Tee the Trav

II believe it is truly hard to have a bad meal in Paris. Whether you are going for a quick petite baguette sandwich or a meal in a brasserie, or a fine dining experience, there are endless choices in Paris about where to eat. That seems especially true in my neighborhood of Montmartre.

I have eaten in many of the restaurants and have some favorites. Some meals were outstanding, and some were merely fabulous. Here are a melange of the great meals and restaurants I've eaten in so far. All are in Montmartre.

The above is the "Charlie Special" at Coryllis on Rue des Martyrs. All of Paris was Charlie crazed after the attacks.

An amazing, tiny, French, non-tourist restaurant is Le Jardin d"en Face on the Rue des Trois Freres. The menu changes daily with a few exceptions. The foie gras with egg appetizer is a staple and is to die for. It is dishes like this that make me want to stay forever.

Al Caratello is Italian owned and has three locations on Rue Audran. The menu is the same at all three ristorantes. The food and service are reliable and you can linger for hours. House wines are good and so are prices.

Another tiny, French treasure isLe Grande 8 on a small street to the right of the Sacre Coeur. The menu changes nightly depending on what is available in the market. This is your go-to Sunday dinner place. They don't speak much English and there are only about twelve tables. You can (and we did) linger here for hours. People bring their dogs who hang out under the table and are a part of the ambience and scenery. This is a mere walk up the stone steps for me and so it has become a true local favorite I will dream about and yearn for when I leave.

REASON 1: Finding the people you are with.

The girls wanted to go to the top of the Arch d'Triumph and I didn't, so I told them I'd wait for them in the Orange store. I was going to see how my data was doing & if I needed to top it off. As I started walking, a million police and wagons pull up and park under the Arch. I had no way to contact the girls who did not get a SIM card. To make matters worse, the Orange store was closed and there were security people inside!!! All the workers were outside so I asked what happened. They smelled gas inside the store so the guards were checking. Unrelated to the police. A woman from the store checked my data as we stood freezing on the street. It was fine.

I ended up going inside the restaurant next door, Chez Clement, where I could watch for the girls. I had a glass a wine with a woman from India who is in Paris studying finance. We had a great chat.

I asked my waiter about the police activity. It turned out the police were just there in case of a soccer-related frenzy. Algeria was playing against Ghana. Crazy soccer fans. But I still wished the girls had a SIM card so I could tell them where I was.

By the way, since I was on the Champs, I did drop in and visit Louis Vuitton. Turns out that Poppy has a big sister named Dora. She is a signed, limited edition made from the archives. The euro is still dropping, so I have time to make my decision. But now I have four possibilities, Dora, Poppy, Pallas, and Alma. Too many women.

REASON 2: Getting and giving directions

We were getting on the Metro to go home. I got on. The doors closed behind me. I turned and saw my daughter and her friend waving goodbye to me from the platform. Talk about an OMG moment. Did they know our exit? Should I get off on the next stop and turn around and go back? Should get off at our exit? I decided these were smart, competant young women. I rode on, cursing them for not having a SIM card. I waited at our home stop and sure enough; five minutes later, there they were.

REASON 3: Getting directions for Metro stops and walking

With a SIM card, you have data. That means you can google where you are and what Metro you should take to get to your next destination. Or, how you should walk to get wherever you are going. Very useful.

REASON 4: Making reservations.

A SIM card allow you to make local calls without the astronomical roaming fees your local carrier would charge you. Many restaurants in Paris are tiny and require reservations. You can also reserve tickets to events, cruises on the Seine, and other activities you will want to pursue.

REASON 5: UBER

There are times when the Metro just won't do. Downloading the UBER Paris APP will enable you to order a taxi from anywhere to anywhere. It tells you in advance how much you will pay, who your driver is, and how soon he/she will be there.

REASON 6: Your flight gets canceled and you need to reschedule

There is a huge blizzard coming in the New York/New Jersey area and my daughter's flight leaving Paris was just canceled. Because I had a SIM card, we have rescheduled her flight and taxi with a minimum of fuss.

HOW TO GET A SIM CARD:

You can buy an inexpensive SIM at a store such as the ORANGE store. They will do the rest. One note of caution before you leave home, though. Make sure you call your carrier and see if you can "unlock" your phone in order to switch to a local SIM card. Many phones, such as the DROID are already unlocked.

If you have questions, put them in the comments section and I will try to help you.
Merci Jaime!!! for showing me how to buy and use a SIM card!!!

Montmartre is home to one of the biggest flea markets in Paris. You can visit it any weekend from Saturday through Monday. It is so huge, most people suggest taking a map so you don't get lost. I like small markets; the kind where you can find great food treasures and see locals shopping. This weekend, there was just such a market near the Abbesses. Late Friday night, the tents went up. By Saturday morning the tents and the square were filled with people. Early in the morning, it poured. As if celebrating the festival, the rain stopped abruptly. The sun and bright blue skies appeared. The temperature climbed to mid-40s f and it felt like a tease of springtime.

The longest line at the market was for Champagne, poured in real glasses which you can keep. All day long, people wandered around the streets of Montmartre with Champagne glasses in hand.

The next line was for oysters. They were sold to eat right there, or you could buy a dozen or so to bring home.

The galete is a French tradition. It's a pastry made with light, airy dough and filled with almond paste and other amazing ingredients. It is only made and sold from Epiphany when Baby Jesus was presented to the three wise men through Shrove Tuesday (fat Tuesday), the beginning of Lent. The [/i]Galette[/i] comes with a crown. Inside, a fete is hidden. Whoever gets the fete, gets to wear the crown and make a wish. The line for galletes looped around the festival.

After slurping down the briney-est oysters I ever tasted, I purchased little jars of pates and some fresh pasta to cook later. It was 11 in the morning, so I skipped the champagne. I know. It was 5 o'clock somewhere, but I have to pace myself.

On our side trip to Amsterdam we visited the Anne Frank House. Almost everyone has read her classic diary at some point. Even though you know her story, which is the story of so many others, to be in the house where Anne and her family hid from the Nazis for two years gave me an entirely different understanding and appreciation of the Holocaust. The house, like all of the houses in Amsterdam, is tall, beautiful, and overlooks the canal. The downstairs floors were her father's office. Because very few people knew they were hiding upstairs, they couldn't speak above a whisper until the offices were closed for the night.

Anne's father Otto planned for months before they went into hiding. All of the windows upstairs are blackened so no one could see inside and discover them. The tiny rooms in which eight people lived and hid, were excruciatingly claustrophobic; dark, and small, with low ceilings. I tried to imagine not seeing daylight or going outside in this beautiful city for two years, but it was impossible.

After two years, the two families were found and sent to the camps. To this day, no one is sure who betrayed them. Otto Frank was the only one to survive. He found the diary and had it published because she had wished to be a famous writer and wanted her story told. Otto turned his office into a museum in honor of those who died and in honor of his daughter.

I saw many people in tears as we made the short, powerful tour. One of the most poignant moments for me was a video of a former friend of Anne's; a woman who survived the camps. She had known Anne before the war and they found each other in the camp in Bergen-Belsen. By then, Anne knew her sister and mother were dead and believed her father was too. She was ill and, as her friend says in the film, she had lost her will to live.

She died and very shortly after, the war ended, the camps were closed, and her father returned home. "If she had only known he lived," her friend says. "I think she would have survived."

Here are a few photos of the view Anne couldn't walk outside her door and see.

A side trip from Paris to Amsterdam is an easy train ride. For me, the primary purpose of a visit to Amsterdam was to see the Van Gogh museum. I have long been intrigued by his life and his art and on a previous trip to France, I went to Arles and St. Remy where he painted so many of his finest works. Of course, he also was hospitalized there after a break down. His short, tragic life ended nearby.

I knew he spent time in Paris and that his brother, who supported him throughout his life, lived in Paris. A few days before visiting the museum in Amsterdam, I found where Theo lived and photographed his door in Montmartre a few blocks from my apartment. Nearby, you can visit the Moulin Galette. There were several paintings in the Van Gogh Museum that reflected scenes from my neighborhood. There is, in fact, a painting called "View from Theo's Apartment" and several paintings of the windmill at Moulin Galette.

One of my favorite paintings in the Van Gogh museum is of "The Yellow House" which still stands in Arles as a cafe.

The most moving part of the visit for me was to see excerpts from the letters Vincent and Theo wrote back and forth throughout their lives. I was struck by the beauty of their penmanship and by the fact that they wrote hundreds of letters to one another throughout their lives. Now, we email. Or text. We will never again have such documentation of a relationship, of two people pouring out their lives, thoughts, feelings, to one another.

The letters were published and I have placed them on my "must read" list. What is on yours? Let me know in the "comments."