Celebrating France's National Holiday

Many people don't know that Bastille day, or "le quatorze Juillet" as it's more commonly called by the French, is their version of the American 4th of July. But what are they celebrating?

There were lots of events that lead into the French Revolution. But it's generally recognized that the events on the 14th of July 1789 was the beginning - and the reason for the celebration.

On that day, the revolutionary mob stormed the infamous Bastille prison where the kings had housed political prisoners for generations.

The interesting thing was, that Louis the XVI had only seven prisoners at the time, including the Marquis de Sade! They also lived in better conditions than most of the mob that freed the prisoners.

When we were in Paris last summer, we celebrated with the Parisians!

For more about our adventure, Celebrating Bastille Day.

Here's a video of the fireworks, disco style! Starts a bit slowly and is dark but works into a beautiful display, silhouetting the Eiffel Tower and the huge disco ball!

 

If you are planning a trip to Paris, or would like to, visit Paris Made Simple.

Visiting the Louvre Museum

 Last night I was watching my hero, Rick Steves, visit Paris. His tour of the Louvre got me thinking and wanting to share.

Although the Louvre Museum does not make my "Must-See"  list, many people consider it impossible to visit Paris and NOT visit the Louvre. The reason I don't include it in my list is simple because of the size and time it takes to visit. There are so many museums in Paris, many of which can be enjoyed in a half-day, leaving plenty of time for other enjoyments, that I prefer that approach. But that's my personal way of enjoying the city, and not right for everyone.

For those that want to see the Louvre, take Rick Steve's advice and don't try to see it all at once. With prior planning, you can choose the collections you want to see and leave others for another day. Visit the Louvre's official web site to help decide what you want to see. Then, I suggest you save LOTS of time by buying and picking up your tickets in advance - this allows you to skip to the front of the line, which can get very long indeed.

Here's a great teaser from one of Rick Steve's show:

 

If you'd like more information about enjoying your own trip to Paris, visit www.ParisMadeSimple.com.

Snack Time - French Style

Fresh Figs

Fresh Almonds and Rose

 I first discovered the wonderful ritual of goûter when I was an au pair one summer. I was 16 and my Aunt had put me on a train to meet a family who did not speak French. I would be taking care of their kids for "les vacances." I learned so much during those four weeks, like the word for broom, diaper, and every possible ingredient for rice salad. I learned you can not make pancakes Americain from French flour and all about the love and joy a family can share during a relaxing vacation together.

But back to le goûter. Since the French eat dinner later, like 7pm or later, you really need to fortify yourself about 4pm. This was the time I got our chocolate bars, cookies, pastries, a fresh baguette, milk and other amazingly wonderful goodies. The kids always just ate what they wanted and walked away. But since this was new to me, I gained weight!!

Years later when I lived in Paris, I worked for a family in Paris near the Buttes Chaumont. I would take the metro up to this exotic neighborhood and pick up the elementary school aged boy at school and walk him home. And there was, once again, a never ending spread of goodies set out by the very nice Algerian housekeeper. Since she knew I was broke, she would stuff me with crepes and cheese and bread. I was always so grateful to her. 

So whenever I go to France with my family now, I always make sure to have a hearty goûter. And this afternoon, I am craving a good selection of French food to satisfy my taste buds and my soul.

If you'd like more information about enjoying your own trip to Paris, visit www.ParisMadeSimple.com.

One of Each, Please

OK, Just These for Today

Marzipan Fig and Pig

Giant Meringue

Pate, Cheese, Olives, Normandy Butter, Tomatoes, Apricots

A Baguette and a Surprise from the Patisserie

Our Parisian Apartment

I have to say that for the price, we had the BEST apartment in Paris!

Travelling with my husband and 12 yr old daughter meant that I wanted some space. We went for two weeks and let's face it, family vacations can get tense. So being Americans, space is important. But in Paris, space is premium!

We ended up with an amazing 3 room apartment with a balcony, wi-fi, washer/dryer, huge flat screen with cable, and a dishwasher! It was a very secure building and had an elevator.

One thing about Parisian spaces. Sometimes the configurations are weird. Most of the time, people are working with 100 yr old plus buildings. I can't even imagine what it must be like to retrofit these old structures.

This apartment was truly beautiful. Not fancy, but each room was large and had all we needed. The central room was the kitchen, dining table, pantry, and had a couch. There were two floor-to-cieling double windows which opened out onto the terrace. Flanking this room was a bedroom with a queen sized room, desk and an amazing amount of closet space! There was also a floor-to-ceiling window which opened onto the terrace. On the other side of the kitchen was a huge living room with two high quality futon couches/beds. There was also two floor-to-ceiling windows in here too!

All the windows were modern with double glazed glass. This made the apartment quiet. We were on the street side and just off of a major boulevard (Magenta) so there was noise. But hey, it's the city! And we were a mere 1 minute walk from the metro. The other nice thing is that we were easy walking distance to either Gare d'Est or Republic metro stations. Since both are major hubs, you can get everywhere from there. And the RER comes right into the Gard de Nord (right next to Gare d'Est) right from the airport.

Although we were not in the elegant city center, we had a less expensive and equally convenient neighborhood. It was a five minute walk to the Canal St. Martin and the whole neighborhood has an amazingly cool vibe! It's young, hip, and friendly.

So all of this was about 500 euros less per week than anything else I can find for this amount of space.

 For more information and help planning your trip to Paris without breaking the bank, visit ParisMadeSimple!

Wonderful Memories of "Our" Neighborhood Cafes

We got back from Paris a week ago. Seems like another world, or that we were never there. That's the frustrating part of travelling. Thank goodness for photos and this blog!

We had an amazing time and stayed on budget. All in all, with all our shopping, eating, passes, apartment, and airfare, it cost us about $2500 each for two weeks in the City of Light during the Summer. That means if you save $105/month for two years, you're there! This also includes planning ahead and being willing to buy your airfare and pick your apartment well in advance, like 6 + months in advance.

Since we stayed on budget, we ate out the last couple of nights in Paris, not wanting our experience to end and to be sure the fridge was cleaned out. As I mentioned before, we knew we'd get consistently better food and service in our own neighborhood.

Brasserie l'Harmonie

The menu on the chalk board

The first night in Paris, we staggered into  l'Harmonie, sitting our extremely jet-lagged selves in their nice restaurant and was extremely satisfied with the food and the waiter. I'm pretty sure I wrote about this in an earlier blog. One of our last nights, we went back and sat outside. The food wasn't quite as good (but still way better than our dinner near Pompidou) but the waitress was extremely friendly and the whole experience was satisfying.

Cafe le Bistro - our neighborhood bistro

Our final night, we opted for the bistro just two doors down. We'd eaten dinner there before and had a pleasant afternoon snack on another day.

Mike unwinding after a hard day - LOL

We felt like family there, especially since we always got a friendly wave and "hello or "Bonjour" when we dragged our tired carcasses off the subway and walked by the bistro headed for our apartment!

Stefan and Mathieu - the nicest waiters in Paris

So the last evening, I asked to take their pictures. They'd been so friendly and fed us well, I wanted to immortalize them!

Thank you Stefan and Mathieu for making us feel at home and not like tourists. We'll be back!!

For more information about having an awesome vacation in Paris, visit my website: ParisMadeSimple.com.

Dining in Paris

An excellent meal near Gare de l'Est

So, I wanted to say a short word on dining in Paris.

We've eaten a lot of picnics and dinners in our apartment and so have been able to afford more dinners out than expected. We've also found that sticking close to home (the 10th) is more convenient and less expensive. It's also less touristy, in general. We've had three excellent dinners withing a 10 min walk of our apartment, tonight being no exception.

Although we searched our four guides for recommendations, we ended up doing our favorite thing - walking until we found something that looked good.

Tonight we headed up Blvd. Magenta in the direction of Gare de l'Est. And we found a cute little bistro where the waiter was friendly to us as we checked out the menu. So yes, he "caught us in his net" and we were very happy he did.

Jean - Marc, one of my favorite waiters in Paris

Jean-Marc was one of those professional waiters. He knew how to engage the people walking by and handle the entire place himself with the help of the proprietor. We were in the early dinner crowd, it being only 7:15 pm. The sun was still warm on the tables along the busy street next to a bus station. But it was lively, warm, and the food looked typically French. We weren't out for "cuisine," just yummy food.

Right away, Jean-Marc tried engaging us in English, but being shy about his language skills and understanding my French better, we struck up a wonderfully, friendly conversation in French. We were American? From Chicago? New York? In the end, he was fascinated with all the details of Maine and it's coastal culture since he himself was from Brittany.

The meal was good, the owner checked on us and was very happy that we were happy and the whole dinner was "genial."

This is my normal experience with Paris. I have yet to have anyone be rude or anything but fall-all-over-me friendly. Granted, I speak French fairly well (be assured, their expectations are pretty low for Americans) and I engage and smile and ask questions. But, I am NOT eating at some fancy place like Les Deux Magots (definitely worth a coffee if you can spare the Euros) or some other super snobby touristy places. We are dining in "our" neighborhood!


So, I write this with a stomach full of confit de cunnard (duck), a demi-carafe of good house wine and a mousse au chocolate, topped with friendly Parisian service. Life is great in Paris!!

For more information about planning a great time in Paris, visit ParisMadeSimple!

Bastille Day

Time is flying and I've not had the time or energy to post as I'd hoped to. But I will do lots when I get back.

The other day was the first Bastille Day I've had in Paris since I was a kid. It was really exciting to be in the capital city during their big national holiday.

We were all gang busters to do shopping during the day and so headed to Chatelet. As we emerged from the metro at the far end of the rue de Rivoli, the streets were all blocked off and everyone was waiting for something. Come to find out, it was the military parade! I'd never seen one and it was kind of exciting.

We shopped and boy were we successful. I know it sounds like we're here for shopping but the sales are just so great and we're just having fun doing it! Mike found fantastic shoes and then Megan and I found a great women's store.

Then, off to have une coupe de glace, a crepe and home for a power nap.

Later, after a late dinner and lots of games of cards, we set off for the Eiffel Tower at 10pm. The metro was crowded to the point of intimate knowledge of one's "neighbor", but everyone was jovial and polite. Most of the metro stations anywhere near the Eiffel Tower were closed for security sake, so we got as close as we could and then all poured off like water into the subway station and into the streets. Normally, I would have dug my map out and navigated over to our destination, but there was no need as everyone was headed to the same place and we just followed the river of people!

The Champs de Mars was packed, but we found a spot and didn't have long to wait. The fireworks show was fabulous and the giant disco ball we'd seen on the ground a few days before was now shining from the space just above the first floor.

The music was fun, being disco, and the fireworks were timed well with it. The 30 min. show went really fast - as do most fireworks displays - and the crowd was happy and well behaved!

Then, the crowds poured back toward the nearest metro. The stop where we'd gotten off had at least a 1/2 hour line, so we walked and walked and walked and - yes - walked. Finally, at about 1 am we got to an RER line right outside my old abode and the Musee Orsay. The trains were still packed but we finally got home about 2am.

It was really a day to remember!

For more information about planning a great time in Paris, visit ParisMadeSimple!