PARIS!! Part 2 of 3...

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We spent 4 nights in total moored alongside Adrien and Benedicte and were out from 10 - midnight every day to avoid the motion of the dreaded ‘Bat-oh-moosh’. We cycled off the map of Paris kindly given to me by Liz and John, in every direction and explored every foot of the town. We had a memorable Sunday in the pouring rain, visiting the creepy La Conciergerie where Marie Antoinette, Louis 16th, Robespierre and several thousands of others were held prior to death by guillotine. In it you can still see Marie Antoinette’s cell and examples of other cells around the prison. The history of Paris was truly fascinating and we tried to discover as much as we could. Next we visited Notre Dame in the rain. There was a huge queue to climb the turrets and, as we had been inside and done all that 6 years previously we didn’t feel the need to do so again! We peered long and hard at the Cathedral, hoping for a glimpse of Quasimodo. I thought I’d see him clothed in a lilac windbreaker at one point, then discovered it was just a particularly unfortunate looking tourist walking across the turrets. We decided to go for a bite to eat as it was now 2pm and found a place opposite La Conciergerie offering a 3 course set menu for 15 euro’s a pop. Outside were trees wearing camouflage that I found particularly amusing. ‘No-one’s thought to tell them they’re in Central Paris and the cammo is useless,’ I said ‘ Poor buggers. I feel sorry for them.’ We attracted the looks of several other lunchers when we both fell into fits of soup snorting laughter at the sight of an elegant looking man dressed in a business suit hurrying along in the rain with his arms pinned to his sides and a briefcase sticking out of the bottom of the clear bin bag he’d cut a head hole in to protect his suit. It was hilarious, he looked like a harassed and smartly dressed penguin.
After lunch the rain began to pelt even harder, but we were undeterred as we were on holiday! We cycled through it off the island and along the Seine and had to stop for shelter when it became apparent that my waterproof did nothing close to what it was meant to! I posed for a comedy photo, bedraggled and drowned rat like, stood in the shelter wearing a sad expression and pointing out into the rain. As Mike took the photo a jogger ran by, right next to my pointed finger - it looks very much as though I’m singling out a wrong do-er ‘ That’s the one who did it officer!’
The rain didn’t look like stopping any time soon and, as I was already soaked, we pushed on along the river until we came to the Musee de L’Histoire Naturelle. This was a beautiful building on 5 floors with an open middle and galleries running all around the edges. On the basement level was an exhibit tracing links between dinosaurs and modern mammals and demonstrating how evolution had occurred. It was fascinating and also drew numerous Friends quotes out of us as we went around looking at fossilised skeletons ... ‘Remember that thing that’s been dead a billion years? Well, here’s a little bone we never knew it had’...
The galleries on the high floors provided a little test for me. Only those who know me really well are aware of my weird little ‘inner lemming’ that wants to just keep walking whenever I walk to the edge of high things. It’s a real worry that my logical brain realises is mental and tries to control by giving me a raised heartbeat and wobbly knees whenever i walk up high things and go to the edge. Weirdly, I have no such problem with machines, fairground rides, rollercoasters, planes or glass bottomed lifts taking to great heights, I just don’t seem able to physically compel my self to do it. Mike doesn’t get it and, as we regularly tell each other when one of us is being a wimp, just advises me to ‘strap on a pair’. Most who know me will also know that I am a very hyper and easily bored person. I’d already complained that the museum was getting boring as the animals were stuffed and not real, then got distracted by a Narwhal and ran off to check that out. I was now hopped up on caffeine after an Earl Grey and wanting to see everything else in the museum, leave and visit somewhere else before everything started closing. Mike was tired and wanted to chill so, while he chilled out a bench by the stuffed goats on the 4th floor, I went for a walk all around the gallery then right to the edge to take a photo of the baleen whale and African stampede laid out on the lower floors. I had done it. I had confronted my inner lemming. I walked right to the edge. Leant on the glass and, heart thudding, took a photo. My inner lemming was telling me to get back quickly, but loads of other people were leaning on the glass so I stayed there for a while looking right down over it and feeling fine. Delighted I hurried back to Mike and showed him the picture and told him I had got my lemming sorted. ‘Well done baby.’ We finished our day with a bike ride back down to St germain. On the way there we accidentally came across a religious march that was going on, cycling slowly with it and narrowly missing the cameramen filming, until we could turn off. And this happened TWICE. Only to us, people, only to us. There were priests, nuns and bishops, devout Catholics swinging incense carriers and praying, and 2 bemused tourists on bikes weaving around the cameramen looking for a way out. We found one and cycled off out of the way only to collide with the tail end of the march! Eventually, we located ‘Thirsty Street’ locked up the bikes and enjoyed a few Happy Hour pints and the second half of the Man Utd vs Arsenal match in an Irish bar called Coolin’ - full of Irish, American and English people going to the bar and a few French being waited on, then went for a Pizza round the corner before commencing a slightly wobbly bike ride back to the boat at 11pm. A great day all in all!
The next day we decided to explore by tube after 2 days of cycling everywhere so took off to see Moulin Rouge, Sacre Couer and the delights of the Northern area. Moulin Rouge was spotted soon after we exited the ironically named ‘Blanche’ tube station. The area Moulin Rouge is in, Pigalle, is like little Amsterdam,. Sex shops, shows and cinemas line the streets with neon lights promising every delight of the flesh imaginable. There was even a sex museum (this is Paris after all - let’s have a bit of culture). We went to see Moulin Rouge and I excitedly ran over to the tariff board. 150 euro’s each for a show and dinner?? You must be kidding! Neither of us was that bothered about seeing a show at Moulin Rouge so we went off for a wander, stopping for a cocktail or two in a bar down the road and watching all the pale and sweaty men in bum bags entering the sex shows at 2 in the afternoon. We both laughed, but also felt sorry for, an American family who walked past. The little boy’s eyes were on sticks as he gazed around, pointed at a particularly adventurous looking set of ‘love toys’ in a window and said ‘daddy, what’s that?’ The Dad flushed bright read, upped his pace and mumbled ‘Nothing for you son, let’s get to the subway station’. His wife looked mortified and was carrying their other child, a toddler by the looks of it, very close. My guess was that they’d booked a hotel online and fairly cheaply and hadn’t checked out the area. Oops! As seedy as it was, you couldn’t fault the drinks in Pigalle, every bar offered happy hour from 5 til 10 with cheap cocktails and beer. That is one hell of a happy hour if you ask me.
After our cocktails and people watching in Pigalle we headed to Montmatre where the mood was totally different - laid back, arty, quiet and chilled. The streets were narrow and steep and packed with bistros and boutiques. We discovered our metro cards were also valid on the lift to the top to see Sacre Coeur so went up. The views were stunning as was the church itself. On coming down we found ourselves stuck at the back of a gaggle that had formed outside the lift. We picked up from those around us that we were stuck - the door wouldn’t open to let us out from the exit point. A woman up front confidently turned around and said. ‘It is stuck. It won’t open’. Another woman looked a bit panicky and called over to the assistant. The assistant said ‘Tirez’. French for ‘Pull.’ It turned out that the American woman in front had assumed the doors were automatic. When they had not opened she had pushed them, then given up. And we were all waiting behind her to get out. She must have felt like an absolute numpty, holding up 30 people because she hadn’t tried pulling a door! She departed pretty quickly once she’d opened it!
The following day we had a BBQ with Adrien and Bendicte. I provided my awesome potato salad and they cooked a huge Cote de Boeuf which I found absolutely delicious - my conversion to carnivore was complete! Adrien held it up before putting it into the massive BBQ and said ‘Mike, half ids for you, the other for me, OK?’. My initial suspicions had been confirmed - Adrien was a French Mike - he liked a beer, he liked his food and he had a quick sarcastic wit. We chatted for ages and Mike fixed Adrien’s generator and we also met their neighbour, David, who had moved over from England 35 years ago and had lived on a barge on the Seine for the last 7. He works as a translator in France and was a lovely bloke. We chatted away about tour trip so far and he said he was impressed to meet ‘some real adventurers’. When he heard the story of our exploding battery charger, he offered to give us one he had that he didn’t use. We went aboard his boat and Mike started up his engine, which hadn’t been running for 5 years, and he handed over the charger. We really have met some lovely, generous and interesting people on this trip so far.
At lunch we had both been more than a little concerned to see Ozzy going nuts as bateau Mouche after bateau mouche sped by - she was leaping about and crashing down and one rope was almost worn through. We decided to spend the rest of the time in Paris down in the marina at Bastille and cycled there later to book ourselves in for the following day. That evening we went out for a walk and drinks along the champs Elysee and were treated to yet another stunning sunset and beautiful night (see pictures). The next morning we’d pass Notre Dame by river.
We arose the next morning nice and early so as not to battle the bat-oh-moosh. We said our goodbyes to Adrien, Benedicte and their daughter and waved to David as we passed and said we’d be in touch before we left Paris. It was raining that morning and I got a pretty little pic of our berth alongside as we left. There was no traffic on the seine. It was bliss, we passed under Pont Neuf - Paris’ oldest bridge and past Notre Dame where I took a little video (attached). Before lunch time the skies had brightened, the sun had come out and we had gone through the lock (breaking a boat hook in the process) to the still and bat-oh-moosh free waters of Port de Plaisance Paris Arsenal. The next leg of our Parisien adventures was about to commence...

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