Monday 12 August
2013
We are leaving at 08:00 today and at 07:00 all of the
group are at breakfast in the restaurant. We are the only ones in the entire
restaurant but are still told to sit at tables of eight and not at the smaller
tables! I just cannot be arsed to argue this morning! It is no problem and
nobody minds but it is not what we paid for! Bloody French are really pissing
me off!
We are away by 08:00 and I drive into Paris for a short
tour. The traffic is surprisingly light today and I can show the group a lot of
the main buildings before arriving at the Eifel Tower by 09:20. There are a few
more people here and probably too long a queue for anyone to go up in the two
hours we have here.
We go for a walk to a Boulangerie/Patisserie I know that
does good baguettes and pastries and I wanted to show Wendy this gorgeous cake
shop. Richard and his girls join me and my girls (including Dot!) as we find
most of the shops closed! And the lovely cake shop has blinds down so you can’t
even see in!
We find another small Boulangerie and buy our lunch to be
eaten later.
Back at the coach Hollie serves the drinks as we enjoy
being underneath the always impressive Eifel Tower. It truly is an awesome
sight and however many times you are here it is always a wonder.
We depart Paris at 11:20 and have another traffic free
run through to the motorway where we stop for half an hour at 13:00. We all sit
outside and eat our baguettes before the last bit of the journey up to Calais.
We encounter a short delay due to roadworks a mile from the shuttle terminal
before arriving at the ticket booth at 15:20, an hour before our scheduled
train departure at 16:20.
I process the ticket and am told by the machine we are
now on the 16:36 train due to an earlier problem! Better to know now than be
told as you wait to board the train and it is no inconvenience to us.
It takes a while to clear British Passport Control and
once free we manage a quick fifteen minutes in the terminal before boarding our
train which leaves bang on time at 16:36.
We are driving off the train at 16:10 and five minutes
later are at the service area to drop off the three ladies, have a comfort stop
and take the group photo I had forgotten to do this morning!
Away from here at 16:30 we are back in Liss at 18:25 and
Petersfield at 18:40.
It has been a great, if tiring, weekend away and has been
great having the company of Richard, Sarah, Bethany, Megan and Dot during the
weekend.
Am looking forward to next year already!
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