Taking the Eurostar from Paris to London and Some Exploring

**** Not much food in this one, but if you enjoy trains as much as I do……

You know me and trains, right? Even though I was a bit sad at leaving Paris, I was quite excited to finally be able to take the Eurostar high speed train from Paris to London. Many years ago, I watched a documentary on building the Channel Tunnel and I’ve been waiting for a chance to finally take the Eurostar…and the time had finally arrived!

One of the reasons we stay in the 2nd and near Les Halles is easy access to the RER. In this case we caught the RER D and one stop later we were at Gare du Nord. Where we followed the signs to “Hall 2”. It was interesting as we had to check our ticket, then do both a EU and UK passport checks before getting to the departure hall….we were riding in Eurostar Plus, but not Premier, so we didn’t have lounge access and simply waited in the departure hall.

Though there we separate lines for boarding.

Plus has the same large seats as first class and because of when I purchased my tickets were only 10€ more than “standard class” and was cheaper than standard when I checked a month before our trip!

Quite roomy, USB ports, and a small meal is served.

And the Missus enjoyed the complimentary white wine.

In fact, the really nice attendant noticed how much the Missus enjoyed the wine, that she brought her another bottle. Which we saved for London. Our train departed at around 115pm GMT+1; arriving at London St. Pancras at 230pm GMT. The 2 hour 15 minute ride just flew by!

St. Pancras Station is huge. I believe when it was built, the station was declared to be the largest indoor space in the world!

We saw this charming sculpture named the Wild Table of Love on the way to the tube.

Once we found the metro station; it was a quick ten minute ride on the tube to Paddington Station. We were staying in a different area from when we initially arrived. I planned our stay close to Paddington Station, which gave us easy access to the Heathrow Express and was in a part of London we hadn’t explored yet.

Our room at the Mercure London Hyde Park Hotel was ready when we arrived. We dropped off our bags and decided to head out to explore a bit.

About 20 minutes later, we found ourselves on Oxford Street and this department store.

Named Selfridges, which apparently opened in 1909. The Missus had really enjoyed Fortnum and Mason, so I thought She’d enjoy shopping as well.

Selfridges was really a lot of fun…it’s a very playful upscale department store.

And seems to have “stuffs” for ahem, all ages and “stages of life”……

It was a fun stop!

Selfridges
400 Oxford St.
London, United Kingdom

We headed down Duke Street and came across this lovely church.

And we decided to take a look inside.

Looking at the signs we found out that this is the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral! And of course, after returning I started noticing this Cathedral in the background of various news stories regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

We explored Duke Street a bit more, before heading back to our hotel.

It was time for a short break before heading out to dinner!

Thanks for stopping by!