Day 3 and 4 biking

Day 3 was a slightly shorter day than the one before but the rain continued as well as the hills.

The day started with Derek (Rachel's boyfriend) assisting me in fixing my flat tire. A small sliver of glass was found to be the culprit.

We explored an Abbey in the town where we stopped for lunch. Then we continued on in the rain and powering through a few more hills.

Much of the countryside today was farms and fields of crops.

For the first time we were one of the first groups to arrive at our hotel. We set out to be tourist finding most of the town was closed. I did manage to get a few beverages to bring back home. We spent over 1 hr trying to figure out where to east that was actually open. We wound up at the restuarant of the casino associated with our hotel. 

Day 4 proved to be the easiest day of biking. We gradually descended to the coast to take the ferry from Deippe, France to New Haven, UK. Before leaving the port we had an amazing meal at a restaurant the is a work assist program for the mentally disabled. It was an amazing meal!

Deippe coast

We had to walk our bikes through the line with the cars.

Leaving our bikes on board to head up deck.

Seeing the beautiful sun after our 4 hour ride just before arriving in New Haven.

Biking day 2

Today's biking offered more hills than noted and lots of rain!

We went through many small towns. We only missed our tuna a few times before getting back on track.

This town was right before it poured on us.

We did gear up for the rain before moving on.

A little over half way we checked out a castle however we did not go on the tour as it took 2 hours instead we laid out on the benches and dried off a bit before our last 15 miles to Gisors.

As we enters Gisors I got a flat tire. Since it was raining we are going to fix it in the morning.

Biking day 1

Well the first day of biking started for us by taking the streets of Paris to go see the Eiffel Tower. 

It was a hard first sort of ride in the Paris Monday morning commute with lots of other bikers, scooters and cars.

After seeing the Tower an climbing the 720 stairs to the 2nd tier, Mom and Rachel had an appointment to make perfume and Derek and I walked to the Military museum/Napolian's tomb. We didn't have time to go in the museum and explore but we did see a military funeral.

Then we started our journey losing our path a few times. We made it to Parcs des Impresionestes, a garden designed after Monet's Girvney. I'll add pictures later.  

Paris day 1

Well my first day in Paris was a bit of a flop because it rained most of the day. I did get to see Notre Dame Cathedral but the lines were quite long. We also made it to the Louvre. We saw the Mona Lisa from a distance.

After returning to our hotel we had our bike orientation. We got to see our bikes which Rachel considered better than their bikes in Italy. 

Today we are going to take our bikes to the Eiffel Tower before heading out of Paris. On our way to our next stop we will see replicas of Monet's gardens.