Friday 6 October 2017

Guillac to Paris (Friday 6th October 2017)

Up at 6:00am this morning for the drive to Paris. It was cool outside (5 C) and pitch black. It didn’t get any warmer or lighter by the time we hit the road an hour later. In fact the first daylight didn’t really appear for another 30 minutes.

I drove the first stint until I was too weary to go any further. Kerry had had a cat-nap so was OK to take over. A coffee and some fuel (so we didn’t run out on the middle of Paris) and we were away again. It didn’t take too long for me to fall asleep so I can’t really report anything other than I was snoring, so I’m told!




When I awoke, GPS-girl told me we had 78kms of our 400km journey to go! With about 35km to go we pulled into to service station for more coffee and another driver change. Kerry wasn’t keen to tackle driving in Paris. The timing was good as the traffic immediately became heavier. Our planned entrance onto the Paris ring road was blocked so we started working on Plan B. Onto the road in the opposite direction we went, missed the first opportunity to get off and took the second. A sharp left-hand turn at the intersecting road over the ring-road was taken just a bit too sharply bu your correspondent and I finished up on the wrong side of the road! I thought it strange that there were no cars around me. But I just barreled on, like a tourist, took the next sharp left and we were back on the ring-road heading the right way (on both counts).

The road was at a standstill so progress was slow but we eventually got off and found our way to the Hotel Porte Doree on Avenue Duamesnil. Following the lead from the locals I parked outside the Hotel where one shouldn’t park, unloaded the bags, checked in and took the bags up to the room all while the car just sat there. I think in France hazard warning lights forgive all driving sins.
We said goodbye to the Captur at the Renault Eurodrive agent on the other side of town. It had been a very good car for 3.5 weeks, I forgot to check the mileage but it was over 5000kms, using about 320 litres of fuel at 6.6l/100km.

Down into the Metro we went and after some advice form a couple of very helpful Metro officers we bought a couple of 5-day tickets. Got a map and proceeded to find our way back to the Hotel. We decided to get off a couple of stations early and walk the final 1500m to soak up the Parisian atmosphere. We’d been communicating with Emily all along and had agreed to meet her the Boulevard Saint Germain. So back on the Metro we went. The Metro is very easy to use so it didn’t take long to re-familiarise ourselves with it.


Emily was waiting for us at the agreed meeting place. It was just fantastic to see her again. Big hugs and kisses all around was the order of the day. She is looking very well. Up the road we walked until be bumped into (planned) Jared Denton (our nephew), his girlfriend Aisling and her cousin Hayley. Jared and Aisling have been traveling around Europe since May. Hayley has a working visa so she’ll be around these parts for a while longer.


Emily directed us to a bar where we had a drink and watched the Parisians go about their business then it was down to the Metro to get back to Emily’s neighbourhood in the 13th arrondisement. There we had dinner in a little, but very popular, Basque cafe. Afterward dinner we strolled back through “the ‘hood” to Emily’s flat on Baudricourt. The neighborhood is very lively, I guess it was Friday night, and very pleasant and interesting to walk through.




After a tour of the flat (one minute) we had a glass of two our each person’s favourite beverage, chatted for an hour or so, and then it was time to leave. Jared and Ais had a flight to catch to Naples in the morning and we had to negotiate the Metro again. After three changes of lines we popped right outside the Hotel and hit the sack after a long but great day!

3 comments:

  1. You're excused for now.....!! Hmm.. blog or catch up with Emily??...... bit of a no brainer, really! Its a small world, though. I'm sure I've mentioned before, that Aishlin, is our pharmacist,Terry's daughter. Often see her serving at the shop!

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  2. It must have been wonderful to catch up!

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  3. It must have been wonderful to catch up!

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