It rained all night and is raining this morning as we gather our belongings and head up to the office to check in our boat. While we are in the process, another boat with a Swiss family aboard, pulls in and decides to tie up adjacent to another boat rather than to squeeze into a space at the dock – even though their space was bigger than the space Mike pulled into. At 9:30 AM the cab was waiting to return us to Dijon. We loaded up our bags and off we went. The drive took about 1 ½ hours, the driver dropped us at Shoe and Carol’s hotel where we dumped our bags. Shoe and Carol leave tomorrow (Thursday at 10:30 PM on an overnight train to Milan!) so they had reserved a room at the Kyriad.
Since it was lunchtime, we headed into the center of town, stopped by the tourist office to get Shoe and Carol a map of Dijon, and headed over to Brasserie Les Ducs for lunch. It was pouring rain, so eating out on the terrace was not an option. It is that time of year when the French have turned on the heat and the heat runs, regardless of the temperature. When a closed in restaurant/bar/brasserie/bistro gets filled with people, it can get pretty warm; so eating outside is preferable if at all possible – even though that is where the smokers are.
Not letting the rain stop us, we walked around Dijon – as the rain picked up intensity and it rained harder, harder, harder. By the time we got back to Shoe and Carol’s hotel, rain had soaked through our umbrellas, our rain jackets, our shoes and socks. We were not a pretty sight and therefore no final photos were taken of the four of us together that last day. We dried out for about an hour, and headed over to the train station where our TGV to Paris was scheduled to leave at 16:21. We went over early so we could dry out a little from our walk to the train station before we packed into the train. At about 16:04, they announced our track (I), so we left Carol and Shoe with hugs around, validated our ticket and boarded the train to find a young businessman with papers and computer spread out in our seats. We verified the coach number and asked him to move. The train ride through the countryside was full of fall color and beautiful, especially when the rain stopped about 15 minutes out of Dijon. We passed farms, pastureland, small villages, and even a windmill farm generating electricity – but only half were spinning.
We arrived in Paris as scheduled, 17:59, meandered through Gare de Lyon to the connection to the Metro. We purchased our week’s pass and headed to the 14 to Madeleine where we changed to the 8 to Balard and got off at Le Motte Piquot, the stop closest to our apartment. All of this would have been easy going, except every escalator going our way (even at Gare de Lyon) was broken – so we lugged our suitcases up all those flights of stairs.
Bedroom in our Paris apartment
Living room in the apartment
Hallway and dining room in the apartment
We easily found our apartment and settled in. Long hot showers to get rid of the travel grime and to enjoy after those short “navy†showers on the boat. We even have a hairdryer, after a week of no hairdryer, embarrassing photos, I am excited by life’s little conveniences. We divided up the dirty clothes into loads and actually washed two loads.
We went to a brasserie around the corner, Café le Piquet and sat on the terrace. It is much warmer here in Paris, even in the evening than it was in Dijon and along the Soane. Both of us had a glass of rose and salade campardarnge – expecting a light meal. The bowls were huge and we left over half. We went to the Monoprix, just before it closed to get milk and juice for the morning. Then back to the apartment for a great night’s sleep.
