It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.......

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Paris, the city of lights, the city of love and one of my favourite places in the world. We were to spend just one night there before joining the "Elodie" for our bike and barge tour to Brugges. During the five hour train trip from Biarritz we spoke of how we would spend the afternoon and night in this wonderful city. Arriving at Montparnesse rail station in the early afternoon we attempted to find the metro platform that we needed to get a line to Bastille. We walked for what seemed to be a kilometre through tunnels, past a political protest, upstairs and then down again before finally finding the platform for Line 4. Everything was going to plan until I checked my pocket and discovered that my wallet was missing. That's when our plans changed. Instead of walking hand hand down the Seine, we spent the afternoon in two different police stations trying to make a complaint, me in my pigeon French and the officer in his pigeon English. In the meantime Trace was busy on the phone cancelling credit cards etc. and, of course the most important thing, posting it on Facebook!

Here I was in my beloved city threatening to break off all diplomatic relations with the French when a sense of calm and forgiveness came over me. Maybe the villain was a troubled soul who needed the cash more than me and maybe, just maybe, something good may come out of this. Who am I kidding. "Monsieur, you are a FEELSIE DOG and I hope that you choke on your next baguette!" Now that's off my chest, we will never speak of it again.

Sunday morning and we did finally get a chance to stroll along the Seine before linking up with the 12 other cyclists and 3 crew who will be our companions for the next 2 weeks.

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Photos

Hotel Dieu
We stayed here in 2004. The queue in the foreground are people waiting to get into Notre Dame

P8250735
This residential block in front Of Notre Dame has a plaque on nearly every door where someone famous has lived in the past including an ex president of The Republique. The oldest occupants were in 1150