Paris, France

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foodie, France, Paris, travels

I’ve traveled the world, many destinations that would be considered exotic, like Machu Picchu or Dubai, yet I have never visited Paris, France, much to the amazement and amusement of many friends. And since I’m tired of being made fun of for having never visited Paris, I was basically been peer pressured to visit Paris ;). Oh woe is me :).

In truth, it was the perfect place to end my three month adventure. The city is a fabulous walking city, very alive, filled with gorgeous architecture, beautiful food, stylish residents, towering churches and history around every corner. My favorite thing to do is sit on a bench and transport myself back into history and pretend I’m seeing it through the eyes of someone in the 1500’s or 1800’s, as if I’m part of the royal court or just a normal citizen, marveling at (and resenting) the riches.

Yes, I had to take this typical shot of the Eiffel Tower, it’s iconic and also the easiest to take

View of the Eiffel Tower from a River Seine cruise

Eiffel Tower all sparkly

The Louvre

The controversial pyramid at the Louvre

The Louvre is huge! It was a former royal palace

Inside the Louvre, so many people…

Venus de Milo

The Mona Lisa, the crowd was fifteen rows deep, I got this close and just couldn’t handle the crowd any longer. I’d been told how small the picture was, so this was a case of lowered expectations, it was bigger than I expected :). From my visit to the Loire Valley, the reason the Lourve has the Mona Lisa and not an Italian museum is because Leonardo spent his final years in France.

The Paintings are huge, and amazing. Yet I always wonder how that artist was able to distinguish themselves enough to land their sponsors and ultimately be hanging in the Louvre, just what was the moment.

Gorgeous ceilings inside the Louvre, I think the building itself is a gorgeous piece of art

Bling bling inside the Louvre

Notre Dame, often imitated in churches I’ve crossed paths in my travels, nothing quite like the original

Notre Dame arches

Gorgeous, intricate stained glass inside Notre Dame

Notre Dame all lit at night

The Arc de Triomphe has a boo boo 😦

Cool little statues on a building

The River Seine

River Seine at dusk

The River Seine at night

Staircase at the 6th floor loft I stayed at for one night, god I’d be fit if I lived here

The food in Paris, and France in general, was just amazing! Such quality ingredients. Their bread is 10,000 times better than the bread we have in the US! No exaggeration at all! We need to do better at breads and croissants!!

Amazing pork chop, not sure where the smaller European portions are, we were looking for them…. This was delicious!

Pâté, yum with some crusty bread

Amazing scallops

Dessert meringue

Pretty sure I ate all the macaroons in Paris, sorry Paris didn’t leave you any…

I had a lot of preconceived notions about Paris and France, some were true, yes the food is delicious, but other than one hotel clerk, every French person we met was quite lovely, especially in the restaurants. And it wasn’t because we were in tourist restaurants where they are used to English speakers, frequently, we were the only English speakers in a restaurant. Perhaps it’s because we always greeted them in French? I don’t know, but we never encountered any of that rudeness that I’d heard about.

So yes in short my forced, peer pressured trip to Paris was well worth it 🙂

Loire Valley and Joan of Arc, France

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Ambiose, France, Loire Valley

To break up the long drive from Bordeaux to Paris, we stopped in the Loire Valley for an afternoon, night and morning. There are several Chateaus in the area, several being castle like or fortified houses in the least.

Chenin was the first we stopped at, Chenin being known as the castle where Joan of Arc first passed the test of faith by knowing it was the king, Charles VII dressed as a commoner. She had visions that he was to take back lost lands and be named the true king, which he hadn’t been yet, as the church where coronations were held was in English hands. Believing her to be inspirational, he then sent her out as a leader of his army (well there’s debate over whether she was really in charge of the army…but the results are what matters). The French army was beaten down and defeated by the English to that point but they had quite a reversal of fortune after she joined the battle, taking back most of the lost land. The French took back the coronation church and Charles VII was named king, the French continued to have many victories with Joan on the front lines. Unfortunately, she was captured by the English and the Burgandians (A French region they were aligned with) She was tried and actually burned as a heretic on May 30th, 1431 (exactly 583 years ago today as I write this) on what we would call trumped up charges. Eventually English were formally defeated and the Burgandians signed a peace treaty as well leaving Charles VII leading the whole of France. A second posthumous trial was held for Joan of Arc and she was found not a heretic and was declared a saint.

Chateau at Chenin

The oldest mention of Joan of Arc

Statues of Joan of Arc became very popular

More of Chenin Chateau (Castle)

Chateau Ambiose, the final resting place of Leonardo DiVinci, but unfortunately no the castle I wanted to visit. We hoped to visit the one where they have models of all the things that DiVinci had envisioned and had drawn up sort of blueprints for including a helicopter!!! Unfortunately, this Google led us to this one instead of the one a mile away… We just assumed they had moves the models… Ah well this one was nice too 🙂

Only about 10% of the Castle remains

Picture perfect little town

Bordeaux, St Emillion, Pugnac, Bourg, France

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Bordeaux, Bourg, France, Pugnac, St Emillion

My good friend Zulema met up with me for some wine tasting in the Bordeaux region of France. We stayed in a charming bed and breakfast in the French countryside near the town of Pugnac. The bed and breakfast was on an estate that used to house a winery. The lovely British couple that owns it, has completely restored it from it’s formerly sad state to a wonderful countryside B&B, with a few modern touches like a pool, mini golf course as well as lovely gardens. Our trusty station wagon size Renault since the smaller cars were all manual shift, I guess the French don’t like automatic drive. Since I haven’t driven a stick in over 20 years, didn’t think it a great idea to relearn in France…

We had a lovely dinner in a small family owned restaurant in the town of Pugnac, with a set menu, wine, salad, soup, entree and dessert, plus coffee for €18 or about $26, which for France is a bargain! The server spoke very little English, we probably should have studied a little more French to figure out that she was saying rare cooked beef….

Dessert was lovely

We became big fans of roundabouts (traffic circles) because they made U-turns a breeze when we went the wrong way:)

We got much better, we only got lost once per trip towards the end or I mean took the scenic routes once per trip 😉

Lovely city of Bourg, right next to the town we were staying.

On the River Garonne

A very nice wine maker at a tasting

At Pugnac winery, which would have been walking distance to our B&B, we received a tour of the whole facility, very cool.

St Emillion, known for expensive wines and gorgeous country side

A church where they had just found a cemetery and were excavating it

Gorgeous cobblestone streets

Vineyards

Overlooking the lovely town of St Emillion

Bordeaux

Fantastic meal in Bordeaux, one of the best we had in France, good wine, oysters and charcuterie. We forgot to ask for the fromage,ie cheese. One of the cutest little bistro’s ever!

Church time! Stained glass

Arches

Art on the street

I thoroughly enjoyed the French countryside in the Bordeaux region, the towns of Bourg, Pugnac and St. Emillion, as well as Bordeaux city were all quite cute and charming. And the wine is très magnifique!