Yesterday was a day spent mostly in transit from Budapest to Paris. After some last minute re-jigging of the suitcases we farewelled Budapest – feeling a bit sad that the end of our holiday is creeping (galloping?) up on us.

Soon found that our budget airline Easyjet is actually Not-so-Easyjet when travelling with sporting equipment. Despite having purchased extra luggage space the notion of a bike in suitcases (that came to a total weight of 59kg) set them scratching their heads. First response was “you will have to get each case down to 22 kg”. Hmmmmm – which part of bike can we leave behind? After some tricky negotiations we discovered that money in fact does solve everything – a further 60 Euro payment (meaning we had now paid more to fly the bike than us) and we were on our way.

It felt lovely to come back into Paris and see the familiar streets/sights – we are staying in the same hotel as last time – Elysa Luxembourg in the Latin Quarter – a tiny little hotel with a steep spiral staircase. We are on the third floor so will get lots of exercise over the next few days. Needless to say we have left our bike cases in their luggage cupboard downstairs.

Arriving quite late we managed to catch up with Jim (cousin) and Janet for late night coffee – who leave Paris in the morning – gotta love a city where you can go out for coffee at 11 pm!