Paris

It's a clear night, so very chilly and it takes a lot of willpower to get out of a warm bed when the alarm goes off at 7am. We are on French summer time here, but Brittany is so far in the west of France that it should be on the same time zone as the UK. Redon is further west than Bournemouth. Which means that at 7am, the sun has not yet risen. But we get ourselves out of bed, shower, dress, breakfast on croissants and jam, complete our packing and clean the boat ready for checkout at 9:30. Our pre-booked taxi arrives to take us to the station, the driver helps to take the bags from the boat to the taxi and waits patiently as we do our final settling up. We have already had our security deposit returned, but we think we have to pay an hourly rate for engine usage. But I had forgotten that I'd prepaid for a package that gave us that and insurance, so there's nothing owing. 

When the taxi drops us at the station we have an hour to wait for the train, but the station is very pleasant, has a cafe and bookshop that sells a wide range of books, magazines, newspapers, much more than you'd find in a country railway station in Oz. Redon has a population of around 10,000 people - it's not a big place. We have a coffee - why can you get a really good coffee even in a railway station in France, but awful coffee in a lot of the UK? I started drinking lattes in the UK because a weak latte isn't as bad as a weak long black, but in Thurso I got one where the heated milk had a skin on it. Bleah! In France I drink straight cafe, not even an allongé, which is edging toward an Americano, a bit weak for me.

The train is five minutes late in Redon, but there is another long delay when the train just stops for ages somewhere between Redon and Rennes, so we arrive in Paris at 2pm, about 45 minutes behind schedule. Which doesn't matter at all as we have no particular plans and we can't check into our hotel until 3pm anyway. It's a very long walk down the platform at Gare Montparnasse, but when we finally find the Sortie and come out into the open, the hotel I've booked is just across the road. We drop off our bags, go for a walk, find a local cafe that looks good and have a late lunch of roast duck.

When we return to the hotel our bags are already in our fourth floor room - it's surprisingly quiet for a hotel on a busy main road with a railway station opposite. It's time for a bit of a rest until early evening, when we set out to see what Paris is like on a Friday night. We find our way to the nearest Metro and after a bit of a struggle work out how to buy ourselves tickets to go to St-Michel on the edge of the Seine. From there we find our way to an amazing English language bookshop called Shakespeare and Company, have a browse there, then walk across to Ile de la Cité to look at the restoration work being done on Notre Dame, across to the other side of the island to watch boats going up and down the Seine, then gradually work our way back to the Metro and return to Montparnasse.

Biggest crane I've ever seen working on Notre Dame Had to take the photo on an angle to fit it all in

We ate lunch so late that we don't need an evening meal, and all the cafes near the Seine are full of tourists, so not attractive. Back in Montparnasse we find another cafe that seems full of locals, where we indulge in strawberries and cream washed down with rose. The specialty of the house seems to be steak with some sort of mashed potato, possibly with cheese? We watch fascinated as the waiters repeatedly appear with a copper saucepan from which they pour this concoction on to people's plates, from a height of about 40cm. Now back in the hotel and it's time to sleep so that we can explore more of Paris tomorrow and go to the opera in the evening.