31. Swapping the big city for … what? Part 1.

We have made a huge change over the past three days and learnt to do many things we never thought we would ever do - like driving a boat, like transversing locks on a busy canal, like taking a whole day to travel 25km.

So ... fortified with the macarons that I promised myself I would never buy ... we said goodbye to our tiny but luxurious apartment in Louvre, Paris 95001 and headed out of town.

Between you and me, I had thought that ONE macaron each could be justified.  But I didn't buy these.  Guess who did?

I was planning to take a few snaps of us navigating our way out of Paris in the traffic, but I found myself replaced by a GPS .... and she took a different route to the one Google Maps and I had planned.  Therefore, I spent the whole 1.5 hours it took to clear Paris, double checking that the GPS lady knew what she was doing (who said I was paranoid?) and so I forgot the photos.

The day we left Paris was a public holiday, so the traffic in old central Paris was light.  But going through the suburbs, and then the outskirts, and then the highway-linkage roads, was very congested.  But finally we got to the "autoroute peage" - the 130 km per hour highway south, with tolls.   With a couple of toilet/coffee breaks at the giant roadhouses, we reached Brive La Galliarde at about 5.30 pm.  We stayed at a super cheap Etap Hotel.  On a previous occasion (once only and never again) we had stayed at a Formula 1 hotel where you made your own bed and queued for a bathroom cubicle which was completely sealed and pressure-washed after each use.  We thought the Etap would be the same, but it was good.  Tiny, but with an ensuite shower and toilet, cleaned by real people.  We had to make up our own bed, and the only extras were toilet paper and one soap; but it only cost 52 euros ($74 AUD). And it had Wifi!

Here it is. 

Paul opening some essential supplies..............................

Me using the free WiFi - to double check the bona fides of that Garmin GPS lady.

On Friday morning, after filling our car fridge at the huge Carrefore Hypermarche in Brive La Galliarde, we headed south to Toulouse and then to Homps, our boat pick-up depot.  We arrived at Homps at about 5.15 pm.  This is our little boat.  It is called " Nicht Raider" 

And yes! it is very little.

And this is the very picturesque boat harbour on the Midi Canal at Homps.

Many of these boats are permanently occupied.  A bit like a watery caravan park.

The weather was wet but not cold.  It had been raining for about 2 - 3 weeks and more rain was predicted for the coming week.  Ho-hum!  So we decided to stay the first night at the home port and set off on the morrow.

Which is what we did.           Part 2 coming up.