We're home!

We just got in. 11:41

8 hours gone 2 to go

Bored to tears

Breakfast in the Air France lounge

Ok not as good as some of the other meals.

Best Meal in Paris

Our final meal turned into the best meal in Paris. It was at Auberge de la Reine Blanche at 30, rue Saint-Louis En l'ile. I highly recommend this place. I’ll mostly let the pictures speak for themselves.

This is a ravoli in a cheesy cream sauce

Vegetables au gratin

Roast beef with feta sauce and cheesy potatoes

Lamb stew

Carolyn got a special dessert – this is, what else, chocolate cake

A great way to end our trip.

See you all soon.

Sigh...

We're in from the day doing our pre-dinner wash up. We walked the Luxemborg gardens and just around Paris. Didn't make the Louvre - next trip.

We're anxious to see everyone again but we're a touch melancholy too. It's been a great trip and though we're anxious to be home we're also kind of sad it's ending. We've got one more dinner, a stroll around Paris and then we're done. Our taxi is arranged and is showing up at 7:30 tomorrow morning which should get us to our 10:30 flight in plenty of time. We arrive home after a long flight at 11:45AM your time.

Some brief trip statistics:

We (well mostly Fran) took over 1500 photographs this trip. That's like 50 a day. Some I'm sure you'll see - others are mostly of interest to us (Fran loves flowers - I bet we have 100 photos of flowers). Anyway Fran has weeks and weeks of editing for the photos.

We've kept a rough count and believe we walked over 150 miles this whole trip. That doesn't include stairs - just the strolls around town.

As you know we saw 10 cities/towns, ate about 80 meals total in them, and to the best of our ability to remember consumed 20 bottles of wine (excluding the occasional glass at lunch). We took 9 train trips, 1 bus ride, and 3 flights.

Thanks for all the comments, e-mails etc. It's been fun "blogging" this instead of keeping a hand written journal. It made us feel like we could share our trip with you in real time. I hope you all enjoyed it.

We'll keep you posted on our status as we head home with some quick entries or photos but it won't be as fun.

Looking forward to seeing you all but not looking forward to our trip ending. The only consolation is the weather is turning cold and rainy in Paris right now and is supposed to remain that way through the week. Once again we lucked out.

What would we do again?

Definitely will go to again

• Paris
• Orvieto
• Sorrento (Split decision - Fran)

If we’re in the neighborhood:

• Nice (for the seafood and frittes)
• Santa Margherita (for the seafood)
• Sorrento (Split decision - Ken)

Wouldn’t mind but won’t go out of our way

• Colmar (for the food)
• Arls (for the food)
• Beaune (for the food and wine)

Glad we saw it but won’t go back

• Bologna
• Parma

Made most of our plan today

Well we made the Arc de Triomphe and strolled the Champs-Élysées today. We’re headed out do dinner soon to the place John Z says has the best frittes in France (hmmm we’ll see).

We didn’t get to the Luxemborg gardens. Don’t know if we’ll make both the gardens and the Louvre tomorrow. One of the many reasons to come back here I guess.

Why are the eggs so much better here?

I’ve kind of grown used to French breakfasts.  A roll or croissant, an glass of juice and a coffee.  Breakfast is the same in Italy except the croissant is replaced by a sweet roll.  There’s a little café down the street (the St. Regis – which is also the name of the company my Dad worked for) that serves the typical French breakfast plus for a few euros more will give you  an omelet or oeuf au plat (fried eggs).  The omelet is nothing to write home about but the fried eggs are so much tastier here than at home.  Not only at the St. Regis but everywhere.  They are always sunny side up (I don’t think you can order them any other way) and they are rich and creamy.  I’m going to miss this – I’ve had farm fresh eggs in the states (my sister on occasion raises chickens for the eggs but they are a mess) and they’re the closest you can find.  Hopefully we can find a farm that sells fresh eggs at home.

Plans for May 2

Sigh.  Only two days left.

Today we’re going to do some walking (that’s different in Paris).  We’ll take the MO (Subway) up to the Arc de Triomphe and stroll the Champs-Élysées.

If we’re up to it we’ll then go to the Luxemborg gardens in the afternoon.

Dinner is planned to be at Capricorne just north of Plac du Bastille.

We’ll see what actually happens.

Best Laid Plans…

So yesterday was May 1.  May day here in France.  They take this pretty seriously here.  There were parades complete with thousands of police with riot gear, most shops were closed, museums were closed, and everyone in France and most international tourists were in the city.  This meant our afternoon plan of getting to the Eiffel tower went, while not awry, not exactly as planned.

  The trip down was great.  The Paris subway iPhone app is amazing and worth the $1 I spent for it.  However…when we got to the tower it appears everyone and their brother had the same idea we did – go see it at dusk.  There was a 3 hour line to get in.  Sorry it’s cool but nothing is worth waiting 3 hours for.  So we took the obligatory photos and wandered on.  As Burns (Robie not Mr.) said “The best laid schemes o mice and men aft gang a glay” or as Mr. said “Excellent”.

One last comment – I don’t feel quite as bad because the top level was closed for some reason so you could only go to the first two (which is where the best views are from but I’ve got to settle the cognitive dissonance somehow).

More Random Paris Shots

Don’t have a lot of time to write but here are a few more random shots from today.  You can see the weather has been a problem.

For John Z

At our friend Zum’s urging we had a quiet and romantic Fallafel at L’as Du Fallafel (Just kidding it was like a circus in there but the Fallafel was good – I actually read in one of our Paris guides this was the best Fallafel in all of Paris).

Wow

I understand why people fall in love with Paris.  There’s no end of things to do (or do more than once) or see.  Even just people watching is fun.

So yesterday we did our walk of “old Paris” – from Notre Dame, through the Latin Quarter, the Palis of Justice etc.  We took a Seine cruise, walked the left bank up to the Orsay, saw the impressionists and post-impressionist works at the Orsay, walked back through the Latin Quarter, got drawn into a touristy dinner place (it was ok but not great) and went and people watched in the Quarter and then on the left bank.

Today’s plans changed slightly – we’re heading up to the Marais in a few minutes and we’re lunching at John Z’s recommended L’As du Falafel.  This evening we’re going to the Eiffel tower so we can see it in dusk and twilight.  Our plan at the moment is to picnic along the left bank tonight (Friday night will be a real circus – in a fun way). 

Lot’s to do.