Experience is the art of not making the same mistake too many times……..
Kath, Terry, Lindy, Paul and Wendy headed off to Nevers at 8am to pick up hire cars for a trip to Spain. Pete and Virginia shared a taxi with us to Nevers station to catch the train back to Paris. They then headed over to Brittany while we dragged our bags on and off the metro, back to Kevin and Julia’s apartment. We chilled out and chatted in the afternoon and then the four of us caught the metro to the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. We wandered in to Abercrombie and Fitch, an American clothing store, which you wouldn’t know was there, being hidden behind high hedges in a spectacular old mansion with two huge golden doors. It has to be one of the most beautiful shop buildings in Europe. Then we sat at a window table in Ladurée, a perfectly Parisian tea room. It was exquisite and a lovely place to eat with friends in Paris on a Saturday night. With the rain easing a bit, we tried to watch a huge firework display that was going off over the river, further on down the Seine. Sadly, the breeze was blowing the display into the clouds and the smoke spread towards us obliterating most of the explosions, so we gave up and caught the metro back to the flat and a nice comfy bed for the night.
On Sunday the rain was still falling from the sky, so Kevin whipped up a tasty eggy brioche with raspberries for a very late breakfast and at 2pm we all headed off for a stroll to burn it off. We ambled across to the Hotel des Invalides and walked through the impressive centre to the far side. We wandered down the Boulevard St Germain, popped in to the Ladurée Bonaparte café for coffee and beautiful cakes and then crossed the Pont Neuf to the Notre Dame to gaze at the massive west front. From there, we crossed to the Ile St Louis and peeped into shop windows, along the way. We finally caught the metro back from Sully, glad that we managed to get a seat on the train because we all had very tired legs. Kevin managed to then stand in the kitchen and pulled out another exemplary chef performance cooking us a tasty duck dish with lots of fresh vegetables, and we spent our last evening in Paris talking about Mexico.
Early on Monday morning our bags followed us around to Tour Mauburg metro and through to the huge Gare du Nord station for the 10am Eurostar train back to London. It was a long journey and we both felt a bit flat knowing that we were now nearing the end of our 2015 tour of Europe. Thank you so much Julia and Kevin for enabling us to have a lovely time in Paris and we look forward to seeing you again somewhere in 2016. The train from London to Hertford had us at back at Andy and Carole’s in the early afternoon and then we picked up Eileen. Heading up the A1, on almost the last leg of this year’s journey, “Come On Eileen’ sang out on the radio. Oh my goodness, it seemed to bring it home to us that we would soon be arriving at my brother’s house in Kettering. Very soon we would be doing a final pack and bedding Eileen down for her seven-month winter stopover on my brother’s driveway. No more pulling out the bed every night and putting it away every morning. No more cupboards and kitchen sink travelling behind us. Not until April when we will do one last trip across Europe for a couple of months ……. in Eileen.
And finally after a couple of days getting washing done, a bit of shopping (got a lovely Max Mara grey cardigan), watching movies, lots of eating out and a last minute wander around Saville Gardens near Ascot, Neil dropped us at Heathrow Airport on Thursday for a late flight back to Sydney. Here we go again ……
