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The Seine


... a view of the River Seine. My plan now is to follow the river upstream, maybe all the way to its source but maybe not. The cycl... Boats on the Seine. I saw in the news this morning that there is currently a beluga whale in the riv... Another view. One of my intentions for this trip was to get to speak some French because I haven't done that in a ... Since my last trip, I have started taking part in a fun online quiz every Friday evening. This eveni... A morning view of the river. I have no particular plan for this trip but an idea which came into my ... A little boat speeding past. Heron Island. Next to the bike path. The river is to the left of this path and the railway is to the right. This was originally the towpa... An expensive-looking house. I can see cars in the garage but the ivy is hanging almost to the floor ... For a moment, I thought I might be going that way but I'm not. A bird which was pecking in a field near the river. Here, I am skipping one of the river's meanders by taking a short cut over a hill called Le Roule. T... A road on the horizon. The village of Venables. I came along that road. On the right is one of the ventilation shafts for the railway tunnel. A shady place to stop for a while. Today's route is about 50 km and there is a five hour gap between... This is where the whale is. I didn't see anything about it in the news today so I don't know what th... From what I saw on the news, there was quite a lot of activity here two days ago. All that seems to ... When I first saw this, I assumed it was a bus stop. It actually seems to be a smoking shelter for th... Riverside seating in Vernon. I spent a night in Vernon a few years ago, not on one of my summer trip... This bridge will be my first crossing of the Seine on this trip. The bells were pealing while I was taking this picture. Cruise boats in Vernon. On these summer trips, I have often wanted to be able to stop and sit in the sunshine by a river for... Part of a large group of tourists who came past on matching red bikes while I was sitting by the riv... A house in Giverny. Claude Monet's house, the second most popular tourist attraction in Normandy. This is pretty much al... The garden with the water lilies is behind the hedge on the left. A happy barricade. A view from the second of today's hills. The ruin slightly to the right of centre is the medieval ca... One of my spokes broke as I was nearing the top of the hill. From that point, I only had about 3 km ... The first key that I was given at this hotel was for this room, so I went back to reception with thi... This hotel has good points and bad points. On the plus side, the room is large and bright and airy. ... Tonight's view. By the time I went down get my wheel and bring it up to the room for repair, my bike... The room is airy because it has fully-opening windows like this, with a river view, in both the bedr... A speedboat in the evening sunshine. A funny-looking barge and pusher boat. One of those river cruise boats. Jupiter and two of its moons. This year, I didn't bring ... This is where I stayed last night. It is primarily a cake shop but with a restaurant and hotel tacke... The bike path has to drop a long way for each of these driveways. It looks like Sunday is market day in Mantes-la-Jolie. Mantes-la-Jolie. I think I'm going the wrong way down a bus lane. At first, I misinterpreted the signs and thought th... I came to Mantes-la-Jolie in 2004. My memory of that visit was that there was a lot of car horn nois... A supermarket with the prices of some of the products scrolling past on the matrix display. When I f... This road has a nice wide bike lane on each side. The traffic is a lot lighter going my way that the... The Seine. This trip's first example of roundabout art. It looks quite like the logo of last night's hotel. My bike seems to be performing a greatest hits tour of the best modes of failure from previous trips... A busy cafe in a town called Les Mureaux. An unusual building. My third crossing of the Seine. The Seine. Part of an old bridge at Poissy. The first sign I have seen for Paris, and what looks like a very small synagogue. A lot of things are banned in this park, including roller skates, skateboards and mopeds. I don't ac... Fire was on this list of banned things but that hasn't stopped these people. I quite like how the su... It turns out that even if cycling was banned, it was only in one small park, where I walked anyway b... I don't know what that tower is. It looks to be a few kilometrers away and has a slowly rotating sta... When I got into my hotel this evening, the view from my window was of these people playing boules bu... Even though this hotel is part of one of the big chains, the people working here have still been spe... Now these people are playing a different game. It's probably one of the games which you can borrow f... I'm researching hotels for Tuesday night. The one which I'm looking at now has an unusually low revi... The castle at Maisons Laffitte. The bike path towards Paris. Some of theskyscrapers of La Defense, seen from my sixth crossing of the Seine. The Seine. Tram lines into La Defense. An elaborate apartment block. La Defense is Paris' equivalent of London's Docklands development. Most of the road traffic goess un... La Defense. By the way, something seems to have changed in how Windows handles text, which makes it ... The building at the very bottom is the fire station. La Defense. What roads there are on the surface currently have roadworks so there are temporary lane markings. T... Looking towards La Defense along the continuation of the line of the Champs Elysees. I'm now looking towards Paris but the view beyond the fountain is mostly obstructed by portakabins. More roadworks. The Avenue de la Grande Armee. Paris. I like the sunshade on the left. One of the lesser roads which radiates from the Arc de Triomphe. The Arc de Triomphe, of course. I had forgotten how big it is. Another picture. Some kind of fine dining bus. Looking forward along the Champs Elysees towards the Place de la Concorde... ... and back towards the Arc de Triomphe and the boxy arch at La Defense. The French Parliament building. The columns that we can see are actually a picture of what we would ... The Place de la Concorde. I didn't expect to go into a tunnel. It's about 850 metres long and runs under the embankment for th... As I entered the tunnel, I was greeted by a sound which at first I couldn't identify. After a few se... Grafitti artists in the tunnel. Some others further along had brought a stepladder. The end of the tunnel. We are looking towards the island where Notre Dame is but this is as much as I saw of it. People in sun loungers... ... next to the Seine. These ones are for people who actually want to lie in the Sun. This waterfront strip is called the Beaches of the Seine. It has lots of seating, games, cafes and t... A barge full of dirt. Bridges on the Seine. The bridge in this picture is the Pont de Bercy. The Pont de Bercy has a railway on the top deck, roadways along the sides and this bike path through... Next to the Pont de Bercy. I have seen pictures of this place recently. It's a big Chinese-style hotel and restaurant. The Restaurant is at the point where the Marne meets the Seine. Looking along the Marne. A weir on the Seine. The A86 motorway crossing the Seine. Bikes are supposed to fit through the slot on the left. The big swinging gate is for things which ar... The station in a suburb with the strange name of Ris-Orangis. Less than two minutes' walk from the station platform is this beautiful road. Just on the right is w... Apart from the number 6, the property has nothing on it which states that this is the place which I ... I turns out that what I have rented is the whole of the small house in the grounds of number 6. It's... This is the main bedroom. There's a washing machine and shampoo but no specific washing machine liquid and I don't want to ris... The upstairs bedroom. An extension cord with two- and three-pin sockets. I saw some of these on sale in a shop this mornin... The view from my bed. Breakfast here is quite generous. The owner of this place has been speaking to me in a mixture of En... I think this might be a woodpecker. While I was having breakfast, I heard a noise which sounded like... A rower on the Seine. The road goes through a hedge. A quiet place by the river. This bit of the bike route is a bit messy. The town of Corbeil-Essonnes, seen from my tenth and possibly final crossing of the Seine. I haven't... A swan. Corbeil-Essonnes. A shopping street in Corbeil-Essonnes. This old archway is in the shopping street. The view through the archway. The swimming pool has a whale as its logo, even though a whale couldn't possibly get past all the we... Just a little roundabout. There is a British red telephone box next to the mayor's ofice in Le Coudray-Montceaux. This village is called Barbizon. The three women on the left look like they are on a walking holiday... Now, they have just passed me doing the same thing on one of the little stone benches on this rounda... I'm now in Fontainebleau Forest, which covers about 250 square kilometres and was apparently the wor... Fontainebleau Forest. The forest floor is made of sand and some of it has formed ino big sandstone boulders, like this one... Nearing the top of a climb. This road is for cyclists and pedestrians only, and I've only seen three... From here, my route continues in a virtually straight line all the way to... ... Fontainebleau Castle. Incidentally, the building on the far left is the Hotel de Londres, where ... A panorama. Fontainebleau Castle, a residence for French Monarchs from Louis VII in the 12th century to Napoleon... My hotel is here, between the theatre and an Indian restaurant. I said I would be arriving after fou... Fontainebleau. A double-decker carousel. The hotel isn's busy so I have been upgraded to a large room. The man on reception told me to keep t... I replenished my box of sweets yesterday morning, then went shopping again yesterday evening to get ... I found this camera in one of the drawers in the desk. It's quite similar to mine.... The sun is setting so I have now opened the curtains. This is the view. Fontainebleau. Evening sun reflecting off the buildings. The biggest building in the town, apart from the castle, seems to be the tourist office. Fontainebleau. After eating the food which I brought with me, I was too full for a proper meal so I just bought a f... Fontainebleau. The town hall has a lot of different flags above the door. One of the old roads radiating from Fontainebleau Castle. A close-up of part of the previous picture. The same old road, looking in the other direction.