We don’t usually travel far for Thanksgiving, but with Lydia in public school now where she gets off the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we knew we had to plan a trip! Jaime’s dad loves visiting Paris so that came up as an early front-runner. We wanted to ride the Chunnel (train that goes under the English Channel) so London became the obvious second city for the trip.
We arrived in London in the morning, dropped our luggage at the hotel, and decided to visit the ferris wheel, called the London Eye, while waiting for Jaime’s parents to arrive a few hours later. We didn’t realize until it was too late that Lydia was still in her pajamas from the overnight plane ride, oops! The London Eye itself was very cool, albeit expensive. Each pod is quite large, fitting about a dozen people with plenty of room to spare, and you only go around once but at a slow pace to take in all the sights. Afterward, we walked over to Parliament Square to see all the statues and architecture, including Westminster Abbey. After meeting up with Jaime’s parents, getting settled into the hotel, we had pizza for dinner at Crust Bros.
The next morning, we started off riding a double-decker bus, which the girls loved. Our first stop was the very old and famous Twinings tea shop, across from the gorgeous Royal Courts of Justice. Next up was a quick stop at a memorial for JFK. Apparently the bust of JFK’s head had been recently vandalized so it was just an empty podium. Most of today’s time was spent in Camden Town, an area of London full of bustling, ornate, and quirky shops. We started at a place Jaime’s sister read about for their decadent hot chocolate, Chin Chin Labs. The hot chocolate lived up to the hype, and we also enjoyed burnt caramel ice cream and grilled white chocolate. Besides the shops, we also stopped at the Amy Winehouse statue and a Banksy artwork of a kid spray painting a heart. After Camden Town, we went back downtown to visit Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, and Piccadilly Circus. For dinner we tried to go to Barrafina but it was overly crowded and its diner-style setup wasn’t meant for a group of our size. We ended up at a French restaurant called Prix Fixe and then strolled through Chinatown on the way back to the hotel.
The next day we split up the group. Jaime’s family went out to visit Dover while we stayed in London. We started with a stroll down Goodwin’s Court, an old 17th century alley with original buildings and gas-lit lamps. We had lunch plans in the area so we wandered around the neighborhood to kill time. Two notable things in the area were a cool, hectic intersection called Seven Dials, and an over-the-top comic book and collectible store called Forbidden Planet. Lunch was at an Indian restaurant named Dishoom. We arrived early and were only given a small breakfast menu, which wasn’t very exciting. We asked about lunch and they said it didn’t start for 30 minutes but we were welcome to wait. We are so glad we did as the lunch menu was incredible! Highly recommended restaurant that we’ll be back to! Next up we went to a relatively small market named Leadenhall Market. It’s from the Victorian era and is very ornate; it was even featured in the Harry Potter movies. Afterward we strolled through a church that was destroyed during WWII before walking past the Tower of London castle. The day was cold and rainy all day so our last stop at Tower Bridge was a welcome warm-up. Views from the bridge are great, and both sides have a glass floor section to walk on. Pro tip: the second side has a mirror above the glass floor for great photo ops. After a break at the hotel, we had a great dinner of fish and chips at a place chosen mostly for its name: Fishcotheque.
The next morning we had to take two busses to a coffee shop we wanted to try. Unfortunately the second bus never came due to climate change protesters blocking the streets. We skipped our morning coffee and instead took a long walk to the Borough Market for lunch. Lydia ended up losing her first tooth while sampling some walnut brittle at the market! After the market we picked up our luggage and took the Chunnel train to Paris. We had a two bedroom Airbnb near the Eiffel Tower, so after checking in we visited the base of the tower and then had a great dinner at a place nearby named Le Presles.
Our first full day in Paris was American Thanksgiving! Jaime and her mom stayed behind to rest in the morning while the rest of us visited a bridge used in the movie Inception and the Arc de Triumph. In the afternoon we had a babysitter for a few hours, recommended by one of our sitters in Chicago. Jaime and I used that time to tour the catacombs while the rest of her family visited Lafayette’s grave outside of London. The catacombs were an amazing and humbling experience. Next, we attempted to visit a Christmas Market near the Grand and Petit Palaces but Google Maps had out-dated information and the market was apparently moved across town and didn’t open until two days later. We texted the sitter for the real Christmas Market location and hopped back on the subway to visit it near Le Defense. After some shopping, we went to a restaurant named Sunday in Soho. It was owned by Americans and they held a delicious, traditional American Thanksgiving dinner, which was very hard to find overseas!
On Friday, our plan was to take a bullet train to spend the day in Luxembourg, but unfortunately I slept through the one-time alarm on my phone and a repeating alarm on my tablet. We figured there were worse places to be “stuck” than Paris, so we opted to stay. We started the day going to a custom perfume place, but it was too expensive to try. We then stopped at an opulent tea room named Angelina, which was too busy to stay but we were able to order their amazing hot chocolate to-go. We sipped our hot chocolate as we walked around and through the grounds of the Louvre, before heading over to Notre Dame. We toured the crypt under Notre Dame before going inside the cathedral itself. We ended the afternoon getting some famous luxury ice cream from Berthillon. After a break at the Airbnb we went to dinner at Le Presles again (it’s that good!). On the walk back after dinner we got to see the Eiffel Tower’s sparkling lights. I checked the tower’s web site for its hours and there was a notice that it would be closed on Saturday due to planned protests, so Friday night was our last chance! Since it was already pretty late, everyone went back to room while Lydia and I decided to brave the lines and go to the top. Two full hours later, we made it! Lydia absolutely loved it. The fog and lack of view were offset by the joy of getting wet inside the clouds.
Our last full day in Paris was mostly spent at Père Lachaise Cemetery and in the Montmartre neighborhood. At the cemetery, we strolled around and visited the graves of Oscar Wilde, Fredric Chopin, and Jim Morrison. In Montmartre, we stopped by the Moulin Rouge and had lunch nearby. We walked around some more, saw a couple of other famous windmills, ate crepes, and made our way to the massive Sacré-Cœur basilica. The views of Paris from there are incredible. We took a short funicular ride down most of the hillside. Our next stop was supposed to be the other Christmas Market near the Louvre but the subway missed our stop for unknown reasons. We got off and took the opposite train back and our stop was skipped again. We then realized it was likely because of the planned protests so we left the subway to walk the rest of the way. To our surprise, we stepped right into the protests! There was black smoke in the sky a couple blocks down and we were mere feet away from protesters in yellow vests. Turning the corner, there were elaborate Christmas window displays for a couple blocks that we thoroughly enjoyed. We continued walking to the Christmas Market and while this one was technically smaller, it had a lot more family activities, rides, and a yummy food court. After the fun at the market, we wandered around Louvre at night before heading back to the room.
Our trip home the next morning was the way we like it, uneventful. Overall it was a great family trip!
Next up, we’re off to Prague and Bratislava in a few weeks!