2006 Oct Europe trip - Paris Oct 16 - 20

We left JFK for Paris Oct 15, 5:55pm. Flight was uneventful and on time. Bad airline food as usual. Arrived Paris. First day jetlagged but accomplished a lot.
Taxi from CDG to city with traffic took about 1hr.
Checked into hotel early, went to Tulerie gardens, wonderful, visited Orangerie museum, great collection of impressionists and canvasses of Monet’s work water lilies how he painted them. Had late breakfast in old favorite Angelina tea room. Now found it just OK, we had better croissants in regular patisseries but service was refined.

Walked up to Champs Elysees, came back and decided to swing to Louvre for exploration since we bought museum pass for 2 days. Were not sure how long we will last. But we went there for1.5 hrs, visited Mona Lisa, Winged victory and other biggies. Re: winged victory - found out that the hand of the statue was found in late 90's in Turkey. France asked if they can have it since Winged Victory itself was taken by French from Turkey. So Turkey gave hand and finger :-) - Now in exhibit next to Winged victory.
Walked in Palais Royal - wonderful! We will be back in Louvre on Wed when it is open until 21:45.

Hotel is 5* http://warwickwestminsteropera.com/
but the room is tiny! Good things about this hotel : free broadband internet in the room. Great if you need to work on your computer. Concierge is very good. We took wrong convertor plug and they gave us different plugs until we got what we needed. First one only worked in bath (:-) ) and when we turned off the light for a night, that outlet was turned off and in the morning computer did not recharge. We got a new plug and now computer is charging ok at desk.
Bath is very good, marble. We have nice small balcony. Hotel is a former elegant mansion and is more like 4* SLH then 5* hotel as they advertise. Excellent neighborhood (near place Vendome and Opera).

Cons - very small room and almost no closet space. Good thing we do not have much clothes which need to be on hangers. But the room is not that goood. We had rooms like this in 3* hotels. I guess we will survive. I tried to get larger room but they only offered us jr suite for extra 115 eur per night which we declined.

We were so exhausted after today’s walks that we bought wonderful food and wine and ate in bed! Now a bit of work and early to bed. Did not sleep since yesterday night.

Good news about Paris – no dog poop on the streets! Paris is clean and people are friendly, speak English. George even asked our taxi driver what does he thinks about Americans. The driver – looked like middle eastern said we have done good thing by removing saddam husein. He said some arab drivers will be aggressive toward Americans .

Do not change money in JFK - ripoff. We travel often to Europe so we had 100 eur or so at home and it lasted until this morning and we then changed in Paris exchange. Other solution is to exchange money it CDG.

October 17.
Hotel's breakfast which was not included cost 23 e per person so we found local cafe and had it for 8 eur for 2! Great croissants. The guide Estelle came at 9:30 and we took a metro with her to Marais and had a nice walk in this area of Medieval Paris. We saw some nice mansions and church St. Paul. We also saw Holoucast memorial. We went to Place Vendome with wonderful houses , one of them was where Hugo lived. We also went to synagogue and walked on Rue Rossiers (Jewish area) where we ended our 2 hr tour. We had lunch in kosher deli and spent some more time in the area. Then we walked (long walk ) to D'Orsay museum. The rest of the day was spent there. We had a break in LeRestaurant at museum, it has wonderful painted celings and ambience. After that we walked back to our hotel. We also listened in underpass to museum to a street musician who happened to play our favorite songs of Armstrong and Beatles. We stayed until museum was closing (around 6pm) and walked back to hotel. One the way on place Vendome there was musician playing classical music on the real piano (not keyboard) with looked like expensive rug under piano. Maybe it was sponsored by city since there was some activity in the morning. In any case, we enjoyed this unexpected concert and I just thought: here I am in Paris, in this wonderful square listening to the most beuatiful music of Chopin. Incredible. We walked to hotel, rested and at 7:30pm we had a formal dinner at our hotel's Le Celadon restaurant. This restaurant had 1 Michelin star. Dinner was very good but not extraordinary. We chose wine separately and had special menu. For appetiser we had soft bolied eggs in some crust on a bed of chanterreles. Then we had for main course guinea hen on a bed some champignons which I did not recognized. They had some woodsey flavor. There was also stewed apple . All was nicely presented. We also had some complimentary dishes which I thought was small steak tartare. George did not eat it so I had 2 of them.
Funny thing was that George thought we ordered ginnea pig instead of ginea hen! :-)
I explained to him it is a game dish. I asked him why he did not questioned what was guinea "pig" meant. He said did not want to show his ignorance, maybe it is french delicacy. That was hilarious. Our "guinea pig" was indeed well prepared breast of looked small chicken looked like cornish game hen. For desert we had chocolate panache freshly baked and also some various small desserts that usually come with dinner. Total for 2 was about 130 eur. Not bad.

Both days so far the weather was very good, warm and was sunny on Monday.

October 17 was spent in Musee D'Orsay which we personally love more then Louvre, it is more manageable and we love Impressionists. However after 4 hrs we were completely exhausted. Unlike in Louvre, there are not much possiblity to sit. We had a break in a nice restaurant for coffee at museum but it was very expensive. Ice tea and coffee was about 12 eur. We went to hotel recharge and went shopping to gallerie Lafayette which is near our hotel behind the opera . The shopping in french and famous department store was an experience and it was owherhelming from George so he opened his eyes ... and wallet. Besides shopping, the dome in the building with stained glass is like in churches.

October 18 we walked to Ille de La Cite - where Paris started and visited Notre Dame and St. Chapelle and explored this beautiful island. After that we had lunch in a belgium bistro Au Trapiste I beleive it was called on Rue St. Dennis . I had mussels in white wine and lemon sauce and it was very good and we washed it with Belgian Amlstel Stella Beer. It was a huge plate.
We stralled in the evening in Opera stately boulevards and had dinner in Cafe De La Paix near Opera . The dinner was better then daybefore in Michelin starred Le celadon. We had foie gras and onion soup for starter. I had game duck with potato souffle and braised red cabbage. George had turbot (fish) with potatoes with interesting twist - some lemon, some seeds - we could not figure out exactly, but it was excellent. Chocolate creation PacoRaban Paris - not sure if it has relation to perfume designer but it was good. So it was another fine day.

Did I mention that every day we also managed to work ? :-)
Our hotel has free internet and we check and reply to messages and still do some work on this trip. So business and leisure can mix..

October 19. In the morning we walked to yet another department store Printemps and browsed it , and had breakfast there in the panoramic terrace , took pictures with Eifell tower in background. I never liked to be near Eiffel tower, it is so huge that when you are under it, you do not appreciate it. Years ago we paid for expensive restaurant Jules Verne just to be in Eiffel tower but the food was not impressive. Now we found out it is better to see it from outside and terrace in Printemps is very good location to view it and take pictures.

In the afternoon we had a tour with a great guide which I often book for my clients, Jean Manuel Traimond.
http://emcoinc.com/travel/html/Europe/ParisJeanManuel.htm
He is terrific and has dynamic personality, you never get bored on his tours. We opted for his Naughty Louvre tour. If you are interested in details, email me directly :-)
Jean Manuel also wrote a book "Guide Erotique du LoLouvre". It was sold in Louvre's store unfrotunately only in French but since it has all pictures of statues and paintings we saw to remind us, we bought it anyway. Jean Manuel signed it for us.
Jean Manuel found some incorrect facts in Da Vinci book, for example, number of tile in Louvre pyramid. He counted them himself 674 tiles on pyramid. Dan Brown says 666 which is number of devil. Interesting...

After tour, we went to Palais Royal and rested in the park and went home. We had early dinner in Louvre's caroussel in food court. Nothing special. Rested at hotel and went for tea and desert at night. We happened to stop ia small cafe where musician was playing piano. When he heard we are Americans, he played for us "New York, New York" and Hershwin and some song which was sung by Tony Bennet. Everybody applauded. We also told him we were originally from Russia (some other Russian tourist sat at next table), so he played Russian melodies as well. That was a good evening. Dessert was tea and tart tatin (apple) and some rice pudding with raisins and vanilla. Very good. Good service .

October 20th was some takeout from local patisserie for breakfast in room (suffered in small room cramped space). Lunch was with my business partner in Paris in Chez Clemente. We ate in bistro Chez Clemente. Regular chain bistro but food oh so good. http://www.chezclement.com/anglais/index.php
We checked out late but still was time until our flight 8:20pm. So concierge kept our bags and went to Opera (for a tour during the day). We wanted to see Chagal's painted ceiling but unfortunately there was rehearsal in opera and auditorium was closed. So we just saw the rest. Imposing building.

We came back to hotel and ordered taxi and left for Orly airport, 30 eur.

Goodbye Paris! I hope Budapest will not dissapoint.
Sophia