Thanks to Camille and Mark from lacaravaneapedales.com (check it out and polish up on your French), two local Parisians who have let us stay in their one bedroom apartment we've been able to check out the wonders of Paris these last five days.
Sometimes we can get sceptical, and when you have been on the road for seven months, new scenery occasionally becomes indistinctly post-modern, but Paris is a different story, leaving us loving almost every minute. One of our best experiences here so far was riding bicycles around the city, the ones you can hire almost anywhere for only $1 Euro, randomly exploring it for hours, turning haphazardly in any arbitrary direction, fuzzy and itinerant, discovering a labyrinth of narrow streets, old stone churches and quaint alleyways. A great way we found to get started here was by doing a fascinating 'insider tour' of the inner city where we discovered King Edward VIII fascinating inner sanctum (sort of), and France's first cinema. Other highlights have been home made sweet and savory crepes at Mark and Camilles, Toy Story 3 (our first movie since China) at a cinema perched upon a beautiful canal, visits to the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Champs Elysees, Arc de Triomphe, Les Halles, Place de la Concorde the Avenue de L'Opera and continuing our relentless search for the nations best flan!! A fascinating juxtaposition to Paris' romantic beauty are the homeless people, indiscriminately scattered across the city, often surrounded by rubbish and the strong aroma of urine, and left alone by the police. Sometimes we've even seen them standing next to each other, neither seeming to notice or acknowledge the others presence. Contrary to a common myth we'd heard, we've found that food here hasn't been as expensive as we thought it would be. Riding a giant ferris wheel that looks out over the expanses of the city with an equally giant donut in my mouth that cost only a middling two Euro, really brought this point home... On our last night at Mark and Camille's we met up with Alison, one of Shanna's old school friends who is currently living in Paris, who took us up to Le Sacre Coeur, a beautiful Church on top of Paris' highest hill with a sad and fascinating history. Silently watching the city move down below, cold beers rubbed on our arms by African street vendors eager to make a sale, and listening to the dancing buskers on the steps underneath we came to the realisation that, as people have previously commented would happen on this blog, any preconceptions we had of the city have ultimately proved to be an allusion. Neither of us can recall our respective pre-conceptualized renderings of Paris, but whatever they were, they've been emphatically shattered in a richly diverse and distinct way.
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Distance: 71km
Well, despite the strange title suggesting my excitement at the prospect of seeing the worlds greatest basketball player team up with two other massive stars, today was a tough day for me, maybe as much as the day Shanna wrote about two days ago. For one, the dysentery (my chosen word for the runs) returned a few days ago. If you get this kind of thing when you are at home, living in a house it sucks, but at least its manageable. When you're on a bike, generally camping in the middle of nowhere, it makes life a little extra difficult. It seems lately that no matter how much I eat, my energy levels are really low. And running off into the bushes to relieve myself of all the food I just ate really sucks. Anyway, we both knew that Paris was only 71km and a short train ride away, so we kept riding, and finally made it to Boutigny. We tried to work out which train to catch, and where to change, or if we were even able to take our bikes on the train at this time of day, but it was harder than we thought. And to make matters worse, the ticket machine wouldn't take cash, and refused to accept either of our credit cards. Luckily for us, a good samaritan came along with his Physics PHD (no really) and solved the problem for us, by using his credit card, buying us the right tickets, 20 Euro less than we would have payed for the wrong ones we tried to purchase. With no change to pay him I ran to the ATM to get out some money. Turning around, my bike was gone, I coulndn't see it anywhere, and where the heck was Shanna...? Looking back I finally saw them on the other side of the station, holy smokes, how did they get my heavy bike over there I wondered... Running back, down the stairs and up to the other side I made it just in time to get on the train. Phewww. Whewwww!!!! We're going to Paris!!!! An hour later, with some more help from Doctor Physics (sorry, we forget your name) we had arrived in Paris, and after Shanna ingeniously worked out how to use a public phone, our new warmshowers (a website for cyclists) friends were on there way to pick us up from the station, on bikes of course. Riding through the beautiful streets of the city of love we... Distance: 61km
Last night we stayed up too late talking, so today we are really tired. Not much of significance happened other than we spent a few hours between riding at McDonalds on the free internet trying to update this blog. So, we'll spare you the details and just leave you with some photo's of our riding through Sens and, eventually on to Pont Sur Yonne. Distance: 76km
It would have been nice to stop for the day, rest our weary minds and bodies, but a night in a hotel was a treat and couldn't be repeated - we would have to move on, although our legs really didn't feel it. The morning was sunny and warm and we hoped our luck had changed - please, just one day without the rain. We started riding and the road seemed good - not too much wind and quiet roads. It should have been enjoyable riding, but for me I was struggling not to stop and throw my bike in a ditch and walk home. For a couple of weeks I'd been struggling with the idea of going home. We had been gone over six months, such a long time... My legs were in pain every day - not serious pain, just the pain that comes with pushing yourself. It was a feeling I wasn't used to in my former life, and I'm still not sure I like it. After a long straight stretch where I fell far behind Sam, he stopped to wait for me, and make sure I was ok. A torrent of tears followed as we stopped on the side of a deserted road to talk about how tired I was, the pain of working hard and how I missed home. It was time to decide - did I want to keep going or go home? Sam gave a speech worthy of a pep rally - about pain making you stronger, how far we've come in six months, how much I've improved and reminding me that a rest in Paris was just days away. For the rest of the afternoon I had the strength to keep up with Sam (in his slip stream of course) and even enjoyed the pain and ensuing feeling of accomplishment at the top of many hills. We went further than planned, trying to find an ideal camping spot. At Saint Florentin we found a shower and toilet block next to the canal and were happy to wash away the day's dirt. But we decided to keep riding and try to find a better camping spot, away from the crowds of motor campers. At 8.30 we stopped behind some bushes on the side of the road outside Saint Florentin, both exhausted. It wasn't ideal, but we couldn't go any further. Distance: 44km
Today we gave up. Semur en Auxois looks great in postcards, so we hope our photos will do it some justice for you. Let you imagine for just a moment that you were there with us, in the medieval city, tired legs juxtaposed with wide eyes marveling at a town straight from a fairy tale. Venteux Montbard was blowing a gale, so, stinky, tired, wet and dirty we pulled into the city, after only 45kms. Montbard welcomed us with rain, pouring driving rain, but luckily we found some shelter, and cooked our packaged poulet curry riz. This time it wasn't so good, somehow it reminded me of a cold cheese burger from McDonalds, but the baguette was delicious. Next, we found the cheapest hotel in the city, stashed our gear in the small room beside a canal of gently floating green water, and still dirty and stinky, eagerly set about exploring the towns patisseries. Sadly, the flan we devoured just didn't match up to the reining king, although we had entertained high hopes of it replacing the champ. So we search on, marching through the patisseries of France in hope of the perfect flan!! What about you? Ever find that perfect flan, burger, pasta, dessert? |
AuthorSam and Shanna Evans are from Melbourne, Australia Archives
September 2012
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