That my family and I actually made it to Paris two days
after Christmas 2012 was a real accomplishment to end a challenging year. The gods conspired a bit last year. The trip itself was a re-booking of January
2012 airline tickets to Madrid, which were cancelled after I experienced a
cranial emergency last New Year's Day.
Following that recovery and several other twists of fate and
life, what had been planned as a museum-filled weekend in the Spanish capital
for my spouse and me was reborn as a post-Christmas family holiday in France
and Spain with our almost-12-year-old son.
We would now begin our holiday in Paris and end in Barcelona.
We spent Christmas day at home in Baltimore with family and
prepared to fly the next evening from Philadelphia to Paris. As it turns out, we live not quite half-way
between Washington and Baltimore, which ends up giving us 4 major airport
choices: BWI, Reagan, Dulles and Philadelphia.
Thanks to the ease of parking, customs and immigration, we often choose
Philly over Dulles for flights to Europe.
But, we awoke the morning of our trip to snow and ice. The roads were bad - well - bad for Maryland,
which is not the toughest of winter weather destinations. So, we decided at the last minute to skip the
drive and instead dashed to the Amtrak rail station at BWI Thurgood Marshall
Airport and hopped a crowded train to Philadelphia 30th Street Station, from
where we grabbed a cab to Philadelphia International Airport and boarded our
evening flight to Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport.
LES ENFANTS: Paris
with children? It's a city with many
adult offerings, of course, but Paris is a wonderful city for people of all
ages. It's especially magical for kids
and particularly so during the holiday season.
There are lots of museums and parks and other attractions to entertain
and occupy children. But, you do have to
make some adjustments for the younger travelers in your party. Although it's hard for someone like me who
wants to see everything, less really is more in this, the most-visited city in
the world.
I've always appreciated that the French, in general, and
Parisians, in particular, dote on their little ones: children, small dogs and
cats. Visiting Paris during the week
between Christmas and New Year's only served to underscore that point. While we met very few fellow Americans on
this visit, we ran into or, more accurately, stood in line with, thousands of
French families on holiday with their kids. As it turns out, this holiday week is a
popular time for French families to take their children and visit their
capital. The city was mobbed with
families and everywhere we went there were long lines and lots of strollers.
For us, traveling with a sixth-grader involved our own set
of adjustments. We got a later start each
morning and we also scaled back what would have been my normal death march
through Paris' endless list of world-class museums. We spent more time just walking around this
amazing city and, importantly, stopping whenever we were hungry instead of
looking for the latest "it" restaurant. As it turns out, such an approach to dining is
not risky at all in Paris because there seem to be no bad dining choices in the
City of Light. Speaking of light, there
was very little of it during our brief visit. Being late December, it was dark and the
weather was cold, rainy and overcast, but who cared. We were in Paris, walking along the Seine
with Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower in view.
MAKING THE MOST OF TIME: Thanks
to a colleague who had just returned from Paris, our transportation from
Charles De Gaulle was pre-arranged with a friendly tour guide/cab driver who
was waiting just outside baggage claim. We had emailed the details of our
flight and hotel before leaving home. Vijay,
who studied engineering back home in India and is married to an avocat (lawyer), whisked us into town and to our hotel in the 5th
Arrondisement. Of course, we could have
saved the 70 euro cost and taken a much cheaper train, but we were tired, my
minimal French had not kicked in and we wanted to maximize our time.
This was our second stay in the St. Germain de Pres
neighborhood and we really loved - again
- our small, perfectly situated hotel.
Le Clos Medicis is just around the corner from the northern entrance
to Le Jardin du Luxembourg and just off Boulevard St. Michel. The English-speaking staff is friendly and
the triple room just off the central courtyard met our needs perfectly. After dropping our bags, we made our way
towards the river and took a left. Soon,
we found ourselves in front of the Musee' D'Orsay and stepped into the first of
many lines. It took about 40 minutes to
gain entrance to one of the world's finest museums of Impressionist art. In addition to its amazing permanent
collection, we had the good fortune to visit during a blockbuster exhibition:
"L’impressionnisme
et la mode," which featured paintings by Caillebotte, Manet, Monet, Renoir
and others focused on the fashions of the day.
The museum, which began life as a train station, includes a cafe on the
top floor with grand views of Paris looking north. We fed our jet lag here with a Coca Cola
Light and a pistachio pastry.
An hour and a half generally is the outer limit when it comes to art
museums and our son. So, we made out way
outside where a rain squall began. We bought a cheap umbrella and headed along the Seine towards the Eiffel
Tower, stopping to inspect all of the locks attached to a pedestrian bridge across from the Musee' D'Orsay as part of some ritual. But, the rain intensified along
with our fatigue, so we turned back and made our way to the hotel with a detour through the Jardin de Luxembourg just as the skies cleared and the sun came
out. This really is one of the most
beautiful city parks anywhere in the world.
And, I had read on the flight over that French intelligence forces are
headquartered beneath the Luxembourg Palace, so the presence of lots of stern
looking French soldiers only convinced me this was true.
Back at the hotel, we violated a rule of travel to Europe and took a late
afternoon nap. But, we managed to get
showered and out the door for a late - for us - dinner at one of the cafes
across from the Jardin, which was delicious, of course. The next morning, we headed out to our first
destination of the day, Paris' natural history museum or, as it is more
elegantly titled in French, La Grand Galerie de L'Evolucion. Located in the lovely Jardin des Plantes near
Gare D'Austerlitz, this museum is a great place for fans of dinosaurs and other
early inhabitants of the planet. Our son
may have moved on to an iPod Touch and Minecraft apps, but he's still a big fan
of T-Rex. After waiting in line for
another 40 minutes or so, we wandered up and down the three floors of this
enormous museum, which is well-designed and cleverly lit. All of the information is in French only, but
it didn't matter; our son really enjoyed the displays and you definitely get
the gist.
As we left the museum in search of lunch, our son experienced another
travel dividend: exposure to others. The
museum is across the street from one of the large mosques in central Paris and so
we got to explain the exodus of hundreds of men only from Friday services. We headed towards Notre Dame and found a cafe
full of other families having lunch.
Fortified with another delicious meal, we made our way past the
Insitut du Monde Arabe, an amazing building with panoramic views that my spouse
and I enjoyed on a prior visit, and crossed the Seine to the Isle St. Louis and
then to Notre Dame. The line to enter
the cathedral was - of course - long, so we continued our walk to the Right
Bank and headed towards shopping central along and near Boulevard Haussmann.
Paris has several famous department stores or "grand
magasins." Our stop was Galleries Lafayette. It's actually comprised of
two buildings, one for women and home, and one for the guys. We were duly impressed with the 6-story
Swarovski Christmas tree but freed ourselves from the in-search-of-sales crowds
as soon as we could. Passing the grand Opera
House, we walked to elegant Place Vendome, which was beautifully decorated,
like all of Paris, for the holidays, and found a subway station to head back to
our hotel for some rest before dinner.
Our last night in Paris involved a quiet meal near our hotel. We were up and out the next morning and Vijay
was waiting for us. He delivered us to
the very busy Gare de Lyon, from where we caught a high-speed train (TGV) to
the next chapter of our holiday adventure, the South of France.
No comments:
Post a Comment