The bike ride into Paris is, essentially, a parade by the Tour cyclists. At this point the winner has been decided, and the ceremonial run through Paris and to the Arch d' Triumphe is a way for more Parisiennes to view and pay tribute to the cyclists. Without our trusty Garmin, we knew we would have trouble navigating the meandering route along secondary roads from the south of Paris, moving along the western edge, then returning east at the river, crossing the river just west of the Eiffel Tower, and then finishing the promenade to the Arche. The 30 mile journey took us about four hours, often in heavy traffic, and often meandering off the real stage course as road names were prevalent, while our map was oriented to road numbers. But...we managed to come into Paris across the river west of the Tower, and biked along the river as had the Tour.
As we approached our final destination, it was apparent Paris was far different from our other destination cities and towns. Even though still May, we saw more tourists in an hour than we had seen in all of the rest of France. People from everywhere, double decker open buses, cameras, sitters, gawkers, walkers, people on the go towards their tourist goals - museums, the Tower, the Arche, Notre Dame Cathedral, and many other places that make Paris such a tourist mecca. We spent little time in the central tourist area and headed northeast towards our hotel about 15 miles outside town towards Charles DeGaulle Airport. Our map didn't help us much, I had to take out my trusty compass and rely on it to head us away from the central area and towards the airport. We meandered through streets heading west and north until finally hitting a major boulevard heading in the exact direction we wanted to go. Traffic thinned a bit after awhile - this was a Monday afternoon, and we wanted to get to our hotel before the rush hour traffic consumed all the highways of the area. We managed to finally reach the hotel and our first 2 Euro beers about 4:30pm. This was a sleepy little village sandwiched between Charles DeGaulle Airport and another airport to the west. Our village hotel is charming, well maintained with an African explorer motif - how appropriate. Our Tour has ended, except for the tourist portion here and heading back to Amsterdam over the next couple of days. Tomorrow morning we will head by Metro into Paris and play tourist for the entire day, before heading north the following morning. I look back on the past three weeks, what we have done and what we have seen, and I cannot help but be thankful we have our health and we have our friends, and we have been able to enjoy one of what I hope will be many "trips of a lifetime".
As we approached our final destination, it was apparent Paris was far different from our other destination cities and towns. Even though still May, we saw more tourists in an hour than we had seen in all of the rest of France. People from everywhere, double decker open buses, cameras, sitters, gawkers, walkers, people on the go towards their tourist goals - museums, the Tower, the Arche, Notre Dame Cathedral, and many other places that make Paris such a tourist mecca. We spent little time in the central tourist area and headed northeast towards our hotel about 15 miles outside town towards Charles DeGaulle Airport. Our map didn't help us much, I had to take out my trusty compass and rely on it to head us away from the central area and towards the airport. We meandered through streets heading west and north until finally hitting a major boulevard heading in the exact direction we wanted to go. Traffic thinned a bit after awhile - this was a Monday afternoon, and we wanted to get to our hotel before the rush hour traffic consumed all the highways of the area. We managed to finally reach the hotel and our first 2 Euro beers about 4:30pm. This was a sleepy little village sandwiched between Charles DeGaulle Airport and another airport to the west. Our village hotel is charming, well maintained with an African explorer motif - how appropriate. Our Tour has ended, except for the tourist portion here and heading back to Amsterdam over the next couple of days. Tomorrow morning we will head by Metro into Paris and play tourist for the entire day, before heading north the following morning. I look back on the past three weeks, what we have done and what we have seen, and I cannot help but be thankful we have our health and we have our friends, and we have been able to enjoy one of what I hope will be many "trips of a lifetime".
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