Quatre Putains En France: Day 12 - Montbéliard to Paris

Today would be our last day of driving as we were headed back to Paris for our last few days in France, and the plan was to drop our things at the apartment and drop the rental off at the airport.

As with all good days in France we started at the boulangerie/patisserie. We decided on a jambon et beurre baguette instead of pastry, but thought it would be wise to also get a few croissants for the long drive. 😁

We had one stop planned for the day, in Clairgoutte. Clairgoutte is the small village where the Jossinet family first lived. They lived in the “presbytère”, a house for the Presbyterian minister and his family. During the war the area was under German occupation, and the Jossinet family was forced to host a number of German officers on the upper floor for some years. Again it was a special moment to think of my uncles and aunts as toddlers living in this picturesque place. It was also a little surreal to think of the history they lived through back in those days.

JM In Front Of The Original Jossinet Family Home

The Church A Block Away

View Of The House From The Church

With that done we were on our way to Paris. The last 15 km probably took an hour. Although it was exciting to get closer and closer to the heart of Paris, it was chaotic and a bit stressful to keep track of all of the pedestrians, cyclists, motorbikes driving between cars, trafic lights, one way streets, police cars, ambulances, you get the picture…. We dropped the girls off on the side of the road in front of the apartment with all the luggage and set a course for the airport. Turns out getting out of the city is as fun as getting into it!! 🤪 Two hours later we made it to the rental car area at the airport and dropped off the car. Fifteen minutes later we were on a train back into the city, and 35 minutes after that we were back in the city close to our apartment. We ended up meeting the girls for dinner and they caught us up on what they had been doing for the last few hours. They spent some time at the huge Christmas market which is currently taking place by La Roue De Paris. I am confident we will go by there at some point in the next few days…. They put quite a few miles in walking through the major attractions which we will spend more time visiting tomorrow and the next day.

La Roue De Paris

Dinner was very nice. We were back at the apartment by about 9:00 and are all ready for a good night’s rest - we are sure to get a fair number of steps in tomorrow!