Full Italy Mode

The Italy trip starts two months from today. Time to get serious about learning some rudimentary Italian at least. I can't believe how fast four months turned into two. France was almost a whole month ago.

I've been told that we'll be pretty much on our own in Florence. I'm very excited about Florence for some reason. Just looks like an awesome city. Gotta do some research and figure out what I want to see. They have a Shoe Museum and I bet my sister would like seeing that. We may have to make a trip. :)

Knowledge in Practice

I got to put my fam trip knowledge into practice today... someone called wanting to book a hotel in the La Défense region of Paris! I looked up both the hotels I stayed in there, wanting to recommend them, but they were too pricey. I ended up going with another hotel from the same group (Accor) but cheaper. And I got to describe the La Défense area to her ("a little quirky, but definitely interesting") and where it was and stuff. Told her I just got back from a trip there in the last two weeks. I felt SO cool. :)

Post Trip Research

I was curious what those ruins in Lyon were of, so I did a bit of digging: Turns out they are the remains of the city when it was called Lugdunum, and it was the capital of the Gaul Empire 2,000 years ago. That amphitheatre that you see in my pictures is actually the oldest still in use in France. Pretty cool.

I found this recently-published article about Lyon and realized there is much more to experience there. I didn't see a single traboule (a medieval covered walkway designed to keep silk merchants sheltered from the elements) that Lyon is so famous for. I wasn't able to really appreciate the fact that it is regarded as the gastronomic capital of France, being sick. And of course that church on Fourvière hill... sigh. It's a bummer to have been to such a fascinating city and then realize what you missed when you get back. Two days wasn't nearly enough time to discover all that city has to offer. Well, neither was it sufficient time to discover Paris, either. I will just have to make a return visit sometime.

Day 4: Lyon

We checked out of the Hotel Royal and they told me it would be a quick ride to our next hotel, the Sofitel Lyon. So we loaded all our stuff onto the bus and I thought we were going to head right over. Turned out to not be the case. The driver took us all the way out in the 'burbs for our first hotel inspection of the day. On the way, one girl showed me pictures from their tour of Vieux Lyon (Old Lyon) that they took while I was sick in bed. They got to go in the beautiful church. I cried. No, I really did.

So then I just started snapping pictures of ANYTHING, because I figured the bus rides to and from hotel inspections were the only "tours" I was going to get.

Colorful houses and a church along the Rhône river


A sidestreet with a neat arch-thing over it


A cool clock-tower thing in a roundabout


The Rhône river


McDonalds


A Ford dealership (where French people buy their imports)


A common Lyonnaise 'burbian house

So we finally got to our hotel site, the Lyon Charbonniéres. Had a gorgeous lunch here. Too bad my appetite hadn't fully recovered from being sick yet. I'm just gonna post a picture of dessert. This was the ultimate in creamy delicious caramel custard YUM.


Our next hotel inspection was back in town at the Hotel Carlton, a charming old-style hotel with an antiquated elevator and cool tapestry-like room decor:


Finally, our last hotel inspection of the whole trip was the Grand Hôtel Mercure Château Perrache. I'll just say they sure do know how to make their guests feel welcome.

Yes, please.

So we were finally done. We actually had about two hours to spare with our bus driver, so one half of the group opted to go shopping at Printemps (a chic department store) while the other half (of which I was a part) opted to go see the Roman ruins. They had driven by the ruins as part of the bus tour of Vieux Lyon the day before, but didn't have a chance to get out and walk around. So I went to the ruins to at least see a part of Vieux Lyon. I'm not exactly sure what these are ruins OF... just that they were Roman and were about 2,000 years old.








We didn't get a chance to make it over to Notre Dame de Fourvière from here, so it eluded me once again.

Took this view overlooking Lyon from the ruins:


As we drove away I took this parting shot of Fourvière:


We picked up the rest of the group from Printemps. Here are some additional city views:





The French have a thing for carousels.

We finally checked into the Sofitel Lyon and they told us we were on our own for dinner that night. So some of the other girls and I headed off to a restaurant to order our own meal. I got crab. They serve it cold over there. It was interesting. Had some yummy desserts as well too.

I'm gonna pick on this guy... he was one of our waiters and he wanted to come back to the US with us. I got a pic of him posing with a lobster.


And here is our lovely hotel at the end of the day.


Alright, that's it for pictures! Hope you enjoyed them!

Day 3: Lyon

Or rather, the day I got sick. So this will be a shorter post.

We started out with a 8am train ride from Paris to Lyon. I got to see some of the French countryside.


Upon arriving in Lyon, I immediately fell in love with this gorgeous palace-like church that sits atop a hill overlooking Lyon. It is called Notre Dame de Fourvière.

That structure to the right of the church is not an Eiffel Tower replica; it's just a communications tower.

I guess we happened to arrive the day the carnival was in town. Either that or they put up the Ferris Wheel every Sunday...

The next day they were taking it down.

We were taken to our hotel for that night, the Hotel Royal. The original plan was to stay at the Sofitel Lyon both nights in Lyon, but they changed plans and checked us into this hotel for the night. And I'm glad we did because it was a very charming hotel. We did a site inspection of this hotel and saw some cool views from the rooms:


Some rooms had quaint balconies like this one:


All the rooms in the hotel were either blue or red, and some had two beds and some had king beds. I remember hoping for a blue king bed. :) After that inspection, we were bussed to the Novotel Lyon Bron further out in the suburbs. We did another inspection and had lunch here. During all this I was becoming increasingly aware that I was not feeling good. My head was cloudy and I felt like I was walking around in a dizzy half-daze. I was coughing painfully as well. One of the other girls noticed I wasn't looking well and asked me if I wanted to go back to the hotel. I nodded yes and she arranged to have the driver take them all to their next hotel inspection and then drop me back off at the Hotel Royal, where I checked in and took refuge in my blue, king-bed room:

I spent most of the rest of the day in this bed. At least it was comfortable!!

Since this room was so important to the rest of my day, here it is from a different view:


I'm not sure what I had... respiratory infection or the start of just a really bad cold. Maybe my body was rebelling against the extremely busy itinerary going on jet lag and not a lot of sleep. I had barely slept at all the previous night at the Sofitel Grande Arche. Whatever. I was drained, weak, and could not stop coughing. One of the group came over later with a bucket of ice and a Diet Coke and some water, and I hardly had any voice to talk to him with. And while they were all at a lovely dinner at the Sofitel Lyon, I ordered room service and got "foie gras du canard," which ended up being some pasty stuff in a tub that smelled like, well, dog poo. No wonder that stuff is banned in Chicago... Anyways then I took a bubble bath and headed to bed, hoping to feel better the next day.

Day 2: Paris

Day 2 began with us heading out across La Défense toward the RER station, so I got lots of shots of the area.

This is the Grande Arche, the most prominent landmark in La Défense. It lines up with the Arc de Triomphe if you look directly ahead of it.


A very colorful fountain in front of the Grande Arche.


Another example of La Défense's interesting architecture.

Anyways we set off for some of our hotel inspections, the first being the Dorint (soon to be Novotel) at the Charles de Gaulle airport. They had a lovely tropical lobby:

We had breakfast served to us here, where we found American staples like eggs and pancakes and sausage and bacon.

Actually, now that I remember, it took us FOREVER to get to this hotel because we used a shuttle from the airport to get there, and it took us forever to find the shuttle pick-up area. CDG is a total mess. Anyways. So when we finished with this hotel where we were served breakfast, it was time to head to the hotel that was serving us lunch. This was BACK at La Défense at the Sofitel Grande Arche.

(Click the link for the hotel and then look at my picture. Do you think they edited out that building behind it??? I do.)

We checked into this hotel for the night, and did the hotel inspection. (Our guide was certainly well-liked by the ladies of our group! He was a cutie from Canada, so he spoke perfect English. I was too shy to get a picture of him though.) :)

After the inspection and a quick lunch, we had some free time. We had planned to take our river cruise of the Seine, then maybe check out some sights like the Eiffel Tower and/or Notre Dame. However all we ended up doing was the river cruise, because after some navigational mishaps it took us TWO HOURS to find the correct boat dock. So we missed out on all that time.

On the way, I got this cool shot of the Eiffel Tower.


The river cruise was not so bad though. Here are some highlights:

The Seine, with riverboats much like the one we were on


The Louvre


Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge in Paris (never mind its name means "New Bridge")


Notre Dame


This is supposedly the most romantic bridge in Paris. I don't see it. I saw umpteen-hundred bridges on this cruise and this one didn't particularly stand out as special. Oh well, they told us to make a wish going underneath it and I did anyway. As much as I try to deny it, I *am* a hopeless romantic after all.


A cool castle-looking thing (Does anyone know what this is??)

Our cruise finished at the Eiffel Tower, and here are some shots I took:

This one is as the boat was docking...


This one is after we got off the boat and the sun was going down, and the lights came on. :)

That night we had dinner reservations at a restaurant near the Louvre called Palais Royal. On the way I got to take a pic of the Louvre pyramid (sorry for the blurriness, but when I turn off my flash, this usually results):


The restaurant was in a cool neighborhood, full of columns and archways like this:


And after yet another fabulous French meal and a good time, we headed back to the Sofitel Grande Arche which was all lit up for us (and the colors changed on it). It's the short middle building (well, shortER, I should say...)


And that concludes Day 2! Whew! Stay tuned for the pictures from Lyon!

Day 1: Paris

The adventure started bright and early at 8:15 a.m. on February 22, when I left my cozy little apartment for the airport. We flew United into Chicago, where we got to hang out in the prestigious Air France lounge waiting to board our flight, which we had business class seats on. I had never flown business class before. And the meals... This is the first course of the meal we had on that flight, smoked duck and asparagus:

It tasted just like smoked ham.

I didn't sleep at all on the flight. I just don't do well with sleeping on planes. Or anywhere besides my bed, for that matter. Anyways. Once arriving in Paris, we got an executive car shuttle to our hotel in the business district of Paris known as La Défense. It's on the west side of the city across the Seine. We stayed in luxury Sofitel hotels throughout the trip. The first was the Sofitel La Défense Centre. Click the link and then check out my picture below:

What do you think, do they match?? :)

And here was my hotel room, with the luxurious Sofitel MyBed:


Here is the view out the window:

La Défense was FULL of interesting buildings and structures like this one.

Our first hotel inspection was, of course, at this hotel. They served us an enormous lunch (or at least it seemed to us to be enormous because the courses just kept coming).

Then we set out on the city. I got my first look at the Eiffel Tower:

Doesn't look like much here, but I got better pictures later.

We also happened upon the Paris Opera House:


And of course did lots of riding around on the Metro.


We then did hotel inspections at the Hotel Scribe (that picture in the link is of the lower level of the trés chic 2-level loft they offer) and the Hotel Sofitel Le Faubourg with this gorgeous lobby:

(which you can also see by clicking the link... another match?) :)

We then set out to shop on the Champs Elysées for a couple hours.


Our last hotel inspection of the day and our dinner were hosted at the Sofitel Arc de Triomphe:


Which, of course, is near the Arc de Triomphe (sorry for the dark picture!).


After ANOTHER fabulous several-course meal, hosted by our perky hotel guide who taught us the proper French way to eat croissants and that real Parisians never butter their bread, and that accidents in the roundabout around the Arc de Triomphe are always 50/50% fault, we concluded our day and headed back to our wonderful beds at the Sofitel La Défense Centre for some much needed sleep. More to follow...