Olympic Torch Relay

England has made an effort to have the torch come within 10 miles of everyone. Today it went through Doncaster and neighboring villages. I went with some neighbors to watch it pass through the town. Not knowing how crowded it would be, and how soon the streets would close, we went early.  We were almost the first there, but it soon filled up with a cross section of England as well as whole grade schools and pre-schools. The streets were fairly crowded by the time the torch arrived. There were several large vans and buses, motor cycle police preceding it. Because of the large number of torch bearers, there is a kissing point (hand over) about every 400 to 500 yards. In some locations, people have tried to come into the street and touch the torch. As a result our torch bearer was walking with a police escort of 4 police on each side of the street. It made close photos hard to get.  As you took a picture, an escort would be in front of you and you’d get the side of their head. The shots I did get were as the torch approached. It was quick once it came, but it was fun to be part of the event.

Summer Solstice

We are only 8 degrees north of home, but the change is day length and the position of the sun is amazing. Yesterday, the longest day of the year, officially the sun rose at 4:37 and set at 9:37.  The sun may have set technically, but it skims the horizon of another two hours and gets dark after 11pm. It starts getting light at 2:30am. I'm used to the sun drawing a smile in the sky, here it draws an ellipse. It rises at 10 degrees east of north and sets at 10 degrees west of north.  Without a compass, it looks like it sets and rises at the same spot due north.

London

Since it was supposed to rain all weekend, for our 39^th wedding anniversary we went to London.  It turned out to be cloudy with some sun, mist, and lots of wind. We have been to London and seen most of the major attractions, so we started at the Churchill war rooms and museum. It was very interesting. When the war was over, they had just walked away so most of it was left as it had been used.

It’s near Buckingham Palace and the Queen was reviewing the troops as part of her birthday celebration. We saw a lot of uniforms, tuxes, top hats and well dressed women in all manner of hats. We didn’t know the Queen came out on the balcony or we might have seen her and the royal family. We did see a fly over in her honor.  3Helicopters, 9 planes in groups of 3, and the British equivalent of the Blue Angels with red, white, and blue after trails.

We cruised down the Thames to Greenwich and the prime meridian.

Of course we stood with one foot in the eastern and one in the western hemispheres.

The trip down is leisurely taking about an hour and a half with commentary about the sights and sections of London you’re traveling through.

Greenwich is fascinating with more to see than we had time for. We concentrated on the Observatory where the prime meridian is marked and the time of the world starts at 0. The whole point of this observatory was to come up with an accurate way for ships to measure longitude. Too many accidents were happening because of inaccurate time pieces used on ships. The first prototypes were in the museum and it was fascinating looking at the progression to the one that worked.

Our theater tickets were for 7:30 to see Wicked. We left Greenwich at 4pm to take the tube back, a supposed half hour trip, change clothes, and go to a Spanish restaurant near the theater that had a gluten free recommendation. The tube station I used 14 years ago at Greenwich required you to walk under the river. So we did and then walked to the tube entrance a block away. We boarded the train that was going in our direction. It announced the next stop as the Cuttyshark

exhibit we had just left on the other side of the river! The wrong direction! We got off, switched trains. As we approached the station we had just come from, it was announced that this was the end of the line. We needed to exit the tube and catch a substitute bus to a tube station 5 stops up the line.  We consulted the maps and picked the next tube line to catch. As we entered the next station it was announced that tube line was also closed for maintenance.  The only option was a line that made a large loop around the south side of the city.  We finally got to our destination and walked the 25 minutes to our hotel.  Our 30 min. tube ride had taken an hour and 45 minutes. So much for dinner. We changed clothes, walked 20 minutes to the closer tube station, caught the train to the theater, and picked up our tickets. We had half an hour before the play started, so we went across the street to a pub and had an order of fries for dinner. Only thing on the menu I could eat.

The play was wonderful. Much more extravagant than the production that I’d seen and liked in Portland. I’m glad I saw it again. It was John’s first time and he was impressed. Boy, has theater going changed in London. 14 years ago everyone dressed for the occasion. There were people in long dresses and suits, but the majority were in jeans and casual clothes. We could have come right from Greenwich, had dinner, and come to the play without changing. They also had concessioners wandering the isles selling candy, wine, and pop. Like a baseball game only they don’t yell.

Sunday morning we walked to the British Museum and spent the morning there.  It is amazing, the artifacts that the British have collected from all over the world. We went through the Americas’ exhibit. It has items from each region of North America. Not a huge amount from any one tribe but a broad representation of each culture.

We walked back to the hotel, 25 min., picked up our suitcases and walked 20 minutes to the train station. We arrived with time to spare and then found out the trains using our line were all delayed due to work on the line. I was glad we were just going home. Some people were scrambling as they had connections to make. We were wondering how long we’d be waiting as the list went from the 12 o’clock hour trains to the 3pm trains skipping all those in between. One of which was ours.  In the end we were only about 10 minutes late.
Kings Cross train station lists all of the trains on a board by the terminus of the train with all the stops listed underneath.  Your ticket doesn’t have the terminus only your starting and stopping points. So you have to go by the time for your train and then check to see that your destination is listed. The train list doesn’t have a platform posted until your train comes in and empties. This is usually about 15 minutes before you leave.  When the platform is posted there is a mass exodus from the waiting hall to the designated platform. By the time you board and get your suitcase put away, the train is pulling out of the station. They don’t waste time.

England, not just London, is getting ready for the Olympics. We saw a horse riding stadium being erected in Greenwich. There is also a lot of repair being done especially on transportation. Trains and tubes should run wonderfully during and after the Olympics, but right now it causes surprises and delays.

So far, we have taken trains from Doncaster. It involves a 22 to 28 pound taxi ride. We drove to Retford to check out the station, as it’s the same distance from our house but it has parking for your car.  It looked like a better option, so we booked this trip from it. Getting there Friday night during rush hour was easy, parking was simple, but on entering the station we learned our train had been cancelled!  The way it works. Your ticket is good for a train starting at your designated time and for any train after that if something happens to your train. You may have to stand, but you can take it. The first one after ours was due into the station in half an hour. An earlier one was due any minute, but we weren’t supposed to take it as it was before our scheduled time.  A train person on the platform grabbed the conductor and found us a spot on that train.  His boarding comments to us were, “Hurry up you’re making the train late.” We found a seat and If late to London, it was only by minutes.

If you’ve ever been to London, you know that there are 13 tube lines and entrances everywhere. Well, I seemed to book a hotel in a dead spot for tubes. It was advertised as ½ a mile from the train station. It was a mile and a half.  It looked closer to another station, but in walking it, it was farther that the train station.  Lesson in booking hotel: look at a Google satellite maps and see where it is. It was a nice neighborhood, and a very nice hotel just not near anything. 

Paris

We spent 3 days in Paris.  We took the Eurostar train through the Chunnel. The high speed train makes the trip from London to Paris in about an hour and a half.  It’s a nice trip through the English and French country side and a dark tunnel under the channel for about 20 minutes, so the tunnel itself is not very impressive.

                                                                           Chunnel entrance              

The train arrives at Paris’s Gare du Nord (north train station), so I booked a hotel within walking distance. Six years ago I stayed in the area, and it was very handy to the Metro (subway) and trains.  The Paris Metro system is efficient, but unlike the London tubes it has few elevators and lots of stairs. Hauling suitcases even carry-on sized ones can be a pain especially in crowds.

                                                                        Gare du Nord

As we left the station, it was busy. We turned the corner going away from the station walking the block and a half to our hotel, the streets became full of 20 to30 year old North African French immigrants drinking, smoking, eating and partying or just hanging out.  My first thought was what have I gotten us into?

                                                                               Hotel

At the hotel, it was clean, nice and the room was small but adequate.  It was hot as we arrived so John went to turn on the air conditioning to cool the room while we were at dinner.  The air conditioning didn’t work.  We could get heat, but the air would turn on and immediately shut off.  Before we unpacked, we decided to ask for a room with working air conditioning, since it was one reason I had booked the hotel.  As John went down to check on the room I opened the window to look out.  Several guys from the main street “party” had walked half a block up our side street and were urinating against and behind parked cars.  I really wondered if I’d blown it. 

John came back with the news that no air conditioning worked in the building, it had been out for a while and was probably not going to get fixed anytime soon.  Since it was 8pm we decided to try one night and move tomorrow if we had to. We walked the gauntlet to a restaurant the desk clerk recommended and had a very nice meal.  I had printed cards in French I could hand the waiter that explained I needed gluten free food and what was and wasn’t gluten free.  It was much simpler than trying to use my poor French.

On returning to the hotel, we opened the windows to cool the room, but it did let in the noise. An advantage was the voices were all in French, which I couldn’t understand so it was just a background babble of noise. Not a bad night’s sleep. 
The next day as we left the hotel the street was clean, almost empty at 9 am, with a variety of ethnicities around.  So we decided something unusual had been going on and stayed at the hotel.  It was noisy the next two nights. With 7 story buildings to echo the noise and a main street half a block away, the traffic of trucks, buses, and emergency vehicles was the noise that disturbed us.
Day One,
The first day which was in the mid 70’s and beautiful was spent in the heart of Paris. Notre Dame

the left artsy bank, the deportation memorial (holocaust memorial),

 Cluny Museum,

 St Severin,

t. Chapelle, St Michael Place where a demonstration was taking place. I don’t have any idea what they were chanting or picketing and couldn’t read the placards they carried.  I can read French much better than I can understand the oral language. We took a cruise tour of the Seine going around the two main islands and under all the bridges.

 
There is even a small statue of Liberty on the end of one island in the river.

It’s a great way to connect all the parts of the center of Paris.  Everything closes at 6pm.  They are not like the US and keep things open until 9 or 10.  Since the Eiffel tower is one exception we took Metro to it thinking it would be nice to see the city from above after seeing it from the river.  There was one elevator working, there are 4, and the wait was 2 hours.  As it was 7pm we opted for dinner and our hotel.

We picked a small café across from the train station.  They have wonderful outside seating, but that is where the smokers sit, and Paris has a lot of smokers. So we ate inside. We had roast pork with veggies and of course French fries.  It was delicious and half the cost of the first nights.

 Day Two

This was the first Sunday of the month and in Paris all the public museums including Versailles are free.  It was supposed to be a rainy day, so we hoped everyone would go for the inside museums.  Versailles is closed on Monday, so that is where we decided to go.  The Metro takes about 45 minutes to get you to within ¼ mile of the palace.  The train was a double decker and packed.  We weren’t the only ones with this idea.  The main palace wasn’t free. The outer houses the Grand and Petit Triamons were free.  We had an audio guide for the palace which is always nice. I even made the guy handing them out smile. He asked if we wanted the guide in English before we had opened our mouths. It’s that obvious huh. I answered in French “Yes, please” and he laughed.

                                                                             

The first of the month they turn on all of the fountains. We walked through the different fountain gardens there are 25 with working fountains. We walked through 17 of them. We wanted to see the outer small houses so we only say two of the bigger fountains flowing. It’s a mile walk to the outer buildings and by the time we returned the fountains had just stopped. There was a shell fountain actually called the Ballroom that would have been amazing to see.

Palace                                           Hall of Mirrors

Shell fountain

Apollo Fountain

There is a grand canal like in Venice in which you can rent boats and row around.

The Grand Trianon was built for the king to get away from the court. It was still very opulent. The malachite dishes in one room were amazing. The king had the flowers in this garden changed daily so he wouldn’t tire of the view.

The Petit Trianon was used originally as a place for the king to study botany. Marie Antoinette used it as the main family home and had a farm built next to it. She would have preferred to stay a princess in the country in Austria, and always tried to be in a rural setting. It was small by royal standards. You begin to understand why there was a revolution, when half of Frances GDP went to build this palace and grounds.

The hour trip back to our hotel was a nice rest after walking all day. We stopped at the Arc de Triomphe on the way back.

Dinner was at a small café, eating inside. John found mussels, I had roast chicken. Good and reasonably priced. I’ve include a picture of John with his beer.

Day Three

We hadn’t made the Eiffel Tower yet so that was our first stop and then the Louvre. Getting there early we thought it would be a short line, wrong. It was 2 hours, so we bit the bullet and got in line. It was two hours exactly, but we spent an hour on the tower and it only rained hard when we were at the top and could duck inside. The people in front of us were from Switzerland and Turkey and delightful.  It made the wait go quickly except for the cold! Winds blew steadily from the west with a bite to them.  The tower is amazing and if you’re in Paris get in line ad go to the top it’s worth the wait. They do need to take some tips from Disneyland in crowd management, but they probably think it works, why change.

The Louvre was amazing and we saw the Greek sculptures, Italian and French Renaissance paintings, including the Mona Lisa, and were in the Egyptian wing when they kicked us out.

When we got on the metro that morning at 9:30 we figured we’d missed rush hour. Wrong we were in the middle of it. As we left the museum and got to the metro station about 6:30, after rush hour. Wrong again. The first train was so packed people had their faces smashed against the windows of the door. We just let it pass. The next rain had about 6 people get off so we crowded in. Their work day must be 10 to 6?

We went back to the café of the second night and they remembered us and were delighted we returned. Great service! It’s good service in France if they don’t rush you and let you eat in peace. I had a delicious steak with an onion sauce that tasted like French onion soup, one of my favorites.

The black French citizens that you met in the city or on the Metro were much friendlier and more helpful than any white residents who usually ignored you.

Day 4

We boarded the Eurostar train at 9:05 and walked in our door at 2:00 after an hour layover in London and a half hour taxis ride.  Not bad.