Charly-sur-Marne to Charles-de-Gaul Airport

Lolled again this morning. No point rushing as I don't need to meet Paul until around 7 pm, his plane is due at 6.20 pm. It had rained during the night which was a bummer however when I finally got up it was sunny outside! So I took my time so that the tent could dry out. Once everything was dried and packed I went into town and got a demi-baguette and a pain au raison, then I sat on a bench, in the sun, and ate them. The pain au raison was really good, thick and full of raisins, it was so thick I couldn't even finish it :) I finally set off from town at 10.40. As I said no rush today :)

I continued on down the Champagne route, yet more champagne houses, although they are starting to thin out a bit now. The route continued along the Marne until I finally turned off in the direction of Saint Aulde. As expected turning off actually meant turning up, up the hills surrounding the Marne, however the climb was not very steep and was quite cool from the forest.

After heading north for a little bit I then resumed heading west, winding in and out of little villages. I recall one really nice section on the C6 to Chaton, a tiny, tiny little crumbling road, barely a car wide, through a dense forest and all down hill, lovely. Eventually it was around lunch time, I waited till 1pm because of the late start, and at Lizy-sur-Ourcq I found a nice little Italian restaurant where I had a spaghetti Fruits de Mer. Quite nice, followed by an Illes Flotante, a large whipped meringue in a see of custard.

I left there around 2 pm. Then it was back to winding in and out of little country villages, quite pleasant really. You would never know that you were so close to Paris, there is really no hint of it at all. Well, except for the continuous line of planes flying in exactly the same direction as I am riding.

I had another stop later in the afternoon for a coke and to use the loo. It is really hot again today so the coke stop was very pleasant. They had a bunch of old photos on the wall in the bar, but alas no dates. I was almost at the airport now and I was getting to the tricky bit. There is a white road marked on the map as going straight down the middle of the airport. As I don't know where Terminal 1 is (although I guess the far end) this seems the best way into the airport.

It was a short 5 or 6 K's into the terminal and the road while mildly busy was not too bad. The road wanted me to go to the parking but when we passed the taxi stands where passengers were getting cabs I just pulled in there and walked into the terminal. Phew, that was a relief and not too hard as it turned out.

I checked the time on Paul's plane, it was arriving at 5.26, not 6.20, and here it was 5.14, so I beat him by 12 minutes :) Of course it was over an hour before Paul finally came out as he had to unpack the bike and load all of the gear on to it. I sat in the bar area and had a Kir while I waited. I did some SuDuKo's and read some more Ruth Rendell. Then I thought I better stand by the exit area for when he came out. It was a bit of a wait but eventually he did.

The next challenge was to get to Paris. And the first stage of that was to get to the train station which is in Terminal 3. I remember in 1995 that we had to ride because the bus wouldn't take the bike, however that is not an issue now as there is a shuttle train rather than buses. Cool!

Then we had to buy tickets, I picked Gare du Nord because I know how to get to the hotel from there, and then navigate down to the train itself. We had to stand the whole way with the bikes, practically blocking the entrance. Of course it turned out that there was a baggage area quite near to us but we didn't see it. Oh well. It was a good thing we got of at Gare du Nord as well, the train was getting so busy it would have been hard to get off at the next station even if it was closer.

Then the final leg, the ride to the hotel, in, alas, the pouring rain. At first it was only spitting lightly so we didn't bother with jackets but by the time we got to Place de la Republique it pouring. There was a bike path almost the whole way from the station to here which was nice and then to Bastille there was a bus lane which bikes could use, very good. There was a lot of traffic of course but by and large it was no problem. Fortunately there was a map of the local area and we easily found out hotel where, rather sodden, we dragged our bikes through the reception and out to the back where we could lock them in a courtyard (in the rain).

The room is quite good. A flat screen TV, not wide screen though which is common in Europe and rather odd I think. Do they even sell them in Australia? The room is of course small but there is a large cupboard each next to our beds and the bathroom is very nice. And they have WiFi. So at this point in time I'd say that I'd definitely stay here again! After unpacking and showering we went across the street for a quick bite at the Chinese restaurant there. Then we rushed back to watch the repeat of the tour. Very exciting.