Some Rocks, a Bath, and a Castle

Yesterday was our excursion day.  Before we’d left Kansas, Jared had found an interesting day-long excursion for us to do.  We started off the morning bright and early boarding a bus that we’d travel on all day long.  A 45 minute drive and we arrived at Windsor Castle.  It was quite a wait and a process to be allowed into the spectator areas of the castle, but once we were in it was really quite cool to see how there was almost a little town inside the walls.  We even got to tour some of the “State Apartments” that had dining rooms, bedrooms, and sitting rooms for show.  Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside there, so you’ll just have to imagine the bright colors, antique furniture, and elegant decorations.

After Windsor Castle, it was a 2 hour ride out to the town of Bath.  The major site there were the Roman Baths that dated back to about 42 A.D.  It’s amazing how innovative the building was for that time and how well kept much of it is.  Our only complaint though was the limited time we had in Bath.  The town itself looked very historic and beautiful and we could’ve used many more hours to explore it.

From Bath we drove out to Stonehenge and got to walk the path around the giant mysterious rocks.  Jared and I had joked beforehand we weren’t really sure what to expect.  We knew they were just rocks, but we felt that we HAD to see them in person either way.  I will say they were even larger than I expected, but I was slightly bummed we had to keep a pretty good distance from them (though I understand why).  It was also interesting to look around at the landscape and see this historic site in the middle of a bunch of farms.

After that it was a 2 hour trip back to London and we still had to eat dinner.  All in all, our day ended around 10pm after starting around 6am.  It was a long day (but much of it was riding a bus).  The trip overall was well worth our money we thought to have it all organized for us and the guide was sharing information along the entire bus routes and while we waited in line at each location.

Today we plan to explore one more museum and then spend a lot of time playing packing Tetris with all the items we bought and the mess of items we’ve made between all busy days digging into our suitcases to grab items quickly.  Should be a slower day on this end, but as to be expected, we’ll be up bright and early again tomorrow to catch a train back to the airport and start the journey back, which includes a 2 hour layover in Boston and then a 4 hour flight back to KC.

Imperial War Museum

Today we didn’t have too much of a plan but Jared had seen two well reviewed museums so we decided to start the day at one of them.  We ended up spending about 3-4 hours in the Imperial War Museum exploring all the exhibits.  It was 5 floors of war history and very cool.  They had extremely well done exhibits on World War I and the Holocaust along with others.  It was interesting reading about the wars from the viewpoint of the British instead of USA for once (in both instances I didn’t realize how long the USA wasn’t involved in either world wars - well I’d learned about World War I at the museum in KC).  The vehicles and items scattered around the museum were actual recovered items from various wars which also was pretty neat.  There was only one mention of 9/11 which I found surprising.  A piece of one the planes recovered was in the museum, but it was the only place that war or terrorist attack was discussed though it did bring up how many “wars” today are from the inside.

After the museum I found two stores I wanted to stop by - a 5 story book store and a rubber stamp store that was on a “unique shops in London” list I found.  Foyles is the main book store here, but their main location is the 5 story one.  The Harry Potter section of course was my favorite with a number of companion-type books I didn’t know existed that it was hard not to go home with (but books add to our luggage weight too easily).  Jared even found some comedic cookbooks based on Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, and The Walking Dead he enjoyed flipping through.  From there we just walked a few blocks to the stamp store.  It was little but very cute and I would definitely enjoy having one nearby like it!

After the exploring we grabbed food at the Cuban restaurant we’d tried to get seats at the night before and headed back to the hotel.  Up bright at early today (our earliest at 6am) to catch an 8am bus for our day excursion out to Stonehenge and other sites.  It’s expected to be a long day, but should be our last long day, so it’s going to be fun!

Low Mileage Day

Not much to check in with today.  Yesterday was our first real “break” from go-go-go mode.  We spent the morning chilling in Disney Village at various places while we got lunch and then hot chocolate and waited to go check in for our train.  Once the time had come, we had a long line and wait to get our tickets checked, passports checked, and through security.  Then we had a 3 hour train ride back to London through which Jared played his switch and Dana slept pretty much the entire time.  Once back, we caught the tube to our hotel and finally dropped off our bags in our room.  We ventured out one more time to find dinner, which proved to be it’s own difficulty being Friday night in the city.  So many restaurants and pubs and bars were packed full of people with people waiting for seats outside the doors.  We finally walked down the street far enough to find a Thai place that had room, though by the time we left it was packed too.  After dinner we headed back to the hotel to rest more.  We did (well Jared did because Dana fell asleep) book a trip for Sunday to Stonehenge and two other locations through Trip Advisor, so we have that to look forward to.  Today it seems we’ll likely be exploring some museums and just wandering around downtown without much of a plan.  No pictures to share today due to nothing really happening yesterday, but go check out the little video I threw together while we waited in Disney Village!

Disneyland Paris:
https://youtu.be/4cuSYPnHO5g

A Day at Disneyland Paris

Yesterday was the day!  We went to a different Disney than normal!  We woke up bright and early to grab breakfast from the nearby Starbucks and make our way towards the parks where Magic Hours started at 8:30.  We started at Disneyland where we walked right on to Buzz Lightyear.  From there we went to Hyperspace Mountain where Jared walked right on as well... only to get stuck with the harnesses not raising at the end.  He had to sit there for about 20 minutes before he was able to get off.  Beware, we aren’t sure what it’s like in California, but Hyperspace Mountain is much more crazy roller coaster than Space Mountain in Orlando.  He said that was a pleasant surprise.  We were able to walk onto just about every ride of the day.  The only wait over 10 minutes we had was for the Studio Tour ride at Walt Disney Studios park.  It was cool, but a slow one to board and get off.  Even the rides we were used to had various little differences.  Pirates had more of a full story showing the start of a well lit, fun river town and the pirates as skeletons with the gold.  It’s a Small World ended with scenes from America including a football player, the Statue of Liberty, and the large Hollywood sign.  Phantom Manor (Haunted Mansion) seemed longer than the one in Orlando and focused on the ghost bride trying to find a husband.  It was nice to see even the rides we’re used to reimagined a little differently.  Our biggest question now is how much that we saw is the same in California at Disneyland there and how much is Paris’ unique take on the parks.  Guess we’ll need to get a trip to California planned!

Not a ton to say otherwise, Disneyland only needs so much narration!  We’ve got lots of videos and pictures we can share when we get home.  Since we did very little standing in lines, we ended up logging 12 miles of walking yet again by the end of the day.  This morning we slept in, grabbed breakfast, and packed up.  We made a few little stops walking back towards the parks/train station to explore another hotel and go into a few shops we’d skipped the previous two days.  Now we’re just sitting in the “downtown Disney” area and going to pass a few hours relaxing before hopping onto the train back to London around 5pm.  Not sure what is in store for the rest of the trip now that we’ve crossed everything major off our lists, so we’re going to wing it from here!

Paris in 2 Hours

(All photos of us together are on Jared’s phone... oops)

Well not really 2 hours, but we saw a tour bus that boasted that and we felt our exploration should qualify.  I’m writing this tonight because tomorrow it’s Disney from dawn til dusk!!  

We arrived at Disneyland Paris around 2:00 today (with a time change - we are now 6 hours ahead of Florida, 7 ahead of Indiana/Kansas).  We spent a bit of time confused as to where to go since we knew our hotel was supposed to be walking distance.  Finally we followed others with suitcases through a security checkpoint that let us into the “Disney Springs” area here, which all the hotels are kind of built around.  We wandered out past a side and down a hidden little path and came upon our hotel.  From there we had to wander around until we found the front desk.  I think it’s fair to say their signage is NOT up to the par we are used to with Disney World.  Ironically, we had been warned by a friend just a few days ago who had recently visited that “they aren’t quite as efficient as we’re used to.”  I guess we’ll see where else we see this!  Beyond that little adventure, check in was easy enough and we had our key and access to our room.  We’re lucky that our door is just 3 floors up from right above where the hidden path meets our hotel, so we have the easiest access to the walking path back to the parks that we possibly could here.

After getting settled, we mapped out a plan and made our way to Paris.  It was about a 40 minute train ride downtown where we arrived a short walk away from Notre Dame.  The church was much more blocked off than we expected - we had to stay on the other side of the street.  But despite the obvious construction, the front looked perfect still and they’d made it easy to still see and get pictures of, which is appreciated.  From Notre Dame, we walked to the Louvre so Jared could see “the giant glass triangle”.  The whole area there is probably my favorite in Paris, the park near it has fountains and chairs you can set up anywhere and the Louvre and the buildings surrounding it was huge and beautiful.  It just all gives off a sense of a relaxing, happy place.  

We started to make our way to the arc at that point, but after about 20 minutes we didn’t seem to be any closer, despite having been staring down the street at it the whole time.  Due to the temperature dropping, our feet starting to hurt, and not having fully mapped out our return trip yet, Jared chose to forgo seeing that for the Eiffel Tower.  The Eiffel Tower seems to have new security points in place to walk underneath it, but it wasn’t hard to navigate still.  There also appears to be some repair going on there, but the whole thing is still visible and the rides to the top were still running.  We got a number photos at and around the tower and then started a trek to a nearby train station with a mapped out return route we were 75% sure would work...  the trains were not obvious either (which I actually remembered from the last time).  Lucky us, we’d figured it out correctly (Dana did.  Dana appears to primarily be able to map out train routes - can’t go the right direction on the street - but train routes she’s got down).

Back on Disney property, we did a quick walk through the store to get out of the cold (the temperature had gotten VERY chilly once the sun dropped).  We then grabbed Five Guys for a quick dinner and made our way back to the hotel.  Jared even found in the hotel details that we get one free hot drink from a hot drink machine a day - so we went and got the hot chocolate I had been craving since the Eiffel Tower.  Now we’re all washed up (and apparently flooding our bathroom, the shower curtain is NOT doing it’s job) and we’re getting ready to go tomorrow.  7am wake up it seems, Extra Magic Hours start at 8:30 and we have just one day to find all the differences and do all the rides in both parks here!  I’ll probably tune in again Friday morning since we don’t have many plans between checking out and our 5pm train back to London.  TO DISNEY!

To Hogwarts!

Today was the one day I’d requested from this trip.  The Warner Brothers Studio Tour in Leavenworth.  I’d had my eye on this for the last few years since it was first announced and had continuously said if I got back to London, I WOULD be going.  And boy was it everything I’d imagined and more.  

We started off the morning with about an hour of exploring the Science Museum since all national museums here are free.  From there, we caught trains and buses to Warner Brothers Studios where we arrived an hour early, so I had plenty of time to scope out the shop!  We picked up our little audio/visual tour devices (basically phones in giant cases) and started on our way.  The tour was absolutely amazing.  We got to walk through the Great Hall, Gringots, and Diagon Alley, as well as see into the sets for the dormitory, Hagrid’s Hut, The Burrow, Dumbledore’s offices, the potions classroom, and more.  The audio/visual guide was a nice little addition, telling us a few fun details that weren’t on the plaques such as two Hagrid’s Huts were built, one at a very large scale with oversized furniture to make normal people look small, and one at a small scale with tiny furniture to make Hagrid’s look big.  The audio/visual made it so we really didn’t have to read too much of what was posted around the sites and just got to look and listen.  I took LOTS of videos, so don’t worry, I’ll have those turned into a montage one day in the future...

They also had a few photo ops - I HAD to buy the one of my on the broomstick...  and butter beer, which we though tasted pretty similar to Universal, despite reading people online saying they liked one or the other better.  Overall we were on the tour from 3:30-7:00, and we really could’ve taken longer, especially since our little devices had more videos and pictures we didn’t look at.  We wanted to catch the last bus to the train station at 8 though, so we decided not to spend more time exploring and hit the shop to buy all the stuff I’d scouted out beforehand.  It was well worth the $50 ticket and afterwards Jared was already looking up if there were similar experiences elsewhere because we’d love to do it for other big movies (there are a few non-specific ones exploring multiple sets of different shows/movies at once).  

By the time we’d had dinner and were back at the hotel, it was after 10:00.  So we quickly showered and packed up.  Right at this moment we are already through security and just waiting to board our train to Paris!

A Cool Toy Store, Missing Ice Cream Shop, and Some Other Stuff

Those 14 hours of sleep served us well.  Once we’d eaten breakfast and gathered our stuff, we headed out towards Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.  It was a 30 minute walk exploring the streets on our way there.  It’s pretty obvious when exploring where the tourist spots are with all the cameras, selfie sticks, and multiple languages being spoken.  We wandered across the bridge and walked the exterior of the tower, reading the various notes about it’s history.  Jared did comment how he can understand how the characters in video games are able to scale the walls of castles with all the bricks, rocks, and gutters that stick out...

From the tower, we made our way to Piccadilly Circus to walk the street and “shop”.  It was interesting seeing the various stores we recognized next to ones we didn’t.  Though our favorite, and the main one we went into, was the 7 level toy store with multiple lego displays and many replica items from the big fantasy movie/tv series - Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, etc.

From Piccadilly Circus we walked our way to Trafalgar Square which wasn’t hosting an event anymore.  We got to see a giant Pikachu and a number of chalk artists at work there.  One our way there we also passed a fantastic musician out singing and playing guitar.  We got to hear her say she’s a Canadian musician who was currently filming a movie (we did see two guys with a pretty nice camera when we’d walked towards her).  Unfortunately we haven’t been able to find what we thought her name was online.

Once we’d walked around the square we ventured into the National Gallery since it was free admission.  It was impressive how large and realistic some of the paintings were to us.

From Trafalgar Square we took our first ride on the tube of the day and made our way to Kingscross Station so Dana could shop at the little Harry Potter store and Jared could see what the giant station looks like in person.  After doing so, we made our way back to the hotel while it started to rain a bit and was cooling down.  We chose to eat at a small pizza place near the hotel that was very good, but we did have to cut our own pizzas, which Jared said kind of put a damper on the quality of the food.  In search of frozen yogurt for Dana, we wandered down to the river again but had no luck finding the place google told us should be there.  So while we were able to grab a pastry on the way back, we ended up pretty wet and cold before we returned to the hotel.  The good news is, our new rain jackets, daypack, and water proof shoes worked!

That logged over 10 miles for the day and with sore feet we spent the rest of the night relaxing in the hotel.  Another 10 hours of sleep and we’re ready for today, which includes the Harry Potter Warner Brothers set tour this afternoon!

10 Miles Walked, 14 Hours Slept

Nothing like jet lag can knock me (or Jared) out that hard for that long.  After arriving yesterday we found that Uber is NOT the efficient way to leave the airport (we didn’t really think it would be... but it seems easiest without changing trains).  It took almost 2 hours after getting off the plane to arrive at our hotel.  The driver said it’s primarily because we arrived on the weekend.

Once we’d dropped out items off at the hotel, we made our way towards Kensington Palace, giving Jared his first ride on the tube.  From there we continued wandering, seeing Hyde Park, the Animals of War Memorial, Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, Buckingham Palace and more.  Trafalgar Square seemed to have some kind of concert/event going on so we decided to go there another day and avoid the crowd of people.  At that point we’d wandered almost back to our hotel, so we continued walking across the Thames and to Big Ben, who is completely covered in scaffolding from 2017-2020... oh well!

Once back at the hotel, we gave our feet a rest, having logged 10 miles/20,000 steps in about 5 hours.  I started to fall asleep though, so we decided it was best to hit dinner early and call it a night.  We tried a cute little Mexican “street food” restaurant right down the block that had perfect Dana-sized portions of tacos and Jared-sized “big meals”.  After that we were back at the hotel for a 7pm bedtime.  And at around 9am we were finally alive to the world again!  Hopefully we are now on London time and can enjoy a full day of exploration today!