Paris

We headed to Paris June 7 through June 13. This was our second trip to Paris (we spent a week there about 3 years ago) but the only museum we revisited this time was the Louvre. There is just so much to see and do in Paris.

You can buy a museum pass at participating museums for 2, 4, or 6 consecutive days that gets you into many (but not all or special events at the museum) museums and some sites outside of the city. If you hit at least two sites a day (which is not hard to do) the pass will pay for itself.


Musee D'Orsay

The weather was okay. It was pretty muggy (not St. Louis muggy, but for Northern Californians it was enough) but at least it was overcast, so it wasn't super-hot. It was a nice change from England, where it's not only cooler, the weather seems to change every 10 minutes from rain to sun to wind to whatever.

We stayed at a small hotel in the 17th arrondissment, which is on the northern side of the city. It was nice and clean, but didn't have AC (which would have been nice). However, it was on the top floor and we had a balcony, where for several nights we had our standard travel dinner of wine, bread (fresh!), cheese, fruit, and chocolate. It was really relaxing to just sit out there and listen to the world go by below us.



Dinner on the balcony


The hotel included breakfast (Warning: a French breakfast includes coffee, bread and pastry, usually only one of each, but everything is really good). There was also a nice little restaurant around the corner where we had dinner on the nights we didn't stay in, and a great little wine bar down the street from there, where we sat outside and watched the world go by while drinking kir (white wine and flavored liqueur).

During most of the days, after breakfast, we set out for a little market down the street, where we would stock up on a bottle of water and some snacks for the day. We would usually find a sandwich shop or cafe (no shortage of those in Paris!) for lunch to refuel in between museums. We had printed out a few walking tours from the Internet, and by doing those on a couple of days, we were able to see museums that were part of our museum pass, but also these great neighborhoods where it was so interesting just to walk around. We spent time in the Marais and Montmartre, both of which we'd never really been to before.



Kevin in Montmartre

Paris is a fantastic walking city, and when you're tired, you just jump on the Metro and go anywhere. For one ticket, you can literally ride all over the city, probably all day if you were so inclined. The transfers are easy, and you don't have to exit the station.

We did decently with our French (thank you Alliance Francaise!) and managed to get around pretty well. Everyone was really nice and even at the post office, we didn't run into any grumpy Parisians.

Two days before we left, we took a local train to Chateau Fontainebleau, which is located about 35 miles outside of Paris. It's a huge chateau, with some really nice gardens. However, only a small part of the house was open and we couldn't see the Napoleon I museum because it required pre-booking a guided tour that was all in French. Bummer.



Chateau Fontainebleau