Day 3 (Part 1) - La Tourette

On our third day in Paris, S and I tagged along with Mr. CP's architecture classmates and toured a few of Le Corbusier's projects.  For those who don't know, Le Corbusier is a pioneer of modern architecture.  His five points of architecture -
(1) pilotis elevating the mass off the building off of the ground,
(2) the free plan - separating the load bearing columns from the walls that subdivide the space,
(3) the free facade,
(4) the long horizontal sliding window,
(5) the roof garden.

can be seen their implementation in many of his works.

La Tourette houses a church and 100 dorm-like rooms for students and teachers.

Day 2 - Lyon

On Day 2 of our trip, S and I made our way to the train station in Paris for a two hour TVG ride to Lyon, the third largest city in France, to meet up with Mr.CP and his class.   When we arrived, we checked into the Hotel Des Artistes.  The rooms were small, but clean and the bathrooms were nice.  The hotel is conveniently located and we walked everywhere.

Lyon is well known for its food and we started off our time in the city with a tasty meal at Cafe Le Sud, one of Chef Paul Bocuse's restaurants.  Cafe Le Sud specializes in cuisine from the south of France. Although slightly pricey, the food was quite good - S had a delicious stew.  We were too full to try any desserts, but the ones that we saw come out of the kitchen looked great.

Afterwards, we were within walking distance of Vieux Lyon, the oldest district of Lyon.  One of the most popular things to do when you go to Lyon is to take the funicular up to Fourvière to admire the views.  Again, it was a cloudy day, so my photos don't do the view justice. 

Also at the top of the hill is the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, a very ornate church.

Facade on the side of the church.

A mural inside the church

Stained glass windows of the Basilica

After a little more wandering through Vieux Lyon, it started to drizzle, so we headed back to the hotel to rest a bit before dinner.  The hotel was within walking distance from both Rue des Marronniers and Rue Merciere.  Both of these streets have many restaurants to choose from.  For dinner we stumbled upon a super cute and cozy place called Cafe La Menthe and were lucky enough to snag the last open table.  The daily menu is written on a chalkboard that the waiter brings to your table.  The service was good and the meal was reasonably priced.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and were surprised by Mr. CP who crashed with us instead of staying overnight at Le Corbusier's La Tourette.  We did visit the convent on the following morning though...and I'll have photos of the interesting structure in a future post.

Day 1 of My European Vacation - CP and S Hit the Louvre

As promised, I'm sharing some details from my recent vacation.  After a half a day of traveling, I met up with S at CDG in Paris and we headed into the city for Day 1 of my European adventure.  We stayed at a hotel in the Louvre district and the museum was within walking distance, so we made it our first destination. 

The pyramid and the line - Unfortunately it was cloudy that day.

Using my Frommer's Paris Day by Day Louvre highlight tour, we hunted through the HUGE museum for a few key pieces.  We also stopped in to check out the Egyptian art exhibit.

Venus De Milo

It took us a while, but we finally found the Venus de Milo.  I find sculptures fascinating.  Drawing is hard enough, but carving something so detailed into stone is just amazing to me.

Another sight you see in the Louvre are the studying artists who taking great care in painting replicas of masterpieces. 

We walked through a maze of exhibits and hallways and finally arrived in front of another beautiful sculpture,  the Winged Nike of Samothrace. It looks like the wind is blowing through the room. 

Of course, we also saw the Mona Lisa, but she was mobbed and a photo really wouldn't do her justice, so I have no photos to share.  =(

Afterwards, I had duck confit at Cafe Flor for dinner.  The food was decent, but it was a strange little place.  S and I were the only two dinner patrons and everyone else was there to buy lottery tickets and cigarettes.

And we're back!

Mr. CP and his class went to France for a trip about architecture.  I tagged along and we tacked on an additional five days in Barcelona as a last hurrah...the babymoon.  =)  Although I am about 7.5 months along now, I found Paris and Barcelona to be very walkable.  It was great to stroll through the cities to museums, architecturally significant buildings and gardens and the food was great.

Before leaving on the trip, I checked out a ton of travel guides from the San Francisco Public Library, but none were really organized in a usable way for just a few days in each city.  Also, I wanted to pack light to avoid checking bags and didn't want to carry a bunch of heavy books everywhere.  I finally found the Frommer's Day by Day series and the Paris and Barcelona versions were very useful.  They are pretty small, contain great street and metro maps and feature about 20 different day plans to see the city.  You can decide to see the city by major highlights, or special interests (i.e., gourmet walk, architectural walk, shopping highlights, etc.), or neighborhood.

Paris Day by Day

Barcelona Day by Day

You can click through to purchase these from Amazon.com.  I'm also offering to sell mine for $5 each.

We had great weather the whole time, and I'll post some photos from our trip and some tips for traveling to these great cities soon.

Weekend Recap - Terranea and family visit

This weekend was even busier than last!  On Friday, I had a very early flight to Los Angeles for a work meeting which ran until Saturday afternoon.  I can't complain too much though, because the meeting was held at the Terranea resort in Rancho Palos Verdes.

The hotel and the grounds were beautiful and the weather was sunny and hot.  I snuck in a boot camp class and the pulled pork sandwich that I had for dinner at Nelson's was pretty tasty.  I have read that the resort is dealing with some financial troubles, but it seems reality shows such as the Bachelor have filmed there and I saw camera crews on site working on the CW's new Shedding for the Wedding reality show. 

Unfortunately, I had to rush back to San Francisco right after the meetings ended on Saturday, because the trip was scheduled on the same weekend that my mother, sister, aunts and uncle were all flying into San Francisco from New York. 

Vacation for my relatives centers around eating.  We eat, we walk around and chat a little, and then we spend more time trying to decide where we will stuff ourselves with our next meal.  On Saturday night, we had a delicious Cantonese food dinner at Hong Kong Lounge in the Richmond.  This morning, we headed over early to Koi Palace in Daly City for some of the best dim sum in the Bay Area.  Afterwards, we walked off some of the BBQ pork buns, curry beef stew and shrimp dumplings by checking out the Legion of Honor and the Sutro Baths.  The weather was perfect for sightseeing.  Had I remembered my camera, I would have had more photos to share.

My brother and sister-in-law came up from Mountain View to spend time with the family as well and after eating so much restaurant food, we decided that the healthiest option for tonight would be to share a home-cooked meal.  Mr. CP grilled up some tri-tip and my brother grilled a delicious filet of halibut, while, my mother, sister-in-law and I were on vegetable side duty.  Everything was delicious and after cleaning up, everyone was pooped and turned in early.