Category Archives: France

August 12 –

Ah, France on a Sunday…. it’s so quiet…. deathly quiet…. so we sorta had to have breakfast in the hotel this morning because there was nothing else open!  So we loaded up the utilitarian van and found our way out of Dijon.  We would have liked to spend some time driving down the Wine Road but it headed south and we were going north…. to Reins, the heart of Champagne!

Let me describe a Sunday drive on a highway in northern France… we were surrounded by Belgians and Brits with overloaded station wagons and mini-vans heading home from their holidays.  The Dutch were on the move too but they seemed to all be either driving RVs or towing caravans!  I think we only saw 3 cars with French plates the whole 300 kilometers we were on the road today!  Not that we’re ones to talk – our car has Swiss plates!

We sorely missed Helga, or any satnav system, as we attempted to find our hotel in Reims today.  Mostly because it turned out not to actually be in Reims but in a suburb…. D’oh!  I hate it when I forget to read the fine print!  A very nice lady at the tourist information office set us straight though and we found it with little trouble.  Unfortunately, it’s really not near anything that you can walk to so after checking in and unloading the bags (through the window – we’re on the ground floor!), we headed back downtown to see the sights.

We found a lovely little place still serving lunch at 3 p.m. and discovered what Croques are in Champagne:  open faced grilled cheese sandwiches… YUM!  Frank had his with tomato and I had mine with ham.  Duncan experienced the French version of a club sandwich and learned a lesson himself:  hard-boiled eggs don’t fit well on sandwiches if they are just cut in half!   Nevertheless, we had our sustenance and it was time to figure out what the town had to offer.  One guess:  champagne!

We walked a little ways from the town center to get to the wine cellars of G.H. Mumm for a tour and some tasting… well for us, the kids had to pass.  We caught the last English tour of the day and learned how this fine house has been making champagne for 170 years.  They are the official champagne of Formula 1 racing so the next time you see a grand prix, you’ll see their champagne being sprayed all over the podium. They have 2.5 MILLION bottles aging in cellars that cover 25 kilometers of tunnels.  It was pretty impressive!  We learned lots of stuff about the various fermentations and saw the riddling racks where a small percentage of their product is still riddled by hand; riddling is the fine art of getting the sediment into the neck of the bottle so it can be easily removed before the finally bottling.  Then it was time to taste!  We had tickets to try the basic offering, the Cordon Rouge, as well as a single year vintage from 1999.  We could actually taste the difference – it was really neat to be able to see and smell the difference in the two champagnes.  We bought a half-bottle to have later since there’s no way to get it home…. stupid 3 ounce rule….

Thus fortified, we wandered to the cathedral:  Notre Dame de Reims – I told you every French city had one!  After lighting a tall candle this time (10!), we learned about the history of this interesting building.  It was built on the site where it is believed that Clovis, the first king to unite the Frankish people, was crowned in *496*!!  Of course, no cathedral existed for another 400 years…  This building has a fascinating history starting in the 12th century when construction began.  It is where 25 kings of France have been crowned including Charles VII who was pretty much dragged there by Jeanne d’Arc.  It sustained damage in WWI but not much in WWII and has some beautiful stained glass windows by Marc Chagall.

It was now time for the evening meal and we found another lovely place where we got to sit outside and have yummy food but it was spoiled by a nearby table where a large Italian or Spanish man decided to have a cigar during our dinner.  I’ve adjusted, a bit, to the ever present cigarette smoke here in Europe but cigar smoke makes me really ill.  So we finished up quickly, skipping desert :-(, and headed back to the hotel to snack on Swiss chocolate and prepare for tomorrow’s adventure:  Brussels.

/san/

[Pedometer:  17,401 or about 8.5 miles, a fair amount of which was clocked in cellars 14 meters below the surface.]

August 11 –

So today we prepare to bid Auf Weidersein to Zurich and move on to the French countryside.  We breakfasted, packed up and loaded up our new rental car; alas, our rental car karma had given out and we got exactly what we paid for:  a Volkswagon Caddy.  It’s a bare bones mini-van with no extras especially no satellite navigation system so I actually have to pay attention to where we are and figure out how to get to where we are going!

So thanks to Google maps, we find our way out of Zurich and onto the road to Dijon.  It is grey and cloudy and we are convinced that we are in for another soggy day in France.  We got there about 3.5 hours later and realized the downside to Google maps:  if you don’t wind up on the road they recommend, you have no reference how to get back to the suggested route!  We found the hotel eventually and got the bags unloaded.  The sun had broken through the clouds and it appeared that France was trying to redeem herself.  But we couldn’t enjoy it immediately because we had family business:  laundry!

As it would happen, there is a laundromat right around the corner from our hotel (coincidence?) so we start a couple of loads and head of to grab some lunch.  Now we are back in less familiar, more French territory where a smile and “Bitte” don’t buy anything!  Dijon may not be the back woods but it isn’t so cosmopolitan that we can expect everyone to speak English because they don’t!  We navigated the menu at the brasserie with no major problems (ham in mustard sauce – yum!) and then checked in on the laundry. 

After putting the clean clothes in the dryer, we started our daily wanderings to see what this city had to offer.  It is a very old town with lots of ancient sandstone buildings and tons of churches!  We found our way into Notre Dame de Dijon – I think every French city has a Notre Dame – where I lit a candle for my mom to make up for the lack of candles in the Swiss churches (candles: 9).  We retrieved the laundry and had our daily ice cream before doing some more wandering.

One thing that is really neat about Dijon is that there is a marked walking tour of the city.  The Owl  (“La Chouette”) is a symbol for the city and it appears on the pillars of Notre Dam and there are little owl plaques set into the sidewalks to take you past the major tourist attractions.  We figured this out halfway through and proceeded to have some aim to our wandering which took us past many other churches – including one where a wedding was just wrapping up and we got to see the bride and groom emerge.  It was really neat!  We stopped in a few shops and snapped lots of pictures of this really neat town.

We found a lovely little restaurant where there was an English menu posted – except, of course, that the waiter himself didn’t speak English.  Luckily I knew the French word for egg or I would have gotten escargot for a starter!  We think we have found all the missing children from Zurich because they were all in the square in Dijon tonight.  We enjoyed all three courses and a litre of the local wine and then headed back for a quiet Saturday night.

/san/

[Pedometer:  18,681 or about 9 miles over cobblestones.  Not bad considering we spent half the day in the car…]

July 29 –

Okay I’m sure it’s not wet all the time but I certainly wouldn’t be able to testify to the contrary! We awoke to another gray morning hoping that things would stay dry enough to get out for a bit. It doesn’t rain constantly but there are bursts in between dry spells that make wandering a challenge. It rained everyday in Paris and so far every day in Strasbourg! We slept in this morning and decided against the hotel breakfast; therefore, we wandered about the streets of the Grand Ile looking for somewhere to have breakfast. We found a patisserie serving bread, croissants, jam and coffee and were happy to do so. Here’s a traveling hint: Strasbourg isn’t very exciting on a Sunday – especially in the rain. We had hoped to take a cruise on the Rhine this morning but the showers started early so we nixed that idea.

Wandering through town after breakfast, we stumbled up on a folk dance exhibition in the Place Guttenberg. I have to say that the French equivalent of square dancing was quite entertaining. Add an occasional cloudburst to the enthusiastic performers and things get even more amusing. None of the shops besides those outside the cathedral were open and the rain ruined the boat plans so we shifted to an alternative.

We rescued the car from the hotel car park and ventured out into the countryside to visit a French castle. (There’s a Monty Python joke in there but I’ll leave it alone!) We encountered our first French traffic jam: it seems that lots of people had the same idea on how to spend a rainy Sunday! The castle Haut-Koeningsburg is about half an hour outside Strassbourg and is about half a mile up in the hills. It was fascinating to walk around for a few reasons. First, although we have seen many castles during our travels, this one was still different to any we’d seen before. It was built with red sandstone, had a great deal of wood used in to basic structure and had ornate porcelain-type stoves in many of the rooms. Second, it was actually restored in the early 20th century by Kaiser Wilhelm II so much of the decoration is due to his influence and style rather than trying to accurately capture every aspect of the castle as it was in the 12th century.

Our late start and lunchtime castle exploration meant that we didn’t even think about lunch until after we had come back down the mountain and well after 2 p.m. We found a restaurant in the village at the bottom of the hill from the castle that had lots of people sitting outside (under awnings in the intermittent rain) so we thought it would be a good place for a late lunch. Wrong! The only options we had open to us were pizzas and one of the local specialties, tarte flambe, which is like a thin crust pizza with no tomato sauce. I chose that option, Duncan and Gillian picked a pizza and Frank opted for a calzone. Here’s a note to write down: NOT ALL RESTAURANTS IN FRANCE ARE GOOD. My tarte was fine and the pizzas were just okay. Frank’s calzone, on the other hand, seemed a bit undercooked. The gloppy dough and raw egg inside (!?!) would indicate to me that there was more cooking to be done. We decided that a nice dinner would be in order to make up for this less than mediocre lunch!

Back in Strasbourg, it was still a rainy Sunday with nothing open and none of the movie theaters were showing the Simpson’s movie in English. While the dubbed French version would have been an adventure, we opted for some quiet time reading; Duncan is plowing through Harry Potter at every opportunity! Around 7 p.m. we decided more food was in order so off to Petite France to find an open restaurant. Not quite as easy as we would have liked but we found a lovely place with a set 3 course meal that we all could agree on (it had vegetables on the menu!) and enjoyed a leisurely evening meal with wine and dessert and coffee.

We’ll try for an earlier night so we can get an earlier start tomorrow. If the weather clears we’ll try one more time for the boat cruise, otherwise we’re off to the Black Forest where I can finally do some hiking that doesn’t involve concrete!

/san/

[Pedometer: 14,923 or about 7 miles up and down castle ramparts.]

July 28 –

It was a dreary rainy day in Luxembourg this morning so we ate breakfast in the hotel but only because the kids were free! Good thing too because we were not at all pleased with the buffet. It took forever to get coffee, the eggs came either runny or uncooked and needed to sit in a pot of semi-warm water for a *long* time, and they never came to clear away the plates even though we used many and they piled up on the table!

Undaunted by this inauspicious start, however, we packed up the car and programmed Helga to take us to Strasbourg – about a 2 hour drive. We encountered our first European toll road – which took credit cards – and managed to keep up with the flow of traffic proceeding at 130kmph. We pulled into the city and up to our hotel right around noon.

Cases unloaded and the car parked, we wandered into the old city to experience the market. When we asked at the desk where the market was, we were essentially told that it was all over the city. This was no exaggeration! You couldn’t turn a street corner without seeing more stalls lined up on every street. Shoes, sausages, tank tops, toys, watches, pretzels, mattresses (?!?), and just about anything else you could think of was for sale somewhere. And the people! I don’t know the population of Strasbourg but I think that half of Germany was also here today!

And we did do some shopping – of course. I bought a great sundress and Gillian got a new watch. I encountered my first truly rude French sales clerk in a small shop. I wanted to buy a 2 litre bottle of water for €2 but all I had was a €20 note. When she pointed out that the bottle only cost 2 – by holding up two fingers – and I shrugged and looked helpless – the international sign for “that’s all I have” – I got tsked at, she rolled her eyes and then turned to a colleague behind the counter and continued a previous chat! I was ready to hit her with the bottle of water but Duncan saved me from an international incident by scrounging up a coin and then she was all sweetness and light; I even got a cheery “Bon jour” on the way out the door…. go figure.

And for those familiar with my nun saga (I’m being stalked by nuns – really!), I had my first real sighting today. Asian nuns in grey habits fairly swarming the streets. As it was raining intermittently, one had decided to don a fishing hat over her habit – a sight not readily forgotten! To make up for the lack of sightings prior to this, we ran into a group of French nuns later on in the day. I suspect I will encounter them regularly now since their cover was blown….

We skipped the formal lunch and grabbed munchies in the market. Duncan and Frank enjoyed the traditional French treat of Churros (!) while Gillian and I settled for the more mundane crepe. I dedicated my crepe to my friends Christine and Julie with whom I should have shared one last year and then proceeded to devour it!

After some wandering, we went to the main attraction in Strasbourg: the cathedral. I lit a candle (that’s 6) and admired the stained glass windows. This is the first cathedrals we’ve visited with a serious decorative disparity between indoors and out. It’s incredibly ornate architecturally but very plain inside. There is a really cool astronomical clock inside as well – Duncan had to explain it to me of course.

More wandering around the city until the real rain started then we decided to get an early dinner. Later on in the evening, we ventured back to the cathedral for a really neat light show. Starting at 10:15 p.m. the cathedral puts on a light show set to music on the western facade. It was really neat! Not quite as cool as the Magic Fountains in Barcelona but definitely a sight to see.

/san/

[Pedometer: 25, 958 which is probably only about 10 miles since most of it was spent jostling impatient French market goers.]

Subtitled: San goes to work. I got up at the crack of 7:30 this morning to get ready for my day of meetings at the OECD. If you really want the boring details, let me know; otherwise, suffice to say that it was a day in an office talking to lots of folks about really interesting (to me anyway) stuff which I’ll write up later.

Otherwise, the rest of the clan slept late and headed out for la petite dejeuner a the the local patisserie before venturing back to the old city to visit the crypt by Notre Dame. Not really what it sounds like: more like the basements of Roman settlements. Some excitement was provided by a local demonstration with the gendarme in attendance and everything. The attendant at the exhibit was most insistent that the family come in and shut the door to keep out the demonstrators. The roving reporters for this entry (Duncan and Gillian) relate that although their visit was short, it was still cool to see stuff from the first and second century and models of Roman settlements.

A short wanter throught the Ile de Cite past the odd Pompidou center brought the clan to the museum of arts and sciences which was apparently the find of the trip. The museum passes had run out so Frank had to buy a ticket but there was no queue to worry about and they apparently had the place pretty much to themselves except from some giggling pre-teen German girls. Three votes for this museum being really cool. Gillian’s favorite exhibit was the telegraph with digital decoder; Duncan liked the science and technology exhibit with the super computers, lasers and robots (gee, wouldn’t have guessed that 😉 and Frank liked the transportation section which had lots of old cars (another shocker!)

They grabbed sandwiches and crepes from a roadside stand and wandered into a vast underground mall which Duncan is trying very hard to actually locate on a map so there may be more details (and photos) later.

Then home where they arrived in enough time to put the kettle on before mom got home from work. After a short debriefing, we were out again en mass to head to the massive department store sales and see if we could get the hang of this “shopping in Paris” thing. In a word: no. We hit Lafayette first -the crowds were unbelievable! I gave up after the third floor of women’s clothes where I couldn’t find anything that worked for me – I think that the shopping gene skipped the women in my family because I’m not only not good at it but I don’t really think it’s fun! So we headed to the kids department. Here we had much more luck; Duncan found a great shirt and Gillian found a sundress and some really cool Italian shoes. We were all set to checkout when they announced that the computers were down and they couldn’t take credit cards. Well, having a whole 20 euros in my pocket, that wasn’t going to work so we abandoned ship and tried the department store next door which was a complete bust.

So we headed for the nearest bistro and thoroughly enjoyed our last real meal in Paris. Took the metro home in time to catch the twinkling lights on the Eiffel Tower one last time (they have some special lights they rigged up for the millenium that flash for 10 minutes every hour after dark until 1 a.m.) and now it’s time for bed. We’ll pack in the morning and then get the train through the chunnel to London!

/san/

(Family pedometer reading: 27, 406 or 13 miles. I only managed about 13, 678 or about 6 miles since I worked all day!)

It may be hard to believe but we had a difficult time getting started this morning after the late night last night (or should I say this morning!) Nevertheless, we managed to get up and out and headed to the RER station up the street for the trip to Versailles. I was interested in seeing what this “palace that all other palaces want to be” and where so much history took place. The energy level of the family, though, was a bit below what was needed to really *do* Versailles.

All I can say is: Wow! No wonder the peasants revolted! The sheer size of the place is insane and the opulence is beyond excessive. You thought things were big in Texas? Doesn’t hold a candle to this place. I don’t even know where to start. I can honestly say that the The Hall of Mirrors is the most amazing room I have ever seen and I shared my experience with about 200 strangers! While our Museum Pass did come through again, it still couldn’t make the busloads of other folks disappear and the crowds were a bit overwhelming at times.

If you wanted to escape the crush, however, you just needed to step out into the gardens which were breathtaking. Nevermind that Versailles is one of the few non-tropical places where they grow oranges (and have for centuries). It’s at least a kilometer from the house to the beginning of “the Grand Canal” – which actually goes nowhere but you can rent boats to go float on it!

We planned poorly and found ourselves in the middle of a major tourist attraction at lunchtime with no escape so we were forced to find a spot in the garden restaurant where we sampled the French version of pizza and cheeseburgers (neither were much of a hit I’m afraid!) Then back out to see more extravagance.

It was another cold, blustery day and we were done with “old houses” sooner than we might have otherwise been so it was back to the big city to chill out, watch some Wimbledon, test our savvy at the French version of “Who wants to be a millionaire?” (some guy missed a question about Lancelot and Guinevere – duh! I knew the answer and I don’t speak French!) Then we were out for a very nice meal at a local restaurant on Rue Cler. It’s a nice quiet night cuz I actually have to work tomorrow! There’s a reason for this trip and tomorrow is one bit of the evidence: I’ll be spending the day at the OECD. I promise not to bore you with the details!

/san/

P.S. Pedometer score: 21, 208 or just over 1o miles which I’m sure wasn’t quite enough to burn off the unbelievable rice pudding I had for dessert tonight!

We got a late start this morning since none of the sights on the agenda were open before 10 a.m. First stop: Napoleon’s tomb.   It’s walking distance from the apartment and we get there ahead of most tour buses.  I don’t know which is more impressive:  the building which was built by the “sun king” Louis XIV or the tomb they put in it centuries later.  The dome of the church has 24 kilos of gold leaf for decoration! And Napoleon’s sarcophagus is huge – inside he’s in a tin coffin inside a mahogany coffin inside two lead coffins inside an ebony coffin inside the stone sarcophagus! Talk about safe keeping… 

Across the street we get a dose of culture with the Rodin museum.  I know less about sculpture than I do about painting but I can appreciate what it must take to make a hunk of rock look like a person.  We got to see the famous “Thinker” statue as well as “The Kiss” which are both very cool.  We also saw lots of “naked people” as Gillian put it! 

Then we decided to really “do” lunch!  No cheap eats but a nice restaurant with lots of business folks and few tourists.   I got to have quiche and some claflouti for dessert – very french!  Gillian is becoming quite the omelet expert and loves the chocolate tarts.  Duncan has learned the French term for “chocolate lava cake”! 

Then more art – the Musee de Orsay.  This is the place I’ve wanted to see all week; it has a very extensive impressionist  collection – my favorite.  Unfortunately, everyone else has it high on their list too:  the line is *really* long. Our Museum Pass saves the day, however, and we bypass all the queues and go straight inside.  We can’t avoid the crowds here though and covering the fifth floor takes some time and patience.  It was really cool having artsy conversations with Duncan about the difference between Renior and Degas compared to Van Gogh and Pissarro.  (He’s not crazy about post-impressionist pointillism in case you are interested!)  The surprise bonus for today:  the museum houses the painting “Whistler’s mother” which I didn’t know.  It’s actually pretty impressive up close. 

Once we’re done with art for the day, we do the other thing that is popular to do in Paris:  shopping!  We head to the Opera district where the big department stores are and discover the wonder that is Lafayette!  I thought Liberty of  London and Harrods were impressive!  They’ve got nothing on this place.  The main building is 7 stories and has a stained glass dome in the center.  The housewares department is in a second building and the men’s store is in a third building!  We actually tried to shop there but it was too overwhelming!  I have to confess I was well out of my league!  The women’s shoe department alone was bigger than my local Macy’s and I’ve never even seen Jimmy Choo shoes up close!  We decided to revisit this experience another day because the big annual sale starts tomorrow so half the stuff we wanted to look at was under cover – literally covered up with paper and signs saying that they can’t sell these items until the 27th. So we’ll be back! 

We headed home for a short break then decided to do something different and eat out… again!  We found a great little Japanese restaurant right near the apartment which we all agreed had the best Japanese food we’ve ever had – the tempura was unbelievable and Frank was most impressed by the sushi.  Duncan did declare that the beef and cheese skewer was not to his liking though (!)   

Now we’re off for the highlight of the day:  the Eiffel tower at night! Unfortunately the Museum Pass was not going to save us here so we had to just suck it up and get in line which we did at 9:45 p.m.  It still wasn’t dark and we waited patiently in the cold and wind (Frank in shorts and me in my Tevas!) and finally got to the elevator a little before 11. We all went up to the second level (400 feet) where Frank (Mr. Vertigo!) opted to wait while the kids and I got in another line for half an hour for a lift to the top (900 feet).  What a view! There was Paris all lit up all around us.  It was really spectacular.  Duncan tried valiently to get Frank’s camera to take some pictures but in the cold, windy dark we couldn’t get the shutter speed quite right.  We viewed the whole city then headed back to the second level to find dad.  By now it’s midnight and time for us to be heading home…. along with the hundreds of other people still on the tower.  Unfortunately, the lift we were waiting for broke down and they didn’t bother to tell us (how very French!) so we waited for 20 minutes for an elevator that was stuck at the bottom!  The other one was working though and we eventually got down and got home about 1 a.m.  Hot chocolate all around and then off to bed.  I can honestly say that that was the second coldest I’ve ever been in the summertime trumped only by the infamous whale watching trip in Iceland in August 2005. (For those keeping track – Pedometer total: 26,160 or about 13 miles!) 

/san/

He turns 14 today in Paris – not too shabby.  We decided to celebrate by totally abusing our Museum Passes.  We purchased the Paris Museum Pass yesterday (good for 4 days) which covers entrance fees to most museums and gives you “jump-to-the-head-of-the-queue” privileges.  So we decided to try it.  Following the advice of many guidebooks,  we got an early start today and headed out to the Louvre.  And at 9:10 this morning we waited through the short security line then waltzed right into the Louvre.  First stop, the Mona Lisa.  I confess that I have never understood why it is so famous and now that I’ve seen it in person, I *still* don’t understand what the big deal is!  There were scads of paintings in that wing that impressed me way more!  (The one of Napoleon crowning Josephine is really something!)  But then again, I didn’t think the DaVinci code was so great either so apparently I’m missing something.

After the Mona Lisa, we checked out the Venus de Milo which was quite impressive.  Then we wandered around to the stuff we were really interested in (Gillian likes the really *old* stuff… and pottery).  My favorite was wandering through Napoleon’s apartments; they were really neat and apparently under appreciated – we had most of the rooms to ourselves!  Here we had heard all about the horrible lines and how crowded it was and we had entire rooms to ourselves!  Look: Empty halls in the Louvre  One of the coolest things for me was Charlemagne’s sword (which we did have to share with a small Italian tour group.)

When we decided to head out toward the main part of the museum to see some of the French crown jewels, we found the crowds!  Boy oh boy, were there crowds!  By 11 a.m. the place was wall-to-wall people!  So that was our cue to leave. And a short walk north found us at the Pompidou Center for a complete change of pace:  modern art!  There was a red rhinoceros, some piles of hay, a piano with a red cross blanket…. not really old master stuff.  One cool thing though was the airplane made from bamboo shoots covered with 10,000 items confiscated from the Sao Paolo airport:  knives, scissors, corkscrews, etc.  It really was pretty cool!

So we’ve had our share of art and we’re back in the Latin Quarter for lunch at a Greek restaurant (Duncan’s choice being the birthday boy – he wanted keftes!) Then we’re exploring the Conciergerie which was used as a prison during the Revolution and housed Marie Antionette before she was beheaded.   Pretty cool!

The birthday boy decides he hasn’t really had enough art so we’re off to the Picasso museum which is cool but like the one in Barcelona devoted to the artist, doesn’t really have any of his famous works.  So it was a fairly short stop (Frank can only take so much Picasso!) before shuttling home.  Duncan decides he wants to eat in for his birthday so we have another supermarche adventure and decide on some pasta for dinner.  A fresh baguette, bag of salad and a bottle of red wine makes the meal and a stop at the patisserie for assorted tarts (in lieu of a birthday cake) and the evening is complete.  (For those keeping track, today’s pedometer reading was 25, 040 or about 12 miles!)

/san/