Day 23 - Wednesday 4th October - Malta to Paris

The alarm didn't get a chance to go off at 4am because I was wide awake at 3.45am not sure how much we actually slept but we didn't feel tired so we must have. We didn't have to do much other than shower, put the last things in the cases and ring for a taxi 30 minutes before we wanted it to arrive. John had tried to book one last night but was told to ring in the morning.He had a shower and called at 4.15 for a taxi to arrive in 30 mins. After my shower, John lugged the cases down the stairs and then we lugged them up St Ursula street steps to Melita Street in the predawn gloom. We were waiting about 10 minutes before the requested time just in case they were early but he arrived exactly at the time requested. The driver was quite an elderly chap with VERY thick glasses.  First he couldn't get the boot of his Peugeot open so he loaded the cases in the back next to me and John got in the front but he couldn't believe it wouldn't open so he tried again and succeeded this time so he took the cases out and put them into the boot. We were then afraid our cases would be trapped in the boot when we got to the airport. I don't  think we've ever had such a cautious taxi driver ever, especially around roundabouts. We were a bit concerned when he didn't take the turnoff to the airport but he was just making a detour for petrol. The whole trip reminded me of The Amazing Race taxi rides. Anyway we got there safely as it's only 15 minutes away ( it took us a little longer though as he decided we had enough time to stop for petrol). We checked in and then went to good old Costa Coffee for coffee & croissants for breakfast. Headed through security and to our gate lounge and before long we were on the Air Malta flight. There was a young man in a camo jacket that took a little dog onto the plane with him in a little carrier. He talked gently the dog the whole time they were in the gate lounge and we didn't hear a peep out of the dog on the flight. We landed at about 9.15am, slowly made or way to the luggage area, bought tickets for the train and made our way on the RER B line to Gare du Nord where we changed to Line 5 of the Metro and got off at Republique. The plan with our AirBnb host Bernard, was that we get in the first door with the code be sent us, which we did successfully. The next step was to collect the mailbox key that he said would be taped underneath the mailboxes and we'd find the front door keys in the letterbox. Well, step two failed and there was no key taped under the mailboxes no matter how well we searched. Tiphaine, his stepdaughter was coming at 12.30 to meet us and tell us what we needed to know so we decided to turn on our data-roaming to send Bernard a message via AirBnb. He was most apologetic and phoned Tiphaine to come as soon as she could. She arrived before long and there seems to have been a miscommunication between them about the key. We caught the lift up to the 6th floor because we're in a mansard apartment at the top of the building. She let us in and found the cleaners were still there as someone had checked out that morning. All good and the apartment is lovely. Very light filled with skylights and dormer windows that look out over the very Parisian rooftops of this part of Paris. Once we'd taken a few things out of the cases and I'd rested my foot a little we headed out.  The pressurised flight was terrible for my foot and I could hardly walk so I took more painkillers to get me through. Supermarket is always the first thing to get out of the way so we found it, did the shopping, took it back home then headed to Republique. We found our way to Gare de Lyon so we could buy our tickets to Dijon for Sunday. At Gare de Lyon we saw the beautiful restaurant that's there called Le Train Bleu. It's upstairs on a mezzanine floor looking over the inside of the station. I took a few sneaky photos of the interior who's walls and ceiling are spectacularly decorated with frescoes and intricate golden plaster decorations. We checked out the menu and weren't surprised at the exorbitant prices. That done we caught a Metro towards the river and Notre Dame. Some of the Metro stations are enormous and you need to walk what seems like miles to your connection on another line or to get out. MANY steps and a couple of escalators later and by the time we actually surfaced my feet were so sore I could hardly walk so we bought our first crepe and sat on the wall above the riverbank to rest and enjoy our surroundings and our crepe with sugar (because we forgot to ask for lemon). We walked a little further til we got to Notre Dame, took some photos and then sat there for a while too, people watching which is always interesting. When the pain had subsided we continued across the river to the area of Saint-Michel where we'd eaten last time and just loved the whole area especially by night. We found a new restaurant instead of going back to where we'd eaten last time. A charming man spruiking talked us into staying when he saw us looking at the menu. We both wanted Beuof Bourguignion so we had the 3 course menu that included that. For entree John had Duck Terrine and I  had Vegetable Soup, then the Beouf and we both finished with Creme Brulee of course. Too pooped to do much else, we waddled to the Metro stop and a couple of changes and MANY steps later we got home very slowly, pleased that we'd managed so much considering we'd been up since before 4am.