St Malo - Paris

Sunday 28 December

I am sure Bronwen will elaborate, but just to keep you up to date - a long and easy drive to Paris (Steve fails to mention the fact that we set off the journey at -4 deg & although the temperature did increase to nearly 0, it was still freezing!)- well at least to the outskirts of Paris. Tommy did a good job - we think - we seem to have headed the most direct route (not hard when it is all motorway) but we wonder about the kilometres of tunnels that we drive through as we approach Paris and the lack of other cars on the road with us.

Then we come out of the last tunnel and - Bingo! - we are heading down the very long straight stretch of Ave Charles de Gaulle, Ave de la Grande Armee, through Place Charles de Gaulle with the imposing Arc de Triomphe in its centre, down the Champs Elysee, round the Place de la Concorde, skirt around the side of the Tuileries, down past the Louvre, take a left into Bd Sebastopol, right into Rue Pernelle and miraculously someone is pulling out of a parking spot on the corner of our street. Now, you will probably get a few different opinions about how smoothly this last part of the journey went...my (Steve's) version is that it was quite smooth despite the immense Paris holiday traffic, complete lack of lane markings and that the road rules seemed to be that there were no road rules. I was merrily pointing out these exciting landmarks to the children - the theory being that Bronwen was doing enough panicking for all of us! (Bronwen's version is that it was bedlam & we were SO close to dropping off the car unscathed - being such a mercenary animal, I was really quite loathe to paying a couple of thousand dollars to Europe car simply becauce we had a collision while Steve was trying to point out landmarks to the kids).

To continue - we meet up with Mme Prevost who shows us to our apartment - good comfortable size, warm, fantastic location in the Marais district of Paris. Perfect to finish our trip. Unload the car, carry the luggage up to the 4th floor apartment (no lift) and Steve and Simon head off to return the car. Steve overjoyed at finally leaving the car behind with no more driving to be done. Just a tad under 4000 kms is enough for anyone - particularly given the challenges previously documented through Reims, Avignon, Toulouse, etc. etc.

We are finally back somewhere with internet, although we can't seem to get it working. But a check of WiFi networks shows an unsecured network and we hook in - goodness only knows where the network is based and won't be surprised to see our bank acocunts raided and laptop swarming with viruses, but we take the risk and hence dear reader you are updated.

We unpack & head out to stretch our legs, lower our body temperatures by approx 15 deg (it is still freezing & about -1), and get our bearings. Head across to Notre Dame - there is a HUGE queue in front of the cathedral. We watch in amazement, but on questioning a security guard are told that this is a major French vacation period & that the queues are "to be expected". We continue to wander around the Latin quarter, call into a pub for a "welcome to Paris" drink, stock up on some groceries and then retire for the night to our cosy apartment.