I’ve been very lucky to have a good friend of mine living in Paris for the past 7 years.  Before he moved over there, I didn’t travel much outside of the US, maybe Montreal once or twice.  Being able to visit Europe almost once a year for the past 7 years has been an amazing thing,  and I’ve been able to use Paris as a jumping off point for other destinations.  This last trip was no exception.  We flew into Paris on a nonstop from JFK late Friday night, arriving around lunch time Saturday (for those curious, we flew XL Airways France.  I was a bit skeptical as they were a low cost carrier, but the experience was completely fine and the flight times couldn’t be beat).  After a crazy arrival party and getting a bit of sleep Saturday night, we woke Sunday, had an excellent Parisian brunch of croissants, pain au chocolat, baguette and eggs, and then headed to the train station to grab the (very fast) train to London.  I was super excited to see London, as I’ve never been there before.  We were also staying in a nice central location at the Waldorf in London’s West End where we could walk to almost everything we wanted to see.

Arriving at St. Pancras train station in London

 

The first night there we had two goals — the London Eye and dinner.  We made 8 pm reservations for the London Eye online for the “champagne experience“, this includes priority boarding as well as a glass of champagne.  If you’re heading to London and want to go up in the Eye, I highly recommend the priority ticket (having champagne while you gaze at Big Ben doesn’t hurt either).  We literally walked over there at 8 pm and they took us right up.  The views from the Eye are stellar, and the Eye itself isn’t so bad to look at either.

Looking out of our capsule, the Parliament Houses and Big Ben are down to the right

 

Looking North up the Thames

 

The London Eye takes a half hour to make one revolution.  We boarded at 8 and were off at 8:30, perfect timing to make our 9:30 reservation at Rules, the oldest restaurant in London.  I highly recommend this place.  We had some oysters to start, I had rabbit for a main and then, probably one of the best desserts I’ve ever had, sticky toffee pudding.  On my first bite of it I had one of those, “how did I never know about this?!” reactions.  We turned in late that night (jet lag was still taking its toll) and woke the next morning for a full day of touring the city.  Lots of pictures, so I’m going to save them for the next post 🙂