The adventure started off with me meeting my parents at Charles de Gaulle airport around 6:30 pm or so. I had the relative ease of taking a train (standing room only), a metro (standing room only) and the RER B (with plenty of space and two accordion players). My parents had all the fun of two flights and some missing baggage. Fortunately their bags had made it onto the next flight and we only had to wait two hours. So we drank some wine and ate some of the quiche I had made and carried with me. It was so good to see them - and like no time had even passed. We acquired our rental car and started the drive to Reims - only getting lost 1.5 times (I say 1.5 because the second time we were only slightly turned around in a city full of one-way streets). We started the next day with a lovely walk through Reims - which was full of snow - and eventually found the cathedral. Reims is a lot like Orléans, except the cathedral is way cooler.
Apparently, this was the cathedral used for a great majority of royal coronations - and it’s pretty nice. But the very best part about this place is the stained glass windows. I’m a big fan of stained glass, but this cathedral has extra special stained glass - it’s made by Marc Chagal! Who might just be my favorite painter/stained glass maker! The windows are that very special Marc Chagal blue and just amazing. Photo’s can’t do it justice, but here’s one anyway:
That afternoon we had a really amazing lunch (hot tartiflette for Mom and boeuf bourgignon for Dad and I) and a champagne tour/tasting. We lucked out and ended up with a private tour - which was really cool and very informative. On our tour we got to check out the really cool chalk mines that used to be where champagne was made and stored and taste 3 (or 4?) really lovely champagnes. In summary: Reims is amazing!
That afternoon we headed to our next destination, Strasbourg and Colmar. We were staying in the very cute town of Colmar in order to check out the internationally famous Strasbourg christmas market. On our drive we almost went to Germany (the autoroute is very confusing) and drove through some very interesting weather. We finally arrived to an adorable and snowy town where we did the tourist thing and tried to drive in a pedestrian only zone (quite exciting!). We did finally manage to find a place to park the car and after a low key dinner called it a day. The next morning we headed for the Christmas market by train - driving in France is really a headache - and were really surprised to discover that a) Strasbourg is HUGE and b) it’s not just one Christmas market, but 12 different markets spread all over the city. We were in for a day of grazing, browsing, feeling overwhelmed, some pushing and shoving and some very cute but a lot of generic Christmas gifts. We did a lot of shopping and had a very fun, but very exhausting time. Here are a few of the pictures:
Really cool building all decked out for Christmas
The beautiful Strasbourg cathedral
My failed attempt to photograph the christmas market sign - there were just too many people!
We all enjoyed the market and found some great gifts there, but it was quite an exhausting day! There were A LOT of people, most of whom seemed to be in that moment of Christmas shopping panic - and who hasn’t been there? I had been hoping to discover a lot of really unique handmade gifts - and we did find a few - but the market reminded me a lot of the Orléans one - some local food products and a lot of commercial items. Fortunately, unlike the Orléans market, there was a very cool Russian market and some really neat Alsace themed items. All in all, a lot of fun, but very exhausting.
We took a late afternoon/early evening train back to Colmar and were delighted to discover that the Colmar market was just as adorable as the Strasbourg one, but much smaller. It was especially cute because night had fallen and everything was all lit up.
In an unbelievable feat of resilience we did even more shopping! I also finally found a hot food stand selling Alsatian Choucroute - which I had been intrigued about since writing my thesis - here’s the quote from Jack Kerouac’s Satori in Paris:
“I ask my counterman what’s real good and he says Alsatian Choucroute
which he brings - It’s just hotdogs as chew like butter and have a flavor
delicate as the scent of wine, butter and garlic all cooking together and
floating out a cafe kitchen door - The sauerkraut no better’n Pennsylvania,
potatos we got from Maine to San Jose, but O yes I forgot: - with it all, on
top, is a weird soft strip of bacon which is really like ham and is the best
bite of all.”
So I ordered the medium and very happily and hungrily devoured a lot of sauerkraut with bits of sausage and hot dog strewn about. Very good! Afterward we had another really lovely dinner - I remember having just a chevre chaud salad - which is a regular salad with mild goat cheese melted on slices of toast and this one included a little drizzle of honey -- which is super good. My Dad had some kind of wild game - boar? - and I can’t remember what my Mom ate. I’m sure it was good, whatever it was.
Here’s a picture of adorable Colmar from our hotel room window:
The next morning we left the beautiful Alsace region (Before going though, mom and dad made a quick visit to a butcher shop to get the meat for Christmas dinner and managed to find the best on in town and got some phenomenal meat - sometimes France is the luckiest place in the world) for the tiny town of Beaune in the Burgundy region - which is very well known for its wine and cuisine. We had planned, in essence, to simply enjoy both. We arrived in the afternoon and after quickly checking into the hotel headed straight for a wine tasting. And what an experience! Now, as you may or may not know, as a family we really do love wine. We’ve taking something of a liking to going tasting (we like the wine, not necessarily the culture). We’ve visited, a couple of times, the wine regions in southern Arizona, as well as a tasting or two in northern Arizona. Last Christmas we squeezed in a tasting in Napa valley (which was excellent) and I’ve made a personal point to taste the wine of every place I visit (as long as they produce it). So, needless to say, visiting Burgundy was a big deal. We had signed up for the 5 senses tour at Bouchard Aine et Fils - which we quickly learned is one of the best wine houses in Beaune (propaganda or no, we didn’t disagree). We got to taste a couple of different bottles while seeing the cellar and learning about how all 5 senses play into wine tasting. We smelled jars of things (like cassis, leather, and some dirt that was supposed to represent smoke), felt different textures to simulate the feel of wine in the mouth, learned about the different colors of wine in relation to age as well as learning about the distinctions given to wines according to quality in France and, most of all, had a great time. We got to taste different years and blendings and finished with an absolutely amazing taste from a Grand Cru (the best) as well as some local cassis. Our tasting price included a free bottle each and we added two bottles of cassis (which is a liquor local to the region made from red currants - something I had only read about before coming to France). All in all, a wonderful experience. And here’s Dad with the spoils:
After our amazing experience we headed into the main part of town to aimlessly wander and take a look at the Beaune hospice. We were rather hungry and ducked into a cheese shop - which happened to be the most amazing one in town - and I kindly asked for a mild and hard cheese as well as a mild goat cheese (for Dad). The woman behind the counter was so sweet, recommended some great cheeses and gave me small amounts of each - paired with some fresh bread it was a picnic fit for kings. I’m still kicking myself that I don’t remember the name of the cheese - because it was outstanding. After eating we managed to find the hospice. What a cool building (and history!):
It was created to give the sick and dying a place to live and housed everyone from the very poor to the wealthy. Each patient had a bed and was looked after - for a long time! If I’m not mistaken I believe it closed it’s doors in the 1980s! It kinda gave me the creeps, but it was really cool to see. Dad especially loved all the wooden furniture.
Afterward we took short naps and headed to dinner. What an amazing experience! Burgundian cuisine is one of the big ones in France and widely loved all over. We weren’t disappointed. Well, I did have some serious food envy. As an appetizer my mom managed to pick the single best dish ever. Eggs poached in red wine served over beautifully browned toast in a pool of wine based gravy. Absolutely unbelievable. Being the amazingly generous person she is, she kindly shared with us - which might be the very most selfless thing one could do. I don’t think I would’ve been so kind. The main dishes were also great, and dad had a dessert that actually made him cry - pears poached in red wine. We also had a bottle of great wine and some lovely aperitifs - including a true kir (Burgundy white wine layered over cassis - amazing). It was a meal to write home about - and one that I wish I could repeat every day.
The next day was Christmas eve and after some food shopping (for Christmas dinner) we headed toward Orléans. After some exciting in city navigation (I never realized how many streets in this city are one way - when you walk everywhere you don’t have to think about it!) we arrived chez moi and had a good laugh about just how ridiculous my stairs really are. We spent the evening relaxing - and mom and I bought a nice warm baguette and did some wandering while dad napped (or, as he claimed, read). We had a phenomenal Christmas eve dinner of filet mignon and headed to bed.
For Christmas day we had invited assistants who couldn’t go home to join us for a dinner, so after opening presents we started in on the cooking. Now, I don’t have the world’s biggest apartment - and only the essential cooking tools - so it was quite an adventure in cooking everything. But we got it all done and had a really wonderful meal with great company. We took a walk that evening and I got to show off little Orléans - we saw the Cathedral and the Loire as well as my favorite gal, Joan of Ark.
The next morning dad did laundry, while mom and I went shopping for some apartment items (a dresser and a thing to put my oven on - it’s no longer on the table!) which they very generously paid for. I have to say, I don’t actually know what I did before I had that oven stand - it’s really much nicer and less crowded now. In the afternoon we took a drive to Chenounceau and got an unintentional tour of the countryside (once again, the autoroute is really confusing). We had an hour to see the giant chateau - so we did the high speed version of the tour and then spent some time enjoying the incredible sunset:
Afterward we assembled some furniture and prepared for the long drive to Mont St. Michel the next day. I was asleep for a lot of the drive, so unfortunately I don’t have many details to report. We did however take a very lovely scenic route (intentionally) and reached Mont St. Michel an hour before the abbey closed - so we did another speedy tour and then took our time exploring the rest of the island. We took a really cool back route on the way down and even explored some of the areas which must have been used for defense (i.e. regularly spaced small holes in the rock/stone wall). It was really cool and my dad took a lot of great photos:
That night we had a sad dinner (the island is pretty much a tourist thing, so great food - sadly - really doesn’t exist) complete with a handful of faux-pas: walking in through the back door, making a bit of unintentional noise, me ordering an after dinner liquor for an aperitif by accident, later adding an aperitif when I realized my mistake as well as adding on oysters - which is possibly the hardest word to pronounce in French - after we had ordered all our food. So we were definitely tourists - oh well, at least we left a tip (also can be read as a faux-pas) and had a good laugh about it.
The next morning we took off for Paris - which was more of a driving adventure than we anticipated. We had rented the car from the Charles de Gaulle airport and we planned to return it there and then take a taxi into the city (too much luggage to take the metro, and not worth the effort). So we get to the airport after only a little excitement and then ask about the price of a taxi into the city. The rental car people - who were very nice - told us that we could just take the car into the city and drop it off there. Which didn’t sound like too bad a deal - except for the fact that we’d have to drive in Paris. Now, Phoenix has some crazy traffic, but it’s pretty much a walk in the park compared to the City of Lights. But my mother being the brave soul she is said that she could do it. And so that’s exactly what we did. From the airport we had to take the ring road that goes all around Paris. Imagine the worst freeway you can think of, add a stick shift, road signs in a language you don’t speak, traffic rules that may or may not exist, a map that is too general to be helpful and the worst traffic jam you’ve ever seen... now make it twice as bad. This is what my mom drove through. And she did it marvelously! When we finally made our way to our exit, we had the added excitement of having to go a bit of a ways into Paris. Now this may not seem like much to you, but it was horrifying (at least from the back seat). We were driving on one of the major boulevards - which looks like it should hold 3 lanes of traffic and instead holds somewhere between 5 and 6. Also, I feel I should explain that the French driver in Paris sees other cars as a form of competition. The closer they can get to you and the quicker they can cut you off the happier they are. Pedestrians think they are better than cars and are liable to hop into the street whenever they want. Taxi’s are probably trying to run you over (both as a pedestrian and in a car), the horn is your best friend. If you show any sign of weakness your probably going to be taken advantage of. Amazingly we got through all this, only made one wrong turn (which wasn’t a catastrophe, and happened because we were suddenly in a turn lane) and managed to find a parking space about 100 yards from our hotel. It was, single handedly the most amazing piece of driving I’ve ever seen! But the fun wasn’t over yet. We still had to return the car. There was a return place about 1/2 mile away by the gare montparnasse. We had an hour to bring the car back on time - it should have been a walk in the park. Well, the car return place didn’t have a sign - all I had was an address (which kinda didn’t make sense) and we didn’t expect to find a ton of traffic both human and otherwise as well as an amazingly complex bit of road. I’m going to make a long story short and say that we managed to get the car back with 5 minutes to spare. We finally found the return place tucked inside a parking garage on the -2 level. Impressive team work indeed and a very impressive display of driving+navigating skills - I think we only broke one traffic law and I think we might have returned the car through the service entrance (we also parked it in a small alcove thing because we couldn’t figure out how to find a parking space but the car made it back on time. It was a good car, but we didn’t miss it.
Exhausted and hungry (and therefore slightly grumpy on my part) we ended up in a French chain restaurant specializing in mussels - and it was really good.
The next day we had a little day trip of going to Chartres cathedral, located just a bit outside Paris. Chartres is a phenomenal cathedral - and I think my very favorite - more for sentimental reasons than anything else. Four years ago when I first visited France one of the very first things we did was visit the Chartres cathedral - and it was a moment of pure bliss for me. I had learned about the cathedral in a fabulous art history class and couldn’t wait to see it. As a group we had an amazing tour and then, just before noon on a Saturday we made the climb up the bell tower, arriving on the landing just as the bells for Saturday mass started ringing. It was a windy but warm day and the bells were going and going and we could see for miles and in that moment I fell in love with France. So, a return trip was greatly anticipated. It was rainy and cold, but I was still happy as a clam to see it.
The interior, was, as always phenomenal. The cloudy skies actually allow you to better see the colors of the stained glass, but you miss out on the affect of the dancing light.
The very most exciting part of the visit was discovering that they are really, super cleaning the inside and outside of the cathedral. Most cathedrals start off white in color and then slowly turn gray (thanks to pollution etc.) so as amazing as they are today, imagine them in glowing white! Here’s an example of the glowing white inside:
And of old and clean:
Cool right?!?
Oh yes, I was overjoyed. I really do LOVE cathedrals, especially those constructed in France during the gothic period (both high and low). I probably should just give up everything and spend my life giving tours of French gothic cathedrals. Wouldn’t be such a bad way to make a living... (just a bit cold in the winter)
After our wandering we had a nice little lunch at a nearby brasserie and then after a look in the stained glass museum we took the train back to Paris. I can’t remember what we did in the afternoon, but that evening we had an incredible dinner. If I remember correctly, Dad and I shared some escargot for an appetizer and mom had a soup or something eaten with a spoon? All I remember is that it was delicious. The main course was equally impressive. Mom had a spanish inspired pork dish and I had some kind of a stew with prunes and wild mushrooms. My memory is failing me here, but all I know is it was a phenomenal meal (contrary to my lacking description) and that I ate until I felt I might explode. Dad ate even more.
The next day we went to Versailles - which was an experience and a half. First of all, I think the whole world was there to visit it. We had purchased museum passes - which we were told by the Rick Steves would let us skip right to the front of the line - but it turns out that there was a separate, ridiculous line for “bag check”. It only took an hour of standing in line, which you would never believe when looking at the size of it:
When we finally got inside it was, of course, amazing - but so full of people that you couldn’t hardly see anything. It became something of a game of people dodging, but nonetheless it was amazing. Here’s some pictures:
When you see just how opulent the place is, you understand why the French people wanted a revolution - considering that most of the people were living with very little, having to struggle to eat. While Versailles is really amazing to see, in some ways it makes you feel a little sick - it is overwhelmingly lavish. It really is an example of how power can really go to your head.
We decided against touring the grounds of Versailles - they’re massive - and instead took a quick look at the gardens and enjoyed our very hilarious lunch:
You can’t really appreciate how squashed that sandwich is until you see this:
That afternoon we went to the Cluny Museum - which is a medieval museum and super awesome. Our museum passes worked wonders and we got to jump the whole line and go right in. The very best part of the museum - in my biased opinion - was the stained glass exhibit. They had panels from Saint Chapelle and you could see them up close and personal. I really had never noticed the incredible detail put into each image. Since the normal method of stained glass viewing is from far away (i.e. you’re on the ground and they’re high up in the air) you really don’t get to appreciate the incredible details. Check it out:
Cool right? That’s just one panel! So think about it in this context:
That’s the alter of St. Chapelle - not even the side panels. That’s amazing!
That evening Seamus got back from Ireland and met up with us to celebrate New Year’s. That night we went to a very famous restaurant with amazing place mats that were images of celebrity’s signatures, a sarcastic waiter and adequate food. Nothing to write home about - except the place mats which we saved.
The following day was New Year’s Eve and we started the day with a trip to the Louvre. Apparently, NYE is the day to visit - but our museum passes saved the day once again and we got to go to the front of the line. Seamus, being an EU citizen under 25 got to get in for free - and since he was with us, to jump the line too. Here’s the photo story:
We had a brasserie lunch and then we all went back to the insanity until closing time. We went back to the hotel, had a nap and then started in on our NYE adventure. We wanted to eat before getting there, but after waiting to be seated for 30 minutes decided we didn’t have time and jumped on the metro. By the time we reached the Eiffel Tower we were in a sea of humanity. The big show started at 11pm, so we made our way toward the tower and popped some Champagne from Reims. The show was really cool - it was the same one to celebrate the anniversary of the Tower that had been up since October, but none of us had seen it, so it was really cool. There was music and lights and lots of very happy people. So here’s some of the best pictures:
It was, honestly, the best New Year’s Eve ever. What an incredible experience! To be at the Eiffel Tower with god knows how many people all celebrating, so amazing. It really felt like a great beginning to the new year. Afterward we hurried away from the Tower - we had been warned about people getting violent after the celebration and didn’t want to stick around to find out. We walked for a while until finally finding a restaurant to eat at. We had more champagne, foie gras (what the French usually eat on NYE) and then some food that I don’t remember. It was really very fun. Afterward we ran to catch the metro, but it only took us about halfway before closing for the night. So then we walked. We saw a man propose - which was amazing and adorable - and made it home at something like 3 am. So incredible!
The last 3 days of the trip are a bit blurry - we were all exhausted and had no major plans (and took no pictures). I remember wandering by the Seine and buying some prints, visiting a cemetery with Seamus and eating lunch in Montmartre. My parents visited the Quai Branley museum which they said was absolutely incredible. And I got a late Christmas present of a new purse from my parents! Seamus and I returned to Orléans the night of the third, and my parents flew home the morning of the 4th. And we all were so tired that it took me something like a month to finally feel rested. Ha!
All in all, an epic (and exhausting) trip. I think next year we’re ready for an easy Christmas though!
