Monaco to London

Posted on 2014/09/11 12:52:47 (September 2014).

[Monday 8th September 2014]
I woke up very early this morning - not long after 6 - and headed out onto the balcony to catch the sunrise. I think I was a bit too early though, and after about 20 minutes of pleasant dawn light, but not the actual sunrise, I gave up and went back to bed.

Another excellent breakfast out on the terrace at the hotel, and then sadly it was time to check out. This is actually the first time we've stayed two nights in Monaco - on previous trips it's always just been a single night at the end of the trip.

Our day pass on the bus was still valid this morning, and we decided the bus would be the most reliable way to get back to the station in a timely fashion, particularly as we'd now figured out the best entrance to use for getting in. So that all went very smoothly. Surprisingly Erika fell asleep en route, and was still asleep when we changed onto the TGV at Nice, which was good as I was concerned she might not be able to get off to sleep once we got on the train. So for the first part of the journey I sat downstairs with Erika in a section of the train which to begin with at least seemed to be devoid of passengers. The timing worked out rather well, in that Erika woke up around the station (I forget which) that some passengers actually got on to that bit of the train.

I think the return TGV to Paris went fairly well, all in all, we managed to keep Erika entertained one way or another, and there were no particular tantrums or anything of note.

We arrived in Paris Gare de Lyon at about 5:15, and headed straight for the RER to Gare du Nord. Again, Erika fell asleep en route, which meant when we arrived at Gare du Nord, Chie and I could have a peaceful (albeit fairly quick) dinner before getting on the Eurostar. Thanks to Google Maps on my phone I discovered a cluster of vegetarian Indian restaurants just round the corner from the station - I recall reading at some point in the past that there was an equivalent of London's Drummond Street in the area, but somehow had never noticed just how close they were before - I don't know how we could have missed them in the past. So oddly enough we had Indian food in Paris. It actually wasn't bad.

So that just left the final leg of the journey, the Eurostar back to London. It was pretty uneventful and, again, I thought went pretty well. It got us back to St. Pancras for 8:41. A bit late for Erika, but it didn't take that long to get home from there, as it's just a whizz straight down the Victoria line, and it certainly won't be the first time she's ended up going to bed after 9.

So all in all I thought the journey went really well, and wasn't too arduous. As mentioned before, I think Erika is pretty happy to be on a long train journey, as she has our undivided attention throughout.

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