5. '...Paris Never Really Leaves You'

27 July 2025

Our brief two-day stopover in Paris is now over and we must continue with the next stop on our itinerary - London.

We leave the hotel in plenty of time for our midday train to London by Eurostar. The road is very quiet. Barely a car or even pedestrians are out on this Sunday morning and our taxi ride to Gare du Nord takes just ten minutes.

And I soon find out why it is so quiet on the street.

Everyone is inside the station!

It is crowded and so it takes a few minutes to get our bearings and to find the location of our platform. Since we are travelling internationally, we have to clear customs and security, which are located on the first floor. There is no sign of a lift, and the disability helpline is...well, unhelpful.

Once the passengers for trains ahead of ours are cleared, we move towards border security, showing our Eurostar tickets and moving into the area where passports need to be verified by machines. It takes a few minutes to coordinate passport reading, looking at the camera in time for a picture to being taken, and remembering to bring luggage through when the gates briefly open. Fortunately the unhelpful staff remain on the level below, and the personnel upstairs are not only helpful, but they have a sense of humour.

We are seated together in the carriage with a table between us, our luggage is stashed just across the aisle in the luggage racks. Stowing our luggage had been a major discussion point until we checked out the seating plan online before we left this morning. Before long, we don't chug, but gently glide out of the station, past apartment buildings to the outskirts of Paris where we gain speed, even getting close to 300kms/hour at times as we hurtle through French towns, villages, and countryside. The journey of two-and-a-half hours, including the half-an-hour we spend in the dark tunnel below the surface of the English Channel, seems to take no time at all before arriving at the famous Kings Cross/St Pancras station.

Gathering our things together, we move with the crowds to the exit and are soon out on the street at the taxi rank. Red double-decker buses and black cabs, the iconic symbols of London abound. These buses and taxis are new and most of them are electric, so noise and fumes are absent from the street. All of us will fit into a normal black cab, and we are soon packing our luggage into the floor of the cab and taking a seat in the back. I do something that I have wanted to do from the very first time I visited London - sit in the dickey seat. And I take childish delight of my view of London seen from a backwards direction to get to our destination, the Radisson Blu South Kensington hotel.

Chaos!

It feels like one hundred Aussies are milling in the lobby and spilling out on the street, but that isn't entirely true. Most have already arrived and have stored their luggage as we do ourselves since our rooms are not ready. We all check in and move out of the building, away from the crowds, and into the street below. The set of terraced houses that have been converted into this hotel take up an entire block on Cromwell Road.

We have a plan. Although I won't be joining them, Carolyn, Laraine, and Marianne will be taking a HOHO bus to see the main sights of London tomorrow. A ticket office is just across the road and we head straight there where we are greeted like long lost relatives by a young man who not only places the HOHO options in front of us, but seems to know exactly what Carolyn, Laraine, and Marianne want to do, even if they don't know it themselves!

Tickets are purchased, a light lunch eaten, a dinner booking made at the local pub, and we hit the streets, taking the advice of the young HOHO ticket seller, and walk the 500metres to the V&A museum.

Today is the day that the Lionesses, England's National Women's Football Team, wins the final against Spain. This is apparently important and although I am not personally interested in football, there is a buzz around the neighbourhood.

It takes a while to finally check into the hotel and to get settled into our rooms. Marianne and I eventually end up in tiny single rooms, and although I know we should not compare one hotel with our last one, we cannot help but reflect upon the clean and modern facilities offered to us in Paris. Radisson Blu, on the other hand, is a rabbit warren of doors and old, over-furnished rooms. The one subject on everyone's lips is how to find an escape route should a fire break out. We need not have worried, as there were two fire extinguishers in every corner, so fire safety seems to be a top priority even for the Radisson. I might just need to physically prise my tongue out of my cheek on that statement.

Now cleaned up and ready for either a Sunday Roast or a typical British fish 'n chip meal at the pub, we arrive at the pub for our reserved table to find the noise levels so high that the roof seems to lift slightly each time the patrons cheer as the replay of the Lionesses win is being played on the large TV screens. We quickly cancel the booking for tonight and remake it for tomorrow and head back to a Lebanese restaurant we passed earlier.

We are expecting another fine day tomorrow, our only day in London. We need to make the most of it, and whilst I am spending the day with Natasha, the 'girls' will be sightseeing from the open top of a double-decker bus.

I return to my prison cell-like room, and surprisingly sleep very well.

Title Quote: Janice McLeod

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