The mini split worked hard last night to pump out warm air, but I suspect the apartment hadn’t been used the previous week and it was still a pretty chilly night. When I stopped by at mid day today, it seemed that maybe it had caught up. The morning started with temps around 24degrees, which made me head for the nearest coffee place that seemed to have some GF options. After some breakfast and coffee headed to the visitor center and the to the Gare Routiere, bus terminal, just to see what the Sunday schedule was going to be like to get back to the TGV station for my train to Nice. (Runs every 15 minutes and 6 euros, but a bit of walk with the suitcase to get there.) Picked up some stuff at Monoprix for the apartment and for breakfast tomorrow and then did some walking around and found lunch at a place recommended by the AirBnB host. A very nice lunch of pumpkin soup followed by a pork shoulder dish. After lunch, ambled around with the goal of visiting Cezanne’s Atelier which is a bit of walk up a hill outside of town. Lovely small museum with a lot of his stuff and a nice view over the city. After working my way back to the center, I was ready from some down time, but in the interests of not prolonging the jet lag kept it to a 30 minute nap. Then it was off for some more walk around exploration before finding a nice warm bowl of Pho for dinner! Fortunately it warmed up into the 40s around lunch time, but the first part of the day was really cold. Beautiful sunlight comes into the apartment in the afternoon and it was quite cozy. Tomorrow will be the big market day all over town and the start of a Hockney exhibit at the main museum in town so I will go to that. For the size of the town, 145,000 this city has a lot of restaurants and cafes!

A long return to France today with 10hrs. Of Delta flight followed by 4 Hrs. Of killing time at CDG and the 3.5 hrs on a crowded train. But, ended up in Aix en Provence for the first time and just as the sun was setting. Interesting light and a beautiful place. Famous for being where Cezanne did a lot of his work. AirBnB is nice, top floor corner studio with lots of double pain windows. That’s good because it is really chilly outside. In the 30s this evening and predicted to have a low of 24f tonight! I did a preliminary walk around, and there are lots of little restaurants and cafes etc. will head to the visitor center tomorrow, but with only 2 full days, will stick to in town exploration including the Cezanne museum and whatever markets are going on. One note if you do come here, the TGV station is quite a ways out of town, there is a shuttle bus that goes back and forth, but I was pretty much done, so grabbed a taxi in. Aix has a population just short of 150,000 so a decent sized city.

Always a little bit of a challenge to provide a wrap up of a month long trip. This particular trip divided into two distinct parts, the first being the Via Podiensis hiking part and the second being the Paris and environs part. So, I’ll summarize them a little bit separately. The hiking part was physically very demanding, and, maybe I’m getting older or it’s just my pack getting heavier, but this trip was more of a strain than previous ones. Part of it was that the arrangers had scheduled me for very long stages consistently. One thing to understand about the French countryside, much more noticeable this time than last, is that they obey their own rhythms and rules and they really don’t care about, logic, customers, making money or anything else. As such if you are going to be out in the countryside of France, you need to know that lunch is between 12:00pm-2:00pm and dinner is between 7:00pm-9:00pm. You will find it impossible to get anything to eat whatsoever outside of these times. With luck, you may find a grocery store, but it will be closed from 12:00pm-3:00pm. Also, while most people expect a hotel to be open, that would be unreasonable in France, the earliest you might find a hotel open would be 3:00pm but sometimes 5:00pm is the norm. Expect that almost everything will be closed on Sunday and also on Monday, even in a fairly large town. Moving on to Paris, be very careful of your stuff at all times. Pickpockets and petty theft is a definite industry. Expect that no one is wearing masks. Crowds are everywhere and the weekends are much worse. While CDG is a complete disaster, French trains are fantastic, generally fairly punctual and easy to use. The metro and buses in Paris are great, but you will still end up walking a lot more than you are used to, be sure to wear shoes that work for this. I can not emphasize enough that you need a fully functioning cell phone if you are going to be traveling in France. You’ll need it to navigate, show tickets, buy tickets, find out if things are open and a host of other things. Apple Pay works almost everywhere, so if you have an Apple Watch get that set up and learn how to use it. Remember that when you have had enough rich French food, you can get Asian food in all kinds of places and it is generally fairly good. Most French restaurants will have boringly similar menus in most regions, but the food will generally be good, just work your way through different items as you go. House wine is generally fine and very cheap, drink that. Your best meals are most likely to be at middle of the road places and rarely at the super fancy Michelin star joints, so, unless you are really into it, skip the super pricey places. Bathrooms: The French don’t really believe in them and so many places like large train stations will have one bathroom for the whole station. And, you will be expected to pay a euro to use it! Develop your bathroom strategy, always use the bathroom before leaving a cafe or restaurant, use the bathroom 15 minutes or so before your train arrives, it is free on the train. Use the bathroom as soon as you get off the plane, you’ll be waiting for an hour or more to get your passport stamped. As much as many things about France make me crazy, I’m already looking forward to going back. For some general travel tips that I’ve put together for Pilgrims, but apply to almost everyone, see this site: https://caminotips.wordpress.com/

Took the RER out to Parc de Sceaux today, about a 20 minute ride. This is special for me because this was my daily commute when I was 10-12 years old, out to Ecole Nouvelle D’Antony. The school is still there and seems to be doing well. They are on break right now but we did chat briefly with some of the teachers over the gate. Then, Parc de Sceaux, turned out to be spectacular! Think a slightly smaller Versailles and you have the drift. A lovely Chateau and then enormous gardens, well tended with fountains everywhere. After exploring the park, we walked into the Town to Sceaux and enjoyed the market before finding a local cafe for some lunch. Then back into Paris for the afternoon. I fended off a Pick pocket at Chatelet this morning who was using a briefcase as a shield while he tried to get into my pocket. Nothing gone. Dinner at a classic French place in the 6th called Le Bistro D’Henri, highly recommended if you like a small cozy traditional French place.

I managed to get 10:00am reservations for the Fondation LV exhibit combining paintings from Monet and Joan Mitchell. While the exhibits are interesting the star of the show is often the Frank Gehry building. It looks sort of like a fanciful sailing ship. I’ll let you judge the paintings, it is an interesting juxtaposition. After the museum visit a walk around the Jardin d’Aclimitissation, a combination garden, park and very old school classic amusement park type venue. Lots of sort of vintage rides, being enjoyed by kids of all ages. After a long walk and exploration, we landed on a classic neighborhood restaurant for some shellfish and other goodies, Sebillon near Port Maillot. Finishing lunch it was back home to regroup and then dinner with friends at Le Petite Marche, an excellent restaurant of Pl. De Voges run by the same ownership as Chez Janou. (Since Emily in Paris, forget about getting into Chez Janou).

After a quick TGV ride from Tours to Montparnasse, we pushed through the mayhem and out to the 96 bus. Turns out there is a 2 week school break that just started so the Friday evening crowd leaving from Montparnasse was at a very high level. Stopped for an Apero with friend, CC on the way home, and then back on the bus to the apartment. Ended up having a quick dinner immediately next door at a Thai restaurant that does a nice job. Saturday morning it was off to the market at Rue Mouffetard for a few oysters. Then out to the 13th to find Pho Bom, highly rated Pho by MT. It took awhile for them to serve us, but the pho was excellent. From there we walked down to Pl. D’Italie and then to the botanical gardens before hopping on the metro back home. Testing new Air conditioning condensate pumps at the apartment, warm enough to run it for an hour or so. Pump stayed on for long enough to be concerning, but eventually turned off. Dinner with JR at Momoka, a Japanese place in SOPI that brings you course after course of mainly fish type dishes, excellent meal and very reasonably priced for the quality.

Yesterday we headed to the town of Blois for what was supposed to be a market day. That didn’t happen, but nevertheless it is a pleasant town beside the Loire, about a 45minute train ride from Tours. The agent at SNCF sold us a 3 day pass, so we can hop on and off without worry on the local trains. We walked around town, checked out the Chateau, found something for lunch and then hustled back to the station for an afternoon train back to Tours. After a nap, explored the cathedral Gatien in Tours, walked along the waterfront and then time for an Apero and dinner at Pl. Plumereau. Friday, we organized our gear and checked our bags at our hotel, Hampton Inn, and then took the tram up to the train station for trip to Amboise, about 25 minutes. Amboise has a very nice chateau at the top of town and was having its regular Friday market. After walking through the chateau and exploring the town a little, a quick crepe and back to Tours to pick up luggage and head back to Paris on the TGV.

After an early start and a bus ride to Gare Montparnasse, we had an easy on time ride to Tours. Quick check in with the visitor center then the tram to our hotel. Rooms not ready, so checked our bags and headed to lunch. I wanted to go to Chenonceau for the afternoon, but timing was tight. As it turned out, lunch came out quickly and we made it to the station for the train with 8 minutes to spare. After a much longer train ride than it should have been, we made it to Chenonceau. This is the iconic Chateau crossing the river that you see in all kinds of photos of France. Interior is not all that well curated but the gardens are fabulous. Eventually the late afternoon train came and mercifully stayed at speed all the way back to Tours. A fine dinner at L’Atelier Gourmand, recommended by Vero, capped off the day.

Tuesday the 18th was yet another strike day, but fortunately the Metro line 1, the nearest to the apartment is fully automated and reasonable immune to strikes. About 20 minutes east to Vincennes, a village just outside with peripherique with a large forest and a well preserved Chateau/Donjon. After visiting the Chateau, lots of stairs and empty stone rooms, it was off to the local outdoor market and then coffee and lunch at a sidewalk cafe. My friend Emi, who lives in Vincennes and I met on the Camino came to join us. A walk around in the Parc Floral and then back to St. Paul via Metro.

Started out with a quick metro ride over to Rue Mouffetard, of Moveable Feast fame. Saturday is a market day on this street and there is a great fishmonger with oysters and a glass of wine at a reasonable price. After a half dozen, I headed out to do some walking on the Paris high line trail, coulee Verte. In this case, went out to Belair Metro and linked on there, walking the roughly 2km back to the Marche d’Aligre. After a brief walk around the market had a nice goat cheese salad at Cafe Charlette followed by a stop at Le Baron Rouge. Then, various tax forms needed signing and what a hassle that was. Printer at the apartment was out of ink, and wouldn’t print all the layers of the document, located a print shop that looked like it would be able to help me and was open on a Saturday, took metro there, was able to print out the 6 pages that needed signing, then scan them and send them back. Then off to find an ink Cartridge. Finally referred to an Office Depot in the 5th which had the necessary cartridge. Back to the Apartment to get that working. Then glass of wine at Deux Magots and a few bites at L’Avant Comptoir de Terre. Met a nice Thai/French couple and ate a little Foie Gras and some risotto, then home for early trip to Airport.