We planned each day the night before and that allowed for a ton of flexibility and some spontaneity. Here is what Mom's visit looked like:
Day One (Friday) - Mom arrived during school hours so I couldn't meet her at the airport. But she made her way to the train and arrived in my neighborhood just as I was getting off the tram from my very last class before the start of the "winter" holiday. We both took a nap and headed to the Odéon area for dinner (memorable meal of fondue and roast chicken!). We then walked all the way around Notre-Dame after dark and enjoyed seeing the cathedral all lit up! We cut a path through the hyper-touristy St. Michel area to catch the bus back to my place for the night.
Day Two (Saturday) - We slept in! We took the bus to Opéra and spent a while wandering around the destination department stores of Printemps and Galéries Lafayette. We ate home-made sandwiches (on half a baguette each...butter, ham, slices of cheese and Dijon mustard on Mom's) outside of H&M in the drizzle and then walked to the swankiest Starbucks I've ever been in (architecture-wise) to share a hot chocolate. We watched Moulin Rouge when we got back for the night.
Day Three (Sunday) - We slept in again (this quickly became a theme:) and took the bus to St. Michel and then the RER to the station near the church. There was a piano concert taking place at the American Church in Paris and we enjoyed classical and modern pieces for two pianos. I showed Mom where the American Library in Paris is located and then we wound our way to the Champs de Mars side of the Eiffel Tower. We waited until it began to sparkle at 7pm on the dot! We were pretty chilly so we hustled to the metro and made our way back to my place.
Day Four (Monday) - Mom really wanted to see the famous Parisian flea market of St. Ouen, so we took the metro up to the top of the city and walked around. It was a little deserted and not every stall was open, but it was nice because there were no crowds to fight. We had lunch at the Paul Bert Café and made our way back to the Luxembourg Gardens. We tried to see the Cézanne exhibit (one of Mom's favorite painters) but the line was too long and the museum was going to close soon. So we had a coffee and tea at a nice café across from the museum to warm up and walked down Boulevard St. Michel and window-shopped.
Day Five (Tuesday) - Mom and I ran around on a slipper/screwdriver/delicious-frozen-food-for-dinner mission in the morning (mission accomplished). We went back to the Luxembourg Gardens and saw the Cézanne exhibit (nice, but a little underwhelming) and then we walked towards Saint-Sulpice and through the Odéon area, shopping along the way (of course). We ate sandwiches as we walked down rue du Seine and peeked in all the gallery windows. We sat on Pont des Arts (with all the crazy padlocks) and watched the Eiffel Tower sparkle from a distance - lovely sight! We saw a movie at Châtelet (Man on a Ledge/Dos au Mur) and had a crêpe on the way to the bus stop (traditional thing to eat on Mardi Gras, unbeknownst to us!)
Day Six (Wednesday) - Mom and I caught the bus to St.Michel and then walked along the quai to the Musée d'Orsay where we caught another bus to La Défense to see La Grande Arche. From there you can see the Arc de Triomphe as you look back towards the city - very cool to see both arches (modern and historic) at the same time! We ate lunch in one of the two malls there and then took the metro back to Châtelet and caught the bus home.
Day Seven (Thursday) - Our idea for the day was to make our way to the Opéra Garnier to tour the inside of the building and see the Chagall-painted ceiling. Only when we arrived, we were told that a rehearsal was taking place and it wasn't possible to see the ceiling. So we decided to come back on a different day. We wandered around a bit and wound our way to Place Vendôme where some very ritzy jewelry stores are located. We looked in each window and dreamed a bit and then headed down rue St. Honoré to see what other window-shopping we could do. We grabbed a bite in a salon de thé (ended up eating $12 worth of french fries because the waiter misunderstood the order - oh well, they were delicious!) We kept walking along rue St. Honoré and then it turned into rue Faubourg-St. Honoré and we still kept going. We saw everything from antiques to baby clothes to hair accessories to shoes all lit up in the windows as the sun was setting. We eventually turned the corner and found ourselves near the Rond-Point of the Champs-Elysées. We caught a different bus back to my neck of the woods and then took the tram a couple of stops and walked home.
Day Eight (Friday) - The market on rue Raspail only operates a few days a week and Friday is one of them, so Mom and I decided to check it out. We arrived a little on the late side so most stalls were closing up/cleaning up, but Mom did score a really beautiful horn bracelet that she immediately put on and didn't take off again for practically the rest of her trip! We were near rue de Cherche-Midi which is where the Poilâne bakery is located - many years ago, Mom met the woman, Joan, who is in charge of international distribution while standing in line at a grocery store in Virginia. She gave Mom her business card and Mom gave it to me when I was a student here a decade ago. I met Joan back then and on a whim we decided to see if she still worked at that location...and she does!! And she was there that day. What a hoot to talk with her again after some many years have passed. She was just as lovely and charming as ever! Mom and I purchased some ♥-shaped butter cookies (so yummy!) and headed on our way - we shopped some more along the street and eventually double-backed and found Le Bon Marché (the world's first "department" store and one of my favorite places to wile away the time in Paris!) We wandered around the handbag/makeup/perfume floor for a bit and then made our way back to my place for a bite to eat. We headed back out into the night to watch "Midnight in Paris" in the Catacombs at the church...such a great movie to watch in Paris (I've now seen the movie 3 times...but that doesn't hold a candle to the 8 times I saw "Moulin Rouge" in the theaters in France with Erin, Kasey and Emily!!!) It was definitely a full day, complete with RER drama and a few frantic moments searching in the dark for the closest tram station since we took a different bus to a somewhat unfamiliar area!! Never a dull moment...
Day Nine (Saturday) - It was a misty, gray and dreary day (typically Parisian winter weather). Just perfect for sleeping in, doing laundry and generally taking it easy. So that's exactly what we did. We had sandwiches for dinner and watched "The Holiday" before heading to bed. But then neither of us could sleep so Mom humored me and let me show her all of the pictures I've taken since arriving...they're aren't that many...just a thousand or so. (!!)
Day Ten (Sunday) - Mom and I woke up with enough time to walk through the park on the way to the tram-metro-bus to make our way to the church for the afternoon contemporary service. I had been talking about Mom's upcoming visit for awhile with some of the people that I have met at church so it was nice to introduce her to many of them. After the service we crossed over the Seine and went into the Petit Palais to look at the permanent collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts. I love that building! I can't wait to visit the Grand Palais just across the street in the near future :) We took the bus over to the St. Germain area and considered eating at one of the fancy cafés (Deux Magots or Café de Flore) but ended up going back to a place we ate at together over 7 years ago. We had mussels and french fries and crème brulée for dessert! We headed back home and Skyped with loved ones and lamented the fact that it was Oscar night but we had no way of seeing any of the gowns or hearing any of the acceptance speeches from such distance (coupled with the 6-hour time difference)...another long-standing mother-daughter tradition. Thankfully, Mom had asked a friend back home to please DVR everything so she could enjoy the event, albeit after the fact (Thanks, RSTlne!)
Day Eleven (Monday) - It's always difficult to ignore the winners the morning after if you haven't had a chance to see the show/game/etc...It was nice to know that "the little French movie that could," "The Artist," swept the awards categories. Many of the front pages on the news-stands were dedicated to the win! How exciting!! Mom and I took the bus back to the Opéra and this time we were successful in our choice of days...no rehearsals and the auditorium was supposed to be open in order to view the ceiling. The building was beautifully ornate and sumptuously decorated. I loved it! We took the metro to St. Germain (quickly becoming a favorite destination) and walked down part of the boulevard that we hadn't explored yet...did some shopping, of course...and walked down rue du Bac (a street Mom remembered from when she lived in Paris for 6 weeks many years ago!) I ended up heading to my hand-bell rehearsal and a birthday dinner leaving Mom on her own for a bit to keep exploring the area on her own. Turns out she had a lovely time and the most amazing hot chocolate at Café de Flore before wandering all the way back down to the other end to catch the bus back to my place where we eventually met up.
Day Twelve (Tuesday) - Mom had a hankering to see a few places on the Champs-Elysées so we took the metro to Etoile and started walking east. We dodged the many tourists (I told Mom she wasn't a tourist, she was a visitor:) spread out all over the sidewalks and marveled at how much American culture has invaded the French capital...Banana Republic has just opened a flagship store and the line to just get into the Abercrombie & Fitch store would make any sane person balk in astonishment. Oh my! We ate our sandwiches, chips and chocolate in a small park off to the side of the main drag and continued on our way...past Place de la Concorde, the Tuileries gardens and the Louvre. We decided to have a bite to eat at another place that we visited together oh-so-many years ago, the same restaurant where I had my birthday dinner (and which has essentially become my favorite restaurant in the city!)...Au Pied de Cochon. We even had the same waiter - Christian - who remembered me from December and offered us complimentary kirs! We had a delicious meal - onion soup and salad with bits of ham for me, curried chicken with apples and pork roast for mom, and we split profiteroles for dessert!
Day Thirteen (Wednesday) - The Musée d'Orsay was renovated a short time ago and Mom really wanted to see the collection so we decided to head there on her last full day of visiting Paris :( When we got there, the line outside (just to enter) was extremely short (surprisingly) and we were thrilled to hear that admission was free that day! I thought it was because it was Leap Day, but it turns out the cashiers were on strike. (There is a running joke that the museum is always closed because the workers are always on strike. It's an overstatement for sure...but not by much!) We walked through all of the sections and the Impressionist area was my favorite, by far. After a few hours we wandered down some other streets that we hadn't visited yet and made our way to the backside of Odéon and went to a Japanese restaurant for dinner. The real fun began when we returned to my place because we worked together to pack up mom's suitcase...which quickly turned into two suitcases because of all the things Mom was going to take home that I no longer needed in the city (cold-weather clothing, coats, shoes, etc.) What a feat, but Mom's an excellent packer! We stayed up late into the night talking and finally settled down to sleep.
Day Fourteen (Thursday) - This was Mom's departure day :( We had our usual morning croissants and baguettes for the road. We made our way with two heavy suitcases to the RER station and took the commuter train all the way to the airport (it's so easy and convenient!) We arrived a little early - the check-in counter wasn't open yet - so we wandered around the terminal a little bit and then sat and talked. Mom was looking forward to perusing the duty-free area (which you can only do with an international ticket, and there's always so much to see so it's good to arrive well before your boarding time!) so we said a quick goodbye at the foot of one of the ascending escalators and Mom began her journey back to US soil...
Let the whirlwind begin!
Mom and me at Notre-Dame...
Notre-Dame at night...
Mom and me with a few sparkles...
Tons of Eiffel Tower sparkles!
La Grande Arche of La Défense
Place Vendôme...
Shops in the arcade near rue St. Honoré
31, rue Cambon................Chanel :)
Poilâne...
Amazing florist on rue du Cherche-Midi...
Creative way to showcase a new collection...
The inside of Le Bon Marché...
Inside l'Opéra Garnier...
View leading up to the grand staircase...
The grand staircase is grand indeed...
Cool tassels!
Mirror behind the bar on the mezzanine level
Very ornate ballroom/hall...
One of the chandeliers...
"Is intermission over yet?"
Mom in a beret, at L'Arc de Triomphe.
Like mother, like daughter.
The unending line to just get inside the
Abercrombie & Fitch on the Champs-Elysées...
Place de la Concorde
Le jardin des Tuileries...
These recumbent chairs don't mess around.
Enormous clock at Musée d'Orsay...
Former train terminal, now renovated museum.
Awesome interior design at Hermès on rue de Sèvres...
I can hardly believe how quickly Mom's time in Paris flew by! But it's like that when you're having fun, isn't it? :) I'm so fortunate that I was able to spend so much one-on-one time with her at this point in my life. I'm blessed beyond measure to have the parents that I do...their love and support and encouragement have made all the difference my entire life, and certainly this year while I've been away experiencing this wonderful adventure.
I'm an extremely fortunate daughter ♥
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