Meme Monday – Dreaming of France

Allow me to bore you a bit with the plans that my cousin Carey and I have for our upcoming trip to France. We are leaving on Friday, September 9th, and coming home on Monday, September 26th. We are both SO EXCITED, and dreaming of France and the things we will see and do is a lot of fun.

Our first week will be in the South of France, in a small village called Mougins. This is where the time share is, and looking online, it looks like a picturesque place. We fly through Paris, into Nice. Hopefully our baggage will make it, as we are taking a chance and checking our luggage. I’ve heard so many horror stories lately, but we are hoping that this being past the crush of summer tourism, things may have calmed down a bit. Fingers crossed. We will also have carry on bags, and I plan to have my pajamas, a change of clothes, OTC and prescription medications, all of that sort of thing, in case my suitcase is delayed.

We will arrive in Nice on Saturday afternoon. We plan to rent a car and drive into Nice and find a nice place to have an early dinner. Then we will find our hotel, and depending on our energy, we will either explore our village, or just stay in. I’ve been to Europe twice, and the first time I crashed hard and was unable to stay up until a reasonable bed time. That time we arrived in the morning, though, and we had a layover in Missouri, so it was a bit more of a stretch. When we went in 2018, we had a direct flight and arrived in the afternoon, but still, Maya crashed hard, but Ted and I had dinner and took a walk around the neighborhood. So I am hopeful.

We don’t have any scheduled plans beyond that for the first week, though we do have things we want to do. Amongst those are:

• In Nice, go to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral. It is supposed to be the nicest Russian Cathedral outside of Russia.
• Also in Nice, go to the Chagall museum.
• Somewhere, put our feet in the Mediterranean Sea. We may or may not try snorkeling, not sure on that. We may or may not take a boat tour, that sounds lovely.
• We would like to drive over the border into Italy for lunch, just so we can say that we did so. Fun to have pizza or pasta in Italy.
• I’d like to have a nice salade niçoise somewhere, since this is the region where it originated.
• Likely that we will do a bit of wine tasting. Very likely.
• There is a classical art museum in Mougins that we may visit.

Other than that, just wander and check out the charming towns. Friday the 16th, we will return our car and take the train to Paris. Here, things get a bit more structured, because we are hoping to avoid crowds as much as possible, museums are closed some days, and we will want a car for some (but not all) of our plans. We do have some days with no structure, however, just for wandering.

• Saturday, we plan to explore the region around our hotel. We are staying in a suburb called Vincennes, which looks quieter than Paris proper, but borders the city, and we can either take the train into the city or walk, depending on how far into Paris we want to go.
• Sunday, no plans yet.
• Monday, we are going to rent a car and drive up to see Monet’s gardens in Giverny. I adored that when we were there last time, and would love show it to Carey. Also, it was early June when we were there in 2018, and I would expect mid September to be very different.
• From there, we are going to drive to Omaha beach at the Normandy coast, to see where the Allies landed to liberate France in WWII. We would like to dip our feet in the Atlantic Ocean.
• Next we will drive to the Western edge of Normandy, where it meets Brittany. A bucket list item for Carey is to see Mont-Saint-Michel. She used to have a poster of it on her bedroom wall. We saw it in 2018, but due to a bad knee on my part, and a tight schedule, we only walked part of the way, took a picture, and had lunch. So this time we will drive to a neighboring village and check into an AirBnB for the night.
• Tuesday morning, we will tour the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel and wander around the fortress. After lunch, we will drive back to our hotel in Vincennes.
• Wednesday, we will drive to Versailles. I’m thinking we may rent bicycles there, as the gardens are extensive. Carey has been before, almost 40 years ago now, but I haven’t been yet. She loved it and wants to show it to me. We will return the rental car that evening.
• Thursday will be museums. I am not yet sure whether we will go to Musée d’Orsay first thing, or last thing, as they are open late on Thursday evenings and that is supposed to be a less crowded time. I need to find out how safe it is for two women to ride the metro at night before deciding that. The Musée de l’Orangerie is close to the d’Orsay, so it makes sense to do both of these on one day. This museum houses several huge paintings of Monet’s water garden, which he painted as a gift to France following WWI. The museum is in the Jardin des Tuileries, so we will walk through these beautiful gardens as well.
• Friday will be the Musée de Cluny, I want to see the beautiful Unicorn Tapestries there. I recently read ‘The Girl and the Unicorn’, based on Nance’s suggestion, and am excited about this. Nearby is Sainte-Chappelle cathedral, which has amazing stained glass windows. There are also lovely gardens in the area, the Jardin des Plantes and the Jardin du Luxembourg. I am not sure whether we will do all of these on one day or not. I suspect not, as the gardens are quite large and worth spending some time, having a picnic and wandering.
• Saturday we are planning to wander the Montmartre neighborhood, and will perhaps take a walking tour.
• Sunday is wide open, perhaps fit in anything we missed, or anything we saw on another day that we wanted to see. There is a beautiful walk that I would like to take, along the Promenade Plantée. It goes from Vincennes to the Bastille, so that could be a way to start or end one of our days.
• Not scheduled, but we would like to take a Seine river boat tour one day or evening.

You can’t really discuss France without discussing food…I’d like to have a savory Crêpe Complète, perhaps out near Brittany, since the buckwheat crepe I had there in 2018 was so delicious. We’re looking forward to croissants and baguettes and pastries. We may head to a fancy restaurant or two. We’re looking forward to cheese and wine and pasta. Souffle. Omelettes. Perhaps a steak frites one day. I had such delicious Chinese food in Paris on our honeymoon…I’d like to try that again. The Chinese French aesthetic is very different from the Chinese American one. Must lighter and fresher. I picture us wandering out in the morning for a stroll and getting a baguette or croissants, and taking that back to our hotel to enjoy with coffee or tea and jam. I picture our main meal of the day being lunch, and then perhaps a light dinner most evenings.

We have both been practicing our French, using the Duolingo app. Carey is better at French than I am, as she lived there for a bit in the mid-80s, and I got an F in 2nd semester French in college. But really, I don’t think we will need much French, it is more a way to daydream and feel somewhat prepared. I have joined two groups on Facebook, one for visitors of Paris, the other for the cote d’azur. I like reading what people have done on their trips, their tips and so on. Of course, we all have different likes and dislikes, but it’s fun to find some inspiration there. Things like a recommended walking tour of Montmartre, or a stationary store that sells beautiful bookmarks, or a restaurant known for their souffles. I’m so glad that Carey and I have such similar interests, it is making the planning a lot of fun.

When I went to France with Ted and Maya, I couldn’t see paying for all three of us to have foreign plans for our phones. We have Verizon, and they charge $10 a day for every day that you use your phone. $30 a day seemed ridiculous to me, as the charge is per phone. So we ended up paying for it for Ted, so he could use the navigation on his phone, and Maya and I mostly used wifi at our hotel. That made sense, but this time I will be away from them, and I want them to be able to get in touch with me if they need to. So I will be using my phone. Also last time, Ted and Maya had their phones out to take pictures a lot, so I didn’t really bother very much. This time I will be taking pictures, and my plan is to pick my favorite picture from each day and post it here for you. A ‘photo of the day’ series.

It’s ridiculous how much of my brain this trip is occupying. I am so enjoying daydreaming about it. Regarding my meme above, this is very much a ‘You Only Live Once’ situation.