Post-tour Paris — Adventures in Sicily

Paris (post tour - on our own)

Make Reservations at those sites that are on your must see list!

Bought the Paris Museum Pass -> on-line in advance and made reservations for the sites that we planned to see (Château de Versailles, Hôtel de la Marine, Musée de l'Orange rie, Musée du Louvre).

Other attractions we saw without advance reservations on the pass were: Pompidou Center and Rodin Museum

The 4 Day pass saved us $20 euros per person! You need to use it on consecutive days. Also helpful to have a paper copy of the pass and a picture of it on your phone.

Additional apps that helped with our trip

Bonjour RATP -> very helpful for planning transportation metro, RER/suburban train. You can put the location you start at and the one you finish and it will suggest routes.

Google Translate is helpful for communication.

Know your closest metro station

We found Paris City Vision -> that helps with navigation. You enter a metro line number and it will tell you about tourist sites and attractions on that line. Don’t forget about the color map of the Paris Metro in the very back of the Rick Steves Paris book. The metro did have more announcements in English, especially the “Beware of pickpockets”.

Food Tour - Paris by Mouth

West Saint Germain Food Tour. The group walked around the area and learned about the wonderful artisan shops. Pictures to the right are from La Grande Epicerie Paris ->. Our group enjoyed the tour treats (breads, meats, cheeses, chocolates, pear tarts) at the end that were paired with excellent French wines. Picked this tour because it was in the Rick Steves book, and it covered an area that we had not explored in previous trips.

We found a new favorite cheese. “Comté (cow milk, aged 6 - 42 months, from Jura) that tasted of melted butter, milk chocolate, hazelnuts, toast, leather, pepper, butterscotch, and sweet orange. It is the highest produced cheese in France. Comté is graded on a scale of 1-20. Those that score 15-20 have a green band while those from 12-15 have a red band,” follow-up email from our Paris by mouth guide, Amber. We found Comté at Trader Joes when we returned back home!

Amber has a podcast called Paname: The Secret History of Paris ->.

Food Tour link: Paris by Mouth ->

xmas market.jpg

Hôtel de la Marine -> had cool headphones as part of the tour that the audio changed when you walked into different areas. Orangerie with Monet’s Water Lilies. Tuileries Garden Christmas Market part carnival and many regional foods and beverages. The market runs from late November through early January.

Day 2 - Versailles

Versailles is a great place to visit, so much to see. Be sure and allow plenty of time to look around. Glad we had the audio guide to help point out highlights. Also picked up the free map at the entrance.

Does the small statue above look familiar to one from the start of our trip in Naples? It is the bronze version of “Toro Farnese”.

Take time to enjoy a macaron or two from Ladurée -> , available for purchase at Versailles.

Our metro ticket did not work after Versailles may have been due to security metal detector screening. Glad we kept the receipt to get reissues.

Rest of the day to explore

Still targeting the reopening of Norte Dame in time for the Olympics in 2024. Total restoration completion is targeted for 2025. There’s an interesting Nova eposide on the Rebuilding of Norte Dame -> that premiered December 14, 2022.

Day 3 - Louvre, Pompidou, Champs-Elysees (Second place for most photos taken, 347)

Louvre so much to see. View looking out from inside. Looks alot like the Hercules statue at the Naples museum. Venus di Milo, what happened to her arms, they were never found. Winged Victory of Samothrace, it’s not hard to imagine this statue being on the front of a warship. Michelangelo, one the Slaves statues, hard not to include a work from this great artist. Mona Lisa, Leonardo do Vinci, has been moved since the last time Jeff & Pat went to the Louvre in the 90’s. Now to view it you get in a roped off Disneyland like line. It’s the only painting in one wall of room 711 in the Denon wing of the Louvre.

Don’t forget to pick up the free map!

Lunch at Canard Street

When Stephanie, our Rick Steves tour guide, asked us if we wanted any recommendations for after tour, Canard Street -> one of the ones she suggested for Paris. Highly recommend this after exploring the Louvre. A great duck burger with fries and don’t forget the foie gras. Would not have guessed that foie gras goes great with the french fries. This area had many restaurants that were crowded and some fun shops. Next trip I want to spend more time in this area.

Pompidou

Pompidou Center since this was on the Paris Museum Pass we decided to give it a try. It was fun to ride the escalators and enjoyed the view of Paris. We spent most of the time on the 5th floor.

Les mariés de la Tour Eiffel ->, 1938-1939, by Marc Chagall, Russian-French artist; New York City ->, 1942, by Piet Mondrian dutch painter; La Tour Eiffel ->, 1926, by French Artist Robert Dalaunay; Le monstre de Soisy ->, 1966, by Niki de Saint Phalle, was a French-American, sculptor, painter, filmmaker, and author of colorful hand-illustrated books

The visitor guide information page on the Pompidou -> website has a interactive map and when in the museum we used the chatbot feature to find out more about specific works of art. Also the museum staff were very helpful and knowledgeable.

"Painting calmed the chaos that agitated my soul. lt was a means of domesticating those dragons that have always sprung from my work." (Saint Phalle)

Champs-Elysees

Day 4 - Last Day in Paris

Outdoor market & Patisserie on our way to the Metro

Eiffel Tower and the nearby park

Rue Cler

Cafe Roussillion, the one from the Rue Cler Walk on Rick Steves Audio Europe, had the French Onion soup and Croque Monsieur (French hot ham and cheese sandwich). Many fun shops on Rue Cler. Often you see people in the morning and in the evening going to the boulangeries to get their fresh baguettes. In one of our past trips to Paris we stayed at the Grand Hotel Leveque. I’m sure that it’s been upgraded since our last stay.

Rodin Museum

The Rodin Museum -> is the only national museum in France to be fully self-funding. Featured above is The Thinker from outside and inside the museum. Rodin is also well known for sculptures of hands. Not only Rodin works but other famous artists also featured. Don’t miss the Vincent Van Gogh Father Tanguy ->. Take time to go enjoy the works outside.

Vacation over fly home

What a great trip! Be sure and get to the Paris airport earlier than normal 3 + hours, especially if flying British Airways to London. We would have missed our flight if not for the kindness of people letting us move up in lines.