Contiki: Day One (London to Paris)

- Elise

I’ve come to the conclusion that the people in the hostel hate us. Not only do they bang on the door in the middle of the night and wake us up at odd hours playing musical beds, but we then had to wake up before 7am, pack our bags and get going to the Contiki Basement to meet up with our Winter Wanderer tour. I hope we woke the rude ones up! We caught our first London cab (which was marked thank you) and arrived in the Royal National Hotel only a few minutes late.

With 7 Contiki tours leaving this morning, it was a little bit hectic to figure out where to sign in. Thankfully we found out tour manager Megan and our bus driver Steve, then it was off into Coach A.

We drove out of London where Justine and I caught our first sight of the River Thames, including the London Eye and Big Ben, then it was driving for 2 hours before we arrived at the Dover port. There we saw, as Steve put it, “the most overrated attraction in England”; the white cliffs of Dover. Unfortunately it was too foggy outside to see Dover castle as we motored past, or anything past the PnO ferry that was taking us to Calais.

Just under 2 hours on the ferry and we managed not to be sick, then it was another 2 hour drive to our first service stop. As we went we saw little patches of snow scattered across various fields and town, until they eventually extended into fields of white ground blending into the fog. We drove past the Canadian war memorial (which was too far away from the road to see in the fog) and through parts where the Battle of the Somme took place. Some of it was so picturesque you could barely imagine how many soldiers lost their lives here, but then we would drive past another war memorial and see the graves stretched out in the snow.

After a quick service stop we were back on the road to Paris, arriving at the Holiday Inn just over an hour later. It’s amazingly strange to be in a country where not everything is written in English. I keep trying to read information books or maps and find that I struggle to understand a single word of French.

We settled in our room (the best we’ve had yet. It has a window and a HUGE bathroom!) then headed onto the Champs-Elysees to see a cabaret show at Lido. We drove through the busiest roundabout in Paris, around the Arc De Triomphe, then down the beautifully lit Champs-Elysees. There we go to see the largest Louis Vutton store in Paris, which has been classified as a fashion museum, and strangely had a pirate flag waving above it. Lido is one of the oldest cabaret houses, and we happened upon the end of the 100 year anniversary of the Bluebell Girls.

A three course meal ensued, though the waiter was a little nonplussed about how little salmon everyone ate at entrée, while jazz music played in the background. We had roast chicken for mains and a chocolate mousse cake for dessert, then it was time for the show to begin.

It is astounding the type of effort that goes into these shows. The costumes are so incredibly elaborate while only being on stage for a few minutes. There were huge sets that would move around with the stage, including an elephant, ice skating rink, fountain, hotel and even a live dressage horse. There were a light, comic and rope climbing act (where I definitely caught an eyeful of the man twisting around on the ceiling) and everything was so meticulously planned and perfected it was almost hard to believe.

Paris is simply amazing, and I can’t wait to see more tomorrow.