Still life in our hotel’s front window. There seem to be a lot of stringed music shops in this neighborhood.

Unique approach to a mobile food cart: double-decker bus outfitted with a kitchen.

Is “Aioliwood” a play on Hollywood?!

Here is where we camped out for a big and yummy breakfast. Omelets,croissants, and café aulait!

Hmmmm…wonder how many pregnancies have been prevented  by a late night purchase of condoms in the subway on the way back to a love nest!!!!!

Hmmmm…Rick is still split on whether or not he should buy at “man purse”!!

But if it looked this good on him he’ d be all over it!

Be careful biking in Paris , , , ,

. . .  ouch!

Like Madison’s e-cycles, bikes to rent. They are very popular. Many of the stations were empty of bikes!

Here is the French version of Billy B returning to the station in his ambulance from a morning donut run!

The fresh morning bread smells heavenly . . . we picked up several yummies for our walking tour.

We went on a walking tour with “Paris Walks” for two hours around the Latin Quarter neighborhood. Chris, a Brit, was our informative guide.

This woman was all suited up with walking sticks and big hiking boots. Stay out of her way!!

This is the quiet apartment on a courtyard where James Joyce penned his classic book Ulysses. It was quite controversial at the time.

Part of the old Roman wall, dating back to 1210 AD Paris.

Children on a field trip in their reflective vests walk along a busy street.

The Pantheon was initially going to be an abbey. But it was built during the French revolution, where church and wealth had fallen out of fashion. So it became a mausoleum for French heroes. A hero can be “de-Panthoniezed” if people discover very  bad things about him or her, posthumously. Then they go to a common grave!  The windows had been blocked in with stone to make it look less beautiful and more austere.

We went inside this beautiful and ornate church. It had a “”Rood screen” – the ornate stone carvings which also had wooden panels — which visually hid the priests from the common people. That separation went away after the Reformation.

Ornate pulpit

Reliquary holding a finger-bone from Paris’ patron saint Genevieve.

Here is the apartment where Ernest Hemingway and his first wife lived, during their 20’’s, in the Latin Quarter.

Here is the building where writer George Orwell lived,

Notice stone carved street sign. After the French Revolution, all references to religious and political leaders were scrubbed from the city. “Saint” was chiseled off before St. Genevieve’s name!

Bustling street scene. This was a youthful neighborhood with many students.

We hung out on this corner for hours, enjoying beer and lunch! We were tired and thirsty after 2+ hours of walking, stopping and, standing.

Very happy to sit down and drink beer!

Yummy croute complete with fried egg!!

By the time we were done the place had cleared out!

Restaurant worker in man-scarf. But does it match his pants and apron!?

After lunch we need to walk aagain and headed north through the Latin Quarter to the Seine and several shopping areas . . . . many choices of great French wines.

. . . fresh seafood everywhere!!!!

. . . if only we had a kitchen.

Funny name!

Interesting art on these peoples patio , , ,

. . .  clever French.

Soon we arrived at the river and there was Notre Dame!

Beggar next to tourists in line to tour the cathedral.

Japanese bride getting her makeup touched up for wedding photos. The groom seemed a wee bit bored by it all….

Good musicians everywhere. These guys were on a bridge over the Seine, playing cool jazz.

A fun way to tour the river and the city.

It turns out these are community cars, like Madison’s “Zip Cars”!

After all the walking today soon we were hungry again . . imagine that!!! We checked with our hotel owner for a suggestion and soon we were on the way to her favorite  neighborhood dinner spot . . .

. . . where we settled into a nice corner booth for an evening of culinary adventure . . . three waiters did a fine job serving us . . .

. . . Bobbie felt adventurous and had the steak tartare . . .

emJay had the roasted duck legs. . . .  while Gary had the roasted sea bream . . .

. . . and I had the braised beef cheeks. We ate and drank our way through the night while it rained outside. By the time we walked back to the New Orient Hotel the rain had just about stopped . . .

We woke to a light rain but it didn’t last long. Bobbie and Gary are heading out to a walking tour and emJay and I headed to the Louvre . . . .

surprisingly not  too many people . . .

. . . as you can see here, there were only about 80 people in line  . . .easy peasy!!!!

. . .the pyramid sits above the main entrance, which when you get underground, is HUGE!!!!

. . . we rented the audio tour which was VERY informative. The museum is HUGE and you need a map to get around. Three main buildings have  multiple levels. Right away we saw signs for one of the ‘must see’ items  so we headed over to it . . .

. .  . along the way was an artist painting a reproduction . . . .

. . . Mona Lisa sort of has her own salon . . .

. . . and the crowds was not too bad . . .

. . . what better way to improve the view than by including yourself. Selfies, or people posing with goofy expressions, are being taken EVERYWHERE in the museum!!!!

. . . opposite Mona is the largest painting in the Louvre, that of ‘The Wedding at Canna’ . . .

. . . depicting Mary telling Jesus the participants have no more wine . . .

. . . in the lower corner is a servant pouring wine from a stone water cask into a wine serving vessel.

In the same salon was the second biggest painting in the museum, ‘The Crowning of Napoleon’.  He commissioned the work himself. It took the artist three years to complete the painting. At first Napoleon had him paint it with himself lifting the crown to his own head but later it was changed to him crowning his wife Josephine . . .

. . . in the lower left corner of the painting were Napoleon’s two brothers who became mayors of major cities’ during his rein . . .

. . . also included was Napoleon’s mother who had refused to come to the original ceremony in protest because Josephine was being crowned but had not produced a son for Napoleon. However, that did not prevent him from including her in the painting!!!!! . . .

. . . and interestingly, right behind Napoleon is a likeness of Julius Caesar!!!!

There is REALLY a lot going on in these huge paintings that include close to a hundred painted characters in each. The audio guide does an excellent job explaining  all  the action on the canvas.

HUGE ornate halls connect the buildings and the salons . . . walking through them. . .

. . .  soon we came to the Egyptian displays . . .

. . . huge carvings  . . .

. . . with lots of burial pieces . . .

. . . including the sarcophagus of Rammes III

. . . did I see an eye blink??????

. . . the displays include sarcophagus that weighed tons . . . to pieces like this that were only 18 inches long.

off to the side was a Medieval area . . . . no time today to tour it, maybe next time!!!!

. . . one last sphinx before we exited this display area. This one weighed tons. It was originally carved for an unknown pharaoh. As one pharaoh or king came and went the next would have his name added under the beard. When the area was filled, the names would be chiseled off and the list would start again!!!!!

Soon we were into the Greek area . . . .

. . . where the Venus de Milo was creating quite a crowd. Discovered on the island of Milo, south of Greece, in1820 by a farmer plowing his field, historians still have not figured out who she was, the artist, or what happed to  her arms. . . . the do know that she was carved by a Greek and her name should actually be Aphrodite, which is Greek, rather than Venus which is the Roman goddess of love!!!!

. . . her left arm was actually carved from a separate piece of marble and of course is still missing . . . maybe that farmer who found her needs to keep plowing!!!!!

On the way out we passed Diana, the huntress, Just one of thousand’s of pieces in the museum. The size of the museum is overwhelming and we hope to return on our next trip to Paris . . .

. . . . as we exited the Louvre there was the  Eiffel Tower. This is probably as close as we will get to it on this trip . . . .

. . . we had a little lunchy at a sidewalk café and decided to walk back to our hotel. It took several hours and was a BEAUTIFUL Saturday afternoon. We stopped and poked out heads into interesting shops along the way . . .

At the famous Printemp department store, emJay decided to buy a new purse. For those buying new purses today they had a little craft area set up to make a  ‘bob’ to hang  from your purse . . . at first she was reluctant, but at the urging of her clerk she soon joined the fun . . .

Voilà  . . . gold lame to go with her new black purse.  . . .

I too had ‘man purse’ envy and as I walked around the streets of Paris I envisioned myself hurrying along the avenues with a bag hung over my shoulder on the way to an important luncheon . . .

. . . identities have been masked to protect the innocent!!!!

. . . after a three hour walk back to the hotel we reunited with Bobbie and Gary and went out for our last group dinner in Paris, A yummy meal with two bottles of red wine had us returning to the hotel at 10:30pm, tired and  ready for a good nights sleep. zzzzzzzzzzzz . . . .

• This morning we had our final breakfast with Bobbie and Gary at the New Orient Hotel. B and G are off on another bike tour!  Bon Voyage! We look forward to comparing stories and having ‘French Night’ reunions back in Wisconsin! Rain was forecasted to start at 11:00am.

We walked over to St Joseph’s, an all English speaking church near the Arc de Triomphe . . . but it did not look much like a church from the outside.

Here is what it looked like in its former version.

To get to it, you walked (or wheeled) down to the lower level.

By the time Mass began, the church had filled with a global group of English speakers. Many were from Asia, as well as Africa, UK, US.

As we left the church and walked just a block we saw this . . . the Arc!

The road was busy with traffic and people . . . mmmmmmmm and some police cars.

Lots of traffic and activity. We headed down, actually an access way under the road leading to the Arc, to get tickets to go up onto the top observation platform.  We were told we could not buy tickets however, due to a low level terrorist alert today.

When we got back up the stairs and outside, more police had arrived.

Now there was no traffic and everyone was being evacuated from the Arc! This all happened in about 5 or 10 minutes from when we had first arrived.

We strolled down the Champs Elysees   which had been used for events related to Paris Fashion Week. This is what was left of an outdoor stage hosted by L’Oreal.  EmJay met a fashionista from Houston TX who was in town for the event. She was a designer, and was beautifully dressed.

The Champs Elysees is closed one Sunday a month, and we were lucky to be here! It was filled with families, couples, kids, tourists. Joy de Vive in Paris!

There were very good musicians up and down the street, playing for tips.

We saw lots of scooters like this . . . people even lock them up like a bike!

After a little lunchy, we visited the Petit Palais, a beautiful building housing a museum. This is a Greek pot from 400 BC.

Happy lion gargoyle!

Lots of paintings by Dutch & Flemish painters.

A portrait of Rembrandt with a pooch that echoed his looks/his locks!

. . . an early version of ‘the most interesting man in the world’????

Amazing bright and crisp colors . . . lots of detail too

“Would you like this stuff?”   “Oh, really, for ME?!”   “How sweet is that?”

This one was about the aristocracy meeting the Bohemians. Looks like a pretty wild time!

It was still raining outside, and chilly, but we walked back to our hotel,  about a 30 minute trek to the north.

As we looked back toward the Arc, there was still a huge crowd. Rain and emergency warnings do not dampen the Parisian’s’ spirits! We admired the sycamore trees carefully trimmed into boxy shapes.

Tonight would be our last night in Paris. It was drizzling as we walked to Bistro de Vinges along the darkened, wet streets. Sunday night . . . so there were not too many people out. What a moment to remember . . . seemed like a scene out of a movie. We were welcomed into the dry and warmth of the bistro and had a delicious meal of sea bream . . . and emJay finished it all off with a Brioche Perdue . . .YUMM!!!!!

We will sleep well tonight after all the walking we did today AND the great meal.

Our journey home begins tomorrow morning!!!

On our walk home last night it came to me why most people who live in large cites like Paris, New York, Chicago, etc, may not own a car. The metro systems are great, cheap, run very often  and you don’t need to contend with trying to finds a place to park every night.

The streets are PACKED, with about 6 inches of space in front and behind each car. Not sure how one would maneuver out of a spot. Maybe everyone leaves at once in the morning!!!!

Morning came too soon and soon we were enjoying our last breakfast at the New Orient Hotel . . . our home base while in Paris . . .

. . . as we walked to the metro again we were reminded of one thing that is so special about large cities. The availability of goods and services, right outside your door. In Paris, many business of the same kind seem to group themselves in certain neighborhoods. Near our hotel were several music schools thus the flourish of many  . . .

. . . violin, viola and (WARNING: man purse alert)

luther shops in our neighborhood.

However, we only found one beekeeping  store on the corner of our block. FUN!!!!

An easy ride on the metro to Gard du Nord and a $6 euro fare for the 45 minute train ride to Charles de Gaulle airport and we were on our way. Interesting to note that the ticket machines that were so busy when we arrived because of the SNCF strike, were now available because the office was open again for ticket sales. Except . . .  this machine was not working when we arrived 12 days ago and as you can see by the red light was still not working!!!  C’est La Vie!!!!

Upstairs was Terminal 2, serving international flights and soon we were through immigration. The ‘big’ boards’ with all the flights posted kept us up to date on our flight . . .

. . . and speaking of a big board, I think this woman had a surfboard in this carrying case. We followed her for a while as we walked to our gate and the airport staff kept motioning to her to carry it upright . . . she ignored them and kept running into peoples ankles and luggage!!!!

. . . our plane left right at noon. Once we were airborne, the window shades were closed, wine was served and it was movie time . . .

I was looking for something light hearted and brought up ‘A Good Year’, thinking it was something else, but decided to watch it anyway. Made in 2005, with an earlier version of Russel Crowe. It’s sort of a sappy movie about a high finance banker who inherits his uncles vineyard . . . and, of course, while visiting the area to sell it he meets a young woman, falls head over heels, chucks his life in London, finds the meaning of live and moves there . . . where I presume they live happily ever after . . .

. . . well the movie may have been mediocre but the scenery was STUNNING. Looked like where we had bike near Avignon. When Crowe is lost, while trying to find the vineyard, he comes to this intersection and it was like deja vu, all over again for me. I knew almost exactly where he was . . . we had biked there!!!!

. . . sure enough, when the final credits rolled the last lines were where the filming had been done. We biked through all the towns listed, except Cucuron . . .

The red line shows the general area we biked in and the blue stars are the major villages, towns, we biked through. The two shields show the location of the two chateaus and vineyards, where the exteriors and interiors were shot  . . . and the bulls-eye shows where I think the intersection is when Crowe he is lost. I’ll have to check with our host Neil!!!!

What a GREAT way to end this trip . . . as we gently touched down in Chicago.

 

This was one fantastic trip.

After biking for 88 days across the US on the Northern Tier route, I needed an easy, creature comfort ladened ‘vacation’ trip with my Smoochie. This was it.

The location of Provence was perfect, the weather ended up being perfect, our biking group of eight friends was perfect, the bikes were perfect, our accommodations were perfect and the family run Provence Cycling Holidays with Neil and his family was perfect!!!!

Working out of a home base everyday on our self-guided and self-paced tours was the way to go. We could bike as little or as much as we wanted, leaving enough time for sightseeing, shopping and of course eating!!! The time Neil put into researching and developing the courses one has to choose from for each days ride, made everyone of them a winner.

Anyone looking for a nice French biking experience . . . I would highly recommend the way we did it.

. . . and the four days we spent in Paris after our biking trip were a delightful way to reintroduce ourselves back to the ‘real world’!!!

Speaking of ‘real world’ . . . now back to our kitchen remodeling project!!!