Day 1: Bonjour, mes amies!

Matt and I are off on another adventure in Europe. This time, we are travelling with Bart, a friend who is also an avid photographer. Although we will be together for two weeks, Bart will be staying in Europe when we return home. This made for some unconventional travel arrangements. Matt and I flew out from Toronto and landed in Gatwick. Bart, on the other hand, landed in Heathrow. We would meet at St. Pancras train station and then take a Eurostar train to Paris. Mon dieu!

We were all pretty exhausted by the time we boarded the train to Paris. Matt and I completely missed the tunnel under the English Channel. According to Bart, we didn't miss much. The tunnel had no lighting and we travelled through in complete darkness. When we arrived in Paris, we felt more refreshed and walked to our hotel located just under 1 km away from the station. After settling in and rearranging our bags, we did a bit of quick sightseeing in Paris.

We ventured out and made our way to Paris' Metro. After quickly consulting the maps, we made our way to the Louvre and spent a little bit of time taking some photos. We continued our walk and saw Notre Dame Cathedral. We were making our way to the Eiffel Tower when we decided to stop for dinner. It had been quite a few hours since any of us had eaten. We stopped at a cafe and ordered our meals. As soon as our food arrived, it started raining. And boy did it rain. We were quite lucky that we had stopped when we did. The rain came down harder and harder. Since there was no sign of the rain letting up, we decided we would end our sightseeing and return to the hotel. Quite by chance, there was a chocolaterie right beside the cafe. We picked up an assortment of French macaroons. Oh la la! Very tasty. We joked on the way back to the hotel that we should get up early in the morning and have a baguette fight and eat croissants. Did I mention our dinner also included French fries? ;)

Tomorrow we will be picking up our rental car and leaving Paris for the country side. Our new adventure begins!