San Francisco's Fairmont Hotel, 1

We are fans of San Francisco's City Guides and hardly ever visit The City without going on one of their tours. Hosted by the San Francisco Public Library and supported largely by donations from grateful visitors like us, the volunteer guides provide wonderful tours, enjoyable, informative, colorful, very much capturing the historic spirit of the place. Two of their dozens of tours actually require reservations--the Fairmont Hotel and the Diego Rivera mural at the Stock Exchange Tower--and on this visit to the Bay area we were fortunate enough to score both! The old Fairmont Hotel--which actually pre-dates the 1906 earthquake and fire--is so interesting and historic, I'll have to do it in two posts.

Must be in San Francisco

Entrance to the Fairmont; the flags represent the nation/
signatories of the UN Charter, much of which can be traced
to the Fairmont's meeting rooms

The ramp was built for FDR; more than a few presidents,
premiers, and prime ministers have stayed here

Lobby; well, a bit of it

Main dining room; a bit of it

Our Founder

The best thing about the Fairmont, for me anyway, is that it
is a such a self-regarding institution...there are displays and
historic plaques and such all over its halls; here is where a
young Orson Welles ran into William Randolph Hearst...
Citizen Kane had just come out...Welles invited Hearst to join
him for a drink (the guy really did have nerve), but Hearst is
said to have politely declined (murmuring "Rosebud"?)

A meeting room/ballroom

A view of the immediate environs and a very, well, somewhat
famous church whose name now eludes me; it had a maze,
like Chartres...well, not very much like Chartres...

The Rock

From the top of the Fairmont, another favorite, Coit Tower

What used to be called the TransAmerica Tower and
beyond it, some of the Bay

The Fairmont looks down on The Top of the Mark (Hopkins),
another Nob Hill landmark

In the Bay, Treasure Island and its old Pan American Clipper
terminal

Looking down onto the Fairmont's pent-house

Peninsular Grand-Parenting

Lufthansa returned us to the hugs and kisses of three-year-old grand-daughter Penelope, and we spent the next three weeks mostly in her company, helping her mom and dad with child-care and with various other projects around the house. It was the last few weeks of summer for daughter Rebecca, and she had a long list of things to accomplish before the start of the new school year. We had a few notable excursions to San Francisco, to be recounted in subsequent posts, but most of our time was with Princess P, all up and down the Peninsula, and beyond, reading, playing in the backyard or in her room, going to the park or playground or beach, train-spotting, train-riding, hiking, picnicking, shopping, and a myriad other things to keep a very active three-year-old happy and engaged. Assertiveness, independence, etc., are well within her repertoire now, apart from being very social and verbal, but our previous tag-team approach to occupying her still worked; most of the time. Oh yes, as on previous occasions, we stayed in Maggie's cottage, next door.

At Redwood Shores Public Library, one of several libraries
we visited for story-time, craft-time, music-time, etc.

Perhaps our best day was at Oakland's
Fairyland; there's Princess P; Fairyland is
quite a story in itself...the nation's first theme
park, first park for children only, one of
Disney's inspirations for you know what; he
visited in 1950 and subsequently hired
Fairyland's director for Disneyland; yes,
Oakland is not on the peninsula, I know

It's not Guignol, but it is the oldest still running
puppet theater in the US, the Open Storybook Puppet
Theater, where Muppeteer Frank Oz, for example, got
his start; obviously P is enthralled

She was enthralled too by the Old West town and its jail

There are only three rides at Fairyland, but we made the most
of them; here's a contemplative P on the carousel

Clearly the ferris wheel was her favorite; the lines were quite
short this late summer week-day, and she rode it probably
15 times in succession

Two little pigs, with Grandpa

With her favorite princess; we noted that this
exhibit was in the official Disney style, perhaps
a gift from Walt to the park of his inspiration

At a kiddies' splash pad in San Carlos

Splash pad Tai Chi? This is California

Trainspotting, of course

And riding the train...

To another park, in San Jose

On a three mile hike at Edgewood Park and Natural Preserve,
near Redwood City

And, finally, at Moss Beach, near Half Moon Bay; we'd
been promising P a trip to the beach, forgetting that beach
fun in Middle California, even in August, requires polar tech,
a wind-breaker, wet weather gear...but P enjoyed it greatly,
as we do her

Homeward-Bound, Aloft In Luxury

We have done some long-haul flights: San Francisco-Tokyo, New Delhi-Sydney, Auckland-Tokyo-Honolulu, LA-Fiji, and many trans-Atlantic flights, many of them from central Europe to SFO. But we have never had a more pleasant flight than on July 31st, with Lufthansa, from Munich to San Francisco. Our usual protocol is to get there early, inquire whether the flight is over-booked, and, if appropriate, volunteer to be bumped. It doesn't work as often as it used to, but it worked in Munich, after a fashion. It turned out the flight was not over-sold, but the staff had assigned our economy/steerage seats to others, and "in gratitude" for our willingness to be bumped, the gate agents bumped us up, that is, up-graded us, to business class. Wowsers! Woof! The last time we were in business class was with KLH, in 1979, JFK to Schipohl, our first European adventure. I remember it well, especially the flight attendant's spectacularly successful efforts at getting me a rusty nail, sending forward to Royal Class for the drambuie. Anyhow, credit Vicki, as always, for this triumph of unaccustomed comfort and luxury.

OK, we are already boozing it up, just aboard, not even fully acquainted with all
the amenities

Vicki of course is checking out the sales literature; and shortly, now giddy with
the experience, we did a video, at YouTube,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCBFhFhzQ38

The food was actually pretty good

My halibut

Her beef stroganoff

Her Charlotte, and fruit

My cheese and fruit; not pictured...my assorted digestifs, but not so many as to prevent
my watching Monuments Men, Hotel Budapest, and Casablanca; OK, it may seem
ungrateful to watch three broadly anti-German films while enjoying Lufthansa's
hospitality...

While she tried to sleep

Réservé aux réflexions sur Paris

Coming sooner or later to a screen near you...

Au Revoir, Paris! Vive la France!

So Friday morning, July 31st, WECAB took us to CDG and Lufthansa flew us first to Munich, and then (next post), to San Francisco. Our eleven weeks in Paris were quite special, some of the most memorable of our six years now on the road. We plan to do similar longer-term rentals and stays in London, Rome, Vienna, Edinburgh, Barcelona.... But they may all have to wait until we have done Paris again! I will add some further thoughts on our visit here...the urban experience, food, transportation, culture, people, architecture, whatever...and Vicki certainly will post on the practical and other stuff at our website. But for now it's au revoir, abientot, merci, and vive la France!

We'll always have Paris

Notre appartement et notre voisinage

Pix of our neighborhood are scattered through the past hundred or so posts from Paris, but I thought I'd collect a few together and add some shots from our apartment, May-July.

Our street, Rue de Nice, just off Rue Charonne; Charonne
was an out-lying village until incorporated into Paris in the
mid-19th century; Rue de Nice was named to commemorate
Nice's becoming French about the same time (it had previously
been part of the House of Savoy, didn't you know)

Our apartment building; plain and simple and
unadorned, etc; the apartment itself was plain
and simple and unadorned; but adequate

We were on the 6th floor, served, happily, by the micro-
elevator

Somehow we managed to acquire fridge magnets
in Paris; the door was metal and had three
siege-proof locks

Living area

Dining area

Kitchen

Bedroom #1

Bedroom #2

Bath

Sun-dial/amphitheater in the big park down the street where
we would take Penelope

Fountain in the park

Little kids' play area

The butcher down the street; already shut down for the
August fermeture

The closest of three bakery/pastry shops, half a block away

An open-book landmark on Rue Charonne

The local Picard, on Boulevard Voltaire; one of the curiosities
of Paris, we thought: there are Picards all over the city, every
few blocks, like Starbucks in a US city; Picard is a strictly
frozen-food store...gourmet and international stuff...frozen;
this is where you can get your frozen sushi...!

Statue of Leon Blum at Place Leon Blum;
mostly by osmosis, I managed to learn a bit
of French history and politics

The part of the 11th we lived in was not
quite gentrified, although soon to be; anyhow,
scattered among the mostly residential blocks
were a variety of artisans' shops I always
intended to photograph...a shoe-maker,
carpentry/wood-working, even a shop that
made costume hats for historical movies,
plays, TV shows

And finally, the G20 at the corner; about half the size of a
7-11, crammed with the merchandise of a Safeway!