Art in Montmartre, Our Last Day in Paris. July 19th

Today we took the Metro to the Montmartre district of Paris. It was the mecca of the artists of past and present in the city so we wanted to experience it on our last day. We joined thousands of others on this Sunday that wanted to do same as the many Metro trains we took were cram packed. We have gotten pretty good at catching the correct subway trains and pride ourselves at never once getting on the incorrect one.

from the Dali Museumthe wrong train or making the incorrect transfer here in Paris.

Montmartre was a great place to visit and we thank our neighbors, Patti and Bill for suggesting that we see this area of the city. The streets were something out of a movie with hundreds of artists showing their paintings along with hundreds of tourists having sittings for portraits everywhere. The streets were packed with shoppers and the cafes were buzzing with people sipping wine and eating crepes. Quite a delightful scene.

We walked by the original Moulin Rouge before heading up the hill to the art district and the busy Sacre Couer Bascillica which was another crowded spot in the district. It is a beautiful church sitting on the highest hill in Paris. From there we walked to the Salvador Dali Museum to view his rather unique sculptures and paintings. We were familiar with this modern surrealist artist and his unusual work but it is very interesting when seen in person.
We took the funnicular down the hill and walked the lower section of the district before taking the Metro south of the city to go to the tallest building in Paris, the Montparnasse. We got our tickets to ride the elevator to the 58th floor observation tower and it was a wonderful view of all sides of the city. We were able to look out at all the places that we had visited during our fabulous stay in this beautiful city.

We had a marvelous French dinner at a neighborhood cafe called Chez Papa. Donna ordered what she thought was a salad and it turned out to so much more and different than any salad she had eaten as it was a large bowl with a little lettuce and wonderful home grown tomatoes and then filled the rest of way with blue cheese and roasted potatoes. John ordered an omelet which was stuffed with blue cheese and he ordered wine. The dinner also included a basket of hard crusted bread and a slice of other bread with two types of melted cheese.

There was so much food that neither or us could finish this dinner. After walking for a few blocks to try and help this meal to settle in our stomachs, we went back to our hotel at about 9 and packed our suitcases in anticipation of our next city to explore, Brussels. We have scheduled a taxi to take us to the train station early in the morning so we can take the high speed train to Belgium where we will spend another 4 nights. The adventures continue.

Our Explorations of Paris Continue

Paris Continues Day 3 July 18th
After a nice hotel mini buffet breakfast, we boarded the local Metro and changed at a station for the Eiffel Tower stop.
When we got off the subway, we walked to the location of the boat cruise on the Seine for a one hour narrated trip on the river. It was very interesting and a lovely morning to cruising outside. The boat rode by many of the same spots that we had seen on our bus tour of the city but from a completely different perspective. We had bot realized that there were so many bridges and so much boat activity on the Seine.When we got off the boat, we walked over to the Eiffel Tower to see it from the ground as the other view we had gotten was from the double decker bus. We were taken back with the enormity of this structure, something that we had never realized from the pictures we had seen. It is a massive  architectual wonder with it iron work and rivets soaring skyward.

We walked to the Metro station and navigated our way to the military museum house in Les Invalides. This large building houses all of the weapons and splendor of the French throughout history.  From there we walked a few blocks to the Rodin Museum to see the masterpieces in sculpture done by this artist, including the famous Thinker statue.

Statue of Liberty in Luxembourg Gardens

We were tired by this time in the day so we worked our way back through the Metro transfers and returned to our hotel neighborhood where we bought a small baguette and some drinks for our dinner in our room. Later in the evening we walked our neighbor and bought another of the wonderfully delicious frozen delights that the French are so famous for and watched the late Saturday night diners in the streetside cafes.

Paris, day 2 corrected

Day 2 in Paris  July 17, 2015

This was our first full day in Paris.  Everyone has heard stories about Paris.  Most of these are true.  Some are not.  Up until this point, we have been treated courteously, even though we do not understand French and speak only enough of it to read a menu at McDonald’s.  (actually, we didn’t go to Mickey D’s and have no urge to do so.)

We awoke at about 5:30 after a full night’s sleep.  The nine hour time difference will still take some adjustment.  We called Kari on Skpe, who was still up on Thursday night. After looking over our tour books, we had a buffet breakfast in the hotel dining room and got our stuff together for a day on the city. 

We rode the Metro to the Louvre and made the transfer without any challenges.  We are getting to be adept at the subway system, even with the many staircases present.  As soon as we got on the crowded #4 train, a woman gave up her seat to Donna.  We have noticed this on every trip.  The subway cars are packed with young people.  In fact we saw few, if any riders of our age group.  Perhaps it is the difficulty of navigating the stairs.  Perhaps it was the just the pace of life in Paris.

We arrived at the Louvre at about 9:30 and spent much of the morning in the museum.  Of course we saw Venus di Milo, as well as many other notable sculptures.  We also made sure to see the Mona Lisa through the crowds.  Fortunately, John is taller than most of the Asian tourists and got some good shots of Leonardo’s most famous painting.  I thought a great trick would be to take a picture of another’s viewfinder just as he snapped a picture of the painting.

We walked along the Right Bank of the Seine for a bit after leaving the museum and the boarded the Hop-on  Hop-off bus for a  very thorough tour of the city from the upper deck.  The sun was out again and I was glad that I had worn sunscreen, as the temperature and humidity were both up.

The narrated bus ride took about two hours and visited all the expected sights, plus many we were unfamiliar with.  We chose not to get off, as we planned to visit some the places over the next two days.  The statue of George Washington pleased us and many other kind words were said about America. 

One thing that surprised us were the number of military monuments, commemorating France’s victories and defeats.  There was no shortage of palaces.  It really helped us to understand why the commoners revolted from time to time.

We got back to our hotel at 2:30 after a picnic lunch in a nearby plaza.  After a much-needed rest, we decided to visit Luxembourg Jardin, the most popular park in the city.  Google  Maps showed the trip as 1 km, just a short jaunt for us.  We discovered otherwise, as the spiderweb of streets and intersections must have tripled the length of the trip.  After asking several people for directions, all of which were answered courteously, we eventually reached the park, and walked around for a bit.  We looked in at one reception that was taking place in the Senate building, thought we were out of place, and were about to leave when a woman courteously signaled us to stay.  We enjoyed the appetizers, were served champagne and water, and departed, not really sure what the reception was all about.

We always mark the location of our hotel on our handheld GPS, and it directed us to home, using the shortest route.  We stopped by a neighborhood Lebanese restaurant at about 7:30 and ordered an elaborate dinner, which we had planned to share.  We ate so much we could barely move and, when the check was presented, discovered we had been served a dinner for two at twice the price.  Oh well, it’s our fault for not speaking the language!

Dinner in this part of Paris seems to start between 8:00 and 9:00 pm and by the time we were finished, there was not a seat to be had in any of the dozens of eateries in our neighborhood.  We will turn in soon.  We checked our pedometer at day’s end and discovered we had walked an amazing eleven miles in the heat and humidity!  Enough for one fine day and bon soir.

Day One in Beautiful Paris
We arrived in Paris early in the morning after over 24 hours since departing our home on Tuesday night at about 12:30 in the morning and arrived Paris time at 6:00 am. Our transport was pre-arranged by Kari so we onl had to wait for a few minutes for our pick-up. The drive into the city from the airport was during morning rush hour and took over an hour.
We arrived at our lovely hotel and found that Kari had arranged for any early morning check-in so we got right into our room. It is very nice with a balcony that overlooks a park.

our hotel

We were very tired as we hadn't slept for two nights so we decided to taka a short rest and shower and then we got directions on how to go cross town on the Metro to pick up the Paris pass that Kari had ordered for us. It will cover all transit, metro, sight seeing bus and museums, etc. for four days.

After returning to the hotel with our passes, we took another brief rest and then walked our neighborhood to see it. We stopped for a drink at an outside cafe for some people watching. We enjoyed this very much.
Next we decided that we were too tired and warm (91 degrees) to get a real dinner so we stopped at a bake shop  and bought  a baguette and walked and savored this fresh bakedbaguette and some wonderful frozen  ice cream and yogurt from a gelato som of the best we have ever taste. A tired couple of travelers came back for an early night in the hotel.

Long Flights have Begun
We left the house in Lacey at 12:30 am and drove to SeaTac in plenty of time for our 5 am flight. We checked in when they opened the desk at 3am and flew to Chicago with a 4 hr flight. We watched a great movie called "Spare Parts" which is a true story about some high schoolers who complete in robotics even though everyone thinks they will never amount to much in life.
Now we are waiting out a lay over for 3 hours before the long flight begins to Paris. That is a 8+ hour flight so we plan on trying to get some sleep on this leg of the trip. A long day has begun and so has our adventure.

Like the so goes, *All our bags ae packed, we're ready to go...  We're leaving on a jet plane..."

 Ocho is still a bit uncertain.

A New Adventure-Europe Awaits, July-Aug. 2015

July 12, 2015—Packing for our trip

Today we are busy with packing our suitcases again and getting our house ready for our house/Ocho sitter, Joel. Since this will be a trip that includes not only a cruise job, but also 12 days in Europe in three different countries, it is our goal to try and keep the luggage at the minimum. Usually, we don’t have a concern with two large suitcases, our computer rolling case and back packs as we are simply getting on a ship. This trip is different as we are vacationing for a few weeks on the continent prior to our work days on board. That also means lots of ground transport on numerous modes of transportation such as trains and taxis, etc. between locations. Also, we will need a variety of different types of clothing, some for touring in Europe where the temperatures are warm now and then the cruise where it is not warm. We also need to take dress clothes for our lectures and formal nights on board ship as always.

We will be driving to the airport after midnight on Tuesday/Wed morning as our flight leaves Seattle at 5 am Wed. The airporter van could not help us as they could not pick us up here in Lacey/Olympia early enough for our flight so we will drive and park for the month at an off airport lot. We found one with a good monthly rate.

We fly to Paris with a change of planes in Chicago. We will spend 4 days in Paris and then take a train to Brussels for 4 days and then another train to Amsterdam for 4 more days. From there we take a train to the Hook of Holland and board a ferry to England where we board the ship, Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas for 12 more days. We cruise from Sussex to Bergen Norway, then through the fjords of Norway and the Faroe Islands and then to Iceland for two nights. Then we sail back to England and fly out of London for a long trip back to Los Angeles and then Seattle.

It is so nice to have a great travel agent to help in all of our plans. Or course, our travel agent is our daughter, Kari, and she has been in that business for about 25 years so she knows the places to stay, the tours to take and which flights to book. We just told her where we wanted to go and or how long and she planned so much for us. We know why she has so many returning clients over the years and why she has won so many national awards for excellence. Guess we might be a little prejudice but she really is an excellent travel agent and much appreciated.

Watch for our travel stories and pictures from our 28 day trip on our blog. Whenever we are able to post a new entry we will do so. That way you can see what we are doing and put the places we describe in your own personal bucket list for future travel.