This is a long over due post ! THANK YOU ! to all the Mags who responded to my France info request. I've been putting off writing the trip report because I've been uncharacteristically busy and we had such a kick ass time in France I wanted to really put forth a great TR but I'm quickly realizing I needed to put something down or it's just going to slip away without a sound.
Anyway myself and the wife flew to France last month with outstanding results ! We somehow managed to sleep on the overnight 10:00pm -11:00AM ( adjusted for time zones ) flight and arrived at the cigarette smoke filled Charles DeGaul Airport wide awake and ready to go. The smoke filled airport was actually a very appropriate social decompression chamber because the next 7 days would only intensify in their smokiness. The drive from CDA to Paris proper was fast, efficient and except for smaller cars and French road signs could have been the outlying area of any Midwestern metro area, however once we hit the city there was no doubt that we were in France.
The 1st thing that jumped out to me was the architecture ! elegant comes to mind...I was thinking New Orleans with more class. Another thing I definitely noticed was the scooter population ! WOW everyone 3rd vehicle was a scooter or a motorcycle of such small proportions it was scooter enough for me. We spent most of the 1st day just wandering the Latin Quarter observing the vibe of the city and enjoying the cafe culture. Damn it felt great to sit down and enjoy a glass of wine at 1:00 PM without feeling like some degenerate. Later that night we went to the Marais neighborhood to have dinner and found " the little horseshoe " incidentally the named turned out to be very literal. Literal in that I order the Plat du jour which turned out to be one of the more delicious steaks I've ever had slightly different though seeing that it was horse !
The next 2 days of Paris were spent hitting all the major sites, Louver ( this could be an entire post in and of itself ),NotreDame,Eiffel Tower, etc but most importantly we didn't rush ourselves we sat around in cafe's allot and observed, we ducked down side streets and looked around and we treated the experience like we were coming back ( which we will ). We tried our best to speak French and had a blast doing it, the locals tried their best to speak English and NEVER gave us ANY attitude ! BTW - an observation...Paris seems almost devoid of beautiful women ! I mean this is one of the model capitols of the world right ? I saw some cute girls every so often but there was a definite lack of talent in that city. For example on our flight from Denver to Paris we had a 5 hour layover in NYC so we went into the city and met a friend of mine for drinks during that 2.5 hours I saw 3 times as many gorgeous women as I did my entire time in Paris !?!?!?!
next up we flew from Paris to Marseilles ( southern coast of France ) rented a car ( small Peugeot turbo diesel ) and drove up into Provance to a small town called Monasqe. My wife's company put us up in a bed and 3 or 4 star restaurant that we most likely could not have afforded on our own. This place was swank to say the least ! apparently at one time it was a private retreat of The little Napper himself aka Napoleon. I would describe it as a Tuscan Villa, tiled roofs and olive groves. Simply incredible actually too nice as it was a little hard returning to my miserable life. That night we ate a meal that I won't attempt to describe further than PERFECTION ! The wait staff spoke almost zero English so I couldn't really describe it very well even if I tried.
The next day we headed down to Antibes which is between Nice and Cannes on the Rivera. Great old ( 2000 plus years ) city with soft sand beaches ( rare I guess for some parts of the Cote D' Azure ? ) warm water and nice laid back vibe. sort of a vacation from our vacation. Basically we got up every morning whenever we felt like it, sauntered down to the cafe's for espresso and breakfast then to the outdoor market to fill up on olives, cheese, baguettes, sausage, tapanades and wine for our lunch which we would eat on the beach then nothing but sun swimming and relaxation till late afternoon. We would finish off the day with a kick ass meal and a little nightlife one place stuck in my mind club " Tequila Snack " at least that was the translation ? only to get up and do it all over again !
Bottom line is France was a blast ! everything went off smoothly, the people were great, no language troubles really, a little expensive seeing the dollar is about 20 cents less than the Euro but oh well I would do it again in a second ! So thanks to all who offered advice / help much obliged.
