Back to Paris!

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Hello!

NOTE:  The wifi in our hotel was out last night, so I wasn't able to post.  I am posting now, first without photos, just to get it done.  If I can't get the photos to load, I will resend when we get home!

m

Well, we made it back to Paris on schedule, but our hotel is having WiFi problems, so no posting possible tonight!  Bummer!

So … from dinner last night at Les Lazaristes. 

My John Dory

One of R's desserts!

R's dinner

Neither of us was really all that hungry after our dessert assortment, but R wanted to go to the restaurant, so we went about 8 pm – and had the place to ourselves. 

R's Happy Birthday Cake!

Our favorite waiter – she had waited on us our first night at the hotel, three weeks ago! – was back, and she really is a cute gal.  She kept bringing us treats from the kitchen – truffle butter (which was great!), cheese in herbs, etc.  Very fun!  We neither of us needed a starter, but for our main courses, R chose the steak with potatoes, carrots and fennel.  I chose a fish entrée called St. Pierre which turned out to be John Dory, and was delicious!  It came with some beets and mashed potatoes.  [How is this for role reversal?  I ordered steak and Margaret ordered fish!!! – R]  For dessert, R ordered a glass of Cognac, and I ordered ice cream – but to continue R’s birthday celebration, we also got a very interesting little Turkish cake with Happy Birthday (or so we were told) written on it.  Great fun.

Then back upstairs, and I was in bed by about 11 pm as we had set the alarm clock for 5 am.  Unfortunately, we wanted to get to the airport as early as possible, so we missed the wonderful hotel breakfast.  Oh well!  Up at 5 and ready to leave by 6 am.  We were meeting the car guy at their office at 7:30 am, and we wanted to make sure that all was well on the way there.

Great vegetable soup!

Back at l'Ecluse

Very tiny tables...

Of course we were very early – we got to their locked gate about 6:45 am but we were able to read our e-books on our smart phones and on the Kindle (the wonders of technology!).  The guy pulled in about 7:25 am, inspected the car and said that all was well, then loaded us on their shuttle bus, and off we went.  We were actually the second people in line for check-in, but really were first because the lady who was there earlier than we had a super huge suitcase that was terribly over weight, and she hadn’t paid anything at all.  She was sent to another location to handle that problem.  

So, checked in and then through security, which was fine, and finally to the gate.  Ryan Air’s priority boarding is really slick – we were the first folks on the bus to the plane, and then the first ones on the plane.  Three hour flight.  It was a bit bumpy, especially going over the mountains, but at one point, it looked like we were flying over ONLY mountains – huge peaks all covered in snow – it looked like a thousand meringues out the window!  [These turned out to be the Austrian Alps.]  The flight was probably about half full, so it was pleasant except for the rocky bits.

A very wet Paris street scene

Chinese New Year Prep?

Finally, about noon, we landed in Beauvais – and they opened the door in a truly torrential downpour, coupled with very strong winds.  I’m not sure when I’ve seen rain this heavy before, but possibly in Norway some years ago.  Problem was, you had to first walk down the stairway from the plane, and then cross the tarmac to the terminal door – no jetways at Beauvais!  By the time I got to the door, my pants were absolutely soaking wet below my coat – which was most of my pants!  And I HATE being in wet clothes!! 

Robert waited for the luggage, while I went to find the Ryan Air ticket seller, but before I did that, there was a booth with a gal and it turned out to be Super Shuttle!  Same blue as in the U.S. and everything!  And, the really good part, they would deliver us to our hotel!  Definitely a good deal -- €60 for the two of us.  (If we had taken the Ryan Air shuttle, it would have been €34 to get us to Porte Maillot, and then we would still have had to pay for a cab across town!  And we’d have been all wet!!)  

There were three other people – a family with son, who joined us on the ride in.  They got dropped off first.  Truly, the driver did a really remarkable job, because the traffic was terrible because of the rain.  It probably took us close to two hours to reach Paris and the Hotel Elysa Luxembourg.  The hotel is in the exact spot we want to be in – right across the street, actually, from Graciela’s flat that we’ve stayed in multiple times before.  Our room, 505, is on the 5^th floor (obviously) and has a lovely patio running the length of the room which looks out over the Luxembourg Gardens AND has a tremendous view of the Eiffel Tower!  Wow!  Even in the rain, it looks wonderful!

What better way to end a Paris trip?

View from our balcony!!

As we hadn’t really had much to eat, we decided that the first priority was to get food.  However, we did open our suitcases – which were soaking wet on the outside (they got wet during the short trip from the plane to the terminal), only to find that water had actually gotten inside (zippers are not waterproof!), and we had some pretty wet clothes!  We’ve never, ever had that happen before.  The rain was actually horizontal at times.  The other bad thing was that I generally put papers we pick up and items like that in the outside pockets … which – you guessed it!  Were wet too!  UGH!  Also, R tried to get into the hotel’s internet, but no luck.  He thinks it is rain related…

As we had already shipped back our Paris bus map, we headed around the corner to the Luxembourg RER station to get another one.  I had hoped to take R to a restaurant I found a year or so ago, but as it was still raining so hard, we decided to stick with the familiar and the easy to get to.  One bus – the 84 – would take us directly from Luxembourg to the Madeleine, so yes, we returned to l’Ecluse yet again.  At least we knew they’d be open and the food would be good!

Back to “our” table, and as it turned out, we had almost completely matching meals!  We started with big bowls of vegetable soup with bread (great for a rainy day!).  Then, we both had their steaks – served rare – with a ramekin of wonderful mashed potatoes and a mache salad with mustard vinaigrette.  YUM!  For dessert, I had an apple pastry (not so great) and R had a glass of Armagnac, all washed down with a lovely bottle of Pommerol.  Very, very nice dinner.  It was interesting, because l’Ecluse has a back all-glassed in atrium, and the pounding of the rain on the glass was just tremendous!  

Finally abated somewhat by the time we were ready to leave.  Walked down the street a short distance and caught the 84 back to Luxembourg and then back to the hotel.  Unfortunately, the WiFi and internet still isn’t working.  Really a bummer, as I wanted to get this posted tonight.  I’ll have to wait until we either get to Washington DC tomorrow, or all the way home to post!  And we had some great shots of the Eiffel Tower, which I will, of course include!

So, for the moment, and looking forward to our l-o-n-g flying day tomorrow, I’ll say, that’s it for now!

Much love,

m

xxx