Paris 🇫🇷 - the City of Love
Sven Walther
Two stops along the way
We are in no hurry, so we turn the drive to Paris into two relaxed days.
The first stop is a small restaurant called “Petit Thomas” - one of those places you almost drive past. The food is outstanding, the service even better. We keep being surprised how much better the French country restaurant is than its reputation.
The second stop is a Second World War memorial standing very quietly between vineyards. No visitor centre, no crowds - just a very large structure, a few metres of gravel path and a lot of silence.
Mammothon suddenly looks rather small next to it
A pitch on an island
And then the real question: where do you put an expedition truck in Paris?
The answer is a campsite on a small island in the Seine - right in the middle of the city. We checked with the site beforehand and went over the roads on the map twice, and driving 17 tonnes through Paris traffic is still an adventure of its own. Let us put it this way: the passenger seat was not a relaxing place during the approach.
Mammothon surrounded by greenery - in the middle of Paris
In exchange we end up parked in the green, hearing birds instead of horns, and still only minutes from the city. It hardly gets better.
The classics
From there we head out several times and work through the list you do work through in Paris.
Lou has seen the Eiffel Tower and is moderately impressed
Lou in front of the Louvre - still before the burglary
The Pont Alexandre III with the Grand Palais behind it
Plus the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame and quite a bit more. You can say what you like about Paris - but the city delivers.
In between: work
And because this is not a holiday but travelling with a job, halfway through I find myself on the Eurostar, heading to Amsterdam for a few days of trade show duty. It is slightly absurd: a few weeks ago we drove away from there in the truck.
After that we carry on south - and things get considerably quieter.