After my international business residency concluded on September 11th, Katie flew over for 6 days of vacation. Madeline stayed behind in the care of her 2 grandmothers. This was a well deserved vacation for both of us and the first time Katie was away for Madeline for more than one night.
We had a wonderful time and found Paris to be a friendly, fun city with lots to do, see, eat, and drink!
We stayed in Le Marais, the 4th Arrondissiment. This is on the Right Bank, between Place de La Bastille in the east and the Pompidou Center in the west, running along the Seine River.
This is the Place de La Bastille. This is a picture of the monument in the center of this square, the Colonne de Juillet which is topped by a golden figure called the "genius of liberty." It is a monument to those who died in the street battles of July 1830 that led to the overthrow of the monarchy. There is a crypt underneath this that contains the remains of 504 victims of that violence as well as in the 1848 revolution.
This is a sqaure, called Place du Marche Saint Catherine, which was just a few blocks from our hotel. The square is just off of Rue St. Antoine.
This is a photo of a small museum called the Carnavalet Museum, also just a short walk from our hotel.
From our hotel, it was a 10 minute walk to Ile St. Loius. This is the island in the middle of the Seine river connected to Ile de La Cite, the island with Notre Dame Cathedral on it and where Paris was founded.
We spend a lot of time wandering the two islands. Ile St. Loius is lined with small shops and restaurants and is particularly well known for an ice cream shop called
Les Glaces Berthillon which should not be missed! Here is a picture of the main street, Rue St. Louis en L'Ile, and an old Citroen 2CV.
Along the river on Ile St. Louis were some grand old homes, all hundreds of years old and immaculately maintained.
While on Ile St. Louis we got caught in a huge downpour and hid in a doorway to a restaurant until it passed in 15 or 20 minutes.
One evening we had dinner at a very informal, fun restaurant called
Nos Ancetres Les Gaulois. You share tables with other diners and fill up your jug of house wine from a wooden cask at the front of the restaurant. The serve a buffet appetizer made of up vegetables and a huge variety of sausages. Your main course is cooked over an open fire in the middle of the restaurant. It was a fun place and big change of pace from the cool brasseries and bistros we frequented.
This is our hotel, the
Castex Hotel. This was recommended in the
Rick Steves' Paris guidebook. We liked the hotel quite a bit and found the location perfect and the rates reasonable. When we booked they were running a special discount rate, in celebration of the 60th anniversary of D-Day, available to WWII European theater veterans, their children and grandchildren. Since my grandfather fought extensively in Europe (beginning from the beaches of France a few days after D-Day, until he was wounded just days before the Battle of the Bulge in Germany) we brought documentation to show this and we granted the special discount. Needless to say, we thought this was an incredibly kind gesture on the part of the hotel and said a lot about its owner.
We stayed in room 2, the door to the right.
On our first night there we dined at
Brasserie Bofinger, which is actually considered a protected national monument in France and which dates to 1864.
One evening we had an outstanding dinner at a tiny little restuarant a few minutes from our hotel in Le Marais. It was called Baracane, located at 38 Rue Des Tournelles. We
highly recommend it - be sure to make a reservation (tel. 01-42-71-43-33).
Another night we dined at
Chez Jenny, a classic bistro service Alsatian food. We had a big plate of oysters (featured at all the bistros during September) followed by a HUGE serving of pork and sauerkraut.
Also close to our hotel was the beautiful Place des Voges. This square, originally called Place Royal, was built by Henry IV in 1605 and it turned Le Marais into an upscale neighborhood. Napolean later renamed it Place des Voges after a region of Germany he counquered. Victor Hugo also lived here when he wrote
Les Miserables.
We had one of our best and simplest lunches here. We picked up 2 grilled panini sandwiches on Rue Ste. Antoine and headed over here to people watch and enjoy lunch.
We spent time seeing art museums of course. The first big one we went to was Musee d'Orsay, which is built in an old train station. Besides the art, much of the best which was impressionist, the building is also a gem.
A view from the museum's clock, looking out onto Paris.
Self portraint, Vincent Van Gough. A man in turmoil.
The next museum was, of course, the Louvre. This is a view from inside the Louvre, looking out onto the square in front of the museum where visitors enter. This was a huge museum and you could easily spend a couple of afternoons here.
Leonardo da Vinci's
Mona Lisa, what everyone comes to see.
In front of the Louvre the Jardin des Tuileries stretches out for some distance. One of the neat little spots was a small pond that children pushed sailboats around using litte sticks.
Nearby in this garden was a cafe, an excellent rest stop.
A golden figure on the rooftop of the old Opera.
Not far from the old Opera is a high end shopping district, with everything from small boutiques to huge department stores. We spent a lot of time shopping at the largest department store,
Galleries Lafayette. We ended up buying some clothing for Katie, as well as a bunch of great clothing for Madeline that was far more stylish than anything you see here in the U.S. for toddlers. Inside the store is a gourmet food market that should not be missed! Next to this food market is a wine store, where I admired some Champagne that cost over $1,000 per bottle.
We took a break in the food market and stopped at a spanish foods stand. We shared a plate of Spanish
Iberico de bellotta jamon, a wonderful Spanish ham which is illegal to import to the U.S. This is from carefully bred pigs have plenty of room to roam in the forests of southwest Spain and are fed a good diet of acorns from corn-oak trees. These pigs get the "bellotta" (acorn) label. The iberico comes from the "pata negra"/blackfooted pig and this blood line is descended from wild boar. The meat is typically cured for 24 - 36 months. Only 5% of the ham produced in Spain is iberian. This ham is extraordinarily expensive but worth it for a real treat. (80 - 140 Euros per kilo)
Here you can see a man carving directly from the aged legs (hoof still attached).
We tried two slightly different varieties of the ham, and paired this with two types of Spanish Manchego cheese and a couple of Spanish beers. It was a
phenomenal meal!!
One day we did a walk along the pretty shops on Rue Cler.
We also headed to the Eiffel Tower and got in line to go up to the top.
Some heavily armed young soldiers guarding over the Eiffel Tower.
Just as we were about to pay for our trip up the Tower, they declared a "fermiture exceptionelle" or exceptional closing, as you can see on the sign. After waiting an hour we and the rest of the crowd were quite disappointed. It turns out that the workers at the Tower were simply exercising their right to strike. The strike was a temporary one and lasted about 1 1/2 days. Perhaps they were upset that their 35-hour work week and 8 weeks of vacation were not generous enough. ;-) Oh well - maybe next time!
We headed over to the Arc de Triomphe after the Eiffel Tower and climbed up to the top, which afforded an excellent view of the area, the traffic chaos below (none of the lanes around the Arc are marked), and the Champs-Elysees.
A building in Le Marais.
On the corner of Rue Castex, the street our hotel was on.
Notre Dame.
Katie took a break while I climbed to the top of Notre Dame.
You can see the flying buttresses of the cathedral below.
The small sprial staircase leading down from the rooftop of Notre Dame.
A photo from the center of one of the original sections of Charles De Gaulle airport, which is strangely 60s or 70s futuristic. You travel on escalators through tubes criss-crossing the open center.
