Last Tangle in Paris

The last two months really have been a blast. Riding 1200 km across France, staying in around 30 different hotels, walking so many kilometres my legs ached and easting sumptuous 3 course meals almost every night is not easy. The fact that I have survived so far, even at my great old age of 75 years, gives me some source of pride.
But I am now ready to go home. I am tired of having a hotel room so small that I have to go outside into the street to turn around. I am tired of having to reverse into the toilet because it had been added as some sort of cruel afterthought to the room design, I am tired of not knowing how to control the elaborate plumbing in order to get the shower right (and why is it so different in every hotel?). I am tired of struggling to exercise my limited French every time I need to ask something.
I am ready to go home. I am ready to enjoy some space and familiarity. I want to see my family again. There is however, one thing that I will REALLY miss - those daily baguettes. To me it is an eternal mystery why we cannot make anything like them in Australia.
So what was I going to do on my last day in Paris ? The answer is - not a lot. The eternal summer was still in full force. The sun was shining brightly so no need for coats and umbrella. It was perfect for yet another walk. I still had a small amount of shopping to complete, but apart from that, my day was free.
The shopping was easier than I thought, so after my goods were safely back at the hotel, I walked down to the bank of the Seine, to bask in the autumn sun and watch people. What else would you do in Paris ? Love it or hate it, there is no doubt that Paris really is unique. Over the past few years, I had observed a huge increase in the number of people speeding the streets on high powered ebikes and scooters. While that has reduced the number of cars battling for space on the streets, it has added a new degree of danger when crossing the roads. Unfortunately the bike and scooter riders seemed to have universally adopted the principle that red lights do not apply to them. Time and time again, I have been about to step out to begin to cross the road, before noticing at the last minute that I was about to become roadkill. This evening I met with Mark and Tim for dinner and Mark shared that he had seen a pedestrian struck by a speeding cyclist. Apparently the rider did not even stop to check on the condition of the person they had just struck.
On the short walk back from the restaurant to the hotel, I noticed a police car and ambulance at the intersection opposite the hotel. It was an intersection I had walked through dozens of times over the past few days. This time there was someone lying motionless on the ground, apparently struck on the pedestrian crossing by an escooter rider. Even with the police presence, I noticed that riders were still happily riding straight through the red lights, much to the anger of the constabulary.
Tomorrow I begin the long journey home. Although the flight time is only around 24 hours, due to the mystical mathematics of time travel, it will take two days before I finally reach my front door. This will be my final update from the trip, The next entry will be when I am back home. I hope I have been able to share something of what we have experienced over the past two months, although these things really need to be experienced, rather than read about. Thanks for reading.Read more