France

2006

For our 25th anniversary Jim and I went to France for two weeks. We started in Paris where we stayed for three nights in the Latin Quarter at the Hotel des Grandes Ecoles we had a wonderful room with a balcony. Each morning we sat in the garden and had breakfast

Our room, number 114. The only one with a private balcony.

The balcony, a wonderful cool quiet spot to relax and read.

This is the courtyard. Most rooms look onto the courtyard.

This pigeon was nesting outside our room. See the baby? In the morning they were cooing along with what I think must have been a mina bird who was singing it's heart out. Wonderful alarm clock.

We found this nice square, Place de la contrescarpe, where we sat and had lunch at cafe Delmas. We did some people watching. Over the next few days we spent a lot of time here. The day before bastille day they set up a dj in the center of the square and blocked the traffic. It was wonderful to sit, eat, drink, listen to bad old music from the 80's and watch people.

This girl was teaching her brother how to ride a bike. It was hot and she worked hard! There was lots of traffic and she kept a careful eye out.

I took this picture from where we were eating lunch. I had read about this painting in a walking tour guide and it said no one is sure of it's history

We had dinner here. beautiful place with asian inspired french food.

This is our waiter and the owner of Le Petit Prince. She said she would never give away the secret to her potato recipe. Imagine, scalloped potatoes as light and fluffy as a soufle ...with guyere cheese and just a touch of nutmeg. The waiter commented when I took his picture that we could tell everyone, while in Paris we met two fat cows....they look pretty trim to me!

We headed back to the hotel and napped having been awake for 24 hours and needing to get on Paris time. After our 4 hour nap we headed out to dinner. Sleep and eat what a life.

The next day we headed out to the Musee de Cluny where the lady and the unicorn tapistries are displayed. I loved the fig trees in containers in the courtyard and the beautiful well. The sundial on the courtyard wall is nice too.

These walls were once the walls of a roman bath house.

A closeup of a bronze tub

The tapistries are displayed in a large round room with very good light. They are HUGE.

to see more pictures i took of the cluny museum click here

Here is the breakfast area.

After checking in, we walked around the neighborhood. This is the Pantheon. Beautiful neoclassic architecture. Many well known French are burried here. I love this detail of the olive wreaths being passed around and the arms being put down.

This is a detail of the door, I made Jim stand in front of it for perspective.

This is the door to the courtyard off the main street, rue du Cardinal Lemoine.

After visiting the Musee de Cluny we headed towards Tulare gardens where there is a newly restored monet museum. The line had hundreds of people in it so we skipped it and went shopping in some of the HUGE Paris department stores.

St Etienne-Du-Mont

The view from Printemps roof top cafe

This was on one of the store fronts in the fashion district where for some odd reason we couldnt find a place to eat.

Fountain outside metro station

espace r cardin

I loved this "living" trellis

After shopping and going in the wrong direction several times including going down, down, down into what we thought was the metro to find it was a train station and the only way back up was to climb stairs in the humid heat....grrr at least 8 stories... I was fighting the first day of a cold so when we got back to the hotel, I took a nap. While I was napping Jim went out and found the square setting up for a night of partying. He also snuck out and bought me a necklace I had admired. We headed to the square where we sat round eating drinking and people watching for the rest of the night.