Lance and I just spent a sweltering weekend in Strasbourg, France, where I unwisely decided that we should go camping. Going to Strasbourg itself was a good call, although it is a long drive for a 3 day weekend, but if we had been able to predict the weather far enough in advance, we would've gotten an air conditioned hotel room.
Friday:
We left the house around 8:30 am, GPS unit and printed-out instructions in hand. We figured the total drive time would take around 4.5 hours, plus we were stopping at Bitburg AFB along the way to gas up, get lunch, and buy provisions for the trip. We arrived around 11 am at Bitburg. I'm not sure how long we spent there - more than an hour, less than 2.
Back on the road, we realize the instructions Lance printed out were too detailed and also inaccurate. Autobahn numbers aren't matching up with what we have in our directions. By some miracle, we don't get lost, although there are a lot of tense moments.
We arrive at the campground Montagne Verte (translated into "green mountain") at around 4 or so, making our travel time definitely more than 4.5 hours. Montagne Verte is just a couple of kilometers outside Strasbourg, but there is a bus and a tram that go into town. I should add that Montagne Verte is a misnomer. It might be green, but it certainly isn't a mountain.
We set up camp. I think it took a little less than an hour to get settled in. We were assigned a spot very near to the showers/restrooms, which was convenient in some respects, except that we could hear the toilet flushing all hours of the day and night. The people at the campsite next to us were British, and an American came along, saw Lance's truck, and introduced himself to us. We chatted for a bit. He was telling us how he and his wife were spending the summer bicycling through France and they were passing through Strasbourg for a couple of nights. We just thought it was interesting that the first people we met at the campground were English speakers.
After setting up camp and taking a brief rest, we decided to venture into town for dinner. As we were passing a stream that runs along the campground, we saw something that looked like a giant muskrat running toward the water. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get my camera ready in time, so I couldn't get a picture.
We found the tram station and bought our ticket. I think we bought the wrong ticket (we got the family pass that is good for 24 hours, although we found out later that the family pass must include children). But we traveled on it for 24 hours without getting caught, although I would not recommend doing that. They do have random checks. We just got lucky.
Once we were on the tram, I had no idea where to get off. My France guidebook doesn't offer a lot of information on Strasbourg, so I didn't really know where anything was. Once I saw the river, I decided that we should get off at the next stop. So we did. And then Lance discovered that I had no idea where we were, and he got a little upset. I told him that I was just winging it...that we could walk around and just explore and find a place that looked good to eat. But he was growing increasingly cranky (and the fact that it was about 90 degrees probably had a lot to do with it, as he overheats very easily). So after a bit of bickering back and forth about where and what to eat, I led him to the first place I saw after we settled down, which was an Italian place. It was good. I had the Tarte Flambee, which appears to be a local specialty (it was on nearly every single restaurant menu in town). It was basically a pizza without the sauce. Mine had cream, salmon, and onion on it. It was very very good.
After dinner, Lance was feeling more himself, and we decided to just walk along the river, which actually goes around town in a circle. We saw a good deal of the town just along the river. We decided to get some ice cream, so we eventually found ourselves at a kind of expensive Italian ice cream place. After we ate there, Lance wanted to head back to the campground for the night, so we hopped on the nearest tram we could find and made our way back.
Our first night was relatively peaceful. The other campers were courteous and weren't being loud and obnoxious at all hours of the night, which was nice. We could hear the toilets though and there were 3 churches in the area that rang their bells every 15 minutes, even in the middle of the night. Also, the outside lights around the bathroom/showers shone into our tent. I didn't get much sleep that first night, even though things cooled down considerably and it was comfortable sleeping weather. Our air mattress seems to have sprung a leak, so it deflated almost completely both nights. Irritating.
Saturday:
We started out with a picnic breakfast on a tablecloth in front of our tent (there was no picnic table...it's one of those "bring your own everything" campsites, although they had nice showers and places to wash dishes and laundry). We went into town around 10 am or so, and the first place I wanted to see was the Cathedrale Notre Dame de Strasbourg. It towers over Strasbourg and is quite an impressive sight from the outside. Lance and I didn't go in with high expectations. Since we saw the cathedral in Cologne, we use that as the measuring stick for which to judge all other cathedrals. I have to say, this was close. We were both very very impressed. The stained glass had such amazing colors. The organ pipes, I thought, were even more beautifully detailed than the ones in Cologne. The astronomical clock was also really cool, although we happened to see the little show of allegorical figures at 10:30, which was just as disappointing as Prague's.
Right as we were finishing up our tour of the cathedral, they started choir practice. It was such gorgeous music, and we were in such a gorgeous setting, that I got a lump in my throat and I got a bit teary-eyed. It really was amazing.
After our look at the cathedral, we decided to get some cold drinks and sit on the steps of the cathedral, watching the people walking around in the square and listening to a guy who was playing the accordian. It was really perfect, although you could tell that the day was about to get really hot.
I decided that our next stop should be Palais de Rohan, a palace right by the cathedral that has an archaeological museum as well as a museum of fine arts and a decorative arts museum. We paid one admission price for all 3. The archaeological museum was somewhat disappointing. The decorative arts museum was mildly interesting, although moreso because we got to actually see the palace as a living space rather than just a museum. We got to see the bedrooms and how the palace must've looked back when it was a residence. In the decorative arts museum, they have the old astronomical clock on display from the cathedral. That was probably the coolest thing in there. We spent a brief time walking around the fine arts museum, but Lance was complaining of boredom, so I didn't get much chance to explore there, even though there were works by some very famous painters. I know he's not into art though, so I was just happy to get to see some of it.
Once we left the palace, it was really starting to get horribly hot. I suggested that a boat tour might cool things down a little. We had a choice between open-air or a covered boat. Lance decided on covered, thinking that it would probably be air conditioned (one would hope...in heat like that, it would be like an oven if it wasn't air conditioned). It felt really nice when we first got on, but as the tour got started, it got warmer and warmer and warmer. I was sitting by the vent and I could feel less and less air coming out of it. We started to really bake in there after awhile, which just made both of us even more cranky. By the time we got out of the boat, being out in the open air again felt like a treat.
It was then that I realized the entire trip was probably a big mistake. Lance wasn't having a good time. I wasn't having a good time because I saw how uncomfortable Lance was. I told him that after we found a place to have lunch, we could go back to the campground and just sit out the hottest part of the day...take a long siesta...what have you. Fortunately, there was at least a cool breeze.
We started walking around in search of food, neither of us really knowing what we wanted to eat. When it's that hot, nothing really sounds good. Eventually, I found this rather remote place that served crepes. We were walking down some alley that was pretty much deserted, and I happened to look down a side alley and saw a sign for a crepe restaurant with an arrow pointing down an even narrower alley. So we went down that alley and it opened into a small square that had a couple of restaurants and a postcard shop. The creperie was packed. So we got some crepes and actually had a pleasant lunch. We were sitting outside in the shade, but with the cool breeze, it was pretty nice.
Lance felt recharged a bit after lunch, so he allowed for going a couple of places we saw on the boat tour where I wanted to get pictures. And then we got on the tram and went back to the campground and took a siesta until dinner. But before going back, we stopped at a little fast food joint between the tram stop and the campground that sold Magnum ice cream bars. I'm addicted to the double caramel ones, but they don't sell that kind here in Germany. I remembered finding them in Paris last year. So we looked and they advertised that they had them. Hurray! But when we tried to order one for me, we were told they did not have them. I had to settle for a different ice cream bar instead, which was good, but just not the same. Ah well. All other searches for the elusive Magnum Double Caramels ended with the same result, even though the Double Caramels were pictured on their ice cream posters. I guess they are not carried in that part of France. Phooey. (Oh well...they do sell them in England, so I will be happily eating one a day while in London next month!)
Back into town for dinner, and I was in the mood for doner kebap. We had seen dozens of doner places, but of course, when I actually wanted one, the doner kebap shops were nowhere to be found. We settled on another pasta place that was near the cathedral. And since we were there, we browsed some souvenir shops.
Today (Sunday):
Slept better than the first night. We got up, showered, had our picnic breakfast, and tore down the camp. We took a different route back. The route going there took us through Saarbrucken, which was a scary experience we didn't wish to repeat. So we bypassed Saarbrucken, and had a relatively drama-free drive home. I saw a beautiful chateau somewhere in the Lorraine province of France (note: Strasbourg is in Alsace). We also drove along some beautiful parts of the Mosel once we got back into Germany. I wish I could've taken pictures of all the sights we see along the autobahn.
Stopped at Bitburg again on the way back to gas up and get lunch.
Our drive home was shorter by about 2 hours than the drive there. Also, it was a gorgeous 73 degrees. GAAAAAAAAH!
A note about Strasbourg: it has switched hands between Germany and France many times. As a result, many speak both languages and the culture is a good mixture of French and German. Beer is very popular there, and so are Rhine wines. The food is both French (quiche and cheese plates) and German, with lots of pork and sauerkraut (which is, incidently, Chinese and not German...something I learned yesterday). You see bakeries such as "Schmitt Patisserie/Boulangerie" - a German name with something that is very French. Menus are in both languages (we hardly saw any menus with English on them, but I got by on my rusty high school French...they don't speak English as willingly there). You see many German-style half-timber buildings. One dorm at the Univ. of Strasbourg was named "Gallia" when it was French, and "Germania" when it was German. This name switched back and forth several times. Strasbourg is an interesting mixture of both cultures.
Pictures
Showing posts with label France. Show all posts
Showing posts with label France. Show all posts
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Sunday, June 13, 2004
Birthday in Paris!
Lance and I are back! I had a fantastic time. There are things I loved and hated about Paris, but for the most part, it was really great.
Thursday was kind of a wash. We were told it would take about 4 hours to drive from our house to Paris, but we didn't count on so much construction in Belgium. We were stuck in traffic jams for hours...literally almost across the entire country. So it took us about 7 hours to get there, and then once we arrived in Paris, we couldn't find our hotel! The directions we had were very confusing, so we were lost for quite some time before we finally figured out where the Avenue Jean Jaures was. And then once we found the hotel, we needed to figure out where to park. The hotel actually had a private garage, but it was on a side street and we couldn't see it and the hotel's website did not indicate that the parking was on premises. It implied that parking was down the street somewhere. So we were confused about that and Lance finally parked in a lot one block away (which only took parking cards) and he stayed in the car while I ran to the hotel to figure out where we were supposed to park. I felt really stupid once they told me there was a private garage around the corner.
So by the time we figured things out and checked into our room, it was past 5 pm. And none of the restaurants served food until 7 pm, which we learned the hard way. We stopped at a cafe, hoping to get some food, but they were only serving drinks. So we ordered a coke and a lemonade and he brought our bill with the drinks and then came a few minutes later to get payment. That was very surprising to me because we've always had to ask for the bill whenever we're at an eating establishment. I got the impression that we weren't wanted there, especially since I saw what the waiter did to the other patrons and he treated them differently. He didn't bring their bill along with their drinks or demand payment right away. The drinks were also way overpriced...twice what we pay for the same drinks here in Germany. And that was just the beginning of a weekend of price gouging, which was certainly one of the things I hated about Paris.
After our drinks, we decided to kill some time before we could eat, so we walked to Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, which was a couple of blocks from our hotel. That was actually a pretty neat little park. There was a cool waterfall and a cliff that offers an interesting view of the Montmartre district and Sacre-Coeur basilica. We climbed the cliff and there was a group of young people up there and Lance noticed a weird smell. He later realized that it was urine! And we actually smelled that quite a bit throughout Paris. That was when I first realized that Paris is actually pretty dirty. I saw people littering everywhere and dogs doing their business in the streets and sidewalks and nobody cleaned up after them. Some parts of it were pretty scuzzy. The German cities I've visited for the most part have been pretty clean, so I was really surprised by this. Anyway, after our visit to the park, we grabbed some dinner at a nearby Italian place and then went to our room for the evening.
Friday - my birthday! We decided to start out by taking the Metro to Charles de Gaulle Etoile, which empties out right at the Arc de Triomphe. So we started out there and began our walk down the Champs-Elysees. I actually enjoyed that...that area of Paris was reasonably clean. I got distracted when I saw the Eiffel Tower when looking down one of the side streets, so we turned down that street in search of it. And of course, the street did not take us directly to it, but it emptied out to a monument bearing a replica of the Statue of Liberty's torch (which I later learned has become a tribute to Princess Diana since her fatal car crash was near that spot). We had a good view of the Eiffel Tower from there, so I took a picture of Lance standing by this torch with the Tower in the background. We finally made it to the Eiffel Tower, but I spotted a boat cruise on the Seine that was about to depart, so Lance and I got on it. So from that tour, we saw most of the major Paris highlights: the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Notre Dame, etc. etc. And we had interesting historical commentary being piped in various languages into a telephone-like thing.
The boat took us back to the Eiffel Tower, so we decided to walk underneath it. We were accosted by several men selling cheap souvenirs. And we noticed the lines to get into the elevators going to the top were very long, so we opted not to do it. Instead we decided to return to the Champs-Elysees at the approximate point where we left off and complete the walk to the Place de la Concorde, which is where the guillotine stood during the French revolution and is now marked by a 3,000 year old Egyptian obelisk. We stopped for some lunch at Deli's Cafe along the way and sat in the outdoor dining area to enjoy our sandwiches.
Once we reached Place de la Concorde, we decided to see Notre Dame. So we made the walk to it, and I actually found it to be very disappointing. Lance did too. We just expected it to be so much grander than it was. I guess we were spoiled after seeing the beauty of the Cologne Dom, which is still the most magnificent cathedral I've seen yet. We were also accosted outside Notre Dame by a little girl who was trying to collect donations for her so-called poor Serbian family (which I think is a scam since Lance has encountered something similar in the past).
After Notre Dame, we crossed the river into the Latin Quarter and went to the Shakespeare & Company Bookstore, which has the largest collection of antiquarian English-language books in Europe. I picked out a few paperbacks for Lance to buy me as a birthday present. I made sure to get Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, which was written about his life as a struggling writer in 1920's Paris. It's been neat reading that since he mentions the places we just visited, including Shakespeare & Company. It was a very cool bookstore, and they even have a souvenir stamp to stamp your books with, so I got all my books stamped as my souvenir from Paris.
After that, Lance and I were both exhausted. My feet were starting to get swollen from all the walking we did and I think I twisted my ankle at some point on Friday, probably on the cobblestones. So we tried to find a nearby Metro (and there wasn't really one that took us directly back to our nearest Metro station) and we walked to the closest one that would take us back to our hotel, passing the Paris zoological gardens on the way (where we got to see two ostriches mating, which is not an experience I wish to ever see again...it was pretty strange and scary).
So we got back to the hotel to rest for awhile and we watched Ronald Reagan's funeral on BBC, since that had just started. I took a shower because I felt grungy and I was sunburned, even though I slathered on the sunscreen. Once I felt kind of human again, I dressed up in my nice dress and heels and pearl necklace and Lance dressed up and we looked for a place to have a nice dinner. The hotel clerk recommended a place a couple of blocks away, but when we got there, we saw that they served mostly fish, and I wasn't in the mood for seafood and Lance doesn't like seafood. So we checked out a few other places and finally settled on a restaurant at the Hotel des Buttes-Chaumont, which was right across from the park. They had pasta and some French dishes, so both of us were happy. I was trying to decipher the menu for Lance before we stepped inside. The host asked if I spoke French, to which I replied (in French) that I spoke only a little. And he smiled and handed me an English menu. We liked what we saw, so he seated us in an empty part of the restaurant in a nice romantic little booth where it was quiet and private. He asked us if we wanted an aperitif, and I initially said no, but he talked me into a glass of strawberry champagne. Lance ordered one too so we could toast my birthday. And it was GOOD champagne. Yummy. I asked for a cheese plate and they brought out a plate of 4 different french cheeses (brie, camembert, roquefort, and another cheese I couldn't identify) and a basket of french bread. Lance didn't care for most of the cheese, although he thought the brie and camembert were okay. So I ended up eating most of it. I ordered rabbit and mushroom stew over egg noodles for the main course. Lance ordered pasta and tomato sauce. My food was VERY good, although it was the first time I ever had rabbit and I was initially freaked out, because it was served to me on the plate, looking like 1/4 of a rabbit...one leg and half of the rib cage. Once I got past that initial "ewwwwww" factor and I tasted it, it was very very good. For dessert I had this awesome chocolate lava cake with a scoop of vanilla (?) ice cream, and Lance had chocolate pie, which tasted for all the world like fudge on a very thin graham cracker crust and he had a scoop of coffee ice cream with his. Lance had serious sticker shock from the bill...he didn't want me to see it, but I took a peek when the waiter laid down the credit card receipt. Ah mon Dieu! I will say that the champagne alone was 9 euros a glass (about $11), so it's a good thing it was tasty. And even though I heard that the servers in Paris typically aren't friendly, we had very friendly service. The waitstaff kept checking on us to make sure everything was to our satisfaction, and they attended to the tiniest details, even making sure to come and light a candle halfway through our meal when the lighter was finally found (I guess it was lost). And they just could not have been nicer. I was pleasantly surprised.
After that, we went back to the hotel and I called Mom to talk to her on my birthday. We didn't have a phone in our room, so I had to call from the hotel lobby. I was supposed to call more people, but I couldn't because there were other people waiting to use the phone. So for those of you expecting a call from me on Friday, I apologize that I couldn't.
And that was it for our first day of sightseeing.
I woke up yesterday (Saturday morning) feeling for all the world like a decrepit 90 year old. My feet were swollen and bruised from all the walking we did and I could barely walk when I got out of bed, I was so stiff. I worked out the kinks the best I could and Lance and I were on our way again after the really disappointing breakfast at the hotel. We took the Metro to the Louvre. We walked around in the Louvre for a couple of hours, spending more time in awe of the actual building than the art that is housed inside. But we saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo and Winged Victory. I couldn't believe the crowds at the Mona Lisa. It was just insane. I don't think it's one of the most remarkable paintings ever created, so it's fascinating to see why people love it so much. People were even talking to it (quote of the day: "Hi Mona! You're SOOOOO popular!"). I just had to see the crowds for myself. We spent most of our time walking around the ancient Egyptian/Greek/Etruscan art displays. I decided that I had had enough and we left. I wanted to get lunch and picnic at Luxembourg Gardens, so we set out for that as our next stop. On the way, we stopped in a little sandwich shop...BIG mistake! We didn't realize until we stepped inside that it was an American deli. They had bagel sandwiches...you couldn't even get sandwiches on a baguette there, and that's what Lance and I both wanted. But he saw that they had A&W root beer and he hadn't had that in awhile, so we decided to get food there after all. He just got a bagel with cream cheese (he ordered ham on it too, but the guy forgot the ham) and I had lox and cream cheese and Lance got a root beer and I got an Orangina. So two bagel sandwiches and 2 drinks...the bill was 15 euros!!! That's about $18!!! I about had a coronary right then and there! I think we paid more because it was American stuff that you can't get easily in Europe (they even had Ben & Jerry's ice cream) and it was obviously created to cater to American tourists. We walked further down the road and there was actually a small market set up with breads and cheeses and I wanted to cry right then...we could've gotten the fixings for a beautiful lunch right there! We finally made it to Luxembourg Gardens and sat and ate our lunch. We sat in the gardens for a long time. It was just beautiful and peaceful there and I was too sore and tired to leave. I wanted to stretch out there for a long time and take a nap. But finally we decided that we needed to move on, and since the Pantheon was right there, we decided to make that our next stop. I had not planned on the Pantheon, but I was feeling spontaneous.
I'm glad we went. But let me say that on our way there, there was a large display of D-Day photographs hanging on the gates surrounding Luxembourg Gardens. So we looked at those briefly before heading up the street to the Pantheon. We both thought it was really neat. The French philosophers Voltaire and Rousseau are buried there, as are some famous French writers (Victor Hugo, Emile Zola) and the Curies. There were some other noteable people buried there too, but they were only noteable either in Paris or France...not internationally. The crypts were interesting...some were fantastically gaudy and others were just very simple. And the building itself was really interesting.
After that, I was still feeling pretty worn out, but not quite ready to call it a day yet. So I suggested on a whim that we take the Metro to Montmartre and explore that area and get a close-up look at Sacre-Coeur. I hadn't planned to do that initially either, but it was a day for throwing itineraries out the window. I'm glad we did that too, but my feet hated me for it. We took the Metro to this station called "Abbesses," which is very deep underground. There were elevators to take you up to ground level, but there were long lines, so Lance and I opted to take the steps. How bad could it be? HAHAHAHA! We climbed and climbed and climbed. And then when we were finally out on the street, we were at the bottom of this very steep hill that we had to climb to see Sacre-Coeur. There was a flea market going on, so it was insanity. And again, we were accosted immediately by some guy upon exiting the Metro station. He spoke to us in French and when we didn't respond, he asked us if we spoke English. Lance and I just played stupid and pretended not to understand him at all. He was trying to get us to come with him so he could show us something. I didn't pass for American anyway because I had been stopped by a French person on the street who wanted directions and seemed surprised when she discovered that I was American, so I was perfectly content to make people think I was European.
So we climbed up this hill. And I thought Montmartre was charming despite the streets being clogged with tourists. It had this great Bohemian flair to it, even if parts of it are cheesy and totally catering to tourism. We got to Sacre-Coeur and admired the fantastic view of Paris from there. I didn't recognize anything except for the Georges Pompidou Center (this crazy modern art museum with all the utility pipes and ducts on the outside). I didn't even see the Eiffel Tower from there, which I thought was strange (although I suppose if I had paid to look in the spotting scope, I could've picked out some of the places we'd seen already). But anyway, we took a look inside Sacre-Coeur and I liked it better on the inside than Notre Dame.
Lance stopped a souvenir shop to get a spoon for his grandmother (she collects souvenir spoons from all over the world and already has quite a massive collection) and I was in search of ice cream and a Paris Christmas ornament for our tree. We decided we were going to get an ornament from every place we go together. And we found both the ice cream and the ornament. So our day was complete and we went back to our hotel for awhile, took a nap, and then ventured out for the first cheap meal we had since arriving in Paris. I got takeout Turkish and Lance got takeout pizza. We were just sick of the price gouging and so deliberately set out for cheap food that we could get before 7 pm. And there was a grocery store right next door to our hotel, so Lance ran in there to get our drinks. And we ate in our room, feeling disgusting for all the grease-pit food afterwards. We spent the rest of the evening watching BBC or soccer with French commentary, and I read my book from time to time.
This morning we got up, had our crappy hotel breakfast, hopped in the car, got lost again (Lance made a left-hand turn instead of a right), retraced our steps, and found our way finally and then got on the freeway to leave Paris. It took about 5.5 hours to get home...no construction this time and we stopped a couple of times for restroom breaks/gas/lunch. I'm glad to be home. Paris is a great city, but there was plenty about it too that I didn't like. But overall, the people were very friendly, which was a pleasant surprise, given the stereotype that Parisians are rude. We never once encountered that (not even at that cafe the first night). Some of the sights there just took my breath away. But I could do without the expense and the litter and the smell. I think I would go again if an opportunity presented itself, but I'm not sure Lance and I will go together again. There is just too much we want to see in Europe in general and not enough time to see it all, so we don't want to see any place more than once if we can help it if it would take away an opportunity to go somewhere new. And Lance didn't like Paris enough to want to go back again. But I would go if a friend or relative wanted to go and asked me to meet them there. There are things there that deserve further exploration, and I never got to see places like the Tuileries or the Musee d'Orsay, which I wouldn't mind seeing. But we did cram in A LOT in 2 days, so overall I'm satisfied that I got a nice snapshot of Paris, regardless of how much we didn't see.
Anyway, I'm coming down with something. I've had a dry cough for the past few days and now I'm getting laryngitis. And I want to thank those of you who sent birthday wishes before/during/after our trip...it was nice to get them all. I had a great birthday overall
Thursday was kind of a wash. We were told it would take about 4 hours to drive from our house to Paris, but we didn't count on so much construction in Belgium. We were stuck in traffic jams for hours...literally almost across the entire country. So it took us about 7 hours to get there, and then once we arrived in Paris, we couldn't find our hotel! The directions we had were very confusing, so we were lost for quite some time before we finally figured out where the Avenue Jean Jaures was. And then once we found the hotel, we needed to figure out where to park. The hotel actually had a private garage, but it was on a side street and we couldn't see it and the hotel's website did not indicate that the parking was on premises. It implied that parking was down the street somewhere. So we were confused about that and Lance finally parked in a lot one block away (which only took parking cards) and he stayed in the car while I ran to the hotel to figure out where we were supposed to park. I felt really stupid once they told me there was a private garage around the corner.
So by the time we figured things out and checked into our room, it was past 5 pm. And none of the restaurants served food until 7 pm, which we learned the hard way. We stopped at a cafe, hoping to get some food, but they were only serving drinks. So we ordered a coke and a lemonade and he brought our bill with the drinks and then came a few minutes later to get payment. That was very surprising to me because we've always had to ask for the bill whenever we're at an eating establishment. I got the impression that we weren't wanted there, especially since I saw what the waiter did to the other patrons and he treated them differently. He didn't bring their bill along with their drinks or demand payment right away. The drinks were also way overpriced...twice what we pay for the same drinks here in Germany. And that was just the beginning of a weekend of price gouging, which was certainly one of the things I hated about Paris.
After our drinks, we decided to kill some time before we could eat, so we walked to Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, which was a couple of blocks from our hotel. That was actually a pretty neat little park. There was a cool waterfall and a cliff that offers an interesting view of the Montmartre district and Sacre-Coeur basilica. We climbed the cliff and there was a group of young people up there and Lance noticed a weird smell. He later realized that it was urine! And we actually smelled that quite a bit throughout Paris. That was when I first realized that Paris is actually pretty dirty. I saw people littering everywhere and dogs doing their business in the streets and sidewalks and nobody cleaned up after them. Some parts of it were pretty scuzzy. The German cities I've visited for the most part have been pretty clean, so I was really surprised by this. Anyway, after our visit to the park, we grabbed some dinner at a nearby Italian place and then went to our room for the evening.
Friday - my birthday! We decided to start out by taking the Metro to Charles de Gaulle Etoile, which empties out right at the Arc de Triomphe. So we started out there and began our walk down the Champs-Elysees. I actually enjoyed that...that area of Paris was reasonably clean. I got distracted when I saw the Eiffel Tower when looking down one of the side streets, so we turned down that street in search of it. And of course, the street did not take us directly to it, but it emptied out to a monument bearing a replica of the Statue of Liberty's torch (which I later learned has become a tribute to Princess Diana since her fatal car crash was near that spot). We had a good view of the Eiffel Tower from there, so I took a picture of Lance standing by this torch with the Tower in the background. We finally made it to the Eiffel Tower, but I spotted a boat cruise on the Seine that was about to depart, so Lance and I got on it. So from that tour, we saw most of the major Paris highlights: the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Notre Dame, etc. etc. And we had interesting historical commentary being piped in various languages into a telephone-like thing.
The boat took us back to the Eiffel Tower, so we decided to walk underneath it. We were accosted by several men selling cheap souvenirs. And we noticed the lines to get into the elevators going to the top were very long, so we opted not to do it. Instead we decided to return to the Champs-Elysees at the approximate point where we left off and complete the walk to the Place de la Concorde, which is where the guillotine stood during the French revolution and is now marked by a 3,000 year old Egyptian obelisk. We stopped for some lunch at Deli's Cafe along the way and sat in the outdoor dining area to enjoy our sandwiches.
Once we reached Place de la Concorde, we decided to see Notre Dame. So we made the walk to it, and I actually found it to be very disappointing. Lance did too. We just expected it to be so much grander than it was. I guess we were spoiled after seeing the beauty of the Cologne Dom, which is still the most magnificent cathedral I've seen yet. We were also accosted outside Notre Dame by a little girl who was trying to collect donations for her so-called poor Serbian family (which I think is a scam since Lance has encountered something similar in the past).
After Notre Dame, we crossed the river into the Latin Quarter and went to the Shakespeare & Company Bookstore, which has the largest collection of antiquarian English-language books in Europe. I picked out a few paperbacks for Lance to buy me as a birthday present. I made sure to get Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, which was written about his life as a struggling writer in 1920's Paris. It's been neat reading that since he mentions the places we just visited, including Shakespeare & Company. It was a very cool bookstore, and they even have a souvenir stamp to stamp your books with, so I got all my books stamped as my souvenir from Paris.
After that, Lance and I were both exhausted. My feet were starting to get swollen from all the walking we did and I think I twisted my ankle at some point on Friday, probably on the cobblestones. So we tried to find a nearby Metro (and there wasn't really one that took us directly back to our nearest Metro station) and we walked to the closest one that would take us back to our hotel, passing the Paris zoological gardens on the way (where we got to see two ostriches mating, which is not an experience I wish to ever see again...it was pretty strange and scary).
So we got back to the hotel to rest for awhile and we watched Ronald Reagan's funeral on BBC, since that had just started. I took a shower because I felt grungy and I was sunburned, even though I slathered on the sunscreen. Once I felt kind of human again, I dressed up in my nice dress and heels and pearl necklace and Lance dressed up and we looked for a place to have a nice dinner. The hotel clerk recommended a place a couple of blocks away, but when we got there, we saw that they served mostly fish, and I wasn't in the mood for seafood and Lance doesn't like seafood. So we checked out a few other places and finally settled on a restaurant at the Hotel des Buttes-Chaumont, which was right across from the park. They had pasta and some French dishes, so both of us were happy. I was trying to decipher the menu for Lance before we stepped inside. The host asked if I spoke French, to which I replied (in French) that I spoke only a little. And he smiled and handed me an English menu. We liked what we saw, so he seated us in an empty part of the restaurant in a nice romantic little booth where it was quiet and private. He asked us if we wanted an aperitif, and I initially said no, but he talked me into a glass of strawberry champagne. Lance ordered one too so we could toast my birthday. And it was GOOD champagne. Yummy. I asked for a cheese plate and they brought out a plate of 4 different french cheeses (brie, camembert, roquefort, and another cheese I couldn't identify) and a basket of french bread. Lance didn't care for most of the cheese, although he thought the brie and camembert were okay. So I ended up eating most of it. I ordered rabbit and mushroom stew over egg noodles for the main course. Lance ordered pasta and tomato sauce. My food was VERY good, although it was the first time I ever had rabbit and I was initially freaked out, because it was served to me on the plate, looking like 1/4 of a rabbit...one leg and half of the rib cage. Once I got past that initial "ewwwwww" factor and I tasted it, it was very very good. For dessert I had this awesome chocolate lava cake with a scoop of vanilla (?) ice cream, and Lance had chocolate pie, which tasted for all the world like fudge on a very thin graham cracker crust and he had a scoop of coffee ice cream with his. Lance had serious sticker shock from the bill...he didn't want me to see it, but I took a peek when the waiter laid down the credit card receipt. Ah mon Dieu! I will say that the champagne alone was 9 euros a glass (about $11), so it's a good thing it was tasty. And even though I heard that the servers in Paris typically aren't friendly, we had very friendly service. The waitstaff kept checking on us to make sure everything was to our satisfaction, and they attended to the tiniest details, even making sure to come and light a candle halfway through our meal when the lighter was finally found (I guess it was lost). And they just could not have been nicer. I was pleasantly surprised.
After that, we went back to the hotel and I called Mom to talk to her on my birthday. We didn't have a phone in our room, so I had to call from the hotel lobby. I was supposed to call more people, but I couldn't because there were other people waiting to use the phone. So for those of you expecting a call from me on Friday, I apologize that I couldn't.
And that was it for our first day of sightseeing.
I woke up yesterday (Saturday morning) feeling for all the world like a decrepit 90 year old. My feet were swollen and bruised from all the walking we did and I could barely walk when I got out of bed, I was so stiff. I worked out the kinks the best I could and Lance and I were on our way again after the really disappointing breakfast at the hotel. We took the Metro to the Louvre. We walked around in the Louvre for a couple of hours, spending more time in awe of the actual building than the art that is housed inside. But we saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo and Winged Victory. I couldn't believe the crowds at the Mona Lisa. It was just insane. I don't think it's one of the most remarkable paintings ever created, so it's fascinating to see why people love it so much. People were even talking to it (quote of the day: "Hi Mona! You're SOOOOO popular!"). I just had to see the crowds for myself. We spent most of our time walking around the ancient Egyptian/Greek/Etruscan art displays. I decided that I had had enough and we left. I wanted to get lunch and picnic at Luxembourg Gardens, so we set out for that as our next stop. On the way, we stopped in a little sandwich shop...BIG mistake! We didn't realize until we stepped inside that it was an American deli. They had bagel sandwiches...you couldn't even get sandwiches on a baguette there, and that's what Lance and I both wanted. But he saw that they had A&W root beer and he hadn't had that in awhile, so we decided to get food there after all. He just got a bagel with cream cheese (he ordered ham on it too, but the guy forgot the ham) and I had lox and cream cheese and Lance got a root beer and I got an Orangina. So two bagel sandwiches and 2 drinks...the bill was 15 euros!!! That's about $18!!! I about had a coronary right then and there! I think we paid more because it was American stuff that you can't get easily in Europe (they even had Ben & Jerry's ice cream) and it was obviously created to cater to American tourists. We walked further down the road and there was actually a small market set up with breads and cheeses and I wanted to cry right then...we could've gotten the fixings for a beautiful lunch right there! We finally made it to Luxembourg Gardens and sat and ate our lunch. We sat in the gardens for a long time. It was just beautiful and peaceful there and I was too sore and tired to leave. I wanted to stretch out there for a long time and take a nap. But finally we decided that we needed to move on, and since the Pantheon was right there, we decided to make that our next stop. I had not planned on the Pantheon, but I was feeling spontaneous.
I'm glad we went. But let me say that on our way there, there was a large display of D-Day photographs hanging on the gates surrounding Luxembourg Gardens. So we looked at those briefly before heading up the street to the Pantheon. We both thought it was really neat. The French philosophers Voltaire and Rousseau are buried there, as are some famous French writers (Victor Hugo, Emile Zola) and the Curies. There were some other noteable people buried there too, but they were only noteable either in Paris or France...not internationally. The crypts were interesting...some were fantastically gaudy and others were just very simple. And the building itself was really interesting.
After that, I was still feeling pretty worn out, but not quite ready to call it a day yet. So I suggested on a whim that we take the Metro to Montmartre and explore that area and get a close-up look at Sacre-Coeur. I hadn't planned to do that initially either, but it was a day for throwing itineraries out the window. I'm glad we did that too, but my feet hated me for it. We took the Metro to this station called "Abbesses," which is very deep underground. There were elevators to take you up to ground level, but there were long lines, so Lance and I opted to take the steps. How bad could it be? HAHAHAHA! We climbed and climbed and climbed. And then when we were finally out on the street, we were at the bottom of this very steep hill that we had to climb to see Sacre-Coeur. There was a flea market going on, so it was insanity. And again, we were accosted immediately by some guy upon exiting the Metro station. He spoke to us in French and when we didn't respond, he asked us if we spoke English. Lance and I just played stupid and pretended not to understand him at all. He was trying to get us to come with him so he could show us something. I didn't pass for American anyway because I had been stopped by a French person on the street who wanted directions and seemed surprised when she discovered that I was American, so I was perfectly content to make people think I was European.
So we climbed up this hill. And I thought Montmartre was charming despite the streets being clogged with tourists. It had this great Bohemian flair to it, even if parts of it are cheesy and totally catering to tourism. We got to Sacre-Coeur and admired the fantastic view of Paris from there. I didn't recognize anything except for the Georges Pompidou Center (this crazy modern art museum with all the utility pipes and ducts on the outside). I didn't even see the Eiffel Tower from there, which I thought was strange (although I suppose if I had paid to look in the spotting scope, I could've picked out some of the places we'd seen already). But anyway, we took a look inside Sacre-Coeur and I liked it better on the inside than Notre Dame.
Lance stopped a souvenir shop to get a spoon for his grandmother (she collects souvenir spoons from all over the world and already has quite a massive collection) and I was in search of ice cream and a Paris Christmas ornament for our tree. We decided we were going to get an ornament from every place we go together. And we found both the ice cream and the ornament. So our day was complete and we went back to our hotel for awhile, took a nap, and then ventured out for the first cheap meal we had since arriving in Paris. I got takeout Turkish and Lance got takeout pizza. We were just sick of the price gouging and so deliberately set out for cheap food that we could get before 7 pm. And there was a grocery store right next door to our hotel, so Lance ran in there to get our drinks. And we ate in our room, feeling disgusting for all the grease-pit food afterwards. We spent the rest of the evening watching BBC or soccer with French commentary, and I read my book from time to time.
This morning we got up, had our crappy hotel breakfast, hopped in the car, got lost again (Lance made a left-hand turn instead of a right), retraced our steps, and found our way finally and then got on the freeway to leave Paris. It took about 5.5 hours to get home...no construction this time and we stopped a couple of times for restroom breaks/gas/lunch. I'm glad to be home. Paris is a great city, but there was plenty about it too that I didn't like. But overall, the people were very friendly, which was a pleasant surprise, given the stereotype that Parisians are rude. We never once encountered that (not even at that cafe the first night). Some of the sights there just took my breath away. But I could do without the expense and the litter and the smell. I think I would go again if an opportunity presented itself, but I'm not sure Lance and I will go together again. There is just too much we want to see in Europe in general and not enough time to see it all, so we don't want to see any place more than once if we can help it if it would take away an opportunity to go somewhere new. And Lance didn't like Paris enough to want to go back again. But I would go if a friend or relative wanted to go and asked me to meet them there. There are things there that deserve further exploration, and I never got to see places like the Tuileries or the Musee d'Orsay, which I wouldn't mind seeing. But we did cram in A LOT in 2 days, so overall I'm satisfied that I got a nice snapshot of Paris, regardless of how much we didn't see.
Anyway, I'm coming down with something. I've had a dry cough for the past few days and now I'm getting laryngitis. And I want to thank those of you who sent birthday wishes before/during/after our trip...it was nice to get them all. I had a great birthday overall
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