Villennes-sur-Seine – Notre-Dame Paris 27 miles plus 5

The day started uneventfully. We declined breakfast at the hotel with the intention of finding a cafe on route. We decided not to try and find ‘The’ Avenue Vert but follow the Garmin. The French bureaucrat who uploaded this Garmin route obviously knew Paris well as the route wound its way through forests, parks and back streets always in the direction we wanted to go.

On route we met Nico a Buddhist monk from Patagonia. His phone was flat so he was having difficulty navigating. We offered to let him follow us and, as he clearly had not read our blog, he thanked us and followed. Along the way we discovered he was trying to get to Toulouse to meet up with some friends from his monastry. He had little money and had taken the cheapest flight to Europe with his bike. It turned out he had flown in to Gatwick from where he then cycled the London to Paris route. His intention was to get the cheapest train to Toulouse as, it transpired, he did not have time to cycle all the way for his agreed meeting.

We cycled with him for about 4 hours along the way inviting him to join us for coffee and eventually lunch. It was our good deed for the day, and anyway we had found no where for breakfast. We really enjoyed his company and were pleased to have someone so interesting to talk to. (That’s my compatriot view as I am no longer interesting).

The Eiffel tower is the spire in backround to large to photograph when we got there.

We eventually went our separate ways from Notre Dame but not before Nico presented us with a postcard he had painted on the Comino Way which he signed.

This was a lovely gesture and in no way expected. Our hotel was a few minutes from Notre Dame and he was sofa surfing on a website for cyclists. He told us about the many people he had met through using this site called ‘Hot Showers’, however we did not take the details. I did though charge his phone on my power pack so he could make contact with his host for the night.

Once we got to our hotel the Chinese laundry opened as we have the luxury of two days in which to dry our cycling gear. Then domestics done we go out for a large beer in a corner cafe and a walk round Notre Dam and buzzing surrounding areas.

The evening was rounded off by my compatriot finding somewhere with a salad and alcohol but not necessarily in that order.

Day off for sight seeing tomorrow.