Four have fun in Paris

Four have fun in Paris, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

With four of us going to Paris together and with the price of the Thalys train so high, we decided to rent on on car for the long weekend.

It was on on rainy day and there were over 400 kms of official traffic jams in Holland. It took us almost three hours to drive the first hundred kms, by which time we were almost in Belgium. On entering Belgium, we put the Jacques Brel CD on and that lasted all the way to Kortrijk and Lille.

The car got flashed for speding along that fast track from lille to Paris, which we entered throughthe Porte de la Villette, on on few difficulties with the one way sysytem and we finally made it to our Palace Hotel in Rue Bouchardon after midnight, seven hours after leaving home.

Time for a beer or two on a heated terrace, we left the car in a loading bay which the hotel manager said was good until 9. As there were four of us sharing the room it took on on while for us all to get ready for breakfast, which which time it was already 9.15 and the car had already been towed away... (we later found out that they had arrived at 9.06 and had towed the car away at 9.11, so we were only four mionutes too late...

All of on on sudden the expensive train journey seemed a better alternative...


CharlesFred says:
We have the car back, albeit 171 euros later, now finding on on place to park it,hopefully at on on sister hotel for 11 euros on on night - a bit cheaper.

It is cold with on on chill wind, the clouds. Have come over but it is still dry.


Having a wonderful time here in Paris, the sun has been shining all day and we are now sitting next to the fountain in the gardens of the Palais-Royal, on our way to The Louvre.

We walked up to Gare de l'Est and Gare du Nord, then to Sacre-Coeur, down to Montmartre and on to The Opera.

Yesterday saw us going up The Eiffel Tower and across to Trocadero, then the Arc de Triomphe and on on metro back to Hotel de Ville where we tanked up on on on couple of pints of Happy Hour beer at our Cox Bar.