Friday, May 4, Paris

Our flight to Paris is scheduled to depart from the Inverness airport at 6:40 am.  We are up bright and early in order to make the flight .. alas ... the plane is delayed by an hour.  At this point in time, luck is with the travelers and we are able to make our connection in Manchester and arrive in Paris on time.

Slight hiccup on arrival, one of our bags fails to make it to Paris.  While Pa heads to Air France to find out about the lost luggage, Mom and I make our way to the Paris tourist office to see about booking a hotel. 

We strike out on the hotel but secure tickets for the next day on a Batobus that will help us navigate around Paris.  And in a stroke of genius, the guys decide we should rent a car.  Now ... if only we had a place to stay ...

Let me state this very succinctly .. the traffic in and around Paris is, in a word, HORRIFIC!  With Pa behind the wheel and me with a map, it took us three hours to make our way to Cergy .. and rising like a Phoenix from the ashes, the Hotel Mercure'.  While the Hotel Mercure' totally lacked the charm of the B&B's where we have been staying, it will meet our needs for the next couple of days.  We scored rooms for three nights and assistance from the desk clerk in tracking down the (still!) missing luggage.

Needless to say ... no pictures this day. 

But an interesting piece of trivia.  Whilst we were wending our way through the suburbs of Paris, we passed though St Denis.  At one time, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, former French Presidential candidate, and accused pervert, was the mayor of St Denis.