Paris, France Trip Diary

Added 5 March 2006. Pictures and stories from our trip to Paris, France, the week of February 13–19, 2005. Page 1 | 2

Preparation

We knew we wanted to take a one-week winter vacation again this year, but as usual, we were having trouble deciding where to go. A cultural tour through Cuba sounded interesting, but we hadn't had luck finding an ideal package for doing that. We did come across an interesting eco-tour of Costa Rica, but it was pretty expensive. Then I noticed that the Globe was listing good deals for Paris and London. So we started looking into that on Expedia.ca, and were delighted to find several options at a reasonable price. (That site, for anyone wondering, makes it pretty easy to navigate and compare options. Only problem is that it works better in IE than Firefox.)

So almost before we knew it, our exploratory investigation turned into a credit card transaction. The package we chose included flight on Air France and hotel. We then made an expedition to Chapters for travel guides, coming home with Let's Go and Fodor's. We also then decided to switch to another hotel, farther from the seedy area of town. The Expedia folks also made that easy to do.

Day 1: Toronto to Paris

We left our car at a nearby hotel for the week (much cheaper than Airport parking or any transit options) and checked in way ahead of time. (I immediately knew there would be no “my luggage hasn't arrived because we were late, I'll have to buy clothes in Paris” shopping for me.) We were pretty impressed with Air France—it had this cool little TV where everyone could select their own movies (including really recent ones), rather good airline food, and very friendly flight attendants. Everything was on time and we managed to get a bit of sleep before being awakened for breakfast and landing.

After only moderate confusion at the airport, we took the RER to our hotel. The room was small but perfectly fine, and overlooked a really cool cemetary with crypts. Turns out that Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, André Citroën, and Charles Beaudelaire are buried there (the Montparnasse Cemetary).

We didn't have ambitious plans for the day. We did walk to and around the rather cool St-Germain des Prés neighbourhood. On the way back, we encountered heavy rain, then hail—thank goodness I packed an umbrella. Later on we noticed snow falling. Fortunately, the weather did improve from there...

Food highlight du jour: Real hot chocolate—that is, made with melted dark chocolate and cream, not cocoa and water. Mmm.

Day 2: Exploring the Louvre

Given the rain, hail, and snow, we had quickly concluded that a week-long metro pass would be a good investment, so that was the first order of the day. It proved a bit more complicated than expected, as we needed photo ID to get a metro pass, and we needed change to get our photo taken at one of those booths. And tip: French banks won't give you change. So we bought coffee and croissant, and used the change from that to get our photos, then our metro passes.

Then it was off to the Louvre. People almost discourage you from visiting the Louvre, given how big it is, how crowded it can be. But I have to say we really enjoyed it. Obviously, it was good to be forwarned that we wouldn't have time to see everything, so we didn't try. But I just hadn't realized to what extent the building itself is really worth seeing. The floors, the ceilings, the light fixtures—it's a feast for the eyes even without all the amazing art.

Due to confusion about Monday closing time, we didn't get to the Italian collection except briefly. So, we didn't see Mona. Guess we'll have to go back.

Food highlights du jour: Lunch at Papou Lounge, a Let's Go recommendation. Jean's confit de canard and my rondelet de canard were both great, but the real highlight was (this will sound odd) Jean's mint tea. This wasn't no dried herb stuff—it was seriously delicious full mint flavour. But we also can't ignore the restaurant we stumbled on sur la rue Mouffetard. Our 14.50 Euro menu included one of the best cold foie gras Jean's ever had. My skate and the mousse au chocolat and crème caramel desserts were also nice.

Day 3: Musee d'Orsay and chocolate shop

We were a little surprised to see that even on a cool (though not rainy, at this point) February day, there was quite the lineup to get into the Musée d'Orsay, an old train station now the home of famous art of the Impressionists (and pre- and post-). This was another impressive building—the restaurant room being particularly fantastic—and you can actually get through the whole collection in a day.

In fact, we didn't even take the whole day. Afterward we returned for another walk through St German des Prés, where I made a beeline for one of the oldest and most celebrated chocolate shops of Paris.

Food highlight du jour: Breakfast at La Coupole, a nearby café famous for its longevity and famous patrons (Einstein, Stravinski, Hemingway)... We'd been a little disappointed by Monday's breakfast, so getting a large tray of amazing butter croissant, pain au chocolat, fruit pastries, jam, and buns along with our impeccably good coffee and chocolat chaud made the 8 Euros each seem like a real bargoon.

Continue to page 2: Moulin Rouge, Sacre Coeur, Picasso, and some tower...