PARIS ON A WHIM (and practically free)

 December 3, 2017

It was the first Sunday in December. A typical weekend morning; both of us in the living room surfing the internet on our laptops.

Suddenly, Marc looked up and asked, “Why don’t we go somewhere for a week since work is slow and Alex and is on school break?”

Alex was in the room as well, glued to his laptop. I raised my voice to get his attention and asked: “Alex! Do you want to go somewhere for a week?” “Nope.” I had guessed that he’d say that. Burned out from school; he just wanted to veg at home.

I quickly replied, “That’s fine. Dad and I will go, and you can look after the cats.”

Fortunately, I suggested we check for accumulated hotel points as the first step to planning our venture. We were surprised to discover we had accumulated a LOT of Hyatt points (thanks to Marc’s time working in China).

I suggested “Hawaii or …?”

Suddenly, Marc was interested; he got on the Hyatt website and started plugging in destinations to see where our points could be used.

“How about Canada? Or Washington D.C.? Or Europe?”

Okay, he’s thinking big. 

He continued: “Italy? England? France? … Paris? Paris!!”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to Hawaii?” (Marc has never been to Hawaii, has previously expressed interest in going, and it would be warm!)

“Nope, Paris.”

Hmmm. I’ve been to Paris three times but never for more than two or three days. How fun to stay longer and really explore! The weather would be cold and probably rainy, but it would be Christmas time. That’s got to be interesting. And the weather shouldn’t be much different than the weather at home in Portland (Oregon).

Three Hyatts in Paris would take our points. Centrality would be most important, and Hyatt’s Hôtel du Louvre looked like a perfect home base.

Now for airline points. We had several plans to work with. Coordinating availability on short notice and number of points required, I was finally able to come up with a scenario using two different mileage plans. Okay, we’ll leave on Saturday. Yes, this Saturday. Less than a week away!!

Next step, clothing. Warm and rainproof boots, coats, and hats turned out to be lifesavers for us. The difference was being comfortable strolling around in the cold and rain or being so uncomfortable that we would want to avoid outside activities.

Luckily, it didn’t rain every day. The daytime temps varied between the 40s and 50s, and the 30s at night. I planned our days according to the forecast; planning more indoor activities on the rainier and windier days.

December 9, 2017

The first of our two flights left Portland at 6:00 on Saturday morning. I made sure our layover was in a city with a temperate climate (Dallas, heading to Paris; San Francisco, heading home). I tend to avoid layovers in places like Chicago where the weather can shut down the airport at this time of year.

December 10, 2017

We arrived at Paris’ Charles De Gaulle Airport at 10:00 on Sunday morning. As usual, neither of us was able to sleep on the airplane. By now we have come to expect this and just live with it.

My preplanned train/metro route to the hotel wasn’t too complicated except for locating the airport’s train station and purchasing the train tickets. We followed the signs to the RER station (without having to go outside) and eventually ended up in a big room with many signs and entrances to train platforms. None of them seemed obviously applicable, so I headed to the information stand. The young man spoke perfect English and pointed the way to the correct train platform. But first, we would need to purchase our tickets at an automatic ticket machine. The machine was more challenging than I expected but I was saved by an attendant. (Definitely more complicated than the ticket machines for the metro.)

We took the RER train into town and then transferred to the metro. We exited only a half a block from our hotel!

Our room wasn’t ready, so we left our bags and went on a stroll through the neighborhood in search of lunch. We walked down a wide boulevard that seemed to be devoid of restaurants, but managed to find a café down a side street. Our waiter was cheerful and friendly. I spoke rusty French, but he generously switched to English when I got stuck. Probably less painful for him! Before long, the café was filled to the brim with French patrons (who are pretty strict about eating lunch between noon and 2:00).

Back at the hotel, we discovered that we had been upgraded to a suite. One side of the suite featured a sitting area with a couch, two chairs, a coffee table and a set of French doors. The other side held the bed and another set of French doors. Both sets of French doors looked directly onto the Louvre! We were thrilled.

Despite my best efforts to dissuade him, Marc threw himself on the bed and immediately fell asleep. I stuck with the sensible plan to stay up as late as possible on the first day; the only way to get acclimated to a new time zone as fast as possible. Not an easy feat but I managed to do it. Eventually,  with a lot of poking and prodding, I was able to rouse Marc so we could go get dinner. Skipping dinner would mean waking up starving in the middle of the night (and we had no snacks on hand).

We walked to a grocery store called G20, which I located on Google maps as the nearest grocery store open on a Sunday evening. It had everything we expected from a French grocery store, but it was more modern and had more convenience items than we remembered from past trips to France. After deliberating too long between the different cheeses and salamis, we decided on a combination pack. Then wine, Perrier, grapes, and baguette. Marc also wanted cookies, milk, and chips?!; and I wanted yogurt. A nice picnic dinner to close out the first and most challenging day of our Paris vacation.

December 11, 2017

Monday morning, we headed downstairs to breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant, La Brasserie du Louvre. Breakfast was included with our Hyatt Global status and I’d say it was one of my favorite hotel breakfasts (in addition to a hotel on Lake Geneva in Switzerland and a 5-star hotel in China).

It seemed appropriate to make our first destination the Louvre since our room looked directly on to it. Getting the inside perspective would add more meaning to our outside perspective. Also, the day’s forecast was for heavy rain, so this would minimize our time outdoors. We arrived shortly before opening and stood in a fairly short line. The lines were much longer when we left, so getting there early was a good idea.

Once the doors opened, the line moved surprisingly slow. It seemed odd that it would take so long for such a short line. We ran into this several times over the week. It turned out to be security lines.  (My guess is the Paris bombings of November 2015 prompted the addition of security screening to major tourist sites.) Once we got through the screening process, we rode the elevator down to the floor below the pyramid and looked for the ticket counter line but there wasn’t one. Instead, there was a room of automatic ticket machines and no lines at all. Next, we headed for the line at the free coatroom, but it went so fast it didn’t feel like a line.

I printed out a self-guided tour before we left for Paris and was ready to be our tour guide. (I picked the visitor trail entitled “From Palace to Museum, 800 Years of History” because it focused on the building’s history in addition to the art, and also because it was the most extensive, taking three hours rather than the one and a half hours the other tours took.) Before long, we realized that the directions weren’t working very well. We became confused and frustrated many times, forced to make guesses. Somehow, I think we managed to get through all the rooms in the tour but in a different order. I think the problem was that the French to English translations had been written one way on the posted signs and another way in the written directions. In retrospect, drawing a path directly on a map would have been easier than relying on “Turn your back to the windows to enter the Salle Henri II.”

We exited the Louvre into the adjacent Carrousel du Louvre Shopping Mall, purposely leaving our coats back in the coatroom. We realized we were famished when we saw the food court. The food court differed from the shopping mall food courts at home.  Each restaurant followed a different theme: Italian, Moroccan, Asian, Spanish, etc. All featured prix fixe menus, offering combinations of an appetizer and entrée, an entrée and a dessert, or all three (and included a drink). I chose lasagna and salad, Marc chose pizza and dessert, and we both chose Perrier to drink. All beautifully presented, of course. Every table was full (not surprising since it was between noon and 2:00), but we managed to grab a table just as the occupants were leaving.

We did a little window shopping before discovering we had made a big mistake by leaving our coats in the Louvre. The security line to get back into the museum (from the inside mall entrance) was VERY long and slow. But we had no choice; it was cold and wet outside and we needed those coats!

We returned to the hotel to rest our aching feet. In the evening we ventured out to Île de la Cité, one of two natural islands in the middle of the Seine River in central Paris. (Central is the correct word to describe it since Île de la Cité is where medieval Paris started and the spot from where all road distances are calculated. Zero starts here.) Both Notre Dame and the huge Christmas tree in front were beautifully lit. After walking through the medieval cathedral, we crossed over Cardinal Lustinger bridge to the Latin Quarter in search of dinner. We quickly discovered the medieval section of narrow, cobblestoned, pedestrian-only streets that host a barrage of competing restaurants. The highly touristed area is a little overwhelming, but we loved the fact that the tourists were speaking languages from all over the world and there didn’t seem to be any Americans in the mix (no offense, just makes us feel more worldly). In fact, we were mistaken for being Spanish. We glanced in the window of each restaurant and read the food boards outside, eventually returning to one of the first restaurants we’d seen because I liked the looks of the interior (medieval eccentric). Our waiter was polite and efficient. We ordered a carafe of house red, of course, and the cliché French onion soup for our appetizer. Yum! I can’t remember what else we ate, but I remember thoroughly enjoying the meal. We finished the evening with a pleasant, rain-free, late-night walk back to the hotel.

December 12, 2017

I planned an outdoor walking tour for Tuesday since the forecast didn’t include rain. We rode the metro to the Arc de Triomphe, the farthest point of the walk. As we stood under the imposing arch, which is always impressive in person, we decided it was a little less impressive than usual because it was partially blocked off for construction. We soon found this to be a recurrent theme. Maintenance and improvements appear to be common in the winter months when there are less tourists.

Next, we headed east on the Champs Elysees. The VERY wide sidewalks were as I remembered (though some were narrowed by construction barriers). The biggest surprise on the street was the existence of a Five Guys burger restaurant. What?!?!

Next on our tour, was a visit to the Petit Palais Museum (located along the Champs Elysees, just before Place de la Concorde). I’d never been there, and it’s free! Something was obviously happening at the Grand Palais across the street. It was surrounded by event fencing and armed guards. And the rest of the Champs Elysees, heading east, was entirely closed. A long line of official looking cars (diplomatic?) were parked along the sides. (I did some research a couple weeks later and discovered that the dinner for One Planet Summit was held there. The Summit was organized by the United Nations and World Bank with 50 government leaders and 4000 participants invited from public and private sectors, including philanthropists, youth, and scientists. Trump was not invited but Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Canadian environmental minister Catherine McKenna were in attendance.)

The beautiful beaux-art Petit Palais houses Paris’ Museum of Fine Arts. The museum is not as well-known as some of the other museums in the city but does hold works by famous artists such as Monet, Cézanne, and Delacroix along with many works by not-so-well-known artists. The Petit Palais was much less crowded than the Louvre had been the previous day. In fact, we sometimes had entire rooms to ourselves.

We left the museum and walked a half block to the nearest bridge (the extravagantly beautiful Pont Alexandre III) where I took this great photo of Marc.

We returned to the Champs Elysees. Luckily, the sidewalks were open even though the street wasn’t.

We could barely tell when we reached the Place de la Concorde; the entire area was torn up with construction and I had a hard time coming up with even one photo that wasn’t marred by construction paraphernalia.

Next, we walked into the Tuileries Gardens and rested in the chairs next to the lake. After a bit of strolling in the gardens, we crossed over the Seine to find lunch. We walked through St. Germain De Pres, a respectable and busy neighborhood, and eventually came to the outskirts of the Latin Quarter’s medieval area. It was getting late for lunch but we found a creperie that was still open and they seemed enthusiastic to have us come in.

We stopped at Notre Dame on our way back to the hotel so we could view it the daylight.

Back at the hotel, I Google-mapped our route and came up with 5 miles. That was plenty of walking for me! We spent the rest of the evening in our room except for an outing to the Franprix grocery store for more picnic dinner items.

December 13, 2017

Wednesday was a little rainy but was forecast to be less stormy than Thursday, so we saved the Modern Art Museum for the following day. Marc wanted to see the Eiffel Tower up close (even though we’d been there before, of course) so we hopped on the Metro and got off at the closest stop to the tower. Unfortunately, the walk to and around the Eiffel Tower was a little depressing. The weather was grey, drizzly and breezy; there was A LOT of construction going on; and the entire area around the tower was fenced off. Up close, the romance and glamour were stripped from the tower. At first, we thought it was closed but eventually realized it was fenced off for security measures. We went through security to get under the tower; no charge for that. Once we saw the very short entry lines, we realized this was a great opportunity. We’d been up before but might never want to do it again if we had to spend half a day waiting in lines. We did discover, though, that the very top level was closed due to high winds, but the views from the next lowest level were plenty impressive.

We left the tower and headed east toward the hotel, staying on the left bank of the Seine river. We decided to see if we could find Grand Hôtel Lévêque on Rue Cler, where I’d stayed three times and Marc had stayed once (with me and the kids). Marc guided us with the Paris map he’d downloaded onto his phone before leaving home (we chose not to pay for international cell service for the week). Rue Cler was still a nice pedestrian street but the shops seemed more modern and less charming than before.

Next stop was the Musee de l’Armee. We’d never been, and I must say that I was impressed even though most of the subject matter wasn’t generally interesting to me. We approached from the south side (Place Vauban) and entered the Dôme des Invalides where we checked out Napoleon’s tomb (and the tombs of his brothers and other French military heroes) before giving in to our hunger and tired feet at the museum’s café. After a late lunch (the cafe was empty), we toured the army museum’s extensive exhibits, which were exceedingly well done. Marc was fascinated. My feet were grateful when we finally headed to the nearest Metro stop to return to the hotel.

After a little online research, Marc picked Iovines for a pizza dinner. Though we arrived quite late, we had to wait to be seated; the place was crowded and noisy with young and beautiful people. This was obviously the place to hang out and be seen. We personally didn’t care about the cool factor, but the pizza was excellent!

December 14, 2017

Thursday was colder and windier. Because the Pompidou Center was only three-quarters of a mile away, we decided to brave the elements rather than take the metro. The line outside wasn’t very long but it was slow. Once again, it turned out to be the security line. You pay inside. We left our coats at the free coat check and made our way upstairs to the Musée National d’Art Moderne (4th and 5th floors), the largest modern and contemporary art museum in Europe and one of the largest in the world. I was excited to ride the escalators that I had seen in photos, hugging the outside of the building. Small pleasures! We started on the 5th floor, which housed modern art from 1905 to 1960. I was thrilled to see so many works by Kandinsky, Picasso, Matisse, etc. By the time we made it to the 4th floor (housing contemporary art from 1960 to the present), we were too worn out to do much more than a cursory walk-through. We left with aching feet and hungry bellies, choosing a nearby corner café with good views onto two busy pedestrian streets. It was pretty empty because, once again, we were eating after traditional lunch hours. We asked to sit on the patio (covered and heated) so we could watch the street activity. We appreciated the attentive waiter who helped us navigate the menu. Marc chose a Croque Monsieur and I chose a Croque Montagne.  Marc decided he wanted hot chocolate for dessert, so I followed his lead and ordered vin chaude (hot spiced wine). We finished off the afternoon by walking through a marché du Noel (Christmas market), the impressively modern architected Forum des Halles, and Saint-Eustache Church. In the evening we dined at nearby Le Café de l’Epoque on moules frites and citron sorbet. This restaurant was just around the corner from one of Paris’ historic glass-roofed shopping arcades (passages couverts), Galerie Véro-Dodat, which housed a Christian Louboutin store, among other retail establishments.

December 15, 2017

Friday morning we took the metro to the Montmartre area. We then rode the funicular up the steep hill to visit Basilica Sacre Coeur and the church of Saint-Pierre de Montmartre. We strolled back down the hill, following a historic walking tour that I’d preprinted. On the way, we decided to visit the Museum of Montmartre, which is housed in a cluster of 300-year-old buildings that were once residences of famous artists, including Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The exhibitions were set up in these charming homes, which we had mostly to ourselves. Next, we continued down the hill and detoured on to Rue des Abbesse in search of sustenance. The lively street was full of restaurant choices. We chose a pizza cafe called Le Chinon and sat outside on the open patio under heat lamps and lap blankets. Marc drank a hot chocolate and I drank a vin chaud while we waited for our pizzas. We topped off our meal with gelato at Amorino. They use a spatula to carve out individual petals that are shaped into a rose. I was impressed! (We’d never heard of the chain, which is mostly located in Europe but apparently has several locations in the U.S. and elsewhere.) Back on our walk, we located Café des Deux Moulins from the movie Amelie, then finished our tour gawking at the famous Moulin Rouge along with scores of other people. Back at the hotel, we ate picnic leftovers for dinner.

December 16, 2017

We checked out of the hotel at 10:00 am Saturday. We took the metro and RER to the Charles de Gaulle Airport Hilton where we left our bags (it was too early to check in). We then walked over to the bus station to hop the bus that would take us to the Air and Space Museum. Yep, Marc convinced me to go. He emphasized the fact that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the very large historic museum. It did turn out to be pretty interesting because of the vast variety of aircraft and the chance to see two Concordes. We took a break halfway through our tour to eat lunch at the pleasant museum café. Leaving at 4:00 provided plenty of time to check in to the hotel and go to the executive lounge for happy hour (6-8), which included wine, beer, and surprisingly creative appetizers (maybe not so surprising since it’s France).

December 17, 2017

Our Sunday morning flight left at 9:10 am. Luckily, the hotel’s buffet breakfast opened at 6:00, which gave us just enough time to eat before catching the 6:30 shuttle. 

(FYI, in retrospect, we should have checked in and preprinted our boarding passes the day before because United didn’t have kiosks at this airport and the check-in line was painfully long and slow.)

Au Revoir, Paris. We’ll miss you!