Dijon to Paris

Today we left Dijon heading for Paris.  The big thing we had to worry about this morning was whether the trains were running today or not.  Luckily they were. So, after a bit of a wait at the train station, we boarded a double decker TGV train bound for Paris. To start off with it didn’t seem to go very fast at all, but after about ¾ hour it got up to speeds of 298 kilometres per hour, and we did notice the difference then. The seats on the train were lovely and roomy and comfortable, a bit of a relief after the coach for the past 2 weeks. The scenery as we travelled along was very varied…lots of farms and little knots of towns here there and everywhere.  As we approached Paris things became more crowded of course. We were met at the station in Paris and taken to the Louvre. Here some of the group went into the Museum, whilst most of us stayed around the building, then venturing out into the Parks etc for more of a look see.  Dave and I walked for ages.  The impressive structure called the Le Carousel of the Louvre stood out as one of the best monuments we’ve seen. The number of people going into the Louvre was enormous. Crowds of people everywhere.  The more people that arrived, the hotter things got inside. Our group said they didn’t have too many people in the parts they ventured into, but it still would have been too many people for us.  The tour buses park under the Louvre and there were hundreds of them down there. We couldn’t believe how many.

The streets and the shops in Paris are very crowded today, and it’s not even a holiday weekend like it has been the 2 weekends we’ve been here. Granted it was Friday the 13^th, but…..We have really enjoyed our tour around France. It has been a bit of an eye opener for us as we didn’t realise just how big France was until this trip. So many beautiful old buildings, all ornately covered with statues and intricate decorations. Amazing how they did all these things so many years back without the aids which we have use of today.  ‘Think there were a lot of pretty smart people around back then working out how to do all this.

We had dinner tonight with John and Pauline, the other Aussies on the tour. We walked around the corner from the Hotel and found a street with lots of eating choices. We had a nice meal and a last chat.  Pauline and John are off to Ireland tomorrow but we won’t see them in the morning as they leave the Hotel later than we do. The Kiwi’s are off home tomorrow but they are a bit worried about Coreen’s DVT problem.  Hope she’ll be okay, her legs were swollen quite badly today.

 We have to be up pretty early tomorrow morning to catch a taxi to the airport, then the flight to Heathrow, there to get our flight to Bucharest.  I wonder what Romania will be like??? No doubt all will be revealed!!