Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Running with the Bulls, Running away from gypsies, Running into friends in Monaco...my crazy trip report! Lon, Par, Barc, Pamp, & Cote! Pls. read!

What a wonderful European adventure! Just returned last night from a 16 day adventure of visiting London, Paris, Barcelona, Bilbao, Pamplona, and the French Riviera!
Thanks to all fodorites for tips, advice and help! All your contributions really do make a difference to a stranger's first visit to a new country! Thanks!

Note: We are young married couple, late 20's, wanted to see many places before the babies begin!

Toronto - London: British Airways
- World Traveller Plus seats: paid the extra $ and upgraded ourselves to the larger seats. 38''pitch - pretty nice. (Last yr. flew Luftansa business class to Rome (older version plane) and found that these seats were very similiar if not the same!) We enjoyed the ride. On time, nice food, good selection for inflight entertainment.

Booked ATS limo to transport us from airport to hotel! EXCELLENT! Saved us so much time and money. They were cheaper than using Hotel Link. Be sure to use them if going to London.

LONDON:
We stayed at the London Hilton Kensington which I won through Priceline at the very cheap price of $67 USD per night! What a bargain! For the price, a great hotel! There was a bus stop for both regular bus and hop on/off right across the street. Excellent location. Newly renovated. Good conierge. Small rooms and bathroom but newly renovated. (NOTE: If you stay there, be sure to insist for a newly renovated room at check-in***) We liked London but found it very expensive. Also, we didn't expect it to be soo huge! And I didn't expect there to be so much shopping! For some reason, we found it to be very similar to New York. We took the bus and tube everywhere - easy to use. Went to all the sites.

PARIS:
We travelled from England to France via the Eurostar. The chunnel part which we were so excited for was very uneventful! We both fell asleep! Nice train, good ride, quick and painless.

We stayed at the Paris Westin, which I also won through Priceline at a price of $183 USD per night. (Estimate of 130 Euro??)EXCELLENT for the price! The location was amazing. Right across from the Tuleries, 5 mins from the Louvre, 5 mins from Place de la Concorde and 5 mins from St. Honore and the best shopping of Paris! I would definitely recommend all to stay in the 1st arrondissement! All the best bars, restos, shops, muesums and monuments are next door! The hotel was beautiful - very old and grand. It could use a bit of refurbishing, but it has a lot of character! The ballrooms are beautiful and there were fashion shows everyday while we were there. Models and press everywhere! It was great! Our room was huge and the rack rate at the back of the door said 990 Euro! We laughed so hard! What a deal! The bathroom was huge, marble and beautiful. Brand new. Great room and excellent service. Maid service twice daily. The shopping was incredible - we went right in time for all the sales! I could hardly peel myself away! We checked out the Louvre and all the sites. We went to Montmartre when what I dreaded most happened.....
We jumped off the Metro and were walking towards Sacre Coeur along a very hilly street. The sidewalks were tiny and there were tons of ppl. everywhere. I see a man walking towards us carrying a wine bottle in his arms, like a baby. I thought to myself, hey this is weird:
1) 10 am and this guy is carrying wine in the street w/o it being in a bag
2) He's carrying rose - no one drinks that here! But, it's Paris, anything goes with wine. A few seconds later, I feel someone very close behind me. So close. I turned around and it's the man with the bottle of wine. Very fishy. I move to the other side of my husband to let him pass. I slow my husband down to ensure he passes us. Then I see 20 gypsy men with the bracelets in front of us. (I know about this thanks to the fodorites). I tell my husband that we must rush through them, and not to let them stop us. We move quickly through the crowd, and it seems that they are all bumping into us. I'm holding only my purse and the zipper for dear life! All of a sudden, a man has grabbed my husbands arm and is threatening to smash the bottle of wine of his head. The bottle of wine is right up against his head. He is screaming at him badly of how he is going to kill him. We were both in shock. I kept pulling my husband further out of the gypsy crowd away with his other arm. My husband was tempted to hit him but said he saw a freshly stiched wound on his face, plus 20 of his friends were around us. Finally, the man lets go of him and we run. We were shocked and upset, and surprised b/c there must have been at least 200 ppl. around us and know one even tried to help. But, we both know what this man was doing...he was after my husband's watch (Panerai - these guys know their stuff). They were unsuccessful in removing his watch due to the intricate clasp, but they were successful in ruining our mood and scaring us half to death of Paris. It really does spoil a trip. Anyways, we went shopping back in the 1st and felt much better. We loved the 1st b.c it was very safe and never had a problem of gypsies anywhere. Highly recommend staying in that area. Hubby and I also saw Elton Jonh and David Parrish at the Ritz one day. So cool. In the evenings, we like to go to very cool restos and bars. We loved Les Costes (saw Jack Osbourne there), and Pershing Hall (epitomy of cool bar)and also liked the Bound, and Le Cab. Les Costes was very cool...go if you can! Something I learned which i did not know before - it is very difficult to find a cab at night. SO many nights we ended up having to take the metro or walk home b.c there were no cabs in sight. After having drinks at Pershing Hall one night, we walked over to Geroge V Four Seasons and tried to wait for one there. The doorman advised us that they don't even go there late...he already had a huge line-up. Metro is very safe at night but does close around 2, I think...after that, not much you can do. We were also there for the game where France beat Portugal - the city went crazy! It was an amazing expereince. Everyone would chant "Allez Les Bleu"

BARCELONA:
We used Easyjet for our flight from Paris Orly to Barcelona. Easyjet was much better than I expected. On time, efficient, quick moving line-ups. Excellent service. New, clean planes. Very impressed.
We stayed at the Hotel Montecarlo, which I chose because of it's price and excellent rating on Tripadvisor.com. It is located right on Las Ramblas, near Placa Catanyia. I guess a lot of ppl. would love this location, but after being agressively threatened in Paris, we HATED the location. La Rambla is the biggest tourist trap street in the world. It is filled with pickpockets and gypsies. The receptionist at our hotel warned us not to stop and watch card games, magic tricks, etc. because pickpockets do their job while you are concentrating on wathcing the free show. I heard this a million times on this site, so we steered clear of La Rambla. I noticed that even exiting our hotel was a problem. The gypsies would stand next to the door and follow you. Yes, they are leaving a hotel, they are a tourist. A few times, I had to try to lose them by ducking in and out into small stores. I would never ever stay at a hotel on La Rambla again. However, would love to stay at one of Gran Via Passieg de la Gracia. It is where all the nice stores are - it is very very safe there. More importantly, we felt very safe there. Don't get me wrong, Hotel Montecarlo is amazing for the money - nice big rooms with adjustable beds, full marble huge bathrooms. We just weren't fond of the location. We liked Barcelona. Shopped a bit. Carolina Herriera store has beautiful stuff at reasonable prices. Did the Hop-on, Hop-off tour as suggested by Fodorites. Excellent. We really liked hanging at the Olympic Port. Restos bad but very cool bars/lounges on the beach. Felt very safe there at night. Loved tapas - yummmy! Ate them all the time!

Next up...Bilbao...get to this soon...