Last Day

After breakfast, we headed to L'Orangerie. This is the museum where they have two oval shaped rooms of Monet's water lilies (Les Nympheas) all around. It is amazing how large these paintings were, and the number that he did in this series. We tried to take a lot of photos to give some perspective on size.

After L'Orangerie, we headed to the Rodin Museum and Garden, followed by the Hotels des Invalides. They are very close to each other so you can see the dome of the chapel at Invalides from the gardens. The gardens were very peaceful in the middle of Paris.

Roden's museum and garden

The Thinker with tip of dome of Invalides 

Hotel des Invalides

Napoleon's Tomb inside Invalides

Next stop: Musee d'Orsay. This museum, which used to be a train station, is like a treasure-trove of Impressionist art. Unfortunately it's under construction right now, so they've put all the paintings in about half the space, and it is really crowded. They don't allow photos anymore, which they allowed the last time I was there, so that was a bummer.

After Musee d'Orsay, we grabbed a sandwich and headed to the river to take the Batobus for a bit of a river cruise. The Batobus is an off-and-on type river boat that you can take between a bunch of sites. We just didn't feel like walking anymore and thought it would be scenic, so we hopped on the batobus and did a round-trip down to the Jardins des Plantes and then back up to the Eiffel Tower, and walked home from there.

We stopped in at the Four Seasons George V on the way back to the hotel. The flowers in the lobby were amazing!

Dinner was at Chez Andre on Rue Marbeuf, which was a great place a few blocks from our hotel. We really enjoyed it. I took a photo with the waitress...we noticed during the whole trip that women in France wear really bold and cool glasses, so I decided to wear my glasses the last night.

After dinner, we walked towards the Eiffel Tower. Every hour, they have flashing strobe lights all over the tower, so it sparkles. Its very cool, but really hard to get a photo of! It was a nice ending to our week in France.

Day One in Paris

Slept in today, nice breakfast at the Marriott is included with our room. Then we headed out to begin our exploration of Paris. First stop: the top of L'Arc de Triumphe. Bought 2-day Museum Passes here, these are the best value in France! After climbing lots of stairs, we made it to the top, and had a great view of Paris. Never realized how big this city is, the business district, called La Defense, creates quite a modem sky-line. 

View down Champs Elysees to The Louvre

La Defense

Then we walked down the Champs Elysees to the Louvre. This museum is enormous and totally overwhelming, so we only did the wing with Italian painters so we could see the Mona Lisa. There were massive crowds all around trying to get pictures, luckily Kevin has the new camera with a super zoom lens (and he is tall) so he was able to get a really good shot.

From the Louvre, we walked along the Seine to Ile de la Cite. 

We went into Saint Chapelle, something we probably would've skipped without the Museum Pass, but it was really unique and beautiful, and I would recommend it to everyone. It is a small chapel completed in 1248 by Louis IX with fifteen enormous stained glass windows that tell the biblical story from Genesis to the Apocalypse. 

After Saint Chapelle, we went to Notre Dame. Notre Dame is a gothic cathedral dating back to 1163. This is an amazing cathedral, but unfortunately we were there too late to climb up to the top of the towers for a look at rooftops of Ile de la Cite. After Notre Dame, we needed a break…so we had a glass of wine at a wine bar / restaurant set up on a river boat across from Notre Dame.  

We took the Metro to Le Tour Eiffel and walked through the nearby park. Since we've both been up on the Eiffel Tower before, and there was a really long line, we decided to skip going up. There is some construction going on so good photo ops were minimal…bummer. 

Then we headed back towards the hotel and stopped for dinner at a nice little restaurant Le Petit Marius with lots of seafood dishes. The restaurant is in a really nice neighborhood. Then back to the hotel…we were exhausted!

Hooray for McDonald's...Free Wifi Worldwide!

We enjoyed the morning at Les Moulins de Vontes - it was our favorite choice of hotels for the trip because it was so unique. 

The first stop of the day was Chenonceaux, a beautiful chateau built over the Cher River. This chateau had a lot of history with many kings and queens living there, including Catherine de Medici. The chateau is well-preserved inside and the audio-tour was well worth it. The gardens were also really pretty.

After Chenonceaux, we decided to do a few chateau drive-by's since we had to get on the road to Paris. First was Chaumont. 

Then we drove into the small city of Blois to see its chateau. The chateau at Blois also had a lot of kings who lived there through the years, each one adding his own wing, so that there are four wings to the chateau that all have different architecture. 

From Blois, we drove to Paris…only 14 euro in tolls this time, total bargain! We arrived in Paris at about 5:30 on Friday…turns out this is not the best time to be driving through one of the largest cities in Europe! Kevin is convinced the traffic in Paris is worse than New York, Chicago and Los Angeles (and he's lived in all three cities). He dropped me off at the hotel, the Marriott Champs Elysees, then he drove out to the airport to drop off the Panda, and then he took the train back into the city. I went ahead to meet Mel & Kathy (my Aussie cousins) at dinner, but Kevin didn't make it to the restaurant until about 9 or 9:30! 

Dinner was at Nos Ancetres les Gaulois, a restaurant in very very old buildings (like 600 years old maybe?) on Ile St-Louis. They bring out a huge basket of uncut vegetables so you can make a salad, then choice of meat, then cheeses and dessert. Oh, and there is unlimited wine…you take your table's pitcher to the barrel whenever you're empty. There is a guy with guitar singing, and as you can imagine, this became quite fun and a little rowdy after a couple hours. Mel & Kathy are doing great and we had a nice time catching up. They are on the tail end of their journey, they've already been traveling for about two months, and their next stop is England and Wales. After midnight, the Metro shuts down and so it was nearly impossible to find a cab. Kevin and I walked back to the hotel, about 45 minutes, and Mel & Kathy waited and waited and waited for a cab to get to their hotel. Fun night! 

Mont St Michel & Loire Valley

Today we had a nice breakfast at our hotel La Ramade near Avranches, and then we were off to Mont St Michel. This really is an amazing site. It is a monastery/abbey (also at one point it served as a prison) built on a tiny granite island just off the coast. As you drive up, there are all sorts of amazing views. We toured the abbey, which dates back to about 1200 and walked through the narrow streets full of restaurants and gift shops. 

La Ramade

Le Mont Saint Michel

From Mont St Michel, we headed to the Loire Valley, a little over a three hour drive…which consequently cost 15 euro in tolls!!! WTF. After stopping at a tourism office, which ended up taking 45 minutes because the woman would not stop talking, we headed to our first stop, Chateau de Villandry. This chateau is known for its amazing gardens, many of which are actually vegetable and herb gardens, but unlike a vegetable garden that any of us would have in our back yard! I think we took about 30 pictures of the gardens, and we didn't even bother to go into the chateau!

Chateau de Villandry and its Gardens

Next was Chateau d'Usse. This chateau is the inspiration for the castle in the story Sleeping Beauty. It really does look like a fairy tale castle. We skipped the tour of this one too (ha!) and decided to head into the town of Rigny-Usse to do a bit of wine tasting at a small wine/gourmet shop. This was quite fun and we bought a couple bottles…a Sancerre Sauvignon Blanc and a Chinon Cabernet Franc from Chateau de Grille. Then we stopped at a "boulangerie" (bakery) for some fresh bread and desserts; and at a market for some meats, cheeses and fruits, so we could have a picnic dinner. 

Chateau d'Usse

The Sleeping Beauty Castle

Bridge over L'Indre

La Loire

Our hotel is called Les Moulins de Vontes. It is a bed and breakfast which used to be three old mills on the River Indre, a tributary to the Loire. We ate our picnic dinner outside on a patio next to the water. The hotel owner, Odile, had a glass of wine with us…she used to live in Manhattan and taught economics at Lycee Francaise. She also gave us a bottle of wine called a Touraine Noble Joue…a wine produced by only five wineries in all of France! The location of this B&B is so relaxing, such a great experience. Plus the Chateau de Grille wine we bought was excellent and Kevin can't stop talking about it. Unfortunately you can't ship wine home from France. 

Our B&B Les Moulins de Vontes on the river Indre.

We are in the building on the right.

This picture was taken at 9:30pm...it doesn't get dark here until super late!

Picnic dinner

The view

Tomorrow we will visit a few more chateaux and hopefully a winery if we have time. We will end up in Paris tomorrow night, and we are meeting my Australian cousins Mel & Kathy (who many of you met at our wedding) at a restaurant on Isle de St Louis.  A bientot!!