Day 2 Arrive in Tokyo

We arrived in Narita airport and were driven by a nice mini van to our hotel in the Ikebukuro district of Tokyo.  The rooms at the B Ikibukuro hotel are very compact, no drawers and a couple of hangers for clothes.  The location couldn't be better - it is surrounded by small restaurants, cafes, stores of all sorts, and only 2 blocks to the Ikebukuro rail station.  On our orientation walk, our tour guide May showed us a very popular Ramen shop where we all had dinner.  You order and pay for your meal at a vending machine at the entrance, then you are seated in individual stalls, partitioned off from other diners.  We split a ramen and I had a beer for about 1500 yen, or $13.57 for the 2 of us.  Who said Tokyo was expensive? 

Day 1 Flying out of SFO to Narita (Tokyo)

Our airport experience: I was looking forward to using our 2 passes to the United Business Lounges,  for  paying the annual fee for our Chase/United credit card.  We had enjoyed our visits to the British Air lounge at SFP in years past, but United was inferior by a mile.  It was crowded, and the food choices were very limited.   If we were drinkers, the bar would have made up for some of the limitations.

I dreaded the long plane ride in economy class from SFO to Tokyo, but was hoping that ANA would be ok.  I was pleasantly surprise that the seats allowed plenty of space for my knees, and to make it even bette3r, I moved to a row of 3 empty seats so I could lie down across them. Our lunch was very good: the entre was shrimp tempura with eggplant and fluffy Japanese rice, some veggies, soba noodles, tomago (egg), and smoked salmon.

June 10- Lascaux wall painting

Today we drove to see the cave housing a re-creation of ancient paintings in a nearby cave.  Lunch was at a pleasant riverside restaurant.

Super huge salad that Ann and I shared. It had many of the regional specialties- duck breast, foi gras & walnuts, as well as lettuce & tomatoes.  It was so big that it was served on a cutting board. Although we shared it with everyone else, we still weren't able to finish it.

June 9-Touring around Sarlat

Today we visited several villages near Sarlat.  The short drive was enjoyable because we were on country roads winding through picturesque countryside.

Lunch in the village of Domme at a table with a great view of the valley below.

Gail was pleased with her lunch

My Panna Cotta dessert

June 8- Long drive from Paris to Sarlat

To get from Paris to our next stop, Sarlat, we were going to take a train to Bordeaux, then rent a van and drive 2.5 hours to Sarlat.  A strike cancelled our train so we were glad to have reserved a van in Paris.  What should have been a 5.5 hour drive to Sarlat was turned into a 9 hour drive because a long stretch of highway was closed by water damage due to recent storms. Fortunately, t-mobile provides free international data and I have an app called waze, which helped us get to Sarlat.

June 17-Last day

I just noticed a couple of posts that I didn't publish last June while on our Viking River cruise in Bordeaux.

Our last dinner menu

Lobster appetizer

Mushroom soup

Chateaux b

Dessert

The well fed gang enjoying dessert

June 6 - Soufflés for lunch

We had a fun lunch at a restaurant called Le Soufflé, which lists and soufflés for appetizers entrées and desserts. The desserts were particularly good. Here are some photos of what we ate:

Teri and her souffle

Gail and her chocolate souffle

Our grande Marnier souffle