To Paris

27th April - Saturday

 Amiens Canal

A red jumper day

A red windmill

 One mighty department store!

Sacre Couer in the distance

Yesterday evening was our final night on tour and we all walked the short distance to a range of restaurants alongside the canal. Whilst crossing the footbridge, we noticed that the young man standing in the middle of the water had changed his jumper from the previous day’s blue; it didn’t seem to worry the water bird nesting at his feet. The dinner was surprisingly good (tour dinners tend to be a bit ordinary at times), with scallops for entrée, pork or chicken for mains and a lovely strawberry macaron for dessert.

Breakfast this morning was a bit of a disaster – plenty of milo cereal but the “café machine est kaput!!!” Not good news for the caffeine addicts. We loaded the bus for the fairly quiet journey back to Paris, calling at Charles de Gaulle Airport first, then the Mercure Montmarte (with a quick glimpse of the Moulin Rouge) before disembarking at Gare du Nord and braving the taxi queue again. No problems this time and we were at the Best Western Opera Grand Boulevards fairly quickly. As we were a bit early for our room, we placed our luggage in storage and made a tour booking for Versaille tomorrow.

Armed with a street map, we set out for the Opera, which was supposedly very close! We walked and walked through some quite uncomfortable feeling streets before coming across a much better area with brasseries, sandwich bars, shops and people. We had a sandwich (actually turned out to be a baguette about 30 cms long) each for lunch, sitting on the pavement but behind glass, which is nearly the real thing. The walking continued until we rounded the corner and discovered Gallerie Lafayette in front of us. This is the most amazing shop – don’t worry about the actual shopping, the building is just superb. And we didn’t even get into the men’s shop, it was such a battle getting past the cosmetics counters!

We returned to our hotel via a different route, with lots of shops, people and eating establishments, even Hagen Dasz Ice cream to make the walk more enjoyable. Fortunately our room was now ready, but unfortunately the lift was not working and our room is on the second floor. We took our cabin bags and the large suitcases were brought up later, once the lift was functioning again.

It has been another cold day – coats definitely needed outside – but the forecast rain hasn’t eventuated.