Roaming with The Robertsons

This was the day that was long awaited. But, before we headed to the theatre, we had a full day of exploring ahead of us. Our first stop today was the city walls. As we had plenty of time in between things we had booked, we decided to take a leisurely stroll around the east side of the city which offered views of York Minster and took us over Foss Island.  When we reached the castle museum, we left the walls behind for now headed back through the city to York Minster and the Treasurer's House , a property managed by the National Trust. Most of the year, the Treasurer's House is open to view by guided tour only, so we had booked onto this (free of charge using our National Trust memberships). We have to say, the tour was really engaging and provided us with a wealth of information about the house, its various furnishings and its history. We were really pleased that it offered the tour as we got so much more out of it this way than if we had walked around ourselves.  After our t...

It was time for our long awaited holiday to York. We had been really eager to see the musical Six but it was completely sold out at the theatres we usually go to, however we came across some tickets in York. We figured that it wasn't too far for us to go, and could make a fun few days away, so decided to book. York is somewhere that Nicole visited as a child but hadn't been to since, and Shannon had not visited before, which meant there was lots of exploring to do! On our first day, after a couple of hours drive from home, we had scheduled to visit the York Castle Museum. We had booked tickets for after lunch, which allowed us time to explore the city. We had booked an AirBnB in Clifton, which is about 20 minutes walk from the centre of York, so decided to park our car there and wander in. When we reached York, we were first met with some spectacular views of York Minster which, as you wander round, is far bigger than it would seem on an initial glance. We headed to The Shamble...

Today was the long awaited day that we headed off to Disney. We got up early and left our accomodation at 7am, taking the short walk to Porte de Clingnoncourt metro station before taking the metro then RER to Marne-la-Vallée-Chessy station which is situated at the Disneyland Paris park. The journey took about an hour and a half and was fairly straightforward navigating the different train lines. We would definitely recommend it as an option for being able to spend time in Paris before going to Disney.  The time we set off meant that we arrived at Disney early, within the magic hour that is set up for hotel guests. We were entitled to enjoy this time even on our first day so were glad we got there when we did. The only thing was that we were arriving to walk towards our hotel at the same time that everyone was walking away from their hotel into the park. This caused some confusion as security on this day were using both entrance gates and the exit gates to search people, making it u...

For our second day in Paris, we had two tourist activities we wanted to do. These were Notre Dame and the Sacre-Coer. We had read online that you could book tickets for the Notre Dame a few days in advance so we attempted to do this. However, when logging on multiple times in the two days prior to our desired visit the website stated they were sold out for our chosen date. We decided to check one last time on the morning of our visit and managed to secure ourselves some tickets which meant we had a guaranteed time to visit. As it turned out, the queue at 8.30am on a Monday isn't too bad and we didn't really need it, but it was good to have the confidence that we weren't going to have a wasted trip. We embarked on the metro to Citè station, where it was a few minutes walk to Notre Dame. The sights inside the cathedral were spectacular and definitely worth the visit.  After a walk around the cathedral and taking some photos, we had decided to head out of Paris slightly to the...

Our first day in Paris was exhausting. We decided to make sure we booked some of the key attractions in advance so we knew we had time to fit everything in. The first stop we made was to the Eiffel Tower. We took the metro to Invalides station, which is the location of the Hôtel des Invalides. We headed in the direction of the Eiffel Tower along Rue Saint-Dominique, stopping off for a breakfast pastry at Boulengerie Libertè. Nicole chose a Pain au Chocolat and Shannon had a Croissant, both were flaky, buttery and absolutely delicious. Once we arrived at the Eiffel Tower we enjoyed the views and took some photos in the Jardin de la Tour Eiffel, although we managed to select a day where it was really cloudy and foggy in the morning so until the sun came out the top of the tower was difficult to see.  We had booked ourselves to go up the tower via the steps. The security is quite strict at the tower. We had to go through security to get into the garden area around the base, and also t...