This was a travel day as we headed south to the coastal town of Lagos. We packed up our stuff, said good-bye to our Airbnb in Lisbon and took an Uber to the train station. The train ride was hot, but mostly uneventful. Heading out of Lisbon, our route took us over the 25  de Abril Bridge over the Tagus which makes for a beautiful view.

A prolonged stop on the tracks got us into Tunes about ½ hour late. We were supposed to catch a connecting train there, and I don’t think there was another one until the next day. So, we were a little concerned about whether we would have to get an Uber or make some other arrangement. Amy texted the Airbnb owner who assured us the train would wait.

And, so it did. We caught the connecting train from Tunes to Lagos. It was a no-frills operation and the lady with the family sitting next to us complained incessantly. Every stop along the way was a personal affront. Our Airbnb host picked us up at the train station. It actually wouldn’t have been a long walk, with a foot bridge over the marina. But, with bags, it would have been a little inconvenient. The drive was a bit more circuitous and we were pretty well packed into the host’s small car, but it was not too bad. Our host was originally from Australia but had lived in Lagos for quite some time. I believe she said her kids had grown up there.

The house itself was kind of a row house concept atop one of the hills. There was a porch on the roof with fantastic views. We were pretty gassed from our travels at that point, but Amy and I walked down the hill into the city center for some beer and snacks. Some kind of popcorn snack we don’t have locally went down pretty well along with some more Sagres. (As I recall, they had cold Sagres and only warm Super Bock, so my choice was made!) After the snacking and drinking, the coffee table looked like one of my old college apartments – with chip bags and empty beer bottles.

Properly refreshed, we strolled down to the beach and took in the sights. Lagos is a beach town and a tourist destination on the southern coast of Portugal. The city center has cobbled streets and Portuguese tile with lots of bars and restaurants that were bustling when we were there. It’s an old place, once a center of Portuguese navigation, colonialism, and the slave trade. The coast of Lagos features a series of beaches interspersed between high and beautiful cliffs. In several places, there are passages through the cliffs so you can get from one beach to another.

 

Once we had strolled about the beaches for a bit, we were getting hungry and we didn’t yet have a plan. As a family, we mostly travel well together; however, that evening, fatigue, heat, and thirst were having an impact and there was some chippiness among us as to where we were going to eat. Eventually we settled on a place. Cole and I both got doner kebabs, Harper got a tuna salad, and Amy got something with chicken.

On the way home, there were some Irish guys busking in the central plaza that we stopped and enjoyed for a bit. Then we climbed up the hill to our place and kicked back, watching several episodes of Cobra Kai before bed.

The night was not terribly restful. The bed in Amy and I’s room was not terribly big. There was a small bed – a cot really – in what was almost a closet attached to our room. I thought that would make a cozy little hideaway for sleeping but there ended up being a lot of noises. People walking by in the street, a window rattling in the wind, and some other noise I never identified.

Today’s major activities were a trip to the National Tile Museum, the Tropical Botanical Garden, and a Food & Fado tour. Our first stop was breakfast at the café across the street. Again, kind of unnecessarily complicated breakfast items. Still, not bad. I had a combo with eggs, yogurt, toast, and croissant. We dubbed our uber ride to the tile museum “crazy taxi.”

Tile Museum

The tile museum was mildly interesting. The blue and white style on the tile was apparently influenced by Portugal’s contact with Japan and China. After a period of time, there was a “return to color” where, as the phrase would imply, the tile became more colorful. The kids and I had a great time with a depiction of Baby Jesus who was absolutely *jacked.* His abs and biceps were insane. That led to a debate about whether he was juicing or if the Almighty could get that kind of look without any gear. Also, because Harper has previously clued us into how tough it is to draw hands, we were poised to focus on that when looking at various pieces. There was one person who looked to have a palsy of some sort. What can I say? We know how to have a good time!

 

Tropical Garden

Having become properly cultured in our knowledge of tile, we took another car to Belem. Our original intent was to see the palace, but it’s only open one day a week, and this wasn’t it. Instead, we went to the nearby Lisbon Tropical Botanical Garden. The garden had a lot of peacocks and there was an expo in the 40s focused on Portugal’s connection to the Orient, and there was a special section devoted to that.

On the whole, I guess the place struck me as sort of run down. But it occurred to me that the parts of Portugal where I have been, especially in Lisbon, have been what I think of as the “right kind of shabby.” Enough to be interesting and not sterile. But not so much that you think the place is unloved or dangerous. The metaphor probably isn’t great, but it puts me in mind of the vitality you find in mutts. That’s not intended as condescending at all. I think it’s a great energy. We learned on our river cruise that the government owns the shoreline of the river. I figure this is a mixed blessing – if the government doesn’t have the resources, the areas can be underutilized or left to deteriorate. On the other hand, it means the areas are open to the public and not walled off for private estates or bland resorts.

After the garden, we stopped at Pasteis de Belem, the OG pasteis de nata shop. Its history is tied into the nearby Jeronimos monastery. I haven’t had a bad pasteis de nata, so I can’t say that this was an order of magnitude better than the others or anything; but definitely worth a stop. We ate them at an adjacent park with some confusing exercise equipment. The kids were getting goofy pretending to exercise. But, exercise we did!

We were a little sick of Ubers by this point, so we started on the long hike back to the Airbnb. But we took plenty of breaks on the way. The first stop was in the commercial area where we’d eaten sushi the night before.  We snacked on some chips and guac. Unfortunately they didn’t have any Super Bock or Sagres; so it was Heineken for Cole and I. Amy and Harper went with fruity and refreshing: apple spritz and strawberry daquiri. After that, the walk was along a fairly busy street and – if I’m honest – that part of it was not very enjoyable. Our second stop was at a little corner kiosk with tables which, I’m happy to report, had Sagres. The rest of the walk was mostly uphill through the Alfama neighborhood. By the time we got home, we were more than ready for a break.

 

 

Food & Fado

Following some rest, we rallied for our “Food & Fado” tour. We met up with our tour guide who took us through some Fado related areas in the Mouraria and Alfama neighborhoods. Fado isn’t the blues, but I think it sort of occupies the cultural space in Portugal that the blues do in the U.S.

One of the interesting things our guide discussed was about how fado started life as this colorful, decadent sort of art form brought in by sailors. When Salazar took over Portugal, the color and decadence were contrary to his sensibilities. He couldn’t fully suppress the form, so he coopted it; creating designated spaces for fado and an expectation that singers would cover up and wear dark colors.

In our group was a family originally from New York who were sort of out of central casting. Dad at least (maybe others) had moved to Florida. Son had studied computer science, worked for Facebook, and was in a start up in San Francisco. Not sure about mom and daughter. But their metrics for success were a little different than my family’s. More of a high-flying east coast focus. I think they were maybe a little perplexed by our family’s relative lack of ambition. Also in our group were two sisters, older ladies from Los Angeles who had been on a cruise in Spain and the Mediterranean.

After walking for a bit and learning about prominent figures in fado history, we stopped at what the Internet seems to call Ginginha da Alice. It was an apartment door that opened up into the street where, after receiving a call that we were there, Alice put up a small card table and served up some ginginha in edible chocolate shot glasses. It was fantastic and, I believe, the biggest reason that Amy picked this tour for us.

Eventually, we made it to the restaurant. I can’t recall exactly what we ate, but there were few courses: bread and appetizers, a main course with a lot of meats – steak, pork, cod, ham – as well as some chips and rice. In between the courses were sets of fado. The singers were a grandmother and granddaughter pair who would switch off. I sort of got the impression that the backing guitars (one standard, one Portuguese) were also family members, but I’m not entirely sure. At the end, grandmother and granddaughter did a set together. I probably won’t be putting a lot of fado on my Spotify playlist, but it was pleasant, soulful, and impressive.

After dinner, Amy attempted to help the L.A. sisters get their Uber situation sorted out. One of the sisters was having a terrible time trying to get her app to recognize what city she was in.

But, eventually we said our goodbyes. It was after 11 by the time we got home – a fortunately short walk and down hill. We had had a full day.

The main events for our first full day in Lisbon were a street art tour and a sunset sail. We got a fairly early start and ate breakfast at a place called the Paleio Café. Cole and I had peanut butter and banana on toast – a combination that would come up a couple of times on our trip and will probably make its way into the home breakfast rotation.  The café had an 80s vibe and, like a lot of the breakfast places we would visit, had a menu that was a little fancier than I think breakfast needs to be. I think a Waffle House could make a mint in Portugal.

From the cafe, it was a short walk to the meet up spot at Martim Moniz Square for the street art tour. While we were waiting for the others to arrive, there were a lot of flies at the square. Cole remarked, “this must be what it’s like to be dead!”

Our guide was Vera, a street artist from Belgium and her dog (whose name I forget). She had a particular interest in feminist themes in and about the art. The tour would take us through the Alfama and Mouraria neighborhoods of Lisbon.

The art raised interesting questions (as art does.) We saw some really captivating, unsanctioned art painted on walls that someone else owns. The good stuff is provocative and makes that part of Lisbon interesting. But it’s easily painted over by bad, lazy, and/or damaging graffiti. Who has the right to paint where? Who should decide? Vera said it was often times just municipal workers, hired to repaint walls that have been spray painted. They’ll simply fail to paint over the items they happen to like.

Leaving the decision up to property owners is another solution. Certainly, that comports with my sense of property rights. But do we really want art left in the hands of those who can pass a certain financial threshold? (Or artists who won’t offend the sensibilities of those who can?)

The tour was great, but it ended up being about 3.5 hours and, like a book in need of an editor, probably would have been even better if it were more like 2 hours.

Immediately after the tour, we caught an Uber to the LX Factory in the Alcantara district.  It was an old textile complex that has been reworked into a commercial area with shops and restaurants. Mostly, we probably could have skipped this trip – given how much else we were doing that day – but the lunch was pretty good. We ate at a restaurant called “Beer’s.”  Given the name, what’s a guy to do but have a nice big mug of Sagres? On top of that, I had my first (but not last) bifana of the trip. It’s a staple in Portugal with a number of variations, but basically it’s a pork sandwich. Tasty and not complicated. I get tired of restaurants with overly complicated hamburgers and whatnot, so that was perfect for me.

In the LX Factory complex there was a good sized book store where we spent some time, but the titles were all in Portuguese, so those didn’t have a ton of appeal for us. It had a really great record section, focused on jazz. (So of course, I found myself mostly flipping through the Blues section!) That section had a strict “no pictures” rule for some reason.

Beyond the record store and the restaurant, the other stores didn’t really have a lot that jumped out to us; so, we decided to catch another Uber back home. (Logistically, it would have made some sense to stay in the area because our next activity was not too far away, but we were pretty gassed.) The Ubers are readily available and cheap. Given the company’s history, I’d guess they are hoping to erode the city’s transportation infrastructure and then jack up prices. But, right now getting around town was a breeze.

After resting up a bit, we headed back out to the River Tagus for a sunset river cruise. The Uber driver was following directions that got him almost to the port, but not quite and found himself at a dead end. He dropped us off and we were able to walk the rest of the way. The meet up was next to the “paddle club” which – I thought was going to have something to do with boats. But it was a bunch of pickleball courts. While killing time, Cole and I had a beer. Carlsberg was the only thing on tap. It’s not Portuguese, but not the worst fate in the world.

Our sailboat was “the Leonard Cohen” which tickled me quite a bit, particularly given the “Everybody Knows” lyric that “everybody knows the boat is leaking; everybody knows the captain lied.” Our hosts were Pedro & Pedro. We sat in the bow of the ship and felt like we got the better Pedro. Another part of the group was astern and we didn’t have much interaction with them. There was a lady from Utah who sat up front with us. She was pleasant but mostly didn’t seem inclined to interact much, so we let her be.

The weather was fantastic. In fact, the weather was terrific for almost the entire trip – generally somewhere between 65 – 80 and sunny. We sailed from port, downstream toward the ocean – seeing, among other things, the Monument of the Discoveries, the 25 de Abril Bridge (formerly the Salazar bridge, but nobody much cares for the dictator after they gave him the boot), the Cristo-Rei monument, and Belem tower. Then the boat turned around and went upstream back past where we started and as far as the Praca do Comercio (giant plaza built after the 1755 earthquake.) Then we turned again and found a nice spot in the middle of the river to wait for the sunset.

During all of this, there was fun music (we joked about it being “music white people like” and I correctly predicted that “Sweet Caroline” would be coming on eventually.) Pedro kept us supplied with vinho verde and sketchy Portuguese nautical facts. (He told us that the word for “tea” came from a Portuguese stamp “T.E.A.” placed on crates during the age of discovery; and that “port” and “starboard” came from the fact that, when heading south along side Africa during the age of discovery, sailors would have port to their left and stars to their right.) Also, and this was unexpectedly the coup de gras, we were given Bugles to snack on. Left to my own devices, I never would have asked for them, but they were exactly the right thing paired with sailing and vinho verde.

We capped off the night with dinner at a sushi restaurant called Izanagi just up the boardwalk from the dock. I can’t say that the food was memorable, but it wasn’t bad, and the river view was excellent. All-in-all, a successful day in Lisbon.

If my sources are correct, the 24th wedding anniversary is the “shelter in place in an airport anniversary.” No? Well, that’s how we did it on our way to Portugal for a summer vacation this past July. Harper, Amy, and I went up to Chicago O’Hare on that Monday evening. Cole had headed to Europe a week earlier, going to visit a friend in Estonia. He would meet us in Lisbon.

This was not our first trip to Portugal. Back in Spring 2021, we made our first trip there. That trip had been an offshoot of pre-COVID plans to go to Spain. There was a work conference in Porto that Amy was going to attend and then we had intended to head off to Spain for the rest of our trip. COVID postponed things, and then we ended up spending a week in Portugal – in Lisbon and to the north in Porto. We liked it so well, we decided that we wanted to return for a summer trip, explore Lisbon some more and then head to Lagos in the southern part of the country.

The weather heading up to Chicago for our flight was sunny and clear. If our flight had left maybe a half hour earlier, we would have been fine. But we didn’t, and storms were rolling in. We got to the airport and ate at the Macaroni Grill there. Amy and I did at least gesture toward our anniversary by leaving Harper with the bags at the gate and going to a bar and grabbing a couple of drinks. The bartender had already given Amy a heavy pour, noticed that the bottle was almost empty and probably gave her what amounted to two glasses of wine. Which, given airport prices, we might have broken even.

Shortly after that, the announcement came over the airport P.A. system that there was a tornado warning. We were directed to “shelter in place,” which amounted to moving away from the windows. Everyone was pretty calm and nonchalant about the whole thing. (Being good Midwesterners, we wanted to go to the windows to watch the weather, but we followed the rules.) One lady from Philadelphia said she had never been around a tornado. Later we heard that there had been tornados that touched down nearby. Wind gusts got up to 80 mph. The windows rattled and doors were left open to help equalize the pressure. It was a little surreal, but did not last too awfully long.

Between the late start and the extended taxiing due to built up airport traffic, we took off about 2 hours late. Harper slept like a rock, I slept some, and Amy said that it was a very different experience as between the two of us. I was tossing and turning while Harper was a lump of concrete. When I wasn’t sleeping, I spent an inordinate time playing “Angry Birds” on the airplane entertainment system. The poor woman in front of me – it never occurred to me that she could feel my poking at the screen. I hope she didn’t wait too long before asking me if I could stop.

Because of the late start, we missed our initial connection from Heathrow to Lisbon. They put us on the next one. Because of (I believe) Brexit, we had to go through security – but not customs or passport control – in Heathrow. Heathrow is an organizational cluster (more on that on the way back), but our reasonable layover time turned into some stress over whether we would make the connection. Ultimately, even with the delays and new flight, we arrived in Lisbon about 2.5 hours later than expected. Ultimately, it was about a 21.5 hour trip, door to door.
Cole was waiting. He had come that morning from Tallin, Estonia, through Munich, and then to Lisbon. It was good to see Cole after he had been abroad for a week. He hasn’t lived at home full time for a couple of years, but having your kid far away from your help adds a level of anxiety to parenting. He was fine, of course.

We got an Uber from the airport to the Airbnb which was a block or so away from the Lisbon Cathedral, dropped off our bags, and our first order of business was picking up some supplies. By supplies, I mean Super Bock and Pringles. I remembered Lisbon being hilly, but my memory just didn’t do it justice. It’s a little like mountain climbing any time you want to go somewhere.

The Airbnb ended up being comfortable enough, but it wasn’t perfect. In particular the kids’ bathroom was an adventure. The toilet was wedged into a position behind the sink where you had to kind of sit at an angle to use it. The shower was such that, if you angled the shower head the wrong way, you were going to flood the bathroom and maybe the adjacent bedroom. And, there were roaches. What I’m trying to say is that the kids mostly used our bathroom.

For dinner, we went to a nearby restaurant that Amy had found called Tu e Eu 2. The restaurant was squirreled away in an alley and up some stairs. In fact, on the way there, we missed the alley and got there from the street above via an elevator that took us to level below which opened up on the outdoor stairway. The line was down the stairs, so we waited there. (We discovered it was cash only, so Cole and I quickly walked back to the apartment to pick up extra cash.)

It’s a small place with walls covered in graffiti from visitors and a healthy sound system playing. I had grilled sardines which had a great flavor, but somehow I couldn’t avoid getting a lot of bones that I had to pick out of my mouth. The staff gave us ginjinha to cap off the night. And then it was time for bed. I slept the sleep of the just, long and deep. I guess mostly skipping a night of sleep will do that!

 

 

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.