If only for the sense of completion, voilà the last two days in Paris: On Sunday Suzie had arranged to see her French conversation partner and some of his friends for lunch. As the boys were off on their own, this left me with a free afternoon all to myself. I decided to go to the Louvre again, because I love it and still feel after 4 or 5 visits […]
Several times during previous trips to France, we got caught up in horrible traffic while returning to Paris. About the only good that had come from those experiences is that we learned the two French words bouchon (literally, a cork) and embouteillage (something bottled up), both used to describe congested traffic. Suzie had timed our trip to Normandy to avoid a repeat experience. Unfortunately, as we were having breakfast our […]
Yesterday we visited several of the sites associated with the American invasion of Normandy in June 1944. We didn’t know what to expect; we supposed that they would be touristy and crowded with Americans. Much to our surprise (and delight), it was nothing like that at all. We began by driving to Omaha Beach, below the small village of St-Laurent-sur-Mer. What we found was a long, curving, peaceful expanse of […]
I’m drinking coffee in advance of our second day in Normandy. We had an uneventful trip from Paris, in a great rental car (a brand new Renault Kangoo, which had 4 km on it when I picked it up, and which uses diesel fuel which is not only more energy per km but also less expensive and, best of all, is spacious enough for the four of us). We’re staying […]
Nobody is exactly normal, everyone has their oddities and their quirks. Still, for any particular quality, the normal distribution curve, that familiar bell shape, does exist, and by definition most folks are happily camped out under the comfort of the big dome, while a few stragglers are destined to live their lives under the thin remains of the long tail, far to one side or the other. And the long […]
Yesterday we awoke with no plans, except that we’d arranged to have drinks in the evening with the owners of the apartment we stayed in for 6 months when we were here in 2008. The boys went off on their own again, so Suzie and I had a day to pass in Paris just the two of us. Suzie had researched restaurants on Yelp before we left (she says Yelp […]
It didn’t disappoint, but like all good travel days, this one was improved make more memorable by the several wonderful people we accidentally became acquainted with along the way. I had researched suggestions for the best viewing spot. The Champs Elysees is obvious, since you can see the riders go both ways each circuit, but it is also the most crowded. Several sites suggested the Rue de Rivoli, adjacent to […]
What a great, great day in Paris. Following a good night’s sleep, we got up and out by 11 a.m., slowed down by blogging Dad, and took the Metro to the Opera stop. Our mission — our once-every-trip experience with Orange, the French mobile phone company. We had three phones left over from our last trip, and in order to revive them (and thus be able to let the boys […]
We were not particularly looking forward to the act of travelling to Paris, what with the drive to the airport, the waiting in lines, the passage through security, the waiting to load and, of course, the flight itself. But everything went perfectly, absolutely perfectly — we timed our trip to the airport perfectly, the plane was exactly on time, the flight crew was wonderfully friendly, the food passable, Suzie and I […]
This may not count officially, since we’re still at SFO, already tired and not even yet on the plane, but this is the first blog post from the latest France trip. Already it’s great, hearing people speak German and French and Chinese in the gorgeous new International terminal. Hard to believe we’ll be back in Paris in 12 hours. Wish us luck everyone with the boys on the plane – […]