- After this overview, I’ll post each day separately so you can just read the parts you’re interested in. The reports are long because I did them mainly for me and future trips, but you might get something out of them.
Overall:
- Planning- All the planning and help I received here was invaluable, especially with all the train tickets and how to navigate the systems, and the time I spent on the Metro interactive map planning the best routes places was invaluable. We’ve been saving for this trip for about 5 years and this was really a trip of a lifetime with our kids, so the planning was so important.
- Meals- We didn’t need reservations anywhere (except at our special meals-Le P’tit Troquet and Altitude 95) even with a group of 6, but I made sure we arrived early; about 12:30/12:45pm for lunches, 7:30/7:45pm for dinners. I know there are many opinions on this one, but we budgeted almost half our budget for food and ate all lunches and dinners out (bakery goods for breakfast). We only had two quicker meals. We would do this again, as for us, a big part of the experience is the food and eating/talking to locals. The leisurely meals also gave us the down-time we needed in our pretty busy touring days. We ate at the outside tables almost every meal. I made the kids order their own meals and they enjoyed this and got very good at it. It was fun to see their adventurous choices- they tried foie gras (not a favorite) and seafood platters with snails and crustaceans (loved this). I wished I’d spent a little more time researching restaurants in areas outside the RSs recommendations (areas) that we ended up at; we made some great choices and a few bad ones.