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Rosie and The Operator stood on our terrace in Sarlat la Caneda and fair welled the beautiful village that had been our hometown for the last seven days. We had a great time there and it was with a little regret The Operator trundled the bags up the road…yes, that is a main thoroughfare, to the car. On the other hand, it is coming towards the end of our holiday and Rosie and The Operator are looking forward to coming home…..but not before another trip to Paris!
The five and a half hour drive was pretty uneventful, motorway pretty much all the way, Rosie snoozed for most of it….we think The Operator was pinged by a speed camera…that will be interesting what happens there. After 4032 km of holiday driving we arrived full circle back at CDG airport, delivered the car and went to the taxi rank for a lift into town…smooth as. Then all hell broke forth. Ques of tired, angry travellers were being told….there are no taxis, the drivers are on strike today and so are the train drivers…..Paris has no public transport! We had just returned a rental car….ONE DAY EARLY….DOH!!!!!!! Whilst leaving the ‘no taxi’ rank a man slithered up to us and said he had a car and could drive us into Paris for 150euro….uuuummmm….no thanks.
Rosie and The Operator watched from the periphery wandering what we were going to do…an eastern looking Turkish dude in a suit then slithered up to us and asked if we were looking for a ride into town, we said Yes, he said he could give us a ride for 75euros…for both of us? Yes please, it normally cost 50-60euros…he wasn’t capitalizing too much.
Rosie and The Operator confirmed this with the man a couple of times, then agreed….there was a catch, we were hustled over to a group of six others and told to wait, a van was coming and we would all be taken into town and delivered to our hotels…OK. True to his word we all got into the van and the craziest, no English speaking French dude drove us like a maniac through the back streets on the wildest ride ever, tooting his horn at everything and everyone on the way. The streets were utterly congested with cars, the taxi drivers were protesting and blocking alot of the main routes…this guy ducked down every back alley, up every side street….some of them the wrong way as a shortcut and drove down the empty bus lanes to push into traffic again further up the line. It was cringe worthy and the best sightseeing tour we could have had. All the while the French dude was answering, speaking and making calls on two mobile phones, he was crazy! But we got there, an hour and a half later.
The Hotel Bank is exactly that, an old Bank building in the heart of the Rue La Fayette in the Opera area of Paris. It is so different from where we originally stayed. This area is huge grand Parisian buildings, monuments and shopping centres. Office buildings surround us and thousands of workers flood into the area in the mornings and then out for lunch, and then homeward bound. We had quite a large room by Paris standards which is great to kick back in.
Our first port of call was a bar down the road for a beer and a shared Croque Monsieur, it was our first one in France and damn it tasted fine after the day we had.
This evening we were meeting more of Rosies Famz for dinner, EuroMan was in town on business and we were staying in the same Hotel on his recommendation. We met at the restaurant across the road from the hotel and dined on the footpath amongst the hustle and bustle of the beautiful evening. We arrived early and our bad Bonjours once again earned us the menu in English…EuroMan was left one by default as well….which he promptly exchanged for a French one, as the food appeals more when the description is given in French. We had a great night, the perfect combination of good conversation, good food and good wine….followed by a little too much lemoncello for Rosie….Thanks EuroMan, it was brilliant catching up with you, you are an interesting guy who has alot of information and experience Rosie may call on one day….it was midnight when we parted company and EuroMan had a conference call meeting early in the morning…hope you had a good sleep!
Tomorrow is a free day to do what we will in Paris…The Operator dosnt know we are only 100 metres away from one of the biggest department stores in the world…The Galleries Lafayette….Rosie will lure him up to the top story first with the temptation of a lovely free view of Paris….then Rosie can work her way down the floors on the way out….sneaky eh….
