Posts Tagged ‘paris’
May 11th, 2007
1 Week
One week from now we will be having diner in Paris. That is all.
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Mar 16th, 2007
Winding Down
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.
Posted in California, France, Travel Planning | No Comments
Jan 26th, 2007
An apartment in Paris
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.
Posted in France | No Comments
Jan 11th, 2007
Soundwalk Paris
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.
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Jan 5th, 2007
Further Adventures in Travel Planning
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.
Posted in France, Travel Planning | 1 Comment
