Biking to La Varenne (or, An Ode to Google Maps)

It looked bright enough today to take my bike out to JD's, so I did. It didn't really rain at all, despite the forecast, and there was even some sun later in the afternoon.

You can play along with me at home on this map, which shows most of the route. The southeast corner of Paris is in the upper left corner. The finish line was somewhat south of the third hyphen in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés (Saint Maur of the ditches), in the lower right.

My starting place isn't on the map, it's in Paris where I live. Getting out of Paris was actually kind of hard because just before the Quai de Bercy, the bike lane disappears, and the street along the quai is one way the wrong way. But I figured it out, and then it was smooth sailing on a bike path along the river until somewhere in Charenton-le-Pont, where the path disappeared. But, by taking my bike down some stairs I found a path even closer to the river. Then it got really pretty, as the bike path along there is in a thin strip of woods between the river and the freeway, and a wall keeps the freeway away. Even though it was overcast, the trees are almost still at peak color. (Testament to how warm it's been lately, I guess.)

Then, I lost the river in St. Maurice (center of the map). If you zoom in, you can see a number of little canals. See the canal that ends up running alongside the street labeled D123e? That's where I ended up. I called JD and told him I was lost. (Yeah, I should have taken a map, but it was Sunday and I couldn't buy one or print one out.) He found me on the map (though it turned out in the end that he was a little confused about where that was, but that didn't matter until later), and took me up that street northeast to the river, to turn right on the Quai du Barrage.

He had told me to expect to cross the river to get to where he was, but when I asked someone at the first bridge, they said that La Varenne was on the other side. Thoroughly confused now, I continued along the Marne on a very pretty mixed-use path, and called JD again at the Pont du Champigny. He got me from there to his place. We didn't straighten out how I had gotten there until we could both look at the map together, but I'm glad it worked out anyway! Somehow we found what was basically the shortest/nicest route. Gotta say, though, I need to invest in bike pants or something, especially after it's been raining, because my back tire throws up all sorts of stuff. A fender might help too.

We had a nice time; JD had gotten brunch fixings, and we made brunch and spent the day watching Les Guignols de l'Info (which I am starting to be able to understand), the first two episodes of Six Feet Under, and the movie Magnolia. All of which was extremely good, though the latter two were heavy on the issues with mortality. :)

I took the RER back, as I had no desire to bike the hour and a half back in the dark.