Today was my last day in Paris so what better time to discover my favourite place. Kamel and I started the day with a trip to the supermarket for croissants and more mint to make more tea. He then suggests going for a bike ride through the city. There’s one catch though…for the first bit we both have to ride on his bike. He convinces me so I hop on all well and hope for the best. I have to admit, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Finally we reached one of the stops for free bikes. There’s a system in Paris, and a lot of other cities around the world, to borrow a bike from one point and drop it off at another somewhere else in the city. It’s free for the first 45 minutes but if you don’t have it back at another drop-off point by then, it costs 1 euro. We started in Clichy and rode to near the river Seine, it was about a 15km ride all up. Despite the traffic, cycling through the city is relatively safe. There is a lot of respect on the road for cyclists and some bike lanes. It isn’t compulsory to wear helmets - the only people who do are children.
It’s quite nerve-wracking riding through the streets so I just followed Kamel. As long as I remembered to look for the red lights and remember to stop. Riding on the cobblestones isn’t fun though…beautiful to look at but really, I should have worn a sports bra. We make it to the river Seine in one piece and drop the bike back. We then go down to the “beach”. The weather was a lot nicer so there were heaps of people there. The Parisians really do treat it like a beach. They sunbake in their bathers on towels, the kids build sand castles and there are sprinklers for them to run under. We eat our croissants and have an ice cream while we walk along the bank. There are a couple of street performers, the most amusing being an old man wearing a T-shirt saying “Papy dancing”. He has a CD player and speakers playing top-40 songs and dances along. Kamel said a lot of older people turn to doing things like that because the pension isn’t enough. Maybe Australian pensioners should turn to busking.
It’s mid-afternoon when we get back to the bikes but for some reason Kamel’s transport card won’t work so we can’t hire another one. Instead we decided to walk to Luxemburg Garden, which I drove past yesterday. I had wanted to go in then, but ran out of time. We buy a baguette, some cheese and hummus on the way there.
The park is huge and amazing. It doesn’t take long for me to decide this is my favourite place in Paris. We sit down by a fountain and pond. Children can buy little sailboats and sail them in the water, so the pond is full of them. The kids run around the outside with sticks to push their boats back into the centre. It’s hot so I stick my feet into the water…very refreshing. After lunch we walk around the rest of the park. There is a family area, with secure fences, sand pits and shallow pools for kids to play, people playing chess, tennis courts, basketball courts and heaps and heaps of chairs all around the park for people to pull up anywhere. Kamel told me that people often go to parks to sunbake and relax, just as we would go to the beach. I guess there isn’t room on the banks of the River Seine for everyone.
Kamel rides back to the train station (it’s too much hassle to take the bike on the metro) and I catch the bus and meet him there. Then it’s home time.
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