Kiwi Roaming

Day 3 in Paris and another wonderful breakfast at the Hotel Mercure Paris Bercy Bibliothèque – follow the link to check out the photos, it was a cute, comfortable, somewhat pricey hotel with fabulous breakfasts!

On my list for Paris was to go walking on the Coulée verte René-Dumont or Promenade plantée René-Dumont a section of former railway line now 4.7km of walkway raised above the city. It took us about 30 minutes to get through the 12th Arrondissement to join the walk. It was awesome walking this highly planted path, behind apartments, shops and hotels, it even goes through two parts of the same building in one place. One thing we have observed is Parisians run, bike and walk en masse. This walkway was full of runners.

We then headed to a wonderful indoor / outdoor market – Marché d’aligre – where we marvelled at the size of the fruit and veges, the wonderful looking figs and gooseberries, plus the price of the various zespri products on offer. The next stop I took everyone on the walking tour was Rue Crémieux a picturesque street that now contains a sign asking tourists not to snap pics or film – we imagine it could have been crazy during the Olympics for the residents.

The rest of the morning we just wandered along the Seine again, one of my observations was the tens of kilometres of river have no barriers relying on folks to keep themselves safe. Paris was putting on another 4 seasons in one day for us, it was still warm but raincoats were required.

Back to the hotel to prepare for our walk to Gare de Lyon, sadly the torrential rain meant we eventually elected to take an Uber XL.

Avignon – after our 3 great days in Paris we were off to Avignon on the TGV. The system means the platform your train will depart from isn’t announced until 20 minutes before departure. We had a bit of trouble finding our correct carriage and seats but got there in the end and settled into our 4 with table to munch on our snacks and watch the countryside including some wicked thunderstorms.

Avignon has two train stations, the purpose built 2001 TVG station which is about 6km from the walled city, and the Avignon Central station just outside the wall. We tried to get an UberXL but after 20 mins realised that wasn’t going to happen so changed the order to an Uber Comfort. We could have caught the local train and walked 20 mins to our accommodation of course.

After battling with the entry lock we made it into our cute apartment, unpacked and headed out for a wander and dinner. The old walled town of Avignon is about 5km in diametre, with a maze of alleyways and one lane streets. We didn’t venture far, found a supermarket and settled on Café Reymond à Avignon where I had the most amazing Quenelle de Brochet which is soft fish in a crayfish sauce baked in the oven. They have a beautiful outdoor terrace but it was raining so we sat on the deck undercover and enjoyed the evening.

A few pics of our apartment below.