April 2006 we had a vacation in France. Oui Oui.
See all the pictures here.

Here's what we ended up doing.

Fri March 31^st	Chicago-Paris	American Airlines direct to Paris from Chicago (CDG to ORD). Overnight flight. Sat in the bulkhead of an old plane. The giant screen was on most of the flight. Not going to sit there on the way back!
Sat April 1^st	Paris	Hotel St-Honore 85 rue Saint-Honoré. www.hotelsthonore.com Not a very nice hotel at all. Make sure you book in advance and you can get a better place. Full day in Paris; Louvre, Latin Quarter, Champ Elisser.
Sun April 2^nd	Paris	Another full day in Paris; Centre Pampidou, Les Halles, Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, Notre Dame.
Mon April 3^rd	Paris -Carcassonne	Train in A.M. (TGV) to Carcassonne and rent a car. The TGV is the fastest train in the world. When I was in the dining car it showed 290 KM/hr. We were in the silent car and it was quiet and very comfortable. Bummer part was that we had to transfer at Montpellier and the next segment down to Carcassonne was late and very slow...well comparatively. We did some shopping too which was real fun.
Tue April 4^th	Carcassonne	Mess around the walled city of Carcassonne. The strike was still on and tours of the chateau were closed for the day. We walked around and had fun either way. We lucked out with a hotel just a few blocks from the walled city (straight uphill).
Wed April 5^th	Carcassonne - Avignon	Drove to Avignon today with a few pit stops. First stop was at the Perrier water plant on the way. Interesting but it's water, what can I say. From there we went to visit the Roman aqueduct, Pont du Garde which was way cool. Avignon is another walled city that was home to 9 Popes and is very unique and cute.
Thu April 6^th	Avignon	Visited the popes house, the city and of course the famous Pont D'Avignon (actually called Pont Benezet). Took a train ride around town too.
Fri April 7^th	Avignon	Another day and we visited the covered market while Mom slept off her food poisoning. Charlie had his first bidet experience too.
Sat April 8^th	Avignon - Gordes	A big driving day through Provence. We took off for St-Remy and Les Beaux, both made famous from where artist, like Van Gogh hung out for inspiration. Les Beaux was a very high walled city which was very unique and fun to walk around in. We had lunch there. Gordes was a very picturesque town and we had a great hotel with a view of the valley called "Les Luberons". Reminded us a lot of Italy.
Sun April 9^th	Gordes - Nice	Up early for drive east along the Mediterranean. We touched the sea at St-Raphael which wasn't that far on the highway.
Mon April 10^th	Nice	Around Nice and drove out down the cast through Monaco and even stepped over the border into Italy for fun. Great trip along the coast
Tue April 11^th	Nice - Vaison La Romaine	Our hotel was great fun the last few days. It was brand new and Charlie was the first kid that stayed there. They all made a big fuss with him. We packed up and headed towards Provence again for a night stay in Vaison La Romaine. Turned out that we stayed in a way cool chateau that was built in 1549. Now it totally rocked. It was run by an Irish woman and her French husband and was more like a big B&B.
Wed April 12^th	Vaison La Romaine - Avallon	Visited the horses at the chateau and head out for Paris.
Thu April 13^th	Avallon - Paris	off to Paris
Fri April 14^th	Paris - Chicago	Home Sweet Home