London & Paris

Yesterday, I got back from a week of traveling around London and Paris with Maddi. We had 3 nights at each place and had a lot of fun. This will be my last blog post because I am coming back home tomorrow!

There are a few ways you can choose to read this blog so please choose whichever option best suits you:

Option 1: (This option is for people who prefer pictures and not reading so much.)

Scroll quickly through and just look at all the pictures.

Option 2: (This option is for people who kind of care about my trip but are more so interested in the pictures.)

Read my first part, London vs. Paris, to get a quick look into the sights, food, transportation, etc. Then scroll quickly through and look at all the pictures.

Option 3: (This option is for people like my sister who do care about my trip, but can only handle a certain amount of reading all of the details.)

Read my first part, London vs. Paris, and skim through the more detailed section that talk about each individual day in the cities… and of course, look at the pictures.

Option 4: (This is for people like my parents who are thoroughly interested in every aspect of this trip and like to read, re-read, re-post, comment, and then follow up with a text about how much they enjoyed the blog.)

No more explanation is necessary.

London vs. Paris

People have been asking me… which city did you like better? Here is the poll:

Language

London: I loved being back in an English speaking country! Plus, I love the British accents.

Paris: I know a grand total of about 3 words in French. We were obviously in a big tourist city so most people were able to speak English to us, but there were a couple of times that it would have helped to know some more French. But when French is spoken it sounds so pretty!

Winner: London

Currency

London: The pound

Paris: The euro

Winner: Paris (simply because I have been more comfortable dealing with euros since I’ve been in Italy)

Favorite Sight(s)

London: Westminster, Big Ben, London Eye, Trafaulger Square, Leicester Square, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

Paris: Eiffel Tower

Winner: Paris (The Eiffel Tower was SO impressive.)

Food

London: British Pub food, Brazilian BBQ, Thai

Paris: Crepes, Falafels

Winner: London with it's variety of food choices!

Drinks

London: Pimm’s Pitcher. Maddi read about it on her UK Buzzfeed that she had access to while she was in Ireland and was dying to try it. Pimm’s is some type of alcohol (which apparently you can buy in the states) and it’s mixed with soda water and various fruits/vegetables like cucumbers, lemons, oranges, and berries!

Paris: Champagne (and other wines)

Winner: Both! I am not a huge alcohol fan to begin with. And the first Pimm’s pitcher we had, wasn’t strong at all and it tasted like a fruity soda! The second one we had was a little stronger and I didn’t enjoy it as much. In Paris we got to enjoy champagne out on the grass watching the Eiffel tower light up at night which was also a cool experience.

Hostels

London: Clink 78 was very crowded. We were in a room with a total of 10 girls. There were 5 bunk beds in a small room and college community style showers and bathrooms. There was only WiFi downstairs in certain areas of the hostel and even in these designated areas, it kept going in and out.

Paris: Oops! seemed much less crowded. We were in a room with only 2 other girls and had our own bathroom and shower in our room. We also had WiFi from our own room that worked really well.

Winner: Paris

Transportation

London: The London Underground system is also known as the Tube. We got an Oyster card which is super easy to use. It looks like a credit card and in order to enter the Tube you just scan it and the turnstile opens. When you get to your destination, you scan it to exit and it charges you. The most expensive one we went on was less than 3 euros and one night we even got a free Tube ride somehow! It’s easy to load up the card by going to a machine and inserting money and it gets on the card.

Paris: The Metro has cars that come very frequently but no matter your destination around the main part of the city, it costs 1.70 euros for one way. You can buy a booklet of 10 of them but we weren’t going to use it that many times so we just bought them individually at the station before we got on.

Winner: London and its Tube and Oyster Card

Weather

London: The first day we got to London and we were dragging our luggage to our hostel, it was very hot. But the next two days we were there to tour around all day, it was beautiful and perfect weather.

Paris: When we arrived on the train, it was raining a lot. But other than that, the other days were perfect touring weather.

Winner: Both

People

London: Everyone we talked to were very nice and helpful. It helps that we speak the same language.

Paris: Even if they couldn't speak English very well, people we talked to were happy to help and interested in where we were from.

Winner: Both

Overall, I really enjoyed both cities. I think that in general, I enjoyed travelling around London more because there were more sights as a whole that I was interested in. The Harry Potter aspect also makes me a little biased. But, the Eiffel Tower was definitely my favorite thing I saw.

Okay, here is what I did each day with pictures!

Day 1: Italy to London

We both landed in the London Heathrow Airport within 30 minutes of each other but we were at different terminals that were not nearby. We had planned a meeting point, but there was WiFi so we were able to communicate and had no issues meeting up. We took the Tube to King's Cross Station (first Harry Potter point of interest) which took about 54 minutes. We saw Platform 9 3/4 and then walked 10 minutes to our hostel. After we got settled in, we walked to a nearby area called Upper Street that had a variety of food choices where we enjoyed some Brazilian BBQ and our first Pimm's pitcher. We wandered around a little bit and found ourselves back at King's Cross Station and headed back for bed at the hostel.

King's Cross Station

Day 2: London

We took the Tube over to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard. This ended up just being a very crowded place where we couldn't see anything except for about 60 seconds when the guards quickly walked past us. But it seemed like it would be a cool ceremony to watch if you had a better view because it was over an hour of different things going on. 

Changing of the Guards

Buckingham Palace behind us

We made our way over to Westminster and saw a church, Westminster Abbey, and the House of Parliament which was a very cool area that I really enjoyed.

St. Margaret's Church

House of Parliament

Then we were able to see Big Ben and the London Eye.

Big Ben

London Eye (left) and Big Ben (right)

Westminster and Big Ben

We found our way over to an area across from Westminster and Big Ben called South Bank where a Festival of Love event was taking place. It had a really colorful and cool environment and lots of fun stuff going on like dancing and performers.

Festival of Love

London offers a lot of free museums so we walked over to the Tate Modern Art Museum which was relatively interesting for us and also saw Shakespeare's Globe on our walk over.

Shakespeare's Globe

There are several bridges in London that were interesting. You would think The London Bridge would be the best. It was the ugliest and least cool. We really liked the Millennium Bridge and the Tower Bridge.

Millennium Bridge

Southwark Bridge

Maddi's reaction to the London Bridge

Tower Bridge

Later that night we headed out to Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus Square to see some night life.We were able to see China Town and an area called Soho as well. It was very lit up but because it was Sunday, the only things that were open were clubs. 

Day 3: London

This was my favorite day of the whole week!

We started off by doing a Muggle Tour that was a 2 1/2 hour walking tour around London that discussed Harry Potter facts, Harry Potter movie set locations, and various London history. Here is some of the stuff I thought was the most interesting:

The Leaky Cauldron (on the left)

One of JK Rowling's favorite spots in London

The street that inspired Diagon Alley

• The London Eye and The Millennium Bridge were for the new millennium (although they were not completed in time for this new millennium.) The architect who designed the Millennium Bridge is still a "joke" to London because when they had the grand opening of this bridge, all of the people wanted to be the first to run across this bridge and when they all started going on it, the bridge started to wobble. Now the bridge is known as the Wibbly-Wobbly bridge. And at the beginning of the 6th Harry Potter (Half-Blood Prince) the Death Eaters destroy this bridge because they are still making fun of this architect.
• JK Rowling had given her Harry Potter book to many publishers and all of them turned her down. One of the publisher's assistants stumbled upon the book and insisted that the publisher read it. The publisher decided to give it to his daughter to read and if she enjoyed it, then it would be published. Luckily this little girl loved it!
• When JK Rowling gave publishing rights to Warner Brothers for the movies, she gave specific orders that everything would be filmed in the London area. They couldn't use any of their studios in Hollywood. It would all have to be done over here. She also said that every actor had to be either British or Irish. Robin Williams was a huge fan and told Warner Brothers that he just wanted to be in the movie and they wouldn't have to pay him. They were very excited for this, but JK Rowling turned them down because she wanted to keep this London type environment.
• Because they cast the children actors very young and didn't know if they'd be any good, they decided to choose actors that already resembled the characteristics of these characters. For example, when they got a new director for the 3rd movie, Prisoner of Azkaban, this new director told the actors of Harry, Ron, and Hermoine to write an essay about their character. They were about 12 or 13 years old and Emma Watson comes in with a 6 page typed essay about Hermoine. Daniel Radcliffe hands the director a scribbled hand-written page about Harry Potter. Rupert Grint forgot to write it because "that's what Ron would have done." 

After the tour, we got to see Trafalgar Square where the National Gallery paintings are. We weren't huge fans of the paintings, but we were huge fans of this giant blue rooster in the square! Apparently every year or so, this statue changes in the square.

Trafalgar Sqare

Street Art (we put a US penny and a some London coinage down on the USA)

In Leicester square there is an M&M's World which is basically like any other M&M's World you have been to, except for these cool British things:

Next, we took a 45 minute tube ride over to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Aquatic Center (you can swim in the actual olympic pool for a few pounds!)

Maddi getting a workout in at the park on a weird treadmill machine

Cycling

That night we went back to the South Bank area where the Festival of Love was and had dinner in this area with music playing and park benches to sit on. There was even a Bar Carousel that was like a typical carousal for children but it was moving very slowly and instead of animals to ride, there were bar tables and stools. 

Pretty view from South Bank

 Day 4: London to Paris

Our train from London to Paris wasn't until 4 in the afternoon so we had time to explore more of London in the morning. We walked to Camden Market which was a market place with a lot of interesting crafts and art. Then we went into the British Museum and saw the original Rosetta Stone because my dad highly recommended it.

Great quality picture of the Rosetta Stone

Because we were taking an International train, I didn't know what type of security or customs to expect. We did a basic security check and then they stamped my passport for France and that was that! Very easy. The train was about 2 1/2 hours and we were so exhausted I slept most of the way. 

When we arrived, we took a 20 min metro to the hostel and walked to Rue Mouffetard which was a nearby street with a lot of food choices. We decided to go with a fixed menu where we get an appetizer, entree, and dessert of authentic french cuisine. Maddi ordered the onion soup (not the French onion soup... just the regular onion soup because we were in France.) For our main courses we both ordered different foods that both included cheese, potatoes, and ham which we weren't too fond of. But the creme brule made up for it. 

Day 5: Paris

This day we explored all of the main sights of Paris and walked from our hostel along the River Seine and ended at the Eiffel Tower. I have put up a lot of pictures I took on this day. I did see the Latin Quarter and the Jewish Quarter which are not pictured here but were fun places.

Lock Bridge

Lock Bridge and Notre Dame in the background

Notre Dame

Notre Dame

Square of the Louvre

The Louvre

Arc de Triomphe (Appropriately wearing a bike shirt at the ending of the Tour de France)

Walking up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe

View of the Eiffel Tower

Day 6: Paris

We started off our last full day by taking the Metro to Moulin Rouge. Then we walked up to the hill of Sacre-Coeur which had cute little shops, good views of Paris, and a lot of interesting street art.

Maddi was very fond of these water fill up spots

Sacre-Coeur Church

View of Paris

We walked around the city a bit and went to a Crepe place recommended to us by a friend and then walked along Canal St. Martin.

Canal St. Martin

We went to a very big park called Parc des Buttes Chaumont which had a lot of interesting activities going on that was nice to people watch. Then we made our way over to an area called Republique and ate cheese, bread, and had some rose wine while we listened the music playing in the square and people watched some more.

Maddi and I came to the conclusion that we were excellent travel buddies and it was so much fun exploring these new places together! It was exciting seeing different countries but now I am definitely ready to be home tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who has kept up with reading my blogs!!

Lauren