We are in Paris…

This morning started out OK.  We left the hotel at the time we meant to and although the walk to the terminal took slightly longer than the quoted seven minutes, it was relatively straight forward.  I had bought a luggage trolley in Bath, which I had been using for my two day packs.  Today I used it for the cargo bag and just carried my back pack (on my back) which I took as carry on.  It worked well going to the terminal at Luton.  Had more trouble in Paris as the pavement was more uneven and I don’t think I had it positioned as well.  In any case it beats carrying the cargo bag!

There was a slight hick up at Luton as I was chosen to be searched.  The most annoying thing was that I had to take my shoes off.  However a long-handled shoe horn was produced when I asked.  We found a café serving a decent breakfast of which we partook.  We were trying to use up the sterling we had left.  We also did a spot of last minute shopping.

The flight was fine – it doesn’t take long to get from London to Paris.  We eventually got to pick up our bags and made it to the train.  However there was another slight hick up as Anna had forgotten that when she turned off her tablet it forgot the email that was open and she didn’t know the code to get into the apartment where we are stopping, which we booked through Airbnb.  Fortunately Anna had a phone number, so we ended up finding a public phone and ringing the owner, who gave us the code.  It turned out the walk from Gare du Nord to the apartment wasn’t really all that far.  (Another problem was that our mobile phones didn’t seem to be working, although we thought they should.)

The apartment is in a sort of gated community.  The owner lives in the apartment above.  The way to the apartment is another slightly scary staircase, but only on the second floor at least!  This is a view of the garden from the apartment.

After we collected our thoughts and ate the lunch we had bought before we left Luton (I say “lunch”,although it was about 4pm), we set off to explore.  We walked to the Montmartre Hill.  We then actually caught the funicular to the Sacre-Coeur Basilica.  This is a view from below.   

We got slightly harassed by two African men – ended up being easier to “buy” the bracelets they’d foisted on us (they were nice bracelets) rather than have a confrontation…

We walked back to the apartment to get ourselves organised for tomorrow's Paris exploration.