Wednesday in Paris

Wednesday

We had read about the Jewish Quarter in Paris and our hotel actually was very close, so we walked to that area for breakfast. The shops were just starting to open their doors about 9:00. Bryan asked for their specialty and got a huge piece of cheesecake for his breakfast. It was not as dense as normal cheesecake, quite fluffy. Mine was what looked like a cinnamon roll, but was made with chocolate. 

 

We did a little shopping, I needed some better shoes, and I found some nikes on "soldes" or on sale.  Bryan found the Tag Heuer store and got a fancy blue watch. 

We walked up the Champs Elysees and saw the Arc de Triomphe, many, many people. We went straight to the metro and got out of there.

For lunch we went to the Champ de Mars area, just 

southeast of the Eiffel Tower. We both had salads and beer, they were really tasty. 

At 1700 we had reservations for the Louvre. Just a short train ride away and we were able to exit the metro straight into the Louvre shops.  Looked like the shops you might see LasVegas, very clean and upscale. We did not have to wait in line to get in with our reservation, but it was confusing as to where they would take our ticket. The Rick Steve's guide had suggested starting at the Denon wing, unfortunately we entered on the total opposite side and had to find our way there with trial and error.  Their signs suck!  We paid for the audio tour,  I wouldn't waste our time with that again.  Really we were not impressed by the art for the most part, it was very limited as far as era and too much on the wall, sometimes less is more. They allowed tourists to take pictures, and culturally there is a group that thinks they should shove their way in front of every picture just to take a picture. 

Bryan and I both agreed that the art in the Orsay Museum was a thousand times better!

 

For dinner we stopped on the way back to the hotel at a little corner restaurant that we had walked past a million times. We had mussels and French fries, there were probably 45 mussels in the little pot, for only 14 euros. They were yummy!

Orsay & Versailles

Tuesday

The Orsay Museum is in an old train station, it probably is the prettiest and most complimentary museum. I mean by that that the building truly compliments the art by the way it is designed. 

We grabbed a sandwich after the museum and walked to the RER train to go to Versailles. There are many transportation choices here, the RER train, like a regular train, partly in a tunnel and partly not, it basically goes to the same places as the subway. The RER has more seats, an 
upstairs and downstairs section, so we took it to Versailles. We purchased a 3 day pass, for the inner city section for both train systems, but had to purchase a separate ticket 

for the trip out to Versailles, surprisingly to me it is still just 30 minutes. I expected Versailles to feel like you are out in the country. It is a little town, with shops and many buildings, of course the back side of the Palace has gardens that are about 800 acres and another 2000 acres of land. 

While at the gardens it poured down rain and we had to hang out under the trees for awhile. 

The Palace was the King Louis Palace, starting with King Louis the 14th, who was the King that reigned from age 5 - 77, he had it built where his father had his hunting lodge. Louis the 15th and 16th also lived there until the Palace was stormed during the French Revolution. 

For dinner we ate at La Petite Italian, very, very good food!

Avignon to Paris

Monday

Travel Day!

We moved from Avignon to Paris. We had great seats on the train and could enjoy a movie and a book. The strange thing was that in France we have not had to go through any luggage screening, go figure? Many trees, hills, sheep, and white cattle were all along the way. The farms were better kept towards Paris, several were just harvesting wheat. No lavender fields like in Provence. 

Our hotel "Les Tournelles" is not on the street of its name, confusing us and causing us to wonder around a bit. Finally we have good air conditioning again and a tiny little elevator. 

Dinner at La Petite Marche, the hotel's suggestion, turned out to be a good place to try different foods. I had Tartar with an Asian twist, it was the best!! Bryan had a tuna with fried wontons and sesame seeds. Tim and Annette had lamb with bananas. 

After dinner we walked along the Seine, the weather is perfect, in the 70s.  Took a subway part of the way to the Eiffel Tower and waited for it to sparkle at 10:00. 

Pope's Palace, Roussillon, Gorde, La Baux de Provence

Sunday

Today was a full day, but we all felt pretty rested because the weather is much better, not near as hot as it has been. We started at the Pope's Palace about 9:00, no lines! The audio tour was a must, if it was not for the explanations it would have felt like there was nothing to see. At the end of the 13th century the pope decided that Italy was getting to dangerous and they would build a palace in Avignon.  

There were 9 popes during the almost 100 years in Avignon, after the decision to return to Rome the palace deteriorated and then was ransacked during the French Revolution. It was a prison for a time and then finally in the early 20th century the city began renovation. It still has a long way to go, but it was an interesting place to visit. 

We took a small group tour in the afternoon. The first stop was Roussillon, or the red city. The soil is kind of like Oklahoma, red, and all of the houses and building must also
 be built with a red hue. The story goes that a royal couple was visiting and the King was out hunting and his wife falls in love with a local man. The King finds out about the affair and takes the man hunting and kills him. He then serves the man's heart to his wife, he comes clean and tells her what he has done. She loses her mind and the blood of the story turns the soil red. This is the French tale. 

The second town we visited was Gordes, the homes there must be built with limestone, native to the area. The movie "A Good Year" was filmed in Gordes. 

La Baux, the last little city we visited just has 40 residents.  It had very quaint shops, and all the houses were in the 
valley below.  We purchased some olives, chocolates and nougat. The castle at the top of the town was in ruins, but its story was that the Provence area was becoming more Protestant and Napoleon was not happy about this, so he killed the King of that area and gave the castle to the Moroccan King with the stipulation that it remain a Catholic area.

We walked the aqua duct from Roman times on the return to Avignon. It was an engineering feat to get water a long ways. The duct went 31 miles, dropping 20 inches over the entire distance. 

Our evening meal was one of the best, we had a variety of dishes and a nice, friendly waiter, we thought might be the owner. 

Train to Avignon, France

Our train today has been an experience. First our actual train broke down and so they replaced ours with a Renfre train, not high speed, and the boarding passes they gave us did not reflect the seats on the other train...so we did not have a spot for both of us to sit, one seat, not two.  We found two seats and hoped that no one came with passes for them. Then through word of mouth, no announcement, we heard that we would change to a high speed train in France. The whole train got off and waited for the other
train to arrive. It took a little search to find our seats, but we did and another family from the U.S. came in and some French people were sitting in theirs. The French tickets said "coach 2" and the US said 12, which we were on coach 12. They would not get up, even when a lady told them in French. They just smiled and sat, so the Auburn man(had on an Auburn shirt) went to get the conductor.  The conductor of course told them to get off and move, one of the 4 still sat and they had to go get the conductor again.  The train clapped when they all finally moved. We wished we had taken a video, it was pretty funny, "Welcome to France!"

Avignon is much smaller, we are just staying inside the walls that were built by the popes when they moved their home from Rome to Avignon in the 14th century. They actually purchased the city and lived here for approximately 100 
years.