Off to France

The flight over was pretty uneventful – we had upgraded Carol and I to Economy Plus – which is still coach, but at least has more legroom. We all slept a few hours, but not the whole flight. When I stepped foot in France, it was for the first time since 1984. Carol was in France in 2007 with the cooking ladies, but they only spent 24 hours in Paris – the rest of the time was in Provence.

The passport wait was non-existent, so we breezed right in. Julia is studying at Oxford, so she won’t be joining us for the first week. She’ll miss Paris – although she did come for a long weekend two weeks or so ago, and she’ll miss most of Normandy.

The trip to the hotel was also uneventful – the driver spoke English but was not very talkative. We got to the Hotel – the Esprit St. Germain on the Left Bank early on Sunday morning. As expected, it was too early for our rooms to be ready, so they directed us to the tiny workout room area, where we cleaned up, changed, and headed out.

We grabbed an excellent breakfast at a café on Rue St. Germain – great croissants, bread, fluffy eggs. We then headed to the RER station to catch the train to Versailles. Which is easier said than done, since the area we went to – on advice of the hotel staff – was closed and under reconstruction since June till the end of August.

However, there is a free shuttle bus from near Notre Dame to the next open station – Invalides. So, after catching the bus along Seine and seeing the Louvre and other famous sights, we caught the train out to Versailles.