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I'll Never Need Turkey Again: Thanksgiving in Paris

Here’s a quickie report for our Thanksgiving trip to Paris.

Mission:
1) Visit our study-abroad student daughter, who lives in the 7th and studies in the 16th, over Thanksgiving
2) Take her winter clothing and down coat
3) Bring back her summer clothing
4) Eat massive quantities of French food

Length of Stay: November 24 through November 30 departure

Temperature/Outerwear Needed:
Ranged from low of around 32, high of around 57 during our stay. Wind as always along Seine and open spaces. Wore down coat, gloves and scarf for most of stay but never needed a lot of layers or silk underwear the way I usually do January and February. Spot of rain--but we were never out in it.

Accommodations:
Paris Vacation Apartment on 26 Rue Fabert (in 7th near Invalides)
http://www.parisvacationapartments.com

Restaurants Visited:

• Reed
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/818648 (Joan’s entry)
Dinner
A first visit for all of us

• Le Florimond
http://leflorimond.com/
Dinner
4th time for me, 3rd time for daughter, 1st time for husband

• Le Violon d'Ingres
http://www.maisonconstant.com/eng_violon.htm
Dinner
2nd time for daughter, 1st time for husband and me

• Les Cocottes 
http://www.maisonconstant.com/eng_cocottes.htm
Lunch
2nd for me, 1st for husband

• Café Constant
http://www.maisonconstant.com/eng_cafe.htm
Dinner, Breakfast
1st for husband and me

• Le Casse Noix 
http://www.le-cassenoix.fr/
Dinner
1st for all of us

• Pottoka
http://parisbymouth.com/our-guide-to-paris-pottoka/
Lunch
1st for husband and me

• Le Petit Troquet
http://restaurant.abemadi.com/f/74.html
Dinner
3rd for me and 1st for husband

To Be Continued

"I'll Never Need Turkey Again: Thanksgiving in Paris"
Second Segment of Report

Museums (Exhibits Visited) :

• Museè Jacquemart-André (Fra Angelico)
http://musee-jacquemart-andre.com/en/home

• Grand Palais (Stein Family Exhibit)
http://www.grandpalais.fr/en/Footer-...nformation.htm

• The Musée de l'Orangerie (Iberian Painters of late 19th/early 20th century) 
http://www.musee-orangerie.fr/

• Museè Marmotton (Henri Cross) http://www.marmottan.com/english/pre...um-history.asp

Note: We did not buy museum passes this time. The Grand Palais and the Museè Jacquemart-André don’t accept the pass anyway. 

Transportation:

• Taxi to/from CDG (averaged 55 Euros).
Got at taxi rank at LaTour Marbourg spot without any problem.

• 2 carnets, no passes

• Used Metro twice; rest of the time used buses, mostly the 69.

Fun buys:

• Mink beret for daughter at second-hand store in Marais

• Darling computer bag with convertible strapping in store near St. Paul Village. Store had fabulous reversible purses with zippered insides perfect for warding off thieving hands. I have to find name of store (and of product!)

• Picard (Rue Grenelle store) frozen products--They ARE so good. Daughter lives on them.

To Be Continued

"I'll Never Need Turkey Again: Thanksgiving in Paris"
Third Segment of Report

Favorite Buskers:
"Les Musiciens de Lviv" (Cabaret Slave)
9 guys, all instrumentalists with big voices. They usually perform at Place de Vosges on Sundays, but they appear in lots of other locations. My daughter told me they seem to report to Concorde on Mondays and FDR on Thursdays.

We always visit them on Sundays in the Marais.

What can I tell you about them and about why I love them? We-ell, while most of my ancestors came to the US from various spots in the British Isles, they settled in a steel-making valley that seemed to have two Eastern European ethnic clubs per square foot. That is only a slight exaggeration: my hometown was a place where summer softball league teams consisted of the Bulgarians, the Slovaks, the Slovenian Team 1, Team 2, etc. There were competing folk dance troupes.

Anyway, these Les Musiciens de Lviv sing songs from just about every one of those aforementioned Eastern European regions, and they include a lot of materials that you may have heard on the albums of the Red Russian Army Chorus and Band (fabulous stuff).

Here is a truly wonderful informational blog entry about them with lots of video clips of them plus links to some album sound clips:
http://www.squidoo.com/cabaret-slave

To Be Continued

Looking forward to the rest of the report.

I hope you're going to tell us what you thought of all those restaurants.

Ooooh, that all sounds lovely.

Do let us know your impressions! :-)

Thanks guys.

Nikki, I won't give you a blow-by-blow of our dishes, but I am mapping out our general thumbs up, thumbs down.

This HTML is getting in my way. Fodors accepts some HTML but not all, so that's the problem. I could do without, but I'm sure you are all like me--you have to scan a lot of material over the course of a day, and it helps to have some "eye aides".

I hope to have all the report part done within the next half hour.

Wow...you are so organized to include websites, etc...!

Love the mink beret! How fun. Glad to see the review on Reed on chowhound! I am not on it but did one on trip advisor. I really hope she does well.

Thanks for the web sites---always helpful.

Good stuff. What replaced the turkey and stuffing meal?

Excellent trip report! Thanks for sharing

"I'll Never Need Turkey Again: Thanksgiving in Paris"
Fourth Segment of Report

Again, thanks for the encouragement. It's getting me over the hump. Ok...now to get to our opinions of some of the restaurants...

Restaurant Reviews/Observations
Tip: "Return to Top" for my links to either websites or information about all of the restaurants below

First, an explanation about OUR tastes and our transformation once we step foot in France.

In the USA, my husband and I eat only whole grain carbs with very little bread or potatoes, healthy fats, little beef, little chicken, lots of seafood, tons of vegetables, fruits and nuts. We never drink orange juice though.

BUT
Upon landing in France, we instantly start to inhale vast quantities of cheese, butter, beef, fois gras, and rabbit between gnawing on endless bagettes. We look forward to our first glass of French orange juice.

In the USA, my husband and I only drink a very select list of microbrew IPAs at home and never drink any type of liquor or liqueur.

BUT
Once we land in France, we start guzzling vats of red wine and sipping aperitifs.

The only thing that remains the same is that we don’t tend to eat pastries (except a daily croissant or pain au raison with our double expresso), candies, etc in either country.

I can't explain this personal dichotomy and there is indeed a point to this explanation and that is...

In ANY Paris restaurant
• My husband and I will start with an aperitif (perhaps a Kir Royal à la pêche)
• He will always have some sort of rabbit
• I will always have some sort of fois gras and/or duck (à point)

We both will choose fromage and a glass of red wine or port for dessert. Back-up: crème brûlée.

Using that gastronomic inclination as a guideline, here are our restaurant “thumbs up/ thumbs down” type opinions:

• We liked Reed and wish Catherine Reed well in her fledgling venture. We so enjoyed our meal, but we wish we could have ended it with cheese. Still, we enjoyed both her server and Catherine a lot, and we hope Joan is successful in her mission to direct Fodors to Reed’s doors. Lovely person, darling place.

• Le Florimond was perfect for entertaining daughter and two college friends with us, but the food fell just a little short of what we've experienced so many times before at this lovely and warm place. I will still return.

• We did not have a good experience at Les Cocottes this time (this was my second time). Our service was surprisingly indifferent and the food was just OK. We will NOT return.

• We very much enjoyed our breakfast and our dinner at Cafe Constant. The thing to remember is that it IS a café and a lot of its business design is on turnover (thus the reason for absolutely NO reservations). You will not have the most leisurely evening meal but you will have a good one.

• Our meal at Violon d'Ingres was just lovely. This is where my husband recommended we buy our daughter a "season pass" at Violon for her Christmas present. Since our daughter had been there before, she warned us away from the cheese (only two offerings). We were happy with our alternative selections!

• My husband and I really liked the atmosphere and the wait staff in Pottoka. I am sad to report that every single dish seemed to contain a salt shaker full of salt. I hope this was a one-off day; we cannot go back. It’s a shame—we wanted to like it so much.

• We loved Le Casse Noix (just typing the name brings a smile to my face) and my husband now shares my deep affection for Le Petit Troquet. Le Casse Noix was busy and bustling; Le Petit Troquet was quiet and intimate; yet they were both the types of restaurants that made us fall so hard for France years ago. Le Casse Noix’s fromage was our best of this trip. My crème brûlée at Le Petit Troquet was perfect.

I could go back tomorrow. Heck, maybe I will.

To Be Continued

"I'll Never Need Turkey Again: Thanksgiving in Paris"
Fifth Segment of Report

Best Drug Store Run:
Voltaren type gel and patches. As has been mentioned by other posters, Volteran is an NSAID type drug that can be taken internally but is wonderful as a topical. The key ingredient is diclofenac (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diclofenac).

You have to have a prescription to get it in the US and it costs the moon. I bought two tubes and a box of five patches of some generic form of diclofenac for around 21 Euros. I should have brought in a hand cart. This stuff is WONDERFUL.

I might be asking daughter to fill spaces in her suitcase with nothing but diclofenac as my Xmas gift.

 To Be Continued

"I'll Never Need Turkey Again: Thanksgiving in Paris"
Sixth Segment of Report

Some General Observations on...

...our touring attitude this time
We think I may have been to Paris 16 times or more over the past 15 years. No matter what the exact count, the fact is that we have done a lot of sight-seeing in the past and were rather non-stressed about fitting anything in this trip. It used to be that the first thing we'd buy was a museum pass. We just don’t have that itch right now.

However, we have always enjoyed just walking and just people watching in Paris, and I’d say we continued along that theme. Indeed, in one of our walks to favorite places from the past, we sat down on a bench in Place Dauphine at the tip of Ile de la Cite (Simone Signoret and Yves Montand lived there). It was cold, but the sun was beaming, and we watched movers use a vertical lift to remove belongings from the fourth floor of an apartment. We stayed there contentedly for an hour, fascinated.

...what we “worked” at seeing

Hard to believe, but none of us had seen the Museé de l’Orangerie. It had been closed during our manic museum phase of around 1998-2006, and we just never visited it after it reopened.

I had seen some of these Nymphéas panels in the Musée Marmottan Monet during the l'Orangerie renovation and lord knows, with Monet’s painting 300 versions, everyone in the Western world has had to have seen some Monet water lilies. But none that I had ever seen looked the same way or gave off the aura as they do in the perfect setting in L’Orangerie. I actually toured the room three times in our one visit. I am so happy we had seen Giverny before this visit.

More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_Lilies

The Iberian exhibit was excellent, and we all loved the Renoirs in this collection, too.

My daughter and I always enjoy the Museè Jacquemart-André, so much so that we now gang press people into seeing it. We've decided we hate their special exhibits--this time it was Fra Angelico and his gang--because no matter how good the exhibit (we actually adore Fra Angelico), the special exhibit space is horribly claustrophobic.

Nonetheless, we like the house and its art works so very much, I'm sure we'll find new victims. I always fall in love with a different painting there with each visit. This time I adored “Portait of Countess Skavronskaia” (http://www.musee-jacquemart-andre.co...s-skavronskaia).

I think I would have liked Nélie Jacquemart and Edouard André.

The Stein exhibit at the Grand Palais was interesting if only for the fact that we never knew the entire Stein clan was collecting art in Paris, not just Gert because Gertrude more or less took all the credit in her books for “discovering” all the expats.

OMG, Hemingway was right in insisting that she was such a total self promoter.

And OMG, I never thought I'd ever utter the words, "Hemingway was right."

As to the Museè Marmotton, for some reason, I just can’t work up a love for the place. Yeah, it was great to see so many renditions of the lilies using so many different layering techniques. I do remember seeing Mary Cassetts there ages ago, and they still have some lovely Berthe Morisots on exhibit, and just as much fun, some lovely paintings of Berthe by other artists.

Note to self: buy book about Berthe.

Speaking about books, having just read the book “Claude and Camille”, I did enjoy seeing Renoir’s portrait of Camille, in which she looks FAR more attractive than she does in any of Monet’s. And Durand’s painting of Monet himself shows a very handsome young man, an image that differs so much from the grizzly fat guy in later portraits.

...staying in the 7th
My husband was delighted that our daughter was living in the 7th, and he enjoyed exploring the area, but it took him exactly 48 hours to say: "I would NEVER recommend staying here if this is your first or second stay." Sure enough, by day three, he just naturally started heading towards "home"--Ile de St. Louis and environs--every day. That's the Paris he loves and I see no reason to disagree with him.

So I hope that no one feels compelled to stay in the 7th because of Rick Steves, me or anyone else. I enjoyed it this time and the three previous stays, but there are many other areas of Paris we have enjoyed as much and more.

...having an apartment
We loved our apartment, our agency, our location, etc. We paid $2200 for a mandatory 7-day rental, even though our actual stay would only be five days (we planned to have our daughter check us in the first day so that we could just plop in bed as soon as we arrived the next day, and we knew she’d love using the tub for a long soak on the last night after we had gone).

Place was larger than we needed because we thought we might be bringing my mother with us or that our daughter might want to stay over. Somehow, we managed to take up all the room, just the two of us.

We both agreed that spending money on a nice apartment was perfect now that we have no need to have a daily itinerary. We spent a lot of time doing a big jigsaw puzzle with daughter, meeting her friends, and just lolling around reading. The apartment came with a computer, so it was nice to check hours for anything before we headed out.

Because of those uses, our value for money spent was sensible.
And as it turned out, having to book the apartment for the week was fortuitous. As mentioned above, our daughter used the apartment the night before our arrival for a nice long soak in the tub and then held a small dinner party with friends. We came in the next day and were able to go to bed right away to be fresh for our Thanksgiving dinner. But although daughter was planning to use the last night after we left for a little cocktail party and another nice long soak, a miracle occurred:

Our flight was cancelled!

We HAD to spend an extra day. The pain, the suffering...

Anyway, we got our money’s worth from the rental.

However…we still feel that for first or second timers, if one is not staying a long time, a nice *** hotel in a centrally located arrondissement is certainly a good idea. We remembered that during our first few Paris stays, we were rarely in our rooms, so size or a kitchen or any of that stuff was of little importance. Immediate access to a good Metro line and a short walk to the Seine were the things we valued then.

...our daughter's French
Strange. Our daughter has a lovely singing voice but a very nasal speaking voice--except when she speaks French. Now she has this lovely soft lilt. We could listen to it forever, and we are floored that she seems so at ease speaking it. Paris wait staff seemed to be impressed, too. All kinds of servers would come over and just chat with her. Husband and I thought that meant two things: a) her French is REALLY good and b) Americans who speak lovely French must seem like dogs who can walk on two legs.

End of Report
(will answer questions, though)

It is clearly very convenient to be rich.

,, So I hope that no one feels compelled to stay in the 7th because of Rick Steves, , but there are many other areas of Paris we have enjoyed as much and more."

I hope evryone of you read this, on this forum......!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Again..... Excellent trip report! Thanks for sharing...

Brill report, AZ, thanks.

I can't promise to get to all those restaurants in our 4 day trip in March, but we can try.

Kerouac - remember what the duchess of windsor said? you can never be too thin or too rich.

sadly, no-one is ever going to think that of me, and I suspect that the OP isn't either.

AZ - which of the paris vacation apartments did you rent?- I couldn't work out from their website which one yours was.

Well, I feel a little better about not making it to Marmottan.

We also found ourselves migrating toward old haunts outside of the 7th. We did enjoy the area and the convenience of an apartment, but it might have been a little too quiet for us.

Thank you....Denisea...

I am reading some post on this forum... and I am thinking that there is only have one arrondissment in Paris (the 7th) and only have one street
the Rue Cler...LOL
and only 3 restuarants in all of Paris....LoL...

I got quite a laugh when I read about your eating habits at home and how they change in France.

MDH had 4 bypass surgery 6 years ago and is doing fine. We try to eat well at home, but do the same thing that you do in France----inhale vast quantities of real butter, cream, cheese, and foie gras. When we returned home from one trip, he had a cardioligist appointment the next week. He was woried that after all those fats, he would get a huge lecture on eating. After many tests he received a letter from his doctor saying, "Whatever you're doing, keep on doing it. Your numbers are great." Maybe France has is right after all.

We also agree with your DH---Ile St. Louis just feels like home to us. We are sometimes tempted to stay elswhere and then always end up returning to "our place." We love touring the other locations, but always want to return to the Ile.

Kerouac--I roared with laughter when I read "It is clearly very convenient to be rich". That was EXACTLY how we felt over the stay in that apartment. It's not our normal style of travel, I can assure you. I felt as though my life just got upgraded.

Over the years, we have been very frugal travelers so that we could pound in more travel. I am also a frequent flyer miles queen.

Our normal style of travel can get be wearing, though, and I'm seeing a sort of seismic shift in my husband's thinking. I guess that because he is nearing the end of his working years and the tail end of his 60's, he no longer wants to travel as though it's hard work, too.

Case in point: When I found out my mother may not be coming with us and using the second bedroom in the apartment, I naturally assumed we would not take a chance on this apartment. Not so. He had mentally "moved in."

Anyway, as long as he's in this expansive frame of mind, I'm not going to question it. I certainly enjoyed NOT having to wash out my clothes in the bathroom sink at night. ;-)

Serge365--We truly have made an effort to stay in many different neighborhoods throughout Paris, so I understand how you feel. There are so many unique streets throughout the city that I hope others get to see and experience as their "neighborhood" for a Paris stay.

On the other hand, I stupidly avoided staying in the 7th for a long time because I have this pigheaded anti-Rick Steves bias.

Annhig--The apartment is the Invalides/St. Germaine one. Decent kitchen with both washer/dryer, computer, VOIP phone, etc. Nice management. Sound problem with all those ancient wood floors, but hey, I'll deal! ((Y))

Lovely report! Thank you, particularly about the healthy aspects of Parisian overindulgence.

What a nice, thoughtful report. Thanks, AZ!

We're frugal travelers, too, but lately I've been getting an itch for a splurge of some sort (Paris sometime other than off-peak, apartment with a view, something...). Everyone needs one on occasion. Life's too short.

Oops, almost forgot: thanks for posting about "Les Musiciens de Lviv." My husband and I bought their CD after hearing them in the Places des Vosges years ago, but it got destroyed in the Great Flood of 2005, and I had forgotten about them. So you reminded me that we need to seek them out again next trip. Thanks! (Similar ancestry, btw.)

Wonderful, wonderful!

I do agree about Marmotton though. Although it is a lovely space, in my most humble non-art educated opinion, the works there were not Monet's prettiest. Is it possible that as his cateracts got worse, his colors became muddier?

As for Ms. Stein...OMG. National Portrait Gallery Washington, D.C. has exhibit about her until Jan. 22, 2012. Self promoter for sure, however, she was in the right place at the right time for it.

Very interesting, TPAYT. Shall we go ahead and move there? I've been talking about buying StCirq's place on another thread. Better own a flat in Paris also. Sigh...

Very well organized and thoughtful report, AZ. I so appreciate the time you took to organize it, as i have found myself sort of flubbing my way through a report of our recent trip. Might be a good New Year's resolution for me to ORGANIZE my thoughts!!

We stayed on the Ile St. Louis, very easy to fall in live with.

How about "fall in LOVE with?"

taconic, That may have been Freudian :)

Just to state one more thing, we stayed in the 7th and spent no time on rue Cler. I think we got a cup of coffee there the first hour we were there and never went back.

Denisea--Yeah, I'm not that much in love with it. But I'm also not a market person. My sister lives and dies markets. She hates museums, but boy does she like shopping and markets. We agree to disagree there and just join up at restaurants.

Here's what I found to be interesting: my daughter does a lot of her daily shopping on Rue Cler.

I assumed she'd just hit one of the Carrefours, better Monoprix, etc. Turns out she wanted very much when she first got there to practice her French skills, and so she purposely sought out places where interaction was part of the purchases.

After she became a regular customer, the merchants on the street started correcting her French in a "tres gentille" manner. Nice, right?

Well, I feel a little better about not making it to Marmottan. >>

oh denise, we loved it. following a tip we got here, we managed to get tickets [well sesame passes] to the Monet exhibition at the Grand palais last january, and fitted a trip out to the Marmottan into our itinerary too.

honestly, i think we enjoyed the Marmottan more than the Grand palais in some ways - you could see the pictures without being stood on by 100 other people, they were well spaced and lit [the lighting in the grand palais was awful in some places] and we didn't have to wait at all - we just walked straight in.

and I thought it was very interesting to see the later water-lillies - which were indeed less distinct it is thought because of his fading eyesight.

but being a permanent exhibition it should still be there for your next time, Denise!

Enjoyed trip report because reminded me of the way Dh and I eat at home except we never eat red meat or duck or pork but get to Paris and first place we go to is cheese shops and wine shops. Rue Cler is ok for a day but we search out open air markets where we can really interact with the locals.
we will be staying in the seventh for the second time....we like it for the quietness but the true old Paris is around Notre Dame and Isle STe Louis so we always go there for 3 nights too.

Thank you, I enjoyed your report very much.

Thoroughly enjoyable trip report! I have only one question - where is the shop in the Marais where you bought the mink beret? I won't be back to Paris until next November but I'd love to put the shop on my list of places to visit.

You will soon see why we didn't get to Marmottan on my T/R. Maybe next time though. I do love Monet.

Dee-Dee: We visited two or three second-hand shops along Rue St. Antoine on the left side from the St. Paul metro stop towards the Bastille. I just don't remember which one we found the hat in. We were actually only looking for a replacement bag that had been doubling as her Metro purse/computer carryall.

All of those shops did have some type of fur hats, scarves and even fur vests. I would never buy fur in the US, but what the heck...if it's second-hand, I figure we're like second-cousins four-times removed from the kill.

I did find out the brand and its website of the computer bag we eventually bought for my daughter:
TINTAMAR
http://www.tintamar.com/
The shop selling Tintamar was on Rue St. Paul on the right as you leave Rue St. Antoine and work your way towards the Seine. None of the stuff on the official website is as appealing as the "in person" stuff in the store. Shopkeeper was just lovely. Of course, most of the shopkeepers were lovely because daughter's French was just so good. Can you tell I am still amazed at that?

Forgive me for not giving you more info--I am just not that much into shopping.

Annhig: I somewhat agree with you. I got to see the Monet, Turner, Whistler exhibit at the Grand Palais a few years ago. Even though I had purchased the tickets online for an early timeslot so that we could avoid the inevitable onslaught, the crowd became too much within a half hour. The paintings themselves were exquisite, but I wanted to bat people away after awhile.

Still, I just don't think the Marmatton really has the goods, so to speak. So many of us have been spoiled by the Musee d'Orsay, don't you think? I hope it opens again in good order soon--I have paintings I want to visit again.

Here's my point. I remember our first visit to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. This visit came years and years after our annual visits to d'Orsay. The kids and I would re-take our d'Orsay tour, revisiting favorites and noting which ones were out on loan.

So when we ended up in Van Gogh "mecca" in Amsterdam, we were just flat-out disappointed. The Van Gogh Museum may have had an extensive collection but to us, the Musee d'Orsay had all the GOOD ones.

Something we liked in the L'Orangerie was the UNfinished Renoir of the girls playing piano. I think he painted at least three editions of this painting. This was the first UNfinished one we had seen. It was profound. Renoir's joy in painting not only the girl's faces but also their intensity was a great experience for us.

"I'll Never Need Turkey Again: Thanksgiving in Paris"
Report Addendum

My husband is insulted that I left out the BEST part of the trip: O'Brian's Irish Pub on Rue St. Dominque (towards the Invalides end). Husband would take his Kindle, get a Guinness and what endless rugby players walk in the door.

He's a fan.