Paris and the Loire, June 2011

Back to France, finally! I had so looking forward to this trip, and seeing Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris a few weeks ago just made me want to go even more.

We took an 11 PM flight, a new experience for us, and sat upstairs in a 747, also new. The section was fairly empty, and we had lots of legroom and even the chance to stretch out. Not a bad start! Arriving at CDG, we were swept along with the crowds, took the RER and then the métro, and eventually reached our apartment in the 7th, across the street from UNESCO and a short walk from the Eiffel Tower. Quite a residential area, different than where we've been before. After lunch at a corner café and a brief nap, we met friends Pam and Dick for a lovely dinner on Rue St. Honoré. Walking back, we just kept being thrilled to be in Paris.

Next day I took on one of my web site challenges, to explore the many covered passages of Paris. Built mostly in the 1800s, these early "malls" are today home to various shops, restaurants, offices, etc. Many were destroyed over the years, but 17 remain, and their architecture and structure are beautiful. Topped by glass roofs and sporting various tile floors, some like Passage Vivienne, are beautiful, while others are more work-a-day. Passage Brady has lots of Indian and Pakistani restaurants, and nearby Passage Prado has more of same, plus hair salons, shoe stores, telephone stores, and more. They're all interesting and I managed to visit 16 of the 17 that still exist. I will be writing about them on www.paristravelplanner.com, but haven't gotten that done yet.

On Thursday I went to our local market on the Avenue de Saxe. I love French markets! Beautiful produce, meats, cheeses, flowers, fish, and then clothes and hardware and various other things. Bought a few things for meals and snacks at home--we had a great salad lunch on our tiny balcony.

Our friend Stephanie arrived that afternoon and we walked around our neighborhood, enjoying the various views of the Eiffel Tower at each corner. A single leg here, just the top there--always something different to see. She and I continued to visit more of the passages the next day and went back to the Printemps by the Opéra Garnier for lunch in the beautiful restaurant under the dome there.

On the weekend we checked out the famous flea market (marché aux puces) of St-Ouen, near the Porte de Clignancourt. Amazing number of shops and stuff. We managed to get away without buying anything, but with lots of pictures and info for the web site.

Sunday we decided to go to a church service at the beautiful Église de la Madeleine. It turned out to be a special service honoring Scouts, so there were a lot of kids, which was nice, and the sermon was mostly understandable. Afterwards we were invited for refreshments on the terrace of the church. Unlike the coffee hours I am used to, which feature coffee, I was handed a very large paper cup of wine. When in Paris...

That afternoon Stephanie and I decided to visit the Grand Palais to see Anish Kapoor's Leviathan. Here's the story: "Each year the French ministry of culture and communication invites a leading artist to create a work that responds to the exceptional architectural space of the Grand Palais in Paris." The space is 13,500 square meters, and the work was a huge four-armed inflatable structure, the color of eggplant, that filled the space. Most interesting of all, you could go inside one of the big balloons, where you were bathed in red light and saw the structure from the inside. Very cool, but after that we were happy to walk outside for a while. Just before the Invalides we suddenly saw a huge group of roller skaters. Talking to one of them, we learned there is an open skate each Sunday in Paris, for 22 kilometers, that attracts a couple thousand people! Who knew?

Monday--our last day in Paris already? Zut alors! We spent some time writing and working on the site, and had dinner in the Rue de Buci to check out that area.

The next morning, off to the Loire. Train to St. Pierre des Corps (near Tours), pick up a rental car, then lunch and some visits in nearby Vouvray--lovely little village surrounded by vines. On to Amboise, where we found our apartment on the aptly named Rue de la Concorde, just at the base of the amazing Château d'Amboise. We looked out our living room window at one of the grand towers, and looked way up to see the ramparts--it is situated high above the Loire and the town, and towers over all, a beautiful and dramatic building. And what a fabulous location for our apartment--we loved having our neighborhood château!

We arrived on the night of the Fête de la Musique, a celebration of music held on the night of the solstice. Amateur and professional musicians perform everywhere--in tiny Amboise we must have seen and heard at least 6-8 different groups. And because it stays light until after 10 PM in France at the solstice, it was great fun wandering around the streets and finding different music. (And I just learned by looking on line that the fête was first proposed by Boston musician/conductor Joel Cohen, started in France in 1982, and has spread to many other countries.) This was a great introduction to Amboise.

Next day we visited the amazing and beautiful Château d'Amboise and the nearby Clos Lucé, where Leonardo da Vinci lived his last few years, at the invitation of King François I. It was a fabulous place, with a large exhibition of Leonardo's inventions and a large park filled with models of his inventions that you could play with! And by the way, as we drove through Amboise looking for the Rue François Ier, we also learned that our American GPS had a bit of difficulty with French pronunciation. He will always be "Fran-soys One-er" to us!

The next days were filled with château visits--Cheverny, Blois, Chenonceau, Chaumont, Villandry, Langeais, Azay-le-Rideau, and Ussé (supposed model for Sleeping Beauty). You can read about them on the web site when I get them written. All different, all lovely, all great visits. We continued to enjoy exploring the restaurants of Amboise and visited the wonderful local market (held in a large parking lot right next to the Loire) twice. We got very attached to "our château" and enjoyed seeing it from various vantage points, most dramatically from across the Loire at sunset, when it glowed golden.

One evening I went to the Château d'Amboise for the Sound and Light Show. Fabulous! I have described it as about 70% Revels and 30% Smirkus, with horses and fireworks thrown in. It is performed two nights a week in the summer and includes over 400 volunteers from Amboise and the nearby villages. Costumes, music, lighting effects, and dialogue, all in the beautiful setting of the château, combine to make a wonderful show. And I even got my picture taken afterwards with François Ier! A great evening in a magical setting.

All too soon it was time to head home. We drove through the vineyards on our way to return the car, even ended up back in Vouvray for our last picnic, and then took the TGV direct to CDG airport. For reasons I don't understand but don't question, I was able to get us frequent flyer tickets with a return flight in business class. So our last couple hours in Paris were spent in the lovely Air France lounge, sipping champagne and enjoying snacks, and then in our comfortable seats on the flight home, with continuing champagne. I could get used to this...but I can't!

So another trip comes to a close, and we have a ton of work to do on the website. This was our first venture to expand francetravelplanner.com beyond Paris, so there's plenty to do and it will take a while to pull it all together. But we're already thinking of our next trip...As one friend commented, "Paris never disappoints," and I have to agree.