Further Adventures in and Around Paris

An early start, but who can sleep before going to Disney Land?! After a lot of research and confusion about how to get there, We decided it was easier and cheaper to get the metro. A stroll to the nearest the station (Sevres Lecourbe) aiming for Nation, from there onto the main line service for Marne-la-Vallee. Walking out of the station, you can’t get lost Mickey is there ready to welcome you.

Then its simply a question of, which park first Disney Land or Walt  Disney Studios? The vast pink facade of the main Disney Land park drew us in, skipping towards the adventures inside, ears firmly in place.

Sleeping Beauty’s castle stands proudly at the centre of the park other exciting lands fanning out from it. Aiming to loop round and try to take in the whole place, we decended beneath the castle to visit the dragon who sleeps beneath.

Surveying my new Kingdom.

Adventure Land first. Home of Alladin, The Lion King and other similarly desert themed rides and attrations oh and lets not forget Pirates of the Caribbean

Every few steps there are fun new things to see, before long we encounter the first (open) ride Magic Mountain and its already two hour long queue. No time for that kind of sillyness we carry on exploring hunting rides with a few less waiting people.

There are themed shopping opportunities to be had all around the park, with possibly the Star Wars one being the most impressive (someone parked an X-wing outside)

Walking through the Western themed parts of the park we finally gave into queuing for a ride, the Haunted House only half an hour for a great bit of light hearted fun.

The narration is of course in French but you get the idea of whats going on and the effects especially the dancing hollograms are pretty entertaining.

We’ve been enjoying ourselves so much, we hadn’t noticed that lunch time had crept up. With so many food outlets to choose from it was quite a challenge to decide what to have. Refueled and ready for Walt Disney Studios.

Through Studio 1, with its shopping and eating possibilities all to the tune of a live Jazz band playing the Cantina song from Star Wars.

Out into the lot and a live Star Wars production, with explosions and Chewie

An introduction to special effects, and what it feels like to be on set from the Armagedon experience left us with a few singed hairs and a new perspective on the film.

A lap of this slightly smaller park to decide what rides we should go for and with the temptaion of a short queue, the Hollywood Tower won (begrudginly for one of us). Amazingly atmospheric this ride puts you in the middle of 1920’s hotel and drops you several times in its lift, leaving your stomach in the sky.

More special effects explained (and singed hair) on the tram tour.

Back to Disney Land for the parade and as the rain began to fall tired but happy we headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

The last day of our little trip, a lazy morning with a lovely late check-out, which turned out to be fortunate as we had made a small oversight in not checking local bank holidays. It seems  that pretty much everything is shut on Labor Day in France (we Brits have a slightly more relaxed shops open attitude to bank holidays). Fortunately there is plenty to see and do, choosing to walk from our hotel up to Gare du Nord took us past plenty of things we had missed.

Having decided that paying £400 to book on a slightly earlier crossing was a little steep we headed off to Montmarte, which turned out to be where everyone else in Paris was.

Starting at the Sacre Coeur, we hoped on a tour train, which drove through the streets of Montmarte explaining the history and variety of the area, including the famous Moulin Rouge sat amongst more adult shops than probably exist anywhere else.

The trip took over an hour, pretty good value at 6 euros each. Wandering through the streets of Montmarte and its supprisingly open shops happily filled the time before heading back to the station and then onwards to home.