Next day, we had breakfast at a boulangerie near the hotel before taking the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe. The line for tickets to the top was very long, so we made a gametime decision to grab a drink from a rooftop lounge that had views of the Arc and the Eiffel Tower. The Raphael Hotel is really nice, way nicer than the Holiday Inn and the staff was very accommodating of our group. We had a drink and our server took photos of us in a number of scenic spots. We then did some shopping up and down the Champs Elysees and had a bite to eat. From there it was off to the Sacre Coeur by cab, before walking down the steps for souvenir shopping and dinner in Montemarte. We headed to the Metro for the ride back to our Hotel.
Our last full day in Paris started with breakfast from a neighborhood café – we’ve grown to love the breakfast tartine – before walking down to the Bastille Plaza to take in the market. We then walked over to Place des Vosges and found a nice lunch spot on Place Sainte Catherine. We were scheduled for the Canal St Martin boat tour in the afternoon, so grabbed a cab out to Parc La Villette for the start. It is a slow meandering tour through Paris neighborhoods, with a narrated history and some good sights. It is a 2.5 hour trip to the Orsay museum and there is a 2km stretch under the Bastille that could be a problem for someone who is claustrophobic. From the Orsay we ducked in/out of the rain grabbing a quick bite at a café, some shopping in Saint Germain, a duck into Saint Sulpice to avoid the rain, before getting on the Metro towards the Eiffel Tower. Our entry time was 10 pm, so we cooled our heels with a drink from a café before making our way to the top – lines were not too long working our way back down. From there it was super crowded on the streets and cabs had their fare meters off and were quoting crazy high prices to get back to our hotel. We ordered an Uber for a quarter of the quoted price and were back to the Holiday Inn in no time.
The next day, the hotel was unable to get us a van sized cab for the trip to Gare du Nord, so Uber again to the rescue. The Eurostar was a sleek, quiet, nonstop, 2.5 hour ride to St Pancras in London. We were very lucky that our train to St Albans left from St Pancras so we were at our hotel -the Hilton Samuel Ryder (the very same man who started the Ryder Cup) - by 2 pm London time.
We did some quick shopping along the wonderful streets of the very nice town of St Albans. We had drinks at a Wetherspoons pub. This is a chain, which seem to be all over the London area and offer good value for families. They seem to keep the local name of the pub, but menus look to be standard. We went to one in St Albans and one in London.