Paris, the jump-off point

Europe, Spring 2011

Greetings and welcome!  John and I are on a 10-week holiday in Europe.   Unlike our 2-year sailing trip of some 20 years ago, the pace will be a tad bit faster (and quite a bit easier) as we “land-cruise” through France, Italy and Germany. 

FYI. . .

These entries are for friends and family whose interests range from keeping up with what we’re doing to getting tips that may be helpful in their travels.  So, if your interests lay more in the narrative than just skip over the sections that start with “Tip”.

Paris

Tuesday, 22 March to Saturday, 26 March

Having been in Paris in March and knowing that the latitude of Paris is north of Seattle, I expected rain.  But no! Sunny skies and cool but comfortable temperatures greeted us as we arrived bleary-eyed at Charles de Gaulle airport on this second morning of Spring.




Blossoms in the Jardin des Tuileries

 

We met up with our friends, Gary and Kathy Berg shortly after arriving.  After stuffing all of our luggage, including two 30-inchers that held our Bike Friday folding bikes, into our limo we happily headed off to Paris.

Kathy found us a great apartment in the Latin Quarter.  This youthful and lively area is residence to the University of Paris including the famous Sorbonne and is known for its Left Bank bohemian character.

Sitting above a pub ("the Local") the apartment was half a block from the Paris metro and a stone’s throw to two cafes, an outdoor market and, most important,  three boulangeries that helped us start each morning with fresh crunchy baguettes, sweet cream butter and sumptuous pain chocolats!

Our apartment just above "The Local"



Viewing the Wednesday market from our apartment



Our second morning dawned sunny again.  Feeling refreshed, we walked the half block to the market that happens every Wednesday and Friday.  Here we were treated to the sweet juicy smell of fresh fruit, the vibrant colors of flowers in the blush of spring and the pungent but pleasing aroma of cheeses, meats and fresh fish waiting to be eaten for the evening meal.

With only four days in Paris, our friends, being France newbies, toured the famous sites of Paris.  We joined them one day for a beautiful spring walk along the Seine, past the Louvre and the Gardens of the Tuileries on our way to my favorite art museum, the Museé d’Orsay. 



Our good friends Kathy & Gary Berg with John on the Passerelle Senghor


If you love impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, the Museé d’Orsay is a place that you must visit before departing this earth.  Your eyes and soul will thank you.



The Musee d'Osay overlooking the Seine

Leaving the Museé d’Orsay, we walked across one of the three pedestrian bridges that cross the Seine, Passerelle Léopold Séder Sénghor where we found the fencing on either side of the bridge covered in padlocks.  I found out afterwards that these are “love locks” that lovers attach to the bridge screens and throw away the key to signify their never ending love.  Interesting. 

Love locks on the Passarelle Senghor

After spending another day loading up maps of all the countries we plan to visit on our trusty Gamin Nuvi GPS, we left Friday morning to make our way via Metro and Bus to the Peugeot office outside of Paris.  Here we picked up our brand new Peugeot Partner Tepee. 

John, checking out our new Peugeot

After checking it over, we fired up our GPS and braved Parisian traffic (a veritable nightmare) to get back to our apartment.  The luggage rack on top of our car barely (did I mention barely?) inched beneath our Paris parking garage so much so that previous unfortunates scraped concrete chunks from the overhead beams and I had to get out of the car to make sure that the only thing scraping was the top of our antenna. 

No matter, Saturday morning we said goodbye to Paris and headed south to Burgundy and Provence!
>>>>>>>>

Tip:  Getting Euros.  Most of Western Europe, except the UK, uses the Euro as a common currency.  Right now the rate is about $1.45/Euro.  ATM’s are the easiest and most convenient way to get Euros and they also provide a good rate of exchange.  Check with your bank to find out how much you can withdraw in Euros per day and what the transaction fee is per withdrawal.  The maximum I was able to withdraw per transaction was 300 Euros although according to my bank I should have been able to withdraw more. This 300 Euro limit occurred at all ATMs I used, all of which were part of large French banks.

Tip:  Speaking French.  Yes, speaking and reading French will make your life in France a whole lot easier.  Certainly it’s possible to travel in France with little or no French but the travel experience will be significantly diminished.  Even though I studied college level French for 3 years and am able to speak French, I have a hard time understanding it when it is spoken quickly.  Since my vocabulary isn’t large enough to comprehend a lot of the idioms and colloquialisms that are used in everyday French, I realized I needed help.  So before coming to France I loaded the Larousse dictionary on my iPod Touch and it has been a lifesaver.  It’s comprehensive, easy to use and can be used for both English-to-French and French-to-English translations. 

Tip: Leasing a Car & Car Insurance Issues.  Since we were going to be in Europe for 72 days and sharing the cost with our travel partners, the most cost-effective and flexible solution for traveling was to lease (versus rent) a car.   I contacted ideamerge.com, a Portland outfit who received good ratings and arranged to lease a Peugeot Partner Tepee, a car the size of a Honda Element capable of carrying 5 people and all of their luggage (with a luggage rack) in relative comfort. Since the cost of fuel in Europe is high ($7.40 to $8.00/gallon for diesel) we also opted for a diesel car to get better mileage.  The process was pretty painless.  Ideamerge answered all of our questions, they had a great selection of cars and the prices were reasonable.  Eventually Ideamerge eventually passed us off to AutoFrance.net, who took care of getting us the new car from Peugeot in Paris and arranging for us to pick it up.  Concerning insurance, the lease price includes comprehensive insurance coverage but ONLY for the qualified drivers, i.e., John and me.  This means that if anyone else drives the car other than John or I, one of us must be in the car with them.  There are no insurance coverage options that allow anyone else other than the lessee and spouse to drive the car alone.  So, if your travel partners want to take off and do some traveling on their own, they will have to get/rent/lease their own car.

Tip: Using Skype to make phone calls.  My friend, Kay Walsh, gave me this tip and it has been invaluable.  On my Asus netbook as well as on my iPod Touch I use Skype to make phone calls to the United States from Europe for 2.3 cents/minute.  It is a simple matter to download the Skype application from skype.com and to set up a Skype phone account.  This is a voice-over-IP technology that depends somewhat on the quality of your internet connection. I have used it successfully on both wired and wifi networks of medium (e.g., DSL) to high (fiber optics) speed.  Skype can also be used to dial international phone numbers from the US.  Using Skype on the iPod Touch requires a wifi connection and a good quality headphone with integrated microphone.  For some unknown reason when I setup Skype on the iPod the Skype application did not recognize the Skype account I setup through my PC so I had to open a  second Skype account just for the iPod.  This was easy enough so now I have two Skype accounts.