England and France 2007

Time to play some catch up on what happened in 2007. Back in September, Jackie and I were fortunate enough to be able to travel over to England and France for 2 weeks. I needed to go to Manchester, England for a couple days for the British Orthopeadic Association Annual Meeting with our UK rep. It seemed like a good opportunity to bring Jackie along and spend some more time over there. What made it even better is that my cousins Dave and Allison moved to Horsham, England for work last year (check out their blog link on the right). They were awesome hosts to us for 9 days, 3 of which it was just Jackie and Allison as I was in Manchester and Dave was traveling for work as well.

Check out some of our photos here

We arrived at Gatwick Airport on Saturday, September 22nd after flying all night. From there on Allison and Dave where the best tour guides we could have asked for. Since they have been there for almost a year now and have had many visitors they've seen much of London and southeast England, so they knew all the cool places to take us. We spent a few days in London, walked a lot, took a double decker bus tour, crossed Abbey Road, shopped at Harrods, and toured the Tower of London.

While London was great, I really enjoyed getting out into the English countryside. The first place we visited after arriving was Arundel Castle. We also made a trip out to StoneHenge, which was amazing. On the way back we stopped in the town of Winchester, home of the 900+ year old Winchester Cathedral. On the last day we were in England they took us to Devils Dyke, in the South Downs, which offered awesome views of the countryside to the north and the English Channel to the south. After that we drove down to the cliffs at Beachy Head. These are actually white chalk cliffs rising right from the edge of the English Channel. Quite amazing.

Dave and Allison live in the town of Horsham, which was about an hour south of London via train. We really enjoyed walking around town and stopping in the local pubs for a beer. While we were excited to see Paris, we were disappointed to leave Dave and Allison as they had made us feel so comfortable.

On October 1st Allison dropped us at the train station and we headed up to London, where we transfered trains and jumped on the Eurorail headed for Paris. We had 6 days ahead of us on Paris and had rented an apartment to stay in. Having booked it with only pictures online to reference we were a bit skeptical, but it turned out to be a great place in a wonderful neighborhood. While in France we spent all but one day in Paris. That much time allowed us to see all the sights, the Arc de Triumph, Eifel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Sacre Couer and walk along the Champs Elysees. I could just imagine the racers coming through on the final day of the Tour De France. Too bad it wasn't July.

After being away for 16 days we were ready to head for home on the 7th. The flight was long, but it was so great to see my parent's faces when we walked out of the airport in Detroit. It was definitely a great trip and we hope to go back to England before Dave and Allison move back to the US. We also look forward to touring more of Europe in the future.