Day Seven: Change in Plan

The rolling display of pictures from inside the hotel was very convincing. Tired from a whole day of pilgrimaging and with one carafe of wine down, it seemed easier to just check into the cute hotel in Chartres than make our way all the back to Paris. Luckily, October is not high tourist season in Chartres and there were rooms available. Breakfast was included and we got a recommendation from the guy who checked us in for a nice restaurant that was not too far a walk.



Not having to go back to Paris left us with a reason to celebrate and a little time before we needed to show up for dinner. Another 50cl of wine seemed the correct way to relax and enjoy our newfound home in Chartres.



We set off down the hill from our hotel and the cathedral into the lower town to find our dinner spot. Les Feuillintines was the recommendation, a good and not overly expensive eating experience. The chef was a friend of the guy at the hotel, who recommended us to go elsewhere than eat at the hotel. Compared with our dining outings in Paris, this was pretty cheap and extremely good. I had wild duck and Bonnie had ummm a lot of wine. She thinks she had some beef thing. Or veal. Something like that. We had a glass of champagne to celebrate finally getting to Chartres and then a nice grand cru Burgundy to go with dinner. After dessert and un café we wandered back up the hill to Le Parvis.







Not having turned on the TV once while in Paris, I was not sure what you might find late night in a area like Chartres. The highlight seemed to be Earl and some soft core porn, that was it. So much for watching TV before falling asleep.

Day Seven: Chartres (finally!)

Friday dawned bright and sunny, or so I heard. By the time we were up, a bit earlier than usual, around 10:30am local time, the day looked great and plans to spend it indoors at the Louvre were scrapped (again). Instead, we decided to hop on a train and travel across the French countryside to the village of Chartres. Now, it might have been a village at one point, but Chartres is a big damn town now. Getting off the train and exiting the station, it was not as simple as looking up and obviously seeing the cathedral. Google maps has been invaluable on this trip to find things and once again we got walking directions to our destination. The cathedral was only a few minutes away, but it was obscured by a number of crappy buildings in front of the station.



Pictures do not convey a fraction of the experience of walking into the cathedral and seeing the massive transepts, stained glass windows and choir. When the organ starts to play, it is truly an amazing experience. We wandered around, through the choir, the various side chapels, and the main altar. There is a major renovation effort underway, as the structure, both inside and out, has blackened over the 800 years or so it has been standing. The sections already restored look incredible next to the dark sooty portions.





No flash photography in the cathedral and most of it is very dark, which makes for interesting photo challenges. That did not stop us from taking a ton of pictures that will need to be processed to see which might be decent.

One of the areas that has minimal light is the labyrinth. Quite famous, this twisted route in a 40 foot circular area is supposed to recreate a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for those who could not afford to do it. I walked the path, interesting because others who were doing it would get lost or confused as to which line they were on or perhaps would treat it as a real pilgrimage and walk slowly so it would take the same amount of time as walking to Jerusalem. This last group of people was not very popular and a large line would queue up behind them, grumbling about having a train to catch.



There are only so many hours you can spend inside a darkened cathedral and eventually we came outside. The "old" section of Chartres is just as you'd envision an old French village, twisty winding streets, most narrow enough that cars have difficulty getting through (and they have gates that restrict access). We found a place with friendly people who sold us ham and cheese croissants and warmed them and we walked to have lunch in the nearest square.







After lunch, we poked around the outside of the cathedral compound. The cathedral sits up on a hill and has a nice view of the town that has grown up around it since medieval times.







In a city that grew up catering to travelers, there is an amazing amount of... Shopping! So we window shopped quite a bit as well, but were required to actually go into one shop...





We bought a bear, of course. Ah, well, another cute bear for the collection. :)

By this time it had turned colder and we needed to warm up. We decided (after a long involved inspection of every bistro in our section of town, or so we thought) to have a bit of wine at Le Parvis. It was nice, inexpensive, and right across from the cathedral. Perfect to warm up in and enjoy our purchase.

Day Six: Dinner: Restaurant Polidor

One of the restaurants dismissed during the anniversary dinner research was one recommended by Frommers but described as more of a classic drinking house of days gone by. It prides itself on not accepting credit cards since it opened in 1845. It is a favorite haunt of French professors due to the lower prices, or perhaps due to the minimal sanitation facilities (the "bathroom" is a hole in the floor).



Restaurant Polidor has been operating since 1845 and, although not pictured here, it appears some of the original staff are still waiting tables. Much like the famous Van Wert, Ohio, venue (perhaps they are sister restaurants?) Polidor is primarily staffed by lovely old ladies of few words.

Seating is bench style using the "pack 'em in" seating methodology. This means you know precisely what your neighbor has for dinner and what they plan on doing afterward. One of our dinner companions was a professor at a French preparatory school, with side consulting gigs with every type of engineering company in france I could think of. He designed brake systems for Renault, waste disposal systems for nuclear reactors and guidance systems for the French air force (I only made one of those up). He was a very interesting guy who almost did not talk to us because we ordered the Boeuf Bourguignon and he was looking for Americans to talk to (Americans never order beef, didn't you know). We learned all about the French educational system and about cross-Atlantic relationships (his girlfriend works in Boston). He also heartily recommends Legal Seafood, if you get to Boston. :)

So it was a tired crew who walked the eight meters back to our hotel from dinner, thinking of doing the Louvre on Friday. I see a theme developing here...

Day Six: Musée d'Orsay

Monet! Manet! Renoir! What is not to like about Musée d'Orsay? Not to mention Modigliani!

The walk to Orsay was nice, not too busy, though the museum is under serious construction, so entering is a little bit confusing. The Seine was busy as usual though.





Entering the museum using the Paris Museum Pass was a breeze again, skip the line and walk right in. The Orsay has a strict no photography policy (copyright issues?) so of course the first thing we did was take a photo!



Nothing exciting here, we saw the usual Van Gogh, Monet, Sissley, and other Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. The crowds were not horrific and we went through every exhibition in just a few hours. It was interesting seeing groups of little children gathered with drawing paper and colored pencils around famous paintings and doing their own interpretation. I did not observe any obvious successors to Van Gogh and these kids all had all their ears.

We turned in our audioguides and headed home on the Metro, pondering dinner.

Day Six: Louvre (not)

The plan was Louvre. A whole day (such as we have had, given working on tourist time) devoted to wandering around the Louvre. With our newfound Metro savvy, we took the Metro down this time, saving the long walk and dropping us right at the more or less secret Richelieu entrance to the Louvre, we walked right in with no line! We walked right into the Pyramid and set out to put together a plan for seeing things. It seemed we needed some help with the plan, so a bottle of wine seemed appropriate and luckily the Louvre people provide a nice cafe to think and ponder the world in. A couple appetizers and a bottle of wine and we were set to build our plan.





After most of a bottle of wine, we thought we had a plan. It mostly entailed getting a plan from the Louvre information. Unfortunately, they do not give out plans, either free or for pay unless there is a guide involved (at least that we could find).





So... We took a few pictures and walked over to Musée d'Orsay. To be continued...

Day Five: Dinner

So, ten year anniversary dinner... Where should we go? Cristal Room Baccarat? Some place run by a famous chef like Guy Martin (whoever that is)? We found what was the top-rated classical Parisian bistro before super chefs started opening bistros only a few blocks from our hotel, Café Allard. It said reservations were required, but that seemed to be too big of a challenge over the phone, and what was the point of going to a bistro with reservations anyway?

We arrive at Allard about twenty minutes after they opened (like any self-respecting bistro they do not open until evening drinking has started). The place was empty, of course, as at 7:20 most French are still working on the pre-dinner bottle of wine, but we walked in anyways, hoping our lack of reservation would be okay this early. We were greeted by a tall, impeccably dressed, imperious Frenchman who obviously ran the place. He spoke initially in French then backed off to English as we obviously were clueless to what he asked. He was curious if we had reservations... Shaking our heads evoked eyes rolled upward as we were clearly totally clueless tourists. Nonetheless, he showed us a nice table for two and gave us menus. French menus, of course, this place did not cater to tourists who did not speak the native tongue. We flailed for a few minutes and finally asked for help. "Help" consisted of pointing at the menu, more exasperation, and indicating where the starters, meat and fish were located. No help as to what the entries were, other than "it's beef". Hmmm... That was helpful. We turned on the iPhone and translated some of the entries so we were not totally ordering in the dark, and ordered escargot, a filet of (French!) beef, a half order of "cepes" (mushrooms obviously!) and Coquilles Saint Jacque in a white butter sauce (translated that myself!).





The escargot were great, seems every bistro is required to get that right. The beef was amazing and came with a very tasty gravy. The scalloped potatoes were also very yummy, Bonnie was jealous of those. Bonnie's mushrooms and scallops were amazing and the snotty French waiter filled his part perfectly.

Dinner conversation was enhanced by an older woman traveling with a much younger woman who sat next to us. They related how it was impossible to find martinis in Paris and this was the first place who had offered to make one for them. The older woman was enamored of my dessert, which we shall discuss next.

Dessert was required, of course. Bonnie had Charlotte au Chocolat, the usual dense chocolate thing. I had Baba au Rhum, basically a pound cake that came with it's own bottle of rum (!). The waiter started things off by pouring a bunch of rum over the top and it became a bit of a game pouring more over the top whenever it looked "dry". It ended up being a very rum-soaked cake. Quite dangerous, luckily we only had to stumble a few blocks home to our hotel.



The story goes that the bottle was full to start with, but that is a total lie!

Day Five: Versailles

So, we land, um, arrive in Versailles. The train dumps you off downtown, with helpful "this way to the chateau" signs (go this way, or this way, or that way... Shortest path would have been helpful). Problem number one... Cobblestone streets with "cute" shoes. Shoes with heels are highly unstable on cobblestones. Walking is very difficult and the wearer is prone to falling. Ugh, not good when you are about to enter the largest palace and grounds in the world!



Notice the grimace of pain on the subject's face as she stands by herself with no support.

So we wander the chateau... Not a bad place, though I wonder if they ever had to really dust all of it.



It seems Louis XIV was a bit of a religious fanatic and attended Mass every day at 10am. Probably just after having his morning espresso and reading the papers... Having the room filled with the same bunch of people every day would get wearing after a while, I bet. At least he had a decent chapel right down the hall. And the priest was responsible for the dusting I bet!



At least the place is setup for a crowd, the stairs could hold a real party sized crowd thundering up to Mass.

Not all the castle seems to have been very appropriate for an elderly, religious monarch with no wife. Not sure what Louis' decorators were thinking...



We wandered through the king's apartments as well as the queen's (several Louis' used the place it seems). Very famous stuff happened here, Marie escaped from some unhappy subjects down a secret hallway from the queen's bedroom (why was THAT there?) and there is some lightly decorated quaint little room called the Hall of Mirrors. Definitely shows the minimalist decorating technique favored by the French monarchy.





We did also make a halfhearted attempt to do the historical museum part of Versailles, but hunger and thirst drove us to lé café. We did see statues and paintings of a number of famous Frenchmen, including brilliant mathematical minds like Laplace who continue to torture students to this day.

Beyond the castle there are the gardens, canals (in the shape of a French cross!), Marie Antoinette's house, and other interesting residences. Due to the aforementioned "cute shoe" issue, we only ventured down to the top of the waterways.



We did meet one very unhappy doggie, though, being squished by some unsavory characters!





We limped back to the chateau at that point and somehow made it back to the train. It was the big day, after all, we had to make it back to Paris for a real French meal!

Day Five: Off to Versailles

Another lazy day in Paris, breakfast/lunch at Le Danton. Some people from North Dakota sat next to us, the waitress spoke all English to them. Apparently we *look* like we might speak French, so there is always this exchange in mixed English and French. So far there has not been a major problem only having a vague idea of what food is coming. The North Dakota people weren't any better at predicting what food was going to arrive, so I think we will stick with trying French when possible.



I had a blanquette du veau, very tasty. Bonnie had the house club sandwich, from which she picked off the very good tomatoes.



Bonnie practicing her French look... Very mysterious!

After breakfast, we hopped on the Metro, popped over to the RER station, and got on a very nicely maintained train out to Versailles. A very pleasant half hour ride through the outskirts of Paris.

Speaking of shoes (aren't shoes always an appropriate topic?), we are wearing cute shoes today. As seen being shown off in the RER station...





The train is almost there, more to come!

Day Four: Recap

We were set to go to Chartres today. The alarm went off at 7:50am and, like good travelers, we turned off the alarm and slept for four more hours. We did manage to make it to Le Danton in time for a late lunch, thankfully. We did not, however, fall victim to the "wine with lunch" epidemic that is sweeping Paris. Perhaps tomorrow...



We tried to renew the data plan for the iPad with Orange. They couldn't seem to do it over the phone, we went to our neighborhood Boutique, who also couldn't do it. The nice customer service person even tried renewing it with his own credit card and it still failed. Come to find out, the Orange credit card processing was broken today. ???

[ The iPad 3G service was working fine this afternoon, so at least one charge went through. Not sure who is paying for this as I type! ]

We went off in search of wine and cheese and bread for an afternoon picnic, that ended up being in our lovely hotel room overlooking the Rue Monsieur le Prince, big windows open, listening to the sound of scooters buzzing up and down the street. At least down the street, usually it is one way except for tourists.









During the picnic, we decided to salvage the sightseeing part of the day by going off to the Tour Eiffel, having dinner at some little bistro and then seeing the Tour lights fantastique! Our waitress was not the most ummm customer service oriented employee, dinner was a bit lame, though the leg of lamb was pretty tasty.



The Café de Marche was okay and did have the properly eclectic look of a French bistro.



We wandered through the darkened Parisian streets to the Parc Champ de Mars to view the Tour Eiffel all lit up. And... Voilá... There it was!




[ Note the lights fantastique compared to just the "plain" lights... ]





Metro back to Saint Germain and finished the night at Les Editeurs, where I am writing this and drinking wine, much like famous authors have done forever. Perhaps we have yet another career?