Sailing Songa

Our stopover in Paris wasn’t exactly what we expected, but was still enjoyable. And then our first fast train experience travelling to La Rochelle.

A few days before we left Australia, Glenn developed a really bad cold and then Sonja started feeling it as well. By the day of travel Glenn would have bouts of barely controllable coughing. We really didn’t feel like travelling and we probably should have delayed, but the amount of rescheduling wasn’t appealing. So, dosed up on various drugs we travelled anyway.

We were thankful to reach Paris and to have accommodation in a large apartment, rather than a motel room. We stayed in a friend’s apartment – they were in Melbourne for the summer. A big thank you to Miki and Maja for allowing us to use their home. It was a great location, being a short walk from Notre-Dame, the Louvre and the Tuileries Garden. The Eiffel Tower could be seen in the distance, about 5km away.

We had great plans, until they got run down by reality. After 37 hours traveling, dosed up on cold and cough medication we were worn out. Glenn was still sick with a persistent bad cough. The positive view of this was that it rained every day we were in Paris. So, while we didn’t feel like going out, it really wasn’t conducive weather for going out anyway.

But we did go out. With our rain jackets on, off we went for a walk to the Louvre to admire the architecture of the old palace and the tenacity of the people standing in the very long queues, in the light drizzle, waiting to go inside. Along the way, we could see part of the Eiffel Tower in the distance, but it had its head in the clouds. On the way we strolled along the Seine. We had to stay at road level because the river was flooding and much of the pathway along the banks was inundated by the higher river level. It was very brown and flowing very fast, with the various barges firmly moored to the banks.

On another day, during a weather break, we went for a walk through the Tuileries Garden and then back along the left bank of the Seine. It was still too early, season wise, for the garden: everything was bare. But it was easy to imagine how beautiful it would all be in the full bloom of spring. On this day the Eiffel Tower was more visible.

Each day we would do a round of shopping at the local grocery stores and bakery. We never saw a supermarket like we have in Australia. It was a lot of little grocery stores scattered around, within easy walking distance. We never felt the need for any sort of transport. But if we were up to it, we could have easily jumped on to the Metro or a bus to go further afield.

That was essentially how we spent our time in Paris. Not that exciting, spending most of our time curled up on the lounge trying to get past our colds, and watching TV. And then it was time to leave for La Rochelle, by fast train, reaching speeds of nearly 300 km/h. Wow!