With our time in the south of France over already, it was time to make our way to Paris for the flight to London. We opted to drive to Paris instead of flying, since this would give us the chance to see a bit more of the countryside (as I’m pretty sure it was not the more economical option). We started off by driving through Nimes and then through the Parc Nationnel de Cevenne to see some of the sights we had seen while watching the Tour de France. Beautiful. The Gorges du Tarn were spectacular, and we passed plenty of small towns almost too pretty to be real, surely. Kind of wish we had allocated more time for the drive, since at 3 days it was still not enough to be off exploring some of the sights and towns we passed along the way. We also didn’t make any plans for a hotel (opted to wing it), so we stopped at one such town for the night – St Enimie. We hadn’t intended to stop, but the river looked too good to not at least stop and have a swim.

St Enimie was a great stopping point, and it was pretty cheap as well. Score. Food was also fabulous (which is good, since there was only two places to eat in the town).

On the drive we also stopped in at Oradour-sur-Glane to visit the deserted town and pay respects to the people massacred there by the Nazi Waffen-SS company in 1944. Basically everyone was burned to death (in the order of 600+ people – men, women and children). Horrible. The town was preserved & now is a memorial site. I’m glad we live in Australia.

For our second night we stayed in Loches, after having driven past many towns and not seeing anywhere we wanted to stop (scenery much less interesting this leg). Also a winner. The accommodation was none too flash, but it was cheap and somewhere to sleep (and the scenery here made up for the bland room). Apparently Loches is one of the best maintained examples of medieval architecture remaining in France. We were a bit late in arriving to see the Donjon castle, but there was still plenty of light to the enjoy walking around the town.

On the last leg of our drive, we visited the Chateau de Chenonceau and explored the grounds for a while. Very pretty. Yet another castle/chateau/whatever you want to call it. There are sooo many of them. Never thought I’d get sick of it, but I think a bit of the shine has worn off. They are still certainly fabulous to look at, but the pressing need to thoroughly investigate every single one of them is definitely on the wane. Having said that, we also stopped in at the Chateau de Chambord (but only for a quick picture) and were on our way. It was truly epic, but there are logistically only so many castles you can see (and so much money you can burn on visiting castle after castle). However, we read about it after. Truly an epic castle. However, built for the purposes of being a hunting lodge (for a hunting party of 2000), it is both impractical and utterly ridiculous (who takes 2000 people hunting???). Took many years to build and then it was too hard to heat, too far from food and too far from all other resources that everything needed to be trucked in every visit (seriously everything, including drapes and cutlery). It was only used by the builder for less than a combined total of 7 weeks (and then they died). Ridiculous.

Paris. Well, we have flown into and out of here previously but never actually checked out the city while we were here. So this time around we decided we would make an effort to have a bit of a look around.  Since we have been AirBnb’ing our way around the world thus far, I figured we would do the same in Paris. Besides, hotels were epically expensive (more so than usual) and didn’t have any parking. We managed to find our accommodation ok. It was on the 6th floor and no lift. That was exotic. Fortunately we could leave most of our gear in the car rather than haul it up the stairs.

We arrived relatively late, so we pretty much just dropped our stuff off and walked to the Eiffel Tower (There. Done it.)…and home again via a creperie (and a craft beer stand) for dinner. The number of street vendors and people running games of chance we saw on the walk through the Champ de Mars was nuts (specifically cups…many, many games of cups). It was also pretty weird seeing stacks of street vendors (all black, for some reason), all selling exactly the same cheap chinese made crap (selfie sticks and various sized Eiffel Towers or a bucket of assorted booze).

Sunday we went to see the end of the Tour de France. We met up with Nath, Steve and Wendy and waited it out through the women’s criterion and right through until the end of the Tour. The weather was pretty awful. Windy and rainy and cold. And all of us had made a fashion fail in some respect. Wendy: sandals. Nathan: shorts, thongs and no jumper. Me and Murray: no raincoats. Murray ended up going on his own adventure by city bike back to our apartment to rectify our error at least. Took a long time, given his original estimate of half an hour. Many fails (and hours) later, Murray eventually rejoined us just in time to catch 2/3 of the men’s circuit. At least it wasn’t raining anymore by then.

While we were in Paris we also tried to visit the Catacombs and failed. Waited for over an hour and a half only to be told that we might not make it to the front of the line anyway (before last entry more than 2 hours away). Who’d have thought it would be so popular? We had already budgeted waiting in line for 3 hours (which is already ridiculous, but is apparently the normal wait) and to wait longer and then still not get in anyway seemed a bit of a giant fail. So we bailed. Ended up visiting La Fine Mousse for some quality craft beer and some tapas for dinner. Caught a cabaret show and called it a day.

Murray went on a ride through Paris with DC Rainmaker (aka Ray) and got to see most of the sights. He even rode around the Arc de Triomphe around the crazy roundabout…and returned home in once piece.

For our last day in Paris, we made a last touristic stop before our flight to London: We went to visit Versailles. Mixed feelings about that. Hated the palace. The crowds…the crowds. Good grief, the crowds. There’s nothing like being pushed along by a human wall from room to room. I’m sure it would have been a wonderful experience if there weren’t so many people, but there were, so it wasn’t. The rest of the palace grounds were much better. The Grand & Petit Trianon were much more comfortable to visit than the palace. Hardly any people there. Also very much enjoyed Mary Antoinette’s hamlet. (There were bunnies!) Also got a truckload of exercise for the day. The grounds were huge! Seriously upset my already blistered heels, but it was worth it. Think I might need new shoes, though.

Next stop: London, UK.