To get to Paris, we took advantage of a program called Eurostar Snap. You sign up for either morning or evening on a specific date and they assign a train to you. We were hoping for a mid-morning train but of course we got stuck with the first train of the day at 5:40. That is the risk you take with this so we just sucked it up. We had no difficulties taking the Thameslink to get from our hotel to St Pancras station and then onto the Eurostar. The Eurostar was your standard train experience, except for the bachelorette party wearing Micky Mouse onesies. Once in Paris, getting our bags from Gare Du Nord to our hotel was a little bit of a struggle due to the crowded metro and steps but nothing too difficult.
We eventually arrived at our cute little hotel in the 1 er – Hotel Therese. Samantha was not as impressed with the Paris Metro compared to the London Underground. Our room was not quite ready yet so we go got some pastries for breakfast and waited for room and planned our day. We settled into our room and then headed out to grab lunch at a Mediterranean sandwich shop near the hotel. It was decent, but nothing remarkable. It also began to snow at a good rate. Heavy snow is rare in Paris, but seeing the city in the snow is a beautiful and unique sight.
We spent the entire afternoon at the Louvre just wandering around. It was a lot harder than other museums to find your way and make sure you see everything. In addition, certain parts of the museum like the Egyptian and decoration sections were closed, possibly due to the ongoing flooding. This meant other sections of the museum were difficult to get to and required going up to another floor and then down again to access. Nonetheless, we saw all the classics – Mona Lisa, Winged Victory of Samulthrace, and the Venus de Milo.
I also created my collection of artwork I found…interesting.
We headed back to the hotel for tea time and to rest a bit. We then headed out again and had a lovely dinner at a bistro right around the corner from our hotel. I had a lamb shoulder and Samantha had a steak. Both were very good.