Return to Paris

No surprise here I suppose, but we're going back to Paris this month. Since we cut our trip short this past spring we kept missing something and it was our planned visit to the City of Light. 

So we're returning for ten days. . . (the painting is Madame X by John Singer Sargent)

We fly out of Grand Rapids, connect in Detroit to Charles de Gaulle (CDG), a pair of flights we've made a couple of times already over the past year or so. 

Our apartment is in the 12 arrondissement, close to the promenade plantée, right across the street from the Aligre market, one of the city's largest food markets. A bit of a walk to public transport but Paris is designed for walking! 

As for our itinerary, we like to stay flexible. That said,  on the 25th we plan to  visit Val and her family and on the 30th we will meet up with Marie B. in Père-Lachaise followed by lunch nearby! 

We have timed tickets see the John Singer Sargent exhibition at the Orsay, and reservations to enjoy a wine and cheese tasting lunch at O Chateaux. 

We also hope to take a day trip to Reims to see the cathedral and sip some champagne.

We want to visit a couple of museums we've not experienced before: the Maritime Museum and the Museum of French Monuments, both located in the Palais Chaillot (tTrocadero). 

That will also give us an opportunity to pay our respects to Berthe Morisot and Edouard Manet, as well as Debussy and Faure all buried right across the street in Passy Cemetery.

We will  spend our last night at the airport just like we did this past spring; it makes for a relaxing return trip. Or at least as relaxed as one can be when  traveling for 11 or 12 hours most of which is spent wedged into a narrow armchair at 38,000 feet.

Oh, and we're looking forward to trying the new Metro ticketing system. . .  no more paper (actually cardboard) tickets!

But most of all. we just want to BE. . . in Paris!

Back to Europe in 2022

In 1994 Susie and I took our first trip abroad as a couple. Our travel plan was pretty simple and, as it turned out, would define how we have travelled ever since: find a place to visit, rent an apartment and just be in that place, getting to know the neighborhood, the town. As a result we spent three weeks in June split between two home rentals in Italy. Bear in mind we didn't know Italian, had never been to Italy and didn't know anyone who had ever done such a thing -- so why we decided on such a way to see the country is beyond me. 

But we did. And a good thing we did.

Anyway, our first rental (pictured below) was for a week in Umbria. We then met up with Dick and Dorothy for two weeks in a small village just north of Siena.

While we have certainly stayed in our share of hotels during our various travels since, we have tended toward apartment rentals of a week or longer, often significantly longer. And, to repeat, we've almost always tended to stay in one place, using it as a home-away-from-home as it were.

Not this time. In the spring of 2022 our return to Europe will find us traveling in new and unique ways. Two months seeing parts of Europe we have never visited before, and pretty much all by train. 

If you're keen on knowing the details check out the itinerary below. . . 

a week in early June 1994, close to Niccone in Umbria, north of Umbertide

Susie and me, Fonte Gaia, Siena

with Dick and Dorothy in Siena

One of the very first things we did to prepare for the trip was renew our passports (due to expire in 2023) since we were going to be gone for some two months. We also applied for and received the Global Pass (part of the Trusted Traveler Program).

That done we could then begin to layout the specifics of our itinerary.

In broad terms we wanted to visit Scandinavia, we wanted to see the MacDs in Germany and we thought it would be nice to see Prague. That much we knew. 

As for getting around we ruled out renting/leasing a car (we did that back in 2005). Why? Well, for one thing our trip would entail visiting/spending our time in major cities where parking could be a major hassle. Plus, why have a car in a large city when public transport would do just fine? And taking the trains from city to city would be stress-free!

So we opted for a Eurail pass: we each have a two-month pass that allows us 15 days of unlimited train travel. One thing we learned early on was the necessity in some countries of having to make reservations, which I've already done for several of our longer travel legs.

Next was to lock down where we wanted to spend our time and how much of it in each location. This is how things ended up:

We leave Michigan 20 April and arrive in Munich the following day. 

After spending a week in Munich (with a side trip to Salzburg) we take the train to eastern Bavaria and spend a few days with the MacDs. We hope to do a couple of day trips, one to Regensburg and another to Nuremberg. 

From Germany its on to Prague for four nights followed by an overnight in Hamburg, on to Copenhagen for four nights and then train to Stockholm where we'll meet up with Richard and Pauline. 

After four nights in Sweden it's on to Oslo for five nights (end enjoy Norway's national Independence Day celebrations on May 17). Then Flåm (a popular part of the Norway in a Nutshell Tour) for two nights followed by four nights in Bergen.  

From Bergen we fly to Amsterdam and then train to Gouda for five nights. While in the Netherlands we hope to pop over to Delft and The Hague as well as Rotterdam. 

From Gouda we train to Paris for our final two weeks.

As for accommodations we have reserved apartments (through Air BnB) in Munich, Prague, Copenhagen, Oslo, Bergen and Paris where we return to the same apartment we rented in 2018. We'll be staying in hotels in Hamburg, Stockholm, Flåm and Gouda.

We fly out of Paris on 14 June.

I'll post a final itinerary update before we go and hope to post daily or nearly so while we're traveling. Note that because of the restrictions imposed by Mailchimp (my email program) notifications will probably be sent out infrequently. You can plan to bookmark the blog and visit at your convenience, of course.

Until next time, be well, be safe and happy travels wherever you'r going!

Our Visit to half the United Kingdom

view of Edinburgh looking north from Blackford Hill, wikipedia, the Firth of Forth in far distance

Tomorrow Susan and I leave for the English and Scottish parts of the United Kingdom.

The plan is to drive to O'Hare Airport outside Chicago, leave our car at a nearby motel and fly out late in the afternoon to London. (It's a Park, Fly, Sleep arrangement.) Our friends Richard and Pauline who live in St. Albans, about 20 miles north of central London,  plan to pick us up at Heathrow the morning of the 23rd and we'll spend the day with them at their home.

On the 24th the four of us will drive to Scotland and Richard and Pauline will drop us off in Edinburgh while they go and visit a friend north of the city. Susie and I will spend four days enjoying Edinburgh and its environs before meeting up with R & P for the drive back to St. Albans. On the 29th we'll go into central London for the day before heading off to Bath where we'll spend three nights.

One of the novel aspects of this trip, for us at any rate, is we will be making a team presentation (Susan and I being the team) on the trip at Aquinas in January. Since Susan wants to provide examples of afternoon tea in the UK,  we already have reservations for three tea experiences: the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, the Dorchester Hotel in London and the Pump Room in Bath.

Oh, and we have scheduled a tour of the Bertinet culinary school in Bath as well, which should be lots of fun. Naturally we plan to stop at no small number of pastry shops while we're in the UK. And a perhaps a short day trip to St. Andrews while we're in Scotland but absolutely no golf!

Returning to London from Bath we will rejoin Richard and Pauline and if the weather cooperates get to Kew Gardens, take a Thames River Cruise and visit the National Gallery and perhaps the British Museum. We had hoped to spend time at the Courtauld Galley but they are closed until 2021 for major renovations.

We leave London on October 5 and arrive back in Chicago that evening around 7pm. We'll take the shuttle to our motel, spend the night and then leave Sunday morning for the drive back to Grand Rapids.

This is just a bare outline, of course -- in later posts I'll be talking about our accommodations -- selected through Sawday's Special Places, which we used in 2013 in Paris -- our dining experiences, and so much more. Like haggis, scotch whiskey and shortbread, of course.

We're going to try something a bit new with communication this trip: simply using our existing phones and phone numbers while overseas. Now we did this once before with Verizon but the costs were steep. However, our phones have been unlocked since we changed services last year, and our present mobile carrier, Xfinity, does not charge a fee for activating the international roaming feature while the costs for using their services abroad are small (sort of):

10 cents for each minute of talk, in or out
10 cents for each text, in or out, and
10 cents per mb of data used

Since we still have our old UK clamshell we also plan to buy a local SIM card as a backup once we arrive at Heathrow.

While the weekly painting posts will be on hiatus until later this autumn when I hope to return with some truly wonderful art to share with you: works by Elisabeth Vigée Lebrun, William Bougereau, Jean Béraud , Marie Bashkirtseff , George Seurat, and so many more from my September presentations at Aquinas on 19th century French art so stay tuned!

“The Elder Sister” 1869 by Adolphe-William Bouguereau (1825-1905) Museum of Fine Arts, Houston