Quick Trip to Paris

We took the Eurostar train from London under The English Channel & into Paris for the day. Click on the image below to view the entire album of pictures from our time in Paris.

Paris 2011

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French Riviera - Monaco, Monte Carlo, Eze & Villefranche

Monaco – Beautiful palace, beautiful location, the prince was home, very expensive

Monte Carlo – Beautiful, lots of rich folks, extremely expensive, the chicken wasn’t allowed into the Casino.

Eze – This was a small 13th century stone village located on a hill along the water. We will come back here sometime.

Villefranche – Beautiful -- The ship anchored in the harbor & basically dwarfed the town.

Marseille – 18 years have gone by so fast

Today did not start off too well. We had a chance to sleep in, and when we woke up, Joel had started developing a bit of a cold. We decided to forgo a trip into the French countryside in favor of a quick trip into town followed by some down time on the ship.

Since this is officially our 18th anniversary, we had a special dinner at the special, adults-only restaurant Palo. The dinner was wonderful, but the chocolate soufflé… It doesn’t get much better than that.

Anyway, it is Pirate night and there is a big bash on the upper deck tonight. Everyone is running around with bandanas, parrots and/or eye-patches. It looks like it is going to be fun.

Mediterranean Itinerary July 2007

Well, it's almost time for our summer trip to Italy, France, Spain & a few other assorted locations. We are so very fortunate! Our itinerary is listed below.

Days 1-5 - Rome

Day 6 - Barcelona, Spain
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Ship: Disney Magic

Day 7 - At Sea
Sunday, July 8, 2007

Day 8 - Palermo, Sicily
Monday, July 9, 2007

Day 9 - Naples, Italy (Pompeii)
Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Day 10 - Olbia, Sardinia
Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Day 11 - Civitavecchia, Italy (Rome)
Thursday, July 12, 2007

Day 12 - At Sea
Friday, July 13, 2007

Day 13 - La Spezia, Italy (Florence, Pisa)
Saturday, July 14, 2007

Day 14 - Marseille, France
Sunday, July 15, 2007

Day 15 - Villefranche, France (Monte Carlo, Cannes, Nice)
Monday, July 16, 2007

Day 16 - At Sea
Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Day 17 - Barcelona, Spain
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Channel + Tunnel = Chunnel

According to our itinerary, we were supposed to leave Paris by train to London early in the day. However, there was some sort of train schedule change so we were able to spend most of the day in France.


Since there wasn’t time to go into the city, we visited the Disney Studios park.

We ended up taking the Eurostar train to London in the evening. The train went through the Chunnel which is a long tunnel built under the English Channel. It only took about two and a half hours to travel from Paris to London via this train.

We are staying at the Dorchester Hotel in the Westminster area of London. The Dorchester is affiliated with the Beverly Hills Hotel. It is amazing! It’s a 5-star hotel that is a block and half away from Buckingham Palace. When we checked in, we were given a personal tour of the facilities. The room had fuzzy slippers laid out for us, fuzzy bathrobes and a bathroom that was larger than our cruise ship cabin. We asked for an Internet cable for the room and about 2 minutes later, we heard a doorbell. Our room has a doorbell!

There's no way we would ever stay at a place like this without using our Disney Vacation Club (timeshare) points.

We are pretty tired & are planning to get up early & go on some sort of city tour tomorrow.

French Fries

Day 15: Paris
Today we took the Metro from our hotel into Paris.








The weather was very hot & humid (37c!). We both ended up getting a bit of sunburn; Joel more so than me. We spent the day touring around Paris by bus, foot & Metro.






The city was also in the process of getting ready for the Tour de France.


In all of our travels, today was the first day where the differences in the languages really hit home. For example: in Finnish, there is a word for a room that is hot and steamy that people spend time in. It’s called a sauna. The French also have a word like this. It’s called the Metro.



One other quick distinct that needs to be made about Paris...

- Eiffel Tower
- Ear'fle Tower











Here are a bunch more of photos from today.








As you can see, it was a very nice day.










We think this last one was dressed up for Bastille Day

Cheese with our wine

Yep. Disneyland Paris.

We arrived in Paris last night and got to the hotel. After a quick refresh, we popped into the park for a bit.

After all the deep history, art, and architecture we have experienced over the past 10 days (8 countries!), it is kind of nice to do something cheesy.

This morning we are taking the train into Paris and do more touristy bits.

Final Itinerary (revised due to G8 Summit Conference)

• London, United Kingdom
  
• Stay one night before cruise
• Dover, United Kingdom
  
• Board cruise ship
• Day at Sea - Cruise through Kiel Canal
• Copenhagen, Denmark
• Warnemunde, Germany
• Day at Sea - Cruise through Swedish Archipelagos
  
• Stockholm, Sweden
• Helsinki, Finland
• Tallinn, Estonia
• St. Petersburg, Russia
  
• Disembark ship early & stay two nights
  
• Marne-la-Vallee and Paris, France
• Stay two nights
  
• London, United Kingdom
  
• Stay three nights