July 7, 2014 – Paris.
From my journal:
Marc came by in the morning, with the understanding we were checking out by noon. We thought we had until midnight (our booking confirmation said “midnight.”), but he was asking us to vacate early for the next visitors. We left in half an hour (11:30) and Marc arranged to let us leave our packs in the tour office on the ground floor, and fetched our laundry, as it wasn’t ready yet.
We bused to the Arc de Triomphe and walked the Champs-Élysées.
We decide to walk to the Cluny* which was farther than I realized. A great collection of medieval art, esp. the stained glass and the tapestries.
We walked around the Left Bank some more, ending up at the Luxembourg Gardens.
There we caught a bus back to pick up our packs, , and another bus over to Gare du Nord to catch the train to London. There was some kind of breakdown in the Chunnel, so all the trains were delayed, and for ours – the 9:13 – they announced a 2 1/2 hour delay. We were there 2 hours ahead of time. The train ended up leaving at 11:15, so we waited 4 hours , a lot of it standing in line.
I fell asleep right away and slept for the whole ride – almost unheard of for me.
Since the buses and the tube weren’t running, they paid our ways by taxi (Yes, for every single person on the train. There were scores of cabs waiting outside.) A Chinese girl who was riding with us was getting a free ride all the way to Birmingham!
We arrived at the hostel about 2:00 am.
Paris: Luxembourg Gardens, the Medici Fountain.
*The Musée national du Moyen Âge, formerly Musée de Cluny.
The Free Range 