On our final full day in Paris, we started by navigating some home repair. Prior to our stay, there had been a leak in the roof. The owner gave us a discount if we didn’t mind letting the contractors in to fix the damage during our stay. We did not mind, but they showed up early, and I had to figure out how to tell them we’d be out by 9:30. I muddled through using Google Translate.

That morning, we had tickets to the Louvre. Amy had discovered the “secret” entrance. It wasn’t exactly a secret, but it wasn’t the main entrance and it was certainly less crowded. Unlike Versailles where I hadn’t particularly expected crowds, I had heard some horror stories about crowds at the Louvre.

We must have caught the place on a good day because the crowds were not oppressive. Even the line to the Mona Lisa was manageable. As more than one person has observed, the level of attention given to the Mona Lisa probably does a disservice to many of the other attractions at the Louvre. In the same room, on the wall opposite the Mona Lisa, is a painting of the Wedding Feast of Cana by Paolo Veronese. Like I’ve said before, I don’t know art, but this thing is very big, there is a lot going on, and everyone in the room is looking the other way at the more famous painting. It’s the Jan to the Mona Lisa’s Marcia.

At one point, we were looking at a bust of Ptolemy. Harper asked, “like the mathematician?” I explained that Ptolemy had been one of Alexander’s generals and had ruled Egypt after his death. There had been a lot of historical figures with that name, but I couldn’t say whether the mathematician and the general were related somehow. Turns out that it wasn’t exactly an uncommon name, but I hadn’t appreciated that Cleopatra had been a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, though it makes perfect sense.

We put in several hours, but eventually we got tired. When we found ourselves trudging through a blur of paintings, pottery, and stone, we decided to call it good enough. We hadn’t properly scheduled lunch. Hungry and tired isn’t a great combination for decision making. So, we had difficulty picking a place to eat. Eventually, we went with a Spanish tapas restaurant called Les Pietons. It was o.k. but not great. I will say, the Estrella Galicia beer really hit the spot. I’m not sure if I had had that before.

After a bit of rest back at the apartment, we headed to our next destination – the Catacombs of Paris. This was obviously Harper’s choice, and it was a good time. While waiting in line, we met a family from Bloomington, Indiana. I was wearing my IU sweatshirt and one of the kids was very excited about seeing a fellow Hoosier in Paris.

The Catacombs are repurposed limestone mines used to deal with Paris’ overflowing cemeteries.  In the late 18^th century, it seems human remains from the cemeteries were spilling into adjacent basements. Ultimately, Wikipedia tells me, the Catacombs have received the remains of more than six million people. I’m not sure what I expected, but the bones are very neatly stacked. Mostly skulls and limbs. I don’t think I saw many rib cages, for example.

Across the street from the entrance was a café called “the Indiana.” So, of course we had to stop for a drink. I met a guy from Clarksville. Going with the theme, I had an “Indiana IPA.” The girls had a fruity drink they seemed to enjoy quite a bit. After our drinks, we headed up the street to I Grappoli for dinner where we split a pizza and some mozzarella sticks. For dessert, I had a strawberry sorbet. Amy and Harper had something like a chocolate lava cake.

The evening was still young, so we took the train to see the Moulin Rouge. We didn’t have any plans on going in, but it’s iconic. In retrospect, the train ride was a little long for what we did there. We saw the outside, took a few pictures, and then Amy and Harper went into the nearby Five Guys to use their bathroom. A staff member kind of gave them the stink eye for using the restroom without ordering any food but let them go. There were a lot of sex shops in the vicinity which weren’t very appealing for our family outing. So, after that brief interlude, we hopped on the train back to the apartment and called it a night.

The next morning, we got a taxi to Charles DeGaulle airport much earlier than, as it turned out, we needed. Even though Harper and I got up early, Amy was up even earlier – catching the end of the IU/Penn State game in the Big Ten tournament. IU won, and she saw Cole!

We had heard horror stories about getting to the airport, but traffic was light. Security there seems to be more of a pod system – at least for our gate. The security area we passed through served only a limited number of gates, so it was empty when we arrived. Which was good because Amy’s bags got a proctology exam. Maybe the staff was bored, maybe the conditioner really was a big security threat. In any event, they spent some time with her bags but let us through with lots of time to spare.

The flight to Copenhagen was uneventful. At the airport, the lounge available to (the inaptly named) Priority Pass members was closed because they prioritized other people who used the lounge. We thought about waiting for it to open to us, but ultimately just decided to head to the gate. There really weren’t many food options in that area of the airport. I picked up some snacks from a 7/11.

The flight to Chicago was about 9 hours. Harper and I were in a 2 seat section of the row. Amy was the odd man out. Her seatmate Jack was very chatty. He was a Vanderbilt student who had been in London for business school of some sort. Customs was a breeze. We used the mobile passport line and we went through it in less than 10 minutes. On the way home, Amy streamed IU’s second round of the Big Ten tournament for us to listen to. Nebraska just had our number this year and the game got away from Hoosiers. Took us about 3 hours from landing in O’Hare to get home, which is awfully fast. It was 21 hours door-to-door. The dogs were happy to see us!

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

If you enjoy tales of climbing up and down stairs and hills, this installment is for you. Paris is not Lisbon, but it turns out that there are some hills.

We started the day by going to the Montmartre area of Paris. The exit from train station had an elevator where we noticed more people than usual standing. We took the stairs and, not knowing the area, were surprised at how far up we had to go to reach street level. Our mistake, after all, “Mont” is right there in the name!

For breakfast we went with croissants and expressos at a place called Boris Lume Boulangerie. This was Harper’s choice. It apparently features prominently in a show called the Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir. The proprietor scolded us gently for not ordering our coffees at one time. This would have made the order somewhat easier to fill, apparently. Properly chastened, we enjoyed our breakfast.

From there, we continued climbing up the hill to the Sacre Coeur. The problem we ran into there was that I had wanted to see the stairs featured in the fourth John Wick movie where Wick has to fight his way up a comically long flight of stairs against innumerable gunmen, only to be knocked down and have to climb up again. We had come up from the wrong direction. The route from the Montmartre station to Sacre Coeur actually didn’t involve too many stairs. We went through a small commercial district and then came out on, I believe, the west side.

Assuming I’m correct that it faces the south, I walked down the south stairs so I could go around the side and find the Wick stairs. Harper went with me. Amy recognized that this was silly and just waited up top for us. On the way down, a vendor was putting on the hard sell for trinkets. He said I could get “5 for 1” to give to my daughter. I was heartless and didn’t buy even one! Harper and I got to the bottom, walked a quarter of the way around, and then climbed the stairs. Except they were the wrong set of stairs. So, lots of climbing for not very much! But it was fun to walk a little further with Harper.

Once we were back up with Amy, we kept going, climbing to the top of the basilica. Amy didn’t have any particular problems with the heights in this configuration. The views were good. The spiral staircase was dizzying. I was a little surprised to learn how recently the Sacre Coeur was built. It was constructed between 1875 – 1919; apparently in response to the French losing the war to the Prussians in the 1870s. They’d lost the favor of God and all of that. Being a conservative initiative from the right, I gather that it’s not a beloved monument among the socialists and godless communists.

After taking in the sights in and around the basilica, we headed back down through the commercial district we had passed through initially, picked up some macarons, and headed back to the Airbnb for a rest.

In the mid-afternoon, we left for our food tour which was in the Marais area of Paris. These food tours have become some of my favorite activities in our European trips. For this one, our guide was Camila. Unlike Berlin, there were no New York Yankees in our group. We did, however, get to hang out with Ann, Annie, and Karen. They all went to a school for learning French. Two were from the U.S. and one was from England. (One of Ann or Annie was the spitting image of Ana Gasteyer playing one of the NPR hosts in a couple of sketches.)

Camila was from Argentina. Interestingly, these food tours have all involved guides who weren’t from the country we were touring. In any case, Camila was a good history teacher. She had maps and everything. Marais apparently means “the swamp.” It was a swampy area of Paris that was drained and eventually housed some rich Parisians. But then the wealthy were apparently coerced to leave when Louis XIV built Versailles and moved the court there. It became a factory area and Jewish quarter and has become trendy since the 1970s.

Our first stop was L’Escurial where we had wine and escargot. I guess I’ve had escargot enough at this point, that I don’t regard it as weird or all that exotic. But Camila made a point to be reassuring about the food and at least one in the group was a little nervous about it. Ultimately, to me, snails aren’t much different than oysters. They end up being a vehicle for whatever sauce you want to put on them.

What was different for me was pulling them out of the shell. When I’ve had them at restaurants, they were already out of their shells. Harper had a “defective” one. She wasn’t the only one who couldn’t pull the meat out of that particular shell. Others at our table gave it a go with no success. Camila deployed a tooth pick to try to get it out. Still no luck. Eventually, the solution was to smash the shell and pick out the shards.

Our next stop was Miznon, and it was just fantastic. Apparently the chef is Israeli and the menu is an Israeli-French fusion idea. My favorite food of the trip was the beef bourguignon in a pita. It was a little messy, but so, so good. The Dijon mustard added the final touch that made it next level.

After Miznon, we had falafel at Chez Hanna which, if I’m honest, was not my favorite. I suspect this has more to do with my not being a huge fan of falafel than with the quality. Next we had desserts – Belgian chocolate at Elisabeth Chocolatier and kouignettes at Maison George Larnicol. At the latter, we learned about the title “Meilleur de Ouvrier de France.” It’s an award given out as part of a competition every four years. Per Wikipedia, “This award for special abilities is unique in the world. Created in 1924, initially between the best workers of the era aged 23 and over, this contest was given the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France (Best Craftsman of France).”

We stopped briefly in front of the apartment where Jim Morrison allegedly died in 1971, before finishing the tour at Vins de Pyrenees for cheese and wine. Overall, I’d rate the places we ate at the tour as decent and the guide as outstanding.

By the end of our food tour, it had been several hours since we had climbed any stairs of note; so we went to the Arc de Triomphe. As arches go, it is very triumphant! I’ve seen it in pictures a hundred times, but hadn’t really appreciated the scale of the monument. It’s really big!

The Internet tells me the Arc de Triomphe is 164 feet tall which amounts to something like a twelve story building. Going up to the top involved a lot more stairs, but the view at the top was very much worth it. It sits at the intersection of twelve radiating avenues and offers a fantastic view of the Eiffel Tower. Even better, the tower “sparkles” on the hour at night, so at 8 p.m., we were able to see it all lit up from the top of the Arc de Triomphe. If she had to pick a favorite part of the trip, I believe this would have been Amy’s.

Then we headed back home. According to my watch, we’d climbed the equivalent of 87 flights of stairs and walked 19,000 steps.

After our first day in Paris, we all slept really well – to the extent we were commenting about it. I guess travel and a lot of activity will do that to you. After sleeping in until 9, lazing about with some coffee, and getting ready, we started making our way to lunch.

The closest metro stop to our Airbnb was at the Hotel De Ville which has the Paris 2024 Olympic rings on display. After making a slight detour to see those, we picked up metro cards with 10 rides, and started getting ourselves familiar with the Paris metro system. In other places, we had generally obtained some kind of weekly pass that provided unlimited rides and benefits like museum discounts. For Paris, Amy did the math and that kind of card just didn’t add up for us.

The train was easy. We had more trouble with a bus ride after the train. The problem ended up being that the bus stop we wanted was closed due to some Olympic-related construction. The next closest bus stop was far enough away that we probably just should have walked in the first place.

Lunch was courtesy of our recent Netflix habits. After watching the Bear, we got it into our heads that we wanted to eat at a Michelin star restaurant. Turns out, that’s easier to do in Paris than West Lafayette. Not wanting to break the bank, we settled with one star and doing it over lunch. Also, we wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower later that day.

That brought us to Le Violon d’Ingres. (The name, I just learned, is a reference to a famous picture with a nude model who has two “f-holes” painted on her waist to make her torso resemble a violin. That photograph’s name, in turn, is based on a French expression that refers to a hobby because of a French artist who used to play the violin when he wasn’t painting.)

The food was very good as was the service and the presentation, but ultimately, I can’t say that the experience was over and above the average restaurant in a way that was commensurate with the price. A fair amount of the price was our own fault – they offered champagne as an aperitif which we agreed to without looking at the menu or the prices, adding 75 euro to the bill. Lesson learned! Still, I’m glad we checked that off our bucket list.

 

I neglected to take a picture of the menu or record exactly what I had. But it was a spinach salad to start. (If my spinach tasted like that, I’d eat it every day!). Next up was scallops. The main course was aile de raie which, I believe, is some kind of fish from the ray family. And for dessert was a mille-feuille which is a puff pastry layered with pastry cream. Harper and I made the same choices. Amy had the duck for her main course and ouefs a la neige for dessert.

Like I said, very good. I don’t need to go back. While we were eating, I was wondering about the guys who looked like a casual lunch crowd. What kind of job has you drinking booze and going to a Michelin star restaurant for lunch? They looked vaguely professional – guys in their 40s to 60s, I would guess. Meanwhile, my normal work lunch is Subway at my desk.

After lunch, we headed to the Eiffel Tower. In a lot of ways, we were doing this trip as paint-by-the-numbers tourists. I know some travelers want to live like locals; but if you’re only going to be in a place once for a few days, I don’t think that works very well.

Only one pillar of the tower had lifts running. The others were under construction, being fitted with more efficient hydraulics, I believe.  We took the lift up to the second level. Amy thought her anxiety over heights would be manageable, but as we were in line for the elevator that would take us to the top level, she reconsidered.

Harper and I went on up. It was probably a good choice for Amy. The top is well-confined so there is no real chance of falling. But it is very high, and there isn’t anything else near your level. To top it off, it was very windy. The view was great, of course. But, the thing about being on top of the Eiffel Tower is that there, unlike most places in Paris, you can’t look for the it as a landmark.

After returning to the second level, we reconnected with Amy where we took advantage of a gift shop and a mail slot to send some post cards. When I was visiting my parents a couple of weeks ago, I noticed the Berlin post card on the refrigerator. So, don’t underestimate your ability to brighten someone’s day by sending a little post card from far off places. We took the stairs back down. Even though we were going down, it was still a bit of a hike getting to the ground!

It was a bit rainy outside, so we went back to the Airbnb and crashed for a little while. Eventually we roused ourselves to head out for dinner. On the calendar was Le Relais de l’Entrecote. They only serve one thing: steak and frites. And the restaurant is incredibly popular. It’s one of those places that’s popular because it’s popular. It creates its own momentum.

After the big lunch, I don’t think we were very hungry when we started the trip to the restaurant. We ended up in line for 2.5 hours! So, if we weren’t hungry when we got in line, we were sure hungry by the time we got into the restaurant. The line took us past a big window that let us see some of the diners. We had fun joking about holding up Google Translate on a phone saying stuff like, “Hungry. So, very hungry. Please leave.” We were punchy. It was a long wait, but we had a good time. Some other folks were buying drinks from a nearby grocery and having them in line.

There was a young American woman behind us who had a dog that looked less like a pet and more like an accessory. We were all pretty sure we’d dislike her if we got to know her. The restaurant gave us a lot of steak and frites. Possibly more than we wanted. Besides drinks, the only real decision to make is whether you want your steak rare, medium, or well done. They pile on the fries and aren’t shy with more helpings of meat either. We ate our fill and then headed home. We had an early morning the next day.

 

From the Comfort Hotel in Copenhagen, it was a short walk to the airport. All indoors. As we knew from last year’s trip, the Carlsberg Aviator’s lounge is quality. Carlsberg on tap, good coffee, bread, and cheese, among other things. So, we ate there. Harper and I recreated the breakfast beer picture Cole and I took last year.

The flight to Paris was short and uneventful. Charles De Gaulle Airport has some crazy, avante garde walkways. They kind of snake up and down where you’d expect either escalators or maybe just a flat surface. It was fun, but a bit of an adventure with roller bags.

Upon exiting the secured section of the airport, there was a crowded scrum of drivers picking up passengers and what I suspect were unlicensed drivers looking for fares. There was good signage pointing to the official taxi pick-up location. Once we cleared the scrum, the crowds abated somewhat and, by the time we got to the taxi stand, there were very few people around. We hopped right into a taxi.

Our Airbnb was in the center of the city (just a couple of blocks north of Notre Dame Cathedral). On the way in from the airport, there was a long stretch where the sidewalks were crowded with just about nothing but men. It was at least 10:1 men to women in this area. At around noon on a Sunday. And there were a lot of people. This was not a small sample size. Amy noticed the same thing and remarked that “if there are no women, there’s a reason for that.” I don’t think I want to walk those particular streets.

By the time we got to our place on Rue St. Martin, the demographics had equalized and the neighborhood was energetic. The road actually didn’t get all the way up to our door – or at least not at that time of day – there was some vehicular traffic early in the morning, but it was all pedestrians and tables and merchandise when we arrived.

We had to walk about half a block from where the taxi dropped us off to get to our apartment. It had two bedrooms, a very small kitchen, and a decent sized living/dining room. The bedroom Harper took was very narrow and, oddly, had a window into the hallway with curtains over it.

After unpacking our stuff, Amy and I headed out for groceries. There was a decent grocery store maybe two blocks away where we were able to grab essentials like coffee, bread, beer, wine, and cheese to have in the apartment for snacks and breakfast. This has become something of a ritual, and it cracks me up how much easier this has been for us in Paris, Berlin, and Lisbon than it was in Rome.

Our first encounter during that Rome trip was with a very elderly Italian shopkeeper who didn’t speak a lick of English with our Italian being comically inadequate and him insisting on getting items for us off a shelf. These other shopping trips have not required much in the way of direct communication. Grab the stuff, go to the counter, say “bonjour,” ring it up, pay by credit card, “merci.”

We rounded up Harper and headed out to the Centre Pompidou which was maybe a tenth of a mile away. The primary attraction was the Modern Art Museum. Candidly, I’m not a huge art person. And a lot of modern art is just beyond me. Still, this was worth the visit. It helps having my daughter able to explain some of it to me.

One of the things she mentioned is that some of the modern artistic efforts are a response to photography. With cameras able to reproduce the world so easily, artists are looking for other ways to capture the essence of things. So you get styles like Expressionism and Cubism.

Harper observed that a lot of modern art is divided between, on the one hand, pushing the limits and concepts of what it means to be “art,” and – on the other hand – simply saying “screw you” to rich people. Maybe they’ll buy it. The “readymade” exhibits (e.g. hanging up a shovel or laying down a toilet from a hardware store and calling it “art”) strike me as an example of the latter.

Dinner that night was crepes at the nearby Creperie Beauborg. I had never had savory crepes. They were pretty good. I had one with ham, cheese, and egg. Harper had the better idea with the Norwegian crepe, featuring salmon and cream cheese. While we were looking at the menu, what I took to be an English-speaking spring break school trip arrived with a bunch of students. The staff had its hands full for a bit. For dessert, we got crepes with chocolate which hit the spot.

Through the magic of VPNs and subscription services, we were able to wrap up the night by watching the Indiana / Michigan State basketball game. The broadcast had several nice shots of the band, and we were able to see Cole a few times. While it would have been more fun (for us) to have him in Paris with us, seeing him on TV was at least some consolation.