Day 49 The long train journey back to London

From Montpellier to London by train 

The outward bound train trip taken two weeks ago in company with Susan had been exhausting, to say the least, including a thrilling taxi ride across Paris between Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon.

We were up very early in the morning of Sunday the 22nd, even though our train didn't depart until 09:18. We weren't sure how often or early the trams would be running on a Sunday morning and we couldn't walk all the way to the train station dragging our luggage.  An extra bag with all our purchases over the holiday seemed to have attached itself to us by stealth.

We left the apartment as spotless as we could and locked the keys in the key box before leaving for the tramstop. Bye, bye Montpellier .... it's been great!

John locks the keys to our apartment safely back into the lockbox

We're on the TGV and it's assigned seating all the way!

Barb is relieved to finally be sitting down on the train. We gave one
last goodbye to the van Gogh landscape whizzing by our window.

Beauty in a landscape

John keeps track of our speed on his phone (it's a boy thing!)

It's only a few hours until we're pulling into Gare de Lyon in Paris

Paris looks grey and drizzly after the beautiful south of France

We hotfoot it (by taxi) over to Gare du Nord to get the Eurostar to London

Love the art installation

Bye Bye France .... it's been a blast!

There's our train waiting for us! The experience going through
border control was remarkably quick and efficient

And just like that, we're back in London at St Pancras International in London

We drag our bags through the streets to Pentonville Rd, near Kings Cross
station where we're staying. It's up this long flight of stairs!

This tiny studio apartment is "home" for the next few days.

It has a tiny compact kitchen (and even a washing machine!)

And a tiny compact bathroom

Open the bedroom curtains and this is the view .... well we
said it's close to the station, we're practically in it! 
(Actually this access is not operational, but you get the idea!)

We are so so tired after our big day! John goes out to the little Sainsburys store a few doors down and gets a ready meal for dinner and we have showers and collapse gratefully into bed.

Another day of sightseeing tomorrow!