Tourist First: France, Belgium, Netherlands: Six weeks in Spring 2025

The giant mechnical elephant and the three-level carousel at Les Machines de L'ile in Nantes.

There's something to be said for revisiting places you've enjoyed in the past, and something to be said for trying new destinations. In spring 2025, Jane and I did a bit of both, visiting old favorites and exploring new territory in France, and for the first time venturing into Belgium and the Netherlands. I lived in Paris for a year and a half in the early 1990s, Jane did a bicycle tour in France in the 1980s, and together we traveled around France in 2014.

Here's how the 2025 trip went (click on the all-capital links for more on each destination):

PARIS On Wednesday, April 30, we left San Diego, flying Delta to JFK in New York and then Air France to Paris, where we arrived at 1pm on Thursday, May 1. We had planned to share this Airbnb apartment in Montmartre for 10 days with friends from Colorado, but they had to cancel and we had the place to ourselves. Thirty-five years ago, I wouldn't have wanted to stay anywhere near the Boulevard Clichy, but the aggressive prostitutes, strip clubs and sex shops are mostly gone. We ventured into Montmartre during our 2014 trip only to see Sacre Coeur and to get to the sprawling Saint Ouen Flea Market. This time we ended up eating most of our dinners in bistros and brasseries within two or three blocks of the apartment. The people strolling the sidewalks were often pushing baby strollers. The neighborhood had the feeling of a village, which is how Montmartre is often described. Nearby Metro stations made it easy to get around the rest of the city.

NANTES On Sunday, May 10 we took a train for the 2.5-hour trip to Nantes, the city at the mouth of the Loire River. We stayed three nights at the Hotel de France, we rode a gigantic mechanical elephant as well as a three-story carousel at Les Machines de L'ile. Even with rainy weather during our stay, we enjoyed this somewhat weird and funky city. I had passed through Nantes briefly more than 30 years ago without discovering what a worthwhile destination it is.

CANCALE We picked up a Hertz rental car in Nantes on Wednesday, May 14, to drive to Brittany's oyster capital, Cancale, the source, we were told, of the oysters that Louis XIV had every morning for breakfast. We stayed two nights at La Mere Champlain, a hotel-restaurant on the waterfront. Eating oysters is the main pasttime here. There were a few Brits, but most of the other tourists appeared to be French.

MONT SAINT-MICHEL On Friday, May 16, we drove our Peugeot 408 to Mont Saint-Michel, where we parked in a lot on the mainland and took a shuttle that dropped us off on the causeway to the small island. We stayed one night at Mere Poulard, which is both the island's most famous restauant (it's where centuries ago the omelet was invented) and a pretty miserable hotel. Our room involved climbing five steep flights of stairs only to find a standard double bed with the worst, most worn-out mattress I have ever tried to sleep on. The restaurant, however, was good, serving the pre-sale (salt-meadow) lamb that Mont Saint-Michel is famous for. Most people visit the island as a day trip, which I had done long ago and which I would recommend today. One tip for visiting here: pay for the most complete tour of the abbey that's available. There aren't many ancient structures like it that are still intact.

BAYEUX Next was a quick drive to Bayeux, the town that serves as a base for the many Americans who come to see the D-Day beaches. We were there a few days before the D-Day anniversary, and the few Americans we spoke to were all there to see the beaches. We explored the town instead and visited its D-Day museum, which we both found fascinating. We also saw the famous Baueux Tapestry and used the excellent audio guide to hear the story it tells. We stayed two nights at the Hotel Tardif Noble Guesthouse.

ETRETAT Our last stop in western France was Etretat, the town of white cliffs featured in "Lupin," the Netflix series about a flamboyant French thief whose exploits are based on those of Arsene Lupin, a character in early 20th-century novels by Maurice Leblanc. Leblanc's home in Etretat is now a museum with an audio guide that has both Leblanc and Lupin himself showing you around the house, including the room where Lupin kept his disguises. Here we stayed two nights at Dormy House, which is half-way up the cliffs and overlooks most of the town. A tip for here: try the saffron-infused gin and tonic at Dormy.

ROUEN On Wednesday, May 21, we drove to Rouen and turned in our car. Here we stayed one night at Hotel Bourgtheroulde, part ot Marriott's Autograph group. We were in Rouen mainly to catch the next day's train to Paris and then go on to Lyon, but we agree that Rouen provided a highlight of our six week-trip. We were at its cathedral for a Luminiscense light show in which the gothic interior is painted with multi-color lasers to replicate everything from a World War II bombing attack, from which the cathedral is still recovering, to glorious sun rises, falling stars and more. Live musicians and a choir were there, too, for the 50-minute spectacle. I thought it was like being inside a great fireworks display. Luminiscense is not to be confused with the annual summer event in which the front of the cathedral is similarly illuminated.

LYON To get to Lyon from Rouen, we took a noon train to Paris's St. Lazare station, then a subway to the Gare de Lyon to catch a train that had us in Lyon before 5pm. Here we stayed at Hotel de l'Abbaye, housed in the converted presbytery of the nearby Romanesque Basilica of Ainay. From here we could walk to everything in Lyon, from the Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse market to the Musee des Confluences to La Bouteillerrie, a tiny wine-centered restaurant that we had enjoyed more than a decade earlier. We still enjoyed it. Other meals here included a couple of Bouchons, bistro-size restaurants serving the rich comfort foods of Lyon. The setting almost justified the high prices for cocktails at Le Dome in the Intercontinental Hotel, which itself is housed in the city's historic Grand Hotel-Dieu.

After four nights in Lyon, on Monday, May 16, we took a two-hour train ride north to Dijon, where we stayed three nights at Hostellerie du Chapeau Rouge. Dijon, is known for its mustard, of course, and we visited shops offering samples and selling souvenir-size bottles. It's also a wine town, though having its own appellation is years or decades away. We visited one winery, Chateau de Marsannay, which was a short drive out of town. The tastings included some pretty pricy wines (this is Burgundy, after all, source of some of the most expensive wines in the world), but even if we could afford a few bottles, we didn't want to lug them around for the rest of our trip. We left with happy palates but no wine.

Our next (and last) destination in France was also wine-centric, Champagne. The towns of Epernay and Riems, to be specific. We had picked up an Opel Corsa at Avis for our last day in Dijon and made the three-hour drive to Epernay, where we stayed at Clos le Raymi, an inn a couple of blocks from the Avenue de Champagne, where Perrier-Joliet and Moet & Chandon are based. We visited each of those and had fantastic flights, mostly Champagnes of different vintages, but also maybe a rose or an all-chardonnay as well the traditional Champagne (chardonnay, pinot noir and petite meunier). The only Champagne house we visited twice was Michel Gonet, where the quality of the Champagnes was high and the level of snootiness was low. We also enjoyed a couple of glasses at Besserat de Bellefon. Epernay is a very walkable small town, with restaurants, a train station and shops in a warren of streets at one end of the Avenue of Champagne. We drove a few kilometers north one day to Reims to have lunch and sample the Champagnes at Ruinart. Both were exceptional. Reims is a much larger city than Epernay and its Avenue de Champagne is not walkable. Although Ruinart was our favorite of all that we tasted, I'd recommend Epernay over Reims any day.

So that was it for France this trip. On Sunday, June 1, we boarded a 90-minute Erpernay to Paris train. We arrived at Gare de l'Est and had a half-hour to get to Gare du Nord for a Eurostar train to Brussels. Though I love the train stations of Paris as much as anyone, it is a lot of bother to have to go from one station to another (even if, like here, they're just a couple of blocks apart) to make a connection. We got into Brussels in time for a late lunch. We stayed four nights at Made in Catherine, a boutique hotel on Place Ste.-Catherine, a large plaza with fountains, restaurants and the 19th-century Sainte-Catherine church. From there it was a ten-minute walk to Grand-Place, the plaza that is the heart of Brussels. One of our days here, we walked to the Hemicycle, the European Parliament building, for a tour and a presentation on how the European Union works. We left with hope that democracy might survive the 21st century. Another day we took a quick train ride to Ghent where we were met by our son-in-law's cousin, Javad, who went to graduate school there and now works there as an engineer. He showed us around Ghent and then drove us to nearby Bruges for a quick walk through that picturesque town. In a display of the sort of hospitality we saw years ago when we first met Javad in his native Iran, he not only drove us back to the train station in Ghent, he walked us to the platform and stayed until we were on the train. We had some good meals in Brussels, and we found one place to recommend for drinks, the Bar Magritte, a hotel bar near the Grand-Place.

On Thursday, June 5, we took the 90-minue train ride to Rotterdam. After seeing so many old plazas and ancient buildings elsewhere, we looked forward to Rotterdam, a city that had to be almost completely rebuilt after the destruction of World War II. We stayed three nights in the Centre, more or less the heart of the city, at Morgan & Mees, a small hotel that keeps its guests supplied with M&Ms. We took a quick Metro train (there was a one-day strike on the main rail system) to The Hague where we got to see Vermeer's "Girl With a Pearl Earring" at the Mauritshuis museum. We spent a good part of a rainy day at Rotterdam's Depot, an unusual museum where art is stored as much as displayed. And everywhere in Rotterdam we appreciated the whimsy and flamboyance of its architecture, most visible perhaps in the Cube Houses, which we visited the afternoon we arrived. Only one of these odd residences is open to the public; the rest are actually lived in by their owners or renters.

Our trip was coming to an end with one last destination: Amsterdam. On Sunday, June 8, we took a one-hour train ride to this unique city where we stayed four nights at The Hendricks, a small harborfront hotel. Although some parts of the city were at times almost impassable due to crowds (tourists, I guess), most of the central city was pleasant for strolling. I had thought the many canals would be bordered by public walkways, but most are not, butting up against streets or street parking, with sidewalks for pedestrians on the other side of the streets. In Venice the canals carry all the traffic of the city. Here there are streets for cars, trucks and countless bicycles, leaving the canals to be used mostly by sight-seeing boats. On one of our three full days here we took a canal tour with Those Dam Boat Guys, and our boat's pilot/guide offered lots of insight into this city. Minority religions, LBGT+ people, marijuana users, prostitutes and others are not so much welcomed as left alone. "The idea is that what goes on behind closed doors is not our business," he said. We also visited the Ann Frank House and the Rembrandt-rich Rijks Museum. And we walked a lot, marveling at the city's tall, narrow and often tilted houses, and gawking at the many houseboats that are permanently tied up along many canals.

Then it was time to go. We flew nonstop to San Diego on KLM on Thursday, June 12, leaving at 11:10am and arriving home at noon on the same day.

Here are a few snapshots:

Sacre Couer and Montmartre as seen though a clock at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.

Le Passage Pommeraye is a 19th-century shopping mall in the heart of Nantes.

Oysters are grown in cages along the coast at Cancale.
At high tide, all this will be completely under water.

Even at low tide, such as here, most visitors get to Mont Saint-Michel
on foot after a shuttle drops them off on the causeway safely above the
tidal sands, which include areas of quicksand.

The Bayeux Tapistry tells the story of the French duke who
became William the Conquerer and won the English throne.

The white cliffs of Etretat rival those of Dover on the other side of the English Channel.

Flames lick at the robes of Joan of Arc in
this statue at the site in Rouen where the
teenager was burned to death in 1431.

The Museum of the Confluence, situated where the Saone River flows into the Rhone in
Lyon, has no main facade. Its design is meant to be a metaphor for evolving knowledge.
Inside, at one exhibit, we sat in individual video booths as a sequence of
scholars discussed the myths, social practices and realitiy of death.

Ancient half-timbered buildings, sidewalk dining and carousels: parts of Dijon
resemble a Gallic theme park. Most of the town, though, is pleasantly humdrum.