Paris

Our Paris apartment centrally located close to the metro, put major Paris must-sees only minutes away, and was well serviced by cafes and restaurants, and shops.

Typical of Paris it was quite tiny, but it was pretty with a balcony that overlooked a courtyard and garden.

We ate out a few times but otherwise enjoyed cooking in the tiny kitchen.

We enjoyed visiting Isle de Cite where we toured Le Chapelle and got a good look at the Notre Dame from the outside, still a couple of years away from restoration.

Another trip saw the Champ de Mars, Eiffel Tower, and the incredible Rodin Museum.

A longer trip out to Fontainblaine allowed us to tour the massive Chateau that has housed all of Frances’ kings and queens, and included a walk around the vast gardens and lake.

We visited Place de la Concorde, the Champs Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe, plus the Basilica, all on one day. With hundreds of steps up and down in the Metro, it was murderous on the feet and legs. Voltaren for dessert.

Or final day was brekky at the market and a trip to the Louvre, calves burning on the first steps. Followed by Eglise St Eugene and the Tuileries.

Way, way too much in a week but what do you do when you know you’ll probably never be back. It’d seem criminal to go to Paris and not lay eyes on that stuff.

Normandy

The drive out of Paris was terrifying. Europe car was located in the dungeons of Paris Nord railway station, and even getting there with an Uber driver who didn’t speak English was stressful.

Then Europecar had no maps to direct us out of the car park and onto the right street to exit Paris, and neither to help us return the car to them. The guy said “it’s easy”.

But the client at the next booth said “no way”. Apparently he had tried getting back to the return point several times and even as a local it was a nightmare for him each time.

For a variety of reasons, the major one being we needed a logistically sensible way of getting from Paris to London, we had no choice but to use this branch of Eurocar, but if you’re planning on doing something similar, stick to your guns and demand maps in and out of their car park.

The other thing about driving out of Paris was completely unexpected in a supposedly civilised country. There are actually very complex and confusing, completely unsigned intersections (no lights, no nothing), where it’s basically necessary to force your way into an insane traffic jam in 5 directions in order to turn onto the desired road. Honestly it was worse than Lima and that’s saying something.

Our Stay

John found a really amazing AirBnB, a converted cider mill in the grounds of a nice mansion near Falaise. It had the most charming grounds including gardens, a large pond, and a stream.

A really comfortable, liveable home for 8 nights. We even saw a giant otter out our back window.

Falaise itself was a surprise. We visited a large restored castle which was at one time home to William the Conqueror, and a beautiful but badly deteriorated cathedral which would have been functioning while William was in the town, and which was badly damaged during WWII as the allies fought to retain its hard fought liberation from the Nazis.

We learned more about D-Day when we visited Bayeux and the Normandy museum there, stopping on the coast at Longues-sue-Mer to see the row of destroyed German cannon bunkers.

What stood out quite shockingly were the numerous uncanny and inexplicable similarities between Hitler and Putin.

While at Bayeux we saw the famed Bayeux tapestry, a hand-embroidered tapestry nearly 70 metres long and nearly 1000 years old, telling the story of William the Conqueror and his ascension to the British thrown following the death of usurper Harold at the battle of Hastings and the subsequent Normanisation of England. I get the idea William and his army were raping, murdering, thieving assholes.

We also visited the botanical garden at Avranches and drove out to the coast to view Mont St Michel, the famous abbey on a rock accessible only during low tide in special shuttle buses.

As amazing as all these places are, the daily trips we’ve been doing accumulate to completely strip me of mental or physical energy. Partly the relentless go, go, go, and partly the stress of navigating strange streets, and partly the stress of getting hooked into one-way streets, and on one occasion cheerfully driving down a street forbidden to non-residents. Imagine that, day after day, and at the end of each of those days having to cook dinner. I was really grateful the next 2 days were wet and stormy because I had no intention of leaving the AirBnB. And I’m completely determined that I won’t be repeating this type of activity level again.

Loire Valley

Apart from the incredibly beautiful Loire River and generally gorgeous countryside, the Loire is famous for basket weaving and about a zillion interesting and even amazing chateaux.

We spent 7 days here, in a “troglodyte” Airbnb, with all but one day spent touring and sightseeing. Utterly gorgeous and also utterly tiring. But in a place like this, which we’ll likely never see again in our lives, we simply made the most of it.

A troglodyte house is one that is fully or partially built into a rock, and there are plenty of those around the Villaines des Rochets village where we stayed.

The Loire Valley has countless amazing chateaus and we visited a number of the.

The city of Tours was a standout. Very beautiful, very liveable, and we greatly enjoyed a day trip there.