After the bottom-punishing 113 miles we cycled yesterday, we were left with a very civilized 53 miles today to get to the centre of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. The route we took was long, straight and fast and we seemed to ge to the city in no time. En route, we stopped for a picnic lunch in the town where Van Gogh spent his final years. In an attempt to impress Zeina with my cultural knowledge, I took her to a lovely park, with a huge bronze statue of the Old Master taking pride of place. After I announced that this was the final resting place of the famed artist, she gave the statue a cursory glance and then said: "Is this where we're having lunch?" Well, I did try.
We lunched by a river and we're both loving stinky cheese, various cured meats and baguettes as our staple diet. We really pushed the boat out today and had a dessert after our sandwich (a Magnum and a Cornetto). Riding by the Seine, into the heart of what I must say is the most beautiful city I've visited, was very memorable. We finished up by the Eiffel Tower at 4pm and then went to meet some of Zeina's friends and family to celebrate completing the first leg of our ride. Everybody was very welcoming to the pink-faced Brit' and I want to say thank you to Maria for putting us up for the night and for letting me use her iron and to Jenny for telling me things about Neil Young over dinner that I never knew.
Things we learned today:
1. When cycling through rural France, you can play a great game called 'How many cows?'. The rules are simple, when you cycle past a field of cows, one of you shouts "LES VACHES!" as loud as you can, then you count how many cows actually stop what they were doing (chewing the cud, sleeping, having a wee, licking each other's faces) and look over at you curiously. I scored a massive six interested bovines this morning, whilst Zeina trails behind with a paltry four.
2. Even with liberal use of SPF70 sunscreen on my face, I still end up looking like a cross between a rare steak and a beef tomato by about 2pm every afternoon.
3. After a few hours of hot & dusty riding, these gorgeous French nectarines taste like an angel crying onto your tongue.
We also got our first photo of Estuary the Humpack Whale by the Eiffel tower. Estuary is a cuddly-toy representation of a real Humpback that was found entangled in Boston and then rescued and is accompanying us all the way to Marrakech. He/she has been very well behaved and remained in high spirits, despite being tied to the back of my bike for the last four days with a bungee rope. We're in Paris until Monday when we'll begin the next stage of our ride to the Atlantic Coast. Hope you all have a good weekend, see you on here again soon.
2 comments:
right oh Harold, you've had enough fun, time for some work.
as per Ali's genius idea of Stunting for Cash, i have your first Stunt.
i'm calling it Baguette Jousting. so we're going to need a picture of your two jousting with traditional french bread. that will be a tenner in the pot. plus, i'll pay for the bread products (but no associated medical bills).
toodles
Si
Hey Si, consider it done mate. We'll post the photo later today. Then we'll no doubt be inviting someone else to push it up a notch in terms of difficulty, all medical bills should be covered by our insurance.....
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