Adventures in France-Land, Paris round 2

Posted: June 21, 2013 | Author: arrowone | Filed under: Me, Travel | Tags: bike rentals in Paris, bike riding in Paris, Jardin du Luxembourg, Musee d'Orsay, National holiday, Paris | Leave a comment

We wake up to an eerily quiet Paris and head to Cafe de Flore for caffeine.

Notice the lack of people, cars, etc. Turns out our designated day to shop in Paris was a National Holiday, all stores and most other things – CLOSED!

So we window shop.

We hoped the museums might be open. Nope, sorry Musee d’Orsay.

We tried our hands at performance art.

We checked out the locks on the bridge – again notice the lack of people, the city felt empty.

We took a really long walk to try our hand at traditional “sight seeing”. We got really bored.

That’s when we saw these. Empty Paris + family bike ride = perfection!

Popped the kids in the baskets and off we went.

After days of walking we felt like we were flying!

Paris is surprisingly flat so the riding is truly a breeze. I highly recommend this experience.

Unfortunately the baskets were less then comfy for the kids.

And all good things must come to an end. The bike depots are all over the city, this one is 1/2 block from our apartment.

Now it’s the kids’ turn so we head back to Jardin du Luxembourg, which turns out to be where all the people are. Another perfect day, a person could get really used to this!

Adventures in France-Land, Paris final day

Posted: June 19, 2013 | Author: arrowone | Filed under: Me, Travel | Tags: Paris, Thai food in Paris, traveling with kids, what to do in Paris with kids | Leave a comment

Good morning.

Our last full day in France.

Amazing how at home we’ve all come to feel here.

We ventured out and ate things like this.

And this.

We walked by this guy a bunch.

We did some of this.

The sky looked like this.

I got my hair cut.

We people watched and played another family favorite, “spot the tourist (and guess what country they are from)”

At this point we are extremely sad about the thought of leaving France the next day. We put the camera away and savor the last hours in the City of Light. We went out for a spectacular Thai meal and hit the second of only two “lost in translation moments” during the whole trip. Our lovely server spoke Thai and French but no English, even so she helped us choose a magnificent meal with the universal sign of “tummy rub” signifying “yummy” – we returned in kind with our own sign language of a huge smile and a “thumbs up”.

Goodnight Paris, thanks for a perfect final day.

Adventures in France-Land, Walking (and trains) VII

Posted: June 17, 2013 | Author: arrowone | Filed under: Me, Travel | Tags: air b'n'b, Blundstone, Cahors, Chez Bartolo, Paris, TGV, traveling with kids | Leave a comment

We wake up on market day in Puy L’eveque and have time for just a bit of shopping.

The taxi arrives just when the rain gets heavy and off we go to Cahors to jump on a train.

Just something we passed along the way, gotta love France.

Cahors is a big busy town and this is there lovely train station were the high speed train will take us to Paris.

Cahors is a big busy town and this is the lovely train station were the high speed train will take us to Paris.

One of our favorite waiting games, the “stand on one foot”, other favorites include “I’m thinking of a number” and “all the words you can think of that start with ‘a'”.

A little slice of home that totally earned it’s place in the backpack even though it was only used half the time.

One of the many advantages of being 5 and 7.

Back in Paris we navigate to our second air b’n’b apartment. I really felt the loss of our red and white GR trail symbols as we wove through cars and people instead of trees and mud.