Thursday - Stage 17

We rode around this beautiful mediaval village in Provins. Just gorgeous.

Some of the streets we rode


It was then time to clean the camper, and head for Paris. Today we would be joining up with a tour group to follow the Tour for the last 3 days, finishing with grandstand seats on the Champs-Elysses on Sunday.

The plan was to find our motel, dump our stuff, then return the campervan, and ride back to our motel.
There was much prayer in anticipation for this battle with the streets of Paris. It would not be a place for the faint hearted.
Generally all was going OK. Until Gina said “You are now at our hotel”, and we could not spot a hotel.
We drove around the block and fortunately did find it. Turns out some road construction activities had hidden the entrance.

To give Narelle a break from the grind of navigating, John offered to drop the campervan off by himself. Brave move.
Turns out it was quite easy to find the location that was required. The handover was without incident and we got all our deposit back. And thus our journey with the campervan was ended.
We thank God that we survived with out any crashes or major incidents, and escaped only with great memories and stories.
The fact that John and Narelle survived 3 weeks together in such an enclosed space within the campervan bodes well for their continued life ahead together.

John then had to ride back to the motel, via outer and inner city Paris. John loves riding in Paris. The cut and thrust and excitement is awesome. Whizzing through roundabouts at 50kmh with lots of cars around , with understanding drivers, is just such a thrill. So much so that John forgot about heading to the hotel and kept having a great time riding. Eventually he realised Narelle would be anxious until he arrived back at the hotel, so he set off for ‘home’. Narelle was greatly relieved at his appearance.

Our first shower in a ‘real’ shower for 3 weeks was fabulous. None of the 60 second shower stuff for us tonight.
We were a little concerned about not being able to contact the tour group leaders. But after some nice cheese and bread, and sharing a nice bottle of beaujelouis (2007), we easily fell asleep. Actually there were no coffee/tea making facilities , so wine was the only drink we actually had available. Shame about that.