We started the morning at Starbucks for breakfast before walking around Paris. Our first stop was Notre Dame Cathedral. We walked through there, the wait wasn’t horrible. We walked from there to City Hall and the Metro station. We stopped at the Louve to see the glass pyramid. We walked from there through the gardens to the Arc de Triomphe.  We walked down Champs-Élysées, stopping for lunch at the Hippopotamus. LOL! It was good, I had steak, not Hippopotamus. Once we got to the Arc, we climbed up to the top. It was a great view at the top, but man it was HOT.

After that, we went out to the stadium for Paris Football (Soccer) team. It was a bit of a ride but we got there eventually. We did some shopping at the store before heading back to the hotel. We ate at Chipotle, yes, it is in Paris! And walked through the Luxembourg Gardens. We took the subway and funicular to Sacre Coeur Cathedral (Sacred Heart). The view was great! We stopped at a fancy Starbucks by the Opera house before heading back to the hotel for the night.

We slept in again and had lunch with Cathy before we ventured down to Lyon to catch the train to Paris. It was a quick 2-hour trip. We meandered through the train station to find the subway to our hotel. It was a bit tricky and I got very frustrated. I finally found our way and before too long we were at the hotel. Our hotel location was great. It was close to a subway stop, blocks away from Notre Dame and lots of restaurants, bakeries and shops. It was perfect, I would stay there again!

After an hour to freshen up, we went to the Eiffel Tower for dinner. Michael purchased dinner at the Restaurant 58 on the second level of the tower. It was very good. I saved Michael from the nuts in the desert! It was my first and only save. Michael is allergic to nuts. We asked the waitress if there were nuts in the desert to which she reply, but of course it is praline. Michael told her he was allergic and she had a look of worry on her face and asked how allergic was he. Haha. All is well, he didn’t actually eat it. 

We took the river cruise after sunset and enjoyed the sites at night. We got back to the hotel around midnight and were starving. We found this cute pizza place by the hotel and had a midnight snack. It was a very nice day!

Tour of Lyon

Monday morning, we slept in a bit and met Cathy at her school at 11:30. We had lunch with her and a couple of the teachers. It was very interesting! They drank wine with their meal! We all had the pork chop and potatoes. It was very good. I’m not a huge pork fan but this was amazing. I really enjoyed our lunch.

We walked down to the train station and got the next train to Lyon (about 15 minutes away). We went to the main square and got on the Open Top Lyon Bus Tour. It was nice. We got to see a lot of the city. Some of those streets were very narrow and steep and nerve-wracking! The tour lasted about 2 hours. 

We had to rush from the bus to the train station to meet Juliette and Michael. They arrived a bit early. We took a train back to Saint Germain and walked up the long hill to Cathy’s house. We had another great dinner. And Eric drank a lot of wine, haha!

Beaune, Saint-Vallier & Mont-Saint Vincent

Day 2 of our vacation we got into Cathy’s car for a trip to Beaune, France. We did a tour of Hotel-Dieu, an old hospital. It was a very neat place. We had another traditional French lunch and we were off to the Patriarche. Patriarche has been producing Burgundy wines for 230 years. Jean-Baptiste Patriarche of Savigny-lès-Beaune in Burgundy founded his family wine company in 1784. He bought the convent of the Visitandines which was founded in 1632. The nuns were run off during the French Revolution and Jean-Baptiste moved in. We got to do a tasting of many fine wines. I still hate wine though. Haha!

After that we drove to Saint-Vallier to Cathy’s parent’s house. We met her parents. They didn’t speak English so Marie was our translator. She did a great job. We had some cookies and water and stayed for about an hour. 

After that we drove up to Mont-Saint Vincent. It was an incredible view.

Once we got home, we had more French food and cheese. It was delicious. It was an early night for us as both Marie and Cathy had school in the morning.