Day 57 July 9th

I had already bought my ticket on the TGV fast train from Geneva to Paris, so it was just a matter of getting to the station. Luckily it wasn't far as carrying the bike is a real pain in the shoulder. I was on the platform in plenty of time and the train pulled in and I climbed aboard. It was only after I had stashed my luggage that I saw an LCD display that said Lyon so I asked a guy sitting nearby and sure enough I was on the wrong train. I had only just got off when it pulled out. The right train came and I was aboard with no hassles. It was a 4.5 hour trip and I'll have to google it see how fast we were going.

Arriving in Paris de Lyon station there were people everywhere and it was really hard to go anywhere with the bike on my shoulder. Eventually I found the Metro station but couldn't find a ticket office, only vending machines. I had no idea of how much they were or whether I needed more than one as I had to catch 4 different trains to get to the hotel, so I just tried the machine. It had an English option so that was a start and it appeared that it was 1.60 euros for ant trip. I only has 1.20 in my pocket, so I tried the option to buy a few tickets at once with my credit card. The Visa couldn't be read and the Visa Debit card was not a valid card, so I set off to try to find a ticket office. I did find one eventually, bought my 1.60 ticket and went to the platform I had in my directions.

The stop I was to get off was Gare de Nord but I couldn't see that coming up on ant screens so it was asking again. It turns that it is also called Paris Nord and even when I got there 2 different platforms had each name. From then on it was pretty much plain sailing but couldn't find the street I needed when came out of the metro, so it took 2 more lots of asking for directions before I found it. Luckily it was only a short walk to the hotel as both shoulders were really painful. The hotel had double booked me but had arranged a room in another hotel just around the corner, but that was the last thing I needed. It was 3:30 by then so I just put the bike together but didn't unpack as I have to relocate in the morning.

DISTANCE TODAY 0km TOTAL DISTANCE 1406km

Day 58 July 10th

I set off early with map in hand to navigate my way around Paris. I headed toward the river and just came across a great building called Saint Marie Madeleine which I think is a church - more like a cathedral. I took a photo but by the end of the day I had seen so many great buildings I didn't take too many more.

I just happened to come across the Louvre and because it was still early there weren't too many people, so I went in for what I thought would be a quick visit. How wrong I was. The place is absolutely huge and I spent almost 4 hours wandering around and I know there were quite a few areas that I missed. It is a real labyrinth and if I had been able to read French I probably would have been in there a lot longer. That was the one drawback that you couldn't read about any of the displays as the were in French only.

I wanted to go and have a look at the catacombs that I had been told about and they didn't show up on any of the main tourist brochures so I expected them to be a lot quieter. I had to go to the info centre to find out where they were and managed to find my way out there with only one wrong turn. Did I say they would be quiet - wrong - the crown was 3 across and stretched for about 100 metres, so I decided to go back later if I get the time.

Headed back to the river and rode up the Champs de Elysees. They already had lots of barriers up ready for the last day of the Tour, but traffic was still going everywhere. I went to the base of the arc de Triomphe but didn't bother to go to the top as I plan to climb the Eiffel Tower tomorrow and that will probably be a better view. Suddenly it was 4pm so I started heading home.

DISTANCE TODAY 24km TOTAL DISTANCE 1430km

Day 59 July 11th

Queues - I hate them but if you want to see anyting in Paris you have to put up with them. I had an accidental sleep in this morning so I was late getting to the Eiffel Tower. Could hardly move where the lines were so I skipped that and will make sure I'm up early tomorrow to try again. Headed to Notre Dame Cathedral ad yes there was a queue but if I was going to see anything I was going to have to bite the bullet and line up. One and a half hours later. I finally got to climb up the numerous stairs and have a look from the gallery level where the gargoyles are and I could imagine Quasimodo crawling around up there. We were then able to look at the Big Bell which is rung only on major Catholic Feast days and 4 other bells in the south tower ring daily. From there it was up more steps to the top of the North Tower with good views of Paris.

When I got down I had to line up again to go in the cathedral proper but luckily it didn't take too long to get in even though the queue was long to start with. It was moving quickly because inside I reckon you could fit 1,000 people as the place was huge and awesome (and it was free). It was getting towards 2:45 so I decided to head out to the Catacombes again and the line was a bit less than yesterday, so I got on the end. It was 3:15 and we hadn't moved too much when one of the attendants came along and said that they don't allow anyone in after 4pm and we may not get in. The american guys behind me and I decided to try our luck and stayed in line while some others behind us left. Goods news, we got in with 5 minutes to spare.

I haven't found out all the details of theses catacombes as they didn't have any brochures but from what I could gather, mining sites were digging up grave sites all over Paris. They then decided to put all the bones from these sites in the catacombes and that is where they still are today. Have a look at the photos to see how they are stacked and there must have been 400-500 metres of them. When I came out it was in a side street and I found the main road again without any problems but couldn't see where we went in. I went the wrong way to start with but got back on track and it was half a km walk back to the start.

I needed to find an SNCF (train) station to buy my ticket for Lyon next week and when I eventually found the ticket office, there was another queue waiting for me. Half an hour later I had my ticket and set off for home as it was nearly 6pm. Eiffel wasn't too far out of the way so I went past again and it was just as busy as the morning so I just kept going. I'm going to set and alarm for the morning to make sure I'm there nice and early.

DISTANCE TODAY 29km TOTAL DISTANCE 1459km

Day 60 July 12th

Well it was certainly worth getting up early to go to the Eiffel Tower. I was there at 8:45 ready for the 9am opening and the line was 10m. It wasn't a hard walk to the 2nd level and you had to catch the lift to the very top. It was an amazing view made even better by Paris being fairly flat, so you could see for miles in every direction. To think this was all done in the 1800's makes it even more astounding. I spent about and hour and a half altogether, so I got my money's worth. It was starting to rain lightly by this time so what better place go than underground. No I didn't go back to the Catacombes but in the sewers. Yep there is a tour of the sewer system with history dating back to Medieval times and as good as the construction is above ground is, this is just as impressive with 2,100 km of tunnels. All the services including fresh water pipes are suspended in the sewer tunnels. One impressive thing is the cleaning of the round ones with a big ball which is slightly smaller than the tunnel. The water is forced thru the small gap with great pressure and makes any sediment go back into solution.

It was then up to Basilique du Sacre-Coeur which is the highest spot in Paris. On the way back I rode past Moulin Rouge which was a bit of a surprise. It turned out to be about 1km from the hotel.

It was then back to more mundane things as I had to find a laundromat to do some washing. Thankfully there were a few instructions in English but it was still pretty interesting trying to get it done. It was then back to the same old thing of pulling the bike to pieces ready for the trip to Lyon tomorrow. Went out for dinner and had a steak with pepper sauce. As I was mopping up my sauce with the bread rolls the waitress told me that was not the way to eat the bread. I was supposed to have it with a bottle of red but I had a beer, so I just smiled and looked dumb, which was not hard to do.

DISTANCE TODAY 21km TOTAL DISTANCE 1480km