Leaving from Shipley meant that I could stay at my brother's house in London for the Sunday and most of Monday before catching the coach from Victoria at 21h30 on Monday night. It was interesting to compare the progress made on his house since my visit 3 weeks earlier which was before the final filming for Grand Designs had taken place. Since then the lounge and sauna had been finished and the 16 foot gold Chesterfield sofa had been delivered and installed in t otherwise white kitchen.
I walked the streets of London to have lunch on Monday with my goddaughter, Danielle - she is living in the tiniest little bedsit in Maida Vale whilst doing a Masters at Kings College in Disaster Management - world disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis etc. Very interesting. Something for us retired folk? I walked back alongside the Grand Union canal.
I also walked through Paddington Station and was impressed to see all the bicycles - London's new emphasis on sustainability.
Back at the house my brother Ian and I had a sauna in his basement next to the video dance floor and jacuzzi spa! It's a glass fronted sauna. The house still needs to be finished - notably their own bedroom and en suite in the basement. They're hoping to start earning money by allowing companies to use the house for magazine shots, advert backgrounds etc. It lends itself quite well being plain white and in that you can close doors on any mess e.g. Everything in the kitchen can be shut away behind folding or sliding doors. There is colored lighting installed everywhere which changes the white to other colours on request! Claire sent me up for a bath in the guest room, which they are using at the moment, before I embarked on the 3 day return journey.The bath is free standing and made of a double skinned white material with a texture similar to kendal mint cake. There's a button in the bath that you press and the whole bath changes colour. You can change it to blue or pink or green or put it on to cycle to change automatically.
Well London on Halloween was definitely a sight to see with many houses in their area decorated. One had a giant spider stretching over the entire front of the house and many had cobwebs draped over the railings.
We dropped Tilly and Maeve off with Claire to do some "Trick'n'Treating" and Ian gave me a lift to the coach station.
Anyway on to The Journey.......
Check in for the coach was done in the hour leading up to departure as it was going across a border. We were also given luggage labels to attach.
The coach left at 21h30 and at Dover we all had to get off and go through both English and French passport control. We boarded the ferry on the coach and then had to get off and leave the hold durn transit. We had an hour or so to visit the Duty Free shop, bars, coffee shops etc.
The coach arrived in Paris at 6h30 and it took me a while to establish exactly how to get from the coach station to Gare Austerlitz until I remembered that I'd researched it a couple of weeks earlier and made a note in my book. Not easy to find your way on the metro. No international standards on line naming and you really need to know where the line that you need terminates so that a) you travel on the correct line and b) in the correct direction.
In any event you can only get to Gare du Lyon and then it's a walk, bus or taxi across the Seine to Austerlitz. The left luggage facilities both here and at Barcelona Sants were excellent. Once you find them. You send the luggage through a security scan, then select a locker of the right size, unload as much of your luggage as possible, change your shoes, you may leave things loose in the locker that you don't want to carry and then you put coins in the slot and away you go. In Paris with a ticket and in Barcelona with a key. Price varies according to locker size, Paris was around €7 for 3 days (I only wanted one day) and Barcelona was about half that.
On to Episode 2... Paris
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Location:England
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