Month: February 2016

As the end of Feb draws near, I’m realizing a new level of comfort with our daily itinerary. Last week on Joseph Howe Day I revisited earlier planning and made some useful adjustments, juggling attractions enough to place a day trip mid week in the schedule. Thought it might be a great break and an opportunity (somewhat selfishly) to add a special WWI attraction to the voyage! As things look, I have just one item (PSG football match) I’m struggling with, as they have not posted the actual game time listed for our final day in Paris. Once I get that, I think things are in the books! (ps… So glad I waited. The game date was actually switched to a day later the last week in Feb… Putting it outside our travel dates. Glad I didn’t gamble and grab tickets!)

There are items for which I’ll definitely buy tickets upfront. One reason is sheer savings. For example, I picked up 4 Adult online tickets today for boat tours of the Seine. In this case, the tix aren’t that expensive (14€ each). However, in advance I got each for 11€ saving 12€ in total, almost $20 bucks Canadian. Best of all, no risk as the tix aren’t connected with a date and expire in one year. Awesome… Saves money and gives us the option, if in fact it’s pouring rain, of another date. Win, win! Scores…

A second reason is to walk around a line. I will be prepared for mega attractions (ie Louvre, Versailles, Eiffel Tower) armed with advance tickets. My itinerary has us arriving at non-peak hours and with all the necessary credentials in hand. We have a week to work with while in Paris, and hours in a line-up are not a good use of time for the cost of simply being prepared. I emphasize the point here that the trip starts long before leaving home, and the success is tied to the planning and organizing that starting months prior.

Surprisingly, there are a significant number of “no admission” items that we want to do in Paris. Churches like Notre Dame, La Madeleine and Sacre Coeur, for example, are free to visit. Parisian streets are an attraction in themselves, and we plan to traipse Promenade Plantee, Belleville, Montmartre, Mouffetard, the Marais… All at the expense of well soled shoes. Monuments, parks, and “Places et Jardins” abound… Great for a quick snack, healthy walking and people watching!

Last year, in Madrid & Lisbon, tapas bars became a real attraction for us. This trip we continue to move more towards placing “eating” in an adventuresome role, whether it be “on the town” or “from the market”. For example, Janie planned for us an authentic “French Meal” experience using the website VizEat. In essence,  it’s a dating service for meals. It matches host and client for a freshly prepared “at home” meal where visitors can opt to make a reservation with regular Parisians to share a meal at their place of residence. It’s caution to the wind… And sounds like a lot of fun! It was a bit out of our normal eating budget, but not so unimaginable when considered more like an attraction.

January saw us put flights and accommodation to rest. I think we did reasonably well cost wise and, as those layouts were all upfront, I have great idea of what expense we can handle in regards to Paris attractions for our March Break week. This is when my ever growing spreadsheet kicks in! Detail… Detail… Details!

Last week I had the opportunity to visit a Grade 4 class for “Literacy Day”. It’s been a while for me, so I struggled a bit with how to prepare for the group. I decided I’d share some resources in regards to the topic I read and write most about these days… Travel! I took in a batch of Frommer’s guides from cities I’d visited…. New York, Paris, Chicago, Rome, Venice, DC, etc. Then I had the kids pull out the maps, select an attraction, and go to the text and provide three facts about their choice. It worked great and really reiterated my suspicions that, at least for me, having success travelling is all about research!

So, my spreadsheet is loaded with facts and details. I firstly break out the trip into dates, then an itinerary for each day. Then I look at items that will not be available on a specific day (i.e. The Louvre is closed on Mondays) or an event with fixed date (i.e. Football Match). Those rigid items get locked in first. As I research each item, I put times and cost beside it in the spreadsheet. Further, I look at the location in Google maps for other attractions to partner with… No sense in criss-crossing the city when items in a general area can be clumped together. Thus, in this way an itinerary begins to take shape.

I haven’t fully mastered the timing, but I think there is a moment along the way when you see a more “set” plan take hold, a firmed itinerary and comfort of pre-purchase of attraction tickets becomes a possibility. Although I know I could almost always purchase a ticket while “on the ground” in Paris, experience tells me that Lumsdens + Ticket Line-up = Wasted Vacation Time. Lines can be nasty in Paris. We saw that while frequenting the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre in 2008.  As I finish assembling what we’d like to see/do in Paris (for just Janie and I this is easy… little trickier with the kids) I’ll begin grabbing some date specific tickets.