Paris / London Summer 2011

This trip was so last minute that when I confirmed our flight tickets, I could check-in online right away. Less than 48 hours before departure time, we were still searching for hotels in Paris and London, planning our itinerary and stressing over everything including packing for a summer that was apparently not quite summer according to the weather reports (I was close to 7 months pregnant, and we HAD TO travel light because London and Paris are such walking cities).

A trip meant more for Matt above all other factors, we psyched ourselves up for Disneyland Europe and Legoland Windsor. Happy places. While he still enjoyed the usual tame boat, train rides and the works, Matt showed a clear preference for the more exciting rides this trip especially the wilder roller-coasters. Hubs told me of his incessant "Again! Again! Lets do it again!" pleas the moment he gets off these rides. Hubs had to take all these rides with him since I am not allowed on most of them. I managed to get many good photos of them on the rides because I was busy most of the time planting myself on strategic spots to capture the best angles of the rides.


Disneyland Paris and Legoland Windsor



In Paris, days were spent sight-seeing the Eiffel Tower, the Lourve, and we took the BATOBUS, a river boat shuttle service which covered most of the major tourist sites.

In London, we stayed near Hyde Park and spent a lot of time just bumming at the park, watching squirrels gnaw at their nuts, swans pecking vainly at their furs, largely enjoying the great weather sitting around doing nothing. Tucked at one corner of Hyde Park was the Princess Diana Memorial Playground, which is one of the best playgrounds I have ever been to. Matt bugged us every day while we were in London to bring him there.


The very excellent Princess Diana Memorial Playground


We paid many rounds of 1.50pounds on this rescue vehicle carousel outside the playground

Food-wise, in Paris generally, if we went to restaurants serving real French food, Matt would not have much choice at the restaurants. As such, we dined at cafes mostly (a sore point with hubs since we were in land of foie gras!) and were spaghetti bolognaised and steak frites -out in Paris cos those were the easiest to feed Matt given his lack of adventure with food. In London though, we had great great Chinese food most of the time. This trip, Matt fell in love with the sweet & sour varieties, which he calls "fish / pork with ketchup". No prizes for guessing what dishes I will try and perfect at home :)

We had planned on visiting museums but I felt too tired from walking so much that we abandoned the plan. I also had grand plans of shopping for stuff from stores such as Mothercare where the mark-ups in Singapore are crazily exorbitant, but did not manage to even go anywhere near the shops. The same happened in Paris - very minimal shopping considering my love affairs with bags.

Weather was lovely, sunny but cool, with temperatures hovering around 14-20C. Since it was summer, we had really long days, and at 10pm, it was still as bright as it in Singapore as say, 4pm.

We would have loved to cover more places than what we managed to, but I also did not want to over-tax myself. As hubs said, we will definitely return. At the end of the day, we live for this face -