El Camino 2014 . . . Part II: July 2014

Thursday, 31 July 2014

Paris Day 2

The alarm rang at 6:30 and I was off to the airport to collect Maggie. I arrive at 8:30 and Maggie came through customs at 9:00. What a relief!!!

We went to the train station which is part of Terminal 2 at the airport, and booked our train tickets to Toulouse. We managed to get seats on the TGV fairly close together.

We headed back to the hotel and deposited Maggie's back pack in the room before tackling Paris! We thought about an On Off tour but "why not walk?" We took the Metro to Etoile Charles de Gaulle and walked down the Champs Élysées to the Place de la Concorde. That is about 1.5 km.

We tried the Musee d'Orangerie again and . . . It was open! And the queue was short! The Orangerie was closed for years and then the word was that there would be a simple renovation and they would open soon. The renovation lasted from 2000 to 2006. I visited Paris in 2011 and the Orangerie was closed. It was closed yesterday (Tuesday). But it was open today and it was worth the wait. There are two oblong rooms designed for Monet's Waterlilies; 4 paintings per room. The paintings are huge and, since Monet had cataracts when he painted them, you can tell the sequence by the amount of detail in them. He painted with his brushes attached to a long stick so that he had some idea of the image son the canvas.

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Location:Paris

Wednesday, 30 July 2014

First stop . . . Paris

The first European stop was Paris but due to a hiccup by Air Canada, I arrived a day earlier than Margaret Anne. On Monday, June 28th, Liz McCaughey dropped me off at Pearson Airport in Toronto. I was early and our flight did not leave until 7:30 pm. Around 4:30 I began to wonder where Maggie was. Did she meet friends from Toronto and visit with them? Was her flight from Calgary delayed? So I went on Air Canada's website and looked up the flight status and saw that the flight was delayed and was supposed to arrive at 7:10. I talked to the ground crew and they were not very helpful. According to the woman we should be better communicators and not expect Air Canada to help us out when they have technical trouble and delay a flight by an hour and a half! Hmm. Finally she agreed to leave a note telling Maggie to phone me on my cell. Then she told me that they had no idea which flight Maggie would go on . . . Maybe she would go on a different airline. Maybe to a different European city. Of course to me, an amateur, the next Air Canada made sense but the ground crew thought that was just ridiculous. 24 hours later, on the next flight to Paris, Maggie arrived with bells on. Incidentally, the Air Canada information people in Paris let me know Maggie was on that flight! Later in the day I received an email and a phone call from Maggie.

In the meantime, I walked all over Paris from Place de Clichy to Printemps and Galleries Lafayette, to the Louvre, to the Orangerie, to Notre Dame, the rue de Rivoli, up Boulevard Hausmann, to place de Clichy and the hotel just off Avenue de Clichy. 25 kms. The Weather Network said that the weather would be dreary and it was. There were several downpours! I figured that Rick Steve's theory that fresh air and exercise were the enemy of jet lag would work and it did even though I was awake between 12:00 and 1:30.

The Eiffel Tower from the Galleries Lafayette department store's roof.

Statuary in Parc Monceau on the way back up to Avenue de Clichy.

Flower market near the Monceau Metro Station.

The Plage (beach) au bord de la Seine.

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Location:Paris

Monday, 28 July 2014

Leaving Toronto

The Camino is getting closer! I'm meeting Maggie the afternoon at Pearson International airport in Toronto. Mary will meet us in Paris and then we are heading south to Toulouse and Lourdes before crossing the Pyrenees from St. Jean pied de Porte.

I had no trouble going through security with my hiking poles and my backpack. Fingers crossed that I will not forget them! A fellow in The Green Canoe outfitters in Cobourg helped me to adjust my pack as it was tilting backwards. I've been carrying it around a little so that it won't feel awkward when we start the Way.

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Friday, 18 July 2014

One week until take off!

We are working out the final details: where to meet at Charles de Gaulle airport? Do we need to take protein bars? What about water? - last time it was difficult to access water bottles with the backpacks on. Will the Canadian Pilgrim credentials arrive in time? Yes! Have we trained enough? We will see. We need to buy some Euros and still need to book places in Toulouse in advance of our departure from St. Jean.

Stay tuned.