In Our Happy Place!

You couldn't wipe the smiles off our faces if you tried! The arrival hall at immigration was the usual French disaster, but we didn't care. Predicted time to get through the mass of arriving humanity was just over 60 minutes. We have to admit to queue jumping in order to make our TGV connect to Bordeaux, just before noon.
Arriving at 7am, a good 35 minutes ahead of schedule made no difference to the masses all trying to get through Customs. No bio-security here: Just get your passport stamped and go through the Nothing to Declare gate and you are free to go, as it were.
We looked around for the Police, but only spied two armed officers, in direct contrast to previous visits to the same place.

This year, the arrival hall was much nicer than last year, but it appears Charles de Gaulle airport is in a similar state of eternal reconstruction as so many other ports of entry around the world.
Last year, Laduree only had a small carte for their famous Macarons, at the airport, but this year, I took special note, they have their very own store. The shop assistant kindly exited the store for me to take my photo. If you have never been to Laduree (Lar dur ray), be sure to visit their Champs Elysee Tea Rooms, which are stunning...and so is the food!

When I first came through CDG in 1981, I was very taken with this series of people carrying tubes in the center of the airport. they are looking pretty tired now, but they are iconic, and I cant think of the airport as not having them. Inside are escalators, or Escalier.

 I deliberately didn't make this photo larger...The old woman staring back at me is about to pass out, I believe. We were on the RER train from the airport into Port Royal, on the Blue Line into Paris Central. Port Royal is the station at the Montparnasse end of the Luxembourg Gardens, and the closest station on that line, to Gare Montparnasse, where we had to catch our TGV train to Bordeaux.

One of the most pleasant parts of this journey is the short hop across the Atlantic. With a 6 hour time difference, it is very 'friendly' to our general health, and apart from the Jacksonville to Newark trip, it was a comfy journey. We wont say much about the airline food because there really is little to say about it that is good. Suffice to say, the feeble attempt at a 'French' breakfast was not generally well received.

The Jax - Newark 2 hrs was from hell! It is every parents nightmare that their overwrought/tired babies will scream for the entire journey. Well, we had two sets of twins, both less than a year old, who did just that, and they were only three rows in front of us. We felt for the parents trying to hold onto these wriggling messes, determined to throw themselves backwards, and little calmed them. Thank goodness it was a short trip. We wouldn't have survived a longer one, I'm sure. The whole place was breathing a sigh of relief, on disembarking. Of course one of the children fell asleep 10 minutes before landing! phew!

The only aspect of travel that we abhor, is the two days before departing. Usually we are fully packed with very little to occupy us beyond the final vacuum and fridge emptying exercises. The same cannot be said for this time around, however.

We had wall to wall medical and dental appointments on Monday and Tuesday, as we will be away 3 1/2 weeks, this time. Waz is in the process of having a crown installed at the very back/bottom, and they sent him away with a temporary crown, after spending 5 1/2 hours and three separate crown installation attempts during which two of the new ones broke. The dentist kept him there until 6.30pm on Tuesday night, but gave up, not wanting to make-do, and she will make a 4th attempt at getting this thing installed, upon our return. His mouth is still a little tender from all the pushing and pulling, on Tuesday night.

Meanwhile...Back in Paris...

We found the RER B line in Terminal 3, and caught the train into Port Royal, as I said. One of the reasons for not changing trains at this station to arrive underground at Gare (Gar) Montparnasse, is that we LOVE the walk from the Port Royale to Gare M.  I hope you can see why. 

Another reason to like this station is that it has both Escalier (escalator) and an Ascenseur (Elevator/lift). Sure beats carrying our heavy bags up endless steps, depending on how deep in the bowels of the Metro you are.

This is the view from the exit, as we ready ourselves to cross Rue Montparnasse. The Plain trees still have plenty of leaves on them, and the Liquidambar are still flaunting their bright red foliage. 

 I always like juxtapositions, and these newer apartments are in direct contrast to the classical beauties in the photo above (right)

 Rue Montparnasse at 9.30am had very little traffic, surprisingly. This is very familiar territory to us, as we usually choose to stay not far from here and the boulevard Saint Michel which runs alongside the Luxembourg Gardens down to the Seine River and the Isle de la Cite.

Our favorite grumpy Poissonier was out dressing his display case of fresh seafood, and I asked him if I could photograph these sea urchins, lobsters and crabs. I believe they all come from coastal Bretagne (Brittany).

That's him on the left. Those are scallops on ice.

Verring of R. Montparnasse and down a few familiar side streets, we delight in the known shops with their glorious displays. I lagged well behind Waz as I took in the gorgeous meats in the Boucherie.

Stunning!!!

Puppies out strolling their people, per usual, and these two woolies were waiting outside a Poissonerie for their mistress.

 We didn't stop to ask what they were dump diving for, but the puppy wasn't too impressed.

We were somewhat fearful that we would be held up in the Customs hall and not make our noon connection to the Bordeaux-bound TGV, but of course we needn't have worried. Our timing was perfect, and this gave us a few minutes to enjoy our first Grand Crème (Double shot espresso with hot milk) and Pain Raisin (raisin pinwheel with apricot glaze) at Paul Café. We were pretty desperate by this stage...for both the coffee and some sustenance. No he hasn't sucked on lemons...just savoring the delicious pastry.

Satisfied, we went in search of our train and platform, and hopefully a toilet...yes, we found the latter...80 centimes, thanks.
The departing train platform is often not announced until the train is almost ready to leave, and there is a crazy mass exodus of people in the direction of the newly announced platform. We watched this happen several times, and decided to find where our train might possibly be departing from and to move closer to it. Eagle-eyed Waz went walkabout and found the right place and we moved in the nick of time. Boarding the train early means we get to put our large luggage on the rack at the beginning of our carriage. This time we were upstairs, and we were happy to stack our bags after lugging them for a couple of hours.

While waiting, we had both taken time to go walkabout...I found a lovely book shop...too bad they were all in French...ha! just kidding! but I did look at some of the gossip magazines while there, keeping a keen eye on the shop keeper who discouraged this kind of behavior I was exhibiting.
We agreed that we should have some food for the train journey, and I purchased two grain bread Americain sandwiches, which are not sandwiches as we know them, but rather a split baguette with varied fillings. I think ours had grilled chicken, tomato, cheese and a bit of lettuce. Eu 5.60, thanks. I also found a Tarte Armande et Cassis...Almond and black current tart...which of course I ate before the sandwich, as you do in France! Non? Waz was a good lad and ate his main course first:)  I took one bite of the dry Pain Cereal sandwich and declared I wasn't in the mood for 'dry' food, and put it back in it's bag for later....which of course never came.

Gare Montparnasse is directly opposite the Tower with the same name...without the Gare in front. This building is impressive, and yet another major transportation hub under renovation.

The TGV trains (literally: Trains of very great speed) are all lined up at the station. They are double ended, so they just pull out from the other end. They could all have done with a jolly good clean, but then I guess that would be an endless task, given that we clocked 317kph at one stage, on our journey. You don't actually feel that you are going that fast, but think about this....Paris to Bordeaux in 2 hrs and 5 minutes. Take a look at the map, and you will see how far that is. Sorry...it's late and I'm not going in search of that information. Suffice to say, it is a long way!

We watched this floor washing machine (and it's driver) with much amusement. He didn't warn people he was following them closely...people on their phones, or talking to each other as they walked along in front of the machine got quite the fright when they realized this thing was close on their heels.

 ...And of course there is always a McDonalds when you need it. This wasn't in the Station last year, so we were somewhat surprised to see it here. Did you know that France is second only to the USA in it's consumption of McDonalds? I knew you would want to know that!

This is a map of the lower half of France On the left you can see the Atlantic Coast and Bordeaux, and on the right, the Med. As the crow flies, we aren't that far from Spain!

This is the huge map we found as we exited the train at Bordeaux St Jean station.

Plenty of old buildings are train stations, and Bordeaux is no exception. She lacks some of the glorious ornamentation of some others, but she is still impressive.

We choose to stay close to the Train Station, and so we only had a short walk to drop our bags off and head on out again to explore.
These are the local and very efficient trams that we followed down to the Gironde River, and walked alongside that for a couple of Kilometre.

Crossing the road first, these purple chairs caught my eye in the mid afternoon sunlight. What a pretty day, and though not warm, it was delightful in the sun. About 15C.

 We came back to this restaurant (below) for dinner. Waz had the Moules Frites (he was in heaven!) and a glass of Beaujolais nouveau, and I ordered the Salade Norvigienne: Smoked salmon, potato, hard boiled egg, tomato, cucumber and plenty of butter lettuce topped off with a delightful vinaigrette. Delish! The accompanying panier de pain was not so delish and I didn't have the wherewithal or the French words to complain about it before eating. After food was another matter, however, lol. We enjoyed a Grand Crème instead of dessert, and were very happy to just sit and soak up the atmosphere and the feeling of utter contentment we both had.

This is the sidewalk sign that brought us into the restaurant. We ate so many when in Bretagne, the past two years, and this was comfort food for his honor. They charged us another Euro for the dinner variety, for some reason. Still, our dinner was a very reasonable 35euros for two mains, two grand crème and a glass of Beaujolais nouveau.

Going back to our arrival in Bordeaux.
After dropping our bags, we walked to the river, as I said, and followed it up to the Pont St Michel. A splendid bridge over a wide section of the Gironde River, which was running very fast, as the tide was going out.

Always plenty going on where you have water. Can you see the current in that river? It reminded us of a certain boat trip we did down the Mississippi when it was in flood. Our boat was doing 8.3 knots, but the Mississippi was doing 8.5, for a combined speed of 16.8 knots! What a buzz!

 The lamp posts on the bridge are as lovely as any you will find.

 Looking UP the river. What glorious weather we are enjoying. About 15C and though the wind had a bite to it, I had my scarf off more than on.

 As we turned away from the bridge to head back to the hotel, we saw this trail of school kids, aged about 7, I guess. They had obviously been across the road alongside the river to the park to play, for PE. Most of the schools have paved yards with very little grass, we notice.

 We usually find water first, on any given day, and having satisfied that need, we took the route home that followed the Spire. As churches usually have space around them, we sought it out.
This is the spire of St Michel, dating back to the 15th century. It is generally in rather bad shape, but we notice that the city is putting much effort into restoration of many historic buildings. Still, it is sad to see the degradation of the stone and the decorative elements.

 You can see the area to the left, in this photo, that has been boarded up. The spire is part of the Church (Eglise = Aye gleece) of St Michel.

 By 4pm we were on our way back to the hotel along the waterfront. Before we found the Spire, we stopped at a small English owned café and enjoyed a 'take 5' moment or 10 with a Café Latte. We didn't actually particularly seek the English part, it just happened to be that way. Normally we try to find everything but.

Along one of the Quai, we spied this almost new American flag. We wondered if a student had moved in here, this being a University city.

 The late afternoon light was glorious, and the cool in the air  was welcome. I do love these stone buildings.

I plonked down on the bed, on our return to the Hotel, and didn't raise my head for another two hours. Waz reminded me that if we wanted to eat, now would be a good idea. We headed back to the restaurant I told you about previously, sat down and ordered our dinner. Service was not hurried, and we were reminded that Americans tend to want everything NOW! Oh dear....is that us too? If it is, we need to break that one poste haste!
The greeter decided we should have English menus, but we declined in favor of the French variety. This somewhat surprised her. Our waiter insisted on practicing his English on us, and I answered in my best French, when my brain finally kicked in after some food. I have to remember there are regional differences in accent, as I wondered if people were listening to my accent more than the words I was saying...or were the words just wrong? They weren't, because when I repeated myself in French, they understood me. Phew!

We walked for a bit after dinner...back to the train station, actually, and took a good look around that lovely old building. We found a couple of restaurant...perhaps we will take a look there tomorrow night, for dinner. Casual is great, and we aren't into fancy!

We were glad to come home and shower in our tiny cubicle...oh...didn't I tell you about the SMALL hotel room? You could not swing a kitten, let alone a cat, in this tiny place. We aren't into big and expensive hotel rooms, as we spend all our days out and about. This room was a bit of a shock, however. We like the brand for it's non=pretentious design and the convenience of its hotels. We also get great specials. You cant beat 44 euros per night for a mid city hotel room, can you?

Waz went to bed before I did, because I had to at least start this blog post. If I don't keep up with them, the days get left behind as do the memories.
Bonne Nuit. A bientot.