Michelle and I just returned from a 19-day adventure through London and Paris. We will up-load a number of photos along with this posting to Jim’s Bucket List Travel. We will break this trip down to a number of postings to keep your interest. Hence, this is posting #1, the overview.
The itinerary was based around the fact that Michelle had never visited Britain or France, while I had been to both several times. As a result the trip was styled as “Michelle’s Bucket List London-Paris Trip.” We scheduled only things that Michelle wanted to see and visit so you won’t see a lot of museums.
For the record we used Enchanting Travels to plan the trip, to book the hotels, and to arrange for transport between venues. Due to our age we elected not to try to drive in either Britain or France. Thus, we were picked up at the airport in London and delivered to our London Hotel, driven to the Cotswolds, and then driven to the London Eurostar terminal. We considered the treatment we received from Enchanting Travels to be White Glove throughout.
While on the vacation Gunjan Bhatngar was our key point of contact. If a drive was late to the pick-up point was solved with a call to Gunjan (day or night). In the pre-booking stage, Alli Tucker helped us in picking our target interests in each location on Michelle’s bucket list. Both Gunjan and Alli worked hard to hear what Michelle wanted and what we did not want to see on this trip.
To begin with we flew from LA to London in business class on Turkish Airlines and the flight was scheduled through Istanbul. Our 13-hour flight starred a chief in a white toque preparing meals below decks, and dinner and breakfast served out of LA. The meals were top notch, the selections vast, and the service was splendid. The wine was very good throughout dinner service. We went out on a Boeing 787-800 and returned on an Airbus 330-200. Because we were flying business class we were able to enjoy the Star Alliance lounges at LAX, IST, and CDG. We can unconditionally recommend Turkish Airlines for international travel.
The itinerary for Michelle’s Bucket List London-Paris Trip started in London with walking tours in the light rain of Saint James’s Park, Big Ben, and London Bridge. We visited the Churchill War Room (a must stop for all Americans of all ages), viewed the changing of the guard, and saw the houses of Parliament as well as Westminister Abby and the Tower of London (arraigned on our own through Viator). We enjoyed the Hop On Hop Off Bus (something we do in every new city we visit) for a few hours to get our bearings. Enchanting Travels arranged for us to have a knowledgeable guild for the walking tours as did Viator for Big Ben and Westminister Abby.
Of course we had to have fish and chips at least once and we did so near the houses of Parliament. Our guide mentioned that members of the house of commons eat at the same restaurant and when called to a vote dash out all of the doors to make the floor on time to vote.
Michelle picked out one small gem to bring home from the Tower of London. Needless to say we never got it off the grounds and on the plane.
We will discuss the Cotswolds in our next post.