I feel like I have been in Paris for ages !! This is easily the longest we/ I have stopped anywhere, although I haven’t completely stopped ! All will be revealed.

Tourist time

After our walk into the city, Paris for us really started with the arrival of my parents. And what a whirlwind weekend, I think we did more walking around the city in a weekend than we normally do in the cuds. We tried to pack in as much as we could. I’ll leave it the pictures to show where we went. The tourist sights of Paris are fabulous and although certain members of the Worledge family are not known for their patient queuing, everything we saw was superb.

A right ‘Disney day’

And then of course there’s Disneyland Europe! I really don’t know what Tom would have made of us going here, but it would have been foolish not to give it a go. We were staying with Sarah and Richard for a couple of days, they both work for Disney imagineering and live near the park. We had a right ‘Disney day’. You’ve got to give it to Disney; they know how to put on a show, they have created some fantastic ‘sets’ here. Our favorites were the Pirates of Caribbean and Space Mountain?! I drew the line at watching the parade though! You certainly see some sights - not all of which are Disney’s creation, although their expensive and numerous food halls might have contributed!

Although the in your face, ‘you enjoyed the ride, now spend some more money’ was a bit much, we did have a fun day, especially as there was no queuing !! I have to admit though; I enjoyed the local pizza restraunt better, for the company and the food.

Sarah and Richard were kind enough to let us stay for a couple of nights. It was good to catch up, find out what life is like for them in France, get some home cooked food and sleep in a comfy bed! Their hospitalitly was much appreciated.

In the Prison !

Michele’s train back home was on Saturday so we had a few days to together. We stayed in the ‘cheapest beds in Paris’, and yes our room was like a prison cell. These few days were hard for both of us, we enjoyed some more of the sites, including the Louvre, but at the back of our minds was Michele’s return to the UK. I’ll not go into the detail, but Saturday was a truly horrible day.

Me on my own ?

I’ve started walking (train hopping) south out of Paris while staying in a hostel ‘in’ Paris. I’m sharing a room with some very interesting people, a Dutch long distance cyclist, a German painter and an American writer/ teacher who also shares a lot of common interests: in politics, philosophy, putting the world to rights, laughing a lot and drinking beer !! So I’m doing ok at the moment.

What next

I’m leaving Paris tomorrow, I’m going to camp again starting in a town called Melun. Then I’ll keep walking from here along the GR12 and GR213, I think. Hopefully Dave H is going to come over to do some walking with me. That should be a giggle, I’m a bit fitter than when we last went for a walk, and Dave wants to camp wild in the cuds, excellent !!

And, I’m still missing Michele.

Why Daisy ?

I’m sure people have been wondering why Michele is home getting Daisy ? It’s very simple; we have run out of accommodation. The holiday season is basically over in France so most of the tourist campsites are shut or shutting. The gites and hotels we have stayed at in the North have just blown our budget, so we have to stop staying in them. We are also entering very sparsely populated areas of France now, so any services are facilities are way too far apart for walking, our modern world is not designed to be tackled without a car.

How Daisy

We have a number of options. The basic ‘rule’ we have always used on the adventure is
to follow in the footsteps of Tom, using the same spirit of adventure and discovery . For me personally I have always planned to travel by walking or by ‘of the period’ means along the whole route. So as long as I walk (or row a boat or ride a horse etc) without gaps, it really doesn’t matter where I sleep. Hence I am happy with ‘train hopping’ and now the new system called ‘Daisy hopping’. Soon to be followed by the old Daisy/ train/ mountain bike system. Which ever way we do it, I will walk (or etc) without gaps, Michele will walk or ride her bike as much as she can and we will mainly sleep in Daisy. Simple really !?

And here she is:-

Big PS

I’ll end this post saying that I cannot wait for Michele to get back and for Daisy to join us, and to thank everybody who is helping Michele get Daisy ready for her adventure.

While I’m on the subject of thank you’s, I’m touched by the number of you who are visiting this site, we are currently running at over 400 a week and growing ! Well, thank you all very much for your support so far and I hope I’m not boring you too much with these post.

I’ve done a couple of videos. With varing degrees of quality and success. I think Hollywood is safe.

It was just by chance that we ended up in Folleville Medieval Fayre for the day.

Coincidentally, we bumped into a group of long bow men from Rye (a town we had passed through on the tandem). It was an incredibly hot day, but they were totally kitted out in period dress and really looked the part. Chris fancied his chances with the bow and arrow, apparently he did pretty well! (Must be all that archery practice).

It was all a bit bizare, but certainly something worth seeing.

Why? I don’t know. But I’ve taken, yes me, some pictures of Snails and clouds

For those of you that are a little squimish you may want to skip over the pictures of clouds and get straight into the snails.

Snails and clouds

Why ? hmm, Cute and fluffy?

Beauvais to St Leu

On the first few nights out of Beauvais we seemed to have found ourselves back in the ‘trailer park’ campsites. Now I had a slightly naïve view that France would be full of cute campsites, however we have found in the north, that most are residential trailer parks, not comfortable places to pitch our tent at all. In fact some have been a little scary. So we were glad to get to St Leu, where there is a proper tourist campsite.

St Leu was the last campsite before Paris, in the direction we were travelling, but was still around 50 kms short. So, what to do ? We could have gone back to staying in (expensive for us) Gites and hotels or we could stay in the campsite and ‘train hop’ into Paris. This involves walking along the GR routes and then catching a train back to the campsite. The next morning we catch a train out to where we finished the day before then walk to the next appropriate station. Most of the GR routes of France incorporate train stations so that walkers can do just this. I have to be honest about the cost of doing this too, we hardly ever bought ticket as most of the ticket office were shut and we only saw one ticket collector, excellent !!

St Leu to St Denis

We took the GR1, GR11 and some GRP’s along the River Oise and then through some of the most stunning forest I have ever been in. The weather has still been pretty hot, but the trees were starting to look autumnal. It was just beautiful.

We spent 2 days walking through these woods, an unexpected find just noth of Paris.

St Denis to Paris

The Cathedral at St Denis was the first major gothic structure in the world, many cathedrals since have been based on the design of St Denis. The cathedral is also famed for being the burial site of the French Royals. It gave us a bit of an erry feeling, particularly in the crib, where you can see the tombs of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette - just in slabs of simple black stone they look spookily modern.

After the splendor of the Cathedral we walked through what can only be described as slums, so we just walked as fast as our little legs would take us all the way into Paris, through stinking alleys and roads that instantly transformed when we went under the Peripherique (Paris M25). Suddenly we were in the city itself. We just headed straight for the Gare de Nord and caught a train back to St Leu, a very strange feeling, but tomorrow we will be back to Paris and to meet up with my parents, a moment we have both been looking forward to. My parents have been such a great help throughout this journey it is wonderful and fitting that they are our first visitors.

The truth is Tom didn’t actually walk all the way to Venice and back !! Does this come as a shock to some of you ? Well, below is the excellent map created by Strachen in his book about Tom’s life.

He used a variety of transport methods, including horseback or coach through most of France, he was even carried over the Alps on a sedan chair by some mountain guides. So if there any volunteers who want to carry me over the 2000m high Cenis Pass it would be most appreciated.

I don’t think we will find and horse and carts to take us across France, but what I am really interested in, is how Tom got along the Rhine. He paid to be part of a crew that was rowing up the Rhine. Now call me a bit strange, but I think rowing up the Rhine could be lots of fun, and truly ‘following Tom’. So, if anybody has any grand ideas how to do this then please let me know.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, I’ve never paddled or rowed, other than in the fishing ponds at my uncles farm around 25 years ago. So I think I will need beginners kit.

Please contact me or leave a comment if you have any advice or thoughts on this matter !!