Okeefereport: Travel tales 4

The early coach to Shannon, the baggage queue to Ryan Air and the boarding procedures for our flight to Paris were a doddle compared to our departure from Gatwick. Shannon was slightly busier than on our arrival but we were soon settled for the predictable Demtel man. I wish I could say the same for our landing at Orly, at least for Alice’s sake. I flew often in the seventies and some of those flights were pretty hairy but I’ve never hit the deck as hard as we did this day. The plane swerved the pilot gunned it and we took back off. I, confirmed as lacking an adrenal gland took it in stride but as I looked around the cabin I saw white faced people pawing the backs of the seats in front with a look that said “ I’ve heard it so often But what is that position?” For half a minute the cabin was silent till someone up front well out of earshot made a joke and a ripple of laughter flowed right through the plane as people once again breathed. Four plus minutes of eternal silence while folks imagined broken landing gear, punctured tyres and crushed undercarriages the pilot finally came on line with some lame excuse about sudden wind gusts and in another ten we were successfully on the ground. Since then Alice’s grip at both take off and landing has been bone crushing.

A coach and Metro got us close to our Pension (you know hotel) but we had finally to resort to a cab for the last hundred and fifty meters, having an idea where we were but no idea of what direction we should proceed in. Safely ensconced we relaxed, Maybe washed and set out to find adventure and our three favourite things. I remember a Veal dish and a pleasant wine and later stumbling into or rather under the Eiffel Tower where a great crowd interspersed with jugglers musicians and all manner of costumed and preforming peoples were congregated. Amongst these I brushed past a very authentic commando in camouflage fatigues carrying a serious looking sub machine gun who as I turned to point him out to Alice vanished, a credit to his camouflage. It wasn’t till the next day when I saw similarly clad and appointed lads at maybe the Louvre that I realised he was the real thing.

It was about now that I began to realise what a boon a compass would be to negotiate these cities where even if you can pinpoint yourself on a map your lost again at the next corner where just like the last there are six or more ways to go and none of them straight or at right angles. We were very fortunate to have our full day in Paris on the first Sunday in the month when all the museums are free. We took advantage to visit the Louvre where we saw Venus De Milo and the room in which was the Mona Lisa but mostly we saw crowds and the magnificence of this great building. Alice queued for a leak while I could get straight into a very crowded toilet where little black boys delighted in the hand drying machines. The Pompidou Centre wasn’t quite so crowded and it was relatively easy to get in and wash the pigeon poo, which Alice promised was a sign of good luck, off my shirt.

I guess we did have good luck, certainly we did not have any bad luck like some we witnessed. We saw an old boy knocked off his bike in Luca but he seemed OK. We saw a scooter rider and his pillion take a tumble in Grenada and the pillion looked quite uncomfortable though departed under her own steam. In Paris we saw a fire brigade ladder truck blocking the street while a fireman climbed to the windows of a third floor apartment and burst in. No sign of fire or anything else to make this seem untoward. In fact we were free to walk by even under the ladder had we wished to tempt fate. Perhaps someone had locked their keys in.

Coming back to Gallway on the Aron Island Ferry we began to be shadowed by a coast guard helicopter It hung above us making a lot of noise and a crowd went to investigate. After about ten minutes I had to go investigate myself and witnessed the lowering of a stretcher to the bottom deck. Some minutes later a brightly flight suited rescue man was winched up with the still empty stretcher. He hung for a minute level with we gapers, curtsied and waved before continuing his ascent and departing. Lord knows what that was about, practise perhaps. Overall I guess the fact that none of this had anything to do with us other than as spectators, and the fact our bouncing plane safely landed could be interpreted as our good luck, thanks to Pigeon Poo in a Paris Park.

Travellers spoil the view of Barcelona