Friday 19 September 2025
It’s 3PM Central Europe Time and we’re in Paris at Hotel Marceau Bastille. In the past five hours we’ve definitely made the transition from the familiar to outside our comfort zone. That’s been our theme these last couple years of international travel. In 2023 we stepped outside the realm of traveling the US in our little camper. At the urging of our friend Amanda, we took our first transatlantic voyage on the Queen Mary 2 for a four week stay in Hampstead to visit London but also to immerse ourselves in a different culture. It’s true that the British culture is much like our own but still their vocabulary and customs differ a bit from ours. We had a wonderful time so we planned a return trip in 2024. That time we expanded our range. Our transatlantic voyage was a repositioning cruise with stops in Canada, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, and France before we disembarked in Southampton and the next day we were headed to Netherlands for a few days then to back to back cruises out of Amsterdam that would give us more opportunity in Iceland, Belfast, and Cork but also introduce us to Scotland, Belgium, and Norway. It’s like we dipped our toes in in 2023 and got in up to our ankles the next year. That gave us the courage to wade in even deeper. For 2025 our plan included the familiar Queen Mary 2 voyage then a nine day stay in Hampstead all quite familiar and comfortable before embarking on a three week rail and cruise journey from London to Rome and back. The trip from Hampstead to St Pancras Station today was familiar enough and we knew what we were doing as we went through the border checks. ’Twas a bit stressful but familiar enough. We’d traveled via Eurostar last year so that was familiar but as soon as we got off the train at Gare du Nord in Paris we knew we’d achieved our goal of getting out of our comfort zone again. We managed to book a driver who speaks little English and spent the ride mostly trying to decipher the signs in French we were passing. We’ve now arrived safely and are leaving our luggage in the room before we venture out to see the sights. We’re glad we’re traveling with just backpacks for these three weeks but are wondering if we could have packed a bit lighter! We’re in Paris! We can’t believe it! Soon we’ll be off an a trek to see Notre Dame not far from our hotel, then take a Hop On Hop Off bus to see the major landmarks in this City of Light.
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