France Sept 2022

 September 16 Headed home!  On the train as I write this. Driving to the train station was fairly uneventful except the normal trying to find gas, stations that won't take credit cards and David having challenges adapting to a keyless car with a lot of funky glitches. We did get to the train station and returning the car was stressful once again. France does not make the pick up and return of rental cars easy. Trying to find out where to take the car is hard and then when you get there, you find impossible parking and driving in places that don't feel right. But David got the car parked as only he can do and we found the office. The different location was a complete non event which made me sorry I had wasted hours of my life on it.  Got to the train station and found our train, not without difficulty. The carriage number was hard to figure out and we had to get help. But we are on here now and hoping finding a taxi to get us to Orly airport will not be too difficult....

 September 15 Today was our day slated for the Gorges of Verdon. First thing I did out of bed was go for a walk with Avi. This has been a daily occurrence which has been very enjoyable. After we returned, I continued the saga of trying to secure a refund from Chase and change the dropoff location with Budget. Chase finally confirmed a refund and after many tries, I gave up with Budget. We decided to just return the car to the train station and take our lumps.  David and I were both feeling like we'd had enough driving from the day before but our younger cohorts had their hearts set on the visit to the Gorges. We got breakfast from our new favorite spot once again and headed out. Google Maps told us it was about 70 miles but would take over two hours to get there. We were unsure why but the reasons became clear later. We needed gas and tried to fill up at a stop along the road, only to discover that it would no take American credit cards, no matter what we tried. We finally gav...

 Sept 14 Today was supposed to be a beach day but we woke up to thunderstorms and pouring rain. Not entirely a surprise to me the weather watcher. Avi wanted to do the typical morning walk as he and I were up first. We headed out into the drizzling rain for a short walk. Grabbed coffee for all of us and brought it back. Absolutely the worst coffee we've had yet. Pretty much undrinkable.  After breakfast, we got ourselves ready and headed for Cassis, hoping that the rain would let up. The drive was beautiful and Cassis is a wonderful town with narrow streets and heart stopping driving. But since it was still pouring, we decided to head further south to Toulon. When we got to the public beach in Toulon, it was raining slightly less. We sat down for a drink of water and some coffee, only to find out that the coffee was even worse than the coffee we had this morning. I really did not drink mine, which rarely happens. Avi and Georgia changed into their swimming suits and headed int...

 Sept 13 This morning when I got up I was happy to find all the clothes that I had hung all over our apartment were dry. Yeah! There is another market on the streets of Annecy but it is still so much quieter than the weekend crowds and the market is smaller. Avi and I went out for a walk and brought coffee back from Haven, a restaurant that we discovered that had good coffee. We all got showered and packed, returned our key to the host and headed out for breakfast at Haven. It was a wonderful and beautiful breakfast. The food looked like art and tasted incredible.  Breakfast over and bellies full, we got started on our journey. The scenery was absolutely beautiful on the drive and David drove the 130 km/hr allowed in France so the time went fairly quickly. We stopped at a rest stop about 130 km into our trip and were blown away. The beauty was amazing and the rest stop had a zipline for kids. It was lovely in every way. Avi did some of his callisthenic moves and then we headed...

 September 12 Slept well and woke up to a quiet Annecy. The weekend traffic has thinned considerably. We all got up and headed out for breakfast. Found a wonderful place to have eggs, yogurt and coffee. Decided this was the day to hike up and see the lake from the top of Mount Veyrier. We found a hike on All Trails that looked like it was good for all of us. Rated moderate and only 2.7 miles with less than 1000 feet of elevation gain. We dressed for the hike, took a little water and headed out to the trailhead. The first issue was that Google Maps took us to someplace that was not the trail head. Some glitch in the system. So we reloaded with Apple Maps and headed back out. The views along the drive were so incredible. The lake was glistening aqua green and everywhere we looked was so beautiful. Mountains surrounding the lake and people picnicking with runners and swimmers everywhere. Just a lovely sight. Found the trailhead but there was a problem. The last mile was closed. We tho...

 September 11 I was up first in the morning. When I looked out the window, it looked like the world changed overnight. All the restaurants were closed and the streets have been taken over by an open air market as big and diverse as anything I've ever seen. The smell of stinky cheese has permeated the air.  Avi got up shortly after me and we headed out for a walk to the lake. Beautiful morning and I got some coffee before returning. Not great coffee but it helped to wake up.  After everyone was up, we headed out and wandered through the market for a while, perusing all the wares. Just beyond description. We got some breakfast and then headed out of town for a very easy hike, actually more of a stroll. We walked through the beautiful forest along the river and it was lovely and peaceful. After our hike, we headed back to town for lunch. I dared to try the Rablochon, a local specialty, and Avi got the largest Calzone I have ever seen. Of course, he ate every bite. We never l...

 September 10 Big travel day today. Huge. I had a lot of anxiety about this day when planning the trip. Not sure how we would navigate it.  We drove to Amboise for breakfast and it was a beautiful morning in a quintessential little European town. I was in heaven. This is what I love about Europe. We had breakfast at a delightful place that actually served eggs. After breakfast, I stole a quick walk along the river. Little did I know that those 15 minutes would almost cost us our train ride. We had left 3.5 hours to get to Paris, drop our car off and get on the train to Lyon. The drive was 120 miles but there was an accident close to Paris and the drive took us 3 hours. Then we couldn't find the car rental return. I'm still not sure how we finally found it. There was nothing to help us and you had to drive through a tunnel to get there. But David somehow got us there and returning the car was quick. Georgia was absolutely desperate for a bathroom by now and we had only a few mi...

 September 9 Left Paris today and it was quite a travel day. We walked about a half mile down Charles de Gaulle rolling our bags to pick up our car. No issues renting. But we couldn't figure out how to get the car to change gears and then it magically started working. David was the pro at driving out of Paris. What a nightmare with traffic. We finally got out of town and Avi needed food and we needed coffee. Stopped at a little town called Orsay and found the Europe we remembered. Nothing was open for food. Nothing. We found a bakery and bought quiche and sandwiches and carried our food into an Asian restaurant that was open for coffee only. The lattes were actually decent. Back on the road again, we made our way to Chateau de Chambord. Decided this would be the castle we would view and bought tickets. The castle was an incredible place but once again, construction restoration marred the view of the beautiful castle. We stopped again for some coffee and it was decidedly awful. Fran...

 Sept 8, 2022 Today was the King of all museum days. We got up pretty normally and I slept well, thanks to Trazodone and Ativan. Feel a lot more normal today. Got our usual amazing breakfast from our guy who treats us like family and then headed to the Metro for the Louvre. Easy Metro ride and our Louvre adventure begins. Nothing can prepare you for the enormity of the Louvre. It is HUGE. The artwork and antiquities go on forever. It is also extremely exhausting. We viewed artwork and antiquities for almost six hours with a break for coffee and a little snack. So many wonderful things to see and enjoy but the saturation point gets reached and you go numb. Fatigue and mental exhaustion take over and you can't care anymore. We wanted to see the Roman antiquities because it was important to Avi but we wandered in circles and finally found out that it was closed. We took our lumps and decided we'd had enough. More reframing and readjusting. We wandered out into the Tuileries Garden...

 September 7, 2022 Today was our day to visit Versailles Palace. We ate breakfast at our new favorite spot and the waiter remembered everything about us from two days before down to every detail of our orders. We were pretty blown away. Our trek today covered the public transit bases. We started on the metro, transferred to the train and finished up on the bus. Georgia is a great help with the navigation of these trips and two heads is definitely better than one. The guys have always tended to leave everything to me so it is really nice to have someone who pulls their phone out and helps me figure things out. The palace is absolutely huge. The buildings are all decorated in gold leaf overlay and inside the great halls, enormous military paintings and sculptures go on forever commemorating all the French military victories. Many of these pictures enshrine Napoleon and all his military feats but King Louis XIV is the guy who made all this happen. Started with a little hunting lodge a...

September 6, 2022 Today was the mother of the metro day. We got up and found a wonderful Paris breakfast. Breakfast has definitely been my favorite meal here so far. After eating, we found our way to the Metro and headed to Montmartre. This is a charming old area of Paris with The Basilica du Sacre Coeur de Paris. Our Metro exchange took place in a literal city of tunnels and trains. Quite overwhelming. Our intent was to visit Montmartre and then head back to see the Orsay Museum and then be to our Crepe Class that we had scheduled at 4 p.m. None of us realized until later that the class was in Montmartre! By the time we realized this, it was too late to plan our travel day more efficiently so we wrote it off to travel snafus and tried to keep the best attitude we could. Montmartre was charming and the church was austere. All of us have our feelings about Catholicism and nobody wanted to go inside the church so we wandered around a bit and enjoyed the grounds. We tried to use a self se...

September 5, 2022 - End of Day We actually all slept through the night and seemed pretty well adjusted this morning, amazingly enough. Avi and Georgia went out for a morning walk, of course. When they returned, we all headed out for the day. First stop of course was breakfast. We found a wonderful place that was simple and delicious. I'm not loving the coffee here though. Can't compare to Italy. After breakfast, we found the metro and headed to Historic Paris to do the Rick Steves walk. This turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. The main attraction was the Notre Dame and it was closed for renovation due to a fire. It was difficult to see the outside very well and the inside was closed completely. Avi was really disappointed as he had his heart set on seeing Notre Dame. Time for reframe and readjust. We walked around a bit more. It was beautiful but underwhelming for sure. We decided to head for the Eiffel Tower, although it was a long walk. David was nursing plantar fasci...

 Sept 5, 2022 - Beginning of the Day Wow! Here we are in Paris. We had a completely uneventful day yesterday, just the way you want it to be. We arrived in Paris at about 5 pm. Customs was simple as could be and finding a taxi was effortless too. Flying into Orly rather than Charles de Gaulle was really nice. Real low stress. We got to our AirBnB earlier than I had estimated and had to wait for our host for about 30 minutes but no big deal. After checking into a wonderful apartment, we walked to a restaurant close by called La Place. Good food. We all slept through the night and feel pretty amazing considering that we have flown across the ocean and changed nights and days.