November 6th Madrid We took an Uber from our Nantes hotel to the airport at about 12 noon. We were flying Volotea Air to Madrid, departing at 3pm and had paid for first row seating which got us on and off quickly. The flight still only cost us $75 each. We had prebooked a shuttle and our driver knew some English so we learned a few things about Madrid along the way. There is an amazing underground road system that runs under the city and it got us to our rental property by 6pm. We were greeted at the door by our host, Jose Manuel, and welcomed into his beautiful apartment on the 7th floor with a large penthouse terrace overlooking the city. The grocery store across the street furnished us well with food and drink ... read more

October 31st, Paris Well, we made it safely to Paris! Our pre-arranged taxi got us from the airport to Hotel Korner Eiffel by 10:30 on Tuesday October 31st. We left our bags, grabbed a map and set off to areas unexplored in past trips. A lengthy metro journey brought us to Pere Lachaise Cemetery. Opened in 1804, it has 70,000 elaborate mausoleums and head stones of famous Parisians in a sculptured garden. We located Jim Morrison's grave, a surprisingly small, tucked away grave but the most visited and adorned with flowers from fans of the Doors. Next we stopped at Place de la Republic, where Parisians gathered after the terrorist attacks, and then to the Bastille area where we had a late lunch. We ended our day with a walk through the our favourite Latin Quarter, ... read more