London, Paris & London Again: Week 3 Of Our 5 Week International Trip

After saying farewell to my friends in Woking, Shae and I took the train up to London for the next stage of our international trip this summer.

This part of our trip was a little different though because we were joined for the week by our friends who flew over from Portland, OR with their two teen children. We’d traveled internationally with Mark and Megan a couple of times in the past, first to England and Scotland back in 2015 and then to Ireland in 2017.

We had a fantastic time with them on both trips, so we were looking forward to traveling with them again and even more excited about the fact that their teens were joining them as this was their first time out of the country.

The six of us spent a few days in London, then went to Paris for four days and then returned to London at which point they flew back to the US. It was a non-stop week (well, nine days) as there was so much that we wanted to see and do – here’s everything we got up to.

London

Premier Inn London County Hall

We booked a stay at the Premier Inn London County Hall because this hotel was unusual compared to most other hotels in London in that it was possible to book a room for four people.

Most London hotels – and most hotels in other large European cities – tend to only be large enough for two people. That meant our friends would have to pay for two rooms seeing as their teens had come along. As you might expect, paying for two rooms in London in the height of summer would’ve been expensive. The Premier Inn County Hall solved that problem because they had Family Rooms available that could sleep four people.

Prices seem to vary widely, but when we booked our rooms at the end of March for our stay in August it cost $167.12 per room per night. That’s very reasonable for how big the room is, the fact that we were staying in the middle of summer and how excellent its location is.

The Family Room was even better than we’d been expecting. There was a double bed and two twin beds, but the room’s overall size was much larger than we anticipated considering the hotel is in central London.

Our double room was a decent size too, with a double bed and small closet at one end…

…with the room extending down to a desk at the other end. The room felt larger than the photos are making it look.

The rooms were clean, quiet and comfortable, but the best part of the hotel was its location. We knew that it was close to the London Eye, but hadn’t appreciated quite how close it was – it’s literally right outside. County Hall is a lengthy building that not only houses the Premier Inn, but also has The London Dungeon, SEA LIFE Aquarium, Shrek’s Adventure London and more.

London Sightseeing

We’d taken Mark and Megan to London in the past, but seeing as their kids had never been we took them around to some of the quintessential places to see in London.

As mentioned above, the London Eye was right outside our hotel:

Given our hotel’s location, it was only a short walk across Westminster Bridge to the Houses of Parliament and the Elizabeth Tower that holds Big Ben.

From there it was only a short walk to Westminster Abbey.

We then walked to Buckingham Palace but didn’t get a chance to get very close as it was packed with other tourists due to the Changing of the Guard occurring when we happened to wander up there.

After that we walked over to Downing Street which, as you might expect given that’s where the Prime Minister lives, isn’t open to the public.

Fishcotheque

After getting settled in at our hotel, we were all hungry for dinner. Our friends wanted to have fish and chips, so we found a fun-sounding place to eat – Fishcotheque!

I’d had fish and chips down in St Mawes a few days earlier, so I went for something I used to love eating when growing up in the UK – battered sausage (stop snickering back there 😉 ) and chips.

Everyone else got fish and chips, plus we got mushy peas so that they could all try it out. Their daughter particularly liked the mushy peas, so she finished them all off.

Something that was fun was that our bill came delivered in a treasure chest.

More Friends

The following day we were joined by another of our friends who’d come down from Liverpool with her two kids. She’d done her youth work master’s degree with Shae, so it was great that they were able to catch up again.

St Stephen’s Tavern

That was a Sunday, so we decided to get a Sunday roast for lunch that day at St Stephen’s Tavern which is next to the Westminster tube station and opposite the Houses of Parliament. Dating back to 1875, it’s a cute and traditional-looking pub with good service, although the roast beef was a little (well, a lot) tough.

Superbloom

While walking past the Tower of London, we spotted an exhibition on the grounds called Superbloom. You can buy a joint Tower of London + Superbloom ticket, or you can buy one or the other separately.

We didn’t have enough time that day to tour the Tower of London, so we bought tickets solely for Superbloom. You can walk through where its moat once was which has been transformed into a giant garden. Earlier this year they planted more than 20 million flower seeds, so there is indeed a superbloom throughout the grounds.

A fun additional feature that’s part of Superbloom is a bumpy slide. There are four lanes and you can ride it as many times as you like, so we all had a chance to race down.

Tower of London

We did go back the following day to visit the Tower of London properly though. Shae and I had taken Mark and Megan there on our last trip to London, but we wanted their kids to have a chance to see the Crown Jewels and everything else there is to see there.

Harry Potter / Warner Bros. Studio Tour

After a couple of hours at the Tower of London, the six of us hopped on a train to Watford Junction to do The Making of Harry Potter tour at Warner Bros. Studio Tour.

Shae and Megan had gone on the tour back in 2017, so it had been five years since they last visited. What was great is that even though some of the exhibits were the same, there were tons of new exhibits and so it almost felt like their first time there too.

Even More Friends

We met Chris and Steve of Eat Walk Learn last year when we were in Denver and they happened to be in London at the same time as us, so on our final morning in London we met up with them at a coffee shop. I unfortunately had to go off to Starbucks in order to work straight away, but Shae got to hang out with them for an hour or so before we caught the Eurostar.

France

Eurostar

That brought an end to our time in London for the time being because we then headed to St Pancras station in order to catch the Eurostar train to Paris.

I’ve been to France by ferry and plane before, but never by Eurostar and so I was looking forward to the experience. It ended up being much like a commuter train to London – comfortable but crowded.

Holiday Inn Paris – Gare de L’Est

We booked a stay at the Holiday Inn Paris – Gare de L’Est (Gare de L’est is one of Paris’ largest train stations). The Eurostar arrives at Gare du Nord which is only about a 5-10 minute walk away, so that was super-convenient.

We booked our stay there because it had the right balance of being in a good location while also being great value. There are very few hotels in Paris that can accommodate a family of four, so we knew we’d need to book two rooms for our friends and their kids. We booked those rooms using IHG One Rewards points as that was significantly cheaper than paying cash.

We were staying in Paris for four nights and IHG gives every 4th night free on award stays if you have an IHG Premier or Traveler credit card which we have. In addition to that, we have the old IHG Select credit card that offers a 10% points rebate on award stays.

All that meant we only had to redeem 13,275 points per night per room which is a fantastic deal. We’d bought those IHG points when they were selling them for 0.5cpp (cents per point), so each room effectively cost $66.38 per night. That’s an incredible deal for a decent location in Paris, especially considering the paid rate was $130 per night. That meant we saved close to 50% by buying points and taking advantage of the IHG credit card benefits.

The front desk agent kindly assigned us three rooms right next to each other on the sixth floor. Our rooms were all decent – the decor wasn’t quite what I was expecting from a Holiday Inn, but it was quiet, we appreciated having what I think was a king bed and our rooms each had a balcony that overlooked the train station.

We could also see the Sacre Coeur from our balcony which looked lovely at night. Well, until 1am anyway as that’s when they turn off its lighting.

A few months ago IHG revamped its loyalty program and it became IHG One Rewards. One of the changes is that Diamond members (its top status level) can now choose free breakfast for two people every morning of their stay at hotel brands that don’t automatically provide free breakfast.

Shae and I both have Diamond status which we knew meant would get at least four of us free breakfast, but the hotel kindly extended that benefit to all six of us. Getting to fill up on a cooked breakfast, croissants, pain au chocolat, baguette, fruit and more every morning for free was therefore greatly appreciated.

Bouillon Chartier

After settling in at the hotel, all of us were ready for dinner. We decided to have dinner next door at Bouillon Chartier as reviews online said they had good food and were reasonably priced. The reviews were correct on both counts.

The six of us were feeling adventurous and so we wanted to try all the things. As a result, we ordered nearly everything off their list of appetizers to start off with which included snails, pork snout, pork terrine, herring fillet with steamed potatoes and cold leeks with dressing.

I was pleasantly surprised at how tasty all of it was. The pork snout in particular was delicious provided you can get past the fact that you’re eating a pig’s nose, a little like our experience eating Rocky Mountain Oysters (bull testicles) last year.

Neither Shae nor I had tried escargot before and that was much better than we were expecting too. I personally wouldn’t order it again as I didn’t like it enough to choose snails over other options, but Shae loved them and ordered them elsewhere while we were in Paris.

We then all ordered entrées, some of us had drinks and half of us had desserts. The total bill came to €127 (~$127) which was great value considering how much food we ordered and that that was the total for six of us.

Palace of Versailles

I had to work the following day, so I stayed back at the hotel while everyone else took a train to visit the Palace of Versailles. Although it looked like it could be a cool place to visit, there were other things I didn’t want to miss while we were in Paris and so we scheduled Versailles for my work day as that was the activity I wasn’t as worried about missing.

Seeing as I wasn’t able to go, here’s what Shae thought about it:

The Palace of Versailles was something that I was vaguely aware of but didn’t have a great interest in seeing. Our friends really wanted to visit there though, so I went along and I’m so glad that I did as I really enjoyed myself.

The train ride out from Paris to Versailles was very easy to navigate – I highly recommend downloading the City Mapper app to find your way – and we arrived in the town of Versailles by 11am. We had 1pm timed tickets to enter the palace and a guided tour of the King’s private rooms booked for 2pm. The guided tour was fantastic and really worth the money.

We used the remainder of our time to see as much of the palace as we could and the gardens. We enjoyed some pastries and champagne at Angelina’s at Versailles; it was a costly treat, but was a very fun and fancy break amongst all of the excess surrounding us at Versailles.

My favorite part was learning about the different “King Louis'” (no, not King Louie from the Jungle Book) 13-16 and Louis Philippe (the final monarch of France that turned it into the historical museum it is today) and how each of them changed the Palace of Versailles for their own purposes as well as managing the elites of Paris from the palace’s remote location outside of the city of Paris. If you find yourself in Paris and have even a fleeting interest in seeing the Palace of Versailles, it’s easy to get to and worth a day trip.

McDonald’s

No, this isn’t a joke – we did indeed go to France and eat McDonald’s while we were there. It was all in the name of research though 😉

We like trying McDonald’s in all the countries we visit because they always have something unique to their country and France was no exception. I don’t like cheese and Shae isn’t a Pulp Fiction fan, so neither of us ordered a Royale with Cheese. Instead, I ordered their “280 Oeuf” which is their 280 Original (whatever that is) with an egg on top.

It came in a ciabatta bun with a massive burger patty, an egg and a slice of tomato on top. It was definitely different to a normal McDonald’s burger and far more filling; so much so that I didn’t finish it all. For a side I got potato wedges rather than French fries.

Something fun was that with us being in the land of macarons, you can order macarons at McDonald’s. While obviously not as good as macarons that you’d get from a patisserie, they were surprisingly decent for being born under the Golden Arches.

Fun Snacks

In addition to McDonald’s, we like trying snacks from different countries too. I was somewhat shocked when I saw these Monster Munch in Paris. We have Monster Munch back in the UK, but they’re shaped like paws/feet, so it was strange seeing them be shaped like ghosts in France.

I love gummy candy, so there was no way I was passing up on a bag of the next candy for many reasons:

1. It’s the Smurfs
2. It means the candy will taste like blue (if you’ve ever eaten anything artificially blue, you know the taste I’m talking about)
3. They’re not called Smurfs in France – they’re “les Schtroumpfs” which I’m pretty sure is the noise Papa Smurf would’ve made when sneezing

Notre Dame (Briefly)

Shae and I were fortunate to tour Notre Dame back in 2008 before it caught fire a few years ago. It was our favorite thing we did in Paris on that visit, so we were sad that our friends weren’t able to explore it during this visit as it’s still being renovated and restored. We did stop outside though in order for them to see its exterior.

Shakespeare And Company

Across the River Seine from Notre Dame is a bookshop called Shakespeare and Company. Shae and I randomly popped in there when we visited Paris in 2008, but it’s apparently become an even more popular place to visit since then following its inclusion in the movie Midnight In Paris.

It’s a cute bookstore, but Shae and I waited outside while our friends checked it out because there was a line to get in to due its popularity nowadays.

Tootbus Paris

Based on what we had planned for Paris, we knew we wouldn’t have time to walk around to all the city’s notable sites. We therefore decided to get tickets for one of the hop-on/hop-off bus tours that runs in Paris.

We picked Tootbus primarily because of its name, but it turned out to be a great decision. The audio tour was very good, providing the right amount of commentary as we drove along mixed in with French music. One of the songs was from Air’s Moon Safari – I’d forgotten how much I loved that album until hearing it again on our ride. The audio quality was great too. When doing a similar bus tour in Dubai with a different company, many of the headphone outlets didn’t work properly, but we didn’t have that issue with Tootbus.

The bus route didn’t go past Sacre Coeur or Moulin Rouge which didn’t matter because we’d already planned to see those separately, but it did pass by the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe and more.

Tattoos

When we visited Ireland with Mark and Megan back in 2017, Shae and Megan got tattoos together. They wanted to get tattoos again in Paris, so they headed out one night while the rest of us went back to our hotel.

Shae wanted to get a tattoo to celebrate completing RAGBRAI in July – a 462 mile bike ride across Iowa (she’ll be writing a post or two about that experience soon). The ride included biking past lots of corn fields and petting a lot of animals, so she got a tattoo that reflected all that:

Megan meanwhile got a bee tattoo; the plastic covering was to protect the fresh tattoo.

Sacre Coeur

A couple of our friends’ friends live in Germany, so they caught a train to Paris so that they could join us for a day as it had been a while since they’d had a chance to see each other. Our first stop was Sacre Coeur, a Roman Catholic church that sits above Paris. That means it has good views out over the city, but it also means walking up a lot of steps to get there if you decide to walk like we did!

Le Pot-Potin de L’Été

After visiting Sacre Coeur, we decided to stop for some lunch. We’d passed Le Pot-Potin de L’Été on our way up the hill to Sacre Coeur and it looked like a nice place, so we stopped back by there afterwards for a bite to eat. I ordered their Thai Beef Tataki with a side of fries, while Shae got their charcuterie board.

Penny The Pup

From there we wandered around the nearby neighborhoods as it’s a cute part of Paris. We stopped in at a clothing store for our friends’ daughter and the store owner’s sweet pup called Penny was fast asleep in the middle of the store.

Moulin Rouge

We continued walking downhill in order to stop outside the iconic Moulin Rouge.

Electric Bikes & Scooters

To get around Paris we sometimes walked or took the Metro. Other times though we rented electric scooters or bikes. Neither our friends nor their kids had gone on electric scooters or bikes before, so it was fun getting to be with them when they had their first rides and they loved it.

Paris is a great city for using scooters and bikes. The city has dedicated cycle lanes throughout the city that electric scooters are allowed to use as well, so that made it safer than having to battle through car traffic.

Catacombs of Paris

I’d heard of the Catacombs of Paris in the past, but didn’t know anything about them other than that they were some kind of underground burial place. It might sound like a strange tourist attraction, but more than half a million people visit every year.

The catacombs are a network of tunnels beneath Paris that are the result of quarrying done beneath France’s capital city hundreds of years ago. In the 1700s, some of these tunnels caved in, terrifying Parisian residents as many of these former mining operations were uncharted. As a result, no one knew how widespread the problem could become, so King Louis XVI set up a commission to look into this problem.

Meanwhile, France had been burying their dead in cemeteries that were starting to overflow. For example, one crypt collapsed and spilled remains into the basements of nearby residents. Other residents that lived near the cemeteries had their milk and other perishables spoil within hours because of the general bacteria in the air from the decaying bodies of those cemeteries. It was decided that they could use the empty quarries underground to store bodies from the cemeteries that were causing a public health crisis.

The Catacombs contain the remains of what’s thought to be more than 6 million people. As mentioned earlier, I hadn’t been sure what to expect and what was displayed certainly wasn’t what I would’ve imagined.

The femurs and skulls of millions of people have been arranged neatly, creating patterns and what could be described as art. It was hard to know what to make of it and a week or two later I still haven’t been able to form an opinion of it.

On the one hand, I suppose it’s good that their remains have been treated in a somewhat respectful way, rather than just having the contents of cemeteries dumped elsewhere. On the other hand, it feels supremely strange that artwork has been created out of the bones of people who lived centuries ago and that people from all over the world – us included! – pay money to see it.

Iolanda

Having toured the catacombs, we made our way towards the Eiffel Tower in order to watch the light show that runs every hour on the hour after dark until 1am. We stopped for dinner along the way at a restaurant called Iolanda.

I ordered the steak frites (i.e. steak with fries) which was OK, but the steak was a little gristly.

Shae ordered the mussels which came as a massive portion. There were so many that even with me having quite a few of them she still couldn’t make her way through all of them.

Despite us being full, it was our last night in Paris and we hadn’t had crepes yet, so we got those for dessert. Shae got a banana and Nutella crepe, while I got a banana, Nutella and coconut crepe.

The overall price was a little higher than some other restaurants in Paris due to its proximity to the Eiffel Tower, but it was still cheaper than how much you’d pay for the same meal in cities like London, New York, etc.

Eiffel Tower By Night

After touring the Catacombs, we walked the short distance to the Eiffel Tower.

It was lit up when we arrived, then at the top of the hour it started twinkling for about five minutes.

Eiffel Tower By Day

We were taking the Eurostar back to London the following day, but before getting on the train we made our way back over to the Eiffel Tower as we’d booked tickets that morning to go up it.

When Shae and I visited Paris in 2008, we’d gone up to the lower level, but didn’t go all the way to the top. This time we all went to the top to get some of the best views of Paris possible.

On the top level there was a section where you could buy a glass of champagne, so we decided to live it up before taking the elevator back down.

Four of us got off the elevator at the lower level and walked down the stairs from there. That was hard enough work taking that many flights of stairs down – I can’t imagine how tiring it is to walk all the way to the top which is something you can do if you want.

London

The Waldorf Hilton

Having arrived back in London via Eurostar, we made our way to our next hotel – the Waldorf Hilton. Shae and I had some Hilton free night certificates we’d earned over the course of the previous year, so we booked three rooms using those. Our friends were only in London for one night before flying back to the US the following day, so they only stayed one night. Seeing as it’s a fancy hotel, Shae and I figured we’d treat ourselves to an extra night there because we had enough free night certificates to do that.

There were some good aspects to our stay, such as having access to the Executive Lounge due to having Diamond status with Hilton.

The arrival experience wasn’t great though. Our friends walked in to one of their rooms, only to discover that it hadn’t been cleaned by housekeeping since the last guests checked out. We went back down to the front desk and rather than giving them a different room that was ready, the front desk agent asked if they could send housekeeping up immediately to clean it. Seeing as one of their rooms was ready, they agreed and left all their bags in there. More than 2.5 hours later the other room still wasn’t ready, so they weren’t able to get into it until almost 9pm which was awful, especially seeing as the Waldorf Hilton is meant to be a luxury hotel and they were only staying for one night.

Even More Friends

One of Shae’s friends who she knows from online has lived in the UK for the last year or so. She was in London that night to watch a show, so she stopped by the hotel so that they could have a drink together and finally get to meet up in person.

The Queen’s Corgi Statues

While walking around London a few days beforehand, we’d come across a corgi sculpture near Buckingham Palace. It turned out there were 19 corgi statues around London that had been painted by artists to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022 (70 years on the throne).

We love sculpture hunts, so Shae and Megan rented some electric bikes and went to see all of them (I had to work that morning and so couldn’t go along myself). They thought they’d found all 19, but when checking that evening they realized they’d missed one, so the following night Shae and I biked over to it to get that 19th corgi.

221b Baker Street

Our friend Mark is a Quaker pastor, so he and Megan went to a Friends Meeting House the next morning. We offered to take their teens out with us while they did that because we knew there was somewhere their children wanted to visit.

Their daughter in particular is a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes TV series, so we hopped in a black cab and went over to 221b Baker Street – the home of Sherlock Holmes.

There’s a museum there which we didn’t have time to tour, but we did stop in the gift shop.

House of MinaLima

In addition to liking Sherlock Holmes, they also like Harry Potter, hence why we visited the Warner Bros Studio Tour earlier in their visit. A couple of the people who created graphic props for the Harry Potter movies – Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima – have their own store called the House of MinaLima.

This contains all kinds of products you can purchase that they’ve designed which includes Harry Potter-related items and artwork.

Afternoon Tea At The Waldorf

The six of us then met up back at the Waldorf Hilton in order to have one more special experience – Afternoon Tea at The Waldorf. This is a fancy English cream tea in a lovely setting with someone playing a harp in the background.

The afternoon tea was a fun experience, with a selection of different teas, finger sandwiches, scones with jam and clotted cream and a bunch of bite-size cakes and macarons.

One of the most fun parts was when the server came over with dry ice to make our teapot with a crown spread fog across our table – not a sentence I ever imagined I’d write 😉

Here’s a video of it in action:

Farewell To Friends

Once we’d finished our cream tea, it was sadly time to say goodbye to our friends as they had to fly back to Oregon. With one final selfie groupie, they headed off to make their way to Heathrow airport.

Our Next Plans

Shae and I stayed at the Waldorf Hilton for one more night, then we took a train up to Liverpool for the next stage of our trip. This post is already more than long enough though, so in our next post we’ll share about everything we got up to during the remaining part of our international trip in Liverpool, Belfast and Dublin.

All Posts In This Series

• Hamilton, Stonehenge, Thermal Baths & More: Week 1 Of Our 5 Week International Trip
• Castles, Gardens, Seals, Otters, Friends & Much More: Week 2 Of Our 5 Week International Trip
• London, Paris & London Again: Week 3 Of Our 5 Week International Trip
• Liverpool & Belfast: Week 4 Of Our 5 Week International Trip
• Dublin, Ireland: The End Of Our 5 Week International Trip