Chris's space

I rode from Nantes to Bordeaux on the secondary roads as usual, easy ride, hardly any traffic and no trucks but many villages and towns, fine and warm weather now heading south.

Bordeaux – population 800,000, wine capital of the world bringing in 15 billion euros each year. The main reason to come here is to go on the many wine tours to the different regions.

I booked a full day Food and Wine tour to the Margaux region, visiting four Chateaux or wineries and lunch 115 euro. To qualify as a Chateau you have to grow, ferment and bottle the wine on the premises, theoretically you could do this on a small scale in your backyard and garage and call yourself a Chateau. Many other rules and regulations and conventions add the to the mumbo jumbo surrounding the production of wine in Bordeaux.

Book your tour through the Bordeaux Tourist Office.

From Paris I rode to Caen in Normandy. Getting out of the metropolis I used toll freeways to avoid the traffic and then onto secondary roads through the beautiful Normandy countryside. The beautiful turned wet for the last 90 minutes of the ride and I arrived soaking wet on the outside.

This area is where the allied forces of World War II landed on the beaches to start retaking Europe back from the Germans. During the 100 days it took to drive the Germans back, Normandy was flattened with many civilian casualties but this saved the rest of France from a similar fate.

Pegasus Bridge

1st Battalion Fusilier Marine Commando – French troops

Caen Memorial

I spent a day riding around visiting the various D Day beaches and associated museums, memorials and cemeteries.

Bayeux and Caen

Versailles – Book your ticket online and get there early, its a favourite destination for Chinese tourists, millions of them, the inside is packed and not much fun, outside is very nice, hire a golf cart to get around its huge.

Sainte-Chapelle

Pompidou Centre – History of Modern Art

Louvre – Book your ticket online and walk straight in or wait in a queue for hours. I would give it a complete miss, again packed with tourists taking pictures of themselves or each other. There are no English translations which doesn’t make sense since 90% of the people in there are foreign tourists and don’t speak French. I could only stand an hour of it before I got out of there hahaha.

Invalides and the Latin Quarter which is a good place to eat

Batobus – Hop on, Hop off boat, Jardine des Plantes – Dilapidated garden with a small zoo, Loius Vuitton Foundation – Quite amazing

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Paris, founded in the 3rd century BC, not much can be said that hasn’t already been said about this city, the worlds top tourist destination, population 12 million. A surprise around every corner and one or two tourists as well. The metro will take you just about anywhere but get used to climbing stairs because escalators are few and far between. A 10 ride ticket costs 14 Euro.

I was last here in 1983 when Paris was clearly a French city, now at times I am not sure what part of the world I’m in and the French have learnt to speak English in the intervening years hahaha.

From Brussels I rode to Paris on the N2 which is not a freeway, it winds through many small towns and villages, takes about an hour longer, hardly any traffic a different pace altogether compared to the freeway.

The first thing I did was to get a Lebara SIM card for my phone, cost E20 for 600 min of talk, 600 sms and 1 GB data valid for a month.

Montparnasse Tower, the best view of Paris

Eiffel Tower

The Pantheon

Arc de Triomphe

Champs-Elysees

Tuileries Park

Montmartre

Notre Dam and a walk through Paris