** Originally published 25/06/2016
London and Paris, 2 of the most iconic cities in the world and both high on my top 10. This visit was my 2nd visit to both. I fell head over heals for them the last time and the love affair continued on this trip and to make it all the more special this time I got to share them with my husband and kids.
We spent 4 nights in each place & crammed in as much as we possibly could.
These cities are unique yet have so many similarities. Both have rows and rows of beautiful high buildings, all town houses and apartments, London with its stark white or brownstone, Paris in that creamy color that in my mind screams Parisian chic. Both often have shutters at the windows and a colorful flower box on the sill.
In London there is a pub on every corner, in Paris a café or bistro.
Both cities have fantastic public transport, the London tube & Paris metro, that any tourist can navigate. But what really blows my mind is the history of each place, the age of the buildings and the stories behind the monuments.
When you only have a small amount of time in a big city a hop on-hop off bus pass is a terrific way to see as much as possible. I recommend them to my clients and always use them myself yet even using the bus pass, the tube & the metro we have still managed to walk about 15 km’s each day!
In London we ticked off all the usual touristy highlights, Big Ben, Buckingham palace & Kensington palace, we rode the London eye, cruised the River Thames to see both the London & Tower bridges, we strolled through Hyde park. We wandered through Harrods & shopped on Oxford St which included hours in Hamley’s toy store. We saw Charlie & The Chocolate Factory on stage in West End & as Sam’s belated 13th birthday present we spent most of a day at the Harry Potter studios in Watford.
It was a similar story in Paris. After arriving on the Eurostar we hit the ground running. Paris is a little different in that their monuments are so huge you feel the need to take photos from every angle, every time they come in to view and then you need to climb them and take more photos! We walked the Champs Élysées & ate baguettes for lunch. We climbed the Arc De Triomphe, we visited the Eiffel Tower during the day and took the lift to the second floor. After taking 100’s of photos we returned at night to see it lit up & took 100’s more! We saw the Notre Dame Cathedral & climbed more stairs to go inside the Sacre Coeur. We visited the Louvre museum and saw the Mona Lisa & broke it all up by spending a wonderful but very long day at EuroDisney!
For me though, the highlights so far include the wonder and awed expressions from the kids. The excitement when they saw their first double decker bus & red phone box in London, the mile wide smile when Sam pushed open the doors to the great room at Hogwarts, the emotion when Liv realised her childhood dream and saw the Eiffel Tower, I get that history can be boring to teens and I understand they weren’t that excited about wandering the Louvre or seeing ‘another’ church but when you’re away like this there have to be compromises so everyone gets to do or see something that they want, and so far it seems to be working.
Being in each other’s pockets 24/7 has had it’s moments, there have been a few terse words & grumbles but the laughs well and truly outweigh them so we’re doing fine.
Next stops, Amsterdam, Berlin & Prague!
wanderlust mum 