Day 5 - Our 1st Day in London

 

Early the morning of our 5th day in Europe, we caught a 45-minute plane ride from Paris to London.  It took us longer to go through security and bag checks than it did for us to fly, and that was a tough, stressful process!  We were lucky to make it on the plane.  But London was a lot of fun, and we enjoyed London even more than we did in Paris.

When we got to London, we first had to catch a train from Gatwick Airport to Victoria Station.  Our Air BnB was located in the government district of Westminster, and we walked about 20 minutes to a really good pub named the Marquis of Westminster.  It was Sunday, and they had a few different roasts options to choose from and a beef broth that they started making on Tuesday, and it was AMAZING.

We then dropped our luggage off at our Air BnB that had a great view of the River Thanes.  We walked through Westminster, through several parks, and found our way to the Royal Palace.  We had dinner at another pub downtown before walking back to our apartment for the night.

Our 4th Day in Paris | London - The Catacombs

We spent our 4th morning in Paris at the Catacombs touring the underground tunnels that are home to 1,000's of bones!

We then hopped in the car to catch up with the rest of the family, but stopped at a cool building to catch a photoshoot with the Eiffel Tower in the background:

We caught the autobus and rode the Seine River to a stop from which we walked to the Luxemburg Gardens, but after a long walk uphill, the entrance was blocked by a Pride Parade!  We waited it out but only spent a few minutes in the park before catching an Uber back to the car.  We had a quick bite to eat on the Champs-Elysees at 5 Guys before heading back to the hotel to get ready for our flight in the morning for London. 

Our 3rd Day in Paris | London - Disneyland

The origins of this trip were centered around wanting to go to Disneyworld.  In doing our initial research, we saw how expensive the Disneyworld trip is and how crowded the parks are.  We then saw that it would be cheaper for us to go to Disneyland in Paris and explore the city and London for a week than it would be for us to go to Orlando, so we jumped on the opportunity.

Day 3 of our trip was centered around Disneyland Paris.  It was a surprise for our girls and a lot of fun.  We stayed in a hotel in the town of Crecy which was about a 45-minute drive from downtown Paris so that we could be closer to Disneyland.  There were signs for the park up and down the highway from Paris to Crecy, so we all thought that our surprise would be revealed too early, but we were able to hold off until we arrived.

We spent the first half of the day exploring Disneyland Park.  One of the cool things about this day was that our cousin Chic was surprising the family by meeting us here!  We arrived at the park around 9:30, but my dad left the hotel at about 7:00 in the morning to pick her up from the airport.  They arrived at the park after we had been there for about an hour, and it was a really cool surprise.

We rode the rides and explored the park for the first half of the day, then we went over to Universal Studios to finish the day.  We rode the Tower of Terror, rode a really cool tram ride that explained the behind the scenes process of creating movies, and some other great rides.

This year, France hosted the women's World Cup which only happens once every four years.  Our US Women's National Team faced the host France team in the quarterfinals in Paris, so of course, Alyssa got us some great seats to the game!  The grandparents took the girls to the Rainforest Cafe while we snuck off to Paris.

The game was a great experience.  We sat about 10 rows up behind the goals that the US attacked in the first half and had a great view of Megan Rapinoe's goal!  We sat in the middle of the French fans with some US fans sprinkled in between, so the environment was really cool.  When the French scored their goal in the 2nd half, it was the loudest that I had ever heard in a sporting event.

This was another bucket list day!

Our 2nd Day In Paris

Our second day in Rome started at the Arc de Triomphe.  We then walked down the Champs-Elysees, we went through the Louvre and took pictures in front of the Mona Lisa.  We then walked around the Notre Dame where we had dinner and walked along the Seine River.