The Wandering Idiot

Aaahhh Paris… I arrived on Friday morning and left tonight, Sunday evening.
It has been a nice few days visiting one of my favorite cities in Europe. I won’t bore you with a description of the city – chances are that if you are reading a blog about travel around Europe, you have probably been to Paris yourself – but what I will say is that I had a few great moments, and I’m already looking forward to visiting again.
On Saturday I walked…and boy did I walk…I didn’t really have an interest in visiting the museums or galleries, but I did fancy just going for a stroll and seeing where the breeze takes me.
I walked from my hostel in the far east of the city – through Bastille, Notre Dame, the Latin Quarter, Invalides, to the Eiffel Tower, L’Arc de Triumph, Champs Elysee, Louvre and back through Bastille and to the hostel. All in I walked the best part of 25km and spent about 9 hours doing it. I had no real purpose in my walking other than I just wanted to avoid taking the metro, take in the lay out of the city, and enjoy the energy of the place…well – I did have one purpose…it wasn’t my reason for walking but certainly kept me entertained – and that was to find the perfect Apricot Croissant – the Oranais. I had three (I only bought the ones that looked like they might be up for competition).

All were delicious, but none could compete with the first one I had in Offranville on the first day of the trip.

By the end of the afternoon I found myself confidently giving directions to other lost tourists as if I was a local!

On Saturday it rained…it poured…so I got a chance to put my waterproofs into use, but today (Sunday) was lovely and I spent most of the afternoon whiling away the hours on the steps of Le Sacre Couer listening to well rehearsed buskers entertain the masses.

I also spent some time sitting just below the Eiffel tower, not to awe at the architecture, but I found watching the gypsies and the street sellers harassing the tourists very entertaining! After a little while I began to recognise their pattern and saw some definite flaws in their sales pitch…I almost considered helping them out!

During my stay in the hostel I’ve also had ample time to work on my route. By using the ViaMichelin.com guide I’ve basically traced a dot to dot route of the major towns I will be staying in and then trying to find accomodation through couchsurfing.com to match my route.

So far my route is as such:

Rouen – Vernon – Dreux – Chartres – Orleans – Tours – Poitiets – La Rochelle – Royan – Bordeaux – Marmande – Agen – Toulouse – Carcassone – Narbonne – Montpellier

My Couchsurfing host in Rouen helped me look at find a route which would appeal to me temperature and weather wise…so this route takes me throught the Loire Valley to the coast, and then from Bordeaux, follows the Canal Garonne and Canal du Midi to the Riviera. From there things should be all right as I work my way across the Mediterranean Coast. I haven’t really given any thought the the North Italian leg of the journey…so if anyone has some winter friendly recommendations that would be helpful.

All in all I am feeling a lot better about the trip…and I am so EXCITED to start cycling again tomorrow….I can’t wait to get further South.

I am now back in Rouen – found myself a little Irish Pub to sit down and type this out. Tonight I will stay with my host Jean-Pierre again, and tomorrow I will cycle from here to Dreux, via Vernon, where I have another couch surfing host waiting.

Below are a few pics from the last few days for your viewing pleasure….

0km Bicycled Today

323km to Date