Off to Provins

 The town of Provins was an important trading center and hosted the Trade Fairs of Champagne in the 12th and 13th centuries. Perhaps this was the first commercial center in France!The town is a popular tourist area and is beautifully maintained.  You can see the town square below.

This is near the restaurant that we enjoyed a Michelin 3 star dinner.

Can one say anything more about a meal than how it is finished?

The Louvre

We enjoyed a beautiful day at the Louvre.

 

 The pigeons enjoyed the remainder of our French bread!

 One of our favorite sculptures.  The hooded monks have distrinct expressions if you peek underneath their hoods.

Pastries come with special wrappers instead of a bag.

And inside?  Wonderful!

Musee d'Orsay

The Musee d'Orsay was a former railway station and is located on the banks of the river Seine.  It now houses beautiful works of art that we enjoyed discovering.

We ate at the de Poison cafe for dinner.  Just in case it has been a while since your last French class we were not at the "poison" cafe but the "fish" cafe!  It was delicious and we knew it would be pricey when they brought the menu out on iPads!

I really enjoyed the crepes for dessert but why do they keep setting my food on fire!

Bordeaux Region

Our friends took us to  fortress in Bordeaux called Citadelle ae Vauban built in 1689 to protect French trading interests. 

We then went to Saint-Émilion one of the principal red wine areas of Bordeaux.  It was a beautiful medieval city named for a monk who first lived there.

Off to La Rochelle

Before going to bed we made sure that a taxi would be available to take us to the train station in the morning.  It turned out that the concierge had forgotten to call for our taxi!  We dragged our luggage to a taxi station a few blocks away and prayed for a  taxi... and of course the taxi came in the nick of time.  We took the high speed train called a TGV to La Rochelle.  It was very confortable and fast.  We passed field after field of sunflowers.  Mark's friend was waiting for us at the station and drove us two hours to his beautiful home. We were treated to a tour of friend's Cognac distillery and a fantastic gourmet dinner.

Les Tramways de l'Est

We ate dinner at an outdoor café near a metro exit, les Tramways de l'Est.  The waiter made sure that we stored our camera and purse out of reach. The scallops and salmon were wonderful!

Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise

We took the metro the a famous Paris cemetery once owned by Louis XIV's confessor.  We saw the graves of Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde.  They were relatively easy to find because of the crowds around them.   Each of the gravestones were usually small chapels, some were very beautiful and well maintained others were in disrepair.