Not so gay Paree

Thursday, 9 July, 2015

It is early morning in Dijon and we must leave for Paris later on. It is a market day, so we go into the market. However, it seems nothing starts early in France.

We go out the back of the market, see photo from yesterday, and go to a place across the street from where we had a drink yesterday.

A decent serve of Ham and Eggs and bread

We walk back to the apartment going through the market which has some more stalls open.

The street in front of our apartment place

Let me say a bit more about the apartment. It was not quite as big as the one in Lyon but did have the second bedroom for our suitcases. It was modernly fitted out. Once the Internet was fixed it worked well. Good location near the market and restaurants. Would definitely recommend the apartment.

https://www.airbnb.com.au/rooms/4221653

We pack up and move out to the train station. A bit of a walk but it is a very nice day. The wait at the station is not too long and then we are on our train to Paris. This time reserved seats. Again it is quite a pleasant journey through the countryside and in about 90 minutes we are in Paris at Gare du Lyon.

Then things started going wrong. We had done some study about Reduced Mobility Accessibility stations in Paris, because of my back issues, and the one that was closest to our apartment was not in the list. So there was another one about 15 minutes away and we decided that we would take the line to there as it would also be a good jump off point when we were to leave in 2 days time.

Gare du Lyon was fine with escalators getting us to the correct Metro line. I had left over tickets from last time in Paris so everything was great. WRONG. When we got to the destination station, we went out the wrong exit. This then lead to a whole bunch of stairs to go up and I had no choice but to carry the suitcase up them. Fortunately, I did not cause myself any damage. Julie had prepared appropriate maps – hand drawn and Google Maps but because we had gone out the wrong way, we could not get our bearings. I sat in a McDonalds for about 45 minutes while Julie tired to use their Internet to get located. We go out and start in the right direction but things are not working out. We have walked for about 60 minutes, of a 15 minute walk, and there is still no sign of where we are going. I notice that I have concerned messages from the Apartment owners and their friends who are there to let us in. Finally, we grab a taxi. This takes quite a while too since the one way streets in Paris mean that there is no direct way there. Finally, we reach the apartment building and with help from their friend get up to the third floor, there was a lift, and the apartment. The couple who had let us in were really nice, as it also appeared that the owners were really nice too.

Sadly, we could not say the same about the apartment. It was quite primitive, fine for a young couple starting out but not so good for us older folks. Plus the apartment was nowhere clean enough for our standards and they were smokers which meant that smell in the air. From my point of view the Internet worked well but there was no desk or table that I could use to access it. Yuk all the way around.

Any way, Julie goes prancing, as usual, while I hang around being somewhat tired from lugging the suitcases around. The heat wave had gone but it was still quite warm. When Julie comes back, she has found a nice restaurant for that evening and made a reservation, which turned out to be a really good idea. We go there at around 7:00, which is very early for Paris, and have a nice table outside.