Paris, the last day

A change of plan this morning, we were due to go to Château de Malmaison but unfortunately its closed so we went to the Palace in Versailles instead. Its a massive place and we only had a morning to do a guided visit of the palace and the gardens, nowhere near long enough and we only saw a tiny fraction of the garden, but enough to get into trouble for sitting on a stone.

Lots of photos coming starting with the outside of the building and queues.

Followed by a bit of the gardens

From here we had to almost run back to the Palace for our guided tour, we had walked much further down steps and between hedges than we had realised. A very short queue and we were in, but boy was it crowded.

We were back on the boat in time for lunch and immediately set sail for our final destination, Paris. On the way we passed lots of moored residential boats, working boatyards, at least one with a side slip and lots of loading facilities.

We also saw some well loaded boats on the move before entering probably the largest lock we had been through where there are three abreast and a good jet of water coming through the weir on the left. Thankfully by now Baptiste had got his eye in. 

    A few mor bridges and a decorated hording on a new construction and we would be well into Paris. One of our fellow passengers lived near here when he was growing up which added more interest.

By now it was time for cocktails and as it was our final night all the crew, with the exception of Kevin, he was driving the boat and had been since before lunch, were there to say the official farewell. Dinner would be a little later after we had moored up

By now the world was changing, cargo vessels were replaced by river cruise boats, some who felt we were far too slow and steamed by, even under bridges. We passed our mooring for the night to the right of the smaller “Statue of Liberty” and carried on into the city 

Now the bridges would become more ornate  and we would follow the river passed Notre Dame Cathedral  which stands on an island in the river and back down the other side, then retrace our steps to the statue of Liberty before going down behind the other side of the man made  island to moor.

As you can see the weather is no where near as good as it has been all week and we were about to get rain

As we turned to go  back down the other side of the island you can see the Cathedral. Work is said to be complete but there is still scaffolding and cranes on site. There is a large hording thanking the workers.

Also along the river there are four or five areas where the ground is lowered in a semicircle for dancing, each one with a different style of music plus yet another swimming station.

Dancing the evening away

As well as all the wonderful buildings we also passed a Brass Band playing riverside

We headed back along the river until we came to the Statue of Liberty where we did a 360° turn and went on for a hew hundred yards before mooring for the night. Once moored it was time for our final night gala dinner of the trip. Tomorrow at quarter to eight we would be on our way home .

 

The Next Day

It was raining very lightly when we left the boat but it was only a 10 minute walk to the Metro Station. I had already bought our tickets on line so it was just tap and enter and go. I expected the Metro to be much busier than it was. We had one change and straight into Gare du Nord station. We still hadn’t had breakfast so a visit to the  café across the road was called for. Back to the Eurostar terminal and join the queue at the top of the stairs but they weren't open for our train yet and the previous train had not loaded. Turned out a suspicious item had been discovered in someone’s luggage so they were awaiting specialists. Once that was sorted we were herded into queues and made our way through to the terminal. We didn’t wait long before we were boarding our train, however we had all been issued with new seats on checking but lots of people tried to claim their old seats so some delay as people were pointed to the correct carriages. We were soon off heading back to England.