The Paris Bolthole

Sssswissssh

Not London

These are everywhere

Wish you were here

Traffic drama

Fifty centilitres each please.

Paris housing estate

A very sensible arrangement

Tintin springs eternal

Travelling to Paris need not be tedious. One might have had a sense of distance in the past but no longer. Just get on the train, go through a tunnel and the full experience is yours. The ox-cart of agony has been replaced by the multi-billion Euro gift of infrastructure.

Nostalgia has its limits.

I really should travel with a compass. I had one on the Guzzi and I miss it. Just trying to work out up from down is a problem. Which way is north? Which south? Cloud-cover makes navigation difficult, the lack of street signs and a decent map make it more so. The lack of a usable language adds to the problem. We worked it out but found that we had missed our rendezvous for the key and had to wait to get it sorted via phone-calls. One always needs contingency plans. It worked this time.

There turns out to be a double-booking at the pension so we had to bunk in a loaned room for this first night. No problem. We need the catch-up sleep.

We had an entertaining fifty centilitres of wine each on a busy corner near Notre Dame though. As the wine seeped in ,watching French traffic became profoundly interesting. To see the cavalier tactics of the motorbikes, scooters mostly, was a treat. We needed to just sit for an hour or so. And we did.

The train-ride over was fine and blasting through French war-zones with impunity wasjust plain easy. Negotiating the Metro at the other end was more of a challenge, but we managed well enough. We needed tickets, money, direction and confidence. Not a problem.

We've come to realise that the easier part of the trip is over. We are in countries hostile to the English lexicography and nothing is going to be simple. We have to remember our high school French and hurry up about it. I have repeatedly trawled through my mind for the simplest of words this afternoon and there is so much more of that to come. I'm glad I'm here to augment Jane's mind, because it would be hard on one's own. Though I'm sure she would manage quite well.

We've manage to find a bed, put some Euros in our pockets, put some French grub beneath our sternums and manufacture some French urine in our bladders. We're happy with that.

It's much better than tip-toeing through Cambodian mine-fields. C'est non?

That's enough for one day.

We are here for four nights and there is a lot of Paris out there somewhere.


PS
Happy Mother's Day Mum