A day on a California Cruiser
What a fantastic day! It is the sort of thing that I would probably only do alone, because Paula would have very sensibly said that one bike tour was enough. But I had a great time and talked to good people and the night finished with the city of lights in all its glory. Shame that it was 11.45 before I got home!
Anyway, full credit to the Fat Tyre people, because they lived up to their reputation.
We went everywhere you might want to see in the day, with reasonable distance of the Tower. The night tour does the breadth of the city, but this was a great opportunity to see the place. If this was your first time in Paris, I think this tour was indispensable. For me, it was a great way to spend some time doing stuff outdoors — at last, some sun, and of course, I forgot to put on sunscreen because it was raining when I left the hotel. I met people from Melbourne, Perth, Christchurch, Denver, a whole range.
Drew outdid himself as the tour guide, although I began to wonder about his shouts of “dominate” I suspect the company is run by a Doctor Who fan.
The night tour was more fun, because we rode a lot more.
We rode all the way to Notre Dame and the Isle Saint Louis. The locks on the bridges knocked me out, particularly as they are quite recent (the oldest is supposed to be 2000). Apparently, Americans use combination locks, because their divorce lawyers won’t dive for the keys.
Everything began to glow, even though it was a bit overcast by then, and Mark kept up a running commentary. I met up again with a couple from the morning, and chatted with a guy from Virginia whose dad had been a Canberra-based diplomat. He was at William and Mary College. Nice bloke.
The best of the rest are self-explanatory. We rode back to the Baton Mouche and joined most of the rest of the Northern Hemisphere on a cruise. The photos got better as the night went on. There are lots more, and these have no processing, but I solved the exposure problem by plonking the tripod on the bow and turning on the image stabilizer. The result looks pretty good, and the effect of the movement on the waves is spectacular.
It was nearly midnight when I got in. I hadn’t eaten, because I had been all the way over to the Marais shopping in the afternoon. I was looking for a nightcap, but the batteries an out — mine, not the camera’s!
