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Le Potager du Marais in Paris

We spent a week in Paris at the end of May. I am a vegetarian (but not vegan), Steve eats fish (but not much dairy). We have trouble finding food that we can eat in “normal” restaurants in France but thankfully there are many vegetarian or vegetarian-friendly restaurants.

Here is my list of restaurants, sorted by arrondissement (neighborhood). I found these restaurants from a variety of resources which are listed at the bottom of the article. We did not get to many of them (must return to Paris, more research needed!), but I included my notes on the ones we visited.

Slow Europe Article - Vegetarian Restaurants in Paris

My favorite restaurant was Les Cinq Saveurs d’Anada (in the 5th), followed closely by Le Potager du Marais (in the 3rd). And I loved Maoz for a quick lunch or dinner.

This article is formatted so that you can easily print out the list. Just click print and the page prints without images and sidebars. (All Slow Europe pages are set up for easy printing.)

We are having a fantastic vacation, but I have not felt like blogging. Well, I have felt like blogging, but have not made the time for it. I will summarize what we have done so far and then try to fill it out a bit later. This is the first trip in years that I have not kept a daily journal and I look back over a week and cannot remember what we did. It is kind of nice not keeping track for a change.

This is a ten week trip, arriving and departing from England - a week in Paris, June in the Cotswolds, July in Switzerland.

Pre-Vacation and the Flight

Sun on the 17th century floor of our Paris apartment

Because of a great British Airways sale (you can only purchase tickets from one of their hubs) we were flying out of Phoenix, so we started our vacation with a pre-vacation. We rented a car in Santa Fe and drove to Sedona, spent the night, then drove to Phoenix airport for our flight.

We love Sedona and this time we saw a rainy and overcast Sedona, which was delightful. We stayed at the Amara Resort (have stayed there several times) and this time had a riverside room. Had a lovely evening and next morning in Sedona before leaving around 2pm for Phoenix.

British Airways flight was wonderful - we were in First! We were in First on the last trip because they offered a paid upgrade on checkin and we jumped at the chance (it is not easy to get into First on BA). This time I bought Club World sale tickets and upgraded them one way. So we flew to England as if flying in our living room. We both slept well.

Part 1 - Arrival in Windsor

Windsor Castle and St George's Chapel from our hotel balcony

We spent our first three nights in Windsor, only 20 minutes from Heathrow (used a car service). We stayed at the Harte and Garter on the High Street, looking at the Castle. We were there for a Bank Holiday weekend and Windsor was packed. Many visitors liked to stand outside the castle and scream late into the night. Why? No idea. But I did like standing on our balcony and seeing the church where Henry VIII is buried.

Windsor was a good arrival town - lots of restaurants and cafes, great walks along the River Thames and our friend Wendy and Richard live nearby. We had two wonderful days with them, including one day with Richard taking us on a tour of the towns along the Thames. The weather was hot and sunny. We had a picnic of Waitrose sandwiches sitting on a bench beside the Thames. Went for some lovely walks and visited a National Trust garden.

Part 2 - A Week in Paris

View from our Paris apartment over the Cluny Roman ruins

Next we took the train to Paris! We used a car service to take us from Windsor to St Pancras station in London (because it was not much more expensive than the train tickets). Windsor Cabs was great at giving us an airport pickup with a fragrance-free car but failed miserably at this one and we rode in a scented cab. I assumed they had told the driver of my request and we were smelling leftover air freshener but towards the end of the ride we saw an air freshener in the front. Argh!! Should have taken the train.

The Eurostar from London to Paris was fast (under 2 1/2 hours) and easy. It was not that comfortable - sort of like flying Southwest but at a lower altitude. Arrived in Paris, got a taxi to our apartment, met the representative from the agency at the apartment and were checked in. The apartment was fabulous (I reviewed it on Slow Europe). The only problem was that the bedding was scented. They had washed everything for us in unscented laundry soap but they usually use a soap with a strong scent, so the scent was in the pillows and comfortor. I rewashed the sheets about four times and then it was mostly okay.

We were in the heart of the Latin Quarter, a block from a Metro stop, with a great cafe beside our entrance, but were up on the fifth floor, above the noise (except some jack hammering from street work on a couple of days). The apartment was spacious and two walls were lined with windows. From some we look down on the Medieval Cluny Museum - looked right at some of the gargoyles. From others we looked north and could see the top of Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur sitting on its hill. We had our binoculars and could see the people sitting on the steps.

We loved being in Paris (our last visit was 21 years ago) but it did not capture our hearts the way it does for many people. It was cool for half the the week, hot and sunny for the other half. We spent most of our time walking around the city. We went to only one museum (the Cluny since it was next door) and we spent most of our time in the 5th or in the Marais. It was a very easy city to deal with. People were friendly, the Metro was easy to use, there are lots of vegetarian restaurants. We ate in restaurants, but cooked several meals at “home”.  We spent one evening with Dana who I know through SlowTrav and Twitter. We spent a day with friends from Germany who we have not seen in the past few years, but have known for 20 years. I will write more about our time in Paris later.

Part 3 - June in the Cotswolds

Walk near Eastleach Turville in the Cotswolds

After our eight nights we took the Eurostar back to London, got a cab from St Pancras to Paddington, then took the train to Oxford. Took a taxi from the Oxford train station to the Europcar office (1/2 mile away) and got our rental car. Drove to our first cottage in Fulbrook, just outside of Burford.

We were both thrilled to be out of the big city and back in the English countryside. We have been in this cottage for over a week now and on Friday we move to another cottage about 30 minutes away for the next two weeks. The weather has been heavenly - most days sunny and warm and some even hot! A few cold days (when we realize we had no idea how to heat this cottage).

We have spent a lot of time in the Cotswolds, but usually in May. June is a whole different story (either that or we have just been lucky with the weather). It is warm and sunny and it is light until nearly 10pm. These long days explains why I have not been blogging or getting much work done.

I love the Cotswolds! Wendy and Richard stayed in a cottage nearby for our first weekend here. We had a fabulous pub lunch with them at The Swan in Swinbrook (near Burford). The next day we all went to Snowshill Manor and then drove around a few towns, followed by a lovely dinner in Broadway.

We have done some exploring around and some fabulous walks. I started driving in England on our last trip (January - February 2008) and easily picked it up again on this trip. Now we share the driving! I feel like we are really staring to know the Cotswolds. Burford is a fabulous town and this is a great location. There is only one good hike that we can do from our doorstep, but others are a short drive away.

Summing Up

Buddy sleeping on our bed in Santa Fe

So that brings us to where we are now - sitting in a cottage with a rose covered doorway on a quiet lane in a small village near a lovely market town. If I were to stand, the ceiling would be only six inches above my head. This is an old cottage and people really were shorter a few hundred years ago. I have learned to duck.

On vacation everything takes longer - grocery shopping, cooking meals, working on the computer - because it is not what you are used to. Laundry always takes longer. So the days are fuller just with day to day stuff. Then there are all the things to do and see and I never want to miss out on things by spending time organizing my journal or blog or photos. Usually I manage to post to my blog, but I think the long days - or short evenings - are influencing that.

We only planned and booked the first six weeks of this trip. The day before we left I booked an apartment in Switzerland for the first two weeks of July (in Nendaz, in the Valais). From here I booked a flight from Heathrow to Geneva and a hotel for one night in Nyon, near the airport. That reminds me - I have to book our rental car!

In summary - having a great time, England in June is fabulous - why didn’t we think of this before?, I miss my comfortable bed, and I really miss Buddy.

A quick post to say that we have started our Summer 2009 Europe trip and are having a great time, but I am either too busy or too exhausted from the too busy, to post. I am tweeting when I can - @PaulineK.

On Thursday evening we met Dana (@danamac) who I know from the SlowTrav community and from Twitter. Dana is the person who got me to join Twitter. Via Twitter we realized we were both going to be in Paris at the same time, so we arranged to have dinner one evening. Dana is a foodie and Steve and I are pretty much anti-foodies, so it was hard to agree on a restaurant, but we finally picked Pulcinella, a new Italian restaurant in Montmartre (the 18th).

We met at our apartment, talked for an hour, then took the Metro to the restaurant. As we were sitting down the two women and the next table bonjoured us. Then one of them asked if we spoke English, if we were American, if I was on Twitter. We were sitting beside @louloufrance who I had just started following a few weeks before!!! She recognized me from my Twitter photo (hers is a group of figs, so I did not recognize her) and she sort of knew me from the SlowTrav community.

LouLouFrance (not her real name!) is an American who lives in the south of France. She knows everything about cheese and desserts too I think. Her blog is: Chez LouLou.

Reading her blog I find out she knows David Lebovitz whose book “The Sweet Life in Paris” I downloaded to my Kindle and read in our first few days here (great book with lots of good information for Paris, plus recipes). Wow!!

Isn’t that an amazing coincidence? That we were at the same restaurant. That I was seated beside her (and facing her). That she recognized me from Twitter. I will be talking about this for years. In all the time that I ran the SlowTrav community, only once has someone ever recognized me on the street - and it was on my street in Santa Fe and was back in the very early days. I always heard about other community members running into people in Italy, but it never happened to me (well, it did happen in Savannah, but there were 100 of us there for that party and it is a small town).

And the Tweeter on the other side of me at that dinner, Dana, is no travel slouch either. She runs a great travel blog, The Traveling McMahans (she was in Morocco for a week before coming to Paris) and writes for Food Connect!

It was a lovely evening - but I can’t even spare the time to upload a photo of our amazing apartment view (we look over the Cluny rooftops to Notre Dame and Sacre Cour) because we want to do an early evening stroll down Boulevard St Germaine!! Hey, we are in Paris!! (Leaving for the Cotswolds on Wednesday.)

In two weeks we will be in Paris! Steve and I have not been to Paris since 1988. 21 years ago we started our big European Adventure (a year traveling in Europe) with ten nights in Paris. People have been born and gradutated from college in that time, and we never managed to make it back to Paris.

We rented a lovely apartment in the 5th (in the Latin Quarter near the Sorbonne). I love to stay in vacation rentals in historic buildings and this one looks like it will be interesting. It is on the 5th floor of a 17th century building with views of Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur. When I was using Google Maps Street View to “walk” my new neighborhood, I saw that there is a cafe beside the entrance to the building. How perfect is that?

Of course, I do have a bit of nervousness about being in a big city (we tend towards small towns and countryside these days) and am anticipating a breathtakingly tiny elevator to take us up to that 5th floor - we may be hoofing it instead. I also figure everyone in Paris wears perfume (we are allergic to the chemicals in fragrances), but we will be able to escape up to our 5th floor nest to breathe in some clean air - won’t we?

I am making my restaurant list for Paris. I am looking for good vegetarian/vegan/macrobiotic restaurants. So far it is looking great. I found three macrobiotic restaurants within a few blocks of our apartment. If anyone has any suggestions, please post them. Also if you have anything to suggest that we should do in Paris, please post.

Resources for Vegetarian Restaurants in Paris

• Happy Cow - France - Vegetarian restaurants and natural food stores by city in France.
• Happy Cow - Paris - Vegetarian restaurants and natural food stores in Paris.
• ParisVegetarian - Reviews of vegetarian and vegetarian-friendly restaurants.
• VeganParis - Descriptions and reviews of vegan restaurants, including an up to date list of vegetarian/vegan/macrobiotic restaurants.
• Veggie Places - Paris - List of vegetarian restaurants and a google map showing locations.
• Venere Travel Blog - How to Eat Organic in Paris by Barbara Diggs. Not all organic restaurants are vegetarian, but they are likely to have vegetarian options.

The water at Pelosa on Sardinia

On any map of the Mediterranean, the Italian island of Sardinia is easy to spot being shaped like a foot and lying between Corsica and Sicily.

Visitors are often surprised at the size of Sardinia - it is pretty much the size of Wales or West Virginia (but has the advantage of 1800km of mostly unspoilt coastline).

Peter Ryder, who lives on Sardinia, introduces us to his corner of the island, near the town of Alghero in the north west.

Slow Europe article - A Slow Week in Alghero and North West Sardinia

Peter runs the Italy 360° Travel Guide websites with travel information, photos and 360° photo views for popular Italian travel destinations.

• 360tuscany.net: Popular Tuscany destinations (Pisa, Florence, Lucca, Siena, Volterra, San Gimignano and more).
• 360rome.net: Historic center of Rome (Forum, Colosseum, St Peters, Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, etc.).
• 360sardinia.net: Sardinia with views of many spots on the island.
• 360alghero.net: Alghero and north west Sardinia.
• 360olbia.net: Olbia and north east Sardinia.
• 360amalfi.net: Towns on the Amalfi Coast and places nearby (Amalfi, Positano, Ravello, Capri, Pompeii and more).
• 360sorrento.net: Slideshows of the popular areas in and near Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast.

In a couple of weeks we will be taking the Eurostar train from London to Paris. I put together my research notes and some good links to more information for a “Plan Your Trip” page on Slow Europe.

Slow Europe Article - Eurostar from London to Paris

We will be taking a train from Windsor to London Paddington, then a taxi or the Underground to St Pancras, and then the Eurostar to Paris. On return we go back to London, then take a train to Oxford to pick up our rental car for our month in the Cotswolds.

I found some great resources on the web for information about the Eurostar. I bought our Eurostar tickets online and was able to print them out at home. Once we have actually done the train ride, I will update the page with any new information.

Lanzarote Guidebook

The Canary Islands, located around eighty miles off the coast of West Africa close to the Tropic of Capricorn, are a Spanish owned volcanic archipelago of seven islands that was once thought to be the remnants of the mythical lost city of Atlantis.

The Canaries are essentially the European Caribbean, boasting year round sunshine and daytime temperatures that range from 70 to 79 degrees Fahrenheit (20 to 26 degrees Celsius), making them a hugely popular holiday destination, especially with British, Irish and German tourists.

Nick Ball runs the Lanzarote Guidebook  website with travel information and accommodations bookings, including a good selection of vacation rentals. He wrote an introduction to Lanzarote for Slow Europe.

Article on Slow Europe - Holidays on the Island of Fire - Lanzarote on the Canary Islands, Spain

That water looks perfect for swimming!

I made a list of Europe vacation rentals owners, agency owners and rent-by-owner and home exchange websites who are on Twitter.

Article on Slow Europe - Follow European Vacation Rental Owners on Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging service where you post and read “tweets” of 140 characters or less. Learn more about vacation rentals in Europe by following owners and agencies on Twitter. They tweet about their vacation rentals and their local areas. It is a great way to get to know someone before booking with them.

Follow us on Twitter for European vacation rental news: @SlowEurope. Follow me if you run a vacation rental in Europe and are not listed in my article.

I will keep this article up-to-date, adding new tweeters and removing those who don’t tweet or only do marketing tweets.

Upper Slaughter in the Cotswolds

Wendy Ashworth and her husband Richard spent a weekend at Lords of the Manor, a historic luxury hotel in Upper Slaughter, last December. She wrote a detailed review of the hotel for my Cotswolder website.

Article on Cotswolder - Lords of the Manor in Upper Slaughter

When we see Wendy and Richard in June, during our month in the Cotswolds, we are going to have afternoon tea together at the Lords of the Manor.

Lower Slaughter, easily accessed from the main road to Stow-on-the-Wold, is the more popular of this pair of Villages. You can walk along the River Windrush from Lower to Upper - it is only a mile - but Upper Slaughter remains the less visited and more sleepy of the two.

Read more about Stow-on-the-Wold and the nearby villages on Cotswolder.

I love reading blogs by travelers or people living in Europe. They help me understand countries that I plan to travel to and give me great travel information.

I use Google Reader to organize my feeds. Previously I “hand crafted” my list of favorite blogs on Slow Europe, but today figured out how to generate my blogroll from Google Reader (explained below if you want to do it).

• Here it is - my blog roll: Slow Europe - Travel Blogs

I also list my favorite travel websites and forums (communities), but am still working on that list: Slow Europe - Travel Websites & Forums

If you have any favorite blogs or websites that I have not included, post here and tell me about them.

* Organize your feeds into folders in Google Reader. Click the “Manage Subscriptions” link at the bottom of the left navigation column. Select the “Folders and Tags” tab. Change the folders that you want to publish to “public”. For each folder, click the “add a blogroll to your site” link. A window pops up, select your color scheme, change the title, then copy the javascript onto your webpage. Now when you add or delete blog feeds in Google Reader, they change on your webpage, so you can manage your website blogroll from Google Reader.