!

Not sure I’d want to explain “happy plants” to the guys at customs in Sydney.

View from the cafe

Inside Gare Du Nord looking down from the Eurostar check in area.

We started the check in process just before 2pm. Took a while to get though but thankfully not as bad as the trip to Paris. For some reason our seats were reassigned and we lost the table seat we had and were across from each other on the train. Eurostar experience overall is down on my expectations given the great trips I had last year and in 2016.

Bastille Day M&M’s for sale today

Just in time for the World Cup….

I picked up my copy of Charlie Hebdo from the station to browse through on the train back to London. I do wish they would do an English version, oh well some entertainment for the next few days over coffee with google translate to fully appreciate it

Train arrived in London on time but they screwed a few people around by not stopping at one of the designated stops (Ashford) and had to organise other transport for them. London has it all over Paris as far as arrivals go, St Pancras is clean and well maintained. We took the tube from St Pancras (Kings Cross technically as that’s the tube station attached to St Pancras international) to Paddington where we have a hotel so we don’t have to relocate across London in the afternoon tomorrow to get to Heathrow. Just jump on the Heathrow express.

Our hotel in London is right on the “CS3” cycle super highway where it’s mostly separated from traffic and crosses London. I wish Sydney could do something like this.

Our room has a mezzanine level

Travel

Eurostar or Jetstar ?

Our first bad experience with the Eurostar today. Thankfully we were on the last train out of London and we didn’t get the full Jetstar treatment with our train being cancelled. That happened to one or two earlier today due to some signalling issues on the tracks in France. Luckily we only copped a delayed departure and far-queues from hell trying to get though immigration and into the departure lounge

Love the British and their orderly queuing, a few queue jumpers got caught, publicly shamed and sent to the end of the line.

A few trains departed with out catering. Luckily it’s only 2hrs to Paris. Thankfully even though it took forever to get through our train was only 40 minutes late. I was also somewhat surprised we had a spare seat next to us given the earlier cancelled trains.

The Eurostar people even helped load our luggage. Not long after departure I’m reminded of all the things I love about the Eurostar, comfortable seats with legroom, it’s fast and you get a great view.

At the end of the day, the Eurostar wasn’t Jetstar.

Sharon brought these delicious strawberries to nibble on during the trip. They were perfect, sweet all the way through. At home we sometimes get strawberries with a slightly tart taste, not these ones.

We have finally made it to Paris. We get our apartment tomorrow. For the night we are in this corner room on the 6th floor of a hotel right between Gare Du Nord and Gare Du Est stations. More pics of that tomorrow.

It does have a lift but I love these stairs

Travel

Working towards the Globe

Whilst I was at work (and sampling a few coffees) Sharon and Emma were doing a little more sightseeing around London. Their plan had been to check out the Churchill War Rooms (I’ve done this twice already – they are awesome) however the three hour queue for entry killed that idea.

Instead they headed over to the Victoria and Albert museum. Before heading in for a look around the coffee and cake there was sampled, with reports that it was quite good. The cake certainly looks alright !

after a good look around here they had lunch in the grounds of St Paul’s. A truly wonderful spot for lunch on a warm London summer’s day

At 5pm we all headed down to the Globe Theatre for a evening showing of Hamlet. Stopped for some Italian food along the way at Zizzi

Some excellent advice from Josh back at home we got great seats. More info on which seats to pick below

Even if you are not a Shakespeare fan, from a historical perspective its worth a visit. In terms of tickets, for London theatre its reasonably priced, you can get seats for around £30 (way cheaper if you want to stand in the pit in front of the stage, only £5). Whilst the building is a modern construction, its as close to the original as modern safety and fire codes will allow. Its not on it original site where it was in the 16th century, but its very close. The original site is only a few hundred meters away and its worth walking around the corner to look at it.

One of the most interesting facts about the theatre is that its the only building in central London thats allowed to have a thatched roof (they learnt a lot after 1666). Lots more info on it over at good ol’ wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare%27s_Globe

In my opinion the best value seats are in the lower gallery. There are a handful of cheaper seats (slight view obstruction) but they have no one in front of you so there is stacks of leg room and no on behind you so you can lean up against the wall. Also very close to the exit.

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After Dinner we walked back to the apartment and took some photos. Glorious warm night to be walking along the river

Travel

Double Coffee and Gherkin

This mornings coffee on the way to the office was from the notes chain, which have a coffee shop on the ground floor of the Gherkin. Below is a picture from the inside looking out as well as a selfie with the Gherkin ” A Gherkie”. The coffee was surprisingly good, at least a 7.5/10

It’s possible that it’s because it was my first morning coffee after a few pints last night that made it so good, rather than the quality of the coffee itself. Ones own perception of these things is impacted by many factors….

I had to pop out to Houndsditch Post Office again today to post home the second tsunami of books. I’m really thinking I should buy shares in Royal Mail as this is costing a right royal fortune in postage.

On the way back I passed secret frog coffee and the temptation was too great to resist. This coffee is great a decent 8/10. They sell coffee in cup sizes equal to the sizes at home for a similar price. This one was £2.85. I’ve been paying that or £3 for what would be a small or below small at home

On my way back I ran into Wilson and Rikesh from the office who got their coffee at “Association” coffee, right behind the Gherkin. This is another great coffee place that is rated highly by the Australian contingent in the office.

And of course since it was behind the Gherkin, another opportunity to provide the Obligatory Daily Gherkin pic.

Lunch was from the Japanese Canteen behind the Gherkin. This is right next door to “Association” coffee. This lunch spot is excellent and it’s extremely popular.

One more thing…

If you like my blog you will probably like my mate John’s blog. John and Perry are currently traveling through the USA and Canada. Here is the link

http://johnandperrystravels.blog

Travel

Coffee Bombs & Pestilence

Coffee today was had down at the Imperial War Museum near Elephant and Castle station. The IWM has five locations in the UK, three of them are in London (The other two are the Churchill War Rooms and the HMS Belfast). The IWM is on the old site of the Bethlam Royal Hospital (Often referred to as Bedlam). Coffee was 6.5/10

The museum has 5 levels of displays, the bottom level focused on WW1. This is where we spent the most time as it was relevant to some school assignments Emma was working on. Its interesting to compare the WW1 display here with what we have in Canberra. Here in the London museum, Gallipoli is barely covered and only warrants a small mention where for Australia its a nation defining moment and warrants significant space in our National War Memorial.

After a few hours at the museum we headed back to the apartment, grabbed some sandwiches for lunch then headed out on a Fire, Pestilence & Plague walking tour organised by http://freelondonwalkingtours.com. The tour was very good starting at the fire monument and ending up near St Paul’s. The tour covered much about the fire and plauge

How and where the fire started
How building methods contributed to the deadly ferocity
Why it spread
The incompetence of the authorities that allowed it spread as far as it did,
how the French & Dutch were initially blamed (with one person hanged)
Where it eventually stopped
The spark the started the London Banking, Finance & Insurance industries
How many streets got their name
Why pudding lane should really be called Rotting Animal Guts Lane
Where and when the plague took hold
Where the burial plots are

The tour was well worth doing, its “free”, however nothing in life is free and especially not in London. The guide explains that its expected that if you enjoy the walk you will leave a tip. No problems with that, it was a fantastic two hour tour. We also learnt about a massive Roman amphitheatre that was discovered where the public can view the ruins on a Thursday.