'Round the World with an Italian Supermodel

Pity the poor Ducatisti in that area who only have that dealer to take their bikes to for service.

mali said:

I guess your next stop is the UK? Should you need to use any dealers here I can recommend a few which will offer you a really good service and they really are friendly and helpful but it depends if your route is any closer to them. Ducati Aylesbury are pretty good, friendly service manager, you can talk to them straight on the phone and you will not get any of the paranoid answers you got from the French.

Cornerspeed up in Nottingham is pretty good too, even though he does not have the latest gear he is still pretty good with most stuff and he is a nice guy too, you can actually have a conversation with him with out feeling like an ........

Motorapido are good too.

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Ah my man Neil at Cornerspeed now there's a great mechanic waited for me once coming in on a breakdown truck when I said what if it's after close when we arrive? Don't worry I will stay till you get here was the reply! 6.30pm we got there!

JHTmcrider said:

When I went to Neu Schwanstein Castle and watching a leg of the tour in Colmar back in 2002, I was also ashamed at how some French folks treat others. Especially considering how many men have lost their lives defending that bit of land.

Rage is how I feel reading this section of report. But Dennis is a true gentleman and that is how I would want this to work out.

Perhaps a nice letter to Ducati describing the turd and his attitude would be best.

Unfortunate, but you know that folks who act like that anywhere in the world eventually get their just rewards!

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Unfortunately a letter to Ducati wont help
They know and tell you "what should we do?"
(i remember our poor mates in SA).
In this case it's called the new interpretation of "Savoir-vivre": being lazy and arrogant. Rather common in french service industry.
I witnessed phone calls from customers in France desperately trying to get help from swiss and german Ducati shops because they where completely pissed sitting in France, having a little problem and being told by the locals that the whole engine has to be replaced (payment in advance) because the fuel pump connector was loose/wet.

Found a private garage to park my bike in (for the low low price of $32 a night), and hoofed it back to my new place situated in the 5th Arr., right on the Seine, just across from the Notre Dame Cathedral. On the 5th floor with rooftop view (and of course, lots of stairs):



Being HUNGRY and being in Paris, with some of the best French cuisine in the world, I sought out the finest, uhh, Mexican, food I could find (mostly because an icy, salted margarita sounded bitchin'.





Meh, was only ok. A disappointment, since the owners were actually Mexican.

Some hooligans out looking for trouble:


Was a long day...hell, it'd been a long few days. Was happy to get back to my flat and soak up the view with a bottle of wine:

Not hard to imagine how sweet waking up to this view, some Salami and fresh French bread is like:



Cruised over to Boulevard St. Germain and saw evidence of future motorcycle/scooter riders:



I didn't intend it, but that first food day turned into kind of a culinary adventure, beginning with this magnificent Tunisian patisserie I'd been to years back.







Can't go far without seeing (and smelling) the aroma of fresh baked bread and pastries of all varieties:



I believe this sign says: Eat as many as you want for free:



Meandered over to La Grande Épicerie. "Impressive" doesn't even begin to capture the splendor:

















After purchasing the staples of one too many dinners in minuscule, spartan gas station convenience 'stores' across Europe, this was heaven.

Marching on, went to my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Paris, Le Lotus Blanc. Only issue is that it's only mediocre now. Definitely beat canned tuna, but VERY BUMMED.

For dessert, a walk home along the Seine.

Fantastic pictures brings back great memories.Thanks

AntiHero said:

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I see what you did here

b9009b said:

I see what you did here

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Seriously, it wasn't me who urinated on that wall.

AntiHero said:

Seriously, it wasn't me who urinated on that wall.

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That's what they all say The pics of the market are making hungry again. Going to find food.

My favorite city to ride in in the US is SF. No contest. It's a city built on a roller coaster, and bikes are permitted to do things that you can only dream of in NYC, Boston or anywhere else, for that matter. In Europe, Rome took spot #1 for being the most enjoyable city to ride in....until, that is, I arrived in Paris.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB-NSysw-ag&feature=youtu.be&list=UU9kD4lVAk7ImCEa2b0dk3XQ

Phenomenal. It's as much fun as a track day and cagers tend to have more situational awareness than most who have race licenses. Short of anything homicidal or stupid, bikes and scooters get to do what they want--and Parisians welcome it. I've had people pull to the right to give me more room to split opposing traffic lanes.

haha, those roundabouts. 7-lane madness.

lead the pack or get eaten by the pack.

i still don't like Paris.

Southern France, or Bordeaux, i could live there. Paris? no.

Great pics though !!!!

Phl said:

haha, those roundabouts. 7-lane madness.

lead the pack or get eaten by the pack.

i still don't like Paris.

Southern France, or Bordeaux, i could live there. Paris? no.

Great pics though !!!!

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Great pics as always....... Loire Valley would be my choice...spent a summer there way back when.... So much history..Beautiful Chateaux Countryside.....wine and food...

I'll start with some screaming:
IF ANYONE KNOWS ANYONE IN PARIS WHO CAN GET ME INTO THE PARIS UNDERGROUND (THE MILES AND MILES OF TUNNELS OFF LIMITS), PLEASE PM ME. I tried everyone I knew or met and no one was connected to anyone who knew....

The catacombs that are legal to visit are pretty cool, but only represent a small portion of the real catacombs (which only represent a small percentage of the totality of all the underground tunnels under Paris. In the 17th century, cemeteries were overflowing (even spilling out into the streets during heavy rains), so they exhumed all the bodies and stacked the bones neatly in the limestone quarries under Paris that have been mined since the days of the Romans.



There was a bit of a line to get in. Even though I showed up an hour before the catacombs opened, there were still a good 200 people who showed up earlier. Gahh.

After an hour or so, the entrance!


Five stories down:


A long and ominous tunnel:


And then:

























Under an area of the mine where the limestone collapsed:


Then five stories back up:


Couldn't help but think that the Paris we see was built using the minerals extracted and hauled up from the underground mines--and all the minerals (bones) left of the inhabitants who lived in and built Paris were then hauled down to fill the void. There's a history locked into the city, some known, some not. But each femur, vertebrae and skull down here was someone just like one of us. The bones are all that's left of not one, but six million lives, each one having spent thousands of days, millions of minutes living, breathing, laughing, talking, struggling, loving. A macabre reminder and grim witness to life's permanent cessation, do these mute, vertabrate structures admonish wasting away before there's nothing left of one's life to waste?--Or are these bones words scattered across pages, filling volume upon volume of one long manifesto repeating the absurd message (why do anything if you just end up in a pile of bones like us?) ad infinitum?

What’s the use of expending any effort at all living, if all of our thoughts, memories, sensations and emotions we've nurtured, developed, stored and experienced terminate at the end of our life? I mean, hell, how serious would you have studied in high school if you knew that on the day of your graduation you’d be hit by a car and killed? No small amount of French literature and philosophy is devoted to solving this very problem, the problem of existential malaise, of ennui, of purposelessness. (Then again, hasn’t every system of religion and philosophy since the dawn of time has been nothing more than an attempt to answer the question, “why?”)

My solution to this ...... up problem of knowing the reward for even a life well lived is its termination; my ultimate expression of outrage, revolt, defiance? Living. Living with an insatiable thirst for everything this world has to offer. To experience an infinite amount of thoughts and sensations; to create, to think, to love and laugh is my insurgency, my ultimate act of defiance. It won’t make death any less demeaning, but it is better than the alternative:

AntiHero said:

My favorite city to ride in in the US is SF. No contest. It's a city built on a roller coaster, and bikes are permitted to do things that you can only dream of in NYC, Boston or anywhere else, for that matter. In Europe, Rome took spot #1 for being the most enjoyable city to ride in....until, that is, I arrived in Paris.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB-NSysw-ag&feature=youtu.be&list=UU9kD4lVAk7ImCEa2b0dk3XQ

Phenomenal. It's as much fun as a track day and cagers tend to have more situational awareness than most who have race licenses. Short of anything homicidal or stupid, bikes and scooters get to do what they want--and Parisians welcome it. I've had people pull to the right to give me more room to split opposing traffic lanes.

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+1 Riding in SF (and the bay area) is also my favorite.

AntiHero said:

It's as much fun as a track day and cagers tend to have more situational awareness than most who have race licenses. Short of anything homicidal or stupid, bikes and scooters get to do what they want--and Parisians welcome it. I've had people pull to the right to give me more room to split opposing traffic lanes.

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Quite common in Europe.
You'll find the cagers doing the same thing in Portugal and Spain.

Oh yes...forgot the most important rule about the Catacombs: NO TOUCHING.

Visited Jim Morrison's:



Sartre & de Beauvoir's grave:



And this guy's:



(He must have some cold feet in the winter.)

Oh yes...and made it to Monsieur Viagra's plot, too.

I prefer walking around when I really want to indulge in a city. On a bike--esp. in a city like Paris--98% of your attention has to be focused on staying alive, which is fun, but doesn't exactly allow you to see much. Plus then there's all the gear....not exactly fun walking around a park with full leathers.

In any case, here's a few random pictures of 'daily life' on a sunny day in Paris:






(Bee keepers--or rather--Bee Keeper SWAT Team)\


(Lunch--Claypot Prawns)

Notre Dame:


Line for the best falafel in Paris:



(Second best falafel in Paris where the line isn't so long.)

Very sad, neglected Duck:

Next up: Tourist Shots.