Last Day in Paris!

The day I have been waiting for! Today we are being taken to Giverny to see Monet's Garden, the Japanese bridge and his house. There are just 8 of us in this tour van driven by our multilingual guide who seems to know everything there is to know about Monet. We are a group of Americans and Brazilians so he is sharing his information in English and Portuguese. He is also surprisingly calm as we try to get out of Paris amid all of the early Friday afternoon traffic. We are getting to see a different Paris as he snakes his way down the tiny, barely accessible side streets!

Giverny is a town that is part of the Normandy region. We pass field after field of canola. It was tough to get any good shots. As you can see, it is not sunny. In fact, it is raining and I am praying that it clears by the time we get to Giverny.

The weather got better and better as we got closer to Giverny....yes! We are walking where Monet walked and I am overwhelmed at how fortunate I am to be here taking pictures and experiencing this beauty. This is my favorite picture. Apparently, this isn't the Japanese bridge, but I liked it better. I knew the waterlilies wouldn't be in bloom because of the time of year. So, I bought a waterlily scarf!!!

This is Andrew and I on the famous Japanese bridge. Our guide was kind enough to take a bunch of pics of us! This gorgeous wisteria was planted by Monet.

I thought these were very pretty....they are on the bank of this pond between the bridges, along with many other beautiful flowers and trees. I could have stayed there ALL day taking pictures!

This is the front of Monet's house. He moved here after his first wife, Camille, died. His second wife, Alice came into the marriage with 6 of her own children. Monet had 2. They needed a big place! They didn't want us taking photos inside, but it was really beautiful. The kitchen was all periwinkle blue. The dining room was all bright yellow. The sitting room wall was entirely covered in Monet's Japanese art collection.

Closeup of the flower bed in front of Monet's house.

This is the view from Monet's bedroom. At the peak of his career, he employed 7 gardeners to take care of these gardens and the Japanese bridge area....quite expansive.

The Iris flower was everywhere!

This tourist cafe was just down the road from the real cafe that Monet actually frequented.....OMG. Anyway, bread, cheese, wine and thou! A great way to end our Monet tour...

Bicycles and motorcycles were everywhere! You have to be a little crazy to ride these in traffic, though!

This is our last night in Paris. We head over to Bercy Village Shops and Restaurants not too far from our hotel where even the Parisians hang out, because the food is so good. This was once an old railway station where wine from the south of France arrived in Paris. The entrance of the Saint-Émilion metro station (named after the French wine) opens onto this village, which is a commercial area of Paris that replaced the old wine warehouses of Bercy. This is an area specializing in good food. We choose Chez Bruno and get a table right out on the edge of the alley, great for people watching.

 Bon Appétit!

  The last patisserie....

  Au revoir, Paris!

Day 2 in Paris

It was a gorgeous day and we spent it discovering the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay, among other things. We decided to take the Metro, which is easy to understand and if you need help, the information booth people are very accommodating. I've done subways in NY City, Boston, and now London, but this was the first time I lost my husband. Even though there are trains coming and going to your destination about every two minutes, it's human nature to try to catch the one that is beckoning you with it's wide open doors. So, we made a run for it. I ended up on the train and Andrew ended up a door sandwich. A collective gasp sounded throughout the car....I was bent over laughing, but stopped when I realized that 1. The doors did not open back up  2. Nobody else was laughing or even smiling....yikes! and 3. I had the map and Andrew didn't know which stop to get off.

Now, a test: How well do we know each other? What will he do next? What will he think I'm thinking? So, to make a long, boring story, shorter - we both got ourselves to the Louvre (in different ways), but sat out front in different places for another 20 minutes until Andrew spotted me. I must say I was QUITE relieved to see him! Now we can enjoy the beautiful art...

Some people think this pyramid structure in front of the Louvre is a monstrosity, but I like it. I think it's an architectural wonder.

To get the shot of this beautiful lady, I employed my very tall husband to get above the heads of the mass of tourists!

I managed to get a shot that hides the fact that they are doing construction here as well!

This is the only shot I got of the Arc....we didn't get any closer. Too much to see, too little time!

To get to the Musée d'Orsay from the Louvre you just have to cross the Seine.

Inside the d'Orsay, view from the front entrance. The Musée d'Orsay was once a railway station. For it's very interesting history, check out this link: http://www.aviewoncities.com/paris/garedorsay.htm

View from the top (5th) floor (opposite entrance), where the most fabulous collection of Impressionistic art is shown.

View of the clock from the inside. Love this shot, would love to have directed the people to stand in different places, but did not want to be arrested....

We are still on the top floor of the d'Orsay, but outside on the terrace, with a gorgeous view overlooking the Seine.

We're exhausted and want to head to a café for a bite to eat and glass of wine. I want to go to the Café de la Paix, which our guide mentioned yesterday. It's right in the center of everything, the Place de la Concorde. So, we find a bicycle taxi right outside the d'Orsay (why didn't I take a pic?) and meet our driver, George. This is George, doesn't he look French? He's from Texas...LOL! He's been in Paris for 5 years and loves it. He was a great tour guide....here he is telling us that this is the most dangerous roundabout in all of France....highest mortality rate......thanks, George!

We thanked George for the awesome ride and told him if he can cart us all over Paris, he's ready for the Tour de France!

That's me at the Café de la Paix, ordering a glass of wine in French....LOL. Can you see the waiter smiling? He spoke to me in English....he was so sweet. We had a lovely time there and a delicious meal!

One last stop before we crash for the night. Andrew needs something from a Patisserie.....something chocolate! We ended up at Café Nicolas, right around the corner from our hotel. Mmmmm.....the spearmint was good, too!

Our Paris Hotel

We stayed in a very nice hotel (The Bercy) in an area of Paris called, Bercy Village. It was decorated in a modern style as you will see. Here I am sitting in part of the front lobby in a tres modern chair, very comfy too....fortunately, there is no video of me trying to get out of it!

 

The title on this beautiful sculpture: Plenitude....I took pics of it each day to get the best reflection. She is sitting right outside the front door of our hotel.

I couldn't find a title for this sculpture, but I liked her attitude. She was right around the corner from us.

I mentioned before that Paris is very green. Here's another example. This is a trash can with ivy and other foliage growing out of the top.

In the lobby cafe, decoration behind some of the seating....cool.

My favorite! This is a picture of the rug that is on every floor but the first.  Should have taken more pics. It comes out about 2 feet from the wall as an edging. It is writing from Apollinaire, the French poet, among other things. Check him out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Apollinaire

Forgot to put this in earlier. While waiting for our bus one day, we got to watch a photo shoot right in front of our hotel. We have no idea what it was about, although pretty sure it was related to the hotel somehow. We call him "Orange Man".

Welcome to Paris!

We took the Eurostar from London to Paris which took us through the Chunnel, the undersea rail tunnel that stretches 31 miles. An amazing feat, indeed. We would describe it as: Dark. Before we knew it we were in Paris and on a bus with our amazing guide, Dominique, who was with us in London as well. A fascinating guy who was born in Italy, spoke many languages, but has been a citizen of England for decades. He should have been a history professor and SO charming! (shame on me, no pics of him!)

I was surprised to get any good shots out of the bus window. Here's some interesting wall art.

Next stop, the Eiffel Tower. We are just here for pics and a walk around. As luck would have it, there is some sort of construction or repairs going on right underneath the Tower.....I'll be PhotoShopping later!

Since we knew we weren't going to be coming back and going up the Tower, I snuck in the back way for just a "touch"....missing the guard by seconds! :)

Now we're off to Notre Dame de Paris, which means Our Lady of Paris. This is a photo of the Cathedral from the south, on a bridge crossing the Seine. It turned into a beautiful day!

Lighting candles inside Notre Dame...

Feeding the birds wherever I go!

Lunch at a Cafe with our new friends from Canada, Pat and Frank.

Coolest idea, ever! This building is covered with 100 different thriving plants.....Paris is very green!

 

We went for a cruise on the Seine, tough to get good shots as it was getting dark. Here are a couple of houseboats. Saw lots of these along the way. Wonder what it's like to live on the Seine?

 This bridge is covered with locks. I didn't know the story behind these until I looked it up. Apparently, these are "love-locks" put up by lovers expressing their undying love after throwing the key to the lock in the Seine, check out this link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/lovelocks-return-to-the-bridges-of-paris-2293506.html

One more shot of the Eiffel as we head home. Spectacular at night, won't be able to do it justice.

Day 4 in London

Off on our own again in London. We headed to the London Aquarium by the famous Underground Metro system. Very easy to navigate, very clean and very friendly people with answers to our questions.

I tried to show how steep the descent into the Metro system is here. We went down FOUR levels similar to this! How far below London were we? 

 This is the Metro Station right next to our hotel of the same name. Very colorful!

The Aquarium is located right next to the London Eye. It is a great teaching aquarium, but the Boston and Monterey Aquariums are much more spectacular.

This Ray kept coming right up to me, closer and closer with his mouth open. I assumed he was hoping I was going to feed him. This was not a touch pool. Below: Beautiful crocodile.

Next we took a little walk through Hyde Park near the Marble Arch and our hotel. This Horse statue weighs 6 tons, is a 27 feet tall, half inch thick, bronze Marwari Horse Head sculpture by Nic Fiddian-Green.

 These guys kept a close eye on us as we ate lunch....

Dinner was at The Sussex Pub where we sat next to a group of French people. By the way, we learned there are 300,000 French people living in England. We saw the very long voting lines on Sunday!!