Time to move on to the Continent and we went on the Eurostar through the Channel Tunnel. St. Pancras has been the terminal for a while now and the experience is more like taking the plane. Baggage and body search is included. You can't get onto the platform until your train is called. There are trains every 40 minutes or so to Paris, Brussels and even a special train to Paris Disneyland. The train looked to be full and it sped away through a long tunnel until it broke into the daylight well east of the centre of London. They built a new fast line reducing travel times by some 20 minutes and you reach Paris in 2 hours 23 minutes. The new line joins the original line to Folkestone at Ashford. Very quickly you are at the tunnel mouth and then follows twenty minutes under the channel. It breaks out at Calais and travels through Lille to reach Paris Gare du Nord. We managed to fathom out the ticket machine for the metro and two stops later with a change we were at the station close by our hostel in Montmartre. Le Village is one of the more highly rated hostels in Paris and it deserved the rating. The people running it were efficient and friendly. We had a double room en suite on the fourth floor. Sacre Coeur was behind the hostel and we had a good view from the back staircase.
The Sacre Coeur
We walked up the hill to the church which was crowded with tourists. There is a great view off the front steps.
View over Paris from the steps of the Sacre Coeur
We continued on around the district and visited the Montmartre Cemetery which has quite a few famous people lying at rest. For example: Hector Berlioz, Alexander Dumas, Edgar Degas, Leo Delibes and Vaslav Nijinsky.
Nijinsky's Grave
The area is full of shops, people and restaurants. We passed by some unusual sights
He must have been running quite fast
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