Got out the door early and using my Carte Blanche membership was able to walk into the Orangerie right at 9:00am. Visiting Modigliani exhibit to terribly interesting as it was focused on his patron. Water Lillys always nice. Walked around the Madeline etc. and ended up at Le Grand Colbert for lunch. Hadn’t been there before but it was in a Jack Nicholson movie. Excellent lunch of Skate wing. Then off to try to go to the top of Arc de Triomphe. Had bought online ticket around 10:30am and when I got there after lunch they were closed because they were on strike. Email did produce a response that suggested if I couldn’t go at a later date I could file all kinds of paperwork for a refund. Then, they said that the ticket was only good for the date issued and could not be changed…. We will see. Wonderful dinner with friends CC and his friend R. I stopped and got some interesting cheeses from my neighborhood Frommager and then we went to an Italian place in the 6th and just had a lovely octopus salad.

Started today by meeting up with some other Earful Tower podcast listeners at the base of the Coulee Verte. We had Oliver himself come and give a tour for 7 of us. Good fun, a walk along the Coulee for awhile, then off to the Marche d’Aligre, one of my favorite markets in Paris. We tasted a few cheeses, some wine etc. and then headed to Baron Rouge for some oysters. After that walked over to the Bastille Sunday market, but unfortunately my usual crepe place had way too many people in line to be worth the wait. After a few spring rolls at a local Traiteur, back to the apartment for awhile, then off to Deux Magots for tea. Headed over to Pl. Collette by the Louvre for some tango, but the surface was pretty rough and it really didn’t come together. Temperatures are dropping fast with lows anticipated at close to 40 degrees tonight, what a change from a few days ago. The whole city is nuts on Rugby World Cup and various metro stops related to this are closed. Every bar and restaurant has TVs set up with noisy people cheering. Ended up having a burger at Le Compas before heading back to the apt for an early night. Struggling to turn on the heat in the apartment, always a challenge as the 3 radiant heaters all have various cryptic symbols and no one has figured out how to really program them. If you are extremely lucky, you can get it to some kind of manual mode, but even finding that is not easy. Owners manual is useless and maintenance guy I had come over last trip was hopeless. Not sure why European appliances love non sensical symbols and making thing complicated. I just want to set a temperature and have it stay there, does that seem like an unreasonable ask?

Headed out to the gallery Lafayette this morning with the hopes of buying a blazer, but everything was way too pricey. Did some good exploration found an excellent Poulet Fermier for lunch and then headed over to the British embassy for a wedding celebration party for Darren and Sharon. They got married out on the North Shore and stayed at the beach house in February. Good fun, much cooler today. Louvre was closed because of some sort of unspecified threat. Closed the metro stop and snarled traffic.

Headed off to NoGlu this morning for a GF croissant, not very convenient but sometimes that’s just what’s needed. From there a very long metro ride to the Albert Kahn museum and gardens on that outskirts of Paris. Kahn decided to make photos of everything he could shortly after WW1. So the collection has something like 72,000 photos a real treasure trove of history. In addition there was a temporary exhibit featuring Buenos Aires, amazing how a lot has not changed. Also great gardens, including a good Japanese garden. After some exploring I got back on the metro and headed to Rue Mouffetard to have some lunch. My salad had more charcuterie than salad, but no complaints. Then after doing some laundry and hanging at the apartment off to meet Lin and Camilo for dinner. Today was a non sensical general strike, but mostly transit was not affected.

Today started early with a bus ride to the train station in Caen, then an easy nonstop 2 hour train ride to Gare St. Lazare. From there a couple of metro rides and got to the apartment before noon. The cleaning people were just finishing, and I got things arranged how I like them and did a grocery run and some laundry. It was pretty warm and muggy in Paris and threatened rain but didn’t actually rain. Headed over to La Terrasse du 7-eme for a meet up with Vero and the gang from a facebook group. Many I’ve met before and it evolved into a simple steak frites dinner. Not too many photos today.

Stayed in Caen today, breakfast at the great coffee place, Keys and Co. Then some walking around and general exploration. After a salad for lunch, off on a ride on the free Navette and some other general exploration. Chateau was under construction and largely not explorable. Dinner at wonderful restaurant nearby that turned out to have only been open for a week. Squash soup followed by a pork belly dish. Well done!

Off to Honfleur this morning, about a 1:45 drive from Caen. Lovely little harbor, touristy but charming and welcoming. After some walking around and exploration, a seafood lunch at one of the less touristy spots. Then it was off to check out Deauville, a ritzy beach resort place with a casino that is often a vacation place for Parisians. Much less charming and more of a big city type place. From there we stopped into Pierre Huet, one of the more well known Calvados producers. They tasted us on some 20, 30 and 40 yr old Calvados, interesting stuff!!! Back to Caen where an Apero was in order followed by a fairly decent walk to a restaurant called Le Bouchon Vaugueux. This ended up being an excellent choice run by Madame in the front and husband who was the chef. Had the most tender steak I’ve ever had in France. A solid day!

After getting through the morning internet tasks, it was off to Cherbourg. Pam has a rental Fiat 500 and drove us a little over an hour and Half to Cherbourg. Turned out to be be massively under construction with roads and sidewalks ripped up everywhere. Never the less we found an excellent place for lunch and had some oysters and fish for lunch. Then after some exploration, we headed to the Cite de la Mer, which had a submarine, a lot of interesting deep dive submersibles and a very good Titanic exhibit. Turns out the Titanic departed from here before it met its fate. With a speeded up time line and projections a narrative showed how the fateful evening progressed. Quite well done. After absorbing this, back in the car, stop for gas, who knew you could fit 48 euros worth of gas into a fiat 500 and not even an empty tank? Then a stop at one of Joan’s cider suppliers, (French cider.com) Herout, where we were given a most excellent tour and tasting. They also make some Calvados and do some interesting aging with the cider. After that back to Caen, some apero in house with Comte and Beaufort bought at farmers market and then to Monsieur Louis, upscale cafe for a lovely dinner.

Got a reasonably early started and headed down to the Port de Plaiscance for the Caen Sunday market. This is a huge affair lining both sides of the port canal with booths of food and other things. We found Key and Co. That did a great Avocado toast, GF, and excellent coffee. Then exploration through the market, with bike rally, race going on. After lunching on some crepes, back to AirBnB for some down time. Then a good walk up to an interesting cemetery and some gardens, followed by an Apero in Pl St. Saveur and then dinner at Bistronome. Dinner, good foie Gras but average other food and wine. Felt like lots of walking today particularly because mostly on paved surfaces. (21,312 steps, 10.4 miles)

Today started early with breakfast at 6:30am followed by a bus ride to the Bayonne Station for 7:48am train to Paris. That went off well, and arrived right on time at 12:03pm at Montparnasse, and that gave me just under an hour to get to my Normandy train at Gare St. Lazare. Looked like the metro was the way to go and luckily the 13 line was not a super long walk. Crowds were unbelievable but fortunately I had my Navigo Easy with some tickets on it and went right through. Got to St. Lazare with about 25 minutes to spare and had a smooth ride to Caen. Then a bus to AirBnb that Pam has rented. After unpacking, some laundry and a shower it was out for a Planche of Charcuterie and an apero. Caen has lots of youngsters as it is a college town and many sidewalk cafes and restaurants.