Paris in the Spring 2025

We left Paris on Saturday morning, nearly 3 hours late, and missed our afternoon connection which would've put us in around 5:30 p.m.  Instead, we're toughing it out in the Delta Sky Club (one of the perks of our ticket class), and I have a chance to write my final thoughts on our trip of a lifetime.  I asked Cheryl what she wanted me to include and she said that, at first, she wasn't too keen on a month away but that time with family and all the wonderful things we saw were priceless.  I agree. And what of my thoughts to add on our 30 days in Paris?  C’est magnifique!   I’m glad we had the extended time because there was a lot to see and (mostly) I (and occasionally Cheryl) felt our age some times and took things easy.   But, geez, when we did see things, we saw a lot of things. Montemarte (twice).   The Eiffel Tower (up close several times).   Paris views from the rooftop of Galleries Layfayette, the Eiffel Tower, Monteparsne, the Pompidou C...

Friday, April 18 is our last day in Paris.  We leave tomorrow morning for home, and wanted a low key ending to our month here.  That's what we got.   It started for me with a wonderful croissant from Bo & Mei, the corner patisserie that Aaron has frequented for breakfast for the family while he's here.  Cheryl opted for a chia compote and raspberry dish at Eric Kayser down the street where we've had breakfast a few times while here.  Just before we left to go there, Aaron, Melissa, and Chloe left for parts unknown . . . I know they wanted to go to the Musee d'Orsay but were having trouble with getting tickets.  We'll know when they return home this afternoon, as Cheryl and I beat them back to the apartment. Cheryl and I really had only two things on our agenda: a visit to the Oval Room at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (the French national library) just down the street on rue Vivienne, and a walk along the Seine.  In between we went to a...

Fifty miles west of Paris lies Giverny in the Normandy region of France, Oscar Claude Monet's home from 1883 to 1926.  Monet was, of course, a famous French painter and a key figure in the initially scorned impressionist movement.  Impressionism centered on the ability to capture light and atmosphere in landscapes.  One of his most well known paintings in that vein is "Water Lilies". As beautiful as that work and his many others are, Monet was reportedly not a very nice guy.  The locals disliked him as he gained fame and money because he used it on self-centered projects like diverting the local lake (used for drinking water) for his own purposes, and re-routing the railroad so it made less noise on his estate. Today we took the RER (French railroad) for about 75 minutes from the northwest part of Paris to Giverny to see his home and beautiful gardens.  Although the village of Giverny has existed since the fourth century, it was Monet who brought it to fame....

Today, 4/16, was our trip to Versailles, a mere 10 miles from the city center of Paris, but a universe away from what we've been seeing.  It was here in 2009 when Cheryl and I felt like the French wealth surpassed that of England, only to adjust our thinking on a subsequent trip to Russia whose palaces seemed to be the grandest and most opulent display of wealth we've ever seen. Versailles Palace is one spectacular show of wealth, the former royal residence as commissioned by Louis XIV (the "Sun King").  Initially it was a hunting lodge built by his grandfather, Louis XIII.  It underwent extensive construction and expansion from 1661 to 1715, turning the chateau into a sprawling and opulent royal residence featuring 2,300 rooms. In particular, he added the famous Hall of Mirrors and stunning gardens and grounds that are 4x the size of Monaco! To get there, we took the metro down to the meeting point for The Tour Guy, the Sainte-Trinite Cathedral, a beautiful Russian O...

T After our late night at Montparnasse, we were a bit slow getting started today but managed to get out by 10:00 a.m. or so, and headed to the Musee de la Liberation de Paris.  It covers Paris from its capture by the Nazis in 1940 to its liberation (by the Americans) in 1944, and does a wonderful job of explaining the split between the true patriots led by DeGaulle and the Vichy government (headed by WWI hero Phillipe Petain).  While the story of German General Dietrich von Scholtitz ignoring Hitler's orders to burn Paris to the ground is well known, what was certainly unknown to me was the intervening years in Paris between its capture by the Nazis and their eventual leaving as forced by the American army. The site of this quiet museum is also the singular remaining bomb shelter and resistance headquarters left in Paris.  It had been ransacked by looters after the war but painstakingly restored by the French government in 2019 to show what life was like.   It ...

I woke up on a beautiful Monday morning feeling as good as I have this entire trip.  Thank you Lord for big favors to this small person.  Several espressos during the day kept the fire burning brightly.  I didn't think I'd rival Jeff's record of walking 90 miles in one week, but certainly felt fine and eager to get moving.  Before the day would end, Aaron, Melissa, and Chloe would do an impressive 7+ miles while Cheryl and I logged in at about 3.5 - still the most for me in at least a week.  Like James Brown said, "Huh! I feel good!". Cheryl and I ventured out about 10:00 a.m. and headed for breakfast at the nearby Eric Kayser location where she had a berry and chia yogurt while I had a quasi-breakfast sandwich with salmon and egg.  Both were delicious and we plotted our route to the Arc de Triomphe on the metro and set off! Twenty minutes later we emerged from the metro station on Champs Elysees and, voila, there it was in front of us.  And, what a ma...

Cheryl and I basically took Sunday, 4/13, off.  As you know, Sunday is often considered a day of rest, particularly in Christian tradition, as it marks the day of Jesus' resurrection and is seen as a continuation of the Sabbath, a day of rest and worship in Judaism.  In my family, we've got both bases covered proudly.  It was also Jenny, Dave, and the girls' last day here and they left about 2:30 in the afternoon to catch their train back to Nottingham.  Cheryl was, understandably, blue after they left so we spent the afternoon doing what we do best in a typical afternoon - napping.   Before they left, Aaron, Melissa, and Chloe took the girls to get pastries that morning at a nearby patisserie, and then left (sans girls, of course) to go to the Trocadero where they walked around and had a first viewing of the Eiffel Tower as it popped into view from behind a building - a shocking surprise as he described it.  And, soon to follow they saw the Paris Mara...

The last of our brood arrived today.  Aaron, Melissa, and Chloe flew all night from Boston and were here at the apartment by 7:30 a.m. - exhausted from lack of sleep.  To their credit, they mostly made it through the day without a nap, and that's the best way to get acclimated to a new time zone, albeit one that is 5 time zones away from home. After breakfast, all but Melissa, Chloe, Cheryl, and I went to a Wes Anderson exhibition.  He's a 55 year old American director known for his quirky, comical films with flawed characters.  I'm sure you've seen one or more of these such as "Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou", "Rushmore", "Moonrise Kingdom", "Grand Budapest Hotel", and many more.  The exhibit was filled with storyboards, costumes, posters, and other memorabilia and, I guess, it even held the attention of the little girls. While they were gone, Cheryl, Melissa, Chloe, and I adjourned to a nearby cafe for lunch and gave Chloe her f...

Friday, 4/11 saw our departure from Disneyland Paris after the girls had a morning swim at our lovely hotel.  The ride back on the RER (French train service) and Metro system took about an hour total so we got to the apartment about 1 p.m.   After a brief unpacking, Cheryl and I walked to E. Dehillerin, a magnificent cooking supply store where we were on the hunt for a couple of paring knives desired by niece Ashley.  The man who helped us there asked us if we were practicing our French when, after greeting him with the standard "Bonjour", I asked him "Parlez Anglais?"  We stumbled through a few sentences and words and he was happy.  When we consummated the deal, I mumbled "Je  apprécier votre assistance!" (I appreciate your assistance) and he beamed back at me, proud of my efforts to speak his native tongue.  I'm pretty sure if we were here long enough it would become second nature. The weather was stunning, again, and we sat at the adjacent cafe...

We completed our second day at Disneyland Paris today, and once again the weather was spectacular.  It was a bit colder than yesterday, and infinitely  more crowded.  Within earshot one can hear so many languages:  English, French, German, Australian, and others I didn't recognize.  And, once again, the number of dressed up kids was impressive, both boys and girls.   We got a little slower start today as the girls wanted to swim and this beautiful hotel allows children to swim only during certain hours - 10 a.m. - Noon is the one period that fit with our schedule.  Those two are impressive in the water and it makes me reflect back on my learning to swim.   My father told me it was now or never at age 5 or 6 and tossed me into Carroll's pond in Clarksburg.  Dog paddle or die.  I lived and much later even took swimming class at The OSU as one of physical education requirements (along with judo and the gentlemanly sport of badmint...

Disneyland Paris (Parc Disneyland) is where we're spending Wednesday and Thursday, 4/9 and 4/10.  It's about an hour east of our apartment in Paris and we passed through a lot of French hinterlands on the RER, the French railroad that brought us here from Paris.  Although it is only about 20 miles east of Paris' "outerbelt", it took nearly an hour overall from when we left our apartment, boarded the metro, changed trains to the RER and arrived. Open since 1992, it is the second Disney park outside the US and was preceded by the one in Tokyo which opened in 1983.   We had been telling the girls that we were taking them to the spoon museum, even up to the point of sitting in the hotel lobby (Relais Spa) awaiting our transport to the park this morning.  In fact, Dave was spinning a fanciful tale about being able to swim in a bowl of milk after sliding down a giant spoon and the girls were genuinely excited.  When Cheryl and Jenny walked around the corner from ...

Today (Tuesday, 4/8) we returned to Montemarte which we had visited earlier with our friend Connie, and caught up on loose ends.  The weather was, again, absolutely perfect - sunny, about 65 degrees, and not a cloud in the very blue sky.  Our first stop was just outside the metro - the Wall of Love that we had seen earlier with Connie but was closed.  This time it was open and hopping!   The Wall of L ove is  a love-themed wall of 430 square feet in a quiet garden, and  was created in 2000 by artists Frédéric Baron and Claire Kito .  It  is composed of 612 tiles of enameled lava  on which the phrase 'I love you' is featured 311 times in 250 languages.   Each tile is about 8 x 12 inches, with "I love you" ' in all major languages, but also in rarer ones like Navajo, Innuit, Bambara (?) and Esperanto.  It held the girls' attention for about 90 seconds and then they raced off to an adjacent small but charming playground for 4...

For the longest time, the Eiffel Tower (or Le Tour Eiffel to the French) was the world's tallest building (about 81 stories high), with that title initially usurped by our very own Empire State Building .  I t is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel,  whose company designed and built the tower from 1887 to 1889 .  C onstructed as the centerpiece of the 1889 World's Fair, i t also served to crown the centennial anniversary of the French Revolution.  Initially,  it was meant to be temporary. and was  heavily  criticized by France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design.  Since, of course, it has become a global cultural icon  of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels including the 3-star Michelin Jules Verne. The top level's platform is 906 ft above the ground—the highest observation deck  accessible to the ...