Day 21 – St. Cheron – Paris / 89 km
What awaits us is the chaos of Paris? Derk will row to l’Arc de Triomph. Kees and I go by camper and Caroleen and Rianne take the ambulance.
Kees and I don’t really have much trouble navigating through Paris. Unfortunately we learn that it’s not allowed to park a camper anywhere in the centre of the city. So we have no choice but to turn back and again find our way through the traffic chaos. At the edge of Paris we park the camper and are picked up by the ambulance.
We drive directly to l’Arc de Triomph. Derk manages to get fast and relatively safe through the busy traffic. Everybody is looking at this strange appearance in the streets of Paris! We stop briefly in front of the Eiffel tower for a couple of pictures. The many tourists prove to be more interested in Derk than in the Eiffel tower and is photographed from many directions. People actually pose around Derk and his rowingbike to get on the picture.
And then, there it is: the finish of the Rowingbiketour de France, l’Arc de Triomph. At the end of the Champs-Élysées a delegation of friends from the Netherlands is waiting for the man who finished the long tour through France successfully.
Hist sister Beb has mobilised quite a group of people: Ellen Lampert and Yamina Abdoun of main sponsor Roompot Zeeland Vakanties and Party Service Zeeland are present and brought champagne and have taken care of the rest of the catering, Beb herself, Rolf, Ole, Henk, Anja, Huub, Greet and Jacco. Also some recumbent riders from Paris who welcome Derk on their low racers and Jean-Charles Gosselin, chairman of the French HPV club.
The total is 3515,3 kilometres since the start in Dunkerque.
Cheers Derk, on the successfull finish of your tour!
After a lot of patient waiting in the many traffic jams of Paris, we leave for Lille. Tomorrow one last trip: to Kamperland, to the Netherlands.
After this get-together, we dive into the traffic one last time. We stop momentarily at the Eiffel tower to make a picture of Derk and them move on to Lille.
It’s rush hour by now in Paris and despite the fact we get on the Periferique rather quickly, we get stuck severely. We see zillions of cars and just can’t get out. We find out the hard way what a mess traffic is out there. Every single car has one or more dents. Even new cars have them. On the Periferique there were several accidents, so it’s no wonder we were delayed.
After quite some patience (which was hard to find, because we’re so tired), we leave Paris and ride to Lille near the Belgian border, where we’ll spend the night.
After that: the encore, a ride to Kamperland, The Netherlands.