I've mentioned before that I spent a lot of time delving into London and Paris related pop culture while I prepared for my trip, mostly because I wanted to see movies set in these places to get even more excited about my trip. As a family we watched all of the Harry Potter movies and so of course I had to stop by King's Cross Station to see Platform 9 3/4 since it is right across the street from St. Pancras International. At first I was reluctant to let my four year old watch them because I thought she would be scared, but she wasn't scared at all and is now a Harry Potter fanatic! She listens to the books on tape every night and is convinced that she will attend Hogwarts when she is 10. Because she is such a huge fan, I left for the train station with plenty of time so that I could take some pictures for her.
The interior of the station is gorgeous! Such stunning beautiful architecture that incorporates both old and new.
After the Harry Potter books came out, I am sure that the number of Harry Potter fans stopping by King's Cross to see 9 3/4 caused a bit of interference and so they created a designated spot for picture seekers. They even built a fairly large Harry Potter store next door and for £9 you can get an official picture. Luckily they don't mind you taking your own pictures as well.
Next I headed to St. Pancras to get ready for the departure of my train. The exterior of the building is also gorgeous. I can absolutely understand why poet John Betjeman described it as "too beautiful and too romantic to survive."
I saw the cutest car ever parked out front. I want one, NOW! (Funny postscript about this car, I follow a lot of London Instagram feeds and I saw a picture of this car taken a week later when it was parked in a neighborhood near Hampstead Heath).
My journey under the Channel on the Eurostar was nice and fast. I was disappointed that the person assigned the seat next to me wouldn't let me have the window (even though he read a book on his Kindle the whole time and didn't look out the window at all) but the little I could see of the French countryside as we barreled down the tracks to Paris (seriously it was fast) was beautiful. I noticed lots of fields of yellow flowers. The train took me to Gare de Nord in Paris and my plan was to meet up with my sister at Notre Dame which wasn't too hard to navigate to. The ticket machine for the Metro was a different story. I got a little flustered, ended up going to the back of the line to wait for another turn, got to the front and got flustered again but luckily had the help of some French women behind me who were able to walk me through the ticket machine through gestures.
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