france – jul 2009
photos: Jul 2: Arrival in Paris Jul 3: Off to France Miniature Jul 4: Playing in Paris Jul 5: Walking in Paris Jul 6: Disneyland Jul 7: Off the Beaten Track Jul 8: Sailing in Paris Jul 9: Paris to Chambrey Jul 10: Romans in the South Jul 11: Arrival in Nice Jul 12: Market
Mondays are for Dreaming: Paris
How clichรฉ can you get? But yes, today I dream of Paris. It is hard to believe that a year and a half has passed since my last trip to the City of Light. As a child/teen, I visited Paris twice and thought I was the luckiest kid ever. Fresh out of grad school, I
Mondays are for Dreaming: (The Wonderful World of) Disney
Ah Disney. Every family dreams of heading to Disney. Or not. I personally don’t dream of Disney. But my kids sure do…almost as much as they dream of going back to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It’s not that they’ve never been to Disney. Truth be told, they’ve been to Disney on three continents.
Mondays are for Dreaming: Pont du Gard
“Mommy, the Romans didn’t have train tracks, right?” “No.” “Okay, but they did have bridges, right?” “Yes, remember the big one we went to in France?” “Not really.” Quick internet search for photo. “Oh, yeah, I remember that place!” (Whew.) Between this exchange, which happened two minutes ago, and having recently read Great Kid Trip
and home again
Barbara woke early to repack. The girls got up a little after that, and we all headed down to breakfast. Our last in France. Not great, but not terrible. Chloe got a boiled egg, but it was part of the English breakfast and therefore soft-boiled. Blech. Barbara left for her flight; the girls and I
Vorey to Roissy
I woke early from being too cold! I could tell that we were in the mountains! The light was fantastic, too. Everyone else slept a bit later, so I read for a while. There were not many people in the restaurant for breakfast, so it was quite relaxing. We did run out of coffee and
NIce to Vorey
Barbara and Suze got up very early to get to the airport. When Barbara returned, I got up and worked on packing and helping to clean up. We were ready to leave at about 9:30, but didn’t know how to “check out.” Barbara made some calls, then walked to the car park to get the
Harry Potter in Nice
Barbara and Suze decided to take the bus to the Matisse and Chagall museums. The girls and I went out to “go shopping.” I am a terrible shopper and don’t much enjoy it, but Chloe loved it. She even managed to buy herself a dress and some Littlest Pet Shop toys. Neither Camille nor I
Lunch in Eze
Debating between going to St. Paul de Vence and Eze, we decided Eze would be more picturesque and figured out which bus would get us there. Because I wanted to get seats on the bus this time, I though we should leave early. We found the right bus bay and waited. And waited. And waited.
Off to St. Tropez
We got going late in the morning. After a little breakfast, we headed to the car to drive to St. Tropez so Suze could see it. It took a couple of hours to get there by the highway. We found a nice parking lot in the center of town and got out to walk around.
Bastille Day in Nice
While the rest of us slept in, Barbara went for a walk and geocached. Suze fed the girls breakfast when they woke. When Barbara got back and the apartment was cleaned up, Barbara, Suze and the girls went to the beach. I stayed behind to catch up on the photos and blogging and have some
Day in Monaco
Barbara and Chloe went out to get some bread. While out, they stopped at the playground. After breakfast, while Suze and I were getting ready to go out for the day, Barbara took the girls out to the toy store across the street. We then all quickly headed to the bus station and jumped on
Market and Beach
After we got up and had some breakfast and figured out the problem with the wifi, we headed out to explore the area. As we walked down to the beach, Chloe spotted some ice cream cones that she could not wait to try! We also found the big daily market that had flowers, fruits, veggies
Arrival in Nice
We woke a little earlier this morning and headed right to Nimes over a road that looked just like central Texas. We parked the car and found a cafe for some breakfast before walking over to the Arena, which looks like a small Coliseum. We walked around it, Chloe got a pen like the one
Romans in the South
I woke early, then went back to sleep and got up later than I had wanted. We packed fast and left the hotel. We stopped in town to have breakfast, then drove south through Grenoble and then back west again. We stopped in Orange to see the Roman Theater. Chloe ran up and down the
Paris to Chambery
Most of the clothes were dry, but not all, so Barbara worked on ironing them to speed along the process. We worked on final packing and on cleaning up the apartment. The person from the management company came, and we hauled our bags down the stairs since the elevator was not working. Instead of taking
Sailing in Paris
The girls slept in late. I got up as Barbara left for her meeting, and I worked on some photos and blogs. The day started out rainy, so I didnรt want to head to Les Halles. Instead we went out to a street market then took the train to near Notre Dame, where we went
off the beaten track
Chloe’s birthday! She opened one present in the morning when she woke, then we headed out to the Jardin d’Acclimation. It wasn’t obvious of it was going to rain or not, so we kept our fingers crossed. We bought a book of tickets and headed in, along with busloads of kids. Our first stop was
Disneyland
We got up earlier than the other days, but still didn’t get out of the apartment until 8:30 or so. We walked to Gare de Lyon, which was a bit of a walk, but the easiest way I could figure out to get there. We found the right track with little problem, but then things
walking in Paris
We didn’t get started until late, since we had stayed up so late. We decided to walk up to Rue Mouffetard and see the shops there. We then headed through the nice plaza and down some stairs to the Arena Lacepte, an ancient Roman arena where people play soccer on sunny weekend afternoons. The girls
GBK Gwyneth