As we left Paris, we knew we’d be staying with our English hosts for a week and N came up with the idea of bringing them a present from Paris – some cheese of course! M & N went to a local fromagerie on our last night and discussed in depth with the staff which cheeses to get: one hard (Tomme Brulee), one brie (Petit Livarot) and one goat (Sainte Maure de Touraine), plus some saucisson. The goats cheese was the one with straw in the middle that has the name of the maker which we’d learnt about in our tour of the cheese museum just a few days earlier. (We also had some leftover 40 month old comte to bring with us) 😋

We discussed the best method for transport on the Eurostar and the subsequent train journey and the staff offered to individually shrink wrap each cheese – how lovely!

At 10pm that night, N receives an email from Eurostar “reminding” us that due to quarantine restrictions to stop the spread of foot & mouth (the one in cattle, not hand, foot & mouth in kids) no meat, diary, fish or any animal products (including cheese) are to be brought into the UK! 😱

It was quite weird that they only just mentioned this 12 hours before our train! But being Australian and being used to strict quarantine measures, we felt it best not to bring our produce. But what could we do with it at such later notice, especially given we were leaving our accommodation before 8am? We tried messaging our new Australian friend that we met at the local markets but no response (unsurprising given the time).

So, we had to leave it at the Airbnb 😭 We messaged them to let them know and they seemed pretty happy. They sent M their direct number and said we could stay with them again next time we were in Paris.

Extremely annoyingly, this restriction was never mentioned again either by any sort of signage or announcement or any staff at the Eurostar terminal either in Paris, on the train or when we got off in London. Later, friends told us that they thought it was more due to Brexit than an actual issue 🙄

I hope the cheese got enjoyed by our host at least, as now they live on only in our imaginations 💔