Le Tour de France!

What a day today! Last night I pulled out the laptop to see what else Paris had to offer that we might be missing and, voila! I found an awesome “grass roots” bike tour company run by an American and a Kiwi who have lived in Paris for well over a decade now! I tried to book our place online, no luck. Called in the morning, no answer. Tried just one more time at 9am and success! They told us to head straight over for the 10am tour! We rushed out, hopped onto the metro, found our way to Notre Dame and suddenly we were on our own Tour de France!

This tour was AWESOME! Bike About Paris is their name and they pride themselves on taking tourists to the places they wouldn’t normally see in Paris, the back-roads if you will. Our guide, Chris, was super informative,  our group was small, only 10 of us, and the weather was perfect again! We walked to their “office” which was in a parking garage about 10 minutes away from our meeting place and picked up these “city” bikes that are more compact than your average bike and away we went. There were no waivers to fill out, no sign up sheet, no rules and regulations, heck, we didn’t even pay up front! We just got on the bikes and rode!

We rode through Paris for four hours. We headed down streets and alleyways that we would have never seen on our own, or even with our big tour group. We stopped a ton along the way so Chris could point out the sights which included things such as the only remaining portion of the original wall that surrounded Paris, an old church where the nuns now make chocolate to generate income, the former nazi headquarters which is now the police station and is covered in bullet holes, so cool! We saw the place where Jim Morisson died, the home where the writer of Le Mis lived while he wrote it, the house of the former president which has guards at the front door all day every day. We rode through quaint neighborhoods, onto the only two islands in Paris, past the oldest house in Paris, alongside the river, past the canal where the houseboats are docked, through the Latin Quarte, past the Louvre, the Muse de Orsay and the Modern Art Museum which is built “inside-out”. Oh, and we rode down the road that is the last stage of the Tour de France! And we rode by the most expensive restaurant in Paris, around 900 Euros for dinner for 2 with NO alcohol! It also has the largest wine cellar in the world with over 600,000 bottles of wine in it, some valued at over 30,000 Euros! But even cooler than that? This is the restaurant that they basted the movie Ratatouille on!! We even got to see a stray canonball that is stuck in the front of a home from the revolution.

Throughout the tour Chris pointed out some “grafitti” on the walls that is done in a mosaic style. Even cooler than that, it is done by an anonymous artist called the “space invader” who models his graffiti after recognizable symbols, mostly video games, from the 1980′s! So, every so often, we’d see these little tile works of art on buildings and bridges…it was awesome! The artist has been doing it for 10 years and has over 3500 space invaders around Paris now! So so cool!

We stopped for lunch in the Latin Quarter and had superb panini sandwiches. We didn’t know that they would be grilled when we ordered them as they looked exactly the same as the few baguette sandwiches we’ve had already, but he had the in the press before we could blink and they were AMAZING. I am not a fan of paninis, but this thing was good! We strolled along the street while we ate, chatted with our guide, and decided that we needed to head into Paul, a world famous  bakery, to check out the pastery counter. Once I saw it I new I had to eat it! (That’s what she said!). It was just staring at me, begging me, and so I did it. I ate my very first eclair and it was totally and utterly amazing! I may have had some pastry imposters over the years, cream filled doughnuts and what not, but I had never had a true eclair and had never tasted a pastry as wonderful as this! Stephanie, I immediately thought of you! You would have died. It had this amazing chocolate cream filling, yum. It was so good that I ate the whole thing and then decided I had to run back in and buy two more for later! Thank goodness I did because as I walked in the second time they pulled a rack of fresh, hot croissants out of the oven! Was I stuffed? Yes! Did I want one? No! Did I eat one anyhow?! OF COURSE! It was the most flaky, delicious croissant ever. And it was warm! Gluttony has never tasted so good.

Not to worry, I’m sure I burned off the calories of my pastry binge on the second half of our bike ride (pffft, one can dream!).

I can’t say enough good things about this tour. Everyone that comes to Paris MUST do this. It was simply amazing!

On our bike tour Chris pointed out at one point that there was a giant underground mall beneath us, so after we were done we headed to the mall for some shopping. Unfortunately it took us a little while to navigate our way back there, so we didn’t have much time before we had to head back to our hotel. Why did we have to head back you ask? Dun, dun, dun…

AND THEN THERE WERE 29!!

Today at 4:45 we met our tour group for the first time! I had bet Kevin that we would be the youngest on the tour by at least 20 years, and, well, lets just say I wish I had bet something awesome! At first we were a bit apprehensive about the group. What had we signed up for? But then when Colleen, our guide, put out the wine and snacks and nearly everyone got up and poured themselves big glasses of wine, we had a feeling we’d be okay. We decided, fairly early on, that this was the group of people who had finally gotten the kids through college and were living their OWN lives now and, damn it, they were going to have a good time!

We introduced ourselves to a few couples and felt comfortable very early on. Colleen put it best when she said “I don’t think this group will have much trouble getting warmed up to each other!”. By dinner time we were passing escargo from table to table and eating off of each others plates! It was great to see everyone was ready to get this show on the road!

Colleen is great too. She just arrived from Greece yesterday where she just wrapped up a tour. She has been working for Rick Steves for 18 years now and has spent the last 8 years leading tours through Europe for 6 months out of the year, so she obviously loves what she does. She is very sweet, yet stern and handled our group well. She managed to get us all oriented, get on a bus, into a restaurant, to the river, on a boat, and then back on the metro within a matter of hours! Impressive!

After our dinner (Kevin had the duck and said it was amazing, I had a tiny bite and it tasted like salty pork, but I could appreciate it) we went down to the river for a night cruise to see the sights of Paris. It was beautiful! After the cruise we headed over towards the metro station but stopped on a bridge to watch the eiffel tower light up. On the hour, every hour, at night it sparkles like it is covered in glitter! It is so pretty. After a few minutes we headed to the metro. I was totally elated to be there until Colleen stopped us and I realized (there was a statue with a bunch of letters and flowers taped to it that she stopped the group at) that we were standing on the bridge that goes over the tunnel where Diana was killed. We were literally within feet of the site of the accident. It was so sad to be there and know than such an amazingly beautiful place is also such a somber one. Though I am beginning to see that this is most of what Europe is, a beautiful history of terrible times.

On a happier note, we all made it into the Metro station as a group, hallelujah! I heard Kevin say to Colleen as she guided us all in “I don’t know how you do it! It is like herding cattle!” HA! Did my husband just call me a cow!?

Aside from the couple that dropped their sunglasses down into the tracks and was contemplating how to get the back (scary!) we all made it back to the hotel (Colleen left them behind! Though she wasn’t happy about it, the tour must go on!) and were off to bed just before midnight.

What a fabulous day! It is now nearly 2 am and our alarm goes off in aprox. 5 hours! Yikes! These blogs take forever, but they’re so fun to write and I just know that I will love having the down the road, so I MUST keep them up!

Tomorrow we’re off to Notre Dame, St. Chappel and The Muse de Orsey. Until then, Bonjour! (This means good day, but I forget how to say goodnight right now, I’m sleepy!).