The Best Kind of Neighbor

That's our building with the pale green paint and white shutters, and here's the Karcher Winery!

David has been sick with a cold and the trains are still on strike, so we've been sticking close to home.  But, oh, how sweet home is when there's a winery right across the street!

Come on in to our Colmar Apartment!

Just a block from the quaint shopping/restaurant area is our apartment.  Open the door to the entry and climb one flight of stairs to our flat.

 The living/dining room and kitchen are one space with three high casement double windows flooding the room with light and fresh air.  (You can see in the mirror that  I'm busy taking photos while David is still exploring.)

France and England on $98 a Day - Giverny

Lack of wi-fi prevented me from writing about Giverny at the beginning of our trip, but since this travelogue would not be complete without it, we'll leave London and go back to France for a moment.

France and England on $98 a Day - Hotel Rooms

While we prefer apartments, David and I usually have to book a few hotel rooms during the odd transition/travel day, and this trip was no exception. But this time was unusual because we were in heaven one night with enough room in our room to hold a party, and so little space the next night that we had to take turns moving around the room.

Oradour-sur-Glane

France on $70 a Day – Sarlat-la-Caneda

This was written in the Dordogne, but, because Internet cafes were difficult to find, it was posted from California.

To celebrate our 21-month anniversary today, we ate breakfast in town at one of the bakeries where you place your order at the counter and then enjoy your petit dejeuner at one of the tables on the sidewalk. Then we wound our way through the market-day streets clogged with merchants selling bread, wine, cheese, pastries, herbs, paintings, and wine to the tourist bureau for the tour of the town.

Our English-speaking guide led us through the historic center of this town that's existed since Gallo-Roman times. It was the first town to benefit from culture minister Andre Malraux's law which was designed to protect and preserve historic buildings, and, thanks to a major restoration, it is now perhaps the best representative of a town from 14th century France. I could write more, but it's probably best to experience this beautiful town in photos.


Practicalities -

The English-language tour is offered every Wednesday at 11:00. Go to the tourist bureau around 10:45 to pay your 5 euro fee and then wait outside for the guide.

France on $70 a Day - The Plan

Although our airline tickets are not included in the $70 a day budget, you might be interested in how we got two round-trip tickets from San Diego to Paris for $1042.

I used frequent flyer miles, including buying some miles from my son's account, to purchase my ticket on March 3. With the processing fees and the purchase of my son's miles, my total was $291.

At the time I made my reservation, David's flight would have cost $1077. We decided to wait and hope for a price decrease. There are many free alert services available, but we used Kayak and asked for daily notification. (Sign up for a free account at http://www.kayak.com/ to use the Alert feature.)

By the end of March, we were getting nervous. The price from San Diego to Paris had dropped slightly, but it was still closer to $1000 than we liked. We worried that David might eventually score a lower price by waiting, but we didn't know if it would on the same airline or on the same day. We didn't want to wave to each other from passing airlines or arrive in Paris on different days. We'd give it another two weeks, and then he'd have to bite the bullet.

On April 4, just a month after placing the alert, Kayak's daily e-mail told us that the ticket we wanted was $751! Since it was still five months before our planned departure, there were plenty of seats left on our chosen flight, and we had no difficulty making the reservation. Thanks to Kayak and David's patience, we saved $326!

Accommodations

After airline tickets, the largest expenditure for a trip is accommodations. In Paris, you can spend $20 a day for a hostel or $500 for a luxurious hotel room. Obviously, for us, the answer was not even in the middle of the two extremes. We wanted a place that was close to the hostel price—cheap, yet being centrally located was important, and we wanted to feel, if only for ten days, as though we were living like Parisiens. The search began.

David and I, using our separate computers, combed the Internet for apartments. We used many sites too numerous to list, but the source we kept returning to was Slow Travel. Here, travelers like us who eschew tours and like to wander leisurely, post their reviews of hotels and apartments. This is the site we used to find our perfect place in Paris.

We will be staying in the 10th arrondissement, a newly trendy area that Matt Gross, who writes the NY Times Frugal Travel column, says is called bobo for bourgeois bohemian. Our 350 square foot apartment is on the sixth floor—there's an elevator—and contains two separate sleeping areas, a fully equipped though tiny kitchen, living room and small balcony. We will have a washing machine and dryer, a dishwasher, a computer, telephone, television, and access to bicycles in case we want to see Paris on two wheels. The cost is 660 E, or $933 at today's exchange rate of 1.41, for ten nights.

The next portion of our trip will be in the rural Dordogne area of southwestern France. A Rick Steves guidebook helped us find this gite which consists of two sleeping areas, a fully equipped kitchen, living room, and garden. There, too, we will have a washer, dryer, and television. The most wonderful feature about this property is that it's only thirty yards from the beautifully restored medieval city of Sarlat-le-Caneda. The cost is 450 E or $636 for eight nights.

So, we're spending roughly $87 a night, or $44 per person, for an apartment in two areas of France. Even Matt Gross, NY Times's Frugal Traveler, would approve of these prices, I think. And, if these apartments are as wonderful as we think they will be, you can be sure I'll be providing contact information about them in upcoming posts.

Practicalities -

Most ideas will be developed in much greater detail in subsequent articles, but this piece provides an overview of our plan.
This thread on Frommer's site lists numerous sources for locating a Paris short-term rental. http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/paris-apartment-thread.cfm