Here we are in London, we arrived yesterday via the Eurostar train under the Channel. We decided to do that rather than flying, just for a change. There was also the fact of leaving from the centre of Paris and arriving in the centre of London. The train rides that we’ve had have been really good, it’s fun flying along at over 300 km/h.

Some thoughts about France: we found everyone to be very friendly and helpful, not at all as we’d expected from other people’s stories. We could say things like good morning, please, thank you, and other such things in French, then managed more with a bit more of an attempt in French along with pointing and sign language. It worked well.

We saw lots of beautiful villages, houses are mostly stone (colour varies from one region to another), virtually all have shutters which are closed and make the buildings look deserted but which must be really efficient in the heat of the day. Speaking of which, don’t go to the Riviera in July/August, it is really HOT there! Just about every day for a week was over 33C, with the hottest being 39C, and it was very humid as well. Once we headed north again it improved and we found the middle 20s much more comfortable. Today in London would be lucky to be 20C, it’s quite cool and pleasant.

French television – the choice was usually BBC or CNN if we wanted something in English, though we caught sight of such things as Columbo, Inspector Frost, Inspector Barnaby (aka Midsomer Murders) but the highlight was McLeod’s Daughters – we haven’t watched this in English so definitely gave it a miss in French.

We had a farewell dinner with our tour group, and the subject of highlights came up. Everyone had something different, and lots found it hard to pick just one thing. I couldn’t choose just one but on the list would be the cave paintings at Lascaux, the medieval town of Carcassonne, and Monet’s garden at Giverny, but there wasn’t anywhere that I didn’t really enjoy. Trying the different regional foods and wines was also good, but we didn’t take the opportunity to have snails!

Now we’re ready for a few days in London before heading off on Sunday around UK and Ireland. If this tour is as good as the last one we’ll be very happy indeed!