London and Paris -- A Trip Recap

We're back from our vacation to London and Paris. Actually, we got back last Sunday -- it has taken me that long to do some writing and also go through the 1200 or so pictures that I took on the vacation. In fact, I still have a number of posts in draft form, but I wanted to at least get this little summary post up before too much time passes.

Let me start you off with a slide show of the some of the pictures we took:

In summary, we had a great time spending 4 days in London, England and then heading over to Paris, France for 4 full days before heading back to Los Angeles on the 5th day. Paris was expensive, but London was really expensive -- but, beyond that the weather is better than you can usually expect that time of year. In fact, we had several days of partly cloudy skies with sunshine and temperatures approach the high 50's!

Here is a quick recap on our trip. (Links will be filled in as I complete the posts)
February 23rd - Arrival in London, England
February 24th - Touring around London, WiFi connections
February 25th - Continue our touring
February 26th - Enjoy the weather, the London Eye, Paddington Station, and missing the Eurostar
February 27th - Late arrival, first day in Paris
February 28th - Visiting the D-Day beaches in Normandy
February 29th - Mussee d'Orsay, L'Open Tour, Night Cruise
March 1st - Try and fit everything in -- Louvre, Notre Dame, and the Eiffel Tower
March 2nd - Eat breakfast, fly home

The hotels we stayed in:
The Trafalgar - Hilton Trafalgar Square
Hilton Arc de Triomphe

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The Trafalgar – Hilton’s Trafalgar Square Hotel

We really struggled over our decision to stay at “The Trafalgar” – a highly modernized Hilton hotel in Trafalgar Square that does not highly publicize its Hilton Brand. The reviews were somewhat mixed and there were several other more traditional Hiltons just a couple miles away. In the end, we selected it for the price / value ratio (we were staying free on HHonors points) and the centralized location that it enjoys to many of the major sites of London.

Our room is in the picture above pointed out with the red arrow.

The welcome was just as we expected per the reviews that we read on TripAdvisor (link). The hotel was hard to recognize (although I driver knew it well) and the only marking on the building showed “The Trafalgar” in small black letters over the door. Other than that marking, you could not tell it was a hotel.
Once entering, it is similarly confusing. As you come up stairs you enter a bar, with a concierge desk (although not identified as such). In the bar, there are a couple of turntables where the DJ spins tracks during the evening. Off in the corned to the left, there are four workstations facing each other where the hotel staff is at. It is not a front desk experience per say, but if you know what you are looking for – it is easy.

I believe that the modern design and layout actually significantly takes away from the charm of this hotel and believe it would be more successful in a traditional format and offerings. But, who am I to say such things – it is not like I own a hotel chain or anything.

At check-in, we received a complimentary upgrade to room #203, which has to be one of the best of the hotel. The view to Trafalgar Square is hard to beat. The only frustrating part is that when I arrived in my room, I realized I did not receive free complimentary breakfast coupons. I called down to the desk and they advised me that Diamond members are entitled to an upgraded room, complimentary breakfast, or complimentary drinks. The only rub here is that I was not asked which I preferred at check-in. Our preference is clearly for the room and the view, so I did not ask to be moved. It would have been nice to be asked or know that the others were an option.


The point above is contrary to many reviews I have read. Other reviews have stated that no complimentary breakfast is available, which is not true for Hilton HHonors Diamond members. You can avoid the ₤15.50 ($30 US) per person breakfast charge if that is your choice. Just make sure to declare that at the check-in time to receive your preference. If not, as with us – there are several relatively reasonable cafés in the area, including the ever preset Pret A Manger, a chain where you can get bread items, fruit, and an assortment of coffees for under ₤10 for two in the morning.

The location of the Trafalgar Hotel is tough to beat. We were able to access Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, the Theatre District / TKTS, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and the Westminster Abbey with very little walking effort. If you enjoy walking about, plus being located in the same square as the British National Gallery, you will love the centralized location. Plus “The Original Tour” office for the bus tour is right around the corner.

In terms of the staff, they were generally excellent for us. Courteous, helpful, and quick to respond to needs or questions that we have. We even received a nice plate of fruit and sparkling water on our first evening in the hotel. On the night we realized we missed our Eurostar train from London to Paris, we got great attention from both staff and the concierge to get us back on track again. They went out of their way to help solve our problem and that was greatly appreciated and rewarded with tips.

The other notion that I would like to dispel from the reviews that I have read is that the drinks offered are overly expensive. While they are definitely not cheap, they are not out of line with other offerings in London. While by United States standards, $10-12 drinks may look expensive, you would be hard pressed to find a much better value in London outside of the pub scene.

The only real problem that we experienced was the noise level in our room. Trafalgar Square is definitely one of the busiest intersections in all of London. There are multiple bus stops, many of them right outside of the hotel. It’s a happening place, and it should be expected. In our first room #203, which may perhaps be the room with the best view in the hotel – had two windows, both facing towards the square that let a lot of the noise in.

While I am usually a sound sleeper, the frequent sounds of buses, traffic, and police sirens woke me up on several occasions over the three nights we stayed there. I used earplugs successfully on our last night in #203 and slept the best during that stay. On our fourth and unexpected night we were in room #403, which only had one window. The noise was greatly reduced, and with just the fan running in the room – I had no problems sleeping.

With being said, if you are a light sleeper and even a moderate to heavy sleeper – and you value your rest more than the view, then I recommend avoiding rooms #103, #203, and #303. They would be the rooms with the highest noise exposure to Trafalgar Square given the noise levels.

The other item worth mentioning is that Internet price is outrageous here ₤15/day ($30 US) or ₤75/week ($150). More on Internet access in London here

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Eurostar London to Paris - 20:05 is 8:05pm, not 10:05pm

In case you ever wonder, 20:05 on the military clock is really 8:05pm and not 10:05pm. Ashley and I learned that the hard way last night when we were planning to take the Eurostar train from London (Saint Pancras) to Paris (Paris Nord). Our mistake happened to be an expensive one, luckily in the end we only lose a couple of hours of time in Paris.

Here is what happened…

When I booked our Eurostar tickets last week, the only option available was the last train of the night for Tuesday. That train departed at 20:05 from the Saint Pancras station in London and arrived at 23:20 in the Paris Nord station in Paris.

Fast forward to last night...

We planned our entire day around what we thought was the 10:05pm departure time. Calculating everything else out, we figured we would be safe if we hailed a taxi from our hotel at 8:30pm, plenty of time for the few kilometer trip over to the Saint Pancras station. After our adventures throughout the day, we arrived back at our hotel to wait for what we thought was the 10:05pm train by grabbing a coffee and drinks in the bar of our hotel. I decided to double-check out reservations and my heart sunk.

I realized the departure time was really 8:05pm not 10:05pm – and it was 7:40pm. There was no possibly way to get to the train before it made its departure at 8:05pm. We stuck in London for the night without a room?

How did we get here?

1. We did not check our reservations or paper tickets we had with us. This is probably the goofiest mistake of them all. All day long I meant to double check, but Ashley and I had so thoroughly discussed and planned for the departure time of 10:05pm – could it possibly have been anything else?
2. Our assumption of the 10:05pm departure was validated by Paris, France being one hour ahead of London, England. The only problem? We calculated it as one hour behind – making the time difference and the train schedule perfectly in sync.
3. We planned our entire day around the 10:05pm departure time. Since we had discussed it so much, how could it be anything different?

Now we had a little bit of a mess on our hands. After checking with the concierge at our hotel, there were no more outbound trains available this evening on the Eurostar to Paris. No flights to Paris that we could still take. No hotel. Useless tickets since they were restricted, non-refundable, and non-transferrable. Seriously a big OOPS!

Needless to say, we were pretty frustrated – but really could only laugh at this point, getting upset would have only made matters worse. So, I had a great laugh for a couple of minutes and then proceeded to get things worked out.

Truly, everything worked at – although it was at considerable cost from what we had planned on. The irony of it is that I have a post in draft format in which I cover how dramatically inexpensive this trip really was for us based on the luxuries we have been able to enjoy. The trip will still be relatively inexpensive – just a little more than I thought.

Here is how everything worked out.

The first order was to find out if there was a place to stay the night. Luckily, the Trafalgar Hilton had a few rooms left – plus being Diamond with Hilton HHonors, the only tickle -- ₤385, yes $770 US for a single room. Do not even wonder about the great room we had previously, that was well over $1000 US. Fortunately, I still had plenty of HHonors points to convert the stay into a free night – a great, yet unexpected use of 40,000 points.

Getting to Paris provided us with a couple of different options. One, we could take a very early flight to Paris and minimize our lost time. Two, we could take the first Eurostar train out in the morning.

At first glance, it looked as if the flight from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle was going to be the best option at a total of ₤164 for both of us. The flight left at 6:20am and arrived in Paris shortly before 9:00am. We figured that without delay, we could be at our hotel by 11:00am. But that was the price per person and with an additional ₤50 for a taxi ride to Heathrow, the earlier check in time, and the risk of flight delays and other issues out of Heathrow – it did not seem like the best option at ₤400, roughly $800 US.

The Eurostar website showed the first train out at 7:30am, and only fully flexible fares available eat ₤309 for both of us. That train put us in Paris before 11:00am and we figured we could be at the hotel before 11:30am. Plus the trip was simpler, we could get some extra sleep, and there was little risk of delay. We booked those on short order and headed off to bed for our early 5:30am wake-up call.

This morning has moved very smoothly, although there were two trains with earlier departure times (6:30am, 6:55am) that did not appear on the website. Given that the trains were pretty empty – we wished we could have jumped on one of those. We boarded our 7:30am train and just passed under the English Channel. It looks like we will have an early arrival into Paris right now.

Still the damage was not insignificant – an extra $600 plus another 40,000 HHonors points spent unexpectedly. We do realize it could have been much worse though – given the time of year for our travels, the bookings were pretty easy and I was able to defer costs for points. Luckily we are only losing a couple of usable hours of daylight in Paris after this misfortune. It could have been much worse.

Lesson learned? Not really much, we already know we should have been more vigilant in checking our itinerary. We will make sure we review our flight out of Paris on Sunday a few more times this week just to be sure.

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Paddington Bears only in Paddington Station for Purchase

This is one of those articles that you write simply because previous searches on the Internet did not yield any sites of notable value. When you’re wandering London trying to find a Paddington Bear – it should be easier to find. And that brings us to the content for this post, how we found Ashley a Paddington Bear in London, England.


Many people know the story of Paddington Bear, a children’s story that was first written in 1958 and has sold some 30 million copies of the book series since that time. Who knows how many millions of bears have been purchased from the United Kingdom.

Here’s a short version of the story:

Please look after this bear thank you.

‘Mr and Mrs. Brown first met Paddington on a railway platform. In fact that was how he came to have such an unusual name for a bear, for Paddington was the name of the station.’ Thus began the first of the Paddington books, ‘A Bear Called Paddington’, by Michael Bond.

‘A Bear Called Paddington’ was first published in England in 1958 and quickly became a best selling children’s book and today, over 40 years later, it has achieved classic status. Over 70 Paddington books have been published, selling in excess of 25 million copies in over 20 languages, and Paddington has appeared in a number of animated television programmes and specials. Millions of children and adults around the world have shared in Paddington’s misadventures.

Ashley usually picks one item – sometime large, sometimes small that she wants to bring home from each trip or vacation that we take. The usual minimum includes some sort of Christmas ornament, if available. From London, she wanted a real Paddington Bear to bring back.

We did some basic searching, and really did not find much – in gift shops, in stores, and in department stores. No Paddington bears. We then asked our concierge at the Trafalgar and over a couple of minutes learned the following.

Unless it is mail order, telephone order, or Internet order – the only place where you can get an authentic Paddington Bear is the Paddington Underground / Paddington Train Station in the United Kingdom. If you want a real Paddington bear (other than the 3” miniature bears) then you need to plan some time out of your day to visit that station specifically. There you can get your choice of bear sizes, books, clothing, and more.

We planned an hour out of our schedule to make the underground trip on the Hammersmith & City line (also available on the Circle line) Ashley was able to get her Paddington bear. It took us just about an hour from the Tower Bridge area, and that was during the 5:00pm rush.

What if you cannot make it to the Paddington Underground station on your trip? Your choices are limited, but you can do one of the following:
1. Visit some souvenir stands in the Westminster or other popular tourist areas. A few of them have the very tiny mini Paddington Bears that you can grab quickly. They are more expensive than the ones from the Paddington Station, but it is hard to beat the convenience.
2. Internet, Telephone, or Mail order. Those are the other ways to get your hands on a ‘real’ Paddington Bear, it just will not be hand picked from the Paddington Station where the bear was “born.”

All of this begs the commentary on why Paddington bears are only sold at the Paddington Train Station. While one cannot be sure, you can guess that it is most fitting place to buy the bear given the fact that Paddington was originally found there.

Good luck finding your Paddington bear – please let me know if this article helped you with a comment below.

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London Eye - Try it - Even if you are afraid of heights!

Visually stunning, the London Eye has become a center piece for the skyline of central London. Originally built for the year 2000 celebration – and subsequently scheduled for demolition after 5 year, it has become the only profitable attraction that was built for the celebratory Millennium event. Appropriately, it was originally named the Millennium Wheel.


Taking the 30 minute ride on the London Eye was one of the things that I really wanted to do on our trip. Ashley on the other hand is neither a fan of heights or Ferris wheels, so it took a little convincing to have her agree to go. After our visit, she was glad that she went on it – or at least she wants me to think that. Our timing for the week was very good as it was a relatively clear and sunny day in London that made viewing spectacular.

There was about a 15 minute wait to get our $31 USD (each) tickets for the ride. In retrospect, we could have purchased the online. But, my difficulties in getting reliable Internet connections combined with our careful weather watching for the best view possible made it less practical. Since the line was relatively short with comparable summer waits, we simply proceeded to the line for the London Eye and boarded within 5 minutes.


The pods or capsules can hold up to 25 people, however in ours there were only approximately 10 visitors. We had plenty of space and I was able to take pretty much any picture that I desired to around the 360 degree view.


As we started to move, I was immediately shocked by how smooth the ride was. There was not jerking, swaying, swinging or any other types of movement that you associate with your typical Ferris wheel. It felt like we were simply floating through the sky as we rose towards the sky over London and took in the view. In all, it took about 30 minutes to make the revolution and complete the experience.


This is definitely an attraction the caliber – perhaps not with the historical significance yet – of other major cities such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris – which we get to see in a couple of days. The ability to rise 135 meters (about 500 feet) above and soak in the skyline of London is well worth the price of admission, even if it is a little pricey.


The biggest story here is that if you are afraid of heights, or have a tendency to experience motion sickness on your typical carnival Ferris wheel – no need to worry. The rotation of the London Eye is so slow and the experience is so smooth. Ashley can tell can definitely tell you this from her experience as she typically never will step foot on such a contraption. However, she felt quite comfortable throughout the ride -- do not be afraid to try it!

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Getting Connected in London to WiFi

Part of the lack of frequent, daily posting this week – in addition to being on vacation is the fact that I have found it absolutely unreasonable to get any sort of Internet connection here in the United Kingdom.

Why do I say unreasonable?

Simply the charges for one to get connected to the Internet. Everywhere I am with my laptop – mainly Trafalgar Square – the fee to connect to any sort of Wifi service is about ₤15, or about $30 USD for a 24 hours connection. Even in the Hilton Hotel in Trafalgar Square. This was not even the highest price, I saw one of the hotspots for wifi internet connectivity at ₤18 for the 1 day period. Outrageous.

A British Telecom (BT) service did have it as cheap as ₤5 for 500 minutes of service, however that required a 12-month commitment. A little longer than what I required for this trip.

What perhaps makes this even more frustrating is that during one of the soccer matches we saw on a television – broadband Internet services was being advertised for as low as ₤8.95/month for the service. Somebody is making some real money on these 24-hour connections.

The only brief respite that I had is that over the weekend the restaurant across from the Trafalgar Hilton Hotel, the “Albannach’ – an upscale Scottish Bar & Eatery was offering free Internet access that I could connect to from our hotel room. Probably anyone in Trafalgar Square could connect for free.

It was great to get some reservations in order and send out a couple of emails to let family know that we had arrived safely in London, England. As I mentioned above, the relief was only brief because when attempting to connect on Monday morning – I was then prompted for a username / password to connect to the Albannach restaurant’s WiFi system.

Apparently their system was not meant to be quite as open as I found it over the weekend. While I am not sure if you will receive the username / password if you join, or if the username / password is intentional – if you’re ever in the Trafalgar Square area, you may want to try the Albannach to see if they really do offer free Internet service.

Otherwise, you are going to pay through the nose if you do not have a wireless broadband service and need to connect briefly to a WiFi service. I am hoping that the experience will be a little different in Paris.

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London – Now that we’re here

Just like that and we are here in London. It is really hard to imagine that it is real. We left work behind just 14 hours ago and now here we are on the ground in London, England. While I time here will prove short – just four days including our arrival day – we are sure that we will make the most of it.


Upon arrival, we were waking up from our nice “naps” on a Boeing Triple 7 (777) as United Airlines calls them. It was nice to fly International Business class, but it actually fell below my expectations. Oh well, you get what you pay for and in this case it was free due to a couple of system-wide upgrades.

Our particular plane, although a long haul – had not been updated with the newer line of United’s Premium service – which makes it feel a lot more like Economy Plus than International Business class. Especially when compared to the service that other airlines like Lufthansa offer. O