(Temporary Backup) Day 3- Paris

Before I talk about today, I want to mention that Chris and I had a wonderful dinner last night at Jerome Vidal’s apartment which is quite near the youth hostel

Heron hosted us with his good friend Alison from Melbourne. She works in the data management field for mining companies and seems to want to take out French citizenship. Jerome on the other hand is studying to be a nurse.

Jerome is “babysitting “ my bike box until I return to Paris...thanks Jerome much appreciated!

Today was a day of being a tourist and after a great night of sleep we were ready for it!!!

First up was a visit to see the Notre Dame cathedral after the fire. Gee there is a lot of work to do as you can see from the photograph 

Then we did the big bus tour which was a good refresher for us both. The big issue for me was the additional security around all the attractions particularly at the Eiffel Tower where there is now a glass fence surrounding the base with security gates controlling entrances. The other issue was the traffic... seems there are traffic jams everywhere. The locals who do not use cars use electric scooters which are hooked up via the GPS by various operators 

We used the metro to get around which was fine but a little confusing at times 

We finished touring at lunch and after a bite in the Latin Quarter we came back to the hostel to sort out my Garmin maps.....wow this is frustrating to say the least 

Anyhow we sorted out bits of it but downloading Europe maps was unfortunately a problem...

We gave up after a couple of hours and Chris went for a sleep whist I tried to sort the problem out at an Internet cafe

I gave up due to real concerns about security 

At about 6.00 pm we went out locally to have dinner but most restaurants open st 7.00 pm so it was a frustrating time finding one open for a couple of older blokes looking for a “nursery tea”

We were fortunate to find a cafe with ok food

After a feed of steak chips and salad we headed home for an early night ahead of the first day of riding 

It would be fair to say we are both looking forward to the days ahead of adventures in 10 countries and over 3000 kms...

Chris has a good friend who is doing the same Eurovelo 6 route and over dinner we had a look at his blog and the scenery looks great 

A good sleep tonight should be great for the days ahead

Now for the pictures

Notre Dame... note the fire damaged roof

Champs-Elysées 


Eiffel Tower