We are back from our two weeks France vacation and I still feel zat I am speeeking wiz a French accent. This vacation I was able to detach completely from everyday life, especially from work (I even forgot how to log on at work). France took my breath away. But first the story about Paris. So much has been written and said and sang about Paris, it seems it can never be enough. First off, I was back the first time after 15 years. Much has changed, most of it not for the better. Sure it still exerts magical attraction for those who see it the first time, I was able to observe that with my almost teen daughter. But for me it has lost some of its luster, and most of its magic. I still enjoyed Paris, very much so, for my daughter and I it will always be our special girly trip. In fact Paris is very girly, so if you are not into shopping and macaroons, history and art, or cheese and salads, don’t even bother, there is nothing there for you, so go to London or New York instead.

The good:

• The croissants are still as fluffy and tasty as ever, we don’t have croissants like that in Vienna. You can add the baguettes, the fruit, the salads, the chevre, the macaroons and tartes to this list.
• The shopping is great, especially if you catch le soldes at the end of July. Didn’t have as much time for it as I would like but I loved everything I saw. There is a distinctive charm about Parisian fashion, even when the ugliest trends are emphasised somewhere else (i.e. the 80s). It is classic, simple, elegant, the art of understatement. I could not get enough of watching French women in the Metro, or on the street, such good taste almost everywhere you look. Women of all ages are just beautiful in France, a beauty that goes beyond trends and the mediatisation of beauty standards. Maybe it has something to do with how they feel about themselves and what and how they eat. They also give you the impression that they are living for themselves mostly, not to impress others.
• The streets hide treasures, everything from history, to architecture, to gourmet pleasures to old book stores and much much more. One of my favorite things to do in a city like Paris is to just roam the old streets, not looking at a map, just following my nose. I always discover wonderful treasures this way.
• Architecture, especially old churches is a feast for the eye in Paris. Add to that the jardins that successfully combine nature with human art and you will always discover new angles, new views.
• The cafes are a must have experience in Paris. Whenever you need a break just sit down and have coffee watching the city life flow by. We had breakfast each day at the Coquelicot in Montmartre. Sitting outside with our grande bol of cafe au lait we watched tourists, elegant French ladies holding their baguettes delicately like ballerinas, families with strollers, older gentlemen with newspapers, young couples and many more walk by and felt a bit like we were part of the local scene (Japanese tourists took pictures of us). Aside from that the baguette, brioche and croissants were amazing, the tartes to die for and the service like a ray of sunshine in the otherwise quite unfriendly Parisian gastronomy.
• The best burger I had since my last visit in the US is strange to mention on my best of Paris list, but I just have to. Breakfast in America was the cheapest and most satisfying dinner we had in Paris, with the risk of sounding like the typical American stereotype. I love French food, I really do, but sometimes you need a good burger, and we don’t really have that in Austria, not to mention cheesy fries. So I stand by my choice of eating a burger in Paris, and if I went back, I would do it again.
• Museums, culture and the arts surround you. There is something for everyone here. Sure everyone has heard of the Louvre. I prefer the Musee d’Orsay, much better organized for the overwhelmed senses of the weary traveller. This time I visited the Marmottan, a bit further away from the heart of the city, but well worth the trip, if you like Monet. Fairly free of the usual masses that you encounter everywhere else from the Notre Dame to Versailles, this little museum is housed in a beautiful old villa, every charming room you enter will set the scene for the paintings you are about to enjoy.
• Doing some research via Paris expat blogs was certainly worth every minute of it. Otherwise I would have not found L’As du Fallafel while walking around le Marais, which by the way is terribly chic. Or I wouldn’t have bought the perfect perfume at Marie Antoinette. So thank you French blogs for sharing all that good stuff! As a tourist, following the masses from one landmark to another I would have never stumbled upon them. And thanks to my own dear sister who sent me to Natier Chocolatier to get some goodies, hidden away in Montmartre as it has always been.

The bad:

• Our hotel is definitely at the top of the bad list. A long time ago it was wonderful staying in Montmartre. Our whole family stayed there at different times, in this small charming hotel called Utrillo. Since Utrillo is gone, I chose another small hotel on the same street thinking, based on its website, that it would be just as charming. It turned out to be dingy and lacking basic comfort. And on top of it, it is not a quiet street anymore. So this was our last stay in Montmartre, ever.
• Everything was overpriced. There is really no diplomatic way to put this. It is certainly lovely strolling through the streets of Paris, eating a macaroon or two, stopping for a drink and coffee, buying jewelry and scarfs and feeling très chic in the process, but let’s face it, it all adds up. At least those things you can justify, you’ll have wonderful memories and they are worth it. But one thing that you can’t justify is dinner in Paris. We did have a couple of nice dinners at Chez Plumeau, and as wonderful as the staff and the setting was, we couldn’t help feeling somewhat robbed. Personally I think that dinner is allowed to cost that much when served on a sliver platter and I expect something far more exotic than pork or salad. Now don’t get me wrong, it was one of the best salads I had, but do you really wanna pay over 20 dollars for a salad? Sure you can find dinner for less, but then it’s still expensive and you get something that resembles fast food, in the content and the service. If I could do it all again I would choose to have lunch instead of dinner, at select bistros, then I would maybe feel like the menus are worth the price. The only trouble is that you are so busy with sightseeing and shopping during the day that you don’t have time to sit for a nice long lunch. The French do it, we should learn from them, would be healthier too, and may partly explain why the French women are so thin.
• Finally, I have to put the Metro on my bad list. I hesitated because it really is a very useful method of transportation, but it is so exhausting. It is loud, hot in summer and crowded. Our Vienna subway is a luxury limo compared to it, I swear I’ll never say a bad word about it. However, if you would try to put all of Austria on the Vienna subway, I am sure you’d have a similar effect. Actually that was my main problem with Paris: overcrowding. That city is way too small for 11 million people, we don’t even have that many people in Austria. It made me really happy to come home, where I have enough private space.

Overall the trip was worth it. I could have done more to not be sucked into the tourist black hole, but you don’t have much choice when you visit some of the important landmarks. I am still bitter about the hotel and frustrated that I can’t do much about it other than give them a bad review. In time though all good memories of lovely churches, tiny streets, charming boutiques, amazing salads and cheeses, macaroons, tartes and croissants will be the only ones left, and then who knows, I’ll be back in Paris to experience it all over again…

Two more weeks and then we’ll be in Paris! Finally, after 15 years we get to go back. Last time I was in France was before the Euro, before the internet, before there were no more borders, and when you could get a complete Menu for little over $10. I am not sure how a student would afford Paris today (not that I am one), so I have been googleing to see what I can find. Thanks to many insider blogs I have put together a fine collection of restaurants, spread out through the twenty arrondisments. And through the wonder of google maps I can share that with you. Now all we have to do is get a French data SIM card and we won’t need any fancy guides or maps.

View Paris in a larger map.

The secret of a good vacation is really quite simple: plan ahead but leave room for spontaneity. We will be in Paris for 5 days, so we roughly know what we’d like to cover in those days. But the days themselves are interchangeable, meaning we can swap day 1 with day 3 and so forth. We are not planning to see many museums, it’s just a personal choice, neither are we interested in waiting two hours to get to the top of the Eiffel tower. We just want to take in Paris as it is, an actual city, not a collection of sightseeing spots, and even though we’ll be strangers forever, maybe we can still drink in some of the magic. After that we are off to Nice on the Côte d’Azur where we have booked a lovely appartment in the old town, on top of a hill. From there we plan to visit Saint Tropez, Monaco and Cannes and just hit the beaches wherever and whenever we feel like it. I shall have lots of stories when I get back. Ceci dit, on y va?

It seems like months since I’ve tasted the last heat of summer…well, whadoyaknow it’s been months. Now that the weather has turned cold and wet here in Vienna, my thoughts are going back to the wonderful adventures of this past summer.

It has been our first full summer vacation here in Austria, we took a whole three weeks just to spend in our surroundings so to speak. One week was for laziness by the sea, in Bibione, where we have been before. The other two were for exploring South Tirol and Austria. This story is about South Tirol. Now I know that “on paper” South Tirol belongs to Italy, but trust me, there is nothing Italian about it, not like noisy/pasta/garlic/ciao bella Italy. As Reinhold Messner once put it, probably the most famous South Tirolean of our times: “I am neither Italian, nor Austrian, nor Tirolean, I AM South Tirolean”.

South Tirol (Südtirol) is just about as big as a third of the state of New Jersey. Its history is turbulent, as you would expect of such a geographic location, at crossroads between ancient great empires. Thus, it is amazing how these people resisted and maintained their cultural identity, so much squeezed between Austria, Germany and Italy. I enjoyed talking to the locals while I was there (they prefer German, if you speak Italian they stiffen up) and found out that they are not very different from my own ancestors. I suppose mountain folk are alike everywhere: rough on the outside, honest, and willing to offer hospitality to whoever has made it to their cabin. I especially loved this one little old lady who was running a local restaurant at a hut on top of a mountain (we drove up the hills till there was no more road to drive on). After she fed us (best home made Austrian food I’ve had), learned where we were from (feeling sorry for us that we are living in the city), she showed us how to get down on the other side of the mountain. This was a one car road (and I mean one small car) that was only used by locals, as a tourist I would have had to go back the way I came. But she dismissed that restriction and said that since we were capable of driving up the mountain, we could certainly use that road, at her own personal invitation. Which we did…eh, bit scary, luckily no car met us going down, and wonderful scenery. Yes, wonderfully hospitable people these Tiroleans….

We stayed in Dorf Tirol, a little village that sits just atop Meran, next to Bolzano, the main city in the valley, at a wonderful bed & breakfast complete with outdoor swimming pool. From there we took day trips all around, including hiking in the mountains. Given that we adhere to the Austrian way of hiking, which means walk a little, rest a little, eat a little, drink a little, we took the cable car up the mountain, then hiked up there.

But it was not the mountains that impressed me the most. Sure, they were beautiful, but so are the Alps and the Dolomites. What is amazing about this place, particularly Meran, is the fact that you have flora from so many different geographical zones come together in one big garden of Eden. Here you have the pines growing next to the kiwis, next to the oaks, next to the palm tress, next to the olive trees. Living in the Pacific NW I thought I was used to evergreen, but I have never seen luxuriant vegetation such as this. Even though we’ve had a very dry summer I couldn’t catch not even one dry leaf. In the valley between palm trees and orchids it was steaming in the 90s. On top of the mountain at 4600 feet it was already pleasant low 80s, even 70s when the sun hid behind clouds. All around the valley fruit orchards and vineyards cover the hills. There is no sunny hillside without a vineyard. I can’t imagine a more glorious place to be in fall when the smell of apple cider and grape juice fills the air. At the end of July it was just all a luscious green.

South Tirol is not only breathtaking scenery but also a cultural feast. There are ancient castles and fortresses to be admired, museums to visit and local festivals to enjoy. In between our nature escapades we visited Schloss Tirol, Schloss Trautmannsdorf and a little agricultural museum located in an old castle in Dorf Tirol. I couldn’t choose between any of them, they are all worth a visit.

We have enjoyed every day in South Tirol, even though it was really hot in the valley, sometimes even in the upper 90s. But whenever it got too hot in the afternoons we retreated by the pool or into the high mountains. Meran is now on my most favorite places list and I would like to return there in fall, when you can loose yourself in colors and feast on apples and pears and roast chestnuts. It would also be lovely in spring, when all those orchards are in bloom and the meadows are covered in soft spring green. There is no wrong season there, it’s just perfect, just like the Garden of Eden might have been.