To Paris

This morning we take the TGV train to Paris, then a stop at the Eiffel Tower and a boat tour on the Seinne river.

We start early today, luggage out at 6:15 am. To train station at 7:45. Train left at 7:52, arrived in Paris Gare de Lyon at 11:02. Our luggage goes in a separate van driving to the hotel, so we don’t need to deal with it on the train. It got there a few minutes before we did. I saw the high speed TGV train hit 160 kts on ForeFlight. It was smooth and fairly quite. The WiFi worked better than on the river boat.

Then a slow bus tour through the horrid traffic of Paris with a 15 minute stop at the Eiffel tower.

Then to the boat ride on Seine in the rain. We saw Notre Dame still under repairs from the fire.

This obelisk at the Concorde plaza came from Luxor. We visited several years ago, the last photo on that page is the other obelisk of the pair. Originally, both obelisks at Luxor were promised to to France, but after moving this one, there wasn’t money to move the second one.

We arrived at hotel around 4pm. We got out and walked around Republic Square doing a menu tour. Settled on Cafe Republic, as it had reasonably priced duck for Donna. Then went on the 5:30 walking tour of the area which hit some of the high points of our more extensive menu tour.

Donna’s impression of Paris is that there is always an emergency vehicle siren audible… it was pretty constant for the two plus hours we walked around.

Donna thought that this was the first duck in France that wasn’t overcooked.

I didn’t have enough exercise minutes, so walked the stairs until I got enough.

We got the biking routes this morning, and there is a 550 ft climb over the little alps with the steepest part at 11% coming into St. Rémy from the south on the first day.