Paris & Ghent

Last week went went up to Paris for 4 nights.  We stayed in our friends apartment in the 7th.  The same apartment we stayed in 12 years ago, Bruce's first trip to Paris.  That's where the love affair began.

We decided to take the dogs, it was ok at the apartment and fine at the hotel in Ghent.  We were only 2 blocks from the Champ de Mars, which was the perfect spot for the kids.  Off-leash and tons of other goldens.  They went 3x a day and ran around, met new friends and had a great time.

Dashell is in heaven!

We were there for business.  We attended 2 camp fairs in Paris.  One at the International School of Paris and the other an open fair at Eurosites.  We made some great contacts and got some sign-ups for this summer, so it was worth it.  We spent the day Friday walking around the city.  Since we've been to Paris 4 other times, we decided not to visit any museums, but to just walk around.  We had our take-out lunch at Jardin du Luxembourg, walked through the 4th and back home.  We had originally thought we'd stay in and cook our dinners in the apartment, but once we were there I wanted to eat out, so we did every night.

 This place smelled fantastic

 Love le Jardin du Luxembourg

 Bruce is in heaven!

Paris is just magical.

We left Paris on Sunday and headed up to Ghent, Belgium.  We attended another camp fair at the International School of Brussels.  We stayed in Ghent, because we have been there three times before, love the hotel (and they love the dogs) and Ghent is just beautiful.  We were only there 1 night, but we had a great dinner and walked around the city at night.  If you haven't been to Ghent, I highly recommend you visit.  I just love that city.

It was a quick trip, but we had a great time and did some business as well.  It's nice to be back home though, as the week before we went back to Los Angeles for 6 days.  I decided not to write a post about our first trip to Los Angeles in 1.5 years.  I was going to say "our first trip back home", but it's not home anymore, our home is France.  It wouldn't have been a very nice post, because we realized we'd never live there again!  It was nice to see my best friend and Bruce's parents, but other than that....not so great.

Fontainebleu & Paris

Back in January we had signed up for two camp expos in Paris at  2 bi-lingual schools through an organization called Camp Experts.  We had originally thought we'd stay in Paris, after all it's our favorite city.  But then we decided that we had been to Paris many times and that maybe we'd stay about 30 minutes south in a town called Fontainebleu.  Fontainebleu is famous for its chateau but also for its bouldering.  Bouldering is a style of rock climbing undertaken without a rope and normally limited to very short climbs over a crash pad so that a fall will not result in serious injury.  It's typically practiced on large natural boulders outside or on plastic holds inside.  It's super fun.

The region around Fontainebleu is particularly famous for its beautiful and concentrated bouldering areas.  French alpine climbers practiced bouldering there since the 19th century.  It remains today a prime climbing location.  It is the biggest and most developed bouldering area in the world.  The climbing areas are located in the forested areas that surrounds the town.  There are thousands of boulders and endless problems.

Our friend Chris is visiting from Colorado and he's a big climber.  We thought it would be fun to stay in Fontainebleu and boulder during the day and then take the train in to Paris for our camp expos.  We stayed at the Hotel Victoria and it was great.  Spacious rooms, new bathrooms, clean, lovey people, centrally located in the town, parking and they take dogs (although the 12 euro breakfast is a rip off).  We decided the goldens would stay with our friends Sara and Sharon and Stella would come with us.  She needed a bit of special time with us.

We arrived on Sunday night, just in time for dinner.  Our camp expos were Monday night and Tuesday night, so we figured we could climb in the am/early afternoon.  We climbed on Monday and then mid-afternoon took the train into Paris. Chris had never been to Paris and neither had Stella, so they both went with us.  Stella had a great time on the train into Paris and then she took the metro.  We walked around the left bank and showed Chris the sites.  Then we left him to wander and we went to our first expo.  After the expo we met some friends for dinner and Stella even came into the restaurant with us.  All was going great until we tried to get to the Gare de Lyon.  The train going into the Gare was closed, so we had to walk over from the left bank.  We missed the 2nd to the last train leaving Paris, so we got the last train out.  Everything was going fine until the conductor mumbled "something" in French and we didn't quite catch all of it.  Some people got off and then some people stayed on the train so we weren't sure what he said.  15 minutes later Bruce said "we should have been to Fontainebleu 10 minutes ago".  Then we passed another station and another and finally stopped 5 stations away from Fontainebleu.  It's now 12:30 am.  It was the last train in and out.  We found out that the conductor announced that they were working on the tracks and if you wanted to go to Fontainebleu or the other 4 stops after you had to get off the train and take a bus.  So now we were 30 km away from Fontainebleu in the middle of the night.  Luckily the workers were still at the station and they were so nice.  They called us a taxi and he was there in less than 5 minutes.  50 euros later we were at our hotel.  What a day!

Tuesday was beautiful and warm and we bouldered again the am and headed into Paris a bit later this time.  Chris and Stella stayed in Fontainebleu and did some more bouldering on their own.  Our expo was in the 15th, we didn't do any walking around, we just took the train in and the metro over to the school and then headed back to Fontainebleu around 8:00 pm.  But it wasn't easy getting home again, there was an accident on the tracks (we think the incoming train hit a car) and it was delayed for 1/2 hour.  So we waited and waited.  Finally our train left Paris.  We had thought we'd get in at 8:00 pm, but with the delay and the slow moving train we didn't arrive until almost 10 pm.

We were going to leave on Wednesday to come home, but the weather was so beautiful and we wanted to spend a whole day in Fontainebleu that we decided to stay another night.  So glad we did, it was so much fun, we bouldered all day and then went for a great meal that night.

It was a super fun 4 days and only 6 hours from our home in St Antonin.  We'll be back, for sure.  I loved the town of Fonatinebleu and you're only 30 minutes by train into Paris.  I highly recommend a visit there if you have never been.  And, we got a few sign ups for our summer camps, so it was all worth while.

Stella on the train into Paris

bouldering

more bouldering

there they are

stella doing a bit of bouldering

trying a hard problem

but it did it

just chilling

Paris Drawings

Everywhere we go Bruce brings one of his moleskine sketch books.  He bought a new one just for the trip to Paris.  Sometimes I just sit and watch him draw, something I can't do, he always makes it look so easy.  Here are some of his drawings from our trip, enjoy.

from the Fontain de Medici in the Luxembourg Gardens

from the Fontain de Medici in the Luxembourg Gardens

from the Fontain de Medici in the Luxembourg Gardens

statue in the Rodin musée

statue in the Rodin musée

statue in the Rodin musée

Paris - day 4, 5 and 6

Notre Dame

Sorry it's taken me so long to post this, I have no excuse.

Our time was flying by in Paris a city we both just love.  Today my sister, her husband, my niece (my brothers daughter) and 10 or so university students of my sisters (from Kendall School of Design) were coming into Paris.  It was the reason for going up there.  They had been in Munich, Berlin and Vienna, now spending 3 days in Paris.  They were flying in and then taking a bus into the city, so we decided to head over to their hotel and meet them when they arrived. They were all a bit tired from being up at 4:00 to catch a plane, so we decided to let them un-pack, relax and get settled, so we headed over to the Jacquemart-André Musee for a while.  It was beautiful.  We headed back over to their hotel at 1:30 and went over to get some ice cream at Berthillon's on île saint-louis, it's supposed to be the BEST and well I don't know because I'm not an ice cream nut, but it was really good.  My sister, brother-in-law and niece were with us and we walked over to Notre Dame and around the 5th and 6th.  Then my sister and brother-in-law split off from us and my job was to take my 17 year old niece shopping.  We weren't finding anything good in the 5th or 6th for her, so we hopped on the metro and headed back over to the Lafayette Galleries.  Bruce decided to stay in the 5th and do some drawing at the Luxembourg Gardens.  We were to meet back at the hotel around 7pm.  My niece and I were lucky at the galleries, she got an adorable jacket and a dress and I got a cute dress too (not that I needed it but what the hell).  The afternoon was slipping away so I got her back to the hotel and had to jump back on the metro to head back over to our hotel as we were meeting S&N back at Les Funambules for an aperitif at 7:30 and then my sister and "the gang" were meeting us there for dinner.  I was rush and hungry and tired when I got back to the hotel, but to my surprise Bruce wasn't there yet.  He came in around 7:15, happy and relaxed from a day hanging in the gardens drawing.

me and my sister Anne

My niece Maggie

We then headed over to the restaurant, had drinks with our new friends and dinner with my sis. Super fun night!  

The gang at dinner

my man in his favorite city

On Thursday we let my sister and the gang do their own thing, we went back to the Luxembourg Gardens (which could be one of my favorite places in paris) and road bikes around the 5th and 6th, a really nice relaxing afternoon.  We went to Pierre Hermé an amazing dessert shop with the most incredible macaroons.  We got some for us and some for the S&S who take care of the dogs.  We met up with my sister in the afternoon and then had dinner with my brother-in-laws relatives (his mom is originally from Nice and all her relatives are in France), great fun, great wine and great food.  Another amazing day in Paris.

The Luxembourg Gardens

Friday, day 6, our last day! We met my sister for coffee over in the 4th and said our goodbyes. Our train left at 2:00pm and we had to be back to the hotel at noon to check out. We had the most amazing time in paris and it was wonderful to share it with my sister. She lives too far away and we don't see her enough.

We stayed at a lovely hotel while we were there called The Grand Hotel Francias in the 11th.   I mentioned it before but this is a great hotel and the staff were so friendly and nice and accommodating.  The rooms are all re-done, we stayed on the ground floor in room #2 and it was beautiful, clean, spacious and the bathroom/shower....amazing!  I highly recommend this hotel if you are going to Paris, you won't be disappointed.

Our trip was amazing and we really just roamed around the city, we didn't do any of the touristy things, but we've been to Paris before and saw most of the big sights.  This time it was just riding around on bikes or walking forever and experiencing the city for what it is...beautiful!