Paris - Arrival to Departure, just over 3 months...

21 August - 23 November 2013

Marios & Steve's apartment was an incredible gift for the 3 months we were "living" in Paris.  It was the perfect place to be with many great things within reasonable walking distance. Perfect! Perfect!  Perfect!

For those who know us, we should be life members of IKEA - and get the award for modifying their furniture.  Well... Though nothing modified, Marios & Steve furnished their place from IKEA. We felt right at home. 

Our viewing pleasure with a choice of many channels was 3 English speaking news channels. Aljazeera, BBC and Sky News. Although the international news was a nice objective and non-propaganda version we don't normally see in the states, they did repeat stories every couple of hours. 

In an effort to get some familiar things like movies, we tried our Netflix account. The way it works is, although it's a World Wide Web, they realize where you are. Netflix doesn't have agreements with France and therefore we could not stream any Netflix movies.  A second attempt with a Hulu account was also to no avail....   In the end, we went to the Apple Store and bought an Apple TV.   Bingo!

We got to see a few US made movies now and then.  

A great kitchen and -    Oh yeah... a Nespresso Coffee Maker. 

A view looking down through the stairwell from Steve & Marios' apartment.  Very cool...

Steve & Marios - Our dear friends...

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A few of our favorite restaurants...

BTW... In all of our favorite places, the staff knows that we share our meals and happy to oblige :-)

Pizza Pino...  Our favorite was the Penne Carbonera.  Very creamy & bacon(y).  The bacon here is more like our ham - but not as salty. Very good choice...

Carlos - A nice fellow from Portugal. He's been in Paris for about 5 years and came because the economy in Portugal is not good now. He hopes to one day return to his country and raise his son (due in May 2014) smaller town which might make for a more "Family Friendly Environment".

Pizza Vesuvio

An unlikely place to find just the right pizza...  We took a Sunday walk to see the Arch de Triumph. Considering we worked up an appetite walking a brisk 4 miles, we found ourselves in the quite crowded tourist Mecca of Paris.  After taking in the sights, we started heading down the notorious Champs Élysées and came across this canopied outdoor eatery. We found the perfect pizza - and returned a few times during our stay in Paris. 

La Tomate Rouge...  

Now we realize that so far, the theme seems to be Italian.  Yes, that is the case and although we didn't focus on it, that's just how it worked out.   This was a very nice Arugula & Pear salad we had before our favorite Lasagna as the main course.  

For the record, we also found a few places we only went to once and would have frequented more if time had permitted.  With the multiples of the many numbered nationalities found in the melting pot that Paris is, we found other quite tastey Indian, Mediterranean, Tibetan and more restaurants. No, we didn't eat much French as we would each have to get our own meal... (That was a joke). 

This Chocolate Mouse was also an excellent reason to frequent La Tomate Rouge.

This is Arwa, in the middle and the owner of La Tomate Rouge on the right. They were the most gracious and attentive restaurenteurs. They are both from Tunisia in North Africa.  Their English language skills were excellent and very helpful.

On one of our visits, Arwa gave us a before dinner drink which was a little Cassis with some Italian white wine.  After conversation and some fun times, the owner presented us with a bottle of Cassis as his gift to us on our way out.

New Kashmir

Paris has many passageways - little walkways that run through buildings and have shops and restaurants within.  When we walked in this passageway, we came across New Kashmir Indian restaurant. Mmmmm Mmmmm Gooood!

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More pictures of some good food...

Brie on toast atop a walnut salad...

Although this doesn't look super in the picture, it was a quite tasty dish at a Medeterranean restaurant we found.

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There was enough walking going on that we probably still lost a little weight - even with regular deserts!

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A few pictures of us....

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Walking in a park just alongside the Cathedral Notre Dame, we ran across a fellow feeding the birds. He pressed bread into a little ball, held it up and wallah...

Was it St. Frances who was good with the animals?  You go girl!

We never got his name (surprising) - quite the nice guy...

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We mentioned in the earlier "Berlin" blog about the young lovers who show their commitment to each other by fastening a lock with their names engraved to the railing of a bridge.  This bridge is near the Cathedral Notre Dame and gollee! - just look at the locks!  It has now become somewhat of a tourist thing to do as the close by vendors will sell locks and a permanent marker.

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Sights in Paris... Many nice places for afternoon tea and coffee and some of the outdoor markets we ran across...

Looking down the hill from Sacre Coeur...

On our regular walk to and from...

We checked as many out as we could...

These are sights from an outdoor market which was held every week just a block away from our apartment. 

Outdoor dining is most common...

The inside of one of the Starbucks in Paris...

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Some friends we met through Steve & Marios...

Joey & Jean Christophe 

Dom & Chica

Martine & Joey

Chica & Fred

Barbara Myers, Chica & Joey

We met Barbara, who lives in St Petersburg, Florida, in Berlin while on a walking tour.  When she later stopped in for a Paris leg of her holiday, we looked each other up and had a couple of dinners together.

Gwen was the manager at the local wine store, just around the corner from the apartment. He was always so knowledgeable about the wine and seemed to have the perfect choice for any thoughts we might have had been looking for.

On this particular evening he was having a Beaujolais tasting. Wine connoisseurs are known to wait for and celebrate the November 21st release of the Beaujolais Nouveau vintage. This is a yearly event that is widely anticipated. 

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Some of the major attractions in Paris...

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, "Our Lady of Paris"

Notre Dame Cathedral...

Construction began in 1163 and was not actually completed until the 1240s. Check out the amazing detail in the photos below. 

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The Eiffel Tower (La Tour Eiffel)

The tower was erected in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair.  It has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The tower is the tallest structure in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world.  7.1 million people ascended it in 2011 and It received its 250 millionth visitor in 2010.

In the foreground if the Eiffel Tower, a monument for Peace in many languages...

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The Arc de Triomphe honors those who fought and died for France in the French Refolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.  It has the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.

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Musée du Louvre

The Louvre Museum

The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings. Today, nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 60,600 square metres (652,300 square feet).  The Louvre is the world's most visited museum.

Although we visited the outside several times, we have been inside in a prior trip to Paris so we did not take in the attraction this time.  Always fun to go and see the crowds and outside structures...

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

Adjacent to the entrance to the Louvre Museum, this was built between 1806 and 1808 to commemorate Napoleon's military victories of the previous year. The more famous Arc de Triomphe de I'Etoile, (earlier in this post), was designed in the same year, but it took thirty years to build and is about twice the size.

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Basilica of the Sacré Cœur

A popular landmark, the basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmarte, the highest point in Paris. 

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Shakespeare and Company is the name of two independent bookstores on Paris's Left Bank.  The  original store was opened on 19 November 1919 and was a gathering place for writers such as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemmingway, James Joyce and Ford Madox Ford.  It closed in 1940 during the German occupation of Paris and never re-opened.

The second store, shown below, opened in 1951 and was originally named "Le Mistral" but then renamed to "Shakespeare and Company" in 1964 in tribute to the original bookstore. Today, it serves both as a regular bookstore and as a reading library, specializing in English-language literature. The shop was featured in the film "Before Sunset" and in the Woody Allen film "Midnight in Paris".

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Père Lachaise Cemetery

Notably - the cemetery where Jim Morrison is buried.  Although there are many quite notable people's graves here, it does seem that the tourist activity is due in large part because Jim Morrison's grave is here.  

Opened in May 1804, it is still an operating cemetery and accepting new burials. The gravesites at Père Lachaise range from a simple, unadorned headstone to towering monuments and even elaborate mini chapels dedicated to the memory of a well-known person or family. Many of the tombs are about the size and shape ofa telephone booth, with just enough space for a mourner to step inside, kneel to say a prayer, and leave some flowers. Because space is limited, it is not uncommon to reopen a grave after a body has decomposed and inter another coffin. Some family mausoleums and multiple-family tombs contain dozens of bodies. 

The entrance...

Typical mausoleums...

An example of an incredibly detailed gravesite...

Another typical mausoleum...

The grave of Marcel Marceau - the famous mime...

Jim Morrison's grave...

An interesting story about this; When Jim Morrison died, the folks taking care of his affairs requested that he be buried here.  Initially, the request was denied because he supposedly didn't fit the requirement regarding being an artist.  After much debate, the cemetery officials decided that the poetry Morrison wrote qualified him as an artist which, in turn, changed their initial decision.  

The bronze plate is the current marker commissioned by Morrison's father. Prior to this, a bust of Morrison and a gravestone with Morrison's name was made to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death. The bust was defaced through the years by cemetery vandals and later stolen in 1988.

Frederic Chopin - a romantic-era Polish composer

When we were walking in the cemetery, a local French fellow asked us if we were looking for Jim Morrison's grave.  Since it was one of those that we wanted to see, we said "Yes".   He proceeded to walk us through a short cut to get us directly there.

In the brief conversation we had with him (language barrier), it appears he spends a lot of time walking around the cemetery and just takes it upon himself to show tourists some of the places that he knows so well.  

mausoleums...

The grave of Oscar Wilde...

More cool pics from the cemetery...

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Below are some random sights we took photos of around Paris. 

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Now that's our idea of what graffiti should be. This is art.  

One go the Metro stations.  Everything copper!

The Metro cars connect and don't have doors between. They go the entire length of the train. 

A street elevation go a Metro Station entrance.

Although, as Americans, we'd suggest not getting too close to demonstrations. We did make an exception to try to photograph the crowd. 

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The night before departure back to New York...

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It is wonderful to be able to travel...  We were in Europe for 3 months and 2 days; we visited 19 locations in 10 different countries; we traveled away from Paris for ___ days; we stayed in 4 traditional Bed & Breakfast lodgings, 5 Airbnb apartments, 4 hotels, 5 times in someone's home, one Monestary, 4 Riads, 1 Berber tent and of course Marios & Steve's wonderful Paris apartment.  

It's great to travel and it's also good to be home...

It's been quite a lot of fun to create the blog.