Summary

To read from the beginning of our journal, click here.

Don't forget to check out our photo album.

Let me summarize this trip by:
Food: we had all French food that we could think of, including crepes, quiche, escagot, baquet

Transporation: Paris has excellent public transportation system: Metro (i.e. subway) and RER train pretty much take you anywhere you need. The green line of l'Open Tour bus is another option. (Not recommend their other lines though)

Accomodation: Simon Le Franc apartment from Vacation in Paris is excellent. Condition is good. Location makes it even better: it's close to Rambuteau and Hotel De Ville metro stations. As I mentioned before, it's right next to Center Pompidou.

Clothing: light jacket, fleece pullover and T-shirt work for May weather.

Money: we did a great job at not leaving any Euro un-spent! After we took the taxi to airport, we have only 7 Euro left among the 4 of us! As frequent foreign travellers all know, the best exchange rate you get is from ATMs at your destination. Nevertheless, we exchanged for some Euro in advanced at San Francisco downtown. The rate wasn't that great but we're old fashioned.

Criticism: poor directions at museums (entrance for tix holder) Cashiers were slow. People do not follow and enforce rules (e.g. taking pic at Louvre and standing on top floor of bus) My biggest gripe is with their tax refund process though: non-European union citizens are supposed to be able to get tax refund for purchase totalled over 175 Euro at the same store. However, the directions for this process is very vague: you must obtain forms from the store when you made your purchase. Take those forms to the American Express booth at the airport, before you checkin. Our purchase at Gallerie Lafayette qualifies for this refund and the sales knew we're non-EU-er (as we're given a 10% discount for that) but the cashiers over there didn't give us the form (and of course we didn't know to ask for that!) I went to the Gallerie Lafayette branch inside airport terminal but they claimed they didn't have such form and I should have got it from downtown. Call it conspiracy theory but I think they make this a mission impossible on purpose. I am providing a link that contains detailed instruction so that you won't repeat my mistake. They are making more than enough money than they should. Don't give them more. Gallerie Lafayette deserves 5 rotten apples from me.

That's all I wanna say about this wonderful trip.

Day 7

The last (full) day of this trip was reserved for an excursion outside Paris, to Chateau De Versallies, one of the most visited palace in the world (other than the one in Beijing and Buckingham) We took Metro and then transfer to RER C line. Most tourists knew they were supposed to take the C line but there were actually several different C trains, many with destination that contains the name Versailles, so they got confused, and followed tourists that looked less confused, like us, to correctly take the train that went to Versailles Rive Gauche. Versailles sell many different tickets which allow access to different part of it. We bought 2 tix each, one for the state apartments and one for the garden. The state apartments consist of Queen's bedroom, many drawing rooms and the famous hall of mirrors. The idea of a palace probably gave you an impression it's all about magnificent rooms/decorations/buildings, i.e. mostly indoor. However, the garden of Versailles was equally amazing, with many sculptures, fountains, lakes and a grand canal!


Versailles 

And we had crepes for dinner again :D

Day 6

Since we've bought 2-day passes for l'Open Tour Bus, we figured this day was the day to explore routes other than the "Greatest hit" route and it exposed a major downside of l'Open Tour, which I will bring up later.

Our first stop of the day was La Madeleine. There's no way we're not bringing Madeline to visit her namesake, right? It's tough having to "compete" with the likes of Notre Dame and Sacré Coeur but La Madeleine had its own charm as a church, which also "double" as a concert hall.

La Madeleine 

There were lots of shops nearby, including Fauchon, a favorite among tourists who buy food as souvenir for friends back home.

Next we had some horrible experience with l'Open Tour: its literature gave us an impression that we could easily and quickly hit all spots covered by their 4 routes as they mentioned buses come every 20-30 mins. Their green line (i.e. greatest hits) buses certainly arrive very frequently but that's not the case for their other lines. We have waited for over an hour for their yellow line bus to visit Montmartre, a hill side area in Paris! For fear of waiting for another hour, we opted not to get off at the Moulin Rouge stop and went straight to the next stop. The landmark there was the white Basilique du Sacré Coeur. Interesting fact: the top of this church is the highest point in Paris (other than Eiffel Tower) Its unique architecture sets it apart from other churches in the world.

Sacré Coeur 

Montmartre was also renowned for its art scene. At the Artist Square, you'll see lots of working artists, some offers to draw portraits for tourists. Near the Artist Square we found Espace Montmartre, a museum that specialize in my favorite painter, Dali. Of course you won't find his most famous work there (they probably reside in more established museums like MOMA in New York) His generation of artists were unlike their predecessors: they became famous before they die so they lived longer life and produced lots of work, some with less quality than others just for money. I'm not saying good artists must die young but works from those who die young were certainly more precious than others.

Again, the transfer from green line to blue line was painful: we had a 40 min wait. The "bright spot" of the blue line was Place de la Bastille. It's where the famous Bastille prison once stood. That's the prison that triggers the French revolution. The prison was burned and not exist anymore but now at the centre of the plaza there is a July Column (Colonne de juillet) which commemorates the revolution. We also passed by the huge and unique looking Mitterand National library.

We had dinner at Cafe Beaubourg, nearby Pompidou (and our apartment) for authentic French food (also authentic French cafe experience) and we got both. The server was slow to bring us the check but I couldn't blame him too much. After all, among all cafe goers, who besides us, would be in a rush to leave?

Day 5

Other than Gallerie Lafayette (the dept store), another company that is heavily advertised is l'Open Tour. They run open-top double-decker bus service on 4 routes through out Paris. Their 4 routes hit most of the major landmarks in Paris and you pay by day (1 day pass costs 25 euro and 2 day pass costs just 3 more euro) so you could get on and off as much as you like. Sounds attractive huh? Of course we took the bait and went for their 2 day passes. Their "greatest hit" route is the green route, which stops at Louvre, Eiffel Tower, La Madeleine, Musee d'Orsay, Concorde Plaza, Notre Dame, and our plan for this day: Champs Elysees and Arc De Triomphe.

Champs Elysees 

Champs Elysees is probably the most famous street in France (or in the world!), best known for luxury name brand stores and cafe. The shopping section of the street was actually smaller than I expected as one section of the street neighbours to a park, where we saw lots of families were having fun. Also most of the name brand stores didn't really intimidatingly "stand out" (except LV) It feels more like just having a presence in the most prestigious shopping area in the world. Maybe it has to do with luxury being so natural a part of Paris. We had lunch at an moderately priced Italian restaurant Bistro Romain, facing the street. The quality of food was really not bad (another surprise! Most tourisy restaurants at prime location in other places of the world serve mediocre food at outrageous price. I guess French really have a thing about defending their reputation of good food.)


Arc De Triomphe 
Along with Eiffel Tower, Arc De Triomphe serves as the most recognized landmark of Paris. (Personally the view of it surrounded by the "radiating" roads was my first impression of Paris because of a postcard sent by my dad when he visited Paris many many years ago) This was the first time I went under the Arc and I immediately felt that this was the kind of thing better appreciated from a distance. Nevertheless, you can't say you've been there unless you've been there!

We hopped back on the bus along the "green route" all the way to Notre Dame again, for the famous Berthillon ice cream at Latin Quarter. There are actually more than one ice cream places that bear Berthillon as part of their name. We didn't bother to figure out which one was the original Berthillon and just picked the one with the longest line :P Berthillon ice cream was indeed fabulous and worthy of the wait! The ice cream was almost our dinner (Oh yeah, we did have crepes after ice cream, at one of the cafe facing Notre Dame.)

Day 4

Paris is certainly famous for its art, but it's also famous for shopping (Luxury good maker LVMH headquartered in Paris for a reason!) This day we went shopping at Gallerie Lafayette, a department store heavily advertised in tourist literature. As a bonus, we get to see the nearby magnificent Opera house.

Back to my museum journey, I visited Musee d'Orsay, another must-see art museum in Paris, most well-known for its collection of Impressionists' works, e.g. Manet's Olympia, Monet's Water Lily Pond, plus Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night. It also has an interesting history: it is converted from an old and unused train station built for the world fair of 1900. Tips for future visitors with limited time (say ~2 hr): visit the 5th floor first, where the Van Goghs, Degas, Renoirs, Gauguins ... are. Then 1st floor next (Manet, Courbet, Moreau and other large scale works) Finally other floors.

This evening I brought my wife and daughter to Pompidou again, to take some pictures of its famous water fountains and its unique architecture (the external escalator and heat conducting pipes.) BTW, Pompidou is just 3 min away from our apartment. In fact, we see the back of Pompidou (the side with the pipes) everyday when we walked on the main street next to the apartment. For some reason admission was free this time (maybe it's Sat evening or near closing hours?) which made my prior paid visit even more pointless :( On the flip side, my wife and daughter got to enjoy modern art for free. So I can't complain too much.

Pompidou 

Then we had dinner at Flunch, a budget self-service cafeteria-like restaurant. This was no fine dining but that roasted chicken and the cream puff dessert were really not bad.

Day 3

Personally this is the day I've been waiting for since we had the idea to visit Paris 'coz this is the day we visit Louvre, the most prestigious museum in the world! Not only it features fantastic art works, it also had a rich history and great architecture. The glass pyramid is just one notable example in the long history of amazing addition made to this palace-turned-museum. Since the building has been rebuilt so many times and has so many sub-component, navigating through the maze-like museum is not an easy task. Even though I've spent days in advance reading "The Pocket Louvre" to try to figure out our path, I still had a hard time following it 'coz which sections would be closed temporarily wasn't something the author able to predict. (Side note: in an American museum, there would probably be lots of signs directing people to different interest area. Not Louvre. I guess the French mentality is you're free to navigate whichever way you like and they don't wanna seed any idea in you. Of course, none of the American museum is as big and complicated.)

Louvre 

We had lunch at Cafe Marly, which is on the side of the Richelieu wing, and has a great view of the pyramid and the Napoleon courtyard. While the view was nice, I don't have anything good to say about the service: when we ordered the sandwich, we specifically asked whether it has tomato. We were told there's minimal tomato in it but it's in fact the opposite! And the task the manager was most actively performing was watching for visitors not dining there but trying to sneak in for the bathroom. Enuff said. Of course this didn't ruin a single bit of our Louvre experience, of great architecture and art inside the museum. The sculptures and paintings were most impressive IMO. I love the works by David and Michelangelo the most. After 3 hours of "wow" and "oh" and lots of walking and climbing up and down stairs, we're exhausted and reluctantly said good bye.

In the evening, I visited Pompidou Center, which is considered among the "Big 3" art museums in Paris (#1 Louvre, #2 d'Orsay) To be honest, like lots of people from Hong Kong, the first time I heard of it was its link to the West Kowloon Art development project. Its name was mentioned along side Guggenheim, another museum organization of which the model of operation was studied in HK. This museum's specialty is modern art (while d'Orsay specialize in mid-19th to early 20th century art and Louvre before that) Too bad it's 5th floor, which features their most famous collections (Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky), was closed when I visited! They did have a large sign (with small prints) "warning" visitors about this near the ticket booth but I was too excited and rushed to buy tix without reading that :( You bet how disappointed I was! Even so, there were some gems among the rest of these less famous works.

Pompidou 

I finished my visit in an hour and it was 7:30pm. (American) Time for dinner! My wife and I planned to buy some food to-go (for mom-in-law and Madeline) but it was surprisingly hard to find! Most sandwich places closed after 8pm. Even the supermarket closed at 8:30! Of course our American friend, McDonald that is, came to rescue! As much as it's criticized, you can't deny McD provides a consistent level (no matter how low that is) of quality of food throughout the world. You pretty much have a good idea of what you get from McD, wherever in the world you are. Hey, it's successful for a reason.

Day 2

The priority of day 2 was to buy a new Memory Stick since we left ours at home. Fortunately the words Memory Stick was understood even though I spoke no French. We bought one at BHV, the huge department store closeby.

Next priority was to buy Louvre and Versailles tix in advance, from an electronic store called FNAC, BTW, not all FNAC sells them. We got them at a large (4 floors) FNAC, underground, near the Chatalet metro station. Louvre tix allows you to get in through Richlieu passage, which saves you from the long long line at the glass pyramid, i.e., the front door, where most tourists went through. And Versailles tix allows you to get in thru Entry B2, again, no long line! (Side note: later on we found out directions at those places were very unclear about who could get in from which entrance as they sell many different type of tix. I guess that's typical French chaotic way >:)

In the evening, the plan was to take a cruise on the famous Seine river that run through the city of Paris. So we took Metro and exited near Grand Palais/Petit Palais/Champs Elysees. According to the tour guide book and map, Pont Alexander III is minutes away and we should be able to get on board a cruise boat. Well, while the former is true, the latter is not quite. We ended up spending another 15 minutes to get to Pont d'Alma, where we missed the boat that departed at 7pm but finally able to get on the one for 7:30pm. This delay had an adverse effect which was not known at that point. Anyway, the hour-long cruise costed 7 euro and I highly recommend it 'coz it showed and explained all the landmarks along Seine. Madeline had a ton of fun walking up and down the boat and annoyed the hell out of an old lady who scolded her in French. Well, Madeline ne comprend pas le Français.

The final stop of the day was Eiffel Tower. And that's where we had dinner: very fine French cuisine at Atitude 95, a restaurant on the 1st floor. The dinner started around 10pm, which is considered late in US but very normal in Europe. We didn't get home until 12:30am!

Eiffel 

Day 1

Other than providing direct flight from SFO-CDG airports, Air France's service is really so so. For example, giving away kids' toys with small pieces was definitely a bad idea. Flight attendants were unresponsive, which wasn't really surprising. We're too excited about Paris anyway so such small things didn't affect our moods much.

When we arrived at CDG, we took a taxi to the apartment we rented, 10 Rue Simon Le Franc. Like any other big cities, Paris has traffic jam all over. Thanks to the drivers' clever manuvuering between small streets and alleys, the ride didn't take too long and costed us <50 euro, as expected.

After settling down in the apartment, it's time to visit our first stop of the many landmarks in Paris: Notre Dame, arguably the most famous catherdral in the world, thanks to Victor Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" (or Disney's rendition of it?)

Notre Dame 
Dinner for the night: budget 3 course meals at Maison Blanche, a tourisy restaurant nearby Notre Dame. Although it's just 8pm by the time we finished dinner, we were so tired due to jet lag so we took a relaxing stroll across Seine to the apartment and called it a night.