The Great London Escapade!

It all started here, Gare du Nord in Paris. Felipe and I managed to pull ourselves out of bed at 7:00am (give us a break - it was vacation!) to drag the luggage in the freezing cold to the station. From Gare du Nord we took the Eurostar train to London. Traveling at almost 200 miles per hour, we arrived in London just after 10:00am and were met at the train station by Xavier who had graciously come to pick us up on his day off.

Xavier suggested that we take a walk across Blackheath towards Greenwich Park, home of the the Royal Observatory, the National Maritime Museum, and the prime meridian. It was a beautiful park, one that I am sure is even more enjoyable in the summertime.

After walking through the park we took a boat on the Thames into the city of London, getting off at Westminster. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring this area of the city. We had lunch at a pub called the Red Lion which was located near the Houses of Parliament and Wesminster Abbey.




We had lunch and got a couple of drinks - mine a Strongbow (much better than the bottled stuff you get here in the states) and Felipe a Guinness.

The food was good, not great but not bad, and the scene was nice - plus it was well located.

After eating and walking around the area, we crossed the bridge over to the other side of the river. It seems that we chose a good time to come to London, tourist-wise that is, because we went to get tickets to go on the London Eye and there wasn't a line or wait for either ticket purchases or for getting on the Eye. We were up there just in time for the sun to be going down - and the views over the City were amazing.








After getting off the Eye we walked around a bit more before heading back to Blackheath to have a lovely lunch with Becky and Xavier at a great little Argentinean Steakhouse.

One more shot before the sun set entirely:


The next day we slept in a little and headed towards the city center around 10am. This time we hopped on the tourist bus (the Original London Tour) and took that around Trafalgar Square, Fleet Street, St. Paul's Cathedral, and London Bridge. I have to say, I thought taking a tourist bus for the short visit that we had in London would be a good idea (even though I generally try to avoid them), and it turns out my first instinct is right. We even found out later that our bus touring company didn't operate at night - an important detail that I did not previously see. Anyway, I digress. After getting off around London Bridge at Tooley Street we walked over towards More London where Felipe's new job has their London Office. He had lunch with his new co-workers and I headed off in search of Shepard's pie, which I had decided to have at least once while in town.

I didn't find Shepard's pie, even after going in to a "Pie and Ale" house, which oddly only had a vegetarian version made with Quorn? weird. I ended up at a small pub, probably would be considered a bit of a dive here in the states, but precisely what I was looking for. The Shipwrights Arms was perfect, uncrowded and I got a good cottage pie, the beef equivalent of shepard's pie.


After lunch I met up with Felipe again and we walked around the river front surrounding the Tower Bridge area. It offered a lot of really nice views.

(well actually this picture was taken from the boat the day before).







After that we took the tube to Oxford Circus to meet an old co-worker of Felipe's for coffee. We ended up walking around Soho and stopping at an a little coffee shop around Regent Street. It was after coffee that we discovered that our bus tours didn't run at night...kind of a bummer to say the least! Instead we saw Piccadilly Circus, not really that exciting, and went to a couple of shops. We went to a few book stores and then to Fortnum & Mason, which has an amazing food hall - a grocery store-like place very similar to my favorite in Paris - Le Grand Epicerie. We did a little shopping there, but to tell you the truth I could have done a LOT of shopping there.

Just before we went in to some of the shops we got a text from Becky that London was expecting a crazy amount of snow and that the London public transit didn't work well. The advice was - if it starts snowing we should head back. As soon as we left Fortnum & Mason it was snowing, so we hopped on the first train back to Blackheath. By the time we got off it had stopped snowing, there wasn't really much on the ground either, and we had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Blackheath.

We got back to Xavier and Becky's house and discussed strategy for the next day. The snow was to continue through the night and all through the next morning. Well, we woke up the next morning to snow, about an inch and a half I suppose, but just enough to make travel complicated, as London is not used to having snow. Our flight was supposed to leave London at 6:00pm, so originally we had planned to finish some sightseeing that day. No such luck. Gatwick airport was closed, all day, and the flights canceled. This began our adventure to find the best way to make it back to Barcelona. Surely our 6:00pm flight would be canceled as well and we would have to try to fly out the next day, but even that wasn't a guarantee given the weather was supposed to continue.

After agonizing a bit around our options we came down to three options. One - wait in London, and try and get a direct flight the next day. This was risky, if we could not get a flight or if our flight was canceled again we would risk not making it back to Barcelona in time for our flight back to the US. Two - we could take the Eurostar to Paris and try and get a flight that night from Paris. And three - take the Eurostar to Paris and then another overnight train from Paris to Barcelona. To err on the safe side we decided to go with option three - it had the least possible chance of cancellations and delays. So at 10:45am Xavier graciously gave us another ride to the train station, and we hopped on the Eurostar for Paris.


On the Eurostar, with that morning's headline.


Here is the snowy countryside.

We made it through the Chunnel okay (fortunately without the problems the service had experience weeks earlier). After arriving to Gare du Nord, we took the subway to Gare d'Austerlitz where we had four hours to wait before our train would depart for Barcelona. This time was spent buying food to have as a "picnic" dinner on the train, sitting in a McDonald's near the station (there were no heated seating areas in the station, not even free standing heaters like Gare du Nord).

Finally, while my feet felt like frozen bricks, we were able to board our train. It was a "train hotel", and in the end I think it is my most enjoyable way to travel. Felipe and I had "first class" tickets (I think four euro cheaper than the coach tickets when we purchased), and so we had a cabin to ourselves. It wasn't huge, but it was much more spacious than if we were seated in a regular car. There were two seats, two beds that folded down, a sink, a closet, and you could lock the door. The trip was great - it was private, no one around to play their headphones too loud, you could control the heating and the lights, it was so quiet, and easy to sleep on the beds. And lest I forget one of the more enjoyable parts - no check in, no long security lines, and hardly any tired employees to deal with...so nice!







We had our breakfast in the restaurant car in the morning (it was included with the ticket), and arrived to Barcelona at 8:30am. It was a good choice too for us to leave the UK when we did. We learned a couple hours after arriving in Barcelona that all flights were still canceled and additionally they had suspended all Eurostar service again due to the weather. If we had waited to the next day we definitely would have missed our flight to New York. Overall I consider ourselves to be quite lucky!

In the end, I really enjoyed visiting with Xavier and Becky, and I really enjoyed London, but I think the next time I will go will be in warmer weather ;)