Anselm- I think we encountered the exact same thing. After about 20 minutes of circling the garage and thinking that we were going to spend the last night we were supposed to be sleeping in our beautiful room at Le Vallon sleeping in our car in the garage, we just had to laugh at our stupidity for not realizing it operated by sensor! Hopefully reading this post will save some future traveller from that anguish...

liz

Day 8- Driving from Beaune to Paris. We wake up around 8am to try and find some breakfast (we opted not to eat at the hotel). The town is quiet and clean, not alot open b/c it's a Monday morning. We grabbed a croissant and a pain de sucre from a boulangerie to eat as we wandered and then found another cafe with outdoor tables for cafe au lait. An uneventful morning, we packed up the car and said good bye to Beaune. We hopped on the A6 up for our final leg back up to Paris.

Most of this drive was again beautiful and painless. I love that the French post those big brown road signs that alert you to historical sights and places of interest. We had passed underneath this fabulous castle somewhere before we got to Beaune that I never managed to get a photo of, so today my goal was to find another castle and get a picture. My husband was not for stopping or taking any sideroads to accomplish this (when he's in driving mode, he can be a little single-minded and we needed to get the rental car back in time to avoid extra charges). I did manage to get one shot of a grand castle somewhere along the drive and was quite proud of myself for actually capturing said photo at a distance and 140km/hr...;o)...silly american tourists and their obsessions with castles.

If there was one side excursion I could have taken, I would have chosen to stop and see Fountainebleau. We'll see it next time.

The closer we got to Paris, the worse the traffic became (we should know these things, we're NYers).


Anyway, it was all fine until we got onto that beltway that circles the city. We took a left to circle east and up to St Denis since we our hotel was in Montmartre. Traffic moved at a snails' pace until we passed Pers St. Germain. Once past there, it wasn't too bad navigating and arriving at Rue Le Pic to our Hotel, Prima Le Pic.

Parking was an issue, so my husband parked illegally and we crossed our fingers as he unloaded our bags and helped me to the hotel. As soon as we knew our check-in status was OK, he headed off to return the car at the Gare du Nord. What should have taken a quick 1/2 hour took him 2 hours and countless headaches. We will never attempt to drive a car (especially a rental) into Paris again and would pass along this advice to any future travellers so foolish as to do this.

My husband's account---There was alot of contruction happening around Rue Magenta and the detours were confusing and traffic was at a standstill. Once my husband located the Gare du Nord and the street that the rental office was supposed to be on, he couldn't find the office.

Nothing. No signs. No storefronts. He -with his next to nothing French- tried to ask a taxi driver if he knew where the EuropCar office was. The taxi driver told him, no problem....a hundred meters in the other direction.

So my husband left the rental car, again, illegally parked by the Gare and set off looking for the agency. After wandering for 20 minutes, he realized he was not going to find it that way and headed back to the station and the car. Frustrated, he decided to find the tourist info in the train station and ask there.

There were four people ahead of him in line. The first three people asked their questions quickly and moved on. The third person, was a woman who spoke in an american southern drawl who preceeded to use the tourist office as her own personal trip planner. She was in Paris for 24 hours, had tickets for Paris Disney (she came all the way to Paris and she was going to disneyland???)and wanted to know should she do this, where's that, and Oh, one more thing, should I, could you, etc....for 20 minutes. And all this time...the rental car was still parked illegally. Finally, my husband was able to approach and ask for help in locating the car rental office. But not before the woman came back and asked if she could please ask one more question. He curtly and as politely as he could muster at this point told the woman emphatically "NO. I waited for 20 minutes for you to ask your questions. Get back in line".

Finally, at last, he is told by the person at the information booth that the Office for EuropCar was in the parking garage...on the bottom floor. So he goes to get the car and thankfully it is still there and is not bearing any parking tickets. Thank God for small miracles. Another 20 minutes, driving all the way across one football field (his words) length parking tier down to the next. At last, he found the office returned the car and thankfully without a late fee.

NExt time, we will return rental and rental cars outside Paris and take the TGV or local trains in to the city. This is a no brainer.

When he finally returned to the hotel I was very relieved to see him. Befoer his return, I had visions of spending the last night of my honeymoon trying to locate my husband in either a hospital or jail.

At this point, his first order of business was to find the nearest cafe and order a carafe of wine to calm his nerves. And so we walked a little way down Rue LePic, found the first cafe we could and let him relax and unwind.

Paris continued- After our little respite and a quick bite to eat, we head off to see some more of Paris. We took the metro to go see the Arc De Triomphe. It was raining lightly, so we didn't spend to much time gazing at it's magnificence and then decided to stroll down the Champs Eylsees. I was a little disheartened to see so many american megastores and such lining the stretch we walked down. But we were also looking for the Lido, so I could drop my CV at the stage door. We finally located the Lido, and I when I asked for the stage door, they sent me to the reservation desk. I told them I wanted to leave my CV and instead they gave me the director's phone number. I didn't want to do anymore business related activities on my HM, so I politely took the number, walked out and did nothing more about it. (In NYC, it used to be common practice to drop your resume at the stage door of any Bway show you were interested in auditioning for. It's still done, but not that oftern).

Anyway, back to the HM! We continued wandering around. We decided to head to the Left Bank. We had a long and fairly uninteresting walk down Blvd St Germain until we happened upon the Abbaye at Rue De Bonaparte. We took a little tour of the church. Then we amused ourselves wandering the small pedestrian streets in that area. I was on a mission that day to find and buy some lingerie. I finally found a little store that fit my budget and bagged my pretty bounty.

At around 7pm, after the shops closed, I called my artist friend to finalize our plans to meet her and her boyriend that evening. We made plans to meet at Les Rubis on Rue St Marche Honores in a 1/2 hour. We decided to walk there, and followed the left bank of the Seine and then cross north at Pont Royal and the Gardens of Tuileries.

Les Rubis was right out of a picture book of charming french bars. Smoke filled, white tiles and white tin ceilings, patrons standing at the bar smoking their Gauloises, sipping wine and eating small snacks like cheese, or eggs or meats.

When my friend arrived, we caught up and shared stories of our amazing time in Provence and her tales of her intense process of trying to get her video piece finshed and ready to be shown in a gallery space. A little later, her boyfriend joined us too and after getting to know one another, we headed off to eat dinner.

We dined at Le Mesturet that night, based on our friends' recommendations. The meal was lovely and the restuarant was not crowded at all. Highlights of the meal were a Tartine of Sardines and the duck that my husband ordered. I don't remember details of this meal, because we were more focused on getting to know my friend's boyfriend (it was our first time meeting him).

After dinner, we said out goodbyes and jumped in a taxi back to Montmartre.

Back at Rue LePic, we stopped for a night cap before turning in for the night.

Hi lp,

Thanks for a very interesting report.

Ohhhh, I could taste the fresh strawberries. They're shipped somewhat green to Alaska this time of year.
You were brave to drive all the way back to your hotel in Paris! Glad it went well.
Your descriptions of the poppies and iris make me already want to go back to Provence.

What a lovely, lovely, lovely report. We've traced some of the same paths as you (Beaumes de Venise, Malaucene, Gigondas, Vacqueryas, Beaune) and had some of the same reactions (Nimes, although we were not lucky enough to have a festival break out). I'm happy that you ate well in Uzes and that you found it to be charming. It may be my favorite spot in France. Actually, we're quite fond of the village of Beaumes de Venise too.

Not only did your journey south bring back memories for me, but we've actually stayed at the Prima Lepic! Not quite my favorite hotel in Paris, although my husband liked it and he really loved the neighborhood. So much so that we're staying there again this trip, albeit at a different hotel (Regyns Montmartre).

17 days 'til we depart! Thanks for a report that makes waiting just a little bit easier and a little bit harder all at the same time.

This was a really great report, and certainly a wonderful honeymoon! Your husband's experience returning the car in Paris is exactly why I ALWAYS rent my cars outside of Paris - like Avignon, Beaune, - or ANYWHERE except Paris! Thanks for taking the time to do such a lovely, detailed report.

Thanks and your welcome everyone. Seriously, I did most of my research (except for finding Le Vallon) on these boards!

Our last day- We woke early in the morning to set off and find a nice boulangerie in Montmartre for breakfast. After breakfast, we decided it was high time to try and see at least one museum while in Paris. We didn't want to do the Louvre b/c we felt it would be too overwhelming. It's a good thing we felt that way, since it is closed on Tuesdays. We wanted to see the Musee D'Orsay (my husband has seen it before, I have not). When we arrived the line was of rock star concert proportions! I have never seen line like this before...hundreds of people...(and I have waited in line to see the new MOMA on Target free fridays--little tip for anyone planning a trip to NYC who doesn't want to pay $20 admission)... so we decided to save D'Orsay for our next trip. We stolled over to Tuileries to see if L'Orangerie was open, and alas it is closed for renovations until 2005. Obviously not May of 2005. So, our efforts to visit one of the great museums was dashed. Since it was a beautiful clear day, we decided to wander yet some more. We went to La Samairitanne (or is it L'Amairitaine?) the big department store with the roof top cafe. We headed up to the ninth floor against my protests to stop on the 2nd floor as I drooled over the huge assortment of beautiful lingerie. We couldn't have asked for a better day (well, maybe slightly warmer if you wanted to sit and have a glass of wine- which we didn't) to be up there. The views were magnificent! From one edge, you could see Notre Dame and the Louvre. From another, you can see the Eiffel tower far in the distance. And from a tiny corner in the back, you can even see Sacre Couer sitting regally at the highest point in Paris. We drank it all up, took some photos and my husband allowed me the indulgence of stopping at the 2nd floor this time to drool over the lingerie. Alas, I could only lust, because I had champagne taste on a beer budget as we like to say.

Upon leaving the department store, we decided to head up to Sacre Couer. We took the Metro to Les Abesses and walked up from there. I was so glad that we approached Sacre Couer the way we did. Climbing up those steps really gave me sense of ritual and grandeur yet humbles you at the same time, not for the effort it takes, but because of the imposing view and scale of Sacre Couer as get nearer. A harpist was playing a piece of music that is very commonly played for weddings and it brought on a wave of incredible warmth in my heart. The inside of the church was beautiful. Probably my favorite of the hundreds of churches we had wandered through over the past week and a half.

After Sacre Couer, we wandered back down using the opposite route back towards 'our' area of Montmartre, looking for a place to stop for lunch. We wanted to be able to sit on outside and enjoy the last hours of our HM. We finally decided on Le Vrai Paris on Rue des Abbesses, not far from LePic. We ordered two glasses of wine and two salads. We were quite surprise when our food was served at how good it was! We had completely expected this to be a tourist cafe but the food was delicious. I had a the Vrai Paris salad with fruits de mer, kiwi, langoustines, grapes, avacado, tomato and somthing else that I can't recall right now. My husband ordered salad with duck breast served atop a bed of mesclun with frissee and tomato, a slab of foie gras, raosted garlic, walnuts and goat cheese. We savored our meal, ordered another glass of wine and reminisced about our great trip.

After lunch, we headed around the corner to Prima LePic and picked up our bags. The shuttle van to CDG that we had reserved through the hotel came to pick us up promptly at 230pm forour 550pm flight and we sadly said goodbye to Paris.

Return flight to NYC..economy class. Nothing exciting (oh, how I missed business class), but it was an empty flight so we had room to spread out and it went smoothly.

I never wrote my opinion of Prima LePic yet...I actually preferred Le Pic to Brittanique. Our room was charming and clean and the staff was very friendly and sweet. However, I'm sure that I really like this hotel because we lucked out with a room with a balcony facing out on the street! I would definitely stay there again.

Things we missed and know we want to do next time:

Arles
Chateneauf des Papes
A real wine tasting at a Caveau
Ride bikes through the Luberon
Market day in at least one town
Gorges du Verdon
One day, I want to see the lavender fields in bloom!
The cliffs of Cassis.
Ride horses in the Camargue

Find the restaurant in Avignon who's name in french means "The Three CArzy Brothers" (but it's not Les Trois Freres Fou, it's a different word for crazy). --A guest at another private party that was in the restaurant where our wedding reception was held told me about this restaurant when he found out we were HMing in Provence (whew, talk abou trun-on sentence). He said it was the best culinary experience in Avignon and in his opinion, possibly that entire region of Provence. We totally forgot to even look for it.

And I'm sure there are many more that I don't even know yet!

For those of you heading over, please nibble on some calissons for me, bite into a fresh olive, savor the fruits in season and of course drink lots of great wine and eat lots of great cheese!

Ironically, the restaurant where we held our reception is called Provence (and yes, that's part of how we decided to HM in Provence). If you are ever in NYC, stop in for a wonderful romantic dinner (the food is excellent) and you'll be in Provence, France for a few magical hours!