Paris - Dordogne- Paris

 

Paris- (Dordogne)-Paris March/April 2022

 We arrived Paris at 2pm. And took a taxi to the hotel (58 euro -cash- not all taxis take credit cards). We got on our best walking shoes and headed out the door.  Our first stop was the grocery store to get some wine and cheese and bread to have a wine picnic by the Eiffel Tower.

 After lunch we took the metro up to Arc de Triomphe

and strolled down the Champs de Elysee,

              

 past the Petit Palace 

and finally across the Pont Alexander III bridge.

 We walked home passing Invalides. WHEW!! We were exhausted after a full day of travel followed by 6 miles of walking. Time for bed! Hopefully jet lag won't kick in tomorrow.

   The next day we visited San Chappelle I made reservations the night before- (off season you can do this- on season book weeks in advance) Next time I will book a concert here!

We waited in the security line.  The x-ray machine showed I had a wine bottle opener- which they confiscated!! Really a wine opener taken in Paris?? Anyhow,  San Chappelle will never disappoint (except for the wine opener)- it may be one of my favorite places in Paris. It is like being inside a kaleidoscope.

    Walking more…next up… the outside of Notre Dame. I can’t wait to see it finished.

Then the Deportation Martyrs Memorial Museum.  This is a super well done holocaust memorial museum dedicated to the 200,000 French people who were deported to concentration camps. The museum is mostly underground and hard to find. (It is super close to Notre Dame)

one light for every Jew deported

 Strolling through the neighborhoods stopping in churches, photographing oddities, passing by large museums, like the Pompidou (which was closed that day- I knew this-but I was a bit sad not to be able to go into the lobby, because it is fantastic.

   Stopping for lunch in a bakery, I couldn’t resist a baguette sandwich and a pain au chocolat to share with my sweetheart. (though  truth be told, I ate most of the croissant).

   Meandering our way over to the Louvre- didn’t want to go in- too big- too crowded- and the Mona Lisa is disappointing at best (my opinion).

 So we just continued our walk to the Tulleries Gardens and took a seat around the beautiful fountain- our “feeties” needed a rest!!

  After the rest, it is onto my favorite museum the D’Orsay.  I bought the tickets from my phone as we had our feet up in the Tulleries (again, the joys of off season- March 29^th) We just walked right up and right into the museum.  This museum has so much wonderful art, but the building itself, is the largest best piece of art.

  We took the metro back to our hotel, stopping at the grocery store to pick up some beer, for a shoes off, late afternoon, hotel room happy hour. 

That evening we met up with a high school friend’s daughter who was doing a semester abroad. We had a wonderful time.

Our next day’s adventure was a trip out to Versailles.  At this time of year (March 30^th) the gardens are free for everyone, so we took the RER C train out with the intention of just touring the gardens. There was no line to get into the palace and no line at the ticket booth, so we bought our tickets and went into the palace.  The hall of mirrors was my favorite room.

   Then we went out to tour the gardens and saw they had golf carts for rent- the slowest moving golf carts ever….we rented one and enjoyed the narration and the chamber music. It was a hoot, Versailles in a golf cart!! 

We returned the cart and then walked down to the lake and rented a rowboat- my favorite thing to do!!

    Tired but not that tired, that evening, we strolled down to the Eiffel tower to watch it twinkle- and then it was off to bed.

  The next day we caught a 4 hour train to Brive-la-Gailliard and picked up a rental car and headed to part two of our trip  (see my Beau Villages Dordogne blog)

We stayed in the Dordogne region for 13 nights in the towns of Sarlat-le-Caneda, Cahors,             Conques and Martel. I highly suggest this region!!

  After our beau villages tour, we were on our way back to Paris. This time we were staying in the Montmartre area. We did Annie Sargeant’s (Join Us in France podcast) using Voice Map  app, and sharing blue tooth earbuds, to do a tour of this section of town. I loved learning about this area.  This Voice Map tour was fabulous!  

Love Wall

  We stopped at a sidewalk café and I had a few gin and tonics and a crepes and took Emily in Paris pictures.

    You can see from my pictures at Sacre Coeur below that the weather had improved and the crowds were getting bigger because it is now April  14^th and it was Spring Break. We were not used to the crowds- it took a few hours to acclimate. I walked up all the stairs (foregoing the funicular) to Sacre Coeur to get the evening glow photo. Well worth the effort!

   Our last day in France adventure was out to Pere Lachaise Cemetery. I love a good cemetery.

On our last night our meal was a salad and a fabulous bowl of onion soup.  We needed to pack and get a good night’s sleep before our early morning flight.

Au revoir France- until next we meet.

Fall in Love with Vermont

 

Vermont

Traveling through Vermont at the height of leaf peeping season was exhilarating. Each day we were there the leaves were changing.  It is difficult to know the exact dates of the colorful leaf season, so I suggest you stay in Vermont for a week so you get to see the color.  We choose the week of October 8th-13^thand we lucked out as far as spectacular colors go. 

        As my husband and I travel, we always try to find the “Scenic By-way” roads.  As it turns out most

every road in Vermont, except the main highways, are designated “Scenic”!  You must pick the backroads and go through all the little towns to get the full flavor of Vermont.

     Here are the highlights of our vacation.

Our first stop was Queechie.  We made advance reservations to eat at the Simon Pearce Restaurant which has fantastic food and is cantilevered over the Queechie River waterfall with a view of a great covered bridge.

Simon Pearce Restaurant over the Queechie River

so many covered bridges in Vermont

 

     Next we hiked down into the Queechie Gorge.  It was fun at the bottom to hop rock to rock and get a view of the Queechie Bridge from the bottom of the Gorge.

top of the Gorge from the bridge

 

bottom of the Gorge

    We spent the night in the little town of Hartland.  The place we stayed was a grandma’s cottage.  It had everything we needed and was so cozy.  We enjoyed a fire outside while watching the sheep in the pasture behind the house.  The night sky was cloudless and starry.

Grandma's cottage in the woods

the sheep that kept us company

 

     The next day we decided to drive 2 hours into New Hampshire to a State Park called The Flume. At this time of year you must have advance timed tickets or you won’t get in. It was a great hike with a staircase built over a cool waterfall chasm. It was worth the drive.

 

     On the way to The Flume we stopped in the small town of Enfield to see all their homemade scarecrows. What wonderful community spirit is shown here.

    The following day we were headed towards Stowe. On the way we had many fun stops. First was Rock of Ages visitor center which was unfortunately closed.  It has a great history tour of the Marble industry in the area. So our first stop was the Barre Cemetery , which shows off its unusual marble tombstones. We walked around the cemetery for about an hour.  It was fascinating.

  Our next stop Burtt’s Apple Orchard.  This apple orchard is so well organized.  They give you buckets and apple picker tools.  We saw families having so much fun. We loved walking up and down the aisles picking apples varietals we have never heard of. As we walked we sipped on apple slushies and ate hot cider doughnuts (these were the best cider doughnuts we had the whole trip).  We were at this place for about 1.5 hours.  

  Our next stop was the Cabot Cheese store.  It was pretty disappointing.  I expected a big store with all things cheese related, but it was a tiny store with a selection of Cabot cheeses, most of which I could get at home.  There was a bakery next door serving beautiful grilled cheese sandwiches and a hardware store serving ice cream, but we had just eaten our lunch so we had to by-pass these treats.

 

   We arrived in Stowe, it was super crowded – traffic was a real problem as we were staying in a downtown apartment (that I would not recommend).  Stowe has a bunch of restaurants, but you need to have reservations this time of year.  We just cooked in our apartment and wandered the town looking in all their cute shops. We wanted to go to the von Trapp family brewery, but it was so crowded with a waiting line, that we chose to just drive around. Stowe is a beautiful town, just too crowded for me.

     The next morning we drove to Little River State Park and hiked the 4.7 mile Stevenson Brook Trail to the History Trail.  The Brook Trail section was fun, crossing little bridges over the creek while fall leaves fell all around us.  This trail had a few steep sections, but we didn’t need our hiking poles. The History part of the trail had many homesteads and small cemeteries.  The state had taken the time to put up kiosks at each homestead along the path, talking about the families who lived there.  This path was fairly steep going down, but again, nothing too difficult. We really loved this trail.

 

     Our next stop was Ben and Jerry’s to get ice cream and see the flavor graveyard.  It was super crowded, about a 45 minute wait for ice cream.  But hey, it was worth the wait. We got flavors we haven’t seen in Texas,  chocolate therapy, coconut seven layer bar, salted caramel blondie, sticky toffee cookie. Our favorite was the coconut seven layer bar!!

 

   Our next day in Stowe, we left town again and drove 45 minutes to Burlington, Vermont.  I had made reservations at Local Motion, a bike rental shop, for 2 electric bikes.  Burlington has an amazing bike path that runs 35 miles along Lake Champlain.  We rode the bike path and then got on the bike ferry which took us out to Hero Island.  We rode out to Snow Farm Vineyard and had a glass of wine. It was a great ride.

 

the bike ferry to Hero Island

The Causeway to the ferry

beautiful scenery along the path

    We then walked around Burlington and had lunch at poke bowl place.  It was a wonderful day. Burlington is a great city.

 

    On the way home we stopped at Cold Hollow Cider mill.  It was really crowded – this is a tour bus stop-but we managed to get a cider tasting.  It was really good hard cider. 

 

   The next day we were on our way to Leicester VT where we rented a little cabin.  This was a great cabin, but a bit close to the owner’s house.  But the owner’s weren’t intrusive and their property was full of flowers and neat landscaping. I would stay here again because it was well placed. 

On  the way to the cabin we stopped and did the  TAM Otter Creek Trail to the Arnold bridge. It was a hike through a field filled with cows- it was interesting- a bit scary, but the cows seemed to be used to it

                                                            

                                                           

    On the next day we headed towards His Majesty’s Fort at Crown Point.  The history of this place was very interesting. It was an excellent day to explore this area. We visited their little museum, which was well worth it.  The ruins of the fort and barracks are being restored. They are doing a great restoration job.  We had our picnic lunch on the southern shore where Lake Champlain meets Lake George.

picnic at Crown Point

Barracks ruins at Crown Point

Crown Point memorial

  

Our last stop that day was at the fantastic Robert Frost Interpretive Trail.  This an ADA compliant trail.  All along the trail are posts that contain Robert Frost poems. Robert Frost was from this area..

 

These are just some of the places we stopped.  But I must say that the drives along the backroads were so rewarding.  Driving slowly through the falling yellow, reds and oranges is and amazing experience.

 

Oh and one more thing, you must have a maple creamie before you leave Vermont!