Day 40, 30 6 2013, Fontainebleau to Paris

We left Fontainebleau this morning in brilliant sunshine on a mild morning, one of the very few on this trip.

The ride to Paris was always going to be a bit convoluted, and we made it a bit more so than was really necessary. 

We meandered through a string of villages a little north of Fontainebleau, where one in particular, Barbizon, captured our attention.  This is one of the more charming villages we have seen, set amongst beautiful homes and gardens.  The village has been thoroughly restored, is quite delightful and well-patronised by people who drive large Audis and Range-Rovers.

We followed a route for the first half of the ride described by a chap on the internet, and very good it was.  Things only went wrong when we got adventurous.  We found that we could meander along on quiet roads and tracks alongside the Seine, and got a bit brave.  We followed a sign for a walking track, and came to the bridge in the photo. 

In attempting to get out, we were accosted by a lady with a large alsation, that was fortunately caged, and had to back track through a wheat field.

We looked up the instructions from the guy on the internet, and followed them again, and it all came good.

We did not have a Paris map with us, so entered the hotel address into  TomTom and followed it in for the last few kilometers.  We actually booked a hotel ahead of time as we knew we had to be in Paris for these two nights.

Paris is not an easy city to ride into only because, unlike some other large cities, it does not define a route in for bikes.  All that is needed is some signage to transform the experience.

So that is it then. There was never a moment on this trip when I wanted to be somewhere else, but we did have our ups and downs, and the weather was the biggest of the downs.

We are thrilled at this stage that it all came together, so any summary comments will have to wait for the last post when we get home late this week.

86Km for the day, mostly easy but not straightforward.

 

Roz says

Such a nice change to be able to sit on a bench in the shade and not huddled wet and cold in a bus shelter struggling with a damp Michelin guide!!

Noticed as we sat today the problems with tiny streets and having a gathering.  People were walking at least 600m with children and bouquets to get to a Sunday lunch.  They would need a good long baguette and a bottle of wine by the time they got there!

The price of adventure tracking today was an hour with the tweezers extracting the biggest toughest wheat seeds from the shoes.  The socks went straight into the bin!!


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