Trip to France and Philadelphia
Mike and Judy Henderson
September 30 - October 25, 2014
Continued
10/19/2014 (Sunday) Travel day to Aix-en-Provence. Leaving the boat about 10am, we took the train to Marseille, with a layover there and a transfer to Aix-en-Provence. When making reservations from home it seemed that the TGV station in Aix was so far out of town that a stop in Marseille was more practical. In fact, the station is fairly near town, making the extra stop in Marseille unnecessary. I was fooled by the map.
The local train took us from Avignon to Marseille and then to Aix. We could not tour Marseille except through the train window, and it looked somewhat gritty and industrial. But we made it to the Marseille-St. Charles station and caught the train to Aix. The station was fairly seedy, but the train to Aix was much nicer. Here's a picture or two of the train station in Marseille.
In Aix we took a taxi from the train station to the hotel, a short distance. The hotel was very nice and modern.
The room was large - about what you'd get in a US hotel. Now, you might not think that's a big thing, but in Europe most hotel rooms are quite small, and often in renovated old buildings. This hotel was built recently as a modern hotel, and after living on a ship, in a relatively small stateroom, the room here seemed huge. Here are some pictures of the room. The bed was an oversized king.
And the bath.
While the hotel is very nice, the prices in the hotel restaurant are outrageous. You can get a very nice breakfast at one of the cafes in town for less than 7 Euros. The hotel wanted between 19 and 22 Euros per person for about the same as what you'd get at one of the cafes - and without the ambiance.
Dinner was equally expensive. I suppose they get away with it because they have a captive "audience" of people who don't know what restaurants are available in town or who don't want to walk the few blocks to the center of town. Recommendation - go find a local restaurant or cafe. The hotel staff will point you if you ask.
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10/20/2014 (Monday) In Aix-en-Provence. We woke up early and walked to the cafe Le Festival, on the Fontaine de la Rotonde, a traffic circle around a fountain in the heart of Aix. This picture was taken in the afternoon, not first thing in the morning. It was pretty quiet when were were there this morning.
At 9:30 we met the tour guide, Janicke, and a couple from England who were to take the tour with us. Janicke was very engaging and knowledgeable.
A walking tour around Aix showed us many old city buildings, including the birthplace of Cezanne, but I won't bore you with more pictures of cathedrals and medieval castles. Aix is a very nice city but we had seen too many old cities by then. You start to wonder why the Romans built so many ruins.
About noon, Janicke drove us to Lourmarin, in the Luberon hills, in a small car - kind of squeezed in the back seat - and took us to a wonderful restaurant in one of the small villages. Note the cat walking along the top of the awning - he came to mooch food from us.
We were seated across the street where they also had tables.
And here's a view of the group at the table. It was a good lunch, and especially nice to experience some of the local dishes. Almost everyone ordered something different so we got to see the various dishes, even if we didn't taste all of them.
We walked the narrow streets of the medieval village.
Here we are in front of that street.
We went to two or three villages during the tour. This panoramic view shows the area around the castle that guarded the entrance to this part of the hills.
And here's a picture of Judy taken somewhere on the tour - don't remember. I really like this picture of her. As you can probably guess by now, I think she's very beautiful.
Eventually, we wound up at the Val Joanis winery where we tasted a number of typically local wines; white, rosé and red. We especially liked the white and rosé wines.
The final stop was the "Painter's ground at Aix" where Cezanne stood while painting several canvases of Mont Sainte Victoire. They have copies of several of his paintings at the site. Here's one of the paintings of the mountain.
And here's the mountain. It's difficult to see through the haze, but Cezanne painted it often, in all seasons and weather.
After the tasting, we retuned to Aix. Judy and I went out for a light dinner at a cafe in the center of town. We didn't finish our bottle of wine, so the remainder is traveling with us to Paris where we will finish it tonight, our last night in France.
And here's a picture Judy took of me at dinner.
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10/21/2014 (Tuesday) Travel day to Charles de Gaulle airport. We took our last walk to downtown Aix for breakfast. Found a nice cafe, and for a bit less than 10 Euros (each) had eggs, bacon, coffee, orange juice, croissants, French bread, jam and butter. A very filling breakfast.
We also ran into Janicke, who happened to be standing in front of the cafe, waiting for her clients for today's tour.
Because of my previous error in scheduling for the trains, we were ticketed to go by local train to Marseille to catch the TGV. But the Aix stationmaster told said we could go to the Aix TGV station and catch the train from there, since the TGV that starts at Marseille stops at the Aix station. So we're sitting in the Aix TGV station right now, waiting for the train (we're early). The TGV station is very modern, as is much of the new construction in France. Here's a picture of the station.
We took a taxi to the Aix TGV station - our second taxi ride while there. We found the taxi drivers in Aix to be very honest and polite. I would recommend them without reservation.
We're scheduled to arrive at CDG about 6pm this evening.
We're at CDG now, but it was an adventure to get here. The TGV comes through the Aix station but it doesn't stop long, so you have to move fast to get on. Our train was scheduled to arrive at 2:29pm. We did not realize that another train was coming in and had been delayed. It arrived about 2:29, and since we could not understand the announcement, we jumped on board. Unfortunately, it was the wrong train - the delayed train - which was going to Gare de Lyon in Paris and not to Charles de Gaulle airport. Oops. The conductor shook his head and said "This is very bad".
We arrived at the Gare de Lyon about 5:30pm and decided to take a taxi to the Ibis hotel at CDG. It was rush hour in Paris so the trip took some time. Then, when we arrived at the Ibis hotel, they first claimed they could not find our reservation. But after a bit, they managed to find it and we got into our room. Through it all, our taxi driver stayed with us to make sure we had a room. He was not going to leave us stranded if we didn't have a room (he got a good tip).
In a way, the room brings back memories of the River Baroness. The room is TINY and the bathroom is not even as large as the bathroom on the River Baroness. It's also expensive - they really get you for the convenience of staying at the airport. Here's the room. Note that this was taken with a very wide angle lens so it looks larger than it really is.
And here's the bathroom.
The good thing about the Ibis at CDG is that it's right at the train stations. If you come in via the TGV, or even the RER, you're at the Ibis. Note that the TGV arrives at TGV/RER station CDG Terminal 2 and the Ibis is next to the RER station CDG Terminal 1. There are only a few hotels within walking distance of the train station. If you search on the word "Roissypol" you'll find information.
There are also hotels in the nearby town of Roissy which use shuttles to take you to the airport. I haven't checked, but I imagine they are quite a bit less expensive than the ones within walking distance of the train station.
Within the airport, there's an airport tram that takes you from terminal to terminal (and station to station). For the CDG1 station, it's located one level down and runs every four minutes. This makes the Ibis very convenient for an overnight stay at the airport.
Although Ibis does not have any maps on its web site, I found a couple that may help someone who is considering staying in a hotel at the CDG airport. Here's one that shows the overall airport layout and the train stations.
And this one shows the location of the Ibis in relation to the RER station CDG 1. Both maps were created by someone to show how to get to terminal 3, but they are still useful for getting to other terminals.
This also means that if you arrive at CDG you can take an RER train to Paris for low cost. But if you have to connect from the RER to the Paris metro to get to your final destination, be aware that there isn't much in the way of elevators in the Paris Metro so you'll be schlepping your suitcases up and down some significant stairs.
There are also buses that go between Paris and CDG but I don't know which areas in Paris they serve.
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10/22/2014 (Wednesday) At Charles de Gaulle Airport. Let's hope all our travel complications are behind us. I've done the flight check-in so all we have to do is show up.
Just a few pictures in liew of text. Here's the check-in at CDG. We arrived at the airport very early and there were not many people there - so we were able to breeze through security. We went to the Air France lounge to wait for our flight.
We were traveling on a Boeing 777 so there were a lot of passengers. Here's Judy waiting in line to board the plane.
Leaving the the gate.
We're on our way. Above the clouds.
The flight was very nice, albeit long, and the food and service in business class was impeccable.
Things even went smoothly when we arrived at JFK about 12:30 pm. Judy and I have Global Entry so we were able to breeze through the customs line. And then our luck changed.
We scheduled a flight from JFK to PHL (Philadelphia) which left about 3:30pm. But the flight was delayed twice, and we left about 6:30pm, arriving about 7:30pm. The flight was uneventful and we got a cab to the Omni Hotel in downtown Philadelphia, where we are now. We had scheduled a light dinner with Diana and Jim but with our late arrival, we cancelled until tomorrow.
We were both exhausted. After a snack and a glass of wine, we both fell into bed. I was asleep in minutes and slept well until about 6am.
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10/23/2014 (Thursday) The Omni Hotel, where we're staying, is an interesting place. It's an older hotel, sort of a "grande dame" type hotel, with very large rooms. The room we have overlooks Independence Square.
The room is a corner room and quite large.
We went to Diana and Jim's place - met Jim for the first time - and after chatting a bit, went to breakfast with Diana at a Le Pain Quotidien (daily bread). The three of us there.
After that, Judy and I walked around the historic section of Philadelphia. Here's Independence Hall (front and back).
There's a statue of George Washington on the street side of the hall.
The Liberty Bell is housed in a museum which is kind of long and linear, with the Liberty Bell on the opposite end from the entrance. So they force you to go through the whole museum to see the Liberty Bell. Instead of going through all that, I took a picture of the bell through the glass. That'll have to count as having seen the Liberty Bell.
Diana told us of a mural by Tiffany in the Curtis Building (an old publishing house) so we also went there. It was designed by Maxfield Parrish and constructed by Tiffany.
We also walked to the Reading Terminal Market and walked around that a bit. It was very interesting to see the similarities and differences between this market and the Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse we saw in Lyon.
There was a Cajun food stall and they allowed me to taste the jambalaya and red beans. Both were very good.
We met Diana and Jim for drinks at their place prior to dinner and then went to the restaurant La Buca for dinner. Here are some pictures of the evening.
Judy, Jim and Diana.
Judy and Diana
And Jim at the restaurant.
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10/24/2014 (Friday) We woke up early this morning - still on Paris time, I suppose. We took our time and eventually decided to walk to the Le Pain Quotidien again for breakfast. Very nice omelets.
Later in the morning, we went to the Barnes Museum. The Barnes has an extensive collection of impressionist painters. There were so many Renoir paintings that I joked to Judy that Barnes must have told his agent in France to buy every Renoir he could get his hands on.
These outside shots show that the architecture of the building is as much a work of art as the paintings within it.
Diana and Jim hosted a party this evening, which we attended. Here are a few picture from the party.
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10/25/2014 (Saturday) We fly back to LAX today. We met Diana and Jim for breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien and they walked us back to the hotel. Sorry, no pictures. We're packed and ready to go to the airport.
Our trip back to LA was uneventful. The plane left Philadelphia on time and arrived at LAX on time. We were met by the limo driver and driven home. Traffic was reasonably light - it's Saturday - so the trip took less than an hour.
We did a bit of unpacking but were tired and went to bed early. And so ends our adventure in France and Philadelphia.
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Epilog: We were able to get Bernie out of jail on Sunday, but had to wait until Monday to spring Skipper. Here's Bernie in recovery mode. The staff at the boarding place just thought he was the sweetest cat. All that play-acting wore him out. Now he can go back to being his usual grumpy self.
And here's Skipper when we picked him up. The other person in the picture is Jessie, who works at the kennel. Skipper just had a bath so he's a bit fuzzy.
Skipper was as happy to see us as we were to see him.
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