Back to Paris

Yesterday (Thursday) was a very restful day. I did get out of my jammies but only to go out to get our morning baguette and then after breakfast to take Peter for a haircut. The rest of the day it was sweats and the couch. We watched a couple of movies, and I did a small load of clothes. Of course, every load is a small load as the washers are much smaller than ours at home.

While strolling around town waiting for Peter to finish at the barber, I found the WWI monument that virtually every town in France has.

That was it for yesterday. Today we left our beautiful house for Giverny (Gee-ver-nee) and Claude Monet’s house. Monet was one of the fathers of impressionistic art and is most famous for his water lilies. The best part about the house was the art. It was its own art museum, with not just his paintings, but those by Degas, Pissaro, a large collection of Japanese prints plus so many more.

And a very blue kitchen.

Then we wandered around the gigantic garden. It was a beautiful day so that made the garden even more special.

There were so many beautiful flowers, but these were our favorites.

Then it was on to lunch on this quaint little street.

After lunch it was back in car for the drive to the Paris airport Hilton where we are spending the night. We have an 8:30AM flight to Amsterdam and didn’t want to mess with taking the car back so early.

Returning the car was easier said than done because it took me an hour and 5 stops to find a gas station that actually had gas. There’s been a strike at the major oil refinery for the last 2 weeks which means many stations are out of gas. I was just about to take the car back with only half a tank and damn the consequences when I finally found a station that had gas to sell.

Once I got back up to my room, I decided that I deserved a nice, sweet, fruity drink so we headed to the bar.

Then, since we hadn’t had dessert in two whole days, we decided some sweets were in order.

There is no airport shuttle and while one of the terminals is only a 2-block walk, we would then have to get on the train to the next terminal and walk quite a while longer to get to the KLM check in. Trying to do that with Peter pushing his new wheelchair holding the 2 backpacks while I drag the 24″ suitcase is a bit much for 6AM so we’ve ordered a taxi.

We’ve spent the last 5 weeks in France, and while I don’t know the exact mileage, we covered a lot of territory. These maps only include the places we spent the night, not all the side trips.

We did a little crisscrossing in the last week because we kept changing our minds about where we wanted to go. The driving was easier than in the UK, not only because I was on the correct side of the road, but because most of the driving was on a highway. Of course, the tolls cost a fortune (over $50 just this Wed; and $40 just to drive through Switzerland…yikes!) but better tolls than two lane roads.

We loved our time in France, but we’re ready to move on and have some adventures in the Netherlands and Belgium. We look forward to sharing them with you. Have a wonderful evening everyone. Love to all!