Urban Cycling Adventures in Paris

We got to Paris by train Monday. We started by getting to the post office in Orléans right before it opened at 9 to ship stuff back. So, an hour and twenty minutes later, the third package was posted. Ouff! The XL Colissimo box wasn’t as big as I expected. Pro tip: if you want to ship a lot back, find a big box by asking at shops. These Colissimo boxes are “if it fits, it ships” but they aren’t huge. We needed 3 to fit 2 sleeping bags, air pads, a tent, and a few clothes. Also, per the forums I found, if you don’t speak French, best to wait and go to the main post office in Paris. In Orléans, if I hadn’t been able to speak French, I’m not sure we could have gotten anything done. Ugh! All the forms for customs!

We had to swing by the Orange store to top up our prepaid plans… The initial one is only good for two weeks. More on that later. Then we got back to the hotel, packed up everything onto our bikes and walked across the street to the train station. We had plenty of time, so I grabbed us some lunch while we waited.  A train goes between here and Paris every hour or so and since it terminates at those points, there’s ample time to get the bikes on and back off. We were momentarily baffled by the fact that there was a car with the bicycle emblem on it, but no spots for bikes! The platform attendee started waving us back 2 cars, to one without the symbol. Of course that was where the bike storage was!

It was a nice ride into Paris. We arrived at the Paris Austerlitz station and needed to get to our hotel next to the concert venue. We got out Google maps and actually made it, carefully picking our way through, stopping to look at the next turns on the directions frequently. We had paid for the hotel with points, so it was an awesome place! Novatel Paris Bercy – 4 stars. The only problem was that no matter how much we checked, the street noise was so loud we thought the window wasn’t closed completely. We were on the first floor (second if you count the way we do in the states), so rooms higher up may not have been so bad. I wouldn’t stay there, though, unless it was for a concert. It’s literally next to the small arena, but that means before and after concerts, it’s a mob scene. We were lucky to find a seat at a nearby place for a quick dinner before the concert.

Brian has a habit of checking for concerts we might want to see whenever he plans vacations. We’ve never really found anything amazing, or not sold out, or not outrageously expensive. We really wanted to see something in Denver at Red Rock a couple years ago, but our timing was off.  This time, he hit the jackpot.

This concert was one reason we ended our tour when we did. We thought we might get back on the trail Tuesday. But that would involve another train ride back and forth. Then we needed to be back in Paris Friday. When we looked at the map ahead, there weren’t any “must see” things, and there weren’t towns that were likely to have train stations big enough to go direct back to Paris. We’d likely have to have taken a regional line to Orléans, then take the Paris direct train from there.  Besides, if we waited for Friday, there would be very little time to see the sights in Paris.

So the morning after the concert, we were headed back to the hotel we stayed at when we first arrived. We had made arrangements with them in advance by email to leave our cases there.  However, we were getting there three nights earlier than our reservations were for. Not sure why it hadn’t occurred to us to jump on booking.com to try to reserve a couple extra nights as soon as we decided to go back early.  They were happy to see us and asked about the trip. They also kindly brought one of the cases up so I could get my jacket out of it. I missed it in that cold weather! (of course, it’s now hot this week)  Anyway, they didn’t have anything available until Thursday night, 1 day before our original reservations.  So, on the sidewalk we got onto booking.com and found a place just down the street, on the biggest street in Montparnasse. Unfortunately, the only places available were pretty pricey. Ah well, we’ve done pretty well on our budget this far. We picked the Holiday Inn.  They had a garage, but even for bikes charged for that. We paid for a full car space for two bikes. Ugh. But at least it was convenient and secure.

At dinner, we realized something had gone wrong with my top-up at Orange. We had noticed we each got different messages when we entered our codes. Hmmmm. At dinner, I had no data. No warning texts about being out. Just no data. When I dialed the number to check data, it said my original holiday plan was expired, but wasn’t telling me anything about my top-up. That meant waiting until 10 tomorrow to go to the shop we originally went to so we could get this sorted. I tried online, but you have to have a French account to do it that way. Turns out the lady in Orléans had for some unimaginable reason sold us not only the wrong top-ups, but two different wrong ones. Mine had no internet, just calls and texts, which we hardly need. Argh. 20 Euros later and I had the right plan top-up.

Getting around Paris by bike is an adventure. Great for an adrenaline junky, but I have more of a love-hate relationship with adrenaline. Anyway, many streets have some sort of bike lane. It may be the bus lane, it may be a bike only lane separated by a curb, or just painted bike outlines on the outside of the outside lane (obviously, my least favorite). The circles are the worst. While France has stricter laws and penalties for cars around cyclists than the US, the drivers aren’t nearly as aware and careful as they are in the Netherlands. Part of it is that, despite the French love of cycling, dealing with lots of cyclists on city streets hasn’t been around as long here. We’ve tried following the marked bike lanes on the outside of the circles, taking a cue from other riders we’ve seen that point to the left when they are not exiting. Sometimes that works, but often we have cars that want to exit that either slam on their brakes or cut us off as they exit anyway.  Now we just bail and walk our bikes through the pedestrian crossings. 

Despite this, and the fact that it’s only an 18 minute metro ride, we decided to cycle to Versailles on Wednesday. Did I mention it’s hot again? And we got a late start due to the phone ordeal. Brian had found a blog that describes how to get there by chaining through some of the many parks in the city. Just trying to find the first park was crazy. Then we had to try to get through it based on his description, using Google frequently.  Turns out it was  the Bois de Boulogne.  Beautiful! 

Ok, through the first park. Then we found the pedestrian bridge over the Seine, that also continued on to cross the lower streets on the far side of the river, which meant we didn’t go down to the bank level and have to climb back up. Sounds good! Nope. Still had a huge climb. I made it half way, turned a corner, was almost out of momentum, saw the grade, which wasn’t gentle, and dismounted. Ugh. After that, we continued to wind our way towards Versailles.  Before we got to the city, we were climbing on a busy D road with no bike lane. Brian noticed a dirt trail, about the size for a bike off the road. When we had the chance, we cut over to that. From there on into the palace, we were going through lovely neighborhoods mostly with some sort of designation for bikes. We just had to keep our eyes peeled as they sometimes crossed to the other side of the road abruptly. 

The town around Versailles is really beautiful and seems very liveable.  I loved the broad, treelined avenue that is “Rue de Versailles.”  We had stopped and bought sandwiches at a boulangerie before that long D road climb. I got the formule, so we had Paris-Brest pastries we ate just outside the shop. Once we got to Versailles, we found a spot along the outside to chain our bikes up, directed there by the parking attendant, whose office was right there. After a quick security checkpoint, we took our sandwiches into the main courtyard, Brian found a bench in the shade where we could eat  while I went in to buy tickets. The lines were thankfully short this time of day. Five minutes to buy tickets, maybe 10 minutes to get through the airport style security and into the palace – metal detectors and bag x-rays included. We had to check our helmets and what was left of our lunch at a desk after security.

The palace is stunning. I remember some of it from high school, but Brian hadn’t been.  The crowds can get pretty annoying, though. After hitting the highlights inside, we went a bit around the gardens, but the heat was brutal, so back to the bikes.  We refilled our water bottles on the way out at the lion spring fountain. I still didn’t have enough water to get all the way back, though.  We tried a more direct route back to Montparnasse. We almost never found our way out of the huge, terraced park in St. Cloud.  It was a bit of a comedy, but we were too hot and tired to find it very funny. At one point in the ride, Brian managed to cut the back of his leg pretty good on his chain ring.

Because we had gotten a late start, we hit the Left Bank at rush hour. We routinely stopped to check Google and would bail at crazy intersections and circles to walk through.  I actually spotted a convenience store at a gas station on our side of the road, so we stopped and bought an ice cold 1.5 liter bottle of water to refill our empty water bottles. So good!  The traffic was thinning out in the lull between work and the rather late dinner time here.  Back at the hotel we took quick showers then headed to our favorite chain restaurant in Paris (yes, we have one!) “Indiana Club.” They have decent tex-mex (the guacamole and chips are really good!) and a quirky atmosphere, with decor that is based on native Americans – an apparent misinterpretation of “Indiana.” 

Today was a rest and laundry day. We had to change hotels one last time, so it was going to be broken up anyway. The hotel that has been storing our bike cases didn’t have our room ready at the early hour of noon, we left our bikes in their courtyard and headed the 50 meters down to the laundromat. One last round of laundry. The attendant was such a nice lady! Like the neighborhood mom. At one point, she seemed to notice the time, run out, and come back in with an adolescent boy. She went into her office and came out with several books. She really talked one of them up to him, he took it, thanking her profusely. It was just one of those storybook scenes that you only see when you really immerse yourself in a culture. 

We grabbed a light lunch after laundry and then checked into the hotel. The desk attendant had brought all our luggage up to our room!  After getting a little settled in, we dragged the cases down to the courtyard to dismantle and pack our bikes. Another really hot day in that courtyard! It took us just right at an hour and a half this time. So the urban cycling adventure is over.  I’m glad we did it, but not sure I’d want to do more.

The next couple days are pure tourism time…using the metro!