Notes on Showing a Parent Around Europe
By: Andrew Dornon
Tags: Ghent, London, Baby Boomer, Millenial, Parent

In 2018, I went on a 10 day trip to Europe with my Mom. She had never been. We both had a reasonably good time and didn’t kill each other. I consider it a success.

These are my raw notes of the trip, mostly without commentary. I’m posting them because I think it’s a reasonably good itinerary for folks who have never been to London, Ghent and Paris, and because I’ve had to forward the email so many times that I just want a link. I’m not a serious expert on any of these places, but I’ve since been back to Ghent and Paris and stand by these choices.

London

Took the Eurostar from Paris to London St. Pancras. Got in Mom’s first London Black Cab to head to the Nell Gwynn House in Kensington. It was a 50 year snow storm when we arrived. Got into our apartment and then headed straight for the Victoria and Albert Museum — devoted to decorative arts and fashion from around the world. Walked around the Kensington area after and found a Spanish tapas place that snuck us in despite not having a reservation. Had croquettes, tortilla espanola, whatever bruschetta is called in Spanish with Champagne sangria and a tempranillo.

First full day in London, we hit Buckingham Palace and the mall.

Stopped at Churchill’s War Rooms on our way to Westminster Abbey and Westminster Palace. Took the tube up to Tower Hill. Ate at a restaurant next to the Tower Bridge and the Thames — Mom had fish and chips. Went to the Tower of London and saw the Crown Jewels.

Hopped on a boat on the Thames. Saw Whitehall, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Tate Modern, and of course Westminster Palace from the water.

That night we saw Picadilly Circus, walked through SoHo tried to go to a really old pub that recently switched to all vegan food, but it was so slammed we couldn’t. But we had stumbled across London’s Chinatown on our way there, so we doubled back and had Chinese. Afterwards, we walked to Trafalgar Square where we saw the National Gallery.

The next day, we headed off in pursuit of street art and Indian food in London’s East End. Along the way we found several street markets and food halls. Given how many Indian places there are on Brick Lane we chose one essentially at random and were rewarded. We shared the vegetarian sampler menu. I ate what I thought was a green bean but was actually a really hot pepper. Afterward we continued to walk around and peruse the Sunday markets of Brick Lane and Shoreditch.

On our way back into the city, we stopped at what must be the largest, most expensive department store in the world, Harrod’s. It’s 5 stories of luxury goods from clothes, to crystals, to showrooms of fancy condo buildings. Conveniently, they also have a fancy tearoom for high tea. I got a black Indian tea and Mom got some sort of red tea. We got scones with jam and clotted cream that I must say are much better than scones in the States.

Mom wanted to go to church in an Anglican cathedral, so we headed to St. Paul’s for something called Evensong.

St. Paul’s is of course magnificent and during the service they used lots of incense, also a nice touch. The priest did a fine job, especially on the prayers of the people which she directed more toward those who work in the service of others than is usually done — at least at St. Mary’s, the church I was forced to attend growing up.

Afterwards, we walked down the street to Two Temple Place, formerly Astor House, and as luck would have it, found a brewpub. Mom had a Coke Zero and I had a flight of their cask beers. We shared fried pickles.

Belgium

On our third day, we packed up and caught the Eurostar to Brussels. Dropped our bags at Brussels Midi/Zuid train station and headed into the historic center. We went to Grand Place and as usual, it was breathtaking. We then set out to eat all the Belgian chocolate we could, starting at Galler Chocolatier. Taking a quick break from our chocolate mission, we popped into the Delirium Café where I got Mom a strawberry beer that wasn’t very sour and I had a geuze. Going back to chocolate, we found that glass covered road/mall that I don’t know the name of and hit 4 chocolatiers in a row. We then headed out to the first Pierre Marcolini whose chocolate we ate on a bench in front of some unnamed but beautiful cathedral. We then walked back through an African neighborhood to the station and luckily got on a train to Ghent almost immediately. There weren’t many seats, so I sat in one of those areas between cars, but we were on our way nonetheless.

We arrived in Ghent, figured out the tram system (something I failed to do my last time there) and after going through the main square and marveling at the Belfort, St. Nicholas’s Church and St. Bavo’s Cathedral. We then got to our 3 story medieval townhome filled with nice design details. We quickly set out for the Holy Food Market, which is a food hall located in an old cathedral and is dizzyingly lit.

We found a vegan food stall and got a veggie burger and Pad Thai, both quite good.

Afterwards, we set out across town for a place called Trappisthuisen, which is an old bar dating from the 1600s that serves hard to get Trappist beers, I had a Chimay that you can only get in two bars in Ghent and Mom got a strawberry lambic, which was more sour than the first. We then started walking around in pursuit of the bar I originally was looking for that’s on a canal. We found it, but I don’t know what it’s called.

Ghent is the most beautiful at night because the whole town is so dramatically lit including random canalside streets.

On our way home, we made sure to stop in the main square and look at the three massive, medieval structures as well as the new City Pavillion, an architectural wonder in its own right.

Our second day in Ghent, we went into all the Cathedrals. In the Belfort, we saw all of the bells and went up as far as the elevator would go, but declined to take a narrow spiral staircase something like 20 stories to the top. St. Nicholas’ was beautiful and someone was playing the famous organ inside. St. Bavo’s is really the pinnacle because inside you can see the Altar of Ghent, one of Europe’s greatest works of art (and also one of the most stolen).

We ate lunch next to the Korenmarket (an old market they’ve turned into sort of a shopping boutique with restaurants) in the plaza facing St. Nicholas’. Then we headed off to the university section of town, stopping first at the Vooruit. In the past, a site of worker insurrection and socialist organizing, today a cultural center and a nice place to drink a Belgian beer on their rooftop terrace. We then walked around Ghent University, and went into some of the buildings. I was surprised that they were lecturing in Dutch.

At this point, Mom’s legs were a little worn out (and truth be told mine were feeling the wear of 8 miles a day on average), so she opted to get a massage from a nice Belgian lady. I opted to go sit on a canal and drink Belgian craft beer at what is now my favorite bar in Ghent, Barazza.

After this, we ate at a vegan cafeteria type place that was quite nice.

Paris

Onto Paris, we stopped in Brussels briefly, but found out that the Cantillon brewery is closed on Wednesdays, so continued on the Thalys to Gare du Nord. We somewhat foolishly braved the metro to St. Germain — there were a fair number of stairs we had to lug our suitcases up. Our Airbnb host was late, so we stopped in at the first of many sidewalk cafes.

Around 4 PM we got into our apartment, up a narrow spiral staircase — luckily only one story. Inside we found a lovely flat with interesting books and art. Clearly some sort of creative Parisian lived here.

We quickly set out to try to get our bearings. We walked through St. Germain toward the Seine. We got there and saw Notre Dame to our right. The Louvre straight ahead and the Tulleries to our left. I’ve been there a few times, but I can’t imagine central Paris ever getting old. We walked across the Seine and into the courtyard of the Louvre, walking through the central courtyard and out into the plaza where the famous glass Pyramid sits.

Obviously we wanted to walk through the Garden of the Tulleries, but there were approximately 200 heavily armed national police preventing us from doing so. At least at the entrance closest to the Louvre. So we headed back to the road along the Seine and walked maybe 200 meters until we got to an entrance to the garden we could go in. I pointed out the famous green chairs and how in French parks you aren’t supposed to walk on the grass. It was rainy, so this walk was a little less impressive than it normally is.

We then arrived at the Place de la Concorde, notable for its Egyptian obelisk in the middle of a giant roundabout (probably famous for other reasons too). We crossed the Seine at this point and hiked to the Eiffel Tower, and walked up to the Trocadero for optimal viewing/picture taking.

At this point, we were worn out and done sight seeing for the day. So we took the metro back to St. Germain and headed to La Gran Epicerie — sort of like a giant Whole Foods. It’s a site of pilgrimage for forward thinking Parisian foodies. There we bought breads, cheeses (the four core French types: hard, goat rolled in ash, washed in beer and blue), meats, jams and, my favorite, lots of half bottles of wine to double the amount of wine that could be sampled. Having procured what we thought was one dinner, we headed home for a feast. Our host had left us a bottle of champagne, so we opened that as an aperitif before dinner.

The next day, we headed to the tourist office to pick up our museum passes. Luckily, this office is near the Paris Opera House, so we headed there straight away. Also luckily, Pierre Herme, one of Paris’ most famous macaron makers has a shop in between, so of course we stopped there. Mom got a pink one, lychee, I think. I asked for the best one, and it was quite good.

After a spin around the Opera, we headed back to the central city and straight to the Orangerie — a building where French aristocrats grew oranges year-round. Now it contains 8 Monet waterlilies. I thought I had seen his waterlilies before, but no. These were massive. Probably 30’ by 8’. So big they had to curve them around the room.

Next we headed to the Rodin museum, which is housed in a Hotel he lived in and on the grounds. Unlike a lot of museums, they didn’t hold anything back and the first piece we saw was “The Thinker”. I’m not sure how big I thought it was, but it was a lot bigger. In the background, you can see a beautiful building, which at the time, we didn’t know what it was, but turned out to be the Hotel of the Invalids.

We also saw Rodin’s famous “The Kiss”, along with probably 100 other works. The man was really, absurdly prolific.

We stopped at a sidewalk café for lunch. French food gets a lot of acclaim, some for good reasons and some I think for the ambiance because most cafes essentially serve diner food. Don’t get me wrong, I love diner food, but it’s not haute cuisine. Mom got a classic croquet monsieur (a fancy name for a grilled ham and cheese) and I got an omelet. Delicious both, but diner food no doubt.

We then sought out that building we could see when looking at The Thinker. It’s called The Invalides. And it looks like a giant military base with a cathedral in the middle. Because that’s what it was, or rather it was a veterans hospital. Now it’s the military museum, although there are still a lot of military people there. Inside the cathedral — this random church we ran across — is the tomb of NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. I’m continually astounded by how much history you run across in Europe, but this was utterly bizarre. And we weren’t even done for the day. We paused on Avenue St. Germain for a glass of wine at a sidewalk café to avoid getting the dreaded “museum legs”. Needless to say we had walked probably 6 miles already this day.

Onward to the Musee D’Orsay, which is the museum that houses most of the Impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in Paris. It’s housed in a beautiful, largely glass old train station. There we saw countless works by Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Manet, Degas, Cassatt Seurat, and more. I’m always reminded of how overlooked Alfred Sisley is when visiting the D’Orsay.

Fortunately, our apartment was only 5 or so art gallery filled blocks away, so we went home to put our feet up for a short break.

But not for too long because we then headed to the hip Marais neighborhood, for a classic French meal at Le Potager du Marais. Well, French classics made vegan. So…not really classic at all. Mom got the “Boeuf” Bourgogne and I got the cassoulet. Both are dishes I’ve made at home. But of course, these were so wildly better, that it’s almost silly to compare them.

Our third day in Paris, we decided to focus on slightly more modern art, so we headed to the Centre Pompidou. Famous for besides being an amazing modern art museum, was also designed with all of its duct-work, electrical stuff, elevator shafts and escalators on the outside, rather than hidden away beneath walls and façade.

Unfortunately, the Modern exhibit (1940s to 1970s) was closed, so we missed a lot of the Picassos, Pollacks and Warhols that are truly stunning. We were left with the Contemporary exhibit, which is bizarre, experiential and wonderful.

But perhaps not Mom’s cup of tea. Luckily, you don’t have to treat modern art museums like temples, so we made quick work of it.

We then headed off in the direction of the Picasso museum, but not before spotting some glasses that I thought were cool and trying on a lot of pairs. Everyone in Europe is wearing these cool glasses that have plastic rims, but metal arms, and I can’t seem to find them easily in the States.

We got to the Picasso museum, which is another hotel the artist lived in (this is a weird theme and maybe the translation is wrong). We saw lots of Picasso paintings, sculptures and pastiches. As well as his personal collection paintings from friends. It’s always strange but important to remember that he was a very talented figurative artist even in media that he isn’t known for.

We then ate on a street in Marais that is chock full of vegetarian restaurants. We ate at a bento box restaurant that I guess was Japanese but was mostly just weird. But reasonably good.

Having hit the point of art exhaustion, we set out for Montmarte. We surfaced in an immigrant neighborhood full of African shops selling clothing and foodstuffs. This part of Paris always reminds me that the place has a future, rather than just a glittering but long dead past. African immigrants start businesses in Europe at ludicrously higher rates than native born folks and are a great source of economic optimism in an otherwise mediocre picture of slow decline.

Anyway, walked up into Montmarte to the funicular that takes you up to Sacre Coeur. I’d never taken it before and I must say it’s preferable to the walk. We got to the top and spent the first ten minutes just taking in the panoramic view of Paris. Then we did something I’ve never done before — we actually went inside the church. It’s nice, but I’m not sure I can distinguish between old churches that well.

We then set out walking around Montmarte and saw the only vineyard in Paris, the I Love You wall, and the Black Cat cabaret (of poster fame). Thinking Mom would know what the Moulin Rouge was and forgetting some details about the neighborhood, we set out for Pigalle. I was explaining that it used to be a red light district where Impressionist painters drank absinthe in cafes and went to cabarets as it became apparent that it is still a bit of a red light district, just sans the famous painters. Mom thought this was hilarious. Undeterred, we still walked past the studio of Toulouse-Lautrec — famed for his fondness of the neighborhood. We then continued on into South Pigalle which has gentrified and become a happening place. A bit hungry, we stopped for a pain au chocolat and an almond croissant.

In pursuit of a champagne tasting, we popped into an acclaimed wine bar. They didn’t do tastings, but did have a fine champagne by the glass, which Mom got. I got a Bordeaux and grabbed some bottles of “natural wine” for home. Natural wines are all the rage in France and thus are hard to get at home. They don’t use any additives of course, but what makes them interesting is that they use wild yeast. So sometimes they are a little effervescent, sour or barnyard-y.

We then headed home for another indoor picnic of wine and cheese. Unpasteurized cheese gets funkier as it ages in air, so the cheese had gotten even weirder. Afterwards, we headed out to get up close to Notre Dame and to pop into Shakespeare and Company. Notre Dame is of course beautiful at night. But Shakespeare and Company. What a bookstore. I always ask for French literature in translation that the French love, but Americans don’t know about. I got Limonov by Emmanuel Carrere which covers the life and times of a man who was “a young punk in Ukraine, the idol of the Soviet underground; a bum, then a multimillionaire’s butler in Manhattan; a fashionable writer in Paris; a lost soldier in the Balkans; and now, in the fantastic shambles of postcommunism, the elderly but charismatic leader of a party of young desperadoes.”

Just a completely insane guy I’d never heard of, written up amazingly by one of France’s most celebrated authors, who I also had never heard of. I read the book in one sitting on the way home. At the recommendation of one of the clerks, I also picked up two books by Annie Ernaux — “A Man’s Place” about her father and another about her mother. I finished “A Man’s Place” on the flight home as well.

The next day was dedicated to doing more normal, less touristy things. So we headed away from the central city to Canal St. Martin. Where we proceeded to walk along the canal, looking in shops and at homeless camps filled mostly with relatively well-kempt folks who I presumed were refugees. We ate Indonesian for lunch, which Mom didn’t like too much, but I love. And then continued strolling around peering in shop windows with what seemed like every other Parisian on a sunny Saturday. We came across a Chanel store and had to go in in search of Mom’s favorite, Number 22. Which of course they had (even though Harrod’s hadn’t). The lady who helped us was imminently patient and helpful. With that great success behind us, we barely noticed that we failed to find cool glasses at a reasonable price.

We stopped for a break at the Plaza of the Bastille, and decided to head to this beer bar in the outskirts of town to see what a more middle class Parisian life looks like. And to drink beer that is impossible to find in the US. They carry a lot of Cantillon, which I knew having been there for Zwanze Day the year before. We arrived a bit before opening and so sat in a park where kids were playing ping pong and a lady was having a psychotic break. Everyone ignored her for about 5 minutes, but when all the French people left, so did we. Luckily this bar, La Fine Mousse had opened and already attracted several other beer pilgrims.

To be polite I asked what was best and was given some sort of local stout. It was fine. But I was there to get the Cantillon I had been denied in Brussels. First, I ordered a Cantillon rose gambrinus (made with strawberries) for Mom and I to share. She didn’t completely hate it. Next up was the Kriek, a cherry sour. She hated it. Finally, was the show stopper, their Geuze. Surprisingly, Mom didn’t hate it, despite containing no fruit.

Having spent 90 euros on 3 beers, we decided to head home, where what we thought would have only been one meal became our final dinner in Paris. We got to bed early on that last night, so we could make it to Charles de Gaulle the next day without worrying.

And we did. We made it in time to have a piece of quiche and one last pain au chocolat.