cindyjo

Better late than never and I hope this will assist in trip planning. I had many questions and was able to do much of my planning from the responses in this forum.

**Flight** We flew Air Transat from Vancouver to Paris. It was the trip from hell. The flight was almost 6 hours late leaving Vancouver. The seats were the most restrictive I have ever been in. I later read that they add 2 more seats to the normal configuration. We had aisle seats and the flight attendants would continually bump us as they made their way down the tiny aisle. The food was inedible. Good price though!

**Arrival** Due to our late flight we missed our Eurostar connection and had a certain amount of angst as we made our way to the station. The folks at Eurostar were very kind and luckily we were able to book another train that afternoon. We were competing with huge amounts of rugby fans headed for the rugby final in Paris between France and Britain. The Eurostar trip was pretty entertaining with the drunken singing of British rugby fans! We pulled into Gare Nord and had our first experience with the quintessential French strike! All transportation workers went home! The lines for a taxi were endless and we ended up waiting 3 hours for a taxi. Luckily, the drunken Brits were still in a good mood and the lines were lively and no bad behavior from any of us! There was, however, a lot of bad mouthing of Sarkozy. I had read that Paris needs more taxis and we definitely experienced that point of view. A taxi would round the corner every five minutes and everybody in line perked up - the groans were audible when the taxi would continue to zip by (probably at least half of them) and then everybody would snap their heads back to the empty corner.

**Apartment** We rented a lovely 60m2 apartment in the 9th for 12 days, 1 block from Rue des Martyrs. It is no longer listed on Homelidays. We loved the 9th - many good restaurants, cafes, shops. 5 minutes or less to Metro or subway. easily walkable to Montmartre. Last time we were in Paris we rented an apartment in the Rue Cler area. It was a much more interesting experience to be out of the center but yet no more than 10-15 minutes away from the major sites. It was great to be tourists and then come home to a neighborhood. Don't be fearful of staying out of the main tourist areas. In Paris, you are never far from transportation and if you are fine with the bus, metro and walking, the 9th is perfect (also cheaper).

**Sights** Our best picks this trip: Musee Rodin (never tire of it)- L'Orangerie (first time since it had just reopened)was a gorgeous setting for Monet's waterlillies - Pere Lachaise, we loved that city of the dead - organ concert at Saint Sulpice, violin concert at Saint Chapelle - doomed dance concert at the Paris Opera House due to another strike, we did get to enter to get our refund for tickets and got to take a quick look at the Chagall ceiling which was breathtaking - lovely afternoon at the Jardin du Luxembourg on a Sunday with more French families than tourists - St. Eustache and St. Germain-des-Pres and Notre Dame (we will always go there) where the organmaster was giving a lesson to his student - Centre Pompidou, Muse Picasso and the Cluny (all new to us this trip) - walking through the Montmartre area which has an intimate neighborhood feeling away from the thoroughfare to Sacre Couer.
**Eating** Definitely one of the main reasons we go to Paris! We like informal, relaxed, small places. We ate well in our apartment being so close to the market street but did manage to eat out inbetween the tarte citrons and espressos. 3 favorites: FISH LA BOISSONNERIE(69 rue de Seine 01 43 54 34 69), L'HOMME TRANQUILE (81, rue des Martyrs, 01 42 54 56 28)very reasonable and delicious (we went twice!) say hi from Seattle to Antoine if you go, CHEZ JANOU, near Place des Vosges (2 rue Roger-Verlomme, 01 42 72 28 41) very lively, very reasonable, very good food.

**Final Thoughts** My husband rented a bike (at that time unable to use the bike system due to unchipped credit card)and rode all over Paris. He had a blast.

Buy the Paris Pratique Par Arrondissement at the newstand and carry it always for bus and metro maps.

Buy the Carte Orange or equivilent ( may have changed the system). Don't be intimated, it is very easy. Lots of posts here to tell you how.

Do check the cathedrals for free music concerts, they are frequent and wonderful.

Buy a copy of Pudlo Paris by Gilles Pudlowski, the reviews were accurate, restaurant, bakery, speciality foods reviews listed by arrondisement, also easy to carry.

Hope this helps anyone planning a trip. We are almost done with major planning for a trip to Provence in May and have really appreciated all the help from here. Happy Travels!

nukesafe

Great, succinct, and informative trip report, but you must mean October, 2007, right?

knickerbocker

Wow! That's the first trip report I've ever seen from before the trip even started!

Seriously though, I have you beat. I'm still working on a trip report from May of '07. Interesting stuff, Cindy

cindyjo

Oops! Guess i am thinking of the next trip already. Yes, October 2007 - seems like a long time ago doesn't it. What are the chances of the dollar being worth a little more?? I am not a pessimist but probably not good.

nukesafe

Well, since it was October, 2007, we were there at the same time. We live in Anacortes, WA, and also considered flying out of Vancouver. From your experience, I'm glad we didn't. We were going to use Zoom Airlines, which I think has folded.

I submitted my trip report a bit more promptly, so if you want to see if we saw the same things, see:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35085760

Hope you enjoyed yourselves half as much as we did.

Photobear

Sounds like a great trip...How was the weather? Did you need an umbrella much. How many days were you there for?

You have made me decide that Air transat is not for us...

cindyjo

Photobear - We were on the ground 12 days. We had fabulous weather.. one day of drizzle that didn't stop us. We did bring an umbrella but didn't use it. We were in Paris 3 years ago in December and it was cold- about the same temperature as my home Seattle but seemed colder for some reason. Even then, walking creates a lot of heat and we were comfortable. However, we both got pneumonia during the trip and spent 3 days in bed. We got to understand the French health system a bit and had a very young nice doctor come to our apartment to treat us. Between my poor French and his poor English, he diagnosed us and gave us scripts for lots of drugs which were easy to pick up at the local pharmacie. We did take out travel insurance for that trip with TravelGuard and they reimbursed us for all expenses by just sending in copies of the receipts.
Nukesafe - thanks for the link. Sounds like a joyous trip.
FYI. This time we are flying Air France. They actually have the best fares now and when I bought my tix 2 weeks ago, they had dropped 300 a ticket only to come up again the following week. Paid $915 each flying into Nice and out of Marseille. We like the quick trip (relatively) that they offer and hope they turn out to be more comfortable than the airline that shall not be named!!

nukesafe

Wow, $915 on Air France! That brings things back into possibility for us. We had given up on Europe when the Euro skyrocketed, and all of the fares I saw were over $1200. With that fare, and the way the Euro has been falling ---------

BTW, I find it a bit weird that we were in Paris during the same time period and both had exposure to the French health care system for pneumonia. Was it something we ate?

yk

cindyjo- wow, this certainly is quite a belated report, but better late than never! We were in Paris at the same time too, as we also ran into the tranportation strike. Fortunately, we were staying in the 6th, so we could walk to many sights with our 2 feet. I had planned for us to visit Versailles originally but had to cancel because of the strike.

NOnetheless, we found ourselves back in Paris just 2 weeks ago, so finally got to visit Versailles this time around!

PinkAddict

Since cindyjo is already at the topic of "OCT 2008" (which i know was a small error) .. I am now in Paris (very near the OCT time frame, this time OCT 2008) ...

Sitting at the cafe with wifi now, watching the sunset at the Opera, the weather has changed from the remains of summer to cold. 2 weeks ago when I was in South of France and Italy, the weather was nice, warm in the afternoon, a bit chilly in the evening. My 1st day in Paris in Sept 22 was great blue skies. This is my 5th trip to Paris already, and was trying to find what else I must do which I havent done yet. Decided to try walking up the Arc De Triomph and it was super worth it! The views were superb and we waited for sunset! I wonder why i never did this before. I thought the Eiffel Tower view was just same as this one, so I just passed the thought. No, this on-top of Arc view is way better than Eiffel, and in the end you can get a photo of yourself with the Eiffel tower at the back.

This trip was a bit different from the past... as this time around i used FODOR's to give me advise on some restaurants. Oh my, I am so glad I did that! The whole gastronomic experience was way better than all the past trips.

2 restaurants which I tried (SEPT 2008) which was recommended by Fodors:

1. Le Timbre - a small restaurant which had superb food. I ended up having LUNCH and DINNER there on the same day (bec it was so good)

2. La Boulangerie - The service was fantastic, the appetizer fois gras was to die for. The mains were okay. The dessert was yummy (Tarte Tatin).

Right now while i am writing this, I am just passing the time to wait for 7pm (which is somehow the official dinner time before real restaurants will even open). I have looked at Fodors again and found their recommendation Le Vaudeville. We called for a reservation and will be walking to the restaurant in a few minutes.

Just wanted to share ...

Sally30

Pink Adict - just curious - I see the weather is in the low 60s. Are people dressing for fall now, light coats, scarfs, etc? It is the same weather here in boston and I just brought out my fall jacket although I see some of the students still wearing shorts!

1xmasgirl

Pink Addict: Since you are there right now...how much is the Carte Orange - the one week one. Also can it be bought at Charles De Gaul airport?

I'll be in Paris the end of October. Should I expect rain?