cigalechanta

Welcome back and happy you had great weather. I rained most days when I was there last February.

cobbie

Thanks for the great report.

beachgirl86

I just returned home from Paris, was there from Feb. 18-24! Wasn't the weather glorious? I was there many years ago in Feb., and it rained the whole time, so this time, I was in heaven

Images2

We sure were fortunate this past week. We've also been in the winter several times, and it's never been this good.

Beachgirl, maybe we met somewhere along the way

Back to work, I hope I can finish this report today, but it might not happen. We have tickets to see All Shook Up tonight. I've heard it's not to great though, we'll see.

Images2

Friday, February 23

Le Fournil de Mouffetard, our favorite patisserie on rue Mouffetard has the freshest patisseries and we returned again for breakfast, then returned to BHV for a bit of shopping at 9:30 a.m. before we lined up at Hotel de Ville to see the Doisneau- Paris en Liberté photo exhibit which opened at 10 a.m. This is a free exhibit and is excellent. It has been extended through March 3. The line was short at 10 but last Saturday it was extremely long and slow moving.

Doisneau was a “photographer of people” and many of his black and white photos were quite humorous. He also had photos of the destruction of Les Halles. I wished the book store here had a better selection, but the books and postcards available to buy seemed incomplete.

Dinner tonight was to be at Chez Michel and we needed to call and confirm our reservation which we made 2 weeks prior. They couldn’t find it, we insisted, so they ended up adding our names for a table this evening. We weren’t to happy with them, but decided to still give them a try.

Paris Walks http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pariswalking/ was doing a Fashion Walk at 11 a.m. so we hurried to Louvre Rivoli metro stop to meet up with the walk. My poor husband was the only man in the group, but he was a good sport about it! They had an “expert” lead this walk instead one of the regular guides and it was to cover fashion and architecture. Truthfully, I didn’t think it was to good, but here’s what we covered:

Beginning at Galerie Vero Dodat we stopped in front of the Louboutin shoe boutique where Christian Louboutin, just 30 years old I read, sells his red sole shoes, worn by Eva Longoria. Our guide talked a bit about the shop and the architecture of the galleries.

Palais Royal courtyard was our next stop with more on the architecture of this area. I could see people wondering where the fashion part of this walk would be. We walked to Didier Ludot’s Vintage boutique and noticed the windows and talked a bit about Vintage clothing. You need an appointment to shop here, and there are no prices displayed. Reese Witherspoon wore a dress from this shop for the Oscar’s in 2006 when she won her Oscar.

Some of the women in our group seemed to know more than our guide. Mr. Ludot needed to come outdoors to take a call, so we got a look at him and his interesting shoes. We moved on to look at the windows of his accessory shop next door. Mr. Ludot needed to get into this shop though and I was blocking the door. He actually spoke to me!! First Patricia Wells, now Didier Ludot, even though it was just one word, Pardon!

The American fashion designer Marc Jacobs has marketed himself well, and now has a shop of Ready to Wear and Accessories in the galleries along Palais Royal. We actually went into his shop, but our guide felt the staff was nervous having so many customers at one time, so we left after about 10 minutes.

Moving onto Colette Passage and some discussion of this passage, and then Galerie Vivienne, with it’s glass roof and beautiful mosaic flooring where Jean Paul Gaultier has his boutique. Here we found A Priori Thé the darling teashop which is owned by an American woman. We made reservations to return later for lunch! Our walk ended soon after and we returned to A Priori Thé, sitting at a table in the galerie itself for excellent luncheon salads.

Storm clouds were finally gathering as we made our way to Ecouen on a Regional Train, departing from Gare du Nord. It’s about a 25 minute trip. We arrived in Ecouen-Ezanville which is in zone 4. Trains to Persan-Beaumont, Montsoult or Luzarches all stop at Ecouen-Ezanville. They run every 15 minutes.

It’s a walk through the forest to the Chateau here. It rained before we arrived so the dirt paths were a bit wet, but we managed. The musée National de la Renaissance is a great find here, with the David and Bathsheba tapestries. They’re fabulous, and I’m a bit surprised they’re here and not in Paris.

Keeping our reservation for dinner at Chez Michel 10, rue de Belzunce tele: 33 1 44 53 06 20
30€ 3 courses Open Tues-Sat, this is in the area of Gare du Nord, behind the church.

We arrived, through the masses around this train station, not my favorite neighborhood, and entered the restaurant. We received a very odd reaction when we gave our name for our reservation. It was a half smirk, laugh and then the waiter turned to a colleague and shared some inside joke. I have no idea what was going on, but this was very inappropriate. No politeness on their part. Another woman seated us at a table which I didn’t appreciate, and without a word sat the chalkboard on a chair next to us and left. Looking at the chalkboard I was in shock. Almost everything on it had huge suppliments, 15€ and 25€ suppliments. I went to the ladies room to calm down. That didn’t work to well, and then I looked around and noticed we were seated in a “tourist” section, of the bistro, and the French were seated on the other half. I couldn’t remain here. I don’t care how good the reviews were, I was leaving. My husband just hates to leave a restaurant where you have a reservation, it’s embarrassing. After we told them we couldn’t stay, he was just as relieved as I was. We had no idea where dinner would be tonight though.

We went back to the metro and I just looked at the map, trying to come up with another choice. It was Friday evening, this might be hard. Finally I remembered walking by La Maison du Jardin, 27, rue de Vaugirard 75006 tele: 01 45 48 22 31 earlier in the week. This was also a recommended restaurant on egullet, so we decided to try and get a table. Fortunately they had one available, but in the room behind the back wall. It was delightful. We met a wonderful family group of women from New York dining in this room also and had a fun evening sharing notes on Paris. Prices here were 29€ for 3 courses and 24€ for 2 courses.

Our starter was a salad with foie gras and pumpkin soup, and main dishes were Pork Mignon with artichoke and plums and the most delicious lamb in puff pastry. It was casual, fun and delicious! We didn’t need dessert although all the selections looked wonderful. Dinner with wine was 72€. The owner was welcoming and polite, despite the fact we had no reservation. The only thing we didn’t care for was the English menu they gave us to begin with. We did end up with the French version though! We highly recommend La Maison du Jardin.

yestravel

Hi -- I was also in Paris the week of Feb 18 and enjoyed the wonderful weather too. Wanted to make a point of clarification on Le Comptoir. We too had thought that they only took reservations for the Hotel guests, but decided to drop by and see what we could get. We went by one day around 11:30 am and were told they take NO reservations and serve continously from 12 noon through 11 pm. We ended up having delicious lunches there twice. We arrived 12ish and got seated right away. By 12:30 it was full inside and outside. However they seemed to turn tables over every 60 - 90 minutes or so and I never saw people waiting in line. Also grabbed a crepe one day at the creperie next door that was the best crepe ever.

Images2

Thanks so much for making that clear. I've never heard they serve until 11 p.m. so that's wonderful news!

Images2

Saturday, February 24

After pastries at Le Fournil de Mouffetard again we went to musée du quai Branly.
Wow!! We arrived around 10:10 and there was no line. The outside of this museum is interesting, but the inside is just outstanding. We loved the Oceanic part the most, which is the first section, but it’s a very large section. I think I’d like to return and get the audio guide the next time. This will take a lot more time, so that’s a factor. There are displays like I’ve never seen before, and many small video screens you can view of native dances, interviews, and all kinds of information. Some of them are interactive. There are also rooms with films continuously shown. There is an Asian section, Africa and the Americas. We spent 2 hours here but it wasn’t enough. There are also exhibits upstairs, but they’re not as good as the huge downstairs areas.

We left the museum and walked around the Eiffel tower taking more pictures. No matter how many times we return to Paris the tower is always special. We had lunch at a café at the corner of La Tour Maubourg and rue de Grenelle which served excellent croque monsieur sandwiches on Poline bread. As we ate outdoors a group on Segways spun by!

The Spectacle du Nouvel An Chinois was playing at the Palais des Congres e Paris at Porte Maillot for just 2 days. I pre-bought tickets through the FNAC website and we went to the 3:00 show. This is a huge auditorium. It was easy to find, as there was an exit on RER line A to the theater. The metro was closed in this area that weekend for work, so you had to arrive by RER or bus. The ushers helped you to your seats, and a tip was desired. They carried small black purses to gather the change. We enjoyed the show a lot, but it didn’t begin until 3:20. We were tired out, and kept dosing off, couldn’t be helped! It was nice sitting down for so long. The show wasn’t excellent, but was very good. There was an intermission of 30 minutes. At 5:30 it wasn’t over yet and we had to leave because we had tickets at 7 p.m. at the Theater Marigny for the play Piaf, une vie en rose et noir.

Taking the bus down the Champs Elysées we shopped at the Monoprix here quickly (I thought this was a better Monoprix than the one by the Grand Magasins) and bought a few “necessities” and then went to Theater Marigny. This show was in Salle Popesco, a small theater with comfortable seats. We were seated by the usher, and tips were required, everyone tipped. We had seats at the end of the 5th row. I thought they were excellent, but no one ever arrived for the seats towards the center, so the usher told us to move over quickly to the center, just before the show began. This was quite a show, the actress and actors were outstanding. The acoustics wonderful. The music was fun, and the crowd joined in. For some reason the first week of this play, which it was, had tickets for half price. I haven’t seen a better small show than this! It was in French, of course.

Dinner plans tonight were for Le Troquet 21, rue Francois Bonvin 75015 Paris Tel : 01 45 66 89 00 €30 for 3 courses, €25 for 2 courses with reservations for 9:30.

We had a lovely walk past the Grand Palais, which was softly lit in turquoise, and over Pont Alexandre III, past Hotel des Invalides. Enough walking, we took the metro and exited at a stop with raised gridwork, I’m not sure which stop it was. I didn’t care for the neighborhood, and we weren’t sure which was to go. We got turned around and I ended up twisting my ankle quite badly. We weren’t going to make it to dinner. I hobbled the best I could to maybe Ségur? Metro, a different line and we returned to our hotel. It was a shame we missed dinner at Le Troquet, but there’s always a next time.

Saturday evening there were fierce storms overnight. I woke around 3 a.m. and prayed they’d be gone by morning. We were taking the RER back to the airport, using our zone 1-5 Carte Orange. Thankfully the sun was out in the morning, and I was able to slowly, very slowly hobble to Port Royal RER and we arrived at Terminal 1 with little problem. It was so crowded, but we easily found the detax desk to file our paperwork for the tax refund we were due. We flew Lufthansa from Paris to Frankfurt, then onto Chicago. There was not much leg room on Lufthansa and my foot and leg were really painful. The drinks flowed, and flowed and flowed though. It was humorous how much free beer, wine, baileys etc were available, all for no charge, in economy class. The airport in Chicago was a mess, they were deicing planes as we arrived. Our United flight was delayed by hours so they changed us to an alternate flight at no charge. We arrived home on time, but our luggage didn’t arrive until the next day.

We had a wonderful time, and will be returning to France in May to the Pays Basque area, and in September to the Languedoc. We’ll be renting gites on both of those trips which will be another new experience for us in France!

cigalechanta

What a wonderful report!!
The NY Times gives "La Mome" a rave and reviews another film that Depardieu also stars in, "The Singer."

ptm

Great trip report! My husband and I will there in the middle of April and we can't wait. Love the details...Ptm

Images2

Thanks Mimi, that means alot to me! I hope you can return to France soon yourself!

nancy1652

Marvelous report! We'll be there in three weeks and I hope we can do half of what you managed.

samsmom1127

bookmarking

sandypaws3

Images2,
Thanks for a very enjoyable and informative trip report. We have several of the places you went on our list, so it was good to read of your experiences -- e.g., the rue Poncelet market, Basilique St. Denis, Musee Jacquemart Andre, Vincennes, and la Derniere Goutte. How neat that you met Patricia Wells One question... did you have to purchase your Carte Orange from a machine or were you able to purchase it at the window?

Sandy

Images2

Hi Sandy,

We bought our Carte Orange from the woman at the ticket window at the airport when we bought our tickets for the RER which we took into Paris. The machines won't work with our U.S. credit cards.

Yes, I was thrilled to meet Patricia Wells, and she was kind enough to talk with me a bit. I even stepped just outside the door later and took a picture of her and my husband while they were paying for their purchases! Hope she didn't notice that She was dressed so nicely. I never dress up when I go buy wine!!