Stresa on the banks of Lake Maggiore. Home to Colmar

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As usual we used National Express coaches to get us from Norwich to London, in this case traveling on Sunday 3 September 2023. The coach made excellent time as far as Stratford before getting bogged down in traffic, the driver even had to ring the depot and ask them to delay some departures for travellers catching connecting buses. Once at Victoria we made our way to the underground and invested £2-70 each on a journey to St Pancras station then a short walk to The Premier Hub.
Checking in we were surprised that we had been allocated a large room with a large double bed unlike in the past.

The Hubs don’t have a restaurant so it was out to eat. A place we had looked at in the past but not used was The Gas Station and with the nice weather we were able to sit outside to eat. (photo from their web site)

Monday 4 September 2023
Up early and no breakfast to check out and then meet out Great Rail Journeys tour manager at St Pancras Station, before heading to the departure lounge and awaiting our train to Paris, thankfully breakfast was served onboard for Standard Premier travellers .
We were in coach one, so when we arrived at Gare du Nord we had the full length of Euro Star train to walk before even reaching the station exit, from there a short walk to Paris L’Est for the train to Colmar. In Colmar our hotel was literally straight across the road from the station and even that was semi pedestrianised.

The station from our Hotel		Our Hotel from the station

Once checked in it was off for a look round this charming little town, it has its own waterway running through the centre of town with punted trip boats.

As expected with all the restaurants lining the canal/river there are some fair sized fish in there

   The buildings in this part of town are very old and quite attractive, but you need to keep an eye on the traffic.

   

Walking back to The Hotel Bristol where we were spending just the one night we passed this rather splendid water tower in the park. We only had a few hours to spare to look round Colmar as diner was pre ordered and we would all be eating in the hotel.