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Published: October 23rd 2019
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We have been away now for a week and we have had an eventful time. Our first four days were spent in Paris . Our apartment was small but adequate for us and in a very good location where we could travel to the places we wanted to go either by train, bus or Metro. We arrived in CDG at 12:10 PM and took the train into Paris and walked to our apartment. We had some difficulty contacting the lady who was to meet us and give us the key but with a little help from two friendly Parisien ladies we got hold of her and she arrived quickly. Unfortunately she spoke little to no English so as far as explaining much to us it was useless. All she was interested in was getting the 400€ we had to pay her. We got the lay of the apartment, which took about 1 minute and decided to head out to get supplies. After a nice walk where we passed by many delectable bakeries and charcuteries we found a great supermarket quite close to our apartment called Monoprix. We did our shopping and headed home and had our supper of meat, cheese, bread
and of course some lovely French wine. We were in bed by 9.
Saturday morning we were up and out the door by 9 to catch the train to Versailles. As I said before, we are very close to Gare Montparnasse and the train ride was enjoyable to Versailles. We had timed entry tickets to Versailles and we were thankful we did because the line for people with no tickets was VERY long. We enjoyed the tour using headsets and to go through the palace took about 3 1/2 hours. Bonnie and I got separated during the tour so luckily we used our heads and carried on alone and met at the exit about the same time. Once exited we headed to the gArden's which are enormous and we had a lovely walk even though at times the clouds prevailed and it was chilly but by the time we were ready to head back into the town and find a cafe, the sun came out and it was a lovely afternoon. We found a wonderful spot and ordered a chacuterie board that was far too much, but we were able to take about half of the meat home for
later. We were able to connect with home as we sat in the cafe.
Sunday morning dawned cloudy with drizzly rain but that could not deter us as we were off to the Louvre today. Again we had timed entry tickets with a guide and that was great! Our guide met us at 11:30 after we had ridden the bus to the Centre of Paris. Slick! Our guide did a great job of showing us the highlights of the Louvre including the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. There are so many pieces of art in the Louvre that to see them all it would take 100 days, so our guide told us. We left the Louvre around 3 and headed to find a cafe for lunch which we did and had a delicious omelette and salad. Just as we were finishing it started to rain and we decided to take the bus and head home. When we got back the sun was out again and very pleasant so we decided to go to Monoprix, get some supplies and Bonnie needed to buy something warmer to wear. She found two lovely sweaters, one a pullover and one a cardigan.
We spent the evening playing Spite and Malice and listening to music as the TV is all in French.
The day I had most been looking forward to turned out to be a disaster. As the days had gone on in Paris I knew I was developing a bladder infection. By Monday it was not good! I had continuous burning sensation and felt I needed to pee all the time but couldn't go when I got to a toilette. We stopped into a pharmacies and bought some pills but I also had an antibiotic with me called cephalex so I started on those too. We got to the starting point for the Hop On Hop Off bus , bought our tickets, and started away. I was in misery! At one point, at the Arc of Triomphe, I was hanging over the side of the bus afraid I was going to vomit on some one below or on a car. luckily I did not! We arrived at a wonderful vantage point to see and photograph the Eiffel Tower and we hoped to find a toilette. There are public toilets on the street. We found one and were so relieved but
alas the floor was covered in water and we could not tolerate that so we carried on and found the Museum of Man . We pretended we were going to the restaurant but went directly to the washroom . From there we walked down the hill viewing the Eiffle Tower from many vantage points. We had to catch the bus again and by now I am really in misery. We got on the bus again and went to a change point where we could change from the Blue Line to the Red Line. . We got on heading to Montmartre but I was totally out of it. Finally about 4 o'clock I said to Bonnie " Let's get a taxi and go home". i knew if we went on the whole route we would not have gotten home until 7 and I just couldn't do it. We got home , I got to bed and Bonnie went out to find something for me to eat. She brought back a delicious croissant and some soup. I rested for about 2 hours and felt a lot better so we decided to go out for supper since it was our last night in
Paris. We found a wonderful cafe not far from our apartment and had a delicious Caesar salad and French onion soup. Just hit the spot. Back to our apartment to pack up to leave around 10 in the morning by train to Beaune.
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