Our European Vacation Diary

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PLEASE NOTE: We are constantly adding updates to the text of the trip report as we go along, and then much later we come back and add color comments, links, and pictures. Please don't forget to wind your way backwards in time into the blog to enjoy or hate these pieces of personal history.

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David

Decided we would walk to the Air France shuttle by the Arc de Triomphe. Walked along the Champs Elysee, stopped and had our last expensive coffee at Georges IV. Ouch!  It was a bit crowded as the World Rugby Cup had been going on for the last few weeks and there were more tourists on the weekends in Paris. We left and arrived at the bus stop. One bus had left and another one had pulled up but the two men wouldn't let anyone on until 'they' decided it was time. They just kep shooting the breeze for another 15 minutes.

We finally got on the bus, which is supposed to leave every 20-30 minutes for Charles De Gaulle airport. Time goes by and they are still letting people on the bus even though it's past time. I guess this is the civil service system at work! They finally leave and we get to the airport in about 30 minutes. We are dropped off, but notice there are no signs anywhere for any of the airlines. We go inside and have to ask several people where the AA check in area is located.  Really a crazily designed airport!

Got my bag searched - they pulled out the pesto and snowglobes but let me through with it. (little did I know, at least in the US you can't carry snowglobes at all on board). Business class was awesome! We had a retrofitted plane with the new lay flat pod-style seats, DVD entertainment system, bigger overhead bins. Food was great - salmon , steak, pizza for a snack, ice cream sundaes, wine, champagne.

Customs and Immigration at Chicago was easy to get through. Having to go back through security stunk. My bag got searched and they saw the pesto and made me put it in a smaller ziploc bag versus the bigger one it was in - go figure! They didn't bother to check for the snowglobes - which is what the Xray guy saw in the first place. I don't feel safer. Got back home around 12:30 am and took the shuttle bus and arrived about 1:30 am.

Tired, happy and sad!

Boo hoo! Our last day of the trip and Paris! We headed over to Paul's for pasty, cafe and hot chocolate (thick and yummy), then to Montmarte and Sacre Coeur. Well it is a bit sleazy, and touristy and we kept an eagle eye out for pickpockets and scammers. We saw several scams being people pulled on people. Almost had the bracelet scam at Sacre Coeur pulled on us - we just kept walking, looking straight ahead. Bought souvenirs for family at one of the many shops and then climbed to the top and viewed Paris from Sacre Coeur. It was crowded and after six weeks of this, we couldn't wait to get away from this area and all the crowds.

Took the Metro to La Defense. David had been here in the past and wanted to show me. Wow- huge more modern arch, which was built at the other end of Arc de Triomphe - on a clear day you can see how they both line up. This was more industrial area and we had lunch at the Hippopatomus. Food wasn't bad, service was not so good.

Got back to the apartment to clean up and pack. Forgetting it was a Friday night, we though we could just walk out and find someplace to eat. No such luck, we ended back at the Hippopotamus on the corner. Busy, we got seated and had appetizers and some win. Went to Cafe Le Ponthieu for crepes with glace. They were OK, but the waiter was funny!

Back home to finish packing and to bed.

It started out a bit chilly and foggy. Decided to walk to the Musee D'Orsay.  We walked near the US Embassy area again. Police and their vans were everywhere - some of them were inside watching DVD movies, TV, reading the paper. Several of them said 'Bonjour' to us - I guess they recognized us as we had walked through this area several times already in the past week. One of them stopped traffic so we could cross the street.

We arrived and even though it looked crowded it did not take us long to get inside. This used to be an old train station and was converted into the museum - most of the art is Impressionism. Wow- it's beautiful and I loved all the paintings by Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Renoir, Cezanne! We really like this museum. We spent two hours here.

We then started walking towards Il de Cite. We walked along Rue Lille - Rue des Saints Peres - Rue l'Universitie looking for a place to eat - we didn't like anything we saw. We found ourselves on Rue Seine and saw La Palette.
They were serving lunch so we stopped - same funny waiter. Owner waited on us - he came across as gruff- but was really a teddy bear. We had 2 beers, 2 capuccinos, 2 croque madames and fried potatoes. Forty euros and better than that stupid Cafe Flore.

Note: I do not agree with Patricia Wells in her book Food Lover's Guide to Paris - she speaks more highly of Cafe Flore than La Pallette. I feel it is the opposite, we enjoyed ourselves much better at La Pallette- better service, food for the money.

We left and walked to Il de la Cite, across Pont Neuf. Saw a 1940's/50's movie being filmed in Place le Dauphine. Walked to St .Chappelle and Notre Dame. Wow! Took a bunch of photos, stopped to buy some French flags from a cart. We said 'Bonjour' to the man selling us the flags, he said 'Hello' in English and then asked where we lived. We couldn't figure out how he knew we were Americans since we had spoken French! :) We told him Texas and he said "Bonjour, Texas!" Nice man.

Left and headed to Hotel de Ville metro to go shop at Galleries Lafayette Department store. We arrived and OH MY GOODNESS!! The place was a madhouse. It was hot and we could hardly move through the crowds. Apparently they were having a 40% of sale and it was beyond crowded. We went to the top floor for souvenirs - looked at the beautiful interior and left as fast as we could. I will have to save this shopping for another time in Paris when maybe it won't be so crowded. Oh yes, it took us 30 minutes to check out - they were so slow - took 3 people to check one person out!

We get back near the apartment and I have been itching to buy something, anything from Paris to wear. So back to the Monoprix where I bought a black purse, 2 cashmere like sweaters and a wool hat. I was dressed all in black that day and David was holding my coat and bag as I shopped. Well, French women kept coming up to me and asking me questions in French - such as: do you have this in black, another one in back?? I kept responding 'I don't speak French, or I don't know' in French and couldn't figure out why they all thought I worked there. I look up and notice that all the Monoprix female employees in that department are dressed all in black!! The next person that asked me a question I said "I don't work here" in French.. It was funny and I suppose a compliment that I looked French!

We left Monoprix and went back to freshen up for our dinner out at 7:30 pm. We went to D'Chez Eux in the 7th. It's a small place near Invalides.We were seated and the only English speaking people in there from I could tell. We were fortunate to get a funny, nice waiter named Dominic. He spoke very good English. He figured out that David did not know any French and I knew some so he would tease David by saying things in French and looking at me or asking David something in French while poor David begged me to translate. Dominic had a good sense of humor.

DW has cassoulet with duck, pork and sausage. I had roack of lamb with potatoes au gratin and a bottle of Bordeaux. The dessert was quite different. They have a 3 tier cart with all sorts of items like pudding, fig sauce, cherry, and other fruits, ice cream, and biscotti. You serve yourself as much as you want from the cart. The owner stopped and said something in French, our waiter said something to him, and he promptly switched to English. We still tried to speak a little French to him. We received Chez Eux key chains, said 'Au Revoir' and home to bed!

Dw was up all night sick. We figured out it was probably the mostly raw burger he had eaten on Day 8! He yogurt, aspirin and slept until about 11 am. I got ready to go and he showered and was ready by about 12:30 pm. It had lightly rained the night before, but by this morning had quit and was just cloudy. We packed the backpack and headed towards the St. Germain de Pres area via the metro.

David had stayed in this area several years before and wanted to show me the hotel, the church and where he ate. We got off the metro and started walking on Rue de Sevres towards the Church . We realize after 15 minutes or so we are going the opposite direction - we turned around and walked past the Bon Marche department store. We thought we would eat in the cafe and got ourselves seated. Ouch -  kind of a frou-frou place - decorated in lime and pink. The most overpriced salads and sandwiches I had ever seen! We decided to not waste our money and got up and left.

We kept walking to Rue Four and then to Blvd. St. Germain de Pres. We saw the infamous Cafe Les Deux Magots and Cafe de Flore. We decide to grab something to eat here and were seated outside, crushed between several other tables with people smoking - I couldn't believe we weren't set on fire! Well I may get in trouble here from Francophiles, but this was the WORST MEAL EVER!

Two croque monsieurs (ham, cheese, bread - how bad can you screw that up?), one beer and one water for 40 euros! Sandwiches were awful - on white bread and nasty. The people watching was OK but NEVER eat here! There are plenty of good places around this area - do not waste your money here.

If you want a drink and want to watch all the old men with their young, blonde "girlfriends" fine; but we couldn't wait to get out of this area. We walked to St. Germain de Pres church and had banana/nutella crepes from the crepe stand on the corner - the gentleman sang us a song while he made our crepes- only in Paris!

We walked to Jardin du Luxembourg park.  It's a fabulous public park where the locals go and not so touristy. We watched the kids play tennis and basketball, men playing cards and chess on the tables and chairs set up in the park. We wandered over to the pond where the wooden sailboats cruise around with children running with sticks to give them a push. It was quite crowded for a Wednesday afternoon. By now the sky had cleared and it was blue, sunny and warm outside.

We left the park and marched up Rue Tournon and stopped at a cafe on the corner - La Pallete for coffee. EEK expensive! The waiter was funny and nice though - greeted us in French, English, German and who know what else. We continued up Rue de Seine and across Pont des Arts to the Louvre. The Louvre stays opens late on Wednesdays and Friday nights so I thought it would be a great time to go with less crowds.

As we were walking towards the entrance we had the "Gold ring" scam pulled on us-read the link for info about scams in Paris. We went in through the Pyramid entrance and there was no line; we got our tickets quickly. Even though it looked crowded around the entrance, the museum is so huge the crowds are not a problem. We visited the ground floor and first floor of the Sully, Denon and Richlieu wings. We saw Italian, French, Spanish paintings, Greek and Roman sculptures and Egyptian artifacts. Able to see the Mona Lisa, at a distance, as they have it behind glass and  make you stand behind a roped off area. Saw Venus de Milo (it was ok, but not impressive like the David sculpture).

We got lost trying to find our way out; our feet were killing us. We had stayed about 2.5 hours. I know most of you will think we didn't stay long enough or see as much as we did, but know that we had already been to museums in London, Rome, and Florence and seen alot of the similar type paintings and artifacts so we cruised through some of the areas.

We walked back along Rue Rivoli to the apartment (30 minutes - our feet hurt!). We had dinner at Cafe Le Ponthieu (onion soup and beef/mashed potatoes). Back to the apartment late and crashed. We were tired!!

We awoke early and metroed to the Fat Tire Bike Tour offices near the Eiffel Tower. I love the musicians in the metro - we have been serenaded by guitars, bands, saxophones, accordians, violinists - some good, some not so good. :)

The tour is supposed to begin at 9 am and end at 5 pm but as usual someone is always late - we waited 40 minutes for the last two people to show up. This is wrong on Fat Tire's part and they should put an end to this - You'll see later why this is a problem. We checked out our bikes (a bit old style and rickety), hopped on them and biked to the nearest RER (regional) train station. It was wild trying to get our bikes through the station and then picking them up and hopping on the train before it takes off!

We got off at the Versailles train station and proceeded to bike to the Versailles market to buy food for our lunch. It's interesting biking through traffic with 20 people!

The Versaille market is amazing! I could have stayed all day and bought one of everything! There were indoor and outdoor stalls containing fresh seafood, meat, all sorts of vegetables, olive oil, thousands of cheeses, bread. Around the market there are small streets with bakeries and wine shops. We bought a bottle of wine and went to a recommended bakery for two chicken sandwiches, quiches and brownies. Everyone met up at the appointed time (surprisingly) and we continued on to the Versailles Gardens.

It's a beautiful city and the leaves were changing to orange, gold and yellow and falling on us as we biked along. We rode into the Versailles gardens and stopped at Marie Antoinette's Hamlet. We then continued to Le Petit Trianon where Louis XIV kept Madame Pompidou (his mistress). We then biked to the Grand Trianon and got off our bikes and walked to it and the gardens. Loved the pink marble columns. Our guide was great and a wealth of information about French history and why things happened and explaining how Versailles was built and what was going on with France during that time period.

We biked over to the Grand Canal to have our picnic lunch. It was nice to get off those bikes for an hour!

Finally biked to Versailles Palace, left our bikes, got our entrance tickets. We had about 1.5 hours to go through the Palace.

Wow! What opulence - If you ever visit this Palace you'll know why the French Revolution happened! Don't know what else to say, except look at the photos- they describe it all!

We got some postcards and headed out to meet up with our group at the appointed time - well only 9 of 18 people were there. We waited 10 minutes and at this point had missed the train the guide wanted to take. Our guide finally had to go back to the Palace and search for the rest of group. While he was gone, two more wandered up with their arms full of stuff from the shop - not seeming to care that they were late. At this point we had missed another train. Our guide finally returns some 30 minutes later - supposedly some of them got lost. We start off to the station and a couple of people who had been cutting up during the day were messing around again and wrecked the bikes. One of them was too damaged to ride, so the guide had to pick it up and carry it all the way to the station. We just barely make the third train.

Forty minutes later we arrive and bike back to Fat Tire headquarters - it was almost dark at this point. We were tired, exhausted and frustrated as we should have been back by 5 pm. But because of the shenanigans of a few people, the lack of respect for others in the group (ie: not showing up on time) it was almost 8 pm,We walked to the nearest Metro stop, and back to the apartment.

We grabbed a sandwich and cheesecake at Paul's as it was closing and had that and some champagne for dinner.

DW was feeling bad, so he goes to bed early and I stay listening to French jazz for a while!

Conclusion:
We enjoyed the tour, our guide was wonderful, however two things Fat Tire should do:

1. Don't wait on late comers for more than 10 minutes. Put that on the website and stick to it or at least tell people to show up 15-20 minutes before you really want to leave. When you set a standard for waiting, it continues throughout the day with people showing up late and not caring because they know you won't leave them behind.
2. Up date and take better care of the bikes- they were not in that good of condition - chains breaking, flat tires

We hopped out of bed, went to a different patisserie for hot chocolate, croissants and coffee - not as good as Paul's. We took the metro to the Eiffel Tower. It was so crowded even for a Monday morning. We stood in line for over an hour!

Finally got on the elevator - eek! It goes up at an angle and then goes straight up to the second observation level. Wow what a fantastic view. It was hazy that day, but the view was still good - I can only imagine how great a view it would be on a clear day. We stayed for about 30 minutes buying a few postcards and taking a photo for a couple from Texas - we know as they asked "Would ya'll tak a photo of us?" We hadn't heard 'ya'll' in almost six weeks!

We left the Eiffel Tower and proceeded to walk through Parc du Champ Mars. We took Avenue Bourdonnais, over to Ave De La Motte Picquet. I found Cafe Le Florimond which I had heard was good. They were full inside for lunch, but there was one table outside where the owner sat us. It was a good 21 euro fixed price lunch menu! The owner, Laurent, was so nice and spoke excellent English - loved his colorful tie! I had a gnocchi with spinach, marinated lamb with mustard sauce, rice/banana/raisin gateau (like a timbale). David had canard with mashed potatoes on top, cucumber salad, and a chocolate mousse.

We left and walk to the famous Rue Cler and its famous market, past Rue Grenville. Got a citron/sugar crepe on the corner of Rue Cler. Rue Cler was OK, but seemed a bit trashy - it has been overexposed by several travel guides whose names won't be mentioned.

We walked past Rue Bosquet all the way to Tour Marbourg and back to our apartment. I really liked the 7th arrondissment - it was quieter, more like a neighborhood with trees lining the streets and not so touristy.

Tonight was the night of our evening cruise on the Seine River. We had an 20:00 (8 pm) reservation. We walked from our apartment all the way to Vedettes Pont-Neuf boat dock. It was quite crowded, but we boarded quickly and got seats on the side of the boat. It was a bit chilly - but wonderful and well worth it. This is a must do in Paris!!

We sailed up the river towards the Eiffel Tower. It was lit up with flashing white lights, then static white lights, then white lights on the bottom and green lights on the top of the tower. So beautiful! We turned around and sailed to Notre Dame and Il de Cite and back to the Pont Neuf dock. You could see people in their apartments on the river, having dinner, watching the TV. It was lovely, I want an apartment on the Seine River!

We walked back and stopped at Cafe Le Ponthieu about one block from our apartment. I thought it was a nice little place with decent food. David got a cheeseburger and ordered it medium, however, this is France and it shows up pretty rare! He eats it anyway. I ordered a croque madame- good! We had a 1/2 liter of house white wine.

Off to bed as we had to be up a little early for our tour on bikes to Versailles.

This was the first Sunday of the month and museums are free. So I thought we would get up early and head to the L'Orangerie for the 9:30 am opening. We got out and about around that time - wow so quiet and less crowded that time of day. Well,we walked to the L'Orangerie and the opening times had changed for individuals - we could not get in until 12:30 pm. So we decided to go ahead with Plan B which was take the metro to the Marais (3-4th arrondissment) and stroll that area.

Purchased a carnet of tickets (10 for 11.20 euros) in the metro (noticed it's not as crowded as London metro) and rode to Le Marais. It was still cool and quiet outside, the shops had not opened up yet. We went to a cafe and had croissants and chocolate chaud (hot chocolate) for $12 - ouch!

We finished our breakfast and started our stroll. We walked to the famous Place des Vosges. We encountered many homeless people along the street and actually sleeping in the Place des Vosges with their limited belongings and some even had dogs with them.  They use the public toilets that are set up around the city.

We continued walking to Rue St. Antoine, over and up Rue Rivoli to Hotel De Ville, then up to Bourg-Tibourg Place where we had lunch at Cavalier Blue - chicken and pomme frites for me and croque monsieur and pomme frites for David. After lunch, we walked to a crepe cart and I had my first taste of Parisienne crepes! Banana and nutella - yum!

After filling ourselves we walked to the Pompidou, down Rue Rambuteau to Forum les Halles. At this point, we decided to go ahead and walk the rest of the way to the Louvre area where the L'Orangerie was located. We took Rue Louvre through the arches and into courtyard past the pyramids. It was quite crowded by now. We got to Orangerie- not much of line to get in considering it was free. Well I'm glad we didn't pay, the first room was Monet's Lily paintings which were nice, but then there was a downstairs room with a handful of paintings - neither one of us liked that much. We were in and out in about 40 minutes.

We walked back on a different street and saw some barricades so decided to cross and walk on the other side. We noticed a large building with gates and fencing, and suddenly a uniformed guard runs out, shaking his finger at us as if we were naughty children! Apparently we were not allowed to walk on that side of the street so we crossed back over and found the sidewalk behind the barricades.  We noticed quite a few SWAT-style vans parked along the street and a couple of police officers. When we got back to the apartment, I looked on the map and realized we had walked on Avenue Gabriel in front of the US Embassy and other government buildings - No wonder there were so many guards!

We hung out in our apartment sipping French beer and snacking on, dare I say it, tortilla chips and hot sauce. Ok so we missed a few things in Texas- we couldn't believe we found those in the Monoprix and we just had to have chips and salsa- it had been almost 6 weeks without some kind of Mexican food!!  Don't give us hard time!

Went to bed around 10:30 pm- walking sure does tire you out!

We got a late start today, but needed the sleep. We left the apartment around noon and headed to the fabulous Paul's Bakery on the corner for chicken sandwiches.  We walked along the Champs Elysee and ate them in a small park.

After eating, we walked to Place de la Concorde, the Obelisque and across Pont de la Concorde. We turned right and walked along the Left Bank on the Quai D'Orsay people watching and looking at all the boats cruising the Seine River!

Saw the Eiffel Tower in the distance and continued past Pont Alexandre III bridge - wow very flashy bridge with gold statues! We got closer and closer to the Eiffel Tower - it was amazing! The World Rugby Tournament was in town in Paris, so it was very crowded around the tower with lots of kiosks selling tourist stuff and guys running around trying to get you to buy cheap eiffel tower souvenirs.

The Eiffel Tower is beautiful, it's wrought iron and with the way it was built looks like filigree or lace. We took a bunch of photos and then crossed Pont D'lena to the Trocadero. Even more crowds, they had a rugby station set up with crap music playing - we headed out.

We walked along Avenue Kleber to the Arc de Triomphe and over to the Champs Elysee and window shopped. We saw all the famous places: Foquet's, Laduree (crowded and touristy), Peugot showroom, all the high-end shops like Louis Viutton, Dolce and Gabbana, Sephora, lovely McDonalds (yuk), Gap, etc.

We headed back to the apartment to rest our weary feet and have some champagne and appetizers. We had dinner at an Indian restaurant called Shahi Qila a block from our apartment.

We got up and checked out fairly early and walked to the train station for an 8 am train ride to Nice. This time we did not get lost, we stayed on the right road, walking through the old town again, stopping for coffee. We hopped on the train and arrived in Nice about 8 minute later!

We were about an hour early for our TGV train to Paris. David checked the board, figured out platform and went to get more coffee. Our TGV train arrived early, so were able to get on the train and had 30 minutes to settle in our seats. David went to get me some English magazines for the long train ride. He came back with the British version of InStyle magazine and a home design magazine. The train took off and luckily wasn't too crowded - it was a 5.5 hour train ride.

Once again, I enjoyed the scenery along the coast of France through Cagnes-sur-Mer, Cannes and Cap D'Ail. Luckily we did not have to change trains at all. Once we left the coastline and got out in the countryside, the TGV started going it's normal speed (300 mph?). I liked looking out at the scenery, seeing all the farms dotting the countryside, looking at villages perched on hillsides.

We arrived around 15:00 (3 pm) at the Paris Gare St. Lazare train station. This station was amazing - large, thousands of people milling about, national guard with machine guns and berets watching everything, wrought iron and gothic looking clock.

We called the apartment manager who said he would have someone meet us at the apartment around 16:30 (4:30 pm) so off we went to find at taxi. It took us a few minutes to get oriented and we were both on the lookout for pickpockets and thieves. We finally found the taxi stand outside and once again, a la Rome, we stood for 15 minutes or so in a queue before we were able to hop in a taxi.

We drove the French traffic towards the Champs Elysee, up Rue de Rivoli. I was gawking at the sites and names of places I had read about my entire life - I caught a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower before we turned onto our street! Wow!
We turned on to Rue du Ponthieu and hopped out in front of a building sandwiched in between cafes and shops. We used the key code to get in to the entryway. We waited about 20 minutes for the manager's assistant to show up. She took us up to the apartment, using the smallest elevator known to mankind, and let us in our home for the next 8 nights.

It was beautiful, as nice as the photos on the website, if not better and larger than I expected. We rented this from Vacation in Paris and it's one block off the Champs Elysee.

We hooked up the computer to the internet and read their comprehensive book on using things in the apartment and where to eat, buy groceries, cafes, shops, etc. We decided we needed some supplies such as wine, cheese, snack food and hopped over to the Monoprix (like a French walmar) right around the corner from us.

Wow- this place was small and massively crowded. I window shopped upstairs where the clothes were and then we went downstairs to get some groceries. It was really too crowded and we were ready to get back to our abode.

David started some laundry and around 20:00 (8 pm) we went to eat at Dynasty Thai on the corner of our street. It was Thai/Chinese food and was good, but a bit pricey.

We ended the evening peering out our floor to ceiling windows watching the traffic and listening to the sounds of Paris!