Catslip to Paris

Friday, July 18

We left Cherry Cottage in Catslip and went by taxi to St. Pancras Station, where we caught the Eurostar train to Paris. The train goes over 100-mph silently, spending about twenty minutes in the "chunnel" out of the two-hour-fifteen-minute trip. We were met by a Mercedes limo we had hired and were driven by a very nice young man who helped us a lot with our large amount of luggage; he even spent twenty minutes with me trying to find out where to return the baggage trolley.

He drove us to our studio apartment at 32 rue St. Paul in the Marais district, 4th Arrondissement. This studio is SMALL, the smallest place we've ever stayed, with amazingly efficient use of space. But it is wonderfully located and we plan on being out and about most of the time.



















We spent the remainder of the afternoon and the evening wandering around the Marais, visiting shops, scoping out eating places, and just observing Paris life. There is an English language bookstore, The Red Wheelbarrow on our street and an excellent supermarket right around the corner. Unfortunately, the bookstore charges the published list price, but in Euros; thus making it 70% more expensive; won't make that mistake again.





We had dinner at Le Rouge George on rue St. Paul. We also had to locate an Internet signal as the wi-fi in our studio is not working. This area is restaurant heaven! Every other establishment is a food place. Unfortunately, the first place we saw (on exiting the Gare du Nord) was a McDonalds.