30 June

30 June   

   

Well I found out the fanfare at gate K12 was for a group of wounded veterans called Ride 2 Recovery.  They will be riding their bikes through France (a first time occasion) and will be watching the 6^th stage of the Tour de France…they were excited to say the least.

It took over 45 minutes for me to collect my baggage…hard to find my suitcase amongst all the black luggage coming out on the conveyor belt…NOT.  Just a matter of a lot of bicycles and luggage. (remember my plaid luggage?…yeah, not hard to find)   Got my ‘train’ of my bike box and suitcase prepared and off I walked, to the farthest end of CDG to get to the RER, Line B, the blue line to take me from CDG to Gare du Nord.

Gare du Nord-Paris, France

As I walked out of Gare du Nord, I realized I hadn’t taken the time at home to print a walking map from the train station to the Holiday Inn Express at 68 Quai de la Seine…at least I remembered the address and had my Garmin 800 with the Europe NT map…but no signal, for about 10 minutes.  Once satellites were located, I was off for the HI Express…just over a mile, but I’m not used to reading GPS stuff, I’m a map kind of guy, so I was stepping off about every 2 blocks to make sure I was headed in the right direction…and I was…woohoo…and I took a couple shortcuts since the GPS was set for driving directions.

You can see my path here:  Paris-Gare du Nord to Holiday Inn by mrcleanowp at Garmin Connect - Details


My shortcut took me past the Hell’s Angels, Paris, France clubhouse.  Interesting to note they are very proud of their existence there and have it well advertised on the outside of the building, unlike the HA clubhouse in Omaha which is unmarked.

HA clubhouse-Paris, France

Made it to Quai de la Seine, a nice cobblestone path along the Seine Canal and decided I didn’t like the world to know I was coming with the clickety clack of the wheels so I took to the street…no cobblestones.  Made it to the HI Express in ½ hour and was greeted by my beautiful wife!  What a sight for any eyes!  

A quick trip to the room to drop my stuff and we were off and running to meet the rest of Jen’s tour group for a tour of the Louvre at 1345…again…yes, visiting the Louvre again, but no matter the number of times visited, it’s still a thrill and unbelievable that I am once again in Paris, France.  For being in a country that is supposedly laid back and enjoys the relaxed life style, the Louvre is quite the contrary…a chaotic scene of tourists from around the world, pushing and shoving their way to see master works of art. Winged Victory, Aphrodite (Venus de Milo), Mona Lisa, the Wedding at Canaan, etc. etc.  Push, shove, trip, elbow…  Not too relaxing, but an adventure nonetheless!

Tour is done at 1600 hours and we have 2 hours til dinner, so the BHS student trip members and I are off to see Notre Dame.  If we can get in the Cathedral or up to the towers, great, if not, we’ll walk around the outside, spend some time in the Latin Quarter and turn them loose til dinner at Chez Clement.  And so it was, no chance of getting into the Cathedral or up to the towers.

Center of Paris, France-in front of Notre Dame

Dinner was outstanding.  A nice starter of lettuce and tomato, and then beef  Bourgogne for the main entrée, and crème brule for dessert.

Our evening continued with a metro trip from St. Michel to Champs de Mars to visit the Eiffel Tower for a 2100 visit to the top.  We made it down just in time to scramble across the street to make it half way to Trocadero park to watch the 10,000 Japanese tourists light up the Tower as they do at 2300 nightly.  (This was the line of Magnus, the tour director…really not true…the lights are permanent on the tower).

Another metro trip from Trocadero Park to Crimee for our return trip to the Holiday Inn Express and the student’s last night in Paris.  They joined Jen and I in our room for a quick good bye and a toast with some non-alcohol cider.  They are leaving for the airport at 0700.  Finally in bed around 0200.