[Arg! This Internet kiosk crashed and I lost most of this post, so I had to rewrite it again]

It’s been a while since my last post, I’ve been in London now since Sunday, and I arrived with a bit of a nasty head cold – it’s clearing up now which is good, but yesterday was mostly shot – slept in ’til 2pm!

Since London’s so pricey and I was feeling miserable, I decided to use up some of my Marriott rewards points and stay at the completely obsurd Grosvner House J.W. Marriott Hotel, it’s amazing – certainly not something I’d stay at if I were paying! I guess traveling a lot for work has it’s perks,  3 nights at a 260£/night hotel for free – great! I can’t even have their continental breakfast there – it’s 21£ for cereal and fruit!

I just got my travel arranged to go to Scotland from the great Britain/London Visitors Center, very helpful people here.

Tomorrow, Weds Jan 6: Train to Edinburgh (Have a B&B booked there for 3 nights)

Sat, Jan 9: Train to Oban

Mon, Jan 11: Ferry to isle of Mull/Iona – may spend one or two days here, likley staying a night in Mull (I think all the lodging in Iona is closed during Winter)

Tues, Jan 12: Head back to Oban/Glasgow area to catch a ferry the next day

Weds, Jan 13: Ferry to Belfast, Ireland; and bus to Dublin

Sun, Jan 17: Flight back to Seattle!

London’s been great so far (aside from my being sick), seems like a very neat, livable city. Again the metro system is great, and the people all very nice. Seeing Big Ben and the houses of Parliment is quite the thing. I’m sure I’ll make it to Buckingham Palace before I head out, and perhaps tomorrow to Stonehedge, which is a bit out of town.

Well, for today I’m headed over to Greenwich (an easy metro ride) to check out the Royal Observatory there, hang out on the prime meridian (longitude 0!) and make sure my watch’s time is set right A bit of a geeky destination, but it seems interesting to me! I’m sure I’ll be here again some day to check out everything else.

I’ll try and post again from Edinburgh! Cheers! (As they say here)

The train ride over was great as well, it was my first time on a TGV, and they are seriously fast. Traveling at 160+MPH is quite the thing to do. I hope we can have trains like that in the U.S. sometime in the future! Quite a step up from the Talgo I took from BCN to Montpellier, and even the Teoz’ that I’ve ridden on elsewhere.

More pictures and updates tomorrow, for now I’ve had a great dinner and I’m ready for bed so I can wake up early and continue enjoying Paris tomorrow! Au revoir!

Hotel to Eiffel Tower

I went to Arles based mainly on a one-liner in Rick Steve’s Europe through the backdoor book, “Take a train to Arles” I think is all it said. Good enough for me! I researched it online a bit, and it looked like a neat place – roman ruins throughout a little french villa, and it’s where Van Gogh lived for a while in the later part of his life. That’s exactly what it is, and it’s quite interesting.

I arrived a bit later in the evening due to my not catching an early train from Montpellier, and I didn’t have a map – so initially I went down what seemed like a bit of a bad road (and I later realized it went in the opposite direction I wanted). Some kids asked me for money, but that’s all and I soon walked back and found my way to the city center, where I found a hotel. There were two hotels open when I arrived, one for 55€/night, and another that seemed more like just a bar – I went in to the bar looking one, told them I was interested in a room – and I was quickly given a key and told the price of 32€/night – I looked at the room, and it was reasonable enough (especially for me – I don’t need anything fancy on this trip) so I went with it. It was called “Hotel Paris / Bar Americaine”. There were no Americans there, but there were a lot of Frenchmen drinking the anise scented absinthe – hopefully they don’t go as insane as Van Gogh!

The city center is fairly small, and very walkable. I had breakfast at a great little place where it looked like a mother, father, and their son where working – they were very nice and made me feel like I knew how to speak French

There’s several points of interest to check out in Arles, a roman theatre from the first century B.C., a large roman amphitheater from 90 A.D., Van Gogh’s hospital where he did many of his paintings, the underground catacombs called the “Cryptoportico”, and many other things that I didn’t make it to, like Van Gogh’s bridge, which I would have liked to see – but it’s a bit far out from the city center.

Overall I very much liked Arles, it was a small town, with lots of friendly people and neat things to see. And excellent food! Wonderful pastries, bread, cheese, and coffee.

Le Rhône - The river that runs through Arles

View the map of my photos in Arles!

The hotel has great reviews from solo travelers, tripadvisor in particular makes it sound promising!