Wednesday afternoon saw us rolling our bikes out of St Lazare station in Paris and in to the rush hour traffic. At first slightly daunting we soon discovered that if you acted as if you owned the road that you'd probably come to little harm. Weaving our way through the in and out buses, motorbikes, cars and vans became paradoxically enjoyable as opposed to threatening. We eventually found our air BnB in the northern parts of town. A huge yet unassuming door led to a secluded courtyard behind a security gate decorated with potted plants and fellow bicycles. After dropping off our bags we headed out to find in search of wine and chips (Editors note: FRITES!) as our host needed to finish cleaning - alas no shower quite yet! We walked aimlessly around until we came across a bar, got us some wine and chips and enjoyed another milestone of the trip - reaching Paris! The bikes had suffered a little from the sea salt, cold temperatures and plenty of rain so the next morning we gave the bikes a thorough clean and can now say they gleam!

First full day in Paris - Trusting Heather and a map (she had got us to Paris after all) and following her refusal to get the Metro that early on we walked with purpose, visiting the outside of the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, which Barney mistakenly thought was THE Arc de Triomphe, and once lightheartedly corrected by Heather now refers to it as the French Brandenburg Gate (Editors note: They do NOT look that alike!), then THE Arc de Triomphe, for which Heather and Barney spent 15 minutes sat in the entrance both contemplating whether to pay £30 to see it, even considering sneaking through the exit, before plucking up the courage to ask whether it was free or not and then finding out that it was free unless you wanted to go inside. In that time we'd devoured our supply of biscuits. A huge monument, situated at the centre of the most ridiculous roundabout Barney's ever seen (The Magic Roundabout has nothing on it), it struck a huge tone of both resounding military victories, but also of the sacrifices of so many, notably the French tomb of the unknown soldier and it's continual flame. Then on to the Eiffel Tower, which, despite its colossal size, was now overshadowed by the tourism tax and works under progress on it. Sadly you can no longer walk underneath for free. I suppose France does now have to seek additional income after BREXIT! (They really do like showing off their prices for EU v Non-EU countries). Following the Eiffel Tower we raced back to the apartment to get ready for the evenings main attraction, seeing Hans Zimmer perform live in the Accor Arena. (Which would finally see Heather get her 29th birthday present, as part of the trip to Paris which was her 28th birthday present, after her 30th birthday! Thanks COVID!) We walked over thirty thousand steps which felt more exhausting than cycling so far. Although, a couple thousand of them were definitely from walking around the outside of the arena numerous times being redirected by various staff to collect our tickets. Eventually, after finally getting inside the arena, we were then told to go back outside to queue up again for another entrance! However the whole evening was incredible and more than made up for the small inconvenience, which mostly was just found very amusing by us!

As it's it quite the busy season in Paris we assumed that tickets for the catacombs would be easy to get - turns out we were wrong! So instead we headed to the Louvre; Heather enjoys looking at paintings and Barney old things and we even treated ourselves to two of the most expensive muffins on Earth! A short walk past Notre Dame to see the parts still standing and learn about how they are restoring it - slowly, but with impressive determination for 2024!

A favourite moment of Paris was stumbling across a tiny restaurant with a well priced three course meal! It felt truly luxurious after eating off a camp stove for a week. The place was nicely quirky inside and definitely one to remember.

After the break from the poor weather, it was finally time to depart. And of course, as expected, it rained and just did not stop... So we set about rearranging all our bags as it wasn't quite working for us. Finding the right combination for each bag is important! After wrapping ourselves in full waterproofs we had no option but to hand back the keys and roll out the door in to the rain. Finding our way out of Paris was very easy... Just keep the River Seine on your right, eventually cross over and then keep it on your left - even Barney could navigate with those instructions! At one point we did take shelter under a bridge where Barney was convinced a man was going to stab us, during the heaviest rain but apart from that it was flat and easy cycling. We just tried not to think about how wet our shoes were getting. Food was restocked in a supermarket which is where we also ended up having lunch to avoid more rain.

As it was getting dark we were still in a fairly built up area so decided to pitch our tent on a grassy spot between the River and the trainline. Although our tent it dark green we still felt quite conspicuous in the morning with all the early morning dog walkers. That and we hadn't got up that early - it was just too nice and warm in the tent - and dry! As we finished packing up a man approached and said he looked after the area, asking if we were OK we said yes it was just cold! He laughed and we rolled on... Towards the south of France.