From Paris to Lyon.... rapidly!

On Saturday morning, I expressed a wish to....... Oh, erase that, very pompous!

On Saturday morning we walked down to the river from the apartment because I wanted to see some of the real Paris. I seem to have been in museums or food shops most of the time!

The sun was hot but the air was quite cold. We took some photos and walked across to the Isle de la Cité and Notre Dame Cathedral. There were lots of people around and there was a bread baking fair. Here are some photos!

 Outside Notre Dame

 We then walked around to Île Sait-Louise which is about the most expensive place to live in Paris and then back to where we first crossed the river. We then had a look around the huge BHV Marais store. I wanted to see the art department but only in order to feel smug that I bought some really good materials in Ukraine about 10 days ago, much cheaper!

We then visited the multimedia department where Louise had a chat with a robot.

We had lunch in the restaurant on the top floor. I calculated that I would have to leave the apartment at 3pm to catch my train. I left a little after that but still got to Gare de Lyon in good time.

The track between Paris and Lyon was the first TGV route in France back in 1982 and I travelled on it when it was still quite new. I was visiting Canal+ TV with my French distributor when I was making synchronisers for video and audio, but the journey was wasted. They wanted a chase synchroniser, not a control synchroniser. One follows the movement of the tape and the other has a control panel for the operator. The chase synchroniser has no control panel. The whole story of the synchroniser was a disaster; I was completely out of my depth and the product never worked well.





I wish I knew the speed of the train because on one section of track, it went faster than anything I have experienced before. The engine two coaches ahead of me was screaming like a banshee. I thought the regular top speed was 300 km/hour. But a shortened train actually achieved over 500 km/hour but it was specially prepared. The journey took a little under 2 hours. So before I knew it, I was in Lyon. I took the Metro to Bellecour and checked into Hotel Elysee. I had a beer by the square with my book of French nouns. Then I had a (very expensive) steak and went to bed!