Beaucoup photos in the Gimlet Gallery.
Between the Paris Marathon and President Sarkozy’s speech, Sunday promised to be a busy day in the city (translation: closed Metro stops and blocked streets). We woke up early to avoid traffic and get out of the city to spend part of the day touring Versailles.
Beaucoup photos in the Gimlet Gallery.
An active Friday with a normal bedtime seemed to settle most of the jet lag issues, and the group was eager to see more of Paris.
With such a large group of teenagers, there were always concerns about noise level in hotels and restaurants and keeping track of everybody when it was necessary to move as one group from place to place. Generally the students didn’t have to be reminded too often to keep the noise down. We only lost one student on the Metro when he missed our stop, but he was able to get off on the next stop and catch the return Metro back to where we were waiting for him. Those of us who were new to the Paris Metro system were delighted with how easy and quick it was to use.
For more photos, visit the photo album in the Gimlet Gallery.
Exploring Paris, Provence and the Riviera in nine days feels like jumping on a moving carousel, so perhaps the best way to describe the experience is to post a dizzying array of images. Hang on!
After a direct flight from Seattle, we arrived in Paris early Friday morning. Our hotel, the Mercure Paris Raspail Montparnasse, was located in a convenient Left Bank location on the edge of the 14th and 6th arrondissements. The rooms were basic, but quiet and comfortable, and included excellent free WiFi service and a complimentary breakfast.
(Word of advice: when traveling in a group of 43 people, most of whom are teenagers, breakfast early to ensure that one of the precious few pain au chocolat finds its way to your plate.)
But the hotel’s location was its most outstanding feature. Two Metro stops (Vavin and Edgar Quinet) were within easy walking distance, or those up to a good, brisk walk could find plenty of nearby sights, shops, and cafes to explore.
A brisk walk was exactly the remedy for coping with jet lag and our tour guide, Angelique, led us past the Fontaine de l’Observatoire into the Jardin du Luxembourg …
While we’re recovering from jet lag, returning to the real world, and organizing memories and thoughts for a proper trip report, here’s an appetizer: a miniature version of the HostelBookers Seven Super Shots game. The game is played by showcasing seven of your best travel photos from a range of themes. Here are seven of my favorite photos from France:
This category has to be the iconic Paris photo: the Eiffel Tower at night. On our first night in Paris, our tour guide, the indomitable and incomparable Angelique, led a sunset excursion to the top of the Arc de Triomphe, where we would have a perfect view of the Eiffel Tower’s night show. At 9:00 pm, “the lady puts on her evening dress”, created by ten thousand sparkling white lights. What a magical end to a long day of travel, and an inspiring beginning to our trip.
When Thing One visited Paris for the first time two years ago, he chose to take several photos of pigeons, and we expressed some regret that his camera contained so many pigeon photos, and so few monuments, or people, or … anything else besides pigeons, really. This year Thing One decided to take even more pigeon photos as a running joke. It should have been no surprise that while I was photographing gargoyles on Notre Dame, a pigeon photobombed my shoot. Mettez un oiseau sur ça!
The perched village of Les Baux in Provence is a windswept, rocky treasure trove: tiny jewelboxes of shops tucked away into the walls, sheltering cafes, and narrow, winding streets. Where do they lead to? And when can I return to explore them?
We toured another perched village, Èze, on the French Riviera. After the steep climb to the top, we were rewarded by the spectacular view of the Mediterranean Sea and the Côte d’Azur. One of the students in our group was resting on the wall, taking in the scenery and enjoying some quiet meditative time.
On a trip to France, this category has to be a photograph of dessert, bien sûr! After a lovely dinner at our hotel in Nîmes, this raspberry-praline picture of perfection awaited us.
We spent one morning on an overall drive around the major sights of Paris, and as our tour bus, along with many others, crept slowly through the Louvre courtyard, a group of rental bicycles rode past us. I leaned against the window and snapped this shot of an older couple, still full of vitality and romance, as their shared journey takes them through this beautiful city.
This eagle’s nest view of Èze on the Côte d’Azur captures for me the dizzying heights, twists and turns of the coastline, the color palette and overall beauty of the region.
Those are my seven super shots from this trip! If you’d like to read some words to go with the pictures, here’s the trip report:
Click to view slide show from Thing One's Paris trip (Quicktime, 22MB)
This is just a sampling of the many, many photos Thing One was able to take before his camera broke. Visit the Gimlet Gallery for your own virtual tour through the City of Lights and the Loire Valley.
To get to Paris we had to fly on two planes. The first flight was from Seattle to Atlanta, and from Atlanta we flew to Paris. We left Seattle at noon on the 25th, and when we arrived in Paris it was about 9:30 am on the morning of the 26th. We stayed in the Hotel Princesse Caroline which is in the 17th arrondissement and very close to the Arc de Triomphe.
After unpacking, we toured the Champs Élysées. I had lunch at a place called Pomme De Pain. Then we rode Le Metro to Montmarte to see the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur.
There were lots of street performers there and we saw lots of tourists falling for a trick: a guy would come up to a tourist with a piece of string and ask him if he wanted to see a trick, then tie the string on the tourist’s wrist. When the tourist couldn’t get the string off his wrist, the guy would make the tourist pay for his string.
On the way, we went past Moulin Rouge (which is very different from the Red Mill at home), and also past Les Deux Moulins, where Amélie was filmed. We rode the Metro back to our hotel and ate dinner at the restaurant Chez Clément.
Saturday was divided between a bus tour around Paris and exploring the city on our own.
Welcome home, Thing One! He’s still a bit groggy from jet lag, and after spending his evenings indulging in pastries and ice cream, he grew another inch taller. It rained almost every day, but that won’t prevent a group of Seattleites from getting out and having fun, so he still had a fabulous time.
The camera we bought for Thing One to take on his spring break trip broke after three days of use. One of his classmates had an identical camera, and hers broke mid-trip too. Looking through online ratings (which we should have done ahead of time) we learned that this particular camera has a reputation for falling apart after about 500 pictures. Luckily the memory card was undamaged, so even though we’re very sorry to miss his visits to Versailles and Giverny, we have about 600 photos to sort through, label and abridge into a travel album for the Gimlet Gallery.
While we work on the pictures (and while Thing One writes his travel report), enjoy a little sampling from Paris. He was playing around with the “vintage” photo setting on the camera when he took these.
Thing One called to let us know he’d arrived safely (at about 9:30 am Paris time) and was settling in well. He says he’s doing pretty well understanding what people are saying and is using his French. So far, so good!
When Bopa visited Paris just before V-J Day in 1945, he remembers entering the city through the Gare du Nord, and the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur at the top of Montmarte hill immediately caught his attention, but nobody could tell him what it was, so he never learned its name.
Sixty-five years later, this impressive edifice would also be one of the first places his grandson would see in Paris. Thing One’s group toured the Basilique and Thing One is bringing back a souvenir commemorative coin to show his grandfather.
We have a lot of catching up to do, and we’ll try our best to get to it all while Thing One is away on his latest adventure: a Spring Break trip in Paris with the school’s French classes and French club. This is Thing One’s third year studying French and it has always been one of his favorite subjects.
The tour lasts nine days, divided between guided tours and independent sightseeing in Paris, and guided excursions outside of the city to places like Giverny, Chartres, Versailles, and the châteaux of the Loire Valley.
The rest of Team Gimlet is trying not to be too nervous about sending Thing One halfway across the world. We keep reminding ourselves that he did quite well on his own last summer. We hope he will take lots of pictures and have many stories to tell when he returns! Meanwhile, watch for new posts about Thing One’s Court of Honor, the family reunion, and anything else we’ve missed.