Saturday, June 30, 2007
I didn't get to do nearly as much sketching as I would have liked to. We were moving so quickly there wasn't much time to slow down and draw. I did manage to do a few, though, of varying quality. Here are the first few. As always, click on the thumb to go to the full size version.
This first one is outside of a bar at Place Pigalle in Paris.
This next one is from Place Jerusalem in Avignon where we stopped to have a
kir.
This next one is also from Avignon. I ran out of the dark blue pencil lead half way through and had to switch to the less pleasing lighter blue.
That's all for now. I'll finish them off next time.
Labels: avignon, france, paris, sketches
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
We got home last night at around 10:30 after spending way to much time on planes and transferring between planes and getting to airports. The cats were very pleased to see us, but were well looked after while we were gone.
I have many thoughts on our trip and of course a couple thousand photos to troll through looking for gold. I'll get started on that right away. I'll post more about our trip (and perhaps a few of the small number of sketches I did) this weekend after I've had a bit of time to decompress and unpack and do all the returning to normal life things that one must do after a long trip.
Including starting the planning for our next trip: Mexico! But that trip is a long way off.
Labels: france, journal_entry, paris, provence
Saturday, May 19, 2007
I type this from France's computer (our friend France, of course, not the country, it would be absurd if there was only one computer for all of France). We landed yesterday at 9:40 am and hopefully got all the problems were going to have on this trip on the first morning. But that's another story.
This is just a short note to let everyone know that we got here safely and met up with France this morning. And everything (after that first troublesome half day) has gone swimmingly.
Labels: france, journal_entry, paris
Friday, May 11, 2007
One week from now we will be having diner in Paris. That is all.
Labels: food, france, journal_entry, paris
Friday, March 16, 2007
In two weeks we are headed to San Francisco where we will spend 10 fairly low key days and we are both
very ready for a vacation because we haven't had any extended time off since September.
Planing for San Francisco has been pretty minimal as it's an entirely different sort of journey than the one we'll be taking in May. This trip is all about visiting friends and family, relaxing and probably an excursion to Napa and Sonoma with a possible overnight stay in Calistoga. But really there isn't much required in the way of pre-trip planning apart from the rental car and a few emails and phone calls to people to let them know we're coming. And since I've put Irene in charge of finding us a place to stay in the wine country, my work is done.
Which is good, because most of my attention has been focused on France. And now with two months until we leave, the planning is winding down as the itinerary is fixed, the apartment in Paris and the car for Provence have both been rented, and hotels have been booked for Avignon and Vaison-la-Romaine. It remains only to book hotels for Nice and the Luberon (and I'm in the process of doing that) and to contact the apartment people and arrange the details of our arrival.
One thing that pleases me about this trip is that even though we will be packing a lot in, we won't be switching hotel as often as we might. We will have a minimum of two nights at two hotels and three and four nights at the others. This allows us to feel like we have a little bit of a base from which to explore the area. The logistics were tricky at first, but I feel like of got everything pretty solidly nailed down.
I really do enjoy the whole planning process and lately I've been listening to the
A Year In Europe podcast and dreaming about what it would be like to drop out of life for a year and spend it traveling. And although it doesn't seem feasible right now, some day I would love to do it. Although I think I would probably broaden the scope a bit and make it more of a round the world trip.
For now though, I'll just have to settle for the two or three weeks at a time we can manage.
Labels: california, france, paris, provence, san_francisco, travel planning
Friday, January 26, 2007
Plans are really starting to firm up for our trip.
Over the weekend I wired the deposit for our apartment in Paris. It's near the
Canal St. Martin and across the street from a metro stop (important). The neighborhood isn't exactly in the center of things but it's near enough that everything is easily accessible (also important). We will be stationed there for a week before moving on to Provence. The apartment even has a washer and dryer which is a very nice little bonus.
I found the place through
Paris Attitude, and so far my dealings with them have all been smooth and professional. I will update on the rest of the process when we get back from our trip (or on our trip, depending on how much internet access we can swing).
The only other major thing to do before we leave is rent a car, which I will look into more thoroughly next month.
Oh, and figure out were we'll be staying in the various stops in Provence and Nice.
Labels: accomodations, paris, travel planning
Thursday, January 11, 2007
I'm very excited to see that
Soundwalk has some new Paris walking tours.
Five of them,
to be exact. I am a big fan of both this concept in general and this company in particular (as you can see from my
review of two of the New York tours).
I all ready plan on getting at least two of them (the Marais and the St Germain tours), and may break down and get them all. I know we won't have time to do all of them, but they will be fun to listen to anyway.
Labels: audio_tour, france, iPod, paris
Friday, January 05, 2007
I feel I should post an update on how the planning is going, so here it is.
Remember last time when I said I thought I had the itinerary pretty well fixed? Well I've changed it. After much deliberation, juggling, rearranging and other machinations, I have decided that there is nothing for it but to drop Lyon from the trip. This made me a little sad, but things just fit more easily with it gone, so it went. Also, I have dropped the amount of time we are spending in the Riviera to three days instead of five and added the extra time to Provence.
I have updated the itinerary to the right to reflect these changes.
Now, a lot of this schedule is dependent on the renting of a car for four days, which is dependent on finding a good deal on an automatic (I can't drive manuel and Irene has expressed a reluctance to drive). And even so, it is an extremely packed schedule (which is a bit of a speciality with me), but should be doable.
The Riviera section is still a bit nebulous, as I am just now reading that section of the
book. It should be firmed up fairly soon though.
Labels: france, paris, provence, travel planning
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
I feel like at this point I've got the basic skeleton o f the trip locked down apart from one point. I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to include Lyon in the trip or if that time could be better spent in Provence or the Riviera.
Right now I'm leaning toward yes, it should be included, even if it is a brief stop (which it most likely will be). Originally I planned on us spending two nights in Lyon, but now I'm thinking one night will have to be enough. We can take the morning train from Paris spend the rest of the day and the night, and the take an afternoon train out the next day to Avignon.
This plan is still slightly in flux but here's how I've got it breaking down so far:
7 days in Paris, 1 day in Lyon, 5 days in Provence, and 5 days in the Riviera.
And
EasyJet offers very inexpensive flights from Nice to Paris, which means we don't have to waist precious vacation time circling back to Paris at the end of the trip.
The itinerary has been updated.
P.S. I should make it clear that my hesitation in stopping in Lyon is not because I don't think it will be a worthwhile stop, because I'm sure it will be, but because our time is limited and we would be going directly from big city (Paris) to big city (Lyon). If anybody has an opinion on this they'd like to share please feel free to leave a comment or email me directly.
Labels: france, paris, provence, riviera, travel planning
Monday, November 27, 2006
Last night I spent about an hour and half on the phone with
Alaska Airlines booking tickets for our trip to France next year. And although the customer service woman was very friendly and helpful, it was still far more complicated than I was expecting. Eventually, plans had to change in order for us to get tickets at all.
Originally I wanted us to fly in to Amsterdam and then out of Nice. Not possible. And so after going through every possible iteration of date change and arrival/departure city change we finally settled on flying into and out of Paris (not ideal, but we'll live with it), pushing departure back a week and taking on an additional day at the end.
The net result of all the changes is that we have decided to skip Amsterdam this time and concentrate exclusively on France. This is not entirely a bad thing, I think. After our last hectic trip (to five countries in 18 days) it will be nice to take things at a (slightly) more relaxed pace. Well, at least as relaxed as any vacation I'm planning can be.
I will update the rest of the site to reflect these changes in our plans. Now that we have our departure firmly settled, I'm really looking forward to diving in to the meat of the planning, including booking an apartment for our week in Paris.
Labels: france, journal_entry, paris, travel planning
Thursday, November 09, 2006
National Geographic Traveler offers a number of interesting podcasts,
one of which is a series of walking tours narrated by Rudy Maxa of PBS' Smart Travels.
Destinations covered include a wide range of cities including
Paris,
Amsterdam,
New York,
Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.
I haven't listened to them yet, but I'll check out one soon and write a little review.
To subscribe to this podcast in iTunes click
here.
Labels: amsterdam, audio_tour, california, dc, europe, france, iPod, new_york, paris, san_francisco, united_states
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
I can't remember where I first heard about the
Soundwalk audio walking tours (although I suspect it was probably
Gridskipper), but I was immediately interested. I loved the idea of a walking tour that I could load onto my iPod and do at my leisure.
So last year when I was in New York to see
Spamalot I bought three of their tours to take with me (the
Brooklyn Dumbo,
Lower East Side, and
Meat Packing District walking tours). In the course of my visit I managed to do all three, and thoroughly enjoyed them. I even got to meet the narrator of the Meat Packing tour (at one point she instructs you to ring her bell, and you can go up to her gallery and talk to her). Of the three I liked the Lower East Side tour the least, all though that one was still pretty good and the Dumbo tour the most.
So how do they work? Every tour comes with an audio file and a pdf of the tour route, but really you only need the pdf to find your starting point, and I suppose, if you get hopelessly lost along the way, to reorient yourself. But the directions are usually pretty clear and I mostly always found myself ahead of the narrator, and had to wait on the corner (like they suggest) until they could catch up. One problem I ran into, was with both the Meat Packing tour and the Dumbo tour, the areas are changing so quickly, that some of the mentioned locations were gone, or inaccessible. Although this only happened a few times and didn't ruin my enjoyment.
For our upcoming trip, I purchased the
Wall Street and
Little Italy tours. I don't know if we'll have time to do both, but I'm sure we can squeeze at least one in.
The company also offers a walking tours of Paris (which we will definitely be using on our trip next year), India and other locals in and around New York.
Overall I think this is a brilliant concept whose time has come. I've found a few other companies offering similar things and those links can be found on the resource pages.
Labels: audio_tour, iPod, new_york, paris, united_states
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Ooo, I very much want to go
here when we're in Paris. Looks like my kind of store. All sort of art supplies and pens and such. And big, too, apparently.
A map can be found
hereLabels: art_supplies, europe, france, paris, shopping
Friday, June 30, 2006
Here are some great tips for travelers visiting Paris. As well as some restaurant suggestions.
An example:
Talking vs. Shouting
Americans talk LOUDLY. (As do people in several other countries). If you don't believe it, watch cable television "news" for a few minutes! It's gotten so that restaurant reviews in the United States now include 'sound' ratings to denote the volume in restaurants. Many of us are used to speaking loudly, especially when we get into groups. If you've ever tried to have a peaceful dinner next to a table celebrating their annual office party, you know what I'm talking about. In Paris, people will modulate their voices so as not to disturb other diners.
Labels: europe, france, paris
Thursday, May 25, 2006
There's a character in
Under The Roofs Of Paris
who bears a remarkable resemblance to
John Cleese, I have no point in bringing this up other than I found it amusing.
This charming little movie from the 1930's is one of the early "talkies" and it's interesting to see how it still retains much of the conventions of silent film, whilst seeming to be a little uncertain what to do with this new fangled sound thing. Consequently music is featured prominently. Not a musical, per se, but many of the scenes focus around groups of people singing a song as this must have seemed like the most obvious thing to do with the new technology.
The story revolves around a song selling Frenchman and his pursuit of a beautiful young woman who is being pursued by the evil John Cleese look alike. Complications ensue. It's most worth watching for the glimpses of Parisian life and cityscapes from the early part of the 20th century. Fun movie.
Labels: europe, france, movies, paris
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
I had no idea there was a
wine museum in Paris, but I probably should have assumed...
Labels: europe, france, museum, paris, wine
Friday, May 05, 2006
There's a scene in
Blue where
Juliette Binoche is sitting on her own in a café, she orders a coffee and when it arrives she picks up a sugar cube and dips the corner of it into the cup. The camera holds on the cube as it slowly absorbs the coffee and turns brown. It's little moments like these that make this film such a pleasure.
Binoche plays Julie Vignon, the wife of France's most celebrated composer. The movie opens with a car accident that claims the life of her husband and child and leaves Vignon in the hospital. When she recovers she decides to start her life over, selling her house and all her possessions and moving into a small Paris apartment.
The plot revolves around her attempts to get her life together and various outsiders attempts to her husbands final composition which was almost complete at the time of his death. By the end of the movie we're not entirely sure that it wasn't in fact Vignon herself who was responsible for her husbands music.
It's a beautiful film, and I highly recommend it. It is the first in the
Three Colors Trilogy by
Krzysztof Kieslowski. They are all well worth seeing, but Blue is the only one set primarily in Paris.
Labels: europe, france, movies, paris
Friday, April 21, 2006
A rental site called
Paris Attitude, found via the
Paris Voice Magazine web site.
This one looks like it has some good inexpensive rental units. And lots of them.
Added to the sidebar.
Labels: accomodations, europe, france, paris
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Cinèma Trail is a new website produced by
PDIF.com, the official tourist website for Paris, to coincide with their new promotion campaign "Paris au Cinèma". Here is an
article from the
New York Time about it.
I must say I love the idea behind the promotion, but the web site is a bit flawed in the execution. For instance there is a section called
Wanders and Walks. Now a title like that would lead one to believe that is contained walking tours of locations used in various films, but not really. It instead offers general descriptions of films shot at in a particular location without providing details.
I was hoping for something more along the lines of the
Rick Steves walking tours. In particular, a map with spots marked off and a short description of what was shot there and when.
I think this is still a good idea, and perhaps someone will come up with something along these lines sometime.
Labels: europe, france, movies, paris
Friday, March 31, 2006
We'll Always Have Paris by John Baxter
I just finished reading this book yesterday and really enjoyed it. It covers the sexual underside of Parisian history through out the last 100 years, but hangs it on the framework of the author's first year in Paris and the impending birth of his first child. They are strange bed fellows to be sure and while both strands of the book work independently, they don't really work together. But that's ok, because as I said they are both interesting and entertaining in and of themselves.
I got a number of good movie recommendations from the book, and immediately added them to my
Netflix queue.
Labels: books, europe, france, paris
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Virginie Ledoyen stars in
A Single GirlI'll warn you right up front that this movie is not for everyone. There's not much plot and nothing major really happens, it is rather, what French films do so well and American films don't, a slice of life drama.
The action centers around a young woman who just found out she is pregnant, is starting a new job, and is breaking up with her boyfriend all on the same day. A lot of the film takes place in real time as she goes about her new job as a room service waitress at a posh hotel, and chronicles her interactions with her coworkers and the hotel guests, most of whom are insane.
If you like quite and thoughtful films, this is a good one with good performances all around. If, however you are just looking for mindless action, look elsewhere.
Virginie Ledoyen also starred in another fun French film that I would recommend called
8 WomenLabels: europe, france, movies, paris
Monday, March 27, 2006
I'm going to add a new category to the left sidebar for movies about Paris.
The first one I'm going to recommend is
Amélie which I'm sure you've probably all ready seen, or at least heard about. This movie is really a love letter to Paris, granted it's a prettified, fanciful version the real thing but still...
It's a charming heart-warming movie you can't help but enjoy. As a reviewer for
The Stranger noted: You don't have to be an asshole to not like this film, but it helps (or something like that, I'm quoting from memory).
Update: These have been moved onto the country/city resource pages.
Labels: europe, france, movies, paris
Sunday, March 26, 2006
According to a post at
this site 2004's winner can be found at La fournée d'Augustine, 96 rue Raymond Losserand, 14th arrondissement.
MapThe 2005 winner, Eric Sana, 3 rue du retrait, 20th arrondissement.
MapAnd the 2006 winner, Jean-Pierre Cohier, can be found
here.
MapLabels: europe, food, france, paris
Friday, March 24, 2006
I have another book to recommend,
Carnet De Voyage by Craig Thompson.
Now this one is sort of cheating as most of it takes place in Morocco, but some of it is set in Paris. This book is not so much a story as a beautifully illustrated travel journal. The pictures are mostly done in brush pen with no preliminary drawing, which irritates me to no end. This is the way I wish I could draw. Sigh.
Any way, pick it up, you won't be sorry.
Labels: books, europe, france, paris
Thursday, March 23, 2006
This site looks like it has some decent deals.
No internet in the apartments though. It would be ideal to find a place that had a computer and internet. Some of the places through
Kudeta seem to have for a little extra cash.
Labels: accomodations, europe, france, paris
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
This looks like a pretty good resource for cheap hotels in Europe.
I know there are tones of these sites around, but most seem to be light on information and heavy on promotion.
This one looks like it's got a lot of information and opinions and not just about hotels. They've got some nice
city guides as well.
I'll add it to the resource sidebar.
Hotels for Amsterdam that look good:
Hotel AbbaHotel BemaHotel de la HayeHotel de LanterneHotel de WestertorenHotel GroenendaelHotel La BohèmeLabels: accomodations, amsterdam, europe, france, paris
Monday, March 20, 2006
Located at
51 rue de Bercy The
Cinèmathéque Française is housed in the former home of the American Center. A building designed by
Frank Gehry.
Here is a page with a little information about it.
When we were in
Prague last year, I very much wanted to go see the Gehry building known as
Fred and Ginger but completely spaced it until near the end of the last day of our visit, by which time it was too late. I hope I will not make the same mistake this time.
Labels: architecture, europe, france, movies, paris
Friday, March 17, 2006
Rick Steves' is finally producing Audio versions of the walking tours in his books. And lucky us, he's starting with Paris!
The first two up are audio guides for the Louvre and d'Orsay museums along with maps.
They can be downloaded from his site
here or you can
subscribe to the podcast through
iTunes.
Next up is are tours of Versailles and an historic Paris walk.
This is great. I love to do the walking tours in his books when traveling, and it will be so much nicer not to have to carry around the books and stop to read every few minutes. This way is much more inconspicuous.
Labels: audio_tour, europe, france, iPod, paris
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Restaurants to check out:
Chez Marianne2 Rue des Hospitalieres-St-Gervais
M: St. Paul — Le Marais
Map —
ReviewLe Cafe de la Place23 Rue d'Odessa
M: Edgard-Quinet
MapLabels: europe, france, paris, restaurants
Sunday, March 12, 2006
A link to the New York Times travel section on
ParisI will add it to the sidebar soon.
Labels: europe, france, paris
