Trip of a life time!

Ok I know it’s been super long since my last blog post.  Since the last post in July I’ve had 2 Stanford visits with good results.   Leah started high school & Nolan started 7^th grade, which leaves me less than 6 years left of homeschooling.

 

And I’ve put on many flight miles to Maryland, Chicago, St. Louis and Paris!  All have been wonderful and epic trips with family & friends, but the Paris trip was 13 years in the making, so that will be the trip highlighted for this blog post.

When Lisa & I visited Paris in February 13 years ago, we talked about bringing our daughters (then 2 and 1 years old) sometime in the future to Paris.  Last April, Lisa began talking about it & then this fall, the trip was booked for February 2020!!!

We stayed in a lovely hotel in the opera district of Paris.  The girls had their own space upstairs & Lisa and I had ours!

Sunday:  We hit the ground running our first day arriving in Paris Sunday morning.  Our driver, Claude deposited us to our hotel-La Maison Favart.  We were most blessed with the ability to check into our rooms early, rest & clean up before our first tour of the lovely Montmartre (Mountain of Martyrs).  This district of Paris is where we visited quaint shops on cobblestone streets & hiked to the Sacre Coeur Basilica for a tour of this historic church in Paris.  We then found our way to our first Parisian cuisine where we had reservations at Le Moulin de la Galette.  Leah, as our most adventurous eater, tried Escargot.  Mia took a perfect video of the experience for you to enjoy.

We then had a lovely driving tour of the city of Paris at night with all the highlights of Paris twinkling around us.

Monday:  The next morning tour of the Louvre was postponed due to a strike, so we had a leisurely morning to sleep in & catch up from our jet lag.  We met our tour guide, Francoise, outside the Louvre where we bypassed all the long lines after learning all the schools in Europe were on Winter Holiday!  So, it was a bit more crowded than when Lisa & I visited 13 years ago, but still nothing like the summer months! 

After our tour of the Louvre, we made our way to our tour of the Eiffel Tower.  As our tour was ending it began raining and we even got to view a perfect rainbow.  We then made our way to the top of the Eiffel Tower on our own, after waiting in a 45-minute line.  

We had to hustle once we arrived at the top, because we had dinner reservations at La Fontaine de Mars, that we didn’t want to miss!  Our second dinner in Paris, Leah tried duck breast!

Tuesday:  The next day we had tour of the Palace of Versailles, and voila, our tour guide was once again Francoise! Lisa and I had visited this exquisite Palace and it's grounds on our last trip, but on this visit, we also visited the chateu-village on  where Marie Antoinette most often stayed with her children- The Queen's Hamlet.  It was by far my favorite part of the tour.

We then had a free afternoon to check out a fancy indoor mall: Galleries Lafayette, within walking distance of our hotel.  

Dinner was on our own that night and Leah tried a Salad Niçoise with anchovies & shrimp.  We then walked back to our hotel to get ready for our evening show at Le Lido-a cabaret & burlesque show on the Champs-Elysees.  It touts Marlene Dietrich, Eartha Kit, Josephine Baker & Elton John having performed there!  The show was incredible and both girls were impressed…the choreography of the scenes reminded me how much I love watching ballet.

Wednesday:  Our Wednesday schedule was to tour The Catacombs, which opened at 10 am, so we had another leisure morning and found our way to the catacombs only to find a decent line forming.  No worries, we had time, our next tour wasn’t until 11:30. The Catacombs were only supposed to take about 45 minutes to wander through.  But time crept on and we noticed two lines; our line &  one with those who had pre-purchased tickets with a time slot for their tour!  Oh dear….this wasn’t going to be as simple as it was 13 years ago when Lisa & I walked right up to the window, bought our tickets and mostly toured the Catacombs on our own! 

 After some discussion, it was decided to table the Catacombs for another day, and we made our way to meet our next tour guide for some insight on the “street” art of Paris.  It was a very casual, yet informative tour, but a bit on the chilly side.  Once that tour ended, we made our way hastily via UBER to the Pere La Chaise cemetery for our tour of the 120 acres of burial plots!  We visited the graves of many famous French people, who we did not know,  much to the chagrin of our French tour guide.  We also visited the graves of Chopin, Moliere, Marcel Proust.  Unfortunaely the tombs of Oscar Wilde &  Jim Morrison had plexi-glass surrounding them, so one could not get too close, as those were the most popular sites that the public defaced with lipstick, etc. ☹

After our tour, we returned to our hotel to rest our feet & backs; ok…my feet & back…for about an hour or so, before we ventured out in search of a restaurant recommended to us by our concierge for Leah to try frog legs.  We ended up at Roger La Grenouille, a very local restaurant where an older gentleman kindly explained to Leah that “The only way to eat frog legs is with your hands”. Later, when she’d polished off her meal, the same gentleman asked her if she enjoyed them-she did- and then congratulated her and told her she was now “an honorary French woman!”

Thursday:  The next morning, we met Francoise at the Musee d’Orsay for our last tour with her.  

After finishing our time at the Musee d’Orsay, we spent some more time walking the Champs-Elysees and the shops in the Montremartre district that we had toured our first day.  Lisa & I also showed the girls where we stayed during our first trip 13 years ago and showed them that neighborhood…which both Lisa and I agree seemed much “hipper” now than when we visited it 13 years ago!  

We ran into a local café for dinner to get out of the rain that started during our shopping in Montemarte area, where Leah had a seafood medley.  (I mention Leah’s cuisine only because she was the most courageous in her food choices 😊.) 

We also walked along the river Seine for photos for Leah to take and generally had a leisure evening stroll through the streets of Paris.

Friday:  On our last full day in Paris, we took a tour of Chateau de Fontainebleau, where many of the French ruling dynasties spent time there as a hunting lodge dating back to 1137.  The lodge had been expanded on throughout the centuries.  We finished the tour at a nearby Boulangerie for lunch and then returned to Paris.

We had thought we’d go check out the Catacombs, but after talking with Francoise, Freddy, our concierge at the hotel and our driver, Claude, we learned the Catacombs have become so popular that people have had to wait 3-4 hours if they didn’t pre-purchase timed tickets!  Lisa & I decided it wasn’t worth the wait or the committed time.  We chose to spend our last afternoon touring the Arc de Triomphe, (which we learned on this trip you can go inside & to the top!) and we also toured the Palais Garnier Opera House with its opulent décor. 

We returned to our hotel to rest, pack and get cleaned up for our last evening in Paris.  We then made our way along the river Seine.  After a leisure stroll through some shops, we made our way to board Le Calife, our dinner cruise for the last “hurrah” of our Paris adventures.  We were the first guests to arrive & our reservations had us seated at the best table on the boat!  We were greeted by the friendliest of staff and offered Champagne to get the evening started.  We dined on a traditional French course meal  (there were  a couple of selections per course), and we cruised in style along the river and saw some of the famous monuments all lit up including the Eiffel Tower, the Musee D’Orsay, the Louvre & more. 

The dinner was exquisite & all four of us agreed it was the perfect ending to this magical trip.

 

We all made it home to the states healthy & well.  The only downside of the entire trip was my misplacement…ok…losing- the SD card from my camera that had the first 3 ½ days of our trip on it 

☹.  Leah was my photographer and she filled one card up & then gave me the SD card for safe keeping after switching it out with another card.  It is so safe-that I can’t remember where I put it!  

We searched high & low in Chicago & even Lisa even contacted our hotel; to no avail.  Alas-many photos were lost-but we’ll always have our memories. Most photos on this blog were courtesy of Mia & Lisa (especially the ones with us in them-as Leah's photo were more "scenery").  Thank the Lord for iPhones!

This was an amazing trip that will not be forgotten and is definitely one for the books!