jmw44

Well thanks to you, kwren, I'm now a full hour behind on my lesson plans. What a shame. Thank you so much! I'm enjoying every word of your narrative and can't wait for more! Your description of the meal menus is torture! Please continue as soon as you can, and don't leave out any details sil vous plait. J. (Hi, S', are you here?)

RosieinOz

Great info
Thanks for sharing!
Rosie

kwren

So glad you're enjoying it (and sorry about the delay in the lesson planning!)

LN

Great report. It gives me lots of good ideas for our trip which also takes in Switzerland and Austria.

Would the card be benefical if you don't ride the train. We'll have a car the entire trip but this card is sounding interesting!

You might also consider submitting your entire report to a travel mag - it really is a goooood read.

cooknchill

yr trip report is really interesting, can't wait to read more

kwren

Thanks for the wonderful compliment LN. (You're not an editor are you? )

Are you asking about the Salzburg Card when you ask if the card is beneficial if you don't ride the train? If so, the Salzburg Card is good for many museums and sights as well as unlimited bus rides in Salzburg. We only took the bus a couple of time - most things were easy to walk to and we only used our car to go to the lake region and to drive to the Innsbruck Airport.

If that's not what you were asking about, please ask again.

LN

Perhaps I was confused as I thought (??) that the card was for train use as well as museums and attractions.

As to my being an editor - noooo - but I have a dear friend who almost always sells stories on her trips to mags. She's concise and always adds the elements to keep your interest piqued. A bit like yours.

Your report sounds like everyone had a great time - rain and all.

kwren

I think so far I've used the Swiss Card for free and half-price trains in Switzerland and the Salzburg Card for Museums, sights and bus in Salzburg. Maybe you were thinking those were one and the same?

Soon to come Carte Orange for metros and bus in Paris and the Museum Card for museums and sights in Paris. It does all get rather confusing. I don't think I've left any out.

(There's that phone card in France too, but I'd rather not discuss that one!!! :-< )

kwren

August 6 A day with friends, wonderful dinner in Provins!

Just a relaxing day driving to meet a previous exchange student, his wife and baby in Souppes-sur-Loings’ animal park, an hour away. We had attended their 2003 wedding where my then-14 yr old son had been invited to play his sax. It’s wonderful making and maintaining these connections. Going back to the hotel, we passed fields and fields of slightly wilted sunflowers. We just missed their peak – they must have been gorgeous 2 weeks ago.

Later, back to Provins for dinner. We happened upon tiny Creperie la Rozel on Rue Hugues le Grand in Centre Ville (center of town) and it was fabulous! We were the only Americans there, and there were 2 large groups of townspeople there for dinner. A good sign for us. The crepes were excellent, with plenty of fillings. The Salade Fraicheur wonderful with tuna, corn, asparagus and tomatoes. The best part was a beautiful dessert combo called Café Gourmand – a cup of coffee with a tiny ice cream sundae, a tiny crème caramel, and tiny cup of fresh peaches with whipped cream and a crepe. Note – in a restaurant full of townspeople, look to see if there is something which the locals are ordering. Most seemed to be ordering galettes (a savory crepe) with filling and a fried egg on top, and a huge pile of tiny round slices of fried potatoes. More ordered a side of those potatoes. If we were to go back, we would get the crepe, egg and potatoes – they looked delicious.

The only other excitement of the day was that my 17S’s glasses got knocked off his face and out the car window #-o on the way back to the Gites – that’s what I get for being too complacent to tell them to stop fooling around. We were lucky to find them uncrushed at the side of the road after searching in the dark! Glad it wasn’t the son who fell off the boulder! Kids add excitement, don’t they?

LN

Thanks for clearing that up. I will be getting a Salzburg card while we are there. I'm getting excited now - we're just three weeks until we leave!

kwren

It was deinitely worth it - and have a wonderful time!

BTilke

A great report. I'm jealous--we could not take the boat to Hellbrunn, they weren't running in late May due to combination of snowmelt and heavy rains (we too had cold, rainy weather on our trip). Glad you enjoyed the Folk Museum at Hellbrunn...what a shame almost nobody gets there.
One other note, while walking the grounds at Hellbrunn, I was fascinated by the fish in the various pools. Some of the fish in the supposed trout pools looked like no other trout I'd ever seen. I took some photos and showed them to a fish expert, who said they were sturgeon.
We loved that egg shop, too! I took lots of pictures there.
By the way, was that "art" helicopter still parked in the square near the cathedral? And did you notice the ultra modern Red Bull headquarters in St. Gilgen?

kwren

Hi BTilke!

I'm glad you're enjoying my report...only a week to go ~ Paris!

Since it was starting to rain when we were done with the Hellbrun, we didn't take the time to check out the fish, or even look for the Sound of Music gazebo for that matter, which I realized once I returned home. (I know, no great loss!) We just wanted to get to the bus before the inevitable downpour.

I never saw an art helicopter - there were a lot of bleachers in the area I think you are referring to, maybe for the festival? And, since we were just passing through St. Gilgen spur of the moment for ice cream (and actually a bakery for me) I hadn't done any research and didn't know Red Bull was there. I think I included my short list of things I'l like to do in St. Gilgen - I'll make a note to be on the lookout if we do go back!

kleeblatt

Hi Kwren,

Just read the Swiss portion of your report. Glad everything went well. Thanks for mentioning the escalators at the airport. Even though we've used them many times, I still hesitate before pushing my luggage cart on one and then breathe out when I see that it holds.

Glad you had a great time! Funny that you saw Lederhosen in BO. Must have been a Bavarian group going through since the Swiss don't wear them.

kwren

Hi Schuler - you are really on the ball! I was looking back through my pictures and you are right - he was actually wearing long pants and an embroidered top. I did write 'traditional Swiss dress' in my journal, but my overloaded mind translated that to lederhosen. You were absolutely right to have pointed that out - thanks. (I'm sure I saw them in Austria though LOL) I really am trying to get the details right and hope I don't have too many oversights like that through my report!

I don't know how people write their trip reports months or years later - it's a lot to remember even right after the trip! I'm always impressed by those reports.

kwren

PART 4 – Paris

August 7 Driving to and in Paris! Hotel Claude Bernard, Paris Story, Bouillion Racine

Time to leave our Gites, 144€ per night for our room for 5. I was so excited to go to Paris – definitely saved the best for last! We stopped at a Hyper-U along the way to buy the food items requested by family members: Café Grandmere Tendre Matin, Orangina, Fond, Kinder Surprise, Mont Blanc. Our suitcases were destined to be much heavier than they were 2 weeks prior!

Went straight to Hotel Claude Bernard, 43 Rue des Ecoles in the 5th. We took turns going up with the tiny elevator – one person and 1 suitcase at a time! Well, we were happy there WAS an elevator, until we realized it only went up to the 5th floor. Oh well, what’s one more flight of stairs to our 6th floor rooms.

We were pleased with the triple – 2 windows with those cute tiny balconies and a view of the street, a pretty desk, 3 single beds, a good size bathroom with full tub and shower head at a normal height with shower curtain. The double wasn’t ready, but I peeked in. It revealed a smaller, but still good sized room with a double bed with little cubby holes on either side, no view, but very pretty in pale blue and yellow with a brand new bathroom with shower with glass shower door. Very nice! Both rooms had a refrigerator and A/C and all rooms in the hotel were non-smoking. (Summer special - Double 88€ including breakfast, Triple 118€ (148 for Friday) including breakfast and the 5th night free. What a deal!)

We went back down to the car and I decided to give the 12 year olds a drive-by of the main sights of Paris before returning the car (this was their first trip to Paris): Notre Dame, Pont Neuf, Rue de Rivoli and the Louvre, La Grande Roue, Place de la Concorde and the Obelisk, Les Champs Elysees, and Place de l’Etoile – the Arc de Triomphe. Have you even seen the crazy drivers around the Arc? I swear some go in and never come out! But I charged in with everyone else we made it. (Rush hour would have been another story.) We continued to the Eiffel Tower and on to the Montparnasse station. It’s never easy for us to find the place to return a car in a Parisian train station, and true to form it took a while, but we did it. I’ll spare you the details.

Quick boulangerie lunch – hot dogs on baguette with cheese, pizza, pastries, drinks, and off to the metro to purchase our 3 Cartes Oranges (16&euro and carnets for the others leaving in 2 days. I was ready with our 1x1 inch photos of the 3 of us and ready for the attendant to say, “non, you are a touriste. No carte for you!” But she smiled and gave me the cards without even asking for the pictures. We had our ID cards in little folders and used the pretty orange and silver tickets each time we used the metro or bus all week. Easy and very cost-effective!

Off to Metro Opera to arrive just in time for a torrential downpour. No ponchos, no umbrellas. Didn’t we learn anything in Salzburg??? We waited with the mobs of other people until it let up a bit and then ran to 11 Rue Scribe for Paris Story, a 1 hour movie intro to the history of Paris from its humble beginnings as Lutece to now. I enjoyed learning about the different walls which had surrounded Paris at different times through the years. This was not our kids’ favorite activity in Paris, but DH and I enjoyed it quite a bit. While waiting, there were multiple video stations of different things to do in Paris, a computer with games and a 3D map of Paris with lights indicating the position of the sights, and these had kept the kids busy and happy for the 40 minutes leading up to the start of the movie. Good recommendation.

After the movie we took the metro back to Blvd St. Germaine, picked up some Croques Monsieurs and crepes with Nutella for the kids and headed back to the hotel. They were content to stay in their room while DH and I went out for a romantic dinner alone.

We were so psyched to go to our first Fodor’s restaurant recommendation in Paris – Le Perraudin, just 5 blocks from our hotel. We rushed to beat the hordes of people we read about and finally arrived, and…it was closed! Ahhh, yes, those August vacations. Never mind, we had our trusty Fodor’s list and went on to the recommended Bouillion Racine, at where else … 3 Rue Racine. Here we met the first of many stereotypical gruff Frenchman. The restaurant host quickly came over and lead us to a small table. I’m sure his mantra was “do not crack a smile. Do NOT crack a smile” as he lead us over and tossed menus written in English at us. I waited until he deemed to glance at us 10 minutes later and asked for one in French (although to be honest, it did help to have both of them as I went through the menu – I just prefer to try it in French.) The waiter came next, same mantra it seems, to take our orders.

The restaurant was in a very pretty art deco style, not as “French” as I would have liked, but the food more than made up for it. I started out with a Kir, and we split a bottle of red wine with dinner. My 27€ menu got me a cold avocado and spinach soup – wonderfully smooth and cool – lamb with mild garlic sauce with haricots verts, those tiny sweet green beans, and the most silky crème brulee I’ve ever had the pleasure to eat.

We got back to the hotel, but had no key to check on the kids. There is only 1 key per room as it turns out, so we got the master key, and-peeked in to find all 3 soundly asleep. Bonne nuit.

kwren

August 8 – Gargoyles, Nutella and scorpions!

The Claude Bernard breakfast room was absolutely beautiful in peach and terra cotta colors and the man who serviced it through breakfast was as nice a guy as you could ever imagine. Excellent breakfast - typical croissants and 2 types of baguettes, but also yogurt, cereal, cheese, and eggs with a rectangular boiler apparatus you use yourself to cook the eggs to your liking. The kids got quite scientific about deciding on cooking times for their eggs each morning.

The hotel location was excellent - an easy walk to Notre Dame, and about 2 blocks from the Pantheon or the metro. There was a boulangerie across the street. Since my DH and 17S were leaving the next day, we let them call the shots today. On my son’s agenda? Shopping for a new gargoyle for his collection, so we took a walk along the Seine past the bouquinistes and towards the shops by Notre Dame, the best place we have found to support his habit.

The search was on! We checked every store seeing only the same old gargoyles as we have purchased for him in the past, until there it was – a gigantic hideous gargoyle &lt way up on the top shelf! 17S HAD to have it so while the clerk struggled mightily to get it down, my son negotiated with us over the price of this lovely, personal, heart-warming (disgusting) birthday gift for 88€!!! We paid for some of it and he used other birthday money for the rest and was as happy as a clam until he had to pick the thing up! I’m glad I wasn’t carrying it home! (A clerk in a store said the only size up was a real one off of Notre Dame. Très drole. I said I’d keep it in mind for the next trip.) We dragged it back to the hotel and worked on figuring out how to get it home. We finally settled on putting it in its bubble wrap into his backpack…the top half stuck out the top and the zippers only zipped halfway. We wound packing tape around the sides to secure it for the flight home. Mission accomplished – now we could enjoy Paris.

After a leisurely lunch at a café, we went on to the Grand Palais for the Machine Exhibit we had heard about on Fodor’s. The kids loved it – giant machines to work even bigger cymbals, a water cannon, a catapult which launched a real piano (!), machine animals, a clapping machine made of dozens of white-gloved hands, and our personal favorite – the Spread-Nutella-on-a-Piece-of-Bread-and-Deliver-it-Down-a-Ramp-on-a Little-Cart-Through-Curtains-to-a-Waiting-and-Unsuspecting-Child-Who-is-Surprised-and-Gets-to-Eat-it machine. The volunteer? Our 12D. The man demonstrating it was so funny, and didn’t leave out a single sexual reference when the machine’s knife was inserted into the Nutella jar. I’m just glad my kids didn’t speak French!

Next on the list was a visit to Deyrolles, 46 Rue du Bac, a store listed on the ‘Now for Something Different in Paris’ thread. We arrived and my family thought I had gone slightly nuts when they saw it was a women’s clothing store. (I have to admit I was a bit nervous too!) Then we went upstairs and the store turned into a sort of Natural History museum. Whew! Stuffed tiger, giraffe, birds, rabbits, elephant, etc. Wow. We never expected this. My son the future zoology major went wild, especially when he arrived in the insect room. Time to shop! He bought a large scorpion (15€ in case anyone is interested ) ) and talked me into buying him a Christmas present: a gigantic beetle (15 more &euro with a curved horn on its nose. Customs is going to have a field day with this kid! Glad I’ll still be in Paris. I do remember the calm, normal days before Fodors!

We were pressed for time by now as yesterday we had been invited to dinner at the edge of Paris by the mother of another of our French exchange students. We hurried back to change and rushed to the metro. I wish I could throw this last-minute dinner together (we were invited last night): salmon terrine, duck with peaches and green beans, a cheese course, and raspberry and chantilly over a meringue crust. My mouth is watering just writing about it.

kwren

well yee-haw to my gigantic hideous gargoyle &lt which was supposed to look more like this > LOL

kwren

August 9 Disneyland Paris

An early start to help my husband, 17S and gargoyle get to the RER station to leave for CDG, then off to Disney my 12S, 12D and I went. An easy trip on RER A. Nice weather when we arrived, but rain on and off the rest of the day. We were prepared.

I’ll say right off the bat that my kids loved Disneyland Paris. That was the purpose of the day and it made me happy to do that for them after they have cheerfully weathered 2 ½ weeks of travel. However, this park was clearly not designed for the hoards of people who were there that day. It was crowded, somewhat dirty, the lines were long and it was sorely lacking in the usual cheerful Disney employee.

Our hotel sold us “special” tickets (pay 3€ to the hotel and the rest of the normal amount at the admissions window – no discount) designed to put us in a short line at admissions – us and every person staying at a hotel in Paris, that is. Our line moved much more slowly than the regular lines – probably because not all the windows were open in the hotel ticket section. Would I say don’t get one of those tickets? No. I just don’t know if that was a fluke or not. Just be forewarned that you don’t necessarily get a quicker admission.

A couple tips if you do go… the Buzz Lightyear ride is apparently the new ride – I would go directly there for the FastPass. We didn’t go for a FastPass to that until 12:30 and it didn’t give us a timeslot until 6:05! We couldn’t use our pass again the rest of the day. This ride was closed in Orlando when we went last time so the kids were thrilled to get on it this time. Be sure to see the Lion King Show. It was very good, but you must get on line early to be sure to get the tickets. Some shows are in French, some in English. Be sure you are getting tickets for your preferred language.

We left at 7, stopped at a small restaurant near the hotel – nothing special, but good, and went back to the room.

kwren

August 10 - Catacombs, Arc de Triomphe and Le Relais de l’Entrecote, our favorite dinner

It was off to the Pantheon to get the Museum Pass after sleeping late. What a beautiful building with enormous murals of St. Genevieve, the saint of Paris. Didn’t realize that the crypt houses Louis Braille, Marie and Pierre Curie, Victor Hugo and others so we missed that. We stopped as the Cluny Musee des Moyens Ages as we were walking by and since it was free with the Museum Pass. A Middle Ages museum with the remains of thermal baths, and a room with the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. Just beautiful! The kids were patiently(?) waiting to get through these 2 places – they were more interested in the Catacombs, our next stop.

The tip on how to find the Catacombs helped so it bears repeating…Find the lion statue in the Place Denfert-Rochereau. If he were looking to the left he would be looking at the door. It was very hard to find on a previous visit. (included with the Museum Pass - 7.50€.) Luckily there was no line.

We descended the 144 spiral staircase steps into the dinly lit, dank lower passageways lined with neatly piled bones and skulls, removed from various cemeteries in 1780’s to 1800’s due to the spread of disease in Paris. Prior to that, the Catacombs were actually mines for building materials such as limestone, clay and gypsum, and had been closed down. Each section’s plaque stated the date and cemetery from which the bones had been moved. The floors were damp in places so don’t wear your new travel sandals! My son noticed the patterns formed by the skulls within the walls of bones, a painted skull (although it looked like a tourist had done that) and a skull with a number etched in it. We reemerged into the bright sunlight a ways from the entrance – turn right to get back to the circle with the lion. If you are thirsty, don’t go to the first little shop you come to – the prices are high – go instead to the Monoprix up towards Place Denfert-Rochereau (turn right again once you reach the main street and it will be on the opposite side of the street). When we got back to the entrance, the line stretched waaaaaay down the sidewalk.

Next, on to the Picasso Museum, a bit hard to find, but worth the effort. I had had my kids read up on Picasso before leaving home, so they knew what to expect and we tried guessing the subject of the pictures before reading the titles. They were actually pretty good at this.

We had saved the Arc de Triomphe for rush hour knowing how crazy the traffic around it is at this time. A military ceremony was just about to start – the procession cuts through the traffic across the Place de l’Etoile – to lay flowers on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I had seen one of these before and the kids weren’t interested so we took the elevator. Good timing – most of the crowds were down by the tomb so we had easy access to the railings and views. The kids loved watching the traffic. Cars going every which way, busses stuck in the middle, and mopeds even going the wrong way to avoid the congestion, which had been made worse by the procession stopping traffic for a bit. They watched for ½ hour!

Dinner time and on to the recommended, Le Relais de l’Entrecote at 20 bis Rue St Benoir near Eglise St Germaine. We arrived around 7:30 and were seated quickly, but the restaurant was almost full at that point. The waitress, who seemed a bit stressed as she rushed around, took our drink order, asked how we like our steak, wrote it on the paper tablecloth and left. Now I knew this was a steak restaurant and that’s all that’s served, but I did expect a menu with a choice of cuts and sauces. Not to be! Everyone eats the exact same thing! First a nondescript salad, then the waitress appeared with a platter of sliced steaks and another mounded high with beautiful thinly cut frites. She put the platters on a nearby table with warmers and loaded up 3 plates with a good amount of steak, the most delicious sauce, the fries, and then served us. We sopped up every bit of sauce with the unlimited bread and were happy as clams. Then the most amazing part…she returned and started the process all over with the rest of the steak on the platter (I had briefly wondered about the steak still sitting there and figured it would go to another table), more sauce, more bread and a new platter brimming with hot fries. Did you ever go to heaven twice in a row? We were really full by then, but not too full to split 2 orders of delicious profiteroles – tiny pastry shells filled with vanilla ice cream, piled up and topped with chocolate sauce. One order would have been enough for the 3 of us after all that steak, but we did manage to eat it all.

My son asked if we could postpone the Eiffel Tower since he was tired. I said fine and we returned to the hotel. (BIG mistake to postpone anything when the weather is holding!