Eating Tips - Paris

Best places to eat / eating tips:
1) Find the grocery stores far away from the Eiffel Tower. A liter of water is 14 euro cents. Stinky cheese is abundant and a decent bottle of Bordeaux is 5 euro.
2) Eat where the locals do: The best meal we had was a little Craperie joint on Rue Granelle. We waited for a table (which Parisans don’t seem to do, they continue on) and ate an authentic French meal for a reasonable price.
3) Stand at the bar while drinking espresso (café). There’s one price for a coffee at the counter, a higher price for table seating and an even still higher price for outside service. With the $ to Euro exchange rate being in the toilet currently, you can guess where we drank our café.
~S

Notre Dame

I do have to say though, that the shear size of Notre Dame is just friggin impressive. I don’t think they build churches that large or ornate anymore. It’s probably because people are now educated and would realize where the church was allocating their offerings. I can just hear the minister addressing his congregation, “Good morning people, today we’ll need you to donate no less than $700,000. Yes, I realize this is the 3rd year in a row that we’ve needed this level of financial stewardship, but come on people, we’ve got to pay for the 5000 uniquely carved faces in the ceiling of the new church. BTW: who did the purchasing for a church like that? ~S

Tourists vs. Locals - Paris

There’s just a yucky feeling I get from areas of tourism. I know that when we decided to go to Paris, I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Arc de Triumph and Notre Dame. After enduring the crowds at the Eiffel, I definitely enjoyed our random walking through the interior of the city – not on roads where there was a ton of tourist things. ~S

The Corner Bar "Open All Night"- Paris

Looking for some food and drink after checking in to HVM, we passed the houses of burlesque and stopped in at the corner bar – I don’t remember what the name of this establishment was, but the sign on the outside said something about being open 24 hours… After 4 beers and a cheese sandwich, we realized that if on a budget, you do not come to Paris and drink beer. If you must have a beer, be prepared to pay dearly for it. Wine’s where it’s at in Paris, probably the rest of France too. The rest of the time there we drank decent wine for less than 5 euro a bottle, rather than 8.50 euro for a “gran” beer.

Hotel Victor Masse - Paris

Despite my wife’s best efforts to pick a reasonably priced (there are no “cheap” hotels in Paris, period. Or if there are, you probably don’t want to stay in them) hotel for our first night, we were rebooked anyways at hotel Victor Masse in Paris. It was a cozy place, right next to “Club 31” and “Le Diam”, interesting bars with a plethora of dim, red lighting. The bars also seemed to be occupied by a certain type of woman. Any guesses? Needless to say, we slept in our silk sleep sacks at HVM that evening. ;-)

SC From Geneva - 7-7-07

Well, we’ve made it to Geneva from Paris and it seems like we just left Valencia the other day. I think I’m still picking Paella out of my teeth. Valencians are famous for their Paella, which is a rice dish, originally conceived as a peasant dish – spiced rice, and whatever meat, veggies and other protein sources are available at the time. Traditional Valencian paella is rice with some big wide white beans, rabbit (duck too?) and some green beans. We had a “Paella Langostina” which was rice, lobster and chunks of calamari.

Our trip to Paris was a relatively smooth one, even though our 50 euro flight was delayed a bit. Traveling between countries in the EU is a lot like traveling between different states in the US. It’s so easy, no customs, no passport checks, and lots of cheap flights. I wonder if the rise of discount carriers (Ryan Air, Vueling, Click.com, etc) through out Europe can be attributed to the EU? I believe it’s only a matter of time before the non-EU countries, like the UK and Switzerland join (not if those that control their currency have anything to do with it…) but that’s just my Americanized, uneducated opinion.

Random JC Thoughts

Here are a few run-on thoughts that I’d like to remember:
➢ Tour de France following is a cyclist’s dream!
➢ There are an amazing amount of fan’s parked on the route up and down the Col de la Columbiere climb way in advance. Most of these are all campers and you wouldn’t have guessed the people were big cycling fans, they were more like old geezers, no offense meant.
➢ An incredible physical feat of biking the climb was taken on by tons of fans. I was thoroughly impressed and felt very weak in their presence
➢ The atmosphere of the ski town (Le Grand Bornand – French Alps) makes us want to work internationally at a town like this during the Winter season (being bilingual is necessary)
➢ Camping is popular in France but they don’t know how to keep their tents dry
➢ Waking up to the sound of the dairy cow’s cowbells on the Alps was surreal
➢ Can’t find a decent in expensive wine…rouge or blanc (time to learn the region I suppose)
➢ L’Escale camping on "international row" included a French family, 2 Aussie guys, 7 Dutch guys, Us, and one French girl, Elodie, who works for the French embassy in accounting after being at the border for a while where she learned some English from the Swiss
➢ No one sells White gas for our stove!
➢ Left my Livestrong bracelet at home not wanting to stand out as an American but a tons of fans are wearing them…good to see that Lance is an international sport hero/star
➢ Men wear short shorts!