Roaming with The Robertsons

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...

We got up early on Day 2 to make sure we got to our coach. Shannon had found that National Express coaches from Southampton at certain times cost only £8 per person which, when considering the price of train fare, was an absolute bargain! We took our coach from Harbour Parade in Southampton. Admittedly, the check in process was a bit complicated and we just chose a queue and hoped for the best until someone came to check our tickets and we were confident we were in the right line. From then, it was plain sailing and we were really pleased with our choice of transport. We arrived in London a little ahead of time into Victoria bus station. Initially when we planned the trip, we were going to just go straight to St Pancras via the underground. However, we decided to take the scenic route and allow Shannon to experience London for the first time. It didn't really leave the best first impression due to how busy it is as a city, but it was great to be able to wander past Buckingham Palac...

After many months of waiting, it was finally the day for us to set off on our eagerly anticipated holiday to Disneyland Paris. From researching many different travel options, we decided to go on a bit of a long winded route to get to Paris which involved driving down to Southampton to stay in Nicole's mum's 'AirBnB' before getting a coach into London the following day to embark on the Eurostar. This meant that the first day of our holiday involved a lot of driving. Unfortunately, the traffic was not good so the trip took us about 2 hours longer than usual. However, we still managed to find time for our compulsory two stops.  Firstly, we took a detour to Coughton Court, a National Trust property. Shannon had read online that the family are planning to take it back from the National Trust and it would therefore not be free for members to visit for much longer, so we wanted to make sure we paid a visit before this happened. The site consisted of a 15th century house, garde...