2016 Europe: PARIS AND BEYOND

A Almost Perfect Day in Paris

Sept 8

We both slept in. Rare for me, normal for her. I awoke her from her travel induced coma around ten. Two bad cups of coffee and we were on the street knowing that better coffee awaited ahead. First stop was the ATM. We both had received new ATM cards, mine arriving just days before departure, and we needed to see if they spoke French. Vicki put the little piece of plastic in and out came plastic money. I took a picture. Lots of countries use plastic money as it lasts much longer than the eighteen months of a U.S. Dollar bill. Korea says they are doing away with money by 2020. “Twenty Twenty” sounds like a futuristic date to a old guy like me but when you do the math it is like tomorrow in senior years.

Back on the walk down Ave des Gobelins I stop to take a picture of a bus stop with the same name and the numbers of all the bus's that stop here so I can research them when we go back to the apartment. At the cross roads of Saint-Marcel there is a building wall set back from the street above another building with old advertising on it on the other side of the I take a picture.

We walk along in perfect weather, temperature in the 70's and clear skies, taking pictures and looking at it all. Gobelins ends at the bottom of the hill and splits into three roads. There is a fountain in the middle and a large Starbucks on one corner. I take a picture of the fountain.

We chose Ave Moffetrad. This a very small street, wide enough for a car in theory and one person sidewalks on each side. It is lined with stores and all kinds of tiny cafes with a takeout window and maybe two or three small tables on the sidewalk or inside. They are serving all kinds of ethnic food, kabob's, falfals, crepes, hamburgers, etc. It is lunch time and every takeout window and the street is full of college students from the university around the corner. I take pictures of the people lined up at the windows, of the crowd in the streets, of the shopkeepers.

We follow Moffertrad up a hill and down the other side. We pass a building that says “Hemingway lived here from 1900 something to 1900 something”. I took a picture. It also said V””” died here and I took a picture of that also. As we get closer to the Seine river the restaurants get bigger, fewer and more expensive. Vicki is charge of lunch but none fit her fancy.

When we reach the Seine we cross the Ponte (bridge) de L'Archevechve which brings us to the back of Notre Dame, but we turn right on the Ponte St. Louis. This is a pedestrian bridge and today, as always, there are some musicians. Today there is a trio of two guitars and a accordion player. They are setting on really short stools and I throw a coin in the open guitar case and listen to the music and take several pictures. On Isle Saint-Louis we turn left and head for the Ponte Louis Philippe. On the short block to the river and across the street is a store selling large Eiffel towers made of ceramic and painted in many colors and they are displayed on the street. I take a picture. On this side of the street is a wine shop and the sign says “wine tasting in english with a accent, sorry”. I take a picture.

In the middle of the Ponte Louis Philippe we take a rare selfie for Sara. I must say it is a pretty good selfie too.

Onward we stroll on our perfect day. Someone had requested pictures of Vespa's with high heels. I have several with lots of bare legs attached to them. I take pictures of flowers, streets and people. We pass crowed sidewalk cafes with people taking the sun before fall arrives and it hides most of the day. Vicki says it is time to head back so we make a big U turn and reverse our course.

We cross back on to the Isle Saint-Louis not yet having stopped for lunch and we come upon a very small cafe on the other side of the street Deau Ponts that we have dined in before. I suggest we try it and Vicki agrees. I take a picture. I like this place because it is my image of a Paris bar. It is very small and the staff is supper friendly. After some banter with the waiter we order today's special, a roast pork with green beans and potatoes and a cold plate with ham, roast beef, salad and potatoes and a carafe of rose to wash it down with. It is all excellent. I got the street view as we were at a interior table, and got to watch the people come ago. They were all interesting, even the brigade of very, very pregnant women that came by. We ate slowly and talked and laughed with the waiter, cook and barkeep joining occasionally. After properly letting the food digest we ordered a fresh raspberry, whip cream, ice cream and a cookie delight. It was excellent. We followed that with a espresso. I took pictures of the chef in his “kitchen”. The open area was about three feet by four feet. His assistant worked in a even smaller space. That led to pictures of all the staff. We paid the bill, thanked them, and headed on our way. We were a few minutes short of our planed two hour lunch.

On the other side of the river we made our way back up the hill, eventually rejoining Moffertrad. On the way up Gobelins we stopped for a expensive coffee at 2.50 euro. At the top of the hill they are only 1.50. It is not unusual to pay 2.50 for a coffee but the view here was not worth it. We stopped in the Fran Prix for a little shopping and were back in the apartment by five.

We opened a bottle of wine and sat down to relax and me to download the catch of the day from the camera. I had reviewed them at lunch and I can tell you they were some of the best I have ever taken, what with the full sun and clear skies. But.....you touch one wrong button and your world of pictures disappears. I was stunned. Who knew. I am still shocked and saddened that I can not share the “perfect day” with you. It showed what Paris means to us. I apologize. I am devistated.

A recovery program has been running for 13 hours now, with 0 files recovered. I hope when it ends there will be something to show for it.

A Good Day in Paris

Today was not as majestical as yesterday but it was a good day. As we walked out the on to the sidewalk and the clear skies and 70's temperature the Paris fire department came running by with their dog. That made Vicki's day. Most of the day was spent in the hood. This is a working area of Paris with no tourist so there are few people strolling along as most are walking in a determined manner of someone needing to get somewhere. We walked through the street market and picked up some fruit, wine and ham for later in the day. Lunch was at a small Vietnamese place and yes boys, that is a beef ball on top of the PHO. From there we walked down to the Jarden the Luxemborg and sat in the sun watching people and flowers.

Another Wonderful Day in Paris

Weather was wonderful again today and off we went. We walked down the block and caught the N7 Metro to the Louvre, we made our way through the underground maze to the N1 Metro and got off St Les Sablons. From there we made our way a few blocks to the Parc de Bois where the Foundation Louis Vuitton museum is located. We were very nervous as there were lots of small children walking with us. Fortunately they turned into the "fun park". The Louis Vuitton is a very interesting building that we have visited several times on the outside but never been to the inside and today we were going to do so. The panels on the exterior had been changed to multi color since our last time here and it looks more like a boat as it was designed to look. Sadly they were changing art exhibits so there's no major art in the building but it was a great place to walk around and discover their strange architecture.

Have I ever told you about the time the Chinese recruited me to do industrial espionage against a Loui Vuitton in Paris. It started with the exchange of a lot of money from a Chinese couple to me on the Champ E'lysee many years ago...... . The rest is classified. Ask my wife as she unknowingly got caught up in the operation. You'll have to get her to tell you the story. If you ever get the story out of her be sure and ask me and I'll tell you the whole story.

We took the Loui Vuitton little electric bus back to the Champ E'lysee. On board was Louie from South Korea who is studying architecture in Madrid and we exchanged photos. We did part of the usual walk down the Champ E'lysee dropped into a couple of car show rooms, but they were a little too crowded. We got tired of the tourist crowd headed south in the direction of home. We crossed the Seine at pointe Des Invalidides, a not very attractive bridge and therefore much less traveled. We had the intentions of catching the bus but it was so nice walking that we walked all the way to Montparnasse. We had a pleasant encounter with a Bentley coming out of a garage but my mind didn't think quick enough to stick my thumb out to see if the owner would give us a ride. we caught the 91 bus back to Gobelins. We had skipped lunch so we walked up to the restaurant we wanted to have dinner but it didn't open till 6:30 and it was only 5 o'clock. We both wanted pasta so we decided to go across the street to our apartment and waited out with a glass of wine. It was well worth the wait. Vicki had spaghetti and I had something that wasn't on the menu but I asked and got tortellini with carbonara. A couple of carfes of wine and we were happy. A great end to a great day.

We Are Moving.

11 Sept.

Getting out of Paris can be tricky by car but I looked at the map planed my route and Sunday is a good day to get out. However, I fail to plan my way around the huge Montparnasse train station to try and find the Euro Car desk. The train station is under construction so I left Vicki standing on the sidewalk with the bags while went to Recon the area. After some hunting I found the information desk and they told me to walk down track 18 and catch the elevator to the second floor. I look down track 18 about a hundred meters turn around came back and ask again. They told me to go back down there walk a little further and find the elevator. So I went outside to gather up the Vicki and the luggage and we came back in and we were walking towards track 18 and she looked up and saw the sign that said rental cars in Hall 2. Having a real sign gave me more confidence so we followed it and walked and walked past track 18, past track 24, turned left walked about 300 metres took an escalator turn left walked another couple hundred metres and there was a Eurpocar car office on the left. Not so fast. It,s not that much fun yet. 1 hour 10 minutes later I had the keys to my rental car. There was only one person helping and most of the renters seemed mystified about how the process worked. One man argued for a good 20 minutes and had already been there when I came in about the price of the rental car, Next was an Asian person living in Dubai and didn't know the country identifier for Dubai nor the rental car agent and therefore the information wouldn't go in the machine. Some how or another they work that out. The next group said they needed a car for 7 people and they had a credit card would not work on the machine. They had paid for everything in advance and it took awhile to verify it. Even if you had a reservation such as mine it still took a good 15 to 20 minutes to process the information because they had to take and put all the information back in again. So now they gave me a map on how to find the car; this is never a good sign. We left the office and turned left and you walked 200 metres down to the end of the hall and go through the automatic doors and turn right up the stairs or find an elevator, as we did to the next level; you cross a bridge outside over the highway and we look for another elevator; down to -4 level and there is your car.

Driving out of town was a piece of cake after that.

We ended the day Saumur in the Loire Valley in a nice villa apartment looking across the Loire River at the town and their very own chateau.

The long march.

Anatomy of a Computer Crash.

I will start by saying, yes, it was my fault. But...it was caused by a Garmin GPS.

I bought a new Garmin this year that said it came with US and Europe maps. What I came to find out is, yes it did, but not at the same time with the internal memory that it has. When I got here and turned it on it showed a blank screen. No maps. Not a problem just download them, which I attempted to do. But, I kept getting a warning “not enough memory, you need 11G of free memory”. My toy computer only has 32G of memory so I began to clean it up. Somewhere along the way it crashed. Meanwhile I am researching the memory problem on a tablet and come to find out a little late the problem is not memory on the computer but on the Garmin.

In Saumur I go in search of a nerd and find a great one. Christopher at Config Sys agrees to take on the task. Come to find out the computer shutdown was caused by a little known safety/encryption program that Microsoft has hidden. It is called “bitblocker” and it is installed for idiots like me who are messing where they don't need to be. It still took several hours and 3 emails of a secret keys sent from Microsoft to me that I had to forward on to Christopher before they expired. In the end he was successful, I bought a micro sd for the Garmin and everyone is now happy.

This where I really wanted to be...........http://soloscooterist.com/

The Loire Valley. The Home of Chateau's

We have now been in Saumur in the Loire valley for the better part of a week. Our residence is a very comfortable second floor apartment in a Villa on an island looking out at the city and the castle. The owner is a elderly lady and her son and his wife who reside between here and Paris. This is the only apartment in the main house, but there are several students in the carriage house, plus he has two boats on the river in front of the house that they rent out. This villa was built in 1840 but short history with this family. It just goes back to Georges grandfather who bought it when he retired.

The weather started in the 90's but a fierce cold front blew through one evening scattering leaves and bringing down small branches in this area but trees in other. It gave us a great light show lighting up the dark night from horizon to horizon and giving us flashes of the chateau on the hill across the river. It also brought cooler temperatures and light rain for a couple of days.

We spent our time reading, walking about and visiting OS. The Abbey Fontevard that actually was a very cruel prison for many years but it had some cool stuff. A etch a sketch that projected on the wall and a scary basement with string art lite by black lights.

important dead people

you can actually pay to sleep in this coffin for a night or two

yep, that is the way to make them believers

ice cream to cool me off from all the hell and damn nation I saw beyond that gate

checking to see of the sunflowers are ready to harvest. not quite yet.

nor are the grapes

The Chateau Villandary with some of the most magnificent gardens in the world. Bought in the early 1900's by a Spanish doctor and his very wealthy American wife they restored it to it's grandeur and created a master piece of a garden. Open to the public all year round it is still owned by the Carvallo family.

English spoken here

We went to the tank museum with more than 600 tanks. That is a lot of tanks.

classy with the white walls.

traffic gets worse in St. Pete I may consider this mode. it actually is from the late 50's\

how come they get to climb on stuff........

..................and we don't

We went to the Cadre Noir the national horse training facility where you see all those horses that are trained to precision work in a arena. Sadly we were not permitted to take pictures in the arena during the training events. The facility has a vet, orthopod, acupuncturist, dentist, masseuse, solarium and a horse hairdresser. Vicki asked if they rented rooms.

We went to Angers to a old walled castle with a whole bunch of turrets in the cold rain to see a old carpet that was 460 meters long hanging on a wall. Boy that was fun.

this is the true light level

watching the restores was a lot more fun that studying the old carpet.

the magic of photography show more

why are those men in the bed together

Vicki was enthralled with these bugs

From there we went to the Cointreau plant. Now that was fun because at the end they poured us some fine cocktails. They want you to believe the Cointreau family is still involved but in the '90's they sold out to Remy and the family went to the Rivera to spend the cash. The do have a grandson of the last Cointreau owner they pay to go around an visit the bar tenders. We were not allowed to take pictures in the bottling area. It is a amazing. The do between 7 and 12 thousand bottles a hour of several different products. With only 30 people in the whole operation. The mechanization was dazzling but it makes you think with all that automation where are the jobs to produce the money to buy the product.

Saumur is a nice little town we had visited in passing years ago and I had always wanted to return. It is just one of those friendly feeling places. A very comfortable apartment made it more so. It had a great tourist information center and it did not hurt that next door they had a wine tasting room for wines of the region. There were over 40 wines that you could try for free. Setting in the apartment watching it rain was enjoyable and when needed we would suit up and cross the bridge to what was happening in town. Not that it rained all week, just a lot of it, intermingled with brief sun shine or just gray skies.