Intuitive fred888: 2009 in Paris

We were staying in Saint Germain en laye I think it is called which is a more historical area in Paris nearer to the Eiffel Tower and the Seine. The Seine is within Walking distance and because of Jet lag we woke up one morning at dawn and cross the River Seine and there was a bridge where people had put locks with their names on it to sanctify their relationships or marriages. There were hundreds of these Padlocks locked to the bridge there then in 2009 when my two biological Daughters and my wife and I were there.

Before we left I was upset we were going to Paris because I couldn't imagine being happy there because I'm such an out of doors person. However, I was wrong. I was having a really great time from the morning we walked across the Seine River on with my two daughters and my wife. My favorite part of the trip to Paris was actually Versailles which i believe gave Walt Disney the idea for the first Disneyland in Anaheim California before he built the other ones around the world.

Versailles was built obviously to be a playground for adults and for courtesans in the 1700s or before. I think possibly Louis the XIV and XV and XVI all who were french kings built it around that time before the French Revolution which was the last King in France with Louis XVI.

We also visited the Eiffel Tower and the Moulin Rouge which means Red Mill if translated into English where the entertainment was extreme in all ways but pretty entertaining. The girls were amazed because even my then 13 or 14 year old daughter was given a glass of Champagne which was more acceptable there than here in public.

Eventually we took the TGV which is what they call their bullet train to Nice, France where you travel between 100 and 200 miles per hour on a train. I had never done this before so the whine of the electric mag Lev motors which lifts the train off the track to end friction electromagnetically was interesting. It felt a lot like being on a passenger jet plane that was taking off at that speed but never leaving the runway. Also, if you didn't want to get nauseated by looking outside at that speed you had to look far into the distance so you didn't want to throw up at that speed.

IN Nice, we went also to Monte Carlo and we rented a Mercedes in Nice to go visit Monte Carlo which is within easy driving distance from Nice. In Nice we stayed at the Roosevelt Hotel which I believe is named after Franklin Delano Roosevelt our president during World War II in his honor there.

The Cote D'azur means something like blue sea or blue ocean and they are right it is an azure blue color. Nice is on the ocean and so is Monte Carlo. I had never seen so many private jets as at Nice Airport or so many really expensive yachts like I saw at Monte Carlo before. I think it's better to call this area Monaco I think after looking at a map. Port Hercule is where all the expensive yachts were tied up I believe. There were also Rolls Royce and Ferrari and even a Lamborghini car dealerships right there in Monaco too so it was definitely where the rich and famous played together there from all over the world.

One of the stranger things that happened there is that we were driving back to our hotel in Nice late Friday night with the 4 of us and there were really drunk motorcyclists in front of us. One of the guys was so drunk he kept sliding back from the stop light and banging into our bumper. My 13 year old said, "You should get out and reprimand that guy, Dad!"

I said, "I don't even own this car, Dear. And one of the things you don't do is to confront a really drunk motorcyclist because they might be dead soon anyway."

That was one of the more embarrassing things for me in Paris. I took two years of French in High School and learned to speak Parisian French without an Accent. However, this was 1963 to 1965 and we were there in 2009. So, though it's true I could speak Parisian French without an Accent still because it was an audio Lingual course of study from tapes of actual Parisian Speakers I couldn't understand what they were saying because of the speed that they were talking. So, this was embarrassing for me and finally my wife led with her excellent Spanish as a 2nd language. So, she was the one to communicate the best.

Also, the French are not Tolerant of People who don't speak or understand their language well. they prefer you use another language like English or Spanish or even Italian or German if you cannot speak French right.

This is where we stayed in 2009 in Saint Germain En Lay I believe then. I don't know if it is still there or if anything has changed. but, I do know it is a very convenient place with easy transportation through various means to things like the Eiffel tower and the Louvre and the Seine and we caught a bus near the Gold STatue of Joan of Arc (Jean D'Arc) there nearer to the Louvre to Versailles. Since there is almost nowhere to park in these sections of the City it isn't very useful to rent a car for this area of Paris. Also, the streets are mostly narrow because this is a more historic area.

begin quote regarding Hotel we stayed in which was okay then in 2009 to stay at. At that time you could also eat there as well, especially breakfast.

I'm not sure what is going on with this site but when I clicked on it it brought up English Hotels or something instead of the Hotel De Suede. not sure what this means?

I was able to bring this forward for you from Expedia with pictures of Hotel De Suede Saint Germain, however. As you can see the Hotel is rated pretty high by guests from all over. reminded me of staying at a Best Western or Holiday Inn in the U.S. only with really good French food. The best part is how close it is to everything historical that you might want to see there in Paris.