Day 61 – Paris France

Day 61

Paris France

After wandering around till all hours the previous night I got a much needed late start to today’s wanderings.

I’d been told that all of the motorcycle dealerships were in the same location on the Boulevard de La Grande Armee which conveniently is just on the other side of the Arc de Triomphe so in my quixotic quest to find a Guzzi dealership that didn’t suck and buy a souvenir I made my down the Champs Elysee.

Along the way I stopped to ask a bunch of Gendarmes standing around a security barricade for directions. I then realized I was standing in front of the American Embassy. I remarked to the Gendarmes that since I was American I should take a picture. “Not Allowed.Security Reasons”. Land of the Free and Home of the Brave and all that. Remember folks ‘Fear is the mind killer’.

I then made my way to the Arc which is quite impressive and much bigger than I expected. After standing around gawking for a bit and found the area with all the moto dealerships. It’s pretty impressive for a Motard as pretty much every brand is represented and there’s about another dozen stores just dedicated to motorcycle gear. I found the Guzzi dealership and wouldn’t you know it, it was the one dealership out of a dozen that was closed. Well screw em if the Guzzi dealer is closed I’ll make my way across the street to the Indian/Victory dealer and buy a shirt there. It was closed also! Argh foiled again! I then remembered that I was in France and the dealerships were probably just closed for lunch so I did the sensible thing and went and had lunch myself at a sidewalk cafe. After lunch I found both dealerships open and purchased my Guzzi souvenir.

I them made my way down the other side of the Champs Elysees stopping at the Renault Cafe and just generally taking in the sites before heading back to my favorite cafe to work on the blog again.

Later in the evening I had to make the choice to visit Notre Dame or the Moulin Rouge. I chose the latter since I stole the “Freedom, beauty, truth, and love” line I used earlier in the trip from the movie.

Paris is pretty amazing and there’s something to see on almost every street. It would definitely take more then a couple of days to take in more then just a fraction of it.

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