Nancy to Paris - Monday 7/11/05

On Monday, we cleaned up the apartment of Shannon's host family in Nancy. A friend of Shannon's from school here in Nancy, Dorothy, showed up in the morning. We will be giving her a ride to Paris. She said she is familiar w/Paris and enjoys navigating so I was very much relieved to hear that. Once we get to the Paris suburbs, I will let her take over the navigating.

We had parked the car in a covered garage during our stay in Nancy and it was still safe and sound, so we packed it, said our goodbyes to Nancy, and took off for Paris. We decided not to do the autoroute per the Michelin guide but instead took a National Road. The speed limit was slower and it went through more of the country side which was very nice. We stopped in a small town called Frere Champenize for lunch at a very nice boulangeries. We bought our sandwiches and treats and then walked over to the local church steps to eat it. The town was very quiet and we didn't see many people out, probably because most everything shuts down between 12-2 everywhere. Lots of beautiful flowers in the house windows and small parks. The town also hosted a cemetery to the dead lost in WW1 which we had noticed from the highway.

From Frere Champenize to Paris the countryside started to charge from rural to urban. Dorothy did a superb job of navigating us through Paris despite the awful traffic. We entered in the south of Paris and had to get to north central Paris to return the car to Gare du Nord. We decided to drop off all the luggage at the Paris apartment first, then drive the 5 blocks to the train station to return the car. That 5 blocks took about 1 hour to drive because of all the traffic congestion. We had been instructed to leave the car at a parking garage near the train station. We drove underground for 5 levels and never saw a single National Car Rental employee. We left it in a parking spot near other National Car rental vehicles, said good-bye to Dorothy since she had to catch a train elsewhere, and then walked to Gare du Nord to find the National Car Rental desk to give them the keys.

We found the desk and returned the keys and breathed a sigh of relief to be on foot again and out of the traffic. We wandered around the station and figured out how and where to catch the RER next Saturday to Charles de Gaulle airport.

It felt like we were "home" since we were back to an area that we had already been to. We cruised the local markets and bought groceries for breakfast and dinner, then collapsed for the evening watching the Tour de France.

Steve figured out that we had driven 2100 miles since we had last left Paris in all our wanderings around France.