We went to Berck-sur-Mer, France this year for the kite festival. The weather was a little cloudy and only windy near the sea (English Channel). It seemed it wasn’t windy enough for the largest kites, nevertheless it was a pretty incredible sight. When we first arrived (Friday night; the festival started on Saturday) the beach was devoid of kites.
But the next day, there were tons of kites, in spite of the seemingly kite unfriendly weather. We only stayed through the weekend (and one day would have been enough to enjoy the kites) but it was a relaxing weekend. There is a nice path along the beach that paths by a seal colony as well. What really astonished me was how the beach went on forever. It’s always a joy to visit France, though the train ride out here from Basel was something like 7 hours. We stayed in a nice airbnb a few blocks from the sea. I highly recommend seeing the festival if you get the chance!
We went to Nice for the first day of Carnival, Menton for the Citrus festival and Monaco, because it’s a whole other country! (Monaco is quite small)
We started out in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Walnut and I walked around town up to the Prince’s Palace to see the changing of the guard. It also happens to be a great viewpoint over Monaco.
view from the hotel in Monaco
building new land on the coast
changing of the guard
view from Prince’s Palace
Jardins de la Petite Afrique
Fairmont Hairpin of the Monaco Grand Prix
After Jenn’s conference wrapped up, we headed to our Airbnb in Menton, France. We could see some of the structures for the Citrus Festival already up in Menton, but we wouldn’t really see the festival until later in the weekend.
The first event we attended was the flower parade in Nice on the first day of Carnival. There were a lot of people on stilts, crazy costumes, streamers and even a few balloons!
That evening we went through the ‘garden of lights’. It was pretty neat. I didn’t know what to expect and we had been to the Rabechilbi festival last year, so my expectations were not super high. I was pleasantly surprised! This years theme was ‘Des Mondes Fantastiques’.
Our Airbnb was only a block away from Creperie Fleur de Sel. We went there several times over the few days we had in town.
The next day was the Golden Fruit Parade. We had seats in bleachers for both parades we attended. It was great! Now I want seats for every parade!
There were huge, mechanical floats in the parade. The first was a giant grasshopper. At the rear of the machine, they had a pair of women playing electric violins. It was fantastic! The had a huge sound system in the guts of the grasshopper blasting out modern tunes but being played by these two on violin.
Many of the floats going by had people throwing out huge clods of confetti. They do this in Switzerland, too. However, in Switzerland it is taboo to ‘reuse’ the confetti- there is no picking up already thrown confetti. Not in France! All confetti is in play here.
Later in the parade there was a huge mechanical dragon. Even the drivers wore costumes to match the theme of their floats. There were a lot of really great costumes.
We also did a driving tour of the region. It gave us a bit more of an overview of the area. Lots of money in the Cote d’Azur! The water off the coast is beautiful. The weather was nice, and it seemed the sun was always shining. With the nearby mountains, I’d bet there is nice hiking not far off. From the lookout point near the end of our trip, you could see three countries- Monaco just below, France a stone’s throw away and Italy in the distance.
It was really beautiful and it’s hard to beat the food in France. We had great weather but it wasn’t warm. It’d be nice to go back when it’s warm and jump in that beautiful blue water.
We just went to the Festival of Lights in Lyon. It was beautiful! Different groups set up light displays around town for the public. It is a free event that they hold annually. Some of the displays were just incredible.
The mural of Lyon
Though we were only there for the weekend, I thought Lyon was a lovely city. Of course, it was very crowded and security was a (necessary?) nuisance. It was a little cool, but no worse than one ought to expect when wandering around outside at night in December. The city has two rivers, the Rhone and Saone that flow through it, so there are quite a few bridges crossing them. It’s the third largest city in France.
Some of the exhibits were really spectacular. Nearly all of them were animated or in motion in some way. My favorite might be the flowers near the Ferris wheel, but the giants mantle clock was cool, too. The lighted horses were interesting but difficult to photograph.
We stayed in an airbnb that had a fantastic location for the festival. It was nicely outfitted but had a few small issues that I imagine the owner will address soon. We ate a very nice dinner at Cafe 203 Friday night and had street food Saturday night. Jenn enjoyed a bit of Vin Chaud- a hot spiced wine. Walnut was with during the day, but for the festival in the evening, we took him back to the apartment because of the temperature and crowds.
It was a great visit, and I look forward to going back to Lyon. I could see us going back for the Festival of Lights in a few years or maybe spending a few more days in Lyon in better weather.
What we did right:
Apartment was in a great location
Had sandwiches/street food for lunch and dinner Saturday (inexpensive and tasty)
Went to Cafe 203 for dinner- delicious food for 30€
brought warm clothing
The Festival of Lights was fabulous
What went wrong:
didn’t read the sign for public transit tickets- spent a few € we didn’t need to
didn’t have a plan for the added security and accidentally left the ‘secure’ area once, only to have to go through security to get back in
planned to use the metro but ‘security’ didn’t allow transfers within stations- got shunted outside only to find a 1/2 mile long line to the entrance to the next metro
We finally made it to Paris! Jenn was here years ago, but I have never been. I had been looking forward to the trip since we started planning.
The flight wasn’t that great. It left Chicago around 6pm and arrived in Paris in the morning. Since I couldn’t sleep on the flight, it made the first day pretty tough. To make it worse, I’d planned a full day at Versailles for our very first day.
Catching the train from CDG wasn’t too hard, and we transferred at St. Michel to the Versailles train. The train was fast and the trip uneventful. I think it cost around €15. We walked several blocks to find the tourist information building (there is an easy to find outfit that claims to be tourist info, good location I guess but it seemed a little scammy) and from there we got a map and our 6 day Paris Museum Passes then walked a few blocks further to our hotel. We stayed at Hotel du Jeu de Paume. It was nice and had all the amenities we needed.
View out the window of Hotel du Jeu de Paume
After dropping off our stuff, we headed to Versailles Palace. The palace is huge but the grounds are enormous! There were probably hundreds of fountains. The grounds were incredibly well manicured, but we were there too early in the year to really enjoy the gardens. The palace itself was richly decorated (of course)with lots of gold and intricate carvings. It was peek into history.
inside the gates at Versailles Palace
hall of mirrors
Fountains at Versailles
The following day we took the train back to Paris. We met with Adrien, the landlord, for the apartment we were renting for the week. It was a pretty nice place, though I couldn’t stand fully upright in the hallway unless I skirted the wall. Which was perfectly fine since we didn’t plan to spend a great deal of time there anyway. We found it on VRBO though Adrien has his own website for his properties as well. As soon as we could, we headed to Musee d’Orsay.
Musee d’Orsay is big. It was the Orsay Railway station, built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900. The Opera exhibit was fascinating, the impressionist works, and the clocks that face the Seine. We moved on to the Orangerie next. There, we saw Monet’s Water Lilies series. That was fantastic. The Musee de l’Orangerie has a ‘virtual visit’ on their website that allows you to view these paintings. They are truly fantastic.
Just outside, the Paris Marathon was taking place. We did some walking around and found a food cart on the street making Crepes. The Crepe was delicious, but to be honest, I think you could slather Nutella on newspaper and it would be tasty. We stopped by a small grocery store and then a Boulangerie (bakery) before heading back to the Tuileries Garden where we sat around a fountain and enjoyed a fresh baguette. The fountain was circled by chairs that I imagined were set out permanently for the people of Paris. It reminded me of El Jardin in San Miguel, where the park was really everyone’s living room. After our snack we rode the Ferris Wheel. It was really fantastic looking out over the city at night.
The next morning I got up fairly early (too early) and we followed a historic walking tour around Ile de la Cite and the left bank. We toured Notre Dame and Saint Chappelle before stopping at a Fromagerie (cheese shop). Notre Dame is a pretty incredible building. The gargoyles and flying buttresses are very imposing. Saint Chappelle probably has the most stained glass I’ve ever seen in a church. It was really beautiful, we were fortunate to have seen it on such a clear, sunny day. That afternoon we enjoyed a tour at Opera Garnier, the opera house that inspired Phantom of the Opera. Afterwards, we headed southwest and picked up a Seine river cruise, wandered down Rue Cler and gaped at the Eiffel Tower. That evening, Jenn enjoyed French Onion soup at a cafe near our apartment.
Notre Dame
Notre Dame
Joan of Arc
We slept in a little the next morning before following a self guided Marias walking tour. Along our route we visited the Picasso Museum. We also went to the Arc de Triomph, Eiffel Tower and the Pompidou center. When we stopped for lunch I had Steak Tartare and I found it rather exceptional. It is a seasoned ground steak served raw. It was delicious though very rich. We stopped at a Jewish bakery and a butcher shop and watched the butcher take a morning shipment of quarter cows.
The Louvre is much, much larger than I imagined. It is the largest museum in the world and by quite a margin, I think. It’s so big, you can’t hope to see much of what they have. We followed a Rick Steve’s walking tour of the Louvre from his app. It pointed out the brightest of the highlights with some history.
After the Louvre, we bought our train tickets to Amsterdam then headed to Montmartre for a food tour. Montmartre was beautiful and the food tour we took was outstanding. Per usual, we booked it through Viator. We had macarons, crepes, truffles, an eclair, a number of amazing cheeses and some cured meats. Well, and baguettes of course. (I bought fresh baguettes every day we were in France)
The following day we went to Veaux le Vicomte, Fontaineblue. It was another palace similar to Versaille. The palace itself was very nice but the grounds were fantastic. Since we had limited time we rented a golf cart to drive around the grounds. The golf cart was a blast! I don’t think it was supposed to be, but we found it a wonderful way to quickly enjoy a leisurely visit to the grounds of Veaux le Vicomte. The next day we took the train to Amsterdam.
