Those are great ideas. I’m a slow biker - will it be hard for me to keep up? I am using my indoor bike almost every day, but I am just a naturally slow person!
I don’t think so. I’m not particularly fast, and I think I was in better shape than some of our group. The leader is very careful to keep the group together. Since you’re biking through Paris streets with intersections and such, it never gets really fast. There was a family with a couple kids in our group–looked maybe 8 or 9. They did fine.
The tour was great–stopped for ice cream at Berthillons, biked around Notre Dame and The Louvre among other places, and then there was a boat ride on the Seine (with wine) before biking back. One of my most favorite activities ever.
That sounds really cool. I wanted to do a boat ride, so that would be perfect.
OK, just booked it! It will be our last night in Europe. The route looks similar to one of the bike rides I do on my virtual program, Zwift. I showed the video to my husband and said, “Wow, it looks just like Zwift!” He laughed and said, “No, Zwift looks like Paris!”
Oh that’s so great! I hope you have a terrific time!
We also did a Paris to Normandy vacation, (only the northern part of Normandy, based in Honfleur), and stopped with our rental at Giverny, which was magical.
The convoluted thing we did was rent the car outside of Paris, so that we had to take a train to get to the rental place–in order to avoid driving in the city. Would have been fine, except the agency turned out to be very hard to fine, a tiny place shoehorned in a side street, not the larger ones we passed by. Plus the agent didn’t speak English at all (which is fine) but it took a bit to establish who we were and what car we’d reserved, which turned out okay in the end, but was a little nerve-wracking though H had boned up on his rusty French and did get us through it. The drive itself to Giverny was lovely. Definitely plan to have lunch there–some lovely restaurants right near the site itself.
We’re picking up the rental car at the airport when we fly into Paris, and then returning it there before spending three nights in the city. I hope the rail strike is over in four months!
I have a funny Paris strike story. When we went to Paris ten years ago we took the train from the airport to our hotel. Checking out a week later, the person at the desk asked if we needed a cab. I said no we would be taking the train. He gave us a funny look, but didn’t say anything else. We take the Metro to the train station and it turns out there was some kind of strike with the trains and they were only running intermittently. We were able to get a train to the airport and made our flight. No idea why the hotel employee didn’t tell us hey you may not be able to get a train because they are striking take a cab.
Ha, we were in Paris for Bastille Day in 1989 - it was the 200th anniversary and also my 27th birthday. The 14th was on Friday, so we planned our trip so that we would leave the 15th. Well, it turns out that they had their big fireworks display on the 15th after we left, although we got to see the big parade on Bastille Day. For some reason, the trains shut down overnight and got a late start on Saturday. I remember scrambling to get to the airport, but I don’t recall the details. I do remember some jerk throwing a BIG firecracker onto the train at one point that week. The baseball cap I was wearing got a burn mark!