Europe Day One - France

Found out that John didn't need to work till midnight the night before our trip started. That was good as it would have been rubbish if we started the trip without any sleep. Unfortunately I still had some work to do when I got to John's the night before. I ended up staying up till 3am writing emails to people qat work to had stuff over to them. I turned off the lights at 2:58 AM and closed my eyes for the night... At 3:24AM after precisely 0 minutes of sleep, I was up, refreshed and ready for our lift to St Pancras at 3:45AM. John, on the other had a luxurious 3 hours of sleep!
Got to St Pancras for 4:45, checked in an had an early visit to Cafe Nero. It was there that I decided that Jazz was not meant to be played early in the morning. Got our seats on the 5:25 train to Paris and arrived at 9:20.

Now for some smash and grab tourism! Taxi from the station to the Eiffel tower the taxi passed the Louvre, which was one of the things in my list. Asked to quickly stop but apparently that's not allowed. No matter, a glimpse of the Pyramid from the Taxi was enough to tick the box for me. Got to the Eiffel tower and took some pictures that make us look photoshopped. Walked up to the Arc De Triumph with our Luggage in tow - Turns out it is further than I thought. Stopped on the way to get a backed morning snack. John managed to earn himself a filthy look from one of the natives for his pronunciation of Pain au Chocolat. Pretty yummy nevertheless. Got to the Arc De Triumph, sat and watched the chaos that is the roundabout at the Arc. We didn't work out if there were any rules to handling the roundabout, good luck and strong nerves seems the best advice. Photos of the Arc De Triumph and then a quick walk down the Camps Elisee and we had pretty much seen everything of cultural value that Paris had to offer... we headed back to the station to pick up our convertible!

We managed to bring all our documentation and voucher and didn't lose anything on the way. Sorting out our car went very smoothly... until we were told that there weren't any convertibles available. Arse. After a lengthy phone call with Holiday Autos (Who are NOT recommended) we managed to find that there was a convertible available at Charles De Gaulle Airport. We found outself in a VW Golf, heading to the Airport. I almost took a left turn onto the wrong side of the road (Thank you John for spotting that before it go too messy) and a stalled quite a few times. Having the gear stick on the other side pretty much broke my brain. So we managed to still end up at the airport even though we specifically tried to avoid it by going on Eurostar!

Picked up the new car, actually a convertible this time! And headed towards Cahors. Stopped a few times and arrived at Cahors around 8:30PM. Thought John had booked us into a proper dodgy place after the TomTom made us drive down the back of a load of run down garages but actually the hotel was fine.

Walked to the centre of town and found a restaurant on the high street. Sat outside as it was still so warm. Very French. John had Snails and duck (although he thought it was going to be beef) and I managed to order two salads (whoops). The food was fantastic, John fell in love with duck. We also had a lovely bottle of french red wine, a local vintage. The wine was as good as the food. What was brilliant about the meal was it was a resturant for French people, it wasn't a tourist area and no one spoke English. We were both confused over the dessart menu, there was white formage and red fruits, we thought this might cheese cake. It wasn't. John had it and it was just sweet cheese and fruit on top. Good for the heart. A fantastic meal.

Travelling:
Camberly - Kings cross: 37 Miles
Kings cross - Paris: 213 Miles
Paris - Charles de Gaulle Airport: 13 Miles
Charles de Gaulle Airport - Cahors: 370 Miles.

Phew! Goodnight.

Ryan