Paris 2026 Post #3. The best vacations have few solid plans.

Just wander and get lost in the city.

I heard kids could rent a remote controlled boat at the Jardin du Luxembourg and my kids saw there were pony rides there so off we went!

Granddaughter had to wear a hairnet under the nasty helmet, and then it rained on us as we proudly paraded around the park

well, they weren't remote control they were wind controlled and you got a stick to push it

a bunch of 3 years olds running around with sticks

Tangine!

We'd never stayed in this Bastille area before.  Near the Opera House

Had to visit the renovated Notre Dame, so we went early in the morning to avoid lines

A plus-had never been to Saint Chapelle and felt it was even more fascinating than Notre Dame!

After so many visits to Paris we finally visited the Palais de Justice, an old jail where revolutionary prisoners were held.  Learned so much history.   

Today, its a working court and we saw judges in full robes and court rooms in session

Had such fond memories of Bouillon Pharamond but it was so disappointing. Escargot owever are never disappointing.

Outside the Hotel de Ville

Great memories

We loved the apt!

Paris August 2026: Monet's Giverny

Day 2 

I ventured on the train to Monet's Giverny by myself because no one else was interested.  I loved it, Impressionism is my favorite genre.

I found a great blog that gave you step by step instructions on how to take the train, ticket to buy etc.

I had a 10am ticket and I rushed to the lily pond before it got crowded.  I didn't know waterlilies were in bloom in August/September so HOW LUCKY WAS I?  Imagine going and not knowing there's be no waterlilies?  

It rained but the clouds and gloomy feel of the day made beautiful reflections on the pond.  I toured Monet's house and the gardens and went back to the pond for a second round and it was much more crowded then.

The lady in the gift shop gave me the wrong time for the 20 minute bus ride back to the train station (weekday vs. weekend) and I had a 50 minute wait so walked back for a snack.  I met a man who said usually the train/shuttle bus was synced but because it was a weekend and lunchtime, schedules were off.  After waiting forever for the bus back, I had to wait an hour at the train station for the train back.  Luckily I had my book and will remember reading The Correspondent on this trip.  I mentioned to my Pilates class that I wanted to read this so badly but only in paperback on my trip.  A Pilates student went home to get it and returned with her paperback copy within one hour (HOW NICE WAS THAT?)

Son #2 found this restaurant right around the corner, known for Alsatian food. Bofinger.  Big pork knuckles and sauerkraut.  I walked there and asked for a reservation at 6:30 but they said it was fully booked, but come back at 6:30.  Good we got a table, bad we weren't a priority and had to wait a long time.  As I look back now, its a famous restaurant.

We always forget which oysters we like so to remember...we had the Oyster Tasting and liked the Gillardeau the best.

Look how big that pork knuckle is!

Our apt was near the Arc de Bastille and granddaughter enjoyed looking at the "fairy godmother" on top

It All Began With a Question

It all began with this question.

"Do you want to go to the South of France to babysit while we go to a wedding?"

What?

My daughter-in-law said "We were invited to a wedding in Narbonne France on Labor Day weekend.  Do you want to go with us to babysit and vacation"?

WHAAAAT?

Is that a rhetorical question?  Of course. 

YES!

So off we went.  Hubby, me, son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter, and son #2.

Narbonne France is a two hour train ride north of Barcelona on the Spanish Coast.  We decided to start in Paris then take a 4 and a half hour train ride west to Narbonne.  Were we crazy to travel with a three year old?  Yes, but it was the trip of a lifetime.  Memories made for Grandma and Grandpa that I'll smile about forever.

THE BONUS

Honey do you want to continue on to San Sebastian Spain, home of pintxos (tapas) & the Basque country?  No, I don't want to go there or be away from home so long.  Within 7 hours two tennis buddies booked their flights and agreed to meet me in Barcelona for an unforgettable girls week (week +).

PARIS

We stayed in a great apartment in the Marais area, with an extra surprise-taxi stand right outside which came in handy with all the luggage, car seat, stroller, wedding attire, etc.  Old fashioned walk up inside a courtyard with plenty of codes to confuse you.  One toilet in one WC, separate bathtub in separate room and one master bathroom + a beautiful old fashioned tub.

Bought wine as often as we could, vintages not found at home.  Note nice ceiling

We watched a Free Palestine protest from our window.  Note wood floors.

After shopping spree at Un Jeur Ailleurs, boutique for "mature women" I've found in Paris in the past.

 The key to having a wonderful vacation this time was not over-scheduling.  I'd been to Paris so many times no need to see the Eiffel Tower again whereas son #1 had never been.  The only thing on my agenda were a trip to Monet's Giverny and The Christian Dior House, both recommended by my friend Ruby.

Day 1

Dior House

Ruby said you don't have to like fashion to enjoy this and she was right! A history of Christian Dior and designers up to today's time.  So well done!  Whimsical, historical, dreamy, full glam.

We decided to separate, I was going to go shopping and hubby was going to go to the Arc de Triumph which was closed last time.  We walked past and since there was no line I decided to go to.  So happy I did!

There was a branch of Un Jour Ailleurs not far away so I continued on.  It poured rain but I had my silly purple poncho and walked in to the boutique sopping wet.  The sales lady wasn't too happy until she realized I was going to buy a lot (including a rain coat).  Filled out the duty free refund paperwork in vain as there was no customs office to validate when we left Spain 😡😡

What a great first day.  Since it was raining we got falafel across the street and had a picnic in our apartment with all the cheese and baguettes we bought.  Great to have an apartment.

Getaria is the Grilled Fish Capital of the World

Getaria Spain is the grilled fish capital of the world.  I was so excited to go there. Eva Longoria had a whole CNN Searching for Spain episode devoted to Getaria and the history of the fishing village.  There's a famous Michelin Star restaurant which I thought would be impossible to get in to, so we decided on Kaia-Kaipe, recommended by a friend & food blogs.  I thought it would be a small village with lots of restaurants but turns out there were only a handful and they were all booked.  How disappointing, especially after seeing/smelling all the grilled fish being grilled outside.

After being turned away at three restaurants we found one with a table!  We were so excited except the waitress said they didn't have sole today.  Boo.

We ordered turbot, and the table next to us had just taken the last fish.  Booooo.  After a disappointing John Dory in Barcelona, I decided I didn't want a chewy meaty fish so I tried the local baby calamari which was just ok.

Lynda's grilled fish was very good.

Mary gets good at up & down pouring technique for Txokolina.

We had to have another Gilda!

Had to try the mushrooms with raw egg to stir in

As we walked back to the car we saw the chef grilling some more fish and when I asked what that was he said turbot.  "Oh they said you were out of it" I said to which he replied "No English".

I'm Back and Better than Ever

 Hi Friends,

Many of you may know I've been frustrated that Feedburner, the service that automatically emailed you posts was discontinued.  I looked up and down, asked everyone I know, even asked if I could pay a college student or "under 30" to help me figure this out.  But alas-no helpers.

Then I realized AI could help.  A friend has encouraged me to use Perplexity and ChatGPT and Claude for writing.  My gut reaction was NO, I'm trying to learn the craft of writing-not to use tools to write for you.  The truth is AI has been very helpful in historical facts about ships coming from Hong Kong to San Francisco in the early 1900s or conditions in immigration detention centers upon arrival.  I've used AI to understand what clothes people wore on Mott Street in the 1930s and how long it took to get from SF to NYC by train back then.

I asked both ChatGPT and CoPilot to suggest alternatives to Feedburner as an automatic email post distribution service and the suggestions were obvious:  Mailchimp, Constant Contact, all companies you've heard of.  I settled on follow.it because it is free.  Perplexity had step by step instructions which I followed and started feeling great.  Could it be this easy?  Gee I could have done this months ago if not last year.  Then I got stuck--couldn't import my followers (for the record there are 70 of you 😉).  After an hour of frustration and anger (I get that from my Dad), I submitted a ticket to their help desk and they told me what I did wrong and fixed it for me.  How nice.

Then the funny part came.  You had to verify that these were real email addresses who really wanted to receive this blog, and provide screenshots of traffic to the blog.  Since I haven't written in awhile, there were only 3 viewers month-to-date.  After sending them various screenshots I realized I should have sent Google analytics screenshots of a month with popular posts and lots of traffic.  What if they denied me for too few viewers and I went through all that for nothing.  Nevertheless they imported all confirmed email addresses and here I am.

I'm writing more in my third Adult writing class-Memoir 2 so expect to hear more from me.  So far the name of my book is "Grandmothers and Granddaughters:  May Quan Tsang My Grandmother's Journey".  I'm sure I'll change the title many times before you see the book.  

I've been busy writing and helping a Swiss colleague whose baby has a rare disease asparagine synthetase deficiency (ASNSD).  Please attend and donate, share if you can.  Links below.

Link to register:

Pilates Party Oct 27 registration

Link to donate:

Baby Erik's Go Fund Me

I've missed you.  See you soon,

Julie

I Swam with a Turtle in Christmas Day

A bit late but wanted to share our Christmas Adventure with you.

My Christmas gift from the universe was swimming with a turtle for almost 3 minutes on Christmas Day.

We went as a family to the Cayman Islands for Christmas.

Hotel:  Casa Caribe Condos

The hotel has its own beach and even a reef where you can snorkel. They gave you a detailed map on how to find the reef and it was very far out, so proud of myself for swimming all the way out there on day two. Weren’t much fish, the fish I saw were really neat, but there were not that many. I was just so happy that I made it all the way out there. On the last day.

The hotel said in order to find the reef you have to look for the dark parts, more or less you could see the reefs by marking those. I swam out to the dark part right where we were at the beach and that’s when I saw it! The turtle. It was a little less than a foot wide long And after I followed it for about 30 seconds, I realized it only had three legs. I wondered what happened to the fourth leg.

Often had the beach to ourselves

Our balcony was right on the beach

We stayed at a three bedroom condo so we could relax, spread out and enjoy being right on the beach. The highlight was going to Stingray City. I don’t particularly like stingrays, but we got to swim with them and feed them. It was a really rough day and the baby had to go back to the boat. The stingrays startle you by swimming right against your legs and I squealed with laughter and delight.

Didn't get a lot of Stingray City pix.  Crazy choppy, loved the stingrays

Stingray City

The other highlight was the Bioluminescence tour. Over an hour away from Seven Mile Beach but well worth it. Was nerve-racking driving on the left-hand side of the road with all the roundabouts, but we got there in time for dinner before the big boat. It’s a special two Decker boat where you sit down and put your legs through an open hole on the bottom floor. We got out to the bay and were able to move our legs around and see the bioluminescence organisms come to life around our hands and feet. We got a quickie lesson in constellations and enjoyed seeing so many of them  

This is my hand in the bioluminescence water

The FOOD

One of our best dinners was at Tillies.  We had this beautiful butterflied fish.  

Snapper so memorable

Q: What's the soup of the day?  A: Here's a coke!

We got takeout from Heritage Kitchen two times.  Heritage Kitchen

We enjoyed trying the local conch fritters

View from our balcony.  Brought our own wine to save money

The best part was being with my family. A Christmas we will never forget.

Christmas dinner at Tukka.  Got us ready for Australia

This says it all