Day 6 Thursday, August 7th - More Rental Car Misery but we are in Paris!

This morning was goodbye to our very gracious hosts in Essoyes. Another good breakfast. Pierre and Marie-Claude were so kind to us during our stay. They even gave us gifts on our departure and some recipes for Lana. We were on the road by 9:40 am, although the GPS took a while to start working.    :-(

Last night and early this morning we finished re-packing. We have bought 12 bottles of champagne, wine and spirits. Not only is that a lot of weight, but it is difficult to pack into our suitcases. We put two of the wine bottles in my backpack. Carried the bags and heavy backpack down two flights of stairs. After this I was sweaty. Lana had calculated that we would buy 8 bottles to carry back to Paris--so has gone on record to indicate we are already over budget on bottles!!

We needed to return our Europcar rental car by around 12 Noon. We wanted to return it to the agency that was closed on the Sunday we tried to pick it up as it is close the train station in Reims. On the long drive (about 2 hours 15 minutes) our GPS failed us a couple of times and we took some wrong turns and at one point, the GPS showed us driving off the road!!! We needed to fill up before dropping the car off otherwise you pay a huge amount of money for them to fill it up. Lana used our GPS to find the nearest gas station to the Europcar agency. Just our luck that there was road construction blocking the access from the roundabout and the GPS couldn't handle that. I decided to find it by making a couple of illegal driving manoeuvres. In total we spent around 80+Euro on gas this leg of the trip. We did a lot of driving though and I got another happy face this morning, but Lana points out there were a lot of unhappy faces flashes too.

We arrive at Europcar at 12:15 pm. It is CLOSED! Mon dieu! Instructions on the door (again!) indicate to take the keys to a Novotel Hotel and provided the address.

Lana uses her smarts to activate the GPS unit in the car to locate this address. Our luck the hotel is located across the tracks from the agency so we have to detour in our walking to make it there. Pulling heavy suitcases, heavy backpack and getting thirsty/hungry. Good that they accept the keys and registration papers. Lana is a bit miffed with this hassle for drop off so decides to "borrow" an International New York Times paper from the hotel :)

We walk under the huge train station tracks in a tunnel. Stop at a Brioche Dorée kiosk inside the station to grab some sandwiches and some pastries. Lana's sandwich was good with bacon, chicken, parmesan cheese, lettuce and tomato. I have a fantastic sandwich with crusty thick bread and proscuitto, arugula, tomato and parmesan. Only 12Euro for everything. We grab some seats in the train station near the open doors to catch the welcome breeze.

Our friend Jim and his parents have arrived in Paris as Jim texted Lana. Our train departs at 14:15 from Reims and arrives in Paris Est station at 15:00. Time to relax and read the 'borrowed' newspaper. Weird being back in a city again after the small town of Essoyes.

The train ride is uneventful and we arrive on time at Paris Est. Given the heavy suitcases and backpacks, we decide to grab a taxi to our destination as it beats lugging the stuff around the subway trains. Taxi costs 10Euro with tip so decent price for convenience. Initial problem though is there is NO 166 Rue de Temple address. Where that address is there is a huge store. Lana phones Hervé and he is just down the street waiting for us at 170 Rue de Temple. Our apartment on the fourth floor is over the two story store below. We are at a Paris Airbnb apartment so have a lot of space during our six night stay. With cleaning fees and service fee it averages to about $200CDN per night which is very cheap compared to a hotel in the highly desired Marais neighbourhood.

Hervé was very helpful. We sign on to the wifi and all is good. Lana naps. I change the reservations to another restaurant for 8 pm for six people at La Pharmacie. Jim and his posse (girlfriend Tarlika, father Jim, mother Darlene)  got to our apartment around 6:45 pm. It is quite the challenge to actually get to the front door. Long hallway, a couple of stairs and then the elevator down to the ground floor.

First thing is to pop open a bottle of champagne. We are celebrating Jim's parents Darlene and Jim Sr. first day in Paris. The champagne was excellent and helps us reduce the load/weight when we head to Germany next week--Lana has the bottle budget we need to follow. I use Google Maps to find walking directions to our restaurant located in the République neighbourhood adjacent to the Marais.

We had an excellent time at La Pharmacie and returned to our apartment around 10:30 pm and Jim et al. catch a cab at La Republique. Good welcome to this informal place located on the corner. Their menu was not too extensive, but limited to some fantastic choices for entrees and mains. Plus, a very good wine menu. For the table, we ordered a White wine (Anjou - Loire Valley Chenin Blanc grape) and a Rosé (Pinot Noir and Gamay). Both wines were excellent and each couple shared a glass of red and white. How civilized!   :-)

The whole table is pretty good at sharing our food. Everything was tasty and arrived relatively quickly. We all ordered an entrée (in France that means appetizer) and a main dish. We were all too full from the first two courses to order a dessert. In terms of expense, we shared the bill by three and each couple contributed 65Euro. A good deal given the two bottles of wine and the quantity/quality of food.

La Pharmacie Restaurant

Entrée: proscuitto, melon, tomato and fresh mozzarella. Yummy!

Main dish: pork chop stuffed with chorizo. Like pan fried roasted pork chops with a chunk of chorizo. No plastic from the chorizo tonight so Lana is happy   ;-)

Main dish: grilled squid in a fantastic sauce that everybody loved and saffron rice. 

We are in Paris and it is a pleasure for all the senses! Great having friends here as well. We are trying to complete a load of laundry as our next laundry load won't be until we arrive in Wiesbaden, Germany. We need to keep our windows open to catch the breeze as it is humid here. Hoping it is quiet when we close the windows as we are right above the busy Paris street.