Rollercoasters and Road Trips: From England to France (and back)
The next step on our round the world adventure took us on a train through a tunnel under the water. No windows though, so we couldn’t actually see any water or fish, but at the other end we’d made it to France for the second stage of our Double Disney holiday.
Part 3: France
We stayed in this amazing themed hotel close to Paris Disneyland, with huge video screens showing cool animations as you walked through the lobby area.
But we were there for the rides, and with three days, plus Lightning Lanes for all of them, we could sure pack a lot of rides in. Paris Disneyland is definitely smaller than Anaheim, but that made it easier to get around and feel familiar with, so we didn’t walk for miles each day getting from one side of the park to another.
We absolutely loved it, especially Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean and Phantom Manor, which we all thought were even better than the versions at Anaheim. Hyperspace Mountain was scary but awesome - too scary for Dad or William to go on it, though I dragged Mum on a couple of times.
There were so many cool details too, like the dragon in the cave under the castle and Skull Rock close to Pirates. One evening we stayed late to watch a show where fireworks and lights were displayed on and around the castle.
Eventually we had to move on (damn, I knew we should have made this holiday Triple Disney!), and we took the train to the centre of Paris. The hotel kinda sucked, just a big skyscraper with no English TV channels. And I had to sleep on the floor because there were only two beds and not enough space for William and me in the second one.
It turned out we were actually really close to the Eiffel Tower, we just didn’t realise it. When we left the hotel in the morning we turned around and there it was! We didn’t actually go up the Tower, but did go up the Arc de Triomphe nearby so we could see how massive the Eiffel Tower is and how it really stands out in the middle of the city.
After stopping for morning tea at a cafe on the Champs Elysees, we walked through the streets to pass by the Louvre (also not going in - queues were too long) and Notre Dame. But by this time we were getting tired (maybe too many long Disney days after all), so that was all the sightseeing we had the energy for.
The next stage of our journey was a return trip under the water back to England, and welcoming back a familiar friend…
Part 4: England (second leg)
When we picked up the rental car for our second England road trip, we were super pleased to see that it was Katie again! Our adventuring team was now complete, so we hit the road, heading north this time.
We stayed a couple of nights in Cirencester so we could explore the Cotswolds area. Lots of pretty little villages with strange names like Bourton-on-the-Water and Lower Slaughter - more Mum and Dad’s thing than mine, but the Roman ruins we visited at one place were cool.
After that it got super cool though as we visited Warwick Castle, this amazing well-preserved castle with lots of towers, battlements and even a dungeon. We got into the medieval mood by watching a couple of shows - one with eagles, falcons and other birds of prey, and another where they fired a missile out of this massive catapult called a trebuchet.
Then we got into the crap-your-pants mood in the Warwick Castle Dungeon, which was a dark walkthrough experience with all these gruesome scenes and jump scares like the London Dungeon. Needless to say, it was awesome!
While we were there we stayed in the Warwick Castle Hotel, where all the rooms are themed, even the reception area, which had a massive knight on horseback which made noises. William and me also got to become knights for the night when we took part in a lesson on sword-fighting. Just call us Sir Oliver and Sir William. And bow when we enter the room.
Next we went to Solihull so Dad could show us where his Grandad lived by Elmdon Park, when they all came to visit him on holidays when they were younger. So we’re kind of reliving the same holiday Dad had when he was about my age. We also met up and had lunch with Dad’s friend Hev, who he stayed with when he lived here in his late 20s. I wonder if I’ll also relive the experience of being in England as a grown-up one day…?
One of William and my favourite things about travelling around England were the gameshows. There are so many of them, and we must have watched all of them during the evenings. There was Lingo and Tenable, Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Catchphrase, and our favourites, Weakest Link and One Percent Club. That was the one bad thing about leaving to visit foreign countries - no gameshows!
The last stop on this roadtrip was York, which was waaaaay up in the north of England and took hours to drive to (and drive back from). But it was a pretty cool walled city, with cobbled streets, quirky shops and the Yorvik Viking Museum, which we visited to see how those dirty old Vikings lived when they invaded England ages ago.
While we were there we did some day trips to castles, country estates and the town of Knaresborough. Every day we were hitting the road to see somewhere new.
England had been amazing and everything I had hoped it would be. But suddenly we were four weeks into our holiday and it was time to catch a plane (though thankfully just a 2 hour flight this time) to our next destination: Italy. You’ll find that, plus the fifth country on our tour, in blog part 3…
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