Paris - day 3

Tuesday – Day 3

We had enough of the metro yesterday so today we decided to try out the velib, which are the free bikes all over paris. It’s pretty cool. There are stations all over the city, notes on maps and all you do is take a bike from one velib station and return it at another. You do have to subscribe first, but that only takes 5 minutes or so. We did the short-term subscription, we had a ticket with a number on it and all you do it key in the number and choose to take a bike and your set. The rates are 1 euro per day and if you keep the bike for under 30 minutes you don’t pay anything else. If you keep in longer than ½ hour it’s something like 1 euro an hour. But what we would do is ride towards our destination and right before the ½ hour was up, we’d ditch the bike and rent another. I don’t recommend it to everyone though, you really have to be a confident cyclist because it’s pretty crazy on the roads. The first day we saw 3 accidents, not with cyclists, but with scooters/mopeds and cars. There are many streets which are highlighted green on maps and these have bike lanes, which are much better.

We started out renting some bikes and riding around the 7th. We were going to go into the Rodin but we got lost on the bikes (something very easy to do) so it took us longer to get over there than we had planned. So we ditched the bikes and walked around the 7th for a bit. I had lunch plans in the 4th, I was meeting Leesa, Barbara and Dawn! So excited to meet some fellow bloggers. Leesa picked her favorite restaurant in the Marias so I left Bruce at the Rodin and hopped the metro over to meet them. We had a great lunch at a super cute place called “le loir dans la theiere. 2 ½ hours went by so fast but I had a lovely time with the girls. They are all wonderful, friendly, warm and super cool.

just cruising around

one of the velib stations

Bruce and I had planned to meet in front of the Rodin at 4:30, but I didn’t leave lunch until 4:30, so I was a bit late, he didn’t mind. I found him at the bistro on the corner, at the bar, drinking a pastis. He had a great day at the Rodin, he took his sketchbook and spent the entire time sitting in front of amazing sculptures.

Rodin sculpture

Pastis

We had dinner plans with Sebastian, his parents live near us in the Aveyron. They retired down here many years ago and we met Sebastain over Christmas. He and JP live in the 11th and we met him at his flat for dinner. Lovely lovely night, a great bottle of Burgundy, excellent meal and delicious dessert. We’ll be seeing him next week when he comes down to the Aveyron.

Another long day, but so much fun. Not sure I could live here full-time, I’d be exhausted, but part-time, oh yes!!!