It worked out really nicely that we got to have Dodie's birthday in Paris, and with Joni, Didier, and Brigitte there as well. Brigitte presented Dodie with a really appropriate gift from her and Didier, a calendar featuring 52 villages of France. Not only is there a picture from each village, but also a description of the place and the region. Later in the day, after a considerable amount of deliberation, Joni and I settled on an apricot pie "birthday cake" from one of the many bakeries in Maisons-Lafitte.
We need to go back to the subject of bakeries for a bit (unfortunately). Didier says this is a blog about food, but that is only partly true, even if the part may sometimes exceed 50 percent! In this case, it was not only the blog but also yesterday evening's conversation that focussed on food. Specifically we described to Brigitte and Didier in detail the pastries we had found in central Paris. They listened politely, and joined in, it was fine. But this morning as we walked from their place toward the station we came upon a bakery. Of course we ducked in (this was one of a dozen we checked out during the day). And there, not 5 minutes walk from Didier and Brigitte's house were the same types of pastries we had ranted about all yesterday. We realized how restrained they must have been to listen with such interest to the account of our distant discoveries!
Fabulous pastries are everywhere in or around Paris
We know felt we knew the ropes about buying a ticket, going through the turnstyles, getting on the right rain, and showing up at the Opera, in the middle of Paris. One enlightening interlude in that came when we stopped at the stall of a vendor who was set up within the Opera station. The lady was of Vietnamese extraction, and she had various Vietnamese products, including silk scarves. Scarves have been and are a staple of Paris fashion. Normally we (us and Joni) refer to them as "flitty scarves", though in this season we are seeing that some vendors have slightly heavier ones as well.
The Vietnamese lady seemed a perfect foil for a silk scarf, so I got her to hold one, for a photo. This then gave an opportunity for a bit of conversation, and I asked whether she had been born here, and if not, how it was she spoke French. It turned out she had come from Vietnam 9 years ago, and had basically learned French here, though her grandfather spoke a bit, owing to the French Vietnam involvement. Her grandfather actally spoke more Russian, due to Soviet involvement in the country in the 1960's. The lady then mused that in the past language skills had been influenced by political requirements, while now they were economics driven. It struck me from the comments that it was quite possible that this train station market seller could very easily be highly educated. One can not make assumptions about the skills and knowledge of any person, based on surface appearances. Who knows, one day two bright yellow seniors on toy bikes might pedal into someone's life, and it would (hopefully) be a mistake for them to assume that these people were just plain crazy.
In the train station - nougat. No need to cycle to Montelimar, I guess.
We had agreed that in honor of Dodie's birthday we would do no squabbling today. It seemed an easy objective, because now we knew what we were doing. All we had to do was to walk a short distance down Rue de l'Opera to pick up the Hop On Hop Off Blue Line tour to Montmartre. So we walked down there - a straight shot between the Opera and the Louvre, despite the webwork of adjoinng streets. But after a while - no Blue Line.
Some members of our party wanted to keep walking straight, while some wanted to divert to the nearby (but busy) Tourist Information Office. Others wanted to cross the street and go backwards. Result: squabbling, hand a certain amount of circling. Fortunately we circled enough to stumble on that Blue Line stop.
Here is where the otherwise quite good Hop On Hop Off service fell down quite a bit. The busses were supposed to be 25 minutes apart, and the complete circuit was supposed to take 1 hour and 15 minutes. But between not showing up in a reasonable time and inexplicable stops along the route, the thing ate up about twice that allotment. Grrr.
Despite these glitches, the tour of Paris was again fabulous. There is just no other word for anything to do with the place. Again, here is just a taste of what we saw in this bit:
This hotel beside Cartier, in the super expensive jewellery district, is probably not for cyclists!
We used the Hop On Hop Off to carry us to Notre Dame Cathedral, or at least to a cafe just opposite. Once again, we were hungry and shivering when we took our table. But oh, there was the wonderful atmosphere of a real Parisian cafe, and with Notre Dame visible beyond the window. Before we chose any food, Joni had the waiter bring a "Cafe Gourmand", which by tradition in France is a coffee with three small pastries. It was really great - I know because Joni kindly shared.
We carried on with, as yesterday, some solid and good food. Dodie in particular had been dreaming of a hot French onion soup while freezing on the bus, and she got her wish. Maybe it was the cold, or the festive day, or the cafe, but we seemed to call for quite a lot of yummy stuff. I think Dodie would probably appreciate me noting here that it was Joni and I doing the calling, and she was very restrained. She did not even choke when the bill came!
There was only a small line for getting in to Notre Dame, though we saw that by the time we left it had grown considerably. They get on average 38,000 visitors daily, but the place is so big (and the weather so cold) that this day the visitors were fairly well swallowed up inside. While it is true we just sort of automatically visit the cathedral in any town, we had a special reason for coming to Notre Dame. While we had already in Tour received a "Credential" for the Santiago de Compostella (St Jacques Compostelle/ Jakobsweg) pilgrimage to Spain, we figured a second one (since we are two) would be a good idea. Also, Ground Zero for such tours in France is marked by a brass disk in the ground outside Notre Dame.
I will let the photos tell the further story of our visit to Notre Dame:
Really all that remained after Notre Dame was to hop the train back to Didier's place. We had eaten up the whole day, our last day in Paris (this time around). As you will have gathered, we are preparing the ground for a return as (non-religious) pilgrims. But that is far in the future - such as next year, and could just as easily be supplanted by some other cockamamy bicycle touring plan.
For now, we are getting ready for a wrenching goodbye to Joni, Didier, and Brigitte in Paris, but also a renewed stay and cycling with Michel in Nantes. It will have been a wonderful experience in Paris, and there is still fun to come in Nantes.
