Three Months in France March 31 – June 28, 2007

Today’s Photos

After three days of sightseeing in Paris my senses were suffering from over indulgence and so today’s late rising was exactly what the doctor ordered. I found Paris to be beautiful, but sometimes overwhelmingly so. There are so many amazing things to see that one can become numb to them after a while. When seeing the first beautiful old palace I am amazed but after realizing that they are on every other street here they lose a bit of their appeal.

After packing our things John and Anne lead us to the Bastille market a short walk from our hotel. This was actually the first market that we’ve ever attended while in France and it was exactly what I imagined it would be: huge selections of fantastic foods. Marissa took a lot of photos of the market so I will let those be your guide…and its almost guaranteed to make you hungry.

After the market we grabbed a taxi which took us back to Orly airport where we had parked our car just a few days ago. Once at Orly we found our car and departed to Evreux, some 90 minutes North West of Paris, where we are staying for night. After a short walk through the downtown core of Evreux we found an open restaurant with an acceptable level of cigarette smoke. It was a pleasant dinner consisting of a couple of firsts for Marissa and I, namely fois gras and flammenkucher. We both enjoyed the fois gras but after John explained the process by which it is created we were both a little put off.

Incidentally, it appears it was a good thing we left Paris today as I just learned that there were riots in Paris this evening in the same area as the market we had visited earlier in the day. The riots were relating to the fact that France has just elected a new President, named Sarkozy, who is very unpopular with some of immigrant youth in France.

Today’s Photos

Today’s adventures began deep beneath the city in a series of tunnels and rooms known as the Catacombs of Paris. These tunnels were originally Roman-era quarries but they were converted into a rather large tomb in the 18th century . There are over 6 million people resting in these tunnels, their bones and skulls stacked neatly along the sides of the passage ways through which we walked. The dim lights and water dripping from the ceilling gave me the creeps as I walked along these corridors of bones. It took us around 45 minutes to make our way through and after climbing a very long spiral staircase we made it back to ground level and emerged in a residential neighborhoud in what would appear, from the outside, to be someone’s home.

We spent the next few hours touring around by foot and subway seeing many beautiful areas and buildings including the Pantheon, the Jardin de Luxembourg, Notre Dame de Paris and La Basilique du Sacré Coeur de Montmartre. Notre Dame is a stunning cathedral but we enjoyed it only from the exterior as the lineups to enter were a little too long. Near Notre Dame on the adjacent Ile St Louis we found a terrific gelati place called Amorino which had some of the tastiest gelati I’ve ever had.

Prior to visiting Sacré-CÅ“ur we walked around Montmartre where we passed through a very aggressive swarm of bracelet weavers. John, Anne and I made it through unscathed but Marissa unfortunately fell pray to their clever tactics and next thing you know she’s getting a “good luck” bracelet weaved on her wrist. When I noticed I turned around then spent the next two minutes rejecting a never-ending swarm of weavers who approached me in the hopes of selling me their good luck charm. While weaving Marissa’s bracelet the fellow subjected us to a sales pitch cleverly disguised as pleasant banter. My favourite line was “Oh, you are canadian, for you its only 5 euros. Canadians are so nice, not like Americans…I charge them 20 euros”.

We concluded the day with dinner at Chez Denise, a wondeful French brasserie specializing in large helpings of meat, mostly off-cuts. I enjoyed the côte de boeuf served with marrow bones and heaps of delicious frites (french fries) while Marissa had a beef brochettes. Mark Bittman of the New York Times says that Chez Denise is “friendly, truly unpretentious, fun – and filled with meat” and that sums it up quite nicely. We enjoyed chatting with a nice couple from Moscow on one side of us and two ladies from Manhantan on the other side. The only thing we found unpleasant was the often present cigarette smoke but this is an issue everywhere in France and its nearly impossible to get away from it. Thanks to John and Anne for taking us to such a great restaurant and for being our wonderful tour guides once again.

It’s about 2330 at the moment and we’re both tired so for now I’ll just put a few notes along with today’s photos:

Today’s Photos

– we started the day by taking a bus to the Eiffel tower. Marissa and I climbed the stairs to the 2nd lookout level. Beautiful views, impressive structure.

– we visited Les Invalides which houses Napoleon’s tomb as well as Le Musée de l’Armée which is a military history museum. Quite probably the coolest museum I’ve ever visited. We spent about 4 hours here but we really only scratched the surface. I must return.

– we walked along the Champs-Élysées to L’arc de Triomphe and then onto la Place de La Concorde.

– we ate dinner at a lovely pizza place called Momo’s Pizza.

Today’s Photos

Marissa and I departed from Toulouse last night to get a head start on our week long trip to Paris and Normandy. We made it as far as Limoges, which is about 300 north of Toulouse, before stopping in at a hotel for the night. It was pouring buckets of rain along the way, it was the only thing that slowed down these French drivers.

This morning we visited Oradour-sur-Glanes, a village where 642 inhabitants were killed and burned by the Nazis on June 10th, 1944. The town has since been left as is as a monument to those that were killed. Of the 642 victims, 247 were women and 205 were children.

Despite having watched countless documentaries and many WW II movies I found Oradour to be a disturbing site. As you walk through it is difficult not to imagine what took place there 62 years ago. Within the town site there is a memorial which houses several personal artifacts that once belonged to the massacred town folks. Some of these items, namely a stroller and a child’s bicycle are especially difficult to look at but serve as a reminder of the horrors we are capable of during war.

After Oradour we continued north for 4 hours and we arrived in Paris around 5pm. We decided we would avoid driving within Paris itself and so we parked at Orly airport and took a taxi into town. Finding an airport is a much easier task than trying to navigate one’s way through a city like Paris. The parking at the airport, though not cheap at 15 euros per day, is still more affordable than most of the city parking.

After checking in at our hotel we went out to dinner to a fantastic restaurant called Chartier, with our friends John and Anne. According to ‘Frommers’, Chartier originally opened in 1896 and “is now an official historic monument featuring a whimsical mural with trees, a flowering staircase, and an early depiction of an airplane”. It was overflowing with people speaking all sorts of languages. In fact, just walking around Paris, it was not uncommon to hear english spoken in the crowds.

After dinner Marissa and I stopped in at Starbucks to grab a coffee for the 45 minute walk back to our hotel, the highlight of which was passing by La Place des Vosges. There is one notable difference between a Paris Starbucks and a North American starbucks: here in Paris you can have your ‘Bucks coffee served in a large glass coffee cup instead of a paper cup.

Today’s taxi ride and the evening walk merely scratched the surface of what Paris has to offer and we can’t wait to explore more! But here are some initial observations:

– Paris seems endlessly huge
Рthere appears to be a panoply of interesting shops specializing in just about anything you could want. For example we passed one shop that specializes in very old music instruments and one completely focused on Faberg̩ eggs.
– on some city streets one finds tents where homeless people are living. An article in Time magazine discusses this.
– thus far every single Parisian I’ve spoken to has been very polite and helpful.
– there is lots of diversity in people here and one hears many different languages spoken as one walks down any city street.
Рthe number of caf̩s and bars is incredible. They are everywhere.

Today’s Photos

We spent the day travelling from Nimes back to Giroussens with a long break in between on a beach in the Mediterranean port of Sète. Liam and Emma really enjoyed playing in the sand and I even enjoyed a brief nap. There were only a handful of other people enjoying the beach on this day but judging from the surrounding hotels and other tourist amenities I suspect that this beach must get very crowded during the Summer holiday season. And indeed it is true that many women here in Europe will sun bathe topless.

Another visit or two to the Mediterranean will certainly be in our upcoming plans. Time is flying by though and it will already be 4 weeks since our arrival on Sunday. So much still to see….

Good night from France.

Today’s Photos

I’ll keep this short as I’m feeling sleepy and will let the photos do most of the talking. We spent a lovely day in and around Nimes today visiting a Roman arena, a Roman temple and a Roman aquaduct. All three of these structures date back to the 1st century AD so all are close to 2000 years old. All incredibly impressive. Visiting these monumental structures has just ignited in me an interest to learn more about the Roman empire and so I will have to acquire some books on the subject.

Good night from France.

We are in Nimes at the moment. We didn’t do much today except actually travel here. Nimes is approximately 325 KM away from Giroussens and the journey took us a little less than 5 hours including bathroom, coffee and lunch breaks.

We’re checked into a Formule 1 hotel here which is in itself a new experience for us. We have two rooms and we’re here for two nights and the total price including taxes came to 123 Euros. Thats as cheap as it gets I think. Two rooms at the Holiday Inn down the street would have cost us over 450 Euros by comparison. Anyway a room in Formule 1 is about the same size as a university dorm room and through the use of a bunk bed they offer space for 3 people to sleep. Toilets and showers are shared facilities located down the hall but the sink to wash your hands is in your room. The showers have an auto-steam clean function that turns on after you leave so theoretically they are kept in good clean condition. The toilets are reasonably clean but the automatic lighting system in them has been pushing the limits of my mom’s patience. When you open the door to enter the toilet the lights automatically go on and when you leave the lights automatically go off – thats the way its supposed to work. There is no manual switch to change this behaviour. Anyway for reasons that are unclear the lights went off shortly after my mom entered the bathroom on two occasions. On one of those occasions my mom was in there helping Emma and when the lights went out Emma panicked a little and ended up peeing all over her clothes. While I’m on the topic of washrooms I forgot to mention our rest-stop incident earlier in the day. While en-route to Nimes we stopped at a nice rest stop so that Emma could go pee. When she was taken into the bathroom she began to cry and scream because she couldn’t stand the stench and the general creepy conditions and she refused to pee in there. So Marissa and my mom took her behind some bushes and Emma went pee on the ground. After they were done a French man went up to them and complained about how Emma was peeing on the ground while there were bathrooms there. Imagine that!!!! Its ok for your dogs to crap on the sidewalks but a 3 year old girl peeing in the bushes, out of the way of any foot traffic, is a problem? Overall I love France but the French and I have extremelly different views when it comes to things relating to toilets, pooh, and the washing of hands.

Anyway, we are in Nimes and tomorrow we’re going to visit the best-preserved Roman arena in France as well as a Roman temple called The Maison Carrée. Both of these structures are approximately 2000 years old so they will officially become the oldest structures that I’ve ever seen or visited.

Good night from France.

Today’s Photos

It was cloudy today so we decided to go shopping in Toulouse. The kids both needed some footwear as they can’t seem to stop outgrowing their existing shoes/sandles/etc. And me, I needed (ok wanted, not really needed) some new jeans and shoes. And speaking of shopping, one thing that we’ve really noticed here in France is that kids are dressed significantly better than in North America. The kids all look so cute in their adorable outfits I almost feel bad that our kids look like slobs by comparison.

And well, even I feel a little out of place in my gap jeans and nike runners. Runners and jeans are very common here but the jeans must be thin in material and the runners must look as if they have had their soles completely removed.

So in an attempt to conform I purchased a thin pair of jeans and set of runners that sort of look like sporty slippers. Hopefully the locals won’t notice that my new runners are not from a popular name brand as I purchased them at Carrefour (a Supertore-sized grocery store complete with cheap clothes) and not at the twice-as-expensive shoe store at the other end of the mall.

When it was time to shop for food at the Carrfour we had difficulty getting the job done because we couldn’t stop drooling in the cheese and meat sections. Marissa did manage to snap a few photos inside Carrfour before we were stopped by an employee and told that it was forbidden to take photos.

After getting back home I went out on a bike ride to a nearby town called Rabastens and of course it was an awesome town full of interesting old buildings. The south of France is truly a cyclist’s paradise. There are endless roads leading to an endless number of cool towns to explore with plenty of nice warm weather. And the cycling allows one to enjoy more cheese, wine, duck, etc without any associated guilt. I’m really falling in love with France!!

Tomorrow my very kind mom will take care of Emma and Liam while Marissa and I sneak off by ourselves. I think we’ll probably go to Albi and visit the Toulouse-Lautrec museum.

Good night

Emma’s fever and cough worsened today so we took her to see a doctor in Lavaur. The visit cost us 24 Euros which seems quite reasonable. Interesting doctor’s office, there was no receptionist and each doctor had their own office which had an examining table, their computer/admin workspace and a bunch of instruments you’d commonly see in a doctor’s office. However, I didn’t see any sink to wash hands….hmmmm.

The doc recommended a few different medications to help her condition and we picked these up after the visit. As of this evening her fever is still above 103 F (39 C) even with Tylenol and/or Advil. But her general mood seems to have improved tonight so that likely means she feels a bit better.

So it was another day at home, which we really didn’t mind…after all we have a stock of good food in our fridge and plenty of wine. But by dinner time we had a mild emergency on our hands when we noticed that we were almost out of French bread. No problem, the local bakery was still open and we picked up another baguette.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention that I snuck out for a bike ride in the afternoon. It was raining a little bit but not enough to be a bother. The extra calories that I burned allowed me to have a larger dinner portion and to eat another slice of the Tarte aux pommes.

If you haven’t noticed yet, there are two links in the upper right hand corner of this page which you might find interesting. One of those links will take you to a page that lists some of the interesting differences that we have so far discovered between North American and France. The other link will take you to a page which shows some various stats regarding our voyage thus far.

Good night from France.

Today’s Photos

Lets start with the good. Today I woke up refreshed and feeling completely human at 0730. I think I’ve finally rid my body of the effects of jet lag. Now the not so good. Emma started developing a cough last night and today she has a fever so we opted to stay home so that she could get as much rest as possible.

I have to say that we did use our time at home wisely. My mom caught up on the laundry while Marissa and I caught up on our work. Liam worked on some of his work books and Emma…well she caught on up on some of her movies while lying in bed.

Marissa and I did go out for a little bit today to Lavaur to do a little more shopping. We’re going through wine like water so we had to restock and while we were at it we stopped into a nice bakery and picked up a delicious tarte aux pommes.

We will probably spend another quiet day at home tomorrow so that Emma can continue to rest.

Good night from France.