Twirling Across Paris

In thinking about what to bring on this trip, we each had one rolling suitcase (a large carry-on size) and a backpack, plus one extra duffel for the stuff we simply couldn't squeeze in elsewhere. Planning the clothes (see earliest posts) was a challenge, but one thing that was not hard to figure out was that Julia and Jenny would bring their Twirlygirl dresses.

These dresses are very comfortable, very pretty, reversible (it's two dresses in one! Handy for when the gelato drips), and rugged enough to withstand the punishment a trip like this would dish out. The best feature of a Twirlygirl dress is that they twirl beautifully, which can improve the mood of anyone within viewing distance (not to mention the Twirler herself).

A la Champs Elysees (at L'arc de Triomph)

Stopping Traffic in Central Paris

How to make an impression at the Eiffel Tower
Metro vent gratings give a little "Marlyn Monroe" effect to the twirl




At the end of a long day of site-seeing, the twirling got these two girls to smile!

If you want to learn more about Twirly girl dresses, just check out their great website:

http://www.twirlygirlshop.com/

Cynthia, who runs Twirlygirl Shop, has fantastic customer service and is very excited about the dresses and the beauties that wear them.

Additional Stuff from Paris

We did eventually get to climb Notre Dame towers; twice. The first time was in the day, the second at night. Here we are in front of Notre Dame in daylight, hamming for the camera. This was the day we went to the Rodin Museum and, in the background, the gilded top of Napoleon's tomb.
Here was Notre Dame from up top at night. This was one of the most beautiful sights on the whole trip- Paris on a lovely summer night.

The Seine at night (handheld)
Tour Eiffel and Napoleon's Tomb from Notre Dame at night

Home

It may be cliché, but home is where the heart is. We woke up at 5:15 AM today, but Jenny woke up at 3:30 AM. Our beds feel SO GOOD to us. Too bad we can't sleep right.


A few days later...

Time to go back and add photos and additional comments, now that internet access is "free" and I can use a computer keyboard rather than typing on the iTouch iPod.

If you have been reading the posts, scroll back through and look for photos you haven't seen. There, you may find new text.

Enjoy. I will then try to cover how re-entry has gone so far (it is now Sunday, July 20). Suffice it to say, all the little things you might think about in a month of being at home came back to us in the middle of the night, all at once. Ouch.

Bastille Day

July 14
After adventuring to Versaille, we came back to Paris and met up again with the Carlson Whites, who had arrived via car from Chamonix and Dordone, where they reported great times and the near purchase of a retirement cottage (yet another thing Rick Steves' books get right. In fact, just go to his site: www.ricksteves.com and get it over with; Rick is the only to go in Europe). We made plans for a not too early start the next day to see the Eiffel Tower. As it happened, the 8:30 wake up time came a bit early, as we have realized we are getting weary; all this fun for such an extended periods wears you down. We ride the RER train to the "Tour Eiffel" stop, climbed out into bright sun blinking, and saw the top of the tower peeking above the apartment building nearby. We walked around and Voila!

What a structure! It is so massive. We waited in line for the stairs, watched French military aircraft fly by in formation (Bastille Day!), and saw heavy police presence. After paying for our tickets, we climbed to the first level, where Julia mailed a couple of postcards in the post office there. We then climbed to the second level, then Brendan, Rollie and the four kids rode the elevator up to the very top, while Annie, Christe and Dick went down to level one for sanwiches and beer. While waiting in line after enjoying the view at the top, Julia and Owen were overheard discussing colleges they expect to attend; Owen plans on Cal or Stanford, and Julia says Harvard (with a year abroad in Paris at Sorbonne), then U.C. Davis for vet school. The woman in front of us in line, from Mississippi, expressed shock when she turned around and saw the age of the kids talking. She said she couldn't get her kids to consider college. I said we always encourage them to dream big.

Eiffel Tower looking down from level one

French Military Helicopters in formation over Paris Hi!
The four kids at the very tippy top, nearly 1,000 feet up!
Jenny's gelato face
More views from the top of the Eiffel Tower



After visiting the very top, we all came back down to level one for lunch. It was wonderful; warm, but not hot, the sun was out but we were shaded, the food was great, and it was surprisingly uncrowded. I contemplated catching a pigeon in mid-flight, which is entirely possible given their acclimatization to people there, but decided it wasn't worth the effort.

After lunch, we parted ways and took the train to the Musee D'Orsay stop, then walked to L'Orangerie, which houses the really big Monet Water Lillies (two rooms of them),
plus a large collection of other famous Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings. We spent about 25 minutes in the place (thanks to our Museum Passes), and left satisfied we'd seen the good stuff. Then we went home and took much needed naps.

We rounded out the day with a big family dinner for nine outside at Le Twickenham, a great restaurant on Blvd. St. Germain de Pres. A beautiful way to end a wonderful day in one of the greatest cities in the world.

Paris and the ominous black door

But it was not a mistake at all; we had reached our apartment. We had found it on Vacation Rentals By Owner (VRBO), and the owner, Pascal Zytomirsky, is a great guy with some well located apartments. Ours is back behind the craziness of Rue De La Huchette, which is a bit like Fisherman's Wharf combined with old town Paris. In this picture, the Notre Dame gargoyle is about to "eat" the street.
Here's a shot of the typical night time scene on Rue De La Huchette. Our place (the black door) is right beyond the blue greek resturant on the left side of the street. Those are the Carlson Whites in the center of the frame.


Our building is likely 500+ years old. Thankfully, it is quiet back here except when the guy upstairs is giving dancing lessons, which, if we've heard correctly, sometimes turn into "dancing lessons" (wink). This is Paris, after all.

Since we arrived, we have had many croissant breakfasts, at €1.1 each, from the local boulangerie. We have also done some sight seeing:

July 8
The outside of Notre Dame cathdral (after getting settled)
Jenny twirls at Notre Dame



Annie and the Girls


July 9
Musee D' Orsay, to visit Monet, van Gogh, Matisse, Manet, Renoir, Pizarro, and our other Impressionist friends. We got particularly excited when we saw works we have in our "Go Fish For Art" card game.
van Gogh


Jen hams it up (surprising, no?)




Another van Gogh


Jenny took lots of pictures


Julia finds some art she can stand behind


July 10
Rollie's dad joined us. We saw the amazing stained glass at St. Chappelle,
St. Chappelle stained glass will amaze youand the inside of Notre Dame. We had hoped to climb the tower, but the line was too long.

July 11
Tried to climb Notre Dame, but line too long again, the Archeogical Crypt (ever wonder what Roman and pre-Roman ruins are under Notre Dame?), the Carnavalat Museum (includes 7000 year old canoes from before Paris was a city... or even a town), and the Pompidou Center for more modern art
Julia and Jenny endure the Pompidou... barely.


After an early dinner, we went to the Louvre late to see Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa,

Venus and the Girls

Mona and the girlsthe other five Da Vinci paintings and Napolean's apartments. Nice digs!
Napoleon's Dining Room Table


July 12
We took the amazing Paris Metro to the Rodin Museum,which Julia and Jenny found to be as dull watching Jello set. We did manage to get Julia to pose as The Thinker.
We then walked over and explored Napoleon's Tomb.
Little guy; BIG marble coffin.
That night we got all dressed up, hopped the Metro to the Opera Garnier, and watched the Paris Ballet perform a great show in an opulent theatre/opera house built in 1669 and since provided with a ceiling painted by Marc Chagall. Sometimes during the quieter moments, you could hear and even feel subway trains rumbling underneath.

July13
We left Dad in Paris and took the train out to Versailles. Once again, Rick Steves' advice saved us as we walked past the 200 yard long line for tickets, flashed our Paris Museum Passes, and walked right in. At Versailles, we toured the Chalet,

The Hall of Mirrors

Inside the chalet (aka "The Big House") at Versailles

Jenny tries out for a hard rock video at Versailles

The Girls get funky at Versailles
paid €12 to enter the gardens while the fountains were spraying to amplified music (it WAS impressive)ate lunch, Annie waited in two very long lines for woefully underwhelming women's toilets, ate gelato (priced half a euro per scoop differently 200 yards apart?), and toured the Grand Trianon, where the king would go to get away from the hectic life up at the "big" house. Feeling tired of walking and of being upset about inadequate restroom provisioning*, we caught the very end of the big fountain finale, and hoofed it to the train station for home.

*After our return to the States, Julia was reading a fictionalized account of Marie Antoinette's life, based on historic documents, titled The Royal Diaries, Marie Antoinette, Princess of Versailles, by Katherine Lasky. In it, she found this passage: "May 22, 1770. How shall I ever accustom myself to the stink of Versailles? It is unimaginable. They have not enough privies for all the people who mill about. There are upwards of six thousand people who have business here every day. There are five times as many nobles here as were ever at the Hofburg and not one third the privies. People relieve themselves in the corners of the corridors." Needless to say, Annie feels vindicated!

Paris is a beautiful city...

Which means photos would really add to this tale. The problem is that I am typing on an iTouch iPod that has WiFi capability, but I have no way to connect my camera to the iTouch to post photos. As powerful as this gizmo is, I can' t use it that way.

So, our arrival in Paris...

First, it was raining very lightly, which we welcomed because it meant the temperature was finally back in the reasonable range- mid70s to low 80s, rather than the 90-100+ range we'd experienced in much of Italy. From the Paris Bercy train station, we followed Rick Steves guidebook advice and chatted with the friendly Traveler's Information (TI) desk at Bercy. These were the first of many people to respond to my high school French in perfect English without even a hint of an accent. The TI folks gave us directions to the Metro, where we bought passes for us adults and packets of tickets for the kids (becAuse Rick said it is cheaper to do it that way- I would not travel to ANY country in Europe without the Rick Steves' guidebook for the country- he has saves us thousands of dollars and 50-75 hours with his tips). We then went through the turnstyle, where I promptly got trapped- me on one side, my suitcase on the other (I did not let go). A Metro guide (they hire French college kids to greet and orient disembarking train passengers) set me free. We Metro'd to our station, lugged our rolling bags up out of the ground and saw we were in the very heart of Paris! Blinking at the brightness, we found our way to Rue De La Huchette, then wandered between small restaurants, souvineer shops and other businesses looking for soething that resembled an apartment builing.

What we found was an ominous black door, with a brass handle and a keypad on the side, wedged between two small restaurants. When we pushed the door open, a dark passage way yawned at us, and I started to wonder what kind of huge mistake we had made.

We arrive in Paris!

As anyone tracking these sparse postings can tell, we have been away from the Internet for a while. We had access in Tuscany, but it was very expensive, and given the busy schedule we and the Carlson Whites had together there, time to sit and blog was short. I'll try to catch up, and post just a few of the over 1,000 photos we have taken.

But a quick itinerary catch up is in order.

From Verona, we took the train to Firenze (Florence), rented a car, and drove south to the little town of Bucine. There we checked in to our 8-person apartment in a villa and vineyard called Borgo Iesolona.

Our first dinner at Borgo Iesolana
It is a great place with a nice pool that the kids made lots of use of. From there we made day trips to such Tuscan hill towns as Montereggione,

Us and the Carlson Whites outside Monteriggione


Brendan takes a breather in Montereggione





Siena (for the Paleo trials)

A Real Horse at the Palio Trials in Siena





San Gimignano (authentic town with huge stone towers and a Disneyland cheap feel to it)

San Gimignano from the highest tower


Montepulciano (where the Brunellos are amazing)

Brunello shopping and Tasting in Montepulciano





Cortona (our favorite and most authentic), and finally to Orvietto, which is actually not Tuscan but Umbrian, and has been occupied for over 3,000 years. But we never forgot to enjoy our time back at Borgo Iesolana.
The pool at Borgo Iesolana

A relaxing evening in Tuscany

We also did a day trip to Firenze to see Michelangelo's The David, which we sneaked a coupla of photos of, but I do not have them with me in this internet cafe. We climbed inside the dome of the Duomo

The Firenze Duomo Climb and View






for a great view of the old city and a cool breeze (it was very hot, 90s to over 100 the whole time in Italy). We also saw amazing paintings in the Uffizi, including works by Bottecelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and outside by the famed Italian genius Gelato. We also ran into our villa next door neighbor from Minnesota three times. We started to think she was stalking us.

After a great time in Tuscany, we said goodbye to the Carlson Whites with a "see you in Paris", and returned the rental car in Florence, then trained it to Monterossa in Cinque Terra, which is like Santa Cruz, but a thousand years older, no real trees, and with beaches made of marble pebbles and the warm, very salt waters of the Mediterranean Sea. We then had to make quick changes due to an impending train strike (they schedule these for 24 hours, and some trains still run), so we ended with about 14 hours in Milan. We saw and climbed that Duomo, enjoyed the works of Gelato again, and shopped for clothes ( that Jenny!). At near midnight last night our train left Milano for Paris, and here we are now.

We'll try to add some more photos soon, but right now Notre Dame awaits!