Paris, Day 2 and a 1/2

The day was simple.
We planned on visiting the Pantheon and leaving for Normandy after lunch.

It had taken Gert over an hour to drive the 5kms down the road to our hotel on arriving in Paris at 2.30pm so we were certain we wanted to leave the city before rush hour.

People talk of traffic in Istanbul and Rome but Paris surely shares top billing. The motor scooters are death-defying poetry in motion and there seems to be a lot of laneless 'merging' at certain points.

I loved it.

So we metro-ed up to the Pantheon area then walked through really lovely streets in the Latin Quarter, passing close by the Sorbonne.

It was too expensive to go in but the exterior was impressive, the surroundings a delight and the cafe we had lunch in was purely delicious.

It was my first introduction to Paysanne omelette and I developed quite a bond with both that and the Paysanne salad as we traveled. Red wine accompanied lunches and dinners, the fresh bread was a delight and as I traveled I came to the conclusion that France is an incredibly civilised country.

Leaving the city was simpler than we could have hoped and 3 hours later we arrived at destination, the house of the gite called La Palmeraie.

'House' is misleading as, although that is what we were offered on discovering the gite was already booked, we ended up with an 'interesting' room, kitchen, pool room and a chalet out in the yard.

It's okay if you're expecting things a little bit rough but I've never had a toilet 'in' my bedroom bedroom before ... over there to the left, next to the clear glass shower cubicle.

The outside chalet went to our traveling companions and it looked truly luxurious in comparison although it was small and cold, according to reports but we did adjust and thought that next time we'd go look before booking. I photographed our 'room' before leaving and as you can see, it looks quite quite lovely.

Despite that, we had fun playing pool at the end of long days spent exploring Normandy. Breakfast was always about fresh bread from the village a few kilometres away, fresh orange juice, and a choice of peach jam and truly good cheeses - the brie being everyones favourite.

It was a lovely way to start the day ... around the pool table that was covered with an oak top, sitting on wooden outdoor chairs - multiple cushions piled on mine so as to minimise the locking up of my lower back.

I do believe my little HP Pavilion dv2000 laughed out loud when I turned on my wifi and searched for a connection. The closest city was Rouen - 60 or 70kms away and there didn't seem to be anything spare in the tiny hamlet we'd located ourselves in.

And so we had arrived in Normandy.