Monday, September 29, 2014
After lunch we said goodbye to Marijke and Coen and drove from Wageningen to Tourcoing; the latter picked solely as stopover en route to Versailles to avoid a long day’s driving. There is not much to Tourcoing. A nice little church in the center of town, but that is about it. The city center was a little dead at night, even some of the pubs closed at 7pm. Fortunately the Subway was open and we were able to get some dinner. I don’t think we will be be coming back.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Continuing towards Versailles we stopped in Amiens for a visit to Amiens Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage site and lunch. The cathedral was very nice and well kept. It claims to have the head/skull of John the Baptist. At least they have someone’s skull on display.
Continuing on from Amiens our trusty Garmin directed us perfectly to Odile and Eric’s mini mansion on the outskirts of Versailles town. We got a comprehensive tour of the house and grounds and let Odile get back to work while we went for a stroll around the estate. The house and grounds are lovely and contain a very modern yet eclectic art collection. A lot of love and passion has gone into their home.
We had dinner with Odile and it was nice to get to know her a little better. We ended up staying up quite late just chatting away.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Up early for the commute into Paris. We planned to make our journey in after the bulk of the rush-hour, and this sort of worked. However, once we hit Paris things started to fall apart. We could not find anywhere to park Sterlin for more than 2 hours. All of the inner-city long term parking was height restricted and not suitable for our over-height car. And the high clearance car parks were either private or restricted to delivery vans. So after 3 hours of driving around we changed tactics. We decided to park in one of the many 2 hour spots and to just keep returning to feed the meter. This plan actually worked out very well.
We had a lovely coffee, lunch, glass of wine and afternoon with Marie, a fellow traveller whom we had met in the tunnels of Vieng Xai in Laos. We again re-told stories and compared notes.
Dinner was spent with Tim, Nathalie, Emily and Elliot. It had been 15 years since we had seen Tim and Nathalie and we had quite some catching up to do. Truly a wonderful evening. We promised each other not to go another 15 years before the next reunion.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Up early again. This time for the short ride to the Palace of Versailles, which was inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. No problem finding a place to park. We visited the Apa artments, the Gardens and the Grand Trianon. We spent the entire day wandering around Versailles Palace and the grounds taking it all in, stopping only for a baguette, some french patisseries and coffee.
The evening was spent relaxing and catching up with email and the blog. Dinner was with Odile and some of her staff who were working late.
Friday, October 3, 2014
We said goodbye to Odile – for now, we’ll meet again in Hong Kong – and set off towards Normandy.
