October 15, 2009
Exploring Paris
October 15 and 16
Weather: mostly sunny but cooler than normal
We had been to Paris before and had visited the major sights, so during this short stay we wanted to explore some areas we hadn't already seen and return to the Musée d'Orsay, our favourite museum. We also needed some time to put the Bike Fridays together and try them out. We hoped to be mostly over our jetlag before heading to the Loire on Saturday.
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Each morning we walked to a nearby patisserie where we picked up butter croissants, almond croissants and apple tarts. We brought them back to our room, made tea or coffee, and enjoyed a decadent pastry breakfast. On both days we walked many kilometres in the city. Our routes took us by the Sorbonne, through the Jardin de Louxembourg, over to Notre Dame and the holocaust memorial, along the Seine past the Louvre and over the footbridge to the Musée d'Orsay. There we rested our tired legs in the beautiful main sculpture hall and had another look at the Impressionist Gallery with its paintings by Manet,Van Gogh and Degas.
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We returned to the Gare Austerlitz to make the rest of our train reservations--a good thing too, since many of our chosen times were complet (full). The fact that the Eurail pass provides a discount rate, and that those lower priced tickets are booked up early was not adequately explained in the Eurail literature. We ended up with only one fully-included TGV reservation a month away, back to Paris from Aix-en-Provence at the end of our trip. The other routes were still fine on the slower regional trains, but we had to pay a premium of 49 euros each for a TGV leg from Tours to Bordeaux (the only option) which was quite aggravating.
We found a pleasant brasserie not far from our lodgings where we could get simple, tasty and reasonably priced meals any time of day. We ate there several times and enjoyed quiche lorraine and salad lunches as well as good roast chicken and spinach for dinner with glasses of Bordeaux, as our bodies adjusted to French time.
Al put the bicycles together and we rode them along the Seine until we were defeated by the rough cobblestone pavement. We were too intimidated to cycle for more than a few blocks on the roads in the heavy traffic, even though there were narrow bike lanes marked next to the curb. Our wiry landlady, Mme Chatignoux, probably a bit younger than us, rides all around Paris on her bicycle, and was fascinated by our plans to cycle so far on our small wheeled steeds. She was quite convinced that the hills of Provence would defeat us, and we looked forward to proving her wrong!
Today's ride: 10 km (6 miles)
Total: 10 km (6 miles)
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