Day 32 - Chateau Thierry to Paris - ride total 2,465 k, 16,695 m

 32 riding days ago we left Rome with the goal of arriving in Paris on July 23rd, just in time to catch the opening of the 2024 Olympics. At 3:30 p.m. today, July 23, we pulled up outside of the UPCA Hostel, our base for the next three days here in Paris.

You could say "Goal Achieved", and  yes we'd agree we are very happy to have arrived here on time and intact.

The recorded distance is 2,465 km's, however I'm sure there's at least 35 km's that have gone unrecorded so let's round that off to 2,500 km's, and 17,000 metres of climbing. 77 km's travelled on average each day and you may recall our original goal was to do around 75 km's eacd day.

Today started out drizzly through to lunchtime then overcast with wind for most of the afternoon however it wasn't cold so it wasn't too bad to ride in - the coat came off just after lunch.

We amended our ride out of Chateau Thierry to take in the monument that stands on the hill overlooking the town - It was the American monument commemorating the service of the troops from the US and France who fought in the war. A short distance after that  we past the American Cemetary and a short distance afer that we past a less imposing war Cemetary for the German troops killed in the war,

Following on from this we past many sites at which soldiers fought and died - it's very hard to imagine these fields filled with farm crops (and poppy's along the edges) being the site of such horriffic action and while the two sides were separated only by metres of no-man's land they were only 70 km's away from Paris. Very hard to comprehend.

Some people think these big cities would be a nightmare to ride a bike in to and out of. They are not. Our route today brought us right in to the heart of Paris most of which over the last 22 km's was on a cycle path adjacent to the canal.

Because Stephen opted in to our ride only back in March, he wasn't able to get accommodation at the same hotel as Peter and me. He could however, get six day's accommodation and as we couldn't get our stay extended at our hotel and as there were a couple of beds still available at Stephen's accommodation, on the 26th Peter and I are going to relocate ourselves to the same accommodation as Stephen.

Al in all, it's very satisfying having arrived in Paris, and now we are going to do the "Touristy" thing for a few days and soak up some of the Olympic atmosphete and whatever else Paris has going.

P. S. After all this time I've managed to find the toggle to turn on the "Comment" function for the blog, so you can now leave a comment on the Blog should you wish to do so.