Say yes to Mannheim, No to Metz

6/2 Mon Prague to Nuremberg to Metz 2 hr 56 min; 4 hr 9 min

Except that wasn't what we did.  Instead, we stopped at some adorable little town near Mannheim called "something German".  We wanted a REAL schnitzel and some spatzele before leaving Europe.  The goulash and dishes in Czech Republic were close but not quite schnitzels.  We were leaving to go see a Holocaust museum, but this is where the war crimes were tried, not the right location.  So we modified our plan and blazed quickly through Germany so we could have another full day in Paris before heading home.  Add it up, it's over 7 hours of driving today.

This is why it's good to have some flexibility in the schedule.  You get to allow for things like Hot Springs and one more day in Paris!

It was Sunday and the Trip Advisor Hotel restaurant recommendation was closed.  That's right, a hotel restaurant that was closed.  Yelp to the rescue, thank you Lindley.  We found a quaint and friendly beer garden style restaurant less than 5 minutes away and had a fabulously great meal!  Oops.  Not only is all our money not €, we sure didn't have enough cash to pay the bill anyway.  And they don't take cards.  Faceplant.

So Richard and mom set off to find at ATM while we hung out at the restaurant.  Twenty minutes later we were on our way to our Mannheim hotel (free parking and wifi), Hotel Huntress wins again, this one was just over €100.  We got in late, so check in was at a small side door.  The apartment was three bedrooms again, across the street in a different building, but the wifi wasn't working.  Kelsey was taking a bath and didn't notice the shower sprayer soaking the floor and in turning it off for her, I got soaking wet.  I then strip off my wet clothes.  This is when I get asked to go find out the wifi code.  Across the street.  Late at night.  It was not our best moment of the trip.

Later, I found out the critical need for internet was to finish Richard's amazing plan to have our friends finish our packing and have movers move us into our new apartment while we were still in Europe!  And all of that planning was critical and had to be done now.  

He got connected, we got sleep and then up the next morning for a local grocery store.  I've now decided I collect reusable shopping bags by the way.  I have some from Montreaux, Mannheim, Paris and Prague.  I'll remember this trip every time I  go to the grocery store!

We happily munched on a variety of fruits and sausages and yogurts and nuts as we hurtled ourselves back to Paris.  Paprika Pingles?  Check.

Prague is for Par-Tays

5/31 Sat Vienna to Prague 3 hr 27 min

The final farewell to Austria was that Richard couldn't use cruise control much due to heavy construction.  His calf was really bothering him and he needed a massage or a hot springs pronto.  Fortunately Bad means Baths and we were right in the heart of hot springs territory!  Serendipity:) We followed the signes to Romertherme because it was open for one more hour!  They discounted us and Kelsey, Lindley, Richard and I went and took the water for 45 minutes while mom waited in the lobby. Richard's leg felt immensely better.  It's a communal and co ed changing room too.  Their approaches to nudity are distinctly different from ours.  There were entire families changing together with both small and bigger kids.

The next morning started with us leaving "western Europe" and fast approaching what was the former Soviet bloc countries.   One of the things we had noticed during our trip was our disappointment that we no longer get passport stamps for each country.  Europe is Europe.  And Swiss, French, Austrian, Italian and French passport stamps no long really exist unless you fly into those countries from someplace else.  We had passed former border patrol stations that now sit sadly vacant.  For you James Bond fans out there, how many times have we seen those border crossing scenes?  Now instead of shiny and efficiently scary checkpoints, it's cracked concrete and weeds.

We stopped at a restaurant in a small town in the Czech Republic.  There seemed to be more open hills, wildflowers and natural grass than agriculture, although there were as many farmer market stands on the roadside as there are spots on a Dalmation puppy.  First things first, make sure the place takes credit cards!  This was our first stop in a non € country.  Nope, they have their own currency here!  The Czech koruna. Kč.  New money symbol, new math to do on the exchange rates.  And what math!  Koruna to dollar is something like 20 to 1.  Ever carry around 5000 dollar bills?  We did!

Found a great hotel with big bathrooms and new furnishings.  It was 30 minutes from town center, but the local transportation is fantastic, as it is in most of Europe's larger cities.  Free parking and wifi handled, we went to the giant mall next door to buy our bus/trolley passes.  We had had a fairly short drive and it stayed light until 9PM, so heading out at 4PM we still had a long time to go see the sights.

This location was one on mom's bucket list.  And we budgeted up to two and a half days here.   We used Google Maps walking directions to get to the main square, saw the unbelievable mechanical clock and ran into a giant festival with live music!  Flyers were handed to us for a later organ concert in one of the beautiful cathedrals, and that may be my one regret, that we didn't get to hear that.  But there was music everywhere in Europe.  On the metros in Paris musicians would clamber on and play standing up, surfing on the metro line as it jigged and jagged, demonstrating extreme physical talent in addition to their musical skills.

They also have lots and lots of street musicians.  In Prague, many were playing accordians.  But the festival we found in the big square was a guitarist playing pop tunes.  There were booths for food and drink rimming the square and everyone was just plopped down eating, drinking and partying.  They had a booth with Prague Ham, stuck on spits and roasting over open pit fires, sizzling juices throwing a delicious smell in the air.  Also huge kettles of traditional cabbage with bacon and onion.  We got some of each and went to town eating and listening to the music.  

Then we walked to the Charles Bridge which has some of the finest views of the city's famous skyline.  Pastel fairytale minarets and domes, the glistening water and the amazing light of sunset were all postcard perfect.  Our trip home was a bit dicey, we got on the trolley.  Going the wrong direction.  But Rick Steves says that's a great way to see the whole city, and it eventually loops and goes back the other direction.  So we rode 30 minutes out to the edge of town and then another 50 minutes to get back to our hotel.  Got the full view, then off to upload photos to Facebook.  

Day two in Prague, we left Richard at the hotel to do some work and rest his leg, and we four went back to the Charles Bridge area for some shopping!   I had spotted an Antique store next to the trolley stop the night before plus it appeared less touristy than the area by the square.  At home, I collect crystal.  Most of it has some personal meaning to me, and I was thinking a small piece of Bohemian crystal to bring home would be perfect.  There was a crystal store right near that Antique shop.  

We started that day shopping in the hotel gift shop.  They had Pashmina scarves, Cashmere scarves and Silk scarves and we picked several of each before we even left the hotel.  The antique store was filled with a large variety of items, some quirky, some unknown, and some really elegant.  My grandson is named Lincoln Edison, so I had to buy the antique "Edison" lightbulb holder in German!  And a lovely bronze taper holder shaped like my daughter's old dog Leo.  Lindley found some garnet rings, they are her birthstone and there was garnet everywhere.  And amber.  Turns out they mine them both nearby.  I ended up with a green hued "lemon quartz" ring with a big rectangular stone, and an antique looking ring with a clear crystal stone.  

So instead of crystal vases, I took home crystal on my finger.  I love rings and haven't had any that fit since gaining weight, so this was a good day for me.  The next store we found some garnet for my other daughter, who is also a January baby.  Then a handcrafted "made in Prague" store where mom picked up some soaps and lotions for my sis and her hubs.

Kelsey loaded up with a nice sweatshirt and an assortment of tshirts, trinkets and baubles for any number of her friends.  I've never seen so many beer and weed souveniers in my life.   The nice guy at the store also gave me a great deal on a bunch of wooden bookmarks.

Then we wanted a "real" Czech meal and all day mom was looking for a particular pastry.  Her grandmother was Croatian and she had memories of those pastries.  We found an authentic restaurant with a nicely enclosed courtyard and ordered lunch.  Afterwards, we wanted something sweet so we found the particular pastry we had tried at the square that first night.   Called Trdelnik, it is another open fire style cooking.  They roll a big long snake of dough, then wrap it with each piece touching the next row like a slinky around a four inch wooden dowel.  Then that goes over the open fire and is rotated until the dough is cooked, then dusted with sugar and served in a paper cone.  Delightful!  Not the pastries mom remembered growing up in mostly Bohemian Berwin, IL, but still yummy.  Good on mom for remembering the "please and thank you" to use in Prague at the restaurant!

Vienna and Freud

5/30 Fri Venice to Vienna then Prague 5 hr 36 min

Ugh.  And OMG, the scenery is amazing.   We had swapped cars out at Avis in Milan at the airport due to a STABBED TIRE at an Italian Area Servicio, and parked the new car for most of two days at Venice.  Now we were driving it through Europe and noticing the huge loss of the window space from our previous car.  The first rental had an amazing feature.  The ENTIRE HEADLINER pulled back about a foot to display GLASS.  So for Richard, this was very enrolling.  He loves Jeep Wranglers.  Open tops, open sunroofs, open windows, all contribute to the "Awesomesauce" experience of driving.  Our new car didn't have the awesomesauce headliner experience.

Even so, the three row vehicle was getting us into Vienna just fine.  We found the Freud Museum and toured the home of modern psychoanalysis, then found a lovely coffee shop with cappucinnos and croissants.  They had a really great white washed wine box finished wall.

 We stayed that night in a hotel near the airport.  It was a horrible drive in construction zones to get to the place, but once there, the hotel was "passable".  Unfortunatley, they could not take credit cards, their computer system had crashed, so we went to find an ATM to pay for the hotel.  Fillled with a Czech team of female sports fanatics who had obviously just won a match.  Very excited, lots of beer drinking, and we just slept after a very long road trip.  Not sure to this day what sport they played, but had a very "Eastern European" feel to the evening.  I was reminded of Nadia Comenici.

Boat and Breakfast in Venice, and the Cabin Boy is pretty

5/29 Thu Florence to Venice 2 hr 40 min

We had stayed the night prior in Prato, home of the "textile museum" in Italy, which I now wish we had had the time to tour.  My sister in law is an interior designer and I strongly suspect there would have been lovely things to see there.

Alas, we only slept there, blazed through Florence and then booked it in the car onto Venice.  Venice is unique.  For somewhat suspect reasons, it was not on my mother's bucket list.  Some friend she had had said that "the canals smell".  So mom had scratched it off her list at some point and I was bound and determined to put it back on.

It had been a marvelous and miraculous city on our previous trip two years prior and it was the one place I had said "we must come back".    Such amazing architecture, such lovely shops, such beautiful colors and the art glass of Murano.  

But. Venice. Is. Expensive.  

Hotel Huntress to the rescue.  Thank you Hotel gods!  We found a BOAT AND BREAKFAST!!!!  A YACHT.  With rooms.  Each with individual bath/shower areas.  The bathroom had a slatted wood floor.  The sink had a shower nozzle.  The "shower" was "the room".  And a private toilet per room.  So a "triple room" meant a double bed on bottom and a twin bunk on top.  

My daughter and step daughter asked my 78 year old mother to sleep ON THE TOP BUNK.  And my mother said "okay".  I worried for a bit that in the middle of the night my mom would get up to go to the bathroom, step onto some necessary part of anatomy of either my daughter or stepdaughter, and that an emergency room visit would result for multiple parties.  And then I decided not to worry, because, hey, that never solves any problem.  Ever.

So then the miraculous occurs and one of the 20 somethings decides that the Literally, "Cabin Boy" is CUTE.  Like 24 hour boyfriend cute at least.  Maybe 72 hours.  

As mentioned previously, we had a hard time finding the boat, and had picked up two Chinese girls who attend school here in the US who were also hunting for said boat. We ate dinner with them at the recommended restaurant.  The girls all discussed plans.  Their plan was to teach Cabin Boy some English and Chinese.  Our smart daughter's plan was to use Google Translate to flirt.

Our girls won.  He turned into a 72 hour boyfriend with Facebok connection before we had to delete him.  He wanted to move to the US and have beautiful children I think.  But he was sooooo pretty.  *sigh*

http://www.booking.com/hotel/it/venezia-boat-amp-brekfast-caicco-freedom.en-us.html?tab=4&aid=356981&rid=482104512&label=review_am

If this is Wednesday, this must be Tuscany!

5/28 Wed Lugano to Florence 3 hr 59 min

Another four hours in the car with five family members of three generations:)  I think it went well!  This was the day we headed into Italy for the "Area SerVICio's" (proclaimed loudly, with hand gestures.  

We previously visited Italy with Corinne and Steven and had a blast yelling Italian phrases at the top of our voices while tooling down the highway.  This trip, we stopped for our "pea sized bladder" passenger, who shall remain nameless, about every hour.   But these road side stops are NOTHING like the truck stops in America.  They are nice, they are clean, they have gourmet meats and cheeses and wine, and they are filled with lots of candy.  Kelsey found "Crispy M&M's" in the blue package that haven't been sold in the US since the 90's.  

We found our beloved Paprika flavored Pringles again and ate them non stop on the road.  But we also had a sizable collection of bread, meats, cheeses and fruits from Lugano to make on the go sandwiches.  Mustard in a tube, some lovely sliced raclette cheese and salami and Parma.  Which is ham.  Cappucinnos whenever the driver ran out of steam.  We ate our way through Europe, but then if you've seen the pics, you would know that it's our thing:)

Driving into Florence, the hills gradually show up, you see the cypress and other trees on the hillsides, and the lovely, pastoral orchards and vineyards.  Sheep now, not cows.  We were most definitely in Tuscany now, knocking another one off of my mom's bucket list.  I found the Andrea Bocelli and we listened to some opera while driving through Tuscany. *sigh*

Then we took another of our wrong turns (thank you GPS app that did NOT keep up with new construction).  We actually had waited 30 minutes in the Italian Area Servicio with free but slow wifi to download this app.   So we ended up on a high mountainside in a quaint little village.  If there'd been a hotel, we were close enough to Florence that I would have said, "let's book a room for tonight!"  Instead we hopped back on the highway and passed Florence up to stay in a town known for it's textiles.  They had a textile museum even.   We got in just before dark though and chose to eat in the hotel.  Great wifi, a fabulous front desk manager, and the meal was actually quite good.  

We always looked for WIFI and free parking.  Those are mandatory when you're driving through Europe, which meant we were frequently 30 minutes outside of the major towns.  

The next morning we were off to Florence to see David.  We were scared.  Last year when Richard and I went, we didn't find any of the "large, easy to read Parking signs" that Rick Steves had said to look for.  Florence has an old historic town center that you can't drive through.  It's a €100 fine each time you do this.  We had done it approximately four times last year.

This is where the famous David statue by Michaelangelo is located.  We went to Rick Steves trusty Florence guide again and this time we parked at his recommended pay parking lot which had an actual address, which was NOT full, as advertised!  Then we all caught a taxi to the town center and back.  

Richard was kind enough to stand in the LONG line for us (almost 1.5 hours) to get tickets to see David while the four of us took off in two groups to go shop.  For Italian leather:)   Someone in Oxford, MS got a very nice purse from her daughter and my mom got her first taste of real Italian Gelato.  

We whipped through the museum, saw David, which was as amazing as you can imagine,  and immediately set out to our next stop, Venice.

Driving on a train

5/27 Tue Lausanne to Lugano via Montreux 27 min to montreux; 3 hr 43 min to Lugano


Leaving Montreux, we had a route mapped out to get us to Lugano that took us up into the Alps.  You go over the Alps to get to the southeastern tip of Switzerland from the southwestern tip of Switzerland.  Beautiful scenery, it was like looking at a timewarp with the Alpine architecture, cows, sheep and snowcapped mountains of Heidi.  

Richard and I had been to Switzerland before, but it was a first for our daughters and my mom.  At one point we were high enough up on a mountain that we were looking down into a rainbow in the valley!  It had rained on and off for our entire trip and we were getting expert at whipping out umbrellas.  The sparkling, sunshine on the wet mountains made for some terrific pictures. 

Then we were in a small town, looking for our exit and the road was closed.  We live in Denver, so we're familiar with May="mud season"="construction season" in our own mountains.  Or maybe the pass wasn't cleared of snow yet?  Either way, we found another option, tried that route and ended up stymied again!

"You can't get there from here", I said to Richard.  But this was when we remembered passing a line of cars at the train station.  We drove back down, inquired within and bought our $20 ticket for a RIDE ON A TRAIN FERRY to Lugano!  Brilliant!  We never did find out why the roads were closed.  We spent the next 30 minutes in near darkness in a very, very long tunnel driving under a mountain.  It cut 45 minutes off of our trip to Lugano and plopped us down on the other side of the Alps.  

Then driving down to Lugano Lake, showing them all the beautiful park we had walked through the last time we were here.  The quaint old square and the little shops of the downtown area.  Again, I hadn't booked a hotel yet, we were there early afternoon so we stopped and inquired within at one down near the lake.  YIKES.  No thank you, we are not prepared for €200  (which is about $300 US) per room and needing two rooms thank you very much.  My goal is to keep total housing as close to .
€100 Euro per night as possible ($150US).

Hotel Huntress strikes again.  I went to a variety of sites each day, checking hotels.com, Rick Steve's recommendations in his guide books, Priceline.com, booking.com, venere.com and even vrbo.com, which was where we found the Paris apartment.  Lugano was pricey as an in season lake front town can be in late May.  Rick Steve recommended a hostel, with the caveat that this was likely one of the very nicest hostels in Europe.  

He was right!  Up on a small hill with a commanding view of the lake, a very short walk from the train/furnicular station (the furnicular drops you right down to the lake), and gorgeous grounds of a former mansion.  We booked two rooms with a nice shared patio in our room and had a very pleasant night with lovely coffee on the veranda off the communal eating room in the morning.  

We excitedly packed up and took them all down to the historic piazza to shop the Gabanni shops for food before heading back on the road.  Our first "Italian language" stop was beautiful weather, blue skies, the lake and Gabanni's bread and cappucinnos.  *sigh*  I could live in Lugano.  Really.

Our version of European Vacation: The Roadtrip

We left Paris after 5 days.  Renting the car was always the plan, one with three rows of seats so that Kelsey could have a row to herself to avoid too much sitting which is bad for her backside.  Plus, seriously, this trip with a 5 seater European sized car?  Heads would have rolled.

We had a pretty rigorous schedule lined out.  And that was with best case scenario travel times, but we left the hotel booking until "just in time" because it gave us greater flexibility to do cool things as we saw them.

5/20 Tue Leave

5/21 Wed Paris

5/22 Thu Paris

5/23 Fri Paris

5/24 Sat Paris

5/25 Sun Paris

5/26 Mon Paris to Lausanne  5 hrs 17 min

5/27 Tue Lausanne to Lugano via Montreux 27 min to montreux; 3 hr 43 min to Lugano

5/28 Wed Lugano to Florence 3 hr 59 min

5/29 Thu Florence to Venice 2 hr 40 min

5/30 Fri Venice to Vienna 5 hr 36 min

5/31 Sat Vienna to Prague 3 hr 27 min

6/1 Sun Prague

6/2 Mon Prague to Nuremberg to Metz 2 hr 56 min; 4 hr 9 min

6/3 Tue Metz to Paris 3 hr 1 min

6/4 Wed Home

First stop, Lausanne, Switzerland!  One of our best ever meals came from a Rick Steves recommendation for "The Blue Lizard".  We were heading into the old town section to the church square and found it again!  It was easy to get in on a week night and the food did not disappoint.  Lovely burgers, pastas and sauces and those delicious individual fryer baskets of fries.  

We were going to be in Montreux on Lake Geneva the next day and chose to skirt the French side of the lake to stay near Evian, France that night.  I found an amazing 3 BR apartment for less than 100 Euros.  It was off season for this spa area jewel and the "baths" were not yet in service.  But OMG, the views!  Driving up the mountaineous terrain with a beautiful view of a lit up Geneva on the other side of the lake that night was really an amazing way to end our day.  

We had arranged late check in, so we had a key code to get our room key.   Then it began raining.  Hard.  And we couldn't find the "door between two large potted plants" to gain entry into what we knew was the right building. Their little arrow on the map pointed to the wrong side of the building.  So after about 10 minutes of traipsing around in the pouring rain Lindley and Kelsey found the door and in we went.  Comfy beds all around, and because of our late arrival (dinner was good but definitely slower than a rest stop), we slept past our check out time on purpose and left when the man knocked on the door to clean the room.  Then off to Montreux!

Castle de Chillon and a photo op with the Freddy Mercury statue on Lake Geneva. Some souveneir shopping here and a fun visit in the castle scaring random strangers in the dungeon (Richard accidentally scared the heck out of some poor woman while waiting to scare Kelsey and Lindley).  Famous for the first "indoor plumbing", which was essentially a hole in a wood plank dropping 100's of feet down into Lake Geneva.  Yum.  

Silver Linings

After five days in Paris, we picked up our rental car for the next part of our journey.  The adventure went a bit south.

Lindley and Richard left by train with their luggage to head to CDG to pick up the rental car.  Mom, Kelsey and I left the apartment shortly after as it was being turned over in two hours to another renter.  We had our luggage so we didn't go far, we went to the coffee shop two doors down expecting a two hour wait.

An hour later we got a text from Lindley that their train had broken down and they were waiting for another one.  Then we got the text that Richard's cell phone had been pickpocketed while they were on the train.  Lindley saw the guy, she'd heard her own bag's velcro being peeled and smacked the guy away, he just turned and hit Richard's pocket instead.  Front shirt for the phone, right trouser for what he mistakenly thought was his wallet.

It is a wallet shaped structure, but Richard uses that pocket to hold his spare phone battery, headset and charger cords!

So ALL the guy got was the phone and phone accessories.  The credit cards and passports were safely in Richard's other pocket.  The trip could go on.

Kelsey needed a butt pillow, she suffers from cysts if she spends too much time sitting.  No pillow was to be found in our small shopping area, but I did locate something just as good, two slabs of facial tissue travel size that she could use as a pillow in her 3rd row seat in the van we were finally able to obtain.  Silver lining.  They had give our original rental vehicle away because we were so late picking it up, but were finally able to find another large vehicle.

Once in Italy we stopped at an Area Servicio to get gas and snacks.  It had a full service station.  After loading back into the car once we were complete, a garage mechanic approached us and motioned that our rear tire was flattening.  I did NOT like the look of that guy and suggested we go to the next rest stop to see how the tire did.

We did and that guy said the hole was on the sidewall, not repairable but that a great repair shop was one more mile up the highway, so he filled us up with air and sent us on our way.  One more mile on the freeway and we found a mechanic.  That's when we learned that the "hole" was a knife thrust.  Good call on trusting the gut on that bad mechanic Lauren.  This final guy was great, but he was going to have to change out two tires, OR, we phoned AVIS and found out we were 10 minutes from the Milan AVIS rental car place!  Just drive on over and switch the car out for another van!   Silver lining:)

Traveling through Switzerland's gorgeous Alps we had two trip routes to get us to Lugano, both roads were closed in late May either due to the passes being impassable or it's now construction season in the mountains.  OR, go find a loading train filled with cars and let them drive you under a mountain to Lugano!  Silver lining and it cut 45 minutes off our trip!

Venice is very expensive to stay in, so as the Hotel Hunter, I was about ready to give up and look for something an hour's drive away when I tried one more site.  Found a Boat and Breakfast for a very reasonable rate!  Silver lining, who gets to stay on a boat while traveling in Venice??  We do!!!

Racing back to Paris we stumbled into a small town in Germany and were really hoping for a great "schnitzel and spatzele" meal.  The restaurant I found on Trip Advisor was closed on Sundays.  But Lindley went to Yelp and found a place 3 minutes walk away that turned out to be an awesome Beer Garden type place with great food!  Silver Lining, we ordered a cheese spatzele and shared it with the whole table.  Mmmm.

Paris, with family

We arrived after a really terrific flight on IcelandAir.  A mere 6 hours from Denver, with a nice stop in Reykjavik, then a short 3 hours into Charles DeGaul Airport here in Paris.  Lots of legroom, WiFi available and tons of movies for free.  You pay for food.  It was reasonably priced.  Now the downside, 2 of 3 seats didn't have a working USB charger outlet on my row.  Two of 3 screens didn't function properly.  One didn't respond to touch command.  One didn't have quality sound.

I volunteered to have folks switch to my seat to watch movies, but they both declined.  This was a trip with high hopes.  My 77 year old mother has never been to Europe. Neither has my 23 year old daughter.  We also took my 24 year old step daughter, and it's her first time in Paris, but her 3rd trip to Europe.  It has not disappointed.  The CDG airport is an immense airport.  Even looking at the escalator tunnels  to baggage claim, you could tell you were in a different environment.

Many smiles in the face of my checked bag (this year it is now too big for carryon, although it was perfectly fine the past two years).  We picked up the tickets we needed to catch the trains and were on our way!

The Montmartre apartment is wonderful!  Laure was there to greet us, we had done our usual VRBO in advance and got a great rate for 5 people with a kitchen and full laundry area.  Great place to be to reach it all.  I love that everyone who has ever been to Paris is an "expert" on Paris.  We got schooled by a native this time and her, I trust!

And I"ll be sure to try the other recommendations as well!  My least favorite part was reading a week before our trip that the Montmartre area recently experienced some discrimination to a Jewish woman and her toddler in a stroller.  She was called "dirty Jew" and her baby was shaken in the stroller.  Very bad times there.  Further news indicates a 65% increase in request to immigrate and very few are economically related.  Many cite increasing issues with discrimination and accompanying fears.  This is very disturbing.

We are going to the Louvre tomorrow and are planning a full day there, bringing sandwiches to tide us over until we get back for dinner.  Those capucinno's are adding up!

Paris for the first, second and third time!

We love to share experiences with each other and with others, so we were triply blessed on our most recent trip to Europe.  My mother is 77 and had never seen Europe and had some favorites picked out.  Florence/Tuscany, Prague and Scotland.    We were able to fulfill on two out of three, Scotland will have to wait!   And she is now grateful that we insisted on Paris and Venice as well.

Also traveling with us for the first time to Europe was my 23 year old Kelsey.  And for a third trip, although her first as an adult, my step daughter Lindley, who is 24.  All in all, a mixed group of five family members.  Richard (my husband) had been there twice before, and I had been there once.  Richard  put together a great itinerary, with a nice long stay in Paris of five days, followed by an 11 day road trip.  My job was to book the hotels!

Typically we have our first few nights handled before we leave town and this was no exception.  I found a beautiful VRBO 3 Bedroom apt in Montmartre right next to a Metro station with Wifi.  http://www.vrbo.com/1027152a  I highly recommend Laure, she was very helpful, prompt and gave good recommendations.   Email is best unless you speak French.  We didn't have a single problem or issue.  There is a grocery across the street, a lovely little coffee cafe/bar two doors down and a fantastic bakery on the corner next to the metro stop.  Just past the metro is a great outdoor fruit and vegetable market.   It's two stops from the famous Paris Flea Market too.  More on that later!

And we like having our return night home booked as well, preferably in or near the airport, so I booked the IBIS hotel in CDG for the night prior to our return.  Three rooms so that everyone gets a good nights sleep before leaving.  That leaves us plenty of flexibility to travel to unexpected places, leave early or late, and generally speaking has worked well for us in the past.

First night in, Richard took all three of them to the Eiffel Tower to see it at night.  It's truly an amazing experience, and the light show keeps getting better and better.   It was nice to have a kitchen and a shop across the street, but we ended up with the traditional Parisian sandwich of butter and salami on a baguette more often than not.  Breakfast was eggs and yogurt depending, and we generally tried to keep our meals out to one per day, preferably lunches to help keep costs down.

Day two was The Louvre and The L'Orangerie.   One day I will book a week just for the Louvre.   This time, it was a quick trip to the Mona Lisa, Venus De Milo and then on to the water lilies.  It was nice to sit and relax with those restful blues.

We hit Notre Dame and the Chapelle on day two, beautiful churches, with amazing interior and exteriors.  Then across the Siene to the Left Bank for some shopping!  Mom found a lovely leather jacket that's the perfect weight for her Tucson, AZ winters, Lindley found one too, as well as "French shoes".  The girls were thrilled to be able to look at clothes and Kelsey found the perfect "hippie chick" clothing to bring back as souveneirs as well as the French bathing suit I'd promised her!  Tres chic:)

I got some of my offbeat Messy Nessy blog sites in as well, with a stop at Shakespeare's Bookstore, former haunt of Hemingway and others, and Paris's largest and oldest english language bookstore.

The days went by faster than I would have thought possible.  Versailles took up most of a whole day, and even the RER train out there is lovely and decorated in that "too much" style.  The gold on the fences is dazzling, much less the interiors.  It was a lesson in decadence that I couldn't help but compare to our current economics.

Then the lovely Paris Flea Market!  Messy Nessy wins again with Chez Louisette as a restaurant.  Truly a blast from the past, torch singers and singa longs at long tables with strangers.  Decent food and a quaint decor that can only be explained as "the Christmas tree exploded".  We found stalls that had lovely antiques, stamps, chandelier parts, furniture, and dolls.  Beads, antique clothing, and anything else you could imagine.  http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g227615-d1322656-Reviews-Chez_Louisette-Saint_Ouen_Seine_Saint_Denis_Ile_de_France.html

Our final day before returning home (after our 11 day road trip) started at the Musee D'Orsay with a Van Gogh exhibit, then the beautiful Musee Rodin and ended at the Left Bank, for more shoe shopping (Richard for more cappucinno drinking), a trip up the Eiffel Tower, and a dinner of Raclette and fondue in the Left Bank near St. Michel.  *sigh*  Next time, I think we'll need a month in Paris.