Roissy Village

The final leg of our journey {here and here}, arriving back in Paris via the chunnel from London, where we spent an almost half-day. Rather than stay back in the hustle and bustle of the city center, only to get up at the crack of dawn to make our way to CDG airport, we opted for a night in Roissy.

Roissy Village is just outside of the airport entrance (about a 5-minute drive) but you would never know it by the peace and tranquility inside this hidden gem of a small, historic town. Once we got checked into our hotel, we set out to stretch our legs and get in as much activity as we could before our long flight home the next morning.
We were pleasantly surprised at the charm of this sleepy little village. Not many of the shops were open, but we did find a small restaurant filled with locals to have an early dinner.

There were little signs all throughout the park explaining the history of the village.

The grounds were immaculate. I found myself taking frequent, deep breaths, trying to inhale as much outside air as possible (even polluted outside air feels better than stale recycled airplane air).
Sweet cobblestone streets and lovely old homes with abundant flower pots, boxes, and gardens.
Most importantly, this little monkey was able to swing around a bit before bed and the long flight home early in the am.
One more post from our European getaway coming at you later this week.

Then it's back to HOUSE stuff, I need a fix!!

Happy Monday all.

4 days in London

Day one:

As you read here, we started our big adventure in Paris, then took the chunnel to London.

We arrived in the mid afternoon and our great friend Yuki met us at St Pancras station and stuck with us throughout. He is always such a pleasure to be with and since he lives in Soho, he kept us away from the typical touristy areas, restaurants and attractions.

The weather was nice, just a bit cooler than Paris but wowza, was London crowded!!

We took a cab to our hotel (stayed in the St. James area), checked in, and immediately set out on foot.

We walked through the St. James area, Bond street shops, and around to Oxford Street.

We made our way around to the marble arch area and right into Hyde Park.

Serpentine lake~ great place for people and duck-watching.

Little one played in the upside down tree for a bit then we lingered in the Princess Diana Memorial gardens and walk.

We had dinner at a fabulous place on the outskirts of town called the Lahore Kebab house.

It was quite a wild and crazy, yet memorable experience.

We were sleepy after dinner and ready to get into our cozy king and watch some good old fashioned (NOT~ think racy and inappropriate) British television while the boys strolled around Soho.

Day two:

Shopping, shopping, shopping.There were crazy sales going on everywhere {Paris and London} and London is filled with inexpensive cute chic stores (Zara has three tiers of stores here and H&M has another tier). We got up early and made our way to the huge, cheap, and popular Primark store. Let's just say our stop here was so successful (and ridiculously cheap~ think about $8 per item) that we had to buy another small piece of luggage.Oxford street is the shopping meca, I just couldn't get over it. Then there are these small alleyways which take you to small, chic little shopping strips. Every store was so crowded it was hard to move (TopShop- eek!/ Kurt Geiger- ♥).

I was shopped out within a day.

We dropped our new bag full of cheap clothes off at the hotel then took the tube to Notting Hill.

We bought a pass for the London tube and headed on down, down, down to the tube line to get us to Notting Hill. For some reason I had a really bad experience with claustrophobia in the London subway. I actually almost had a panic attack, it was really scary. I had to breathe deep and stay focused to get through it. I think a combination of going so many levels underground, with only one subway line per side (versus Paris where both trains run next to each other so it's a much more open area and not so far underground), AND the train just fits inside the tunnel, so as you look out the window you see the wall right there. It makes me hyperventilate just thinking about it. OK~ so after buying our passes I decided I could no longer take the tube so we'd either have to walk it, bus it, or cab it (keep in mind that our dollar isn't worth much there right now so we were trying to be as frugal as possible).

Here is just one of the escalators taking you down into the depths of subway hell. Look how steep this descent is...

Whew- we made it to Notting Hill. I loved every nook and cranny here. Although we missed the big Portobello Road market, some antique vendors were out on the streets.

Flowers galore (also seen in my earlier post here).

The All Saints store was so unusual yet amazing! I got out of there with one pair of dark, ankle denim on sale. All of their stores are decorated using these vintage sewing machines.

The infamous book store from the movie Notting Hill.

So many cute cottage style flats in Notting Hill.

We had lunch at Daylesford Organic Market. I was so taken with the decor and people watching I had a hard time focusing on my deliciously healthy and green lunch. Not hubby's favorite, but mine by far!

Another collage of Notting Hill shopping and sites.
A stop for cupcakes at Hummingbird Bakery after lunch was a must.

It was at this point that we stumbled upon Brissi (post here).

Next, a wild goose chase to a supposedly 'hush~hush' antique alley off the beaten path in Notting Hill/Kensington. I grand visions of antique English ironstone and goodies galore but not so much...in fact not a store did we enter.

But were it not for this stroll into the Kensington area we would'nt have seen the St. Mary Abbotts Church and school tucked behind the huge old trees.



A stop at Whole Foods in Kensington for a coffee and brief break was needed. The entire second story was filled with restaurants and food. Way cooler than our stores here. Here's a view of the St. Mary Abbotts' steeple from the window where we sat.

We ended our day with a stroll through Kensington Gardens (other section of Hyde Park).

The Wellington Arch on the outskirts of Hyde Park.

I thought you'd get a kick out of seeing all of the young professionals and tourists standing outside the pub having beer at the end of the day. This is a daily ritual even when it's raining.

Dinner in Soho (fabulous Indian food all over London and Paris!).
On our walk back to the hotel we found more little alleys filled with cute shops and London's famed Liberty department store.

Day three:
We awakened to a drizzly day so we cabbed it over to the British Museum.

The museums in London are free of charge which is incredible! While a bit crowded, we enjoyed the British Museum and N loved the Egyptian artifacts exhibit, especially the mummys.

After the musuem we had lunch then walked around a bit before heading back to the hotel to rest before our big evening plans!

One of the biggest highlights of our trip was seeing the Lion King at London's Lyceum Theatre.
Hubby and I had seen this show on our first trip here before we were married and loved it then. Little one didn't really know what to expect but 10 minutes into the show she reached over to whisper to me that she understands why I love this show so much.

It is such a powerful performance from the minute they come down the aisles belting out 'circle of life' til the curtain closes. I found myself wiping tears from my face during the first half.

We started with a pre-theatre dinner across the street a Sofra (perfect!!), then ended the night with a frozen yogurt from Snog in Covent Garden.

Day Four:

We saw many of the main sights (tower of London, Westminster Abbey, London bridge) from taxis/buses but didn't visit them as everything was just too crowded. One thing N really wanted to see close up was Buckingham Palace. We checked out of the hotel and left our bags with the bellman.

Buckingham Palace was just a short walk from our hotel and about halfway there I realized what time it was. 10:45am, just in time to see the changing of the guards at 11am. We picked up our pace to try to get a good spot to see the big event and boy oh boy was this a mistake. And I thought the streets in Oxford circus were crowded, these crowds were insane! We found a perch for N in front of the palace and we waited with the growing crowd. 11am, nothing...11:10am, still nothing. By 11:15 it was getting hot and I was having claustrophobia issues again so we tried to move it on outta there. We got a few glimpses of the horses and the tops of the guards black hats, but that was it.

We spotted Big Ben off in the distance.

One final cruise thru Picadilly Circus, Oxford Street, and the St. James shops before our last lunch with Yuki and back to St. Pancras station for the chunnel back to Paris.

Final shots of the tube and streets around our hotel.

Hand in hand~ Daddy and his traveling buddy.

♥ I love these two so much and am lucky to have them in my life. ♥
I'm off to enjoy a long weekend with my bestie.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Hugs~

T

4 days in Paris

Day one:

We walked a lot and stayed up as late as possible to shake the jet lag and get on Paris time.

Can you spot the tip of the Eiffel Tower way back there?

Our hotel was in the St Germain area (5th arrondisement) so we got familiar with our immediate surroundings on foot until our room was ready for us to check into. Yummy cappuccino and chocolate croissants were first on our list this morning.

**Click on photos to super~size**

After getting unpacked and cleaned up in our hotel room we journeyed over to Notre Dame. We fed the birds bread along with the other tourists and just soaked up the sun and culture.

We continued over to the Marais area for lunch, then took the metro to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur.

We had gelato in Montmartre and watched all of the artists working their magic, sketching passersby right on the spot.

Back to the hotel for another quick freshen up then out for dinner in the Marais area. It was quite a hike there and back so we didn't get to bed until after 10pm that first night.

Day two:

Walked over to the Les Halles area. Took in the carousel, gardens and shops.
The St. Eustache Cathedral was quite a sight:
Grabbed lunch in a nearby brasserie then strolled over to the Musee du Louvre. No waiting in line for tickets and children are free at most museums.

{Just a short queue here for bag security checks}I love this picture of my little one snapping a pic of the archway into the main plaza. Every visit to the Louvre demands an out of focus and an above-all-of-the-gawkers-heads shot of the Mona Lisa, no?!

Other must~sees inside:
Venus de Milo and the original walls of the Louvre underground.

The ceiling detail will make your neck ache but it's so pretty it's worth studying.

Bye bye Louvre.

Next stop, the Opera Garnier area for some shopping.

Galleries Lafayette, H&M, Mango, La Cure Gourmande, etc...
We shopped until early evening then walked back to the St. Germain area for dinner. After dinner we ventured back over to Notre Dame for the 'evening entertainment' as my daughter called it (fire dancers, skate boarders, break dancers, you name it...)

Day three:

I wanted so badly to find some small street flea markets on Saturday morning but unfortunately we didn't find any. We remembered the Saxe-Breteuil market from our last trip so we took the metro there to check it out. It's just a food and flower market, but pretty nonetheless. La Tour Eiffel was just a 15 minute walk from here and I couldn't believe we'd already been in the city two whole days without seeing my favorite sight!

I'll warn you now that I took so many pics of the Eiffel Tower that I have no choice other than to dedicate an entire post to them in the future. Here's just one picture to hold you over until then, ha! From here we walked on over to the Champs Elysees area and had lunch and did some window shopping. It was too crowded and I felt the need to move on out of there quickly.
Grand Palais.


Next up, Musee de L'Orangerie.

I really wanted to see some French impressionist artwork and I'd always wanted to visit this small museum on the outskirts of the Tuileries Garden.
L'Orangerie houses the largest collection of Claude Monet's water lilies. There were three big rooms with these over-sized, out of this world, paintings. From L'Orangerie we walked back through the Tuileries Gardens which encompasses a huge area to sit, play, eat crepes, and just people watch.
If you look closely behind the Obelisk you can see the L'arc de Triomphe which is back at the entrance to the Champs Elysees.
Here is the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, right at the front of Tuileries Gardens:

We went back over to the St. Germain area and hit some of the small boutiques there. I much prefer these unusual, local boutiques to the crowded and mostly well known shops in the Champs Elysees area.
We ended day three with dinner near our hotel then a nighttime viewing of the Eiffel Tower in the rain(we never ventured to the top, the lines were way too long, rain or shine).

Even the paparazzi got soaked.

Day four:

Walked around the Seine markets this morning, had breakfast then checked out of our hotel. With all of our bags* in tow, we took the metro to the Gare du Nord station to catch the Chunnel to London.

*packing note~ hubby likes to carry on rather than check our bags so this 8 day trip for the three of us included 2 overhead bags and one tote. I've grown to enjoy the challenge of packing light but still with enough stuff to change at least once per day.

We did spend another half day in Paris on the tail end of our trip, which I'll share with you in a separate post. I'm not sure you're still with me at this point... ;)

The Chunnel was fabulously comfortable and fast. We read, played games, napped and had a yummy lunch and of course, drinks.

I'll end this obscenely long post with a few rules for the road.

Rules for traveling with children:
~ if you see a playground, let them run wild.
~ let them sit and have treats often.
~ bring a game or gadget from home everywhere with you.
~ if you see a Westie in a posh doggie boutique let them snuggle {with the owner's permission of course}
~ buy a disposable camera for them to take their own pics (thanks for this tip Colette!)

It's not vacation to me unless~

~ I'm drinking wine with lunch and dinner.
~ I'm in no rush to be anywhere at any certain time and am able to plop down in the grass and relax(notice the reflection in my glasses).
~ I'm wearing comfy clothes and shoes every day.
~ I can throw on the same scarf every day and no one will notice.
~ I'm spending lots of quality time in a beautiful place with my two favorite people in the world.

I hope you've enjoyed the review of our short visit. I'll pull together a similar review of our 4 days in London.

Here's to a fabulous second half of the week!