Our family of 4 in Paris (plus a day visiting Vimy)
Jul 8th, 2009, 06:32 AM
#121
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Thank you Canada_V for this wonderful trip report. We are a family of 4 (kids are 13/15) in B.C. who will be leaving for 1 week in Paris and 2 weeks in Normandy/Brittany at the end of July. You have us checking this forum daily - to see what happens next! All your 'kid' tales ring so true - although our kids are older - they will still be battling over the Ikea beds - and thanks to you we will know that the pharmacies will patch them up! I also relate to the purchase of the scarf - except in my situation - I'll be wearing it to lacrosse/soccer games! Thanks for taking the time to write - you have us all even more excited for our big trip!
Jul 8th, 2009, 08:55 AM
#124
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We left Paris on Saturday June 13th from Gare du Lyon, and spent a very enjoyable week based out of Agde in Languedoc.
(That week is covered in a separate trip report “Our family of 4 in Languedoc”) http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-languedoc.cfm
Back in Paris – Saturday June 20th
<b>Greeting an old friend</b>
When planning the trip, we had gone through several different scenarios including adding a couple of days in the Alps and flying out of Geneva; driving through the Dordogne and flying back from Bordeaux; taking the Eurostar back to London and having a few days there. We decided to return to Paris because there were more and cheaper flight options, and I cannot tell you how glad we were that we did!!
We really enjoyed Agde, and were sad to leave, but every one of us was absolutely excited to be going back to Paris for two nights. When we arrived, we were so full of confidence and a feeling of returning to visit an old friend (even though we had only been gone a week, and had only just ‘met that friend’ the week before). Even though we were going to stay in a different apartment in a different neighbourhood, we ‘knew’ how to work the metro, and we ‘knew’ where we would look for something to eat, and we ‘knew’ that if something didn’t go quite right, that we had the skills to figure it out. I <u>really</u> hope that we get the chance to visit Paris again, but even if we don’t, we will still have had that feeling of ‘returning’ – something I wouldn’t have guessed would have felt so good!
<b>The new apartment</b>
When we decided we would be returning to Paris for a couple of days, we thought it would be a good idea to ‘bookend’ our trip with a bike tour. We had done the Fat Tire Day tour on our first day in France, so planned to do the Fat Tire Night tour on our last night (well, almost last night). So with that in mind, we wanted to stay somewhere relatively close to the office, as the tour ended at around 11pm.
Originally, I had booked a relatively inexpensive hotel near the Eiffel tower, (though putting a family of 4 into a 100E a night hotel makes it a 200E a night hotel!). Reading a random Fodor’s post, someone had posted a link to an apartment in the Eiffel tower (and I always liked checking out apartment links – long after I was looking for my own!) which looked very nice… and was available for short stays of a minimum of 2 nights in June… and was available for the 2 nights we would be staying there! At 120E per night (plus a short stay cleaning fee of 50E) it was cheaper, quieter, nicer, and had the bonus over a hotel of a fully equipped kitchen! It also met my requirement of a responsive and easy to work with contact person – Anne sent us a contract, but because it was such a short period of time squished between fully booked weeks, she didn’t require a deposit – said we could just pay for everything when we arrived.
http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p97127
The location was perfect for what we needed as it was also a very short walk from the Metro that would take us to the RER to CDG on Monday morning. It had a big comfy bed, and a <u>very</u> comfy sofa bed (and I am a very fussy sleeper…). The bed configuration wouldn’t have suited our family all that well for the full week we were there earlier, but it perfect for these 2 ‘late nights’ that we were ending our trip on.
The apartment itself was absolutely terrific – and if it were just DH and I the next time we would definitely consider returning to it. It had a newly ‘fitted’ feel (renovated in 2006) with cool “perfectly fitted for a small apartment” features like well designed closest space, mini, modern sinks, deceptively spacious apartment sized fridge, stove and microwave. It also had ‘period feature charm’ (I sound like I am on one of the real estate shows on HGTV!) wood floors, fireplace, high ceilings. It had a very ‘upscale’ feel with no fussiness.
It was on the 5th floor of the building, with one of those teeny tiny “squeezed into the middle of the already compact stairwell” elevators that fit the two kids and the two carryons (but only if the kids coordinated their breathing so that didn’t both inhale at the same time!)
We could just see the tip of the Eiffel tower out of one window, which overlooked a large courtyard/park. The area had a quiet, ‘urban professional’ kind of feel. Because both the Isle Saint Louis apartment, and the house we had staying in Agde had been very different from each other, but perfect for us each in their own way, we were completely ready to be if not disappointed, then at least underwhelmed by this last apartment, but it was also absolutely perfect for what we needed - DH said it liked it best of all! (Thanks ChicagoDallasGirl!)
<i>next… bookending our visit with Bike tours</i>
(That week is covered in a separate trip report “Our family of 4 in Languedoc”) http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-languedoc.cfm
Back in Paris – Saturday June 20th
<b>Greeting an old friend</b>
When planning the trip, we had gone through several different scenarios including adding a couple of days in the Alps and flying out of Geneva; driving through the Dordogne and flying back from Bordeaux; taking the Eurostar back to London and having a few days there. We decided to return to Paris because there were more and cheaper flight options, and I cannot tell you how glad we were that we did!!
We really enjoyed Agde, and were sad to leave, but every one of us was absolutely excited to be going back to Paris for two nights. When we arrived, we were so full of confidence and a feeling of returning to visit an old friend (even though we had only been gone a week, and had only just ‘met that friend’ the week before). Even though we were going to stay in a different apartment in a different neighbourhood, we ‘knew’ how to work the metro, and we ‘knew’ where we would look for something to eat, and we ‘knew’ that if something didn’t go quite right, that we had the skills to figure it out. I <u>really</u> hope that we get the chance to visit Paris again, but even if we don’t, we will still have had that feeling of ‘returning’ – something I wouldn’t have guessed would have felt so good!
<b>The new apartment</b>
When we decided we would be returning to Paris for a couple of days, we thought it would be a good idea to ‘bookend’ our trip with a bike tour. We had done the Fat Tire Day tour on our first day in France, so planned to do the Fat Tire Night tour on our last night (well, almost last night). So with that in mind, we wanted to stay somewhere relatively close to the office, as the tour ended at around 11pm.
Originally, I had booked a relatively inexpensive hotel near the Eiffel tower, (though putting a family of 4 into a 100E a night hotel makes it a 200E a night hotel!). Reading a random Fodor’s post, someone had posted a link to an apartment in the Eiffel tower (and I always liked checking out apartment links – long after I was looking for my own!) which looked very nice… and was available for short stays of a minimum of 2 nights in June… and was available for the 2 nights we would be staying there! At 120E per night (plus a short stay cleaning fee of 50E) it was cheaper, quieter, nicer, and had the bonus over a hotel of a fully equipped kitchen! It also met my requirement of a responsive and easy to work with contact person – Anne sent us a contract, but because it was such a short period of time squished between fully booked weeks, she didn’t require a deposit – said we could just pay for everything when we arrived.
http://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p97127
The location was perfect for what we needed as it was also a very short walk from the Metro that would take us to the RER to CDG on Monday morning. It had a big comfy bed, and a <u>very</u> comfy sofa bed (and I am a very fussy sleeper…). The bed configuration wouldn’t have suited our family all that well for the full week we were there earlier, but it perfect for these 2 ‘late nights’ that we were ending our trip on.
The apartment itself was absolutely terrific – and if it were just DH and I the next time we would definitely consider returning to it. It had a newly ‘fitted’ feel (renovated in 2006) with cool “perfectly fitted for a small apartment” features like well designed closest space, mini, modern sinks, deceptively spacious apartment sized fridge, stove and microwave. It also had ‘period feature charm’ (I sound like I am on one of the real estate shows on HGTV!) wood floors, fireplace, high ceilings. It had a very ‘upscale’ feel with no fussiness.
It was on the 5th floor of the building, with one of those teeny tiny “squeezed into the middle of the already compact stairwell” elevators that fit the two kids and the two carryons (but only if the kids coordinated their breathing so that didn’t both inhale at the same time!)
We could just see the tip of the Eiffel tower out of one window, which overlooked a large courtyard/park. The area had a quiet, ‘urban professional’ kind of feel. Because both the Isle Saint Louis apartment, and the house we had staying in Agde had been very different from each other, but perfect for us each in their own way, we were completely ready to be if not disappointed, then at least underwhelmed by this last apartment, but it was also absolutely perfect for what we needed - DH said it liked it best of all! (Thanks ChicagoDallasGirl!)
<i>next… bookending our visit with Bike tours</i>
Jul 8th, 2009, 02:49 PM
#125
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Saturday June 20th cont
<b>Fat Tire Night tour</b>
Our original plan had been to do the Fat Tire Bike Night tour on our <u>very</u> last night in Paris, but because that last night would be June 21st, which was the Fete du la Musique, it was one of only two nights in the summer that Fat Tire doesn’t run a night tour (the other being Bastlle Day). But that was fine, we decided to do the tour on the Saturday night that we arrived back (our penultimate night in Paris!). By doing both, we got a discounted rate on the night tour - but we didn’t have to commit to doing both right from the start to get a reduced rate, we just got an ‘extra reduced’ price on the night tour, to end up with a “lower than the two added together” combo price.
Because we had all really enjoyed the first bike tour, we were all looking forward to the night tour. The only concern that DH and I had was that the kids had really liked the tour guide we’d had for the day tour, and we feared that they were whichever guide we got was going to have trouble living up to their mythologized picture of Rohan. But we pulled out the same parenting techniques relevant to the “spin” required in a scenario such as “ Santa was asked for a Wii, but Santa’s helpers were unable to find the appropriate retail partner to handle that request, so let’s position how great an air hockey table would be instead…”, and I think did a good job of preparing them for the fact that there were lots of different guides, all with different schedules, so this time it wouldn’t be Rohan, but it would still be fun.
We grabbed some yummies from the various traiteurs and bakeries around the apartment and had a quick apartment supper before heading out to the bike tour. The tours meet at the Eiffel Tower, but we knew from past experience (and felt so cool <i>having</i> past experience!) that they would start off by coming back to the office, and we knew the office was closer to our apartment then the tower, so we just went straight there. Stepped into the office, and there was Rohan! “Hey Rohan!” said the kids… “Um, kids…” said us “Rohan would have met hundreds of people doing tours in the 2 weeks since we were here… he won’t remember us…” But to the kids delight… he remembered their names and everything. “Are you working tonight? Can we be on your tour?” It was a busy night in bike tour land, and there were 4 different night tours going off at staggered times, so the coordinator guy in the office cell phoned over to the guides who were already at the tower, and arranged for 4 places in Rohan’s tour to be set aside – and we were good to go! Rohan told DH that as an Ass-man alumni (the sobriquet of Ass-man being bestowed on the participant who agrees to act as the last rider on a Fat Tire Bike tour) he could decide if he WANTED to be Ass-man again, or if he DIDN’T want to. DH agreed to take it on, and we hung around at the office until the rest of our tour arrived from the Tower.
It was a bigger group then the first time (we actually noticed that even just a week later then we had been there before, more tourists seemed to have arrived) – I would say about 25 people. The group was 2/3 Americans, a few from Australia, a couple from Ireland, a pair of girls from Korea and a smattering of others. Aside from my kids, the ages seemed to range from 20’s to 60+ and everything in between – some people on their own, some couples, a few groups or families of 3 or 4. I would say that either tour would be a very comfortable thing for someone travelling alone to do, because it was easy to chat to other people if you wanted to (though you didn’t have to), and the group both times flowed sort of ‘organically’ so you wouldn’t be obviously ‘the person on their own’ (if that mattered).
The tour itself was a similar blend of bike, stop-and-talk, bike a bit more, stop-and-talk as the first tour, but it started out with a much longer – almost ½ hour – ride. Among other places, we made stops at the Pont des Arts (where we watched the police walking through the groups of “picnickers” as apparently a ban on bringing wine to your Pont des Arts picnic had recently been imposed!) and stopped at the Pont Saint Louis between the two islands – where we had Berthillion ice cream (though we were smug in the knowledge that we were eating at an outlet, and not the ‘flagship’ store where we had eaten <u>our</u> first Berthillion. And DH used his ‘knowledge of the land’ to make the dash down rue Saint Louis en l’isle to get some Amorino Limone instead!). The tour ended with a Bateau Mouches boat tour – where tour goers were provided with (albeit cheap
wine to drink. Again, Rohan was great with the kids, in addition to doing his tour guide duties. It seemed like a harder tour to “manage” as there was more ‘street biking’ involved, and the larger group was tougher to keep together. Once again, the kids were called upon to nominate a “well known herding animal” for the group to emulate in order to keep together. The kids came up with hybrid “Elephant-tigers” (which was later shortened by the group to the more classy “Elegers”) and were enlisted in tasks like helping lock up all the bikes at the boat tour. At the end of the tour, the kids wanted to get t-shirts, and it turned out the night tour ass-man gets a complimentary t-shirt (as the job is even more important on the evening tour!), so the boys all got Rohan to sign their shirt.
So the bike tours were a highlight of our visit. We looked like tourists doing it, because were <u>were</u> being tourists in every sense of the word! I was really happy with how the tours worked into our itinerary. The Day tour was more “informative” and the night tour was more “fun” – but both were a bit of both. I don’t think I would recommend doing both on the same day – it would dilute the experience of the actual biking. But the way we did it – with the day tour waking us up and orienting us on the first day, and the night tour “summarizing” our trip on the (almost) last day, and giving us a chance to work the boat tour in as well, was perfect.
<i>next… our last day in Paris… </i>
<b>Fat Tire Night tour</b>
Our original plan had been to do the Fat Tire Bike Night tour on our <u>very</u> last night in Paris, but because that last night would be June 21st, which was the Fete du la Musique, it was one of only two nights in the summer that Fat Tire doesn’t run a night tour (the other being Bastlle Day). But that was fine, we decided to do the tour on the Saturday night that we arrived back (our penultimate night in Paris!). By doing both, we got a discounted rate on the night tour - but we didn’t have to commit to doing both right from the start to get a reduced rate, we just got an ‘extra reduced’ price on the night tour, to end up with a “lower than the two added together” combo price.
Because we had all really enjoyed the first bike tour, we were all looking forward to the night tour. The only concern that DH and I had was that the kids had really liked the tour guide we’d had for the day tour, and we feared that they were whichever guide we got was going to have trouble living up to their mythologized picture of Rohan. But we pulled out the same parenting techniques relevant to the “spin” required in a scenario such as “ Santa was asked for a Wii, but Santa’s helpers were unable to find the appropriate retail partner to handle that request, so let’s position how great an air hockey table would be instead…”, and I think did a good job of preparing them for the fact that there were lots of different guides, all with different schedules, so this time it wouldn’t be Rohan, but it would still be fun.
We grabbed some yummies from the various traiteurs and bakeries around the apartment and had a quick apartment supper before heading out to the bike tour. The tours meet at the Eiffel Tower, but we knew from past experience (and felt so cool <i>having</i> past experience!) that they would start off by coming back to the office, and we knew the office was closer to our apartment then the tower, so we just went straight there. Stepped into the office, and there was Rohan! “Hey Rohan!” said the kids… “Um, kids…” said us “Rohan would have met hundreds of people doing tours in the 2 weeks since we were here… he won’t remember us…” But to the kids delight… he remembered their names and everything. “Are you working tonight? Can we be on your tour?” It was a busy night in bike tour land, and there were 4 different night tours going off at staggered times, so the coordinator guy in the office cell phoned over to the guides who were already at the tower, and arranged for 4 places in Rohan’s tour to be set aside – and we were good to go! Rohan told DH that as an Ass-man alumni (the sobriquet of Ass-man being bestowed on the participant who agrees to act as the last rider on a Fat Tire Bike tour) he could decide if he WANTED to be Ass-man again, or if he DIDN’T want to. DH agreed to take it on, and we hung around at the office until the rest of our tour arrived from the Tower.
It was a bigger group then the first time (we actually noticed that even just a week later then we had been there before, more tourists seemed to have arrived) – I would say about 25 people. The group was 2/3 Americans, a few from Australia, a couple from Ireland, a pair of girls from Korea and a smattering of others. Aside from my kids, the ages seemed to range from 20’s to 60+ and everything in between – some people on their own, some couples, a few groups or families of 3 or 4. I would say that either tour would be a very comfortable thing for someone travelling alone to do, because it was easy to chat to other people if you wanted to (though you didn’t have to), and the group both times flowed sort of ‘organically’ so you wouldn’t be obviously ‘the person on their own’ (if that mattered).
The tour itself was a similar blend of bike, stop-and-talk, bike a bit more, stop-and-talk as the first tour, but it started out with a much longer – almost ½ hour – ride. Among other places, we made stops at the Pont des Arts (where we watched the police walking through the groups of “picnickers” as apparently a ban on bringing wine to your Pont des Arts picnic had recently been imposed!) and stopped at the Pont Saint Louis between the two islands – where we had Berthillion ice cream (though we were smug in the knowledge that we were eating at an outlet, and not the ‘flagship’ store where we had eaten <u>our</u> first Berthillion. And DH used his ‘knowledge of the land’ to make the dash down rue Saint Louis en l’isle to get some Amorino Limone instead!). The tour ended with a Bateau Mouches boat tour – where tour goers were provided with (albeit cheap
wine to drink. Again, Rohan was great with the kids, in addition to doing his tour guide duties. It seemed like a harder tour to “manage” as there was more ‘street biking’ involved, and the larger group was tougher to keep together. Once again, the kids were called upon to nominate a “well known herding animal” for the group to emulate in order to keep together. The kids came up with hybrid “Elephant-tigers” (which was later shortened by the group to the more classy “Elegers”) and were enlisted in tasks like helping lock up all the bikes at the boat tour. At the end of the tour, the kids wanted to get t-shirts, and it turned out the night tour ass-man gets a complimentary t-shirt (as the job is even more important on the evening tour!), so the boys all got Rohan to sign their shirt.So the bike tours were a highlight of our visit. We looked like tourists doing it, because were <u>were</u> being tourists in every sense of the word! I was really happy with how the tours worked into our itinerary. The Day tour was more “informative” and the night tour was more “fun” – but both were a bit of both. I don’t think I would recommend doing both on the same day – it would dilute the experience of the actual biking. But the way we did it – with the day tour waking us up and orienting us on the first day, and the night tour “summarizing” our trip on the (almost) last day, and giving us a chance to work the boat tour in as well, was perfect
.<i>next… our last day in Paris… </i>
Jul 8th, 2009, 03:16 PM
#126
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I am still thoroughly enjoying reading about all your adventures! How lucky to get Rohan again too! The new apt looks beautiful. On our trip 2 years ago we stayed in one hotel in the 7th, then went to Normandy, and when we returned we stayed in the 1st. I really liked staying in 2 different areas on one trip. BTW, one of our neighbor kids looks like your older son so I keep thinking it's him, lol!
Jul 8th, 2009, 09:05 PM
#128
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Canada_V
I really don't want your trip report to end. It was delightful reading tonight after a really long day at work. I'm so glad you enjoyed the Cluny. It was an unexpected pleasure when we visited.
Kerouac, the Lady Unicorn awaits.
I really don't want your trip report to end. It was delightful reading tonight after a really long day at work. I'm so glad you enjoyed the Cluny. It was an unexpected pleasure when we visited.
Kerouac, the Lady Unicorn awaits.
Jul 9th, 2009, 06:47 AM
#130
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Thanks again to everyone!
mms - that's cute about your neighbour's son looking like my son
We found his long hair was even more of a rare thing in Paris then it is here. Anytime we saw a boy or teenager with long hair... they turned out to be part of a US tour group!
grandmere - I loved your trip report about your visit with your grand-daughter (we took a 'kids with a giant Nutella jar' too!)
Scootoir - I don't want it to end either! (for the short term, I still have the Languedoc part to finish up, but the two Paris parts together seemed like their own trip)
Thanks again to everyone who has been following along and posting your comments!
mms - that's cute about your neighbour's son looking like my son
We found his long hair was even more of a rare thing in Paris then it is here. Anytime we saw a boy or teenager with long hair... they turned out to be part of a US tour group!grandmere - I loved your trip report about your visit with your grand-daughter (we took a 'kids with a giant Nutella jar' too!)
Scootoir - I don't want it to end either! (for the short term, I still have the Languedoc part to finish up, but the two Paris parts together seemed like their own trip)
Thanks again to everyone who has been following along and posting your comments!
Jul 9th, 2009, 08:42 AM
#131
I also really appreciated your thoughts about the vendors. I would hate doing that to make money. It's a hardscrabble life for many people, isn't it?
Now off to view your pics and check out the Languedoc report.
Now off to view your pics and check out the Languedoc report.
Jul 9th, 2009, 01:22 PM
#132
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Sunday June 21st
<b>Last day in Paris</b>
<b>At the market</b>
I started off the morning fulfilling one of my unrealized goals from our first visit to Paris. I had my perfect Parisien market experience.
The Marché Motte-Picquet Grenelle by the metro Dupliex, which was the closest to our ‘apartment in the 15th’, was underway and gorgeous when I got there (up early for a stroll as the boys slept!). And I had a mission – fruit and something baked for breakfast, and a selection of shareables for supper (as it was Sunday, I knew that many of the traiteurs , boulangeries etc were quite likely to be closed.) So I walked the length of the market to scope it out – noted with curiosity that some of the fish stands had a long queue, while others none at all. I wasn’t in the market for fresh fish, but I wondered what the difference was (to my un-discerning eye, all the fish stalls looked fresh and beautifully arranged). Having check out all the stalls,I was ready to shop my way back. And so I did - filling the good old string bag with strawberries, raspberries, a couple of apples, some croissants, a couple of creamy tarty looking things (plus one to test!), a little piece of pate, took a chance on a little ball of goat cheese (not too smelly), a serving of paella to reheat for supper, some slices of ham, a couple of ‘stuffed crab thingies to heat up’, a piece of roast rabbit and some ‘chicken wings’ (in quotations because they were just the yummy mini-drumsticks and not the ‘who-is-anyone-kidding-that-these-are- anything-but-BBQ –sauce-holders’ wingy parts), and other stuff that caught my fancy. Because we didn’t have any significant structured agenda for this day – the only things we needed to accomplish today (before our date with the tower sparkles at midnight) were getting teacher gifts and buying another copy of the Half-Blood Prince for my voraciously reading 8 year old, (again deciding that spending the 15E on a book we already had was much better than spending 7 hours on a plane with a ‘I have nothing to read’ B!) So I was able to wander the market with no ticking clock, no gun to my head. My mouth watered, it was so much fun, and for some reason, this is one of the activities that made me feel truly ‘in Paris’. I loved it.
<b>Wandering</b>
We bought Moblis / Jeune weekend transit day passes for today. DH had said the only thing he wanted to take a photo of that he hadn’t visited yet was the ‘mini’ statue of liberty by the Pont du Grenelle. We probably could have walked, but hopped on the metro for the short dash. While DH took some pictures, the kids and I debated what technique was used in the 2nd Nicolas Cage “National Treasure” movie (for those cultured film buffs in the crowd…) to have a shot of Nicolas’s character and his side kick talking to French bike cops, flying a remote control helicopter over the Statue, with the Eiffel Tower dominating the background. We searched for angles, but couldn't figure it out. So we concluded they just cheated… but I digress…
For teacher gifts, A had decided that he wanted to get a scarf for his teacher, and B wanted to get his an Eiffel Tower souvenir. For the former, we wanted to make our way back to Isle Saint Louis (oh… and hey… since we are going to be there anyway… maybe we could get some Amorino ice cream!) so we decided to get to a bus stop, get on the first bus – without checking where it went – and try and ‘random’ our way back to the general area. Worked pretty well, and it only took 3 semi-random bus changes to get to a familiar part of St Germain. We decided to get out in front of the Cluny and grab some lunch. Again, we are now old pros, so I went to the crepe stand we had gone on our very first day in Paris and got the same chevre and walnut crepe that I had enjoyed then; B joined me and ordered himself a hotdog (single, not double this time… no mustard… and WITH fromage for him); DH went off in search of a doner kebab with fries; and B headed to McDonald’s to order himself a couple of burgers. We all met back in the park/playground behind the Cluny where we had eaten that first day and enjoyed our lunch, and the symmetry of it, and the feeling of how we were different people then we had been two week! (I know… I know… different people is more dramatic than is merited, but still, in this context we all felt we had grown).
<b>Point Zero, and a return to the Islands</b>
Before making our way to ‘our old stomping grounds’ of Isle Saint Louis, we needed to make a stop. Having learned that “those who stand on Point Zero are destined to return to Paris” we felt we had to make the pilgrimage. So we made our way to the front of Notre Dame, and got the photographic evidence that we will get back. (my kids then needed to get their pictures taking pretending to be sucked in the vortex of Point Zero… but whatever…). We hadn’t been into Notre Dame our first time around, and although the square in front of the cathedral seemed MUCH busier then when we had been there just a week ago (though I will also say that the weather was clearer as well – no rumour of rain hainging over), the lineup to go in was moving very quickly. When we got inside, we realized that there was also a mass going on, so we ‘did the circuit’ and admired that beauty of the structure, but were struck by the same odd feeling of being part of the sea of tourists circulating around the people at worship that we had experienced two weeks before at Sacre Coeur. Having just come back from Languedoc and learning a bit about Cathar history also added another perspective to the overall as well.
We made our way over to the bridge between the islands – pausing for a bit to enjoy the first of our “Fete du Musique” sampling – a sort of bluesy quintet singing “Them There Eyes”.
Stopped next for an Amorino fix (coffee and coconut and pistachio and lemon and yum, yum, yum)
And then to “Mum’s scarf store” to get A’s teacher gift. She’s a particularly favourite teacher (a tiny lady with high expectations and a great sense of humour) and I am impressed at the effort that A takes in picking out the scarf. He goes with the same ‘design’ as mine, but with fewer greens and more blues for his blue eyed blond haired teacher. It is not our same ‘scarf shop lady’, but a geniel young man. A does the actual buying of the scarf, but asks me to come to the counter with him, and makes an obvious gesture of giving the little bag before we leave. I ask him why he did that, and he said because he was doing the buying, and because of his long hair, that he thought the shopkeeper might have thought he was a girl buying it for himself, so he wanted to make it look like he was buying it for me ;-)
<i>post script</i> – his teacher loved it, and apparently he did a really good job of recounting the story of me buying mine, and of demonstrating some of the ways to tie it! We’ve just found out that he will have the same teacher again next year – so we will watch to see if she wears it!!
<i>next… Fete du Musique and the twinkling tower<i>
<b>Last day in Paris</b>
<b>At the market</b>
I started off the morning fulfilling one of my unrealized goals from our first visit to Paris. I had my perfect Parisien market experience.
The Marché Motte-Picquet Grenelle by the metro Dupliex, which was the closest to our ‘apartment in the 15th’, was underway and gorgeous when I got there (up early for a stroll as the boys slept!). And I had a mission – fruit and something baked for breakfast, and a selection of shareables for supper (as it was Sunday, I knew that many of the traiteurs , boulangeries etc were quite likely to be closed.) So I walked the length of the market to scope it out – noted with curiosity that some of the fish stands had a long queue, while others none at all. I wasn’t in the market for fresh fish, but I wondered what the difference was (to my un-discerning eye, all the fish stalls looked fresh and beautifully arranged). Having check out all the stalls,I was ready to shop my way back. And so I did - filling the good old string bag with strawberries, raspberries, a couple of apples, some croissants, a couple of creamy tarty looking things (plus one to test!), a little piece of pate, took a chance on a little ball of goat cheese (not too smelly), a serving of paella to reheat for supper, some slices of ham, a couple of ‘stuffed crab thingies to heat up’, a piece of roast rabbit and some ‘chicken wings’ (in quotations because they were just the yummy mini-drumsticks and not the ‘who-is-anyone-kidding-that-these-are- anything-but-BBQ –sauce-holders’ wingy parts), and other stuff that caught my fancy. Because we didn’t have any significant structured agenda for this day – the only things we needed to accomplish today (before our date with the tower sparkles at midnight) were getting teacher gifts and buying another copy of the Half-Blood Prince for my voraciously reading 8 year old, (again deciding that spending the 15E on a book we already had was much better than spending 7 hours on a plane with a ‘I have nothing to read’ B!) So I was able to wander the market with no ticking clock, no gun to my head. My mouth watered, it was so much fun, and for some reason, this is one of the activities that made me feel truly ‘in Paris’. I loved it.
<b>Wandering</b>
We bought Moblis / Jeune weekend transit day passes for today. DH had said the only thing he wanted to take a photo of that he hadn’t visited yet was the ‘mini’ statue of liberty by the Pont du Grenelle. We probably could have walked, but hopped on the metro for the short dash. While DH took some pictures, the kids and I debated what technique was used in the 2nd Nicolas Cage “National Treasure” movie (for those cultured film buffs in the crowd…) to have a shot of Nicolas’s character and his side kick talking to French bike cops, flying a remote control helicopter over the Statue, with the Eiffel Tower dominating the background. We searched for angles, but couldn't figure it out. So we concluded they just cheated… but I digress…
For teacher gifts, A had decided that he wanted to get a scarf for his teacher, and B wanted to get his an Eiffel Tower souvenir. For the former, we wanted to make our way back to Isle Saint Louis (oh… and hey… since we are going to be there anyway… maybe we could get some Amorino ice cream!) so we decided to get to a bus stop, get on the first bus – without checking where it went – and try and ‘random’ our way back to the general area. Worked pretty well, and it only took 3 semi-random bus changes to get to a familiar part of St Germain. We decided to get out in front of the Cluny and grab some lunch. Again, we are now old pros, so I went to the crepe stand we had gone on our very first day in Paris and got the same chevre and walnut crepe that I had enjoyed then; B joined me and ordered himself a hotdog (single, not double this time… no mustard… and WITH fromage for him); DH went off in search of a doner kebab with fries; and B headed to McDonald’s to order himself a couple of burgers. We all met back in the park/playground behind the Cluny where we had eaten that first day and enjoyed our lunch, and the symmetry of it, and the feeling of how we were different people then we had been two week! (I know… I know… different people is more dramatic than is merited, but still, in this context we all felt we had grown).
<b>Point Zero, and a return to the Islands</b>
Before making our way to ‘our old stomping grounds’ of Isle Saint Louis, we needed to make a stop. Having learned that “those who stand on Point Zero are destined to return to Paris” we felt we had to make the pilgrimage. So we made our way to the front of Notre Dame, and got the photographic evidence that we will get back. (my kids then needed to get their pictures taking pretending to be sucked in the vortex of Point Zero… but whatever…). We hadn’t been into Notre Dame our first time around, and although the square in front of the cathedral seemed MUCH busier then when we had been there just a week ago (though I will also say that the weather was clearer as well – no rumour of rain hainging over), the lineup to go in was moving very quickly. When we got inside, we realized that there was also a mass going on, so we ‘did the circuit’ and admired that beauty of the structure, but were struck by the same odd feeling of being part of the sea of tourists circulating around the people at worship that we had experienced two weeks before at Sacre Coeur. Having just come back from Languedoc and learning a bit about Cathar history also added another perspective to the overall as well.
We made our way over to the bridge between the islands – pausing for a bit to enjoy the first of our “Fete du Musique” sampling – a sort of bluesy quintet singing “Them There Eyes”.
Stopped next for an Amorino fix (coffee and coconut and pistachio and lemon and yum, yum, yum)
And then to “Mum’s scarf store” to get A’s teacher gift. She’s a particularly favourite teacher (a tiny lady with high expectations and a great sense of humour) and I am impressed at the effort that A takes in picking out the scarf. He goes with the same ‘design’ as mine, but with fewer greens and more blues for his blue eyed blond haired teacher. It is not our same ‘scarf shop lady’, but a geniel young man. A does the actual buying of the scarf, but asks me to come to the counter with him, and makes an obvious gesture of giving the little bag before we leave. I ask him why he did that, and he said because he was doing the buying, and because of his long hair, that he thought the shopkeeper might have thought he was a girl buying it for himself, so he wanted to make it look like he was buying it for me ;-)
<i>post script</i> – his teacher loved it, and apparently he did a really good job of recounting the story of me buying mine, and of demonstrating some of the ways to tie it! We’ve just found out that he will have the same teacher again next year – so we will watch to see if she wears it!!
<i>next… Fete du Musique and the twinkling tower<i>
Jul 9th, 2009, 07:43 PM
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I was so afraid your tale would end tonight--sigh of relief and yet I want to hear it all. Truly one of the best trip reports I have come across. It's uniquely your visit but reading it still brings back memories of my own visits to Paris.
Jul 10th, 2009, 10:35 AM
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Sunday June 21st continued
<b>Fete du Musique</b>
We didn’t have any specific ‘plans’ around the Fete du Musique, but thought it would make a nice ‘backdrop’ to our wanderings. By the afternoon, we found ourselves stumbling across random bands and musicians all over. We had yet to see the Luxembourg gardens, so we decided to make our way over there on this beautiful afternoon.
We picked a bus that brought us near to Eglise Saint Sulpice and stopped by there first for a quick look. There were only a few other people in the church at the time, so it actually turned out to be the most ‘churchly’ feeling church we visited. DH and I had both read the da Vinci code back when it was “all the rage” and both recalled something about the Rose line, but weren’t avid enough DaVinci code aficionados to know what we should be looking for I thought the organ was awesome – I remembered reading in other trip reports about people going to organ recitals or concerts here, and added that to my ‘look into for next time’ list!
We passed through a ‘poetry fair’ (who knew such a thing existed!) on our way to the Luxembourg Gardens. Arriving at the ‘top end’ of the gardens, by the palace, everyone was struck by how ‘formal’ they were – how every activity seemed to have a ‘slot’ and how there were lots of ‘gravelly areas’ but no inviting grassy areas. The kids sort of looked for some places to check out and ‘run and play’ but the formality (combined with how busy it was – no <u>overly</u> crowded, but too many people to realistically stay within the bounds of our “without bugging other people” rule. We watched men play chess for a bit; wandered between a couple of different bluesy, 50’s rock type bands; wandered down to the ‘kids can play here’ area. B took a turn driving a go cart type thing up and down a section of graveled area – he really enjoyed it, and I think A was vacillating between feeling too big to do it, wanting to do it just because his brother was, and wanted to do it because it looked fun. We then moved over to a giant playground that was packed with kids. Actually it was a ‘fenced’ playground with an entry charge – so we decided to pay for the kids to go in and play, and DH and I sat outside the fence to listen to a jazzy classical type combo.
Not too long after the kids had gone in, A found his way out an came to sit by us. We probed a bit, and A confessed that he was feeling sort of sad in a weird way. B was happy frolicking in the playground by himself - he was more the right age of the kids in there and therefore able to do that combination of playing by himself while drifting in and out of temporary shared experience type ‘friendships’ as needed with other 8 year olds that seems to be a universal skillset at a certain age. A and I went over to watch a group of men playing boules (the first opportunity we had had!), but found it didn’t hold us for too long – the markings on the balls were too subtle for us to tell who was ‘winning’ a given shot; we wanted the colour coding of curling stones! So we chatted about having ‘end of the trip funk’ feelings; “If I’m not doing something amazing right now, we are pretty much as good as gone home, so I just want to be home then”. I told him that I hadn’t thought about work all trip (hurray!), except that sitting there in the park I had started to think “I’m back at work on Tuesday… I wonder how things stand with that thing and this thing”. We were sad the trip was over, but we also felt 'satisfied', so we didn’t feel the desperate need to do anything in particular before we went, so instead there was room for a touch of melancholy to seep in. I think that talking through that we both felt in the same boat kind of cheered us both up a bit, but we decided we both needed to either be doing <u>something</u> or doing <u>nothing</u>, and that what we were doing was neither of those two things…
So we collected the other two and all agreed that we should go and do our final “mission” and get B his book, and then head back to the apartment, get all packed up for the departure tomorrow (not an onerous task as we had only been there for a day!) and with no pressure to do anything else but read, chill and eat. Then we could wander out to see the tower when we were all ready to, without worrying that we were ‘missing out on something’. So that is what we did!
<b>Random music and The sparkly tower</b>
Well fed and well rested, we headed out to make our way slowly to the Champ du Mars, intending to drift from “musician” to “musician” until we tired of that. And so we did. It was actually a very nice, low key, low pressure way to mellow through our last evening. We came across a variety of musicians – mostly covering familiar English language songs; Goth/Emo type rock; a porkpie hat wearing ska band; a strangely ‘hybridly generic’ first nations type duo (Plains Indian dress, with bamboo pan flutes); a foursome of middle-aged Frenchmen doing Simple Minds covers; and the families favourite – a rousing French gospel choir where one of the singers split off and morphed into a (to our best translating abilities) a sort of ‘gospel themed, hip hop rap guy’.
Once we actually got to the Champ du Mars and the tower, for some reason there were hardly any musicians (we had expected that the park in front of the tower to be full of music, but it wasn’t). That’s ok though, we were there to see the tower, and that we were able to do. We went under the tower and bought B’s teacher his choice of a Eiffel Tower souvenir ‘teacher gift’ and took some ‘the tower at night’ pictures, then walked back to the grass to get ready for the sparkles.
DH and I sat on the grass and just people watched, while the kids went over to play on one of the ‘climbing frame playgrounds’ at the side of the Champ du Mars. The park was full of groups of ‘young people’ - definitely most of them seemed like French young people as opposed to tourists – with their picnics and wine. I would say though that while half the groups had a ‘ah, yes, this is Paris’ picnic of baguettes and cheeses, plus chips and salads and misc, the other half had McDonald bags. As this was our last romanticized night in Paris, we chose to only look at the picnics . The kids finished playing, and we all gathered on the lawn, the tower sparkled, we ooo’d and ahhh’d and got a peaceful feeling of closure on our trip. B was sleepy enough that he didn’t need much convincing that the 11pm sparkle we had just seen was just as good as the 1am one he had been lobbying for, and we made our way contentedly back to the apartment.
<b>with a whimper, not a bang</b>
Up and out by 7am
RER to the airport with no problem
Breezed through checkin – the only mistake we made was that with no ‘checked in’ luggage, we hadn’t handled our bottle of wine from Languedoc properly, so had to leave it at the security desk on the way in...
Hung around the airport for another 2 hours; on the plane… delayed an hour taking off
Uneventful flight – though as DH said, it’s too bad that the trip couldn’t end with something other than a plane ride; like a train ride or a boat ride instead (ignoring, of course, geographic impossibilities…)
because an economy flight <b><font color="#FF0000">t</font><font color="#0000A0">o</font> <font color="#FF0000">P</font><font color="#0000A0">a</font><font color="#FF0000">r</font><font color="#0000A0">i</font><font color="#FF0000">s</font></b>
is a flight <b><font color="#FF0000">t</font><font color="#0000A0">o</font> <font color="#FF0000">P</font><font color="#0000A0">a</font><font color="#FF0000">r</font><font color="#0000A0">i</font><font color="#FF0000">s</font></b>,
but an economy flight back is just an economy flight.
Home at last – “Hello house!” from B
no breakins, no water damage, no worries
Happy to be home… but sad we had to leave
but at least now… we too, will always have Paris
<b>Fete du Musique</b>
We didn’t have any specific ‘plans’ around the Fete du Musique, but thought it would make a nice ‘backdrop’ to our wanderings. By the afternoon, we found ourselves stumbling across random bands and musicians all over. We had yet to see the Luxembourg gardens, so we decided to make our way over there on this beautiful afternoon.
We picked a bus that brought us near to Eglise Saint Sulpice and stopped by there first for a quick look. There were only a few other people in the church at the time, so it actually turned out to be the most ‘churchly’ feeling church we visited. DH and I had both read the da Vinci code back when it was “all the rage” and both recalled something about the Rose line, but weren’t avid enough DaVinci code aficionados to know what we should be looking for
I thought the organ was awesome – I remembered reading in other trip reports about people going to organ recitals or concerts here, and added that to my ‘look into for next time’ list!We passed through a ‘poetry fair’ (who knew such a thing existed!) on our way to the Luxembourg Gardens. Arriving at the ‘top end’ of the gardens, by the palace, everyone was struck by how ‘formal’ they were – how every activity seemed to have a ‘slot’ and how there were lots of ‘gravelly areas’ but no inviting grassy areas. The kids sort of looked for some places to check out and ‘run and play’ but the formality (combined with how busy it was – no <u>overly</u> crowded, but too many people to realistically stay within the bounds of our “without bugging other people” rule. We watched men play chess for a bit; wandered between a couple of different bluesy, 50’s rock type bands; wandered down to the ‘kids can play here’ area. B took a turn driving a go cart type thing up and down a section of graveled area – he really enjoyed it, and I think A was vacillating between feeling too big to do it, wanting to do it just because his brother was, and wanted to do it because it looked fun. We then moved over to a giant playground that was packed with kids. Actually it was a ‘fenced’ playground with an entry charge – so we decided to pay for the kids to go in and play, and DH and I sat outside the fence to listen to a jazzy classical type combo.
Not too long after the kids had gone in, A found his way out an came to sit by us. We probed a bit, and A confessed that he was feeling sort of sad in a weird way. B was happy frolicking in the playground by himself - he was more the right age of the kids in there and therefore able to do that combination of playing by himself while drifting in and out of temporary shared experience type ‘friendships’ as needed with other 8 year olds that seems to be a universal skillset at a certain age. A and I went over to watch a group of men playing boules (the first opportunity we had had!), but found it didn’t hold us for too long – the markings on the balls were too subtle for us to tell who was ‘winning’ a given shot; we wanted the colour coding of curling stones! So we chatted about having ‘end of the trip funk’ feelings; “If I’m not doing something amazing right now, we are pretty much as good as gone home, so I just want to be home then”. I told him that I hadn’t thought about work all trip (hurray!), except that sitting there in the park I had started to think “I’m back at work on Tuesday… I wonder how things stand with that thing and this thing”. We were sad the trip was over, but we also felt 'satisfied', so we didn’t feel the desperate need to do anything in particular before we went, so instead there was room for a touch of melancholy to seep in. I think that talking through that we both felt in the same boat kind of cheered us both up a bit, but we decided we both needed to either be doing <u>something</u> or doing <u>nothing</u>, and that what we were doing was neither of those two things…
So we collected the other two and all agreed that we should go and do our final “mission” and get B his book, and then head back to the apartment, get all packed up for the departure tomorrow (not an onerous task as we had only been there for a day!) and with no pressure to do anything else but read, chill and eat. Then we could wander out to see the tower when we were all ready to, without worrying that we were ‘missing out on something’. So that is what we did!
<b>Random music and The sparkly tower</b>
Well fed and well rested, we headed out to make our way slowly to the Champ du Mars, intending to drift from “musician” to “musician” until we tired of that. And so we did. It was actually a very nice, low key, low pressure way to mellow through our last evening. We came across a variety of musicians – mostly covering familiar English language songs; Goth/Emo type rock; a porkpie hat wearing ska band; a strangely ‘hybridly generic’ first nations type duo (Plains Indian dress, with bamboo pan flutes); a foursome of middle-aged Frenchmen doing Simple Minds covers; and the families favourite – a rousing French gospel choir where one of the singers split off and morphed into a (to our best translating abilities) a sort of ‘gospel themed, hip hop rap guy’.
Once we actually got to the Champ du Mars and the tower, for some reason there were hardly any musicians (we had expected that the park in front of the tower to be full of music, but it wasn’t). That’s ok though, we were there to see the tower, and that we were able to do. We went under the tower and bought B’s teacher his choice of a Eiffel Tower souvenir ‘teacher gift’ and took some ‘the tower at night’ pictures, then walked back to the grass to get ready for the sparkles.
DH and I sat on the grass and just people watched, while the kids went over to play on one of the ‘climbing frame playgrounds’ at the side of the Champ du Mars. The park was full of groups of ‘young people’ - definitely most of them seemed like French young people as opposed to tourists – with their picnics and wine. I would say though that while half the groups had a ‘ah, yes, this is Paris’ picnic of baguettes and cheeses, plus chips and salads and misc, the other half had McDonald bags. As this was our last romanticized night in Paris, we chose to only look at the picnics . The kids finished playing, and we all gathered on the lawn, the tower sparkled, we ooo’d and ahhh’d and got a peaceful feeling of closure on our trip. B was sleepy enough that he didn’t need much convincing that the 11pm sparkle we had just seen was just as good as the 1am one he had been lobbying for, and we made our way contentedly back to the apartment.
<b>with a whimper, not a bang</b>
Up and out by 7am
RER to the airport with no problem
Breezed through checkin – the only mistake we made was that with no ‘checked in’ luggage, we hadn’t handled our bottle of wine from Languedoc properly, so had to leave it at the security desk on the way in...
Hung around the airport for another 2 hours; on the plane… delayed an hour taking off
Uneventful flight – though as DH said, it’s too bad that the trip couldn’t end with something other than a plane ride; like a train ride or a boat ride instead (ignoring, of course, geographic impossibilities…)
because an economy flight <b><font color="#FF0000">t</font><font color="#0000A0">o</font> <font color="#FF0000">P</font><font color="#0000A0">a</font><font color="#FF0000">r</font><font color="#0000A0">i</font><font color="#FF0000">s</font></b>
is a flight <b><font color="#FF0000">t</font><font color="#0000A0">o</font> <font color="#FF0000">P</font><font color="#0000A0">a</font><font color="#FF0000">r</font><font color="#0000A0">i</font><font color="#FF0000">s</font></b>,
but an economy flight back is just an economy flight.
Home at last – “Hello house!” from B
no breakins, no water damage, no worries
Happy to be home… but sad we had to leave
but at least now… we too, will always have Paris
Jul 10th, 2009, 10:49 AM
#137
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Jul 10th, 2009, 12:24 PM
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OMG, we were at some of the same places as you and your family on that Sunday I was amazed at how many people were in the front of Notre Dame that day. We have been there many times and never seen it as busy as that. Also had Amorino And all the music that day. BTW, our kids were 7 and 10 the first time we took them. So your report really brings back a lot of those memories.
I was amazed at how many people were in the front of Notre Dame that day. We have been there many times and never seen it as busy as that. Also had Amorino And all the music that day. BTW, our kids were 7 and 10 the first time we took them. So your report really brings back a lot of those memories.
