Arrival in Paris

Friday, July 3, 2015

On Thursday we flew from Vancouver to Toronto, had a 1.5 hour layover and then boarded a 777 for Paris. 7.5 hours later we landed in Paris. The clock said 8:30am Friday, but my body said 11:30PM Thursday. The bright sun convinced me I should be awake, so with minimal discomfort we retrieved our bike boxes from oversized luggage, tied them to a airport hand cart and exited the baggage area. 

I scanned the crowd looking for someone holding a sign with our name. You see, good fortune again came knocking disguised as bad fortune. When Sally's knee and back flared up a week ago we decided not to ride from Charles de Gaulle airport to Versailles. To give her knee a chance to heal we opted for a taxi/van to transport us to our Air B&B. Good thing we did!  It was 97°. We would have roasted during the 33 mile bike ride. 

A man holding papers asked if I was Chuck Caley. I said "yes", realizing he identified me by the bike boxes I was pushing. 

We loaded into his van and sloshed our way through heavy traffic across Paris to Versailles. We arrived at the B&B and surprised Anne, our host. She had not received our email declaring our early arrival time. However, she was welcoming and we soon had our massive bike boxes and other bags in her yard. 

Luckily, our room is in the basement. It was cool whereas the rest of the house was swelteringly hot. Sally retired to the inviting bed to sleep while I unboxed the bikes and assembled them. I succumbed to the need for sleep at 1:30 and slept until 3:30. We both wanted to stretch our legs on our bikes and discover how riding the streets of Paris fairs. In a nutshell, we found the drivers to be accommodating even though the traffic was very heavy with Friday rush hour. Our biggest adversary was the heat. Riding up long hills in 97° weather made us rethink our plans of riding to Versailles Palace. We turned around, stopped at a grocery store for some dinner makings and returned to our room. Cool showers and researching how to get our bikes to Switzerland  occupied our afternoon and early evening. We walked to the nearby Bougival Train Station to plot our time and route into downtown Paris for tomorrow. The temperature had dropped to 95° (it was 9:00pm!). Dinner of a tabolee, lettuce, carrot and chicken salad with some (wait for it . . . .  . French bread)) and we were ending our day. We joined Anne's dinner party for some quick conversation and then back to the basement for showers, more planning and finally, some sleep. It is Paris tomorrow.