Paris - Day 7 (Monday)

We tried to get an early start to the day, even though most shops don't open until after lunch at 2PM. We made our way down to Les Halles in the morning to stroll through the streets and then into the Pompidou Center at 10:30. We had another croissant almond to start the day, it was excellent.

The exhibits at the Pompidou didn't disappoint, they were some really odd modern art exhibits. Some of which HB and I made it through pretty quickly. I think the best was one of a piece of standard 1/2 inch plywood, maybe 2 feet square, painted white, but not painted that well. It was finished off with a large nail hammered into the center. The piece was really moving and I left wondering if the artist had driven that nail all the way through or merely enough to hold it there, I hope that's what he was going for.
One exhibit was a collection of hard drives by the French company Lacie. If you have never seen their drives, they are unlike the typical boring gray case. They have one series that looks like really large LEGOs that can be stacked on top of one another. We went through 2 of the 3 exhibits before we had to catch up with Chuck and Coryn.
They had been hanging out in a cafe a few blocks away and we decided to meet up at the famous falafel place, L'As du Falafel, located a few blocks from the Pompidou. Every guide book we had mentioned this place and one said it is a favorite place of Lenny Kravitz when he's in town. The place was very good and service was fast. It started to rain while we ate, and unlike every other eating place in Paris, we couldn't stick around there and wait it out. So we took off for some more shopping, hoping to stay dry darting in to shops that looked interesting.

We came across a tea shop that had a back door that opened to a court yard. When I saw it I thought it really captured how inside this big city, there wer still the simple things. The small concierge door, the rose bush that had flourished only as a result of someone's daily love, the cobblestone walk and the lonely umbrella, still wet from the rain that had just stopped. The sun had replaced the clouds in the time it took us to walk through the shop. It was a great shot.
We walked back towards our apartment and looked at a few shops along the way ending up at the market that was down the street from us at the Bastille. It wasn't the typical one that is there 3 days a week, this one was only there a few days a month. There was a spice guy, a few Russian booths, cured meats, candy, and of course a cheese booth. We went through it just to see what was going on, but didn't buy anything.

That evening we ended up going to a Greek restaurant in St. Michel. It was ultra touristy, but we had decided to go thinking it would be fun. Heather and I went to a similar place the last time we were in Paris, but we must have had more wine in us, because this place wasn't doing it for us. They had a single woman dancing non-stop in the middle of the restaurant, and the expression on her face made it evident that she wanted to be elsewhere. So here is our official Paris travel tip: No touristy Greek. :)

Paris - Day 6 (Sunday)

Heather was feeling a bit better this morning so we were both really happy. There was a light sprinkle of rain when I woke up, but it only lasted about 30 minutes and then the sun came out. We decided to make the trek out to Versailles, thinking that even if the rains were to return, we'd be able to do the indoor tours. I think on Sunday most of the pattisaries are closed, so the one we found open had a line out the door and around the corner. With our pain au chocolat in hand, we made our way to the RER for the long trip out to Versailles. Chuck and Coryn met up with us on the same train.
It was a great day to be out there, the sun was shining and the sky was filled with puffy white clouds. The wind was a bit strong, in fact we saw some fairly large branches from trees on the ground during or walks through the streets. We decided to do a guided tour of the King's apartments. Heather convinced me it would be better than the standard audioguides we've been doing, and she was right. Our guide was very good and the tour was nearly 2 hours long. The guides use a wireless system where they have a microphone that transmits to a wireless receiver we all wear, with a single ear piece. It a great system because you don't have to huddle in each room and can hear him clearly. During our tour the clouds collected and soon it was raining hard with the same high winds. We felt bad for the people who were caught out in the gardens with very little warning of the storm which came in quickly. By the time we finished our tour the weather had cleared up again.
One of the rooms we visited on the self guided tour had the worlds largest canvas painting. It covers the entire ceiling of the room its housed in and is very impressive. In the same room is an equally impressive fireplace. One that used logs that measured about 10 feet in length. Ever since I saw the movie Citizen Kane, I've loved huge fireplaces, the type you can walk into and you empty the ashes using a snow shovel. One day... one day. :)
We made sure to visit the famous Hall of Mirrors, which is currently finishing up a 3 year renovation project to clean and restore the artwork and mirrors, but also to do some modernizing to make it safer for visitors. Unfortunately this work requires the floor to be covered and a lot of hall was obscured with other construction pieces, so we'll have to come back sometime to see it again. We made our way out into the gardens where we spent the remaining time at Versailles. Once we descended off the upper terrace the wind wasn't as bad, and the sun warmed us up quickly. We walked down to the Grand Canal where you can rent row boats for a romantic afternoon. We opted for a more economical nap on the lush green grass instead. It didn't take long for both Heather and I to snooze off for a quick nap with our fellow tourist friends around. As I lay there entering into the lazy trance, I listened to the sounds around us: the laughs of a little garcon as he played with his papa in the grass, the crunch of the small white stone gravel as people rode bikes by or walked. This is the same gravel that is in all Parisian parks, leaving a light powdering of dust on your shoes that you must wipe clean each evening.
After a lot of walking through the gardens we decided to head back towards the train station and catch dinner at one of the restaurants. On the way out I got the following picture of a new gate they are building that is a replica of the the gate that separated the main courtyard from the noble courtyard. Nobility could ride their carriages through these gates, but everyone else had to walk. There is a third courtyard even further up that was the Royal courtyard which was reserved for only the royal family's use.
We found an Italian restaurant that we all agreed looked good, and we were not disappointed. From my pizza to Heather's carbonara, everything was really good. As we finished up our dinner a lady we had seen at the chataux came in with her little pug. She ordered a glass of wine to warm up as her little dog strolled around the restaurant and greeted each of the diners. He was a smaller pug about the size of Otis and was very friendly (like all pugs).
We said our goodbyes to everyone and then started off for the train station. The temperature had dropped during our meal, so we briskly walked to catch our train at about 10:50. It was a quiet ride home and we opt'ed against getting off at the Tour Eiffel, which we'll do tonight instead.

Paris - Day 5 (Saturday)

HB woke up with a really bad gastro illness this morning, so our day's options were very limited. We had planned to go to Versailles, but we decided it wouldn't be a good place if HB needed to quickly make it to a bathroom. We settled on just going over to the Luxembourg gardens to sit and watch the people and day go by. Some how she was able to make it over there, but then wasn't feeling well so we just grabbed a few chairs. Chuck and Coryn were able to walk to the park from their apartment. As soon as we all got there, Chuck and I went shopping for a little lunch. We found a little market and bought some ham, cheese, Perrier and soda, a few raspberries, and a few baguettes. We got a special baguette with olives in it that was really good.

There were a lot of kids running around the main fountain with their wooden sail boats, giving them a push into the strong wind and then running around to tend to them. I cannot wait to bring Sophia and Brady back to do the same one day. After a few hours the wind started to kick up a bit more and the clouds were doing their daily swirl above us, so we decided to head back to Jussieu and let Heather lay down on Chuck and Coryn's sofa for a bit more rest.
The three of us went over to anohter part that is right next to Chuck and Coryn's called Jardin Des Plantes. Its a great park with a zoo and a lot of trees from all over the world that were planted from the 1700-1800's. Very impressive trees and park. They had an exhibit on potatoes which I learned came from Peru, and now there are over 4000 different types of potatoes. :) There was also a nice rose garden, but most of the roses were a few weeks past their peak. I found one that was still hanging on.

We ended the day watching a few episodes of the British version of the show "The Office". I was surprised at how closely the US version has followed their plots. It was still a lot of fun to watch because the British version is a lot more mature in the humor, and has things that would never fly in the US. I got HB home after some chicken noodle soup and get her in bed with hopes that the worse was behind us.

Paris - Day 4 (Friday)

Yesterday morning we started our day by heading over to BHV (Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville) to do a little shopping before meeting up with Chuck and Coryn. Heather had asked me what type of store BHV compared to and I had a hard time coming up with one. It has a bit of everything, unlike any store in the US. Take for example the first floor. In the front are cosmetics, much like a department store in the US, but then as you venture further back you come across bathroom fixtures like shower heads and faucets. Another section carries paper products and pens. In the lower floor, or floor 0, holds the hardware, power tools and a small selection of lumber. Its another example of the economic use of space that Coryn has noticed.

A search for the toilette brought us to the 5th floor which also has one of Paris' few self serve cafeterias. Since it was near 12, we decided to grab lunch before heading to the Musee d'Orsay. The sitting area has a nice view of the city which we enjoyed as we ate our salads, bread with cheese and a nice glass of red wine.

Our quickest route to the musee was to walk to the other side of the river and catch the RER for one stop. This took us over Ile de la Cite and in front of Notre Dame and then into St. Michel. We came across Shakespeare and Company bookstore which is a little English bookstore that has been a part of Paris for over 50 years. Its now run by the original owner's daughter and had a lot of life when we stopped by. Its a very old building and the rooms inside reflect the budget a small independent bookstore spends on renovation and upkeep. This is not your big box Barnes and Noble with a Starbucks built in, but it was so very inviting to browse through the shelves of books looking for a dusty treasure.

We met up with Chuck and Coryn and spent a few hours going through the collections. The Musee is so different from the Louvre, but just as interesting. The 5th floor where all the impressionistic works are displayed was very crowded. We've been renting the audioguide devices at each of the museums and it really adds to the experience being able to hear how the work was received and other comments about each of the works. There was a very interesting exhibit of photographs that I enjoyed. some of the earliest photos showed daily life scenes from the 1890s. I've always loved to study those and see the details of what people wore when caught candidly on the street, they are so different than the posed photographs that became popular. There was a cafe on the top floor with an outdoor terrace with a great view of the city. the clouds were swirling around Sacre Cour in the distance. It looked like it was going to storm, but the rain didn't fall that day. We've been checking the weather report every chance we get to see if the rain will finally fall, but so far we've been lucky with only a few sprinkles that don't last much more than about 20-30 minutes.

We finished up in the Musee and decided to head back to St. Michel to look around and visit some shops. This is an area of Paris that Chuck knows pretty well so he led us through the small pedestrian streets, filled with shops and cafes. This street holds a restaurant/cafe that has been there since the 1685. Places like this just emphasize how short our counties history really is. We bought a small music box for Brady in the toy store here in the foreground. He loves to play with Sophia's jewelry boxes and watch the music play. Now he'll be able to o the same. I can just see him now, laying on his belly watching the cylinder go around. He'll most likely try and touch it too much, so I had better get him a backup one too :)

We finished up the day, as the rain started to fall, in a small little French restaurant (Collation, 17 Rue Gregoire De Tours). Isabelle greeted us on the street to explain the menu and to convince us her's was the best restaurant on the street. We sat inside the small restaurant of about 8 tables and had a wonderful dinner that lasted 3 bottles and about 3 1/2 hours. We talked with Isabelle a lot through the night about her visits to the US and her ultimate goal of opening a french restaurant in LA one day. She was amazed at how much people would pay for a good French meal in LA, even though it was so easy to prepare. We exchanged emails with her in hopes that we can one day visit her restaurant in LA.

Paris - Day 3

Heather and I woke up to a beautiful day yesterday morning. The sun was out and it was a nice cool morning. On our way over to the local market, that is between us and Place Bastille, we stopped to get an almond croissant. This was our first one, the previous days we'd been too close to the tourist sections and we were unable to find an authentic pattisserie. With food in hand we continued to the market. It was very alive with people picking out fresh ingredients for the day's meals. The fish market was amazing, it had such fresh looking fish, and so much of it. To think there are markets like this all over Paris each day explains why when you go into the local monoprix there isn't any type of veggy section. We walked up and down the isles looking at all the different booths for a bit, but not buying anything because we were on our way out.

We made our way over towards Rue St. Antoine where we stopped at Cafe Modern for a Cafe Creme et une Chocolate. The owner was a younger guy in his late 30s and was working as hard as we Americans do, very un-typical. We've been trying to keep our meals under control because again that Euro is really kicking it to us. We took what we felt as a long time to finish our small breakfast, but I'm sure we were in and out of there in record time compared to our counterparts.

We met up with Chuch and Coryn at the Pigalle metro station. Its at the bottom of the hill that Sacre Coure is built on. I felt a little bad for Coryn and HB, who was not feeling well, because there was no easy way to get up to the top. Luckily, there are a ton of little shops that serve as mini rest stops along the way. I picked up a few small things for the kids and found a Poste to buy some stamps for our post cards. I hope these make it home before we do for the kids.

We stopped and had lunch at a fondu place on the way up and were greeted with the French service I remember from back in the day. Coryn was really offended, but I was glad she saw it because the service we had been getting up until that time was nothing like what I had grown up with. The waitress threw her pad of paper on our table, turned and walked away when Chuck asked for a few more minutes to decide. I think we won her over by the end of the meal, but that's only because of all of her follies like spilling my Perrier on the table next to us.

As we made our way to the top of the steps at Sacre Coure, we took a rest on the steps with tourists from all over the world. The sun was brilliant and there was a constant wind from being up so high. We saw a sign for the "Crypt-Dome" that looked interesting and we paid our 5e and stared the ascend of a spiral staircase. I'm glad I offered to go up alone because it was a challenge for the girls, but they did great getting up there. After a bit more than 300 stairs, we reached the top of the large Dome for a spectacular 360 degree view of Paris. There weren't many people up there so it was a great to gaze out and identify different landmarks and just revel at the sights. I was amazed at the detail that was put into the simplest of things when they constructed the place. This observation tower, so high above Paris gets few visitors, but everything was ornate, from the seating benches to the arched doorways.


After descending, we made our way over to the artist's square. This is the same square we visited on our last visit when we bought Coryn a painting. We met a very nice French painter who spoke very little English. I find myself enjoying talking to the people with less English a bit more. I guess it reminds me of growing up here and always having to struggle through a conversation with both sides only halfway understanding the other. We had already purchsed a small painting of his of a little girl and were talking to him about another painting of a village scene. His style of laying the paint on very thick was quite unique and really worked with the tree that was predominantly place in the foreground. He told us that it wasn't a particular French village, but merely from his imagination and memories from his travels. The paint was still wet so he constructed a protective shell out of cardboard for its safe shipment. When we get home I'll need to inspect it for tree debris that I'm sure it picked up on that windy day. Chuck and Coryn also bought a very interesting painting of Notre Dame.

Heather is ready to head out, so I'll need to finish this post later. This picture is of a shop we passed where the butcher was wrapping a piece of beef with bacon. You can see the bacon in the background on the table, right behind the smiling piggy. :) More Later.

Paris - Day 2

So we have the heavy metal shutters on our one window in the apartment. These are the type that roll down from above and block out both burglers as well as ALL sunlight. I thought it would be harmless to close them while we slept our first night because being on EST, we'd be awake at around 4AM. Well I did wake up at 4, but only for about 3 minutes. Neither Heather or I woke up again until about 9:20. We were supposed to meet Chuck and Coryn at 9 at the Louvre to get an early start. I never would have imagined that we'd be the ones to sleep in. So needless to say, we didn't get an early jump on all the other tourist.

We met up with C&C around 11 and decided to spend the day in the Louvre. I had never been in the new entrance, and it was very impressive. Its a very expansive entrance thats a lot easier than the previous entrance that was tres crowded. We did what we thought was going to be a quick trip of all the highlights, but it turned into an all day event. We saw all the big names, Mona, Venus



There was one very interesting exhibit of the ruins they found under the courtyard where the new pyramid is built. The fortress is from the 1400s and you're able to walk though the moat, with the walls soaring up on both sides. It was amazing to think this structure was hidden until they started construction of the entrance in 1984.

I had a lot of fun walking through the sculptures and came across one that reminded me a lot of Brady. This little guy is putting a hurting on a goose, I guess for fun or for dinner. It reminded me of the treatment Tonka gets every now and then, but in that case its all love and he's only hugging Tonka. We saw quite a few little kids at the museum that made both of us smile as we thought about our little ones.

Time really went by quickly and we didn't leave the museum until about 6PM. We started walking down Rue du Rivoli and got to Cafe Angelina to catch some dinner but got there with on about 15 minutes to eat because they were closing at 7. So we'll be heading back there for some Chocolat Chaud, which is the best we've ever had. We went down a few side streets and ended up in a restaurant that Heather and I had gone to the last time we were here. After dinner Coryn and chuck decided to head back to get a good night sleep and be ready for tomorrow. HB and I wanted to walk around a bit more, so we started walking towards Place de la Concorde. We had wanted to go into the Tuilleries, but it was closing at 9 and they wouldn't let us in. We walked quite a bit, weaving back and forth looking at shops. We ended up near the Embassy and I was amazed at the heightened security as compared to when I was here before. You can no longer drive down the side street, and you can no longer walk on the sidewalk on that side. There were also 4 Police buses in front that appeared to be there on a permanent basis.


We ended up going across the Alexander III bridge, which is the very ornate one with a great view of the Tour Eiffel. It was a perfect night and tomorrow is looking like it will be even nicer, 75 degrees, only 10% chance of rain. A lot better than the 90% on Thursday :(

Paris trip prep

Sophia and Brady were very helpful with our packing. They discovered that our extra large suitcases made perfect little beds to play in. At first they were just hiding inside them and playing peek-a-boo. Then came the pillows, followed up finally by the towel blanket. The kids did pretty well with our departure, but we're not sure how well they comprehend "9 days". Hopefully we'll be able to bring back some fun toys and dress up clothes that will make up for it all. :)

Our flight over was pretty uneventful. AirFrance is a really nice airline, and the plane was packed. The meal was really good, and HB and I had a French red wine with our meal to kick off the vacation. They have a pretty advanced entertainment system for each seat that includes the choice of a handful of movies, about 10 different games and the standard TV and music. The remote detached from the seat and you could hold it like a Nintendo controller for the games. Its amazing how a nicely a game of Solitaire can help the time and miles slip past.

Yesterday was a French holiday to celebrate the end of WWII, so a lot of shops were closed, but more importantly there was no traffic from the airport to our apartment. We shared a cab with a retired couple from Naples FL who were staying about 5 minutes from our studio. It was sunny at the airport, but the clouds collected as we neared Paris and we ended up unloading in front of our studio in the rain. It was a light sprinkle, but enough to discourage exploring the immediate surroundings. So we decided to take a short snooze since we didn't get much sleep on the flight over.

Around 12 we started out towards Chuck and Coryn who are staying near Place Monge on Rue Jussieu. There were plenty of shops and sights to see on our way from Place De La Bastille homebase. By this time, some shops had opened and the sun had appeared to greet us, making for a perfect day for a walk. We took back streets to arrive on Pont Sully which took us to the new Arabic museum which has an amazing front facade of windows filled with metal apertures to regulate the amount of sunlight entering the museum.

Heather and I met up with Chuck and Coryn in a cafe located just next to them for a small lunch snack to get us through till dinner.

Here are a few more pictures that I took as we walked around on our first day. I'll need to add some further detail to them tomorrow morning, because to my surprise, HB is ready to leave after only 70 minutes!!! WOW.


Heather and Coryn lighting a candle in Notre Dame.


During our walk home from dinner we passed through Place Des Vosges which has a collection of cafes and art studios. We'll be heading back there to look through a few of the studios and their art work.