Machu Picchu is a different planning and preparation experience than other trips I have taken. First of all I am not going to be leaving the basic vicinity of the city of Cusco aside from the actual hiking tour I am taking through the Inca Trail into Machu Picchu and then the return ride to Cusco, so I will not really need to do a lot of research on what is in the area. This means the days I am not on the tour will have a basic wing it approach but also will have a lesser degree of activity than I normally work with because Cusco is at approximately 11000 feet and I will need to adjust to the altitude.
I have booked my tour through http://www.sastravelperu.com/ on the recommendation of a friend of George's from Denmark who used this company last year. The process is a bit odd as they do not have direct online booking and for those who are squeemish about such things it may not be the answer for you. I was told the tour company was very good and attentive and checking their reviews online it seems to hold true overall. It seems like it would be a crap shoot to pick any tour company without recommendation so this seemed like my best option.
Of course booking was an odd proposition. The site has the instructions on how to book and most of it really wants you to download a Word document and fill in the information including your credit card number in order to get things processed. I am a bit squeemish about that and I dug around until I found a way to authorize the payment with a Visa card (and only a Visa card) though a site that several peruvian business seem to share for purposes like this. I was foiled later on in this process but we'll get to that in a bit.
I am taking the 4 day Inca Trail with special 5th day Option tour which includes three full days of hiking the Inca Trail followed by a short run to Machu Picchu before sunrise on the fourth day. The total hiking distance is about 27 miles. The tour of Machu Picchu is supposed to last about 2 and a half to 3 hours I think then from there you have the rest of the day to either hike further (there is another trail through Wayna Picchu or just hang about the area. After that the 5th day option has you staying later in the local area where they will get you to an overnight stay in Agua Calliente then get you to Cusco the next morning. It all looks very fun and of course strenuous but I am pretty sure I walked over 100 miles in France (and definitely certain I walked over 80) so I should be able to handle it.
To mention about researching Peru I should state the obvious. Don't drink their water. Bottled drinks only. They say not to drink alcohol at altitude unless you are used to it already. They say to drink lots of liquids like sports drinks the first day or two and to not do anything too strenuous or you could end up with altitude sickness which sounds unpleasant. They also say to be very cautious about what places you eat. I assume their health and safety board is a bit suspect if it exists at all. In any event I intend to ask the hotel which places are ok to eat in the area for the couple days I am there before the tour.
Speaking of the hotel I am using the Los Marqueses Hotel which appears to be run by the same people as the tour company or at the very least they work very tightly together. In this instance I had to fill out the Word doc and send it back as a PDF in order to reserve the room for my stay there so I ended up doing something I didn't want to do anyway. They said I needed to get it done fast as they only had one single person room left. I should also mention the responses from both the travel company and hotel to emails was a bit slower than I enjoy but I am sure they are busy and perhaps a bit more relaxed than we northeasterners. Either way everything appears to be confirmed for both the tour and hotel at this point.
Lastly, I had to book the flight on my own. I booked through Orbitz as they listed the best prices through LAN Airlines which caters to Central and South America. The flights from and to Boston are operated by American Airlines to Miami. From Miami I fly to Lima and from Lima to Cusco. The whole operation is 14 to 15 hours in either direction. The flight to will operate overnight and the flight back will deposit me in Boston near midnight. Not ideal and there will only be the shift from DST to not DST and back because Peru lands on the same time zone as Boston but doesn't follow DST changes. Amusingly DST ends the night I get back. I booked through Orbitz through Bank of America's Add It Up program so I should get $5 back from them somewhere along the way. Also through Orbitz they have a price guarantee if someone books for lower prices. We'll see if it matters but it would be nice to get a couple bucks back.
So that is the basic planning in a nutshell to this point. The follow ups will be about what I will have to purchase or borrow to manage the hike appropriately. I will likely get those in after the Denmark trip.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Jeep Jamboree Killington Part 2 and More Upcoming
With France safely behind me it is now time to prepare for what is upcoming. As with last year I am attending the Jeep Jamboree in Killington, VT for a weekend of 4 wheeling in the middle of July. I intend to update the Jeep's front bumper and install a skid plate to protect the front lockers and control arms before the trip.
After the Jeep Jamboree I am heading back to Denmark for another visit with George on his current home turf. I am trying a different airline for this trip again with KLM Royal Dutch. It means that I will be landing on Dutch soil for the first time. The flight was cheaper than I expected. It should be fun to have a bit more time there than my first visit.
From there I will have to wait until the end of October for my now yearly birthday trip. This time I am going in a completely different direction to Peru where I will be taking a hiking tour of the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu.
Where preparation for the Denmark trip will be a small bit of posting after the Jamboree I will be posting a lot more pre-trip information for Peru because it is partially an adventure just to get it to operational status.
After the Jeep Jamboree I am heading back to Denmark for another visit with George on his current home turf. I am trying a different airline for this trip again with KLM Royal Dutch. It means that I will be landing on Dutch soil for the first time. The flight was cheaper than I expected. It should be fun to have a bit more time there than my first visit.
From there I will have to wait until the end of October for my now yearly birthday trip. This time I am going in a completely different direction to Peru where I will be taking a hiking tour of the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu.
Where preparation for the Denmark trip will be a small bit of posting after the Jamboree I will be posting a lot more pre-trip information for Peru because it is partially an adventure just to get it to operational status.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
France Day 13 and Epilogue
I got up just before 6 figuring I would leave the hotel at 7. I was ready by 6:30 so I watched a bit of BBC Global News then headed out. I got the train station in about 15 minutes and got to the train pretty much right as it was showing up. The train towards Charles De Gaulle was very packed in the early going as a lot of people may travel to the suburbs in the early morning. I got off the train and started to navigate the maze that is CDG Airport. I didn’t really like the setup as I didn’t realize all the shops were before security and I wasn’t going to try to go back through security to try to find anything. So basically I missed the chance to buy candy which I usually get at the airport and to see if there were any other things to be had there.
The plane turned out to be delayed more than an hour and so I ended up sitting at the gate for a very long time. The delay was due to fog over Paris and over Dublin apparently. When we landed in Dublin I had less than an hour till boarding rather than the 2+ that I should have had. This meant I again rushed to the gate even realizing that the places to buy stuff were before security again. I however didn’t believe I had any time. So, guess what? This plane turned out to be delayed for over an hour for “technical issues” so we didn’t board and I had no place to sit due to the late arrival for a very long time. I could have had a pint if they had posted the delay before I got in there but they didn’t.
After the long wait to board the plane we ended up not getting too far before we had another “technical issue” and had to pull back into another stand to get the worked out. I am not sure exactly how late we took off but I figure it was over an hour and possibly an hour and a half. The updated landing time was an hour and 15 minutes late if that means anything. The flight meal was ok, I asked for chicken and got the pasta with meat sauce (called Beef Bolognese with Pasta) but according the guy next to me the chicken wasn’t very good anyway. I had two cups of coffee with that expecting a longer day still ahead of me. The remainder of the flight was fairly uneventful. Since it was one of the older planes without the screen in the back of the seat and they were showing some newer Dustin Hoffman film I opted to watch Yojimbo on the laptop. I could tell the girl that was sitting across and behind me was watching my movie instead of the in flight movie. Good thing I do subtitles I guess. She was obviously very nervous about the landing because her boyfriend had to keep her leg from bouncing around the closer we got to the actual final approach. Though there was a bit of cloud cover it was nothing like in Dublin and the landing was very easy even for Boston. Oh yeah, they served a snack of Irish soda bread and jam with more coffee about 45 minutes before landing.
I was very near the front so getting off the plane was easy and for whatever unusual reason my bag was 6th off the gondola. I passed through customs without an issue and was home with relative ease after that. The late arrival (by about 1 and a half hours) made traffic that little bit lighter than it would have been if I got in on time so I guess that worked out.
If I didn’t mention this on the blog already, I have already decided I cannot visit France again unless I learn more of the language and/or go with other people. This doesn’t preclude a package tour but I am not sure what I’ll think of the package tour experience again. It would be better to rent a car if you are going anywhere outside of Paris to get to the locations near whatever city you are staying in. I would not advise a car in Paris. I got to witness Paris traffic first hand and it wasn’t pretty during the rush hours. They were brutal and blocked off whole intersections in both directions without a care. I personally should have skipped on Amiens or rented a car when I was there. It would have made that area more useful to me. I liked the Jules Verne museum but it wasn’t the Somme Battlefields. Live and learn for the future I guess. Additionally I will have to pay closer attention to holidays as they can really cause the country to shut down for tourists. I was surprised at the number of gift shops and cafes and restaurants that were closed on Victory Day in both Compiegne and in Pierrefonds. I am not sure how much of this is unique to France but it was less prevalent in the Scandinavian countries.
Anyway, France is a wrap and I’m still working on what’s next. There is a chance of a revisit to Denmark in the late summer to use up some vacation time I will have to burn before October 1st.
The plane turned out to be delayed more than an hour and so I ended up sitting at the gate for a very long time. The delay was due to fog over Paris and over Dublin apparently. When we landed in Dublin I had less than an hour till boarding rather than the 2+ that I should have had. This meant I again rushed to the gate even realizing that the places to buy stuff were before security again. I however didn’t believe I had any time. So, guess what? This plane turned out to be delayed for over an hour for “technical issues” so we didn’t board and I had no place to sit due to the late arrival for a very long time. I could have had a pint if they had posted the delay before I got in there but they didn’t.
After the long wait to board the plane we ended up not getting too far before we had another “technical issue” and had to pull back into another stand to get the worked out. I am not sure exactly how late we took off but I figure it was over an hour and possibly an hour and a half. The updated landing time was an hour and 15 minutes late if that means anything. The flight meal was ok, I asked for chicken and got the pasta with meat sauce (called Beef Bolognese with Pasta) but according the guy next to me the chicken wasn’t very good anyway. I had two cups of coffee with that expecting a longer day still ahead of me. The remainder of the flight was fairly uneventful. Since it was one of the older planes without the screen in the back of the seat and they were showing some newer Dustin Hoffman film I opted to watch Yojimbo on the laptop. I could tell the girl that was sitting across and behind me was watching my movie instead of the in flight movie. Good thing I do subtitles I guess. She was obviously very nervous about the landing because her boyfriend had to keep her leg from bouncing around the closer we got to the actual final approach. Though there was a bit of cloud cover it was nothing like in Dublin and the landing was very easy even for Boston. Oh yeah, they served a snack of Irish soda bread and jam with more coffee about 45 minutes before landing.
I was very near the front so getting off the plane was easy and for whatever unusual reason my bag was 6th off the gondola. I passed through customs without an issue and was home with relative ease after that. The late arrival (by about 1 and a half hours) made traffic that little bit lighter than it would have been if I got in on time so I guess that worked out.
If I didn’t mention this on the blog already, I have already decided I cannot visit France again unless I learn more of the language and/or go with other people. This doesn’t preclude a package tour but I am not sure what I’ll think of the package tour experience again. It would be better to rent a car if you are going anywhere outside of Paris to get to the locations near whatever city you are staying in. I would not advise a car in Paris. I got to witness Paris traffic first hand and it wasn’t pretty during the rush hours. They were brutal and blocked off whole intersections in both directions without a care. I personally should have skipped on Amiens or rented a car when I was there. It would have made that area more useful to me. I liked the Jules Verne museum but it wasn’t the Somme Battlefields. Live and learn for the future I guess. Additionally I will have to pay closer attention to holidays as they can really cause the country to shut down for tourists. I was surprised at the number of gift shops and cafes and restaurants that were closed on Victory Day in both Compiegne and in Pierrefonds. I am not sure how much of this is unique to France but it was less prevalent in the Scandinavian countries.
Anyway, France is a wrap and I’m still working on what’s next. There is a chance of a revisit to Denmark in the late summer to use up some vacation time I will have to burn before October 1st.
France Day 12
Today started out on the moderately early side. I realized I had all day ahead of me and was staying Paris all day. I had visited at least externally most all of the major sites in Paris and wasn’t really planned on what to do. I started out by heading back down La Fayette to Opera then crossing past the Louvre and doubling back to Notre Dame. This early in the morning there weren’t a ton of visitors and I was able to get inside with relative ease. I was hoping to visit the towers but it appeared they weren’t going to open those parts of the cathedral until some time later in the day so I decided that two trips inside the place after an external walk around it with relatively little change to what was open was enough for me. From there I headed back to the Louvre where along the way I decided to have a cup of coffee and a croissant at a café.
After having the croissant I had killed enough time to run through the shopping of the gifty places along the Louvre and I managed to finish off the rest of the shopping I had to do (I hope). From there I chose to head back to the hotel because the bags of stuff were rather bulky but before I got the room I had a quick lunch at the Quick (no pics included) then dropped off the bulky items and got them mostly packed into the suitcase. I rested for less than half an hour before heading back out again.
Back down La Fayette and to Opera my goal this time was L’Hotel Invalides where the Armories are. It’s sort of Frances poor man’s version of the armories in the Tower of London but after all there was a reasonably large number of items to view. Practically every bit of weaponry from older times was behind glass so I took relatively few pictures there as I don’t like the look of pictures of things behind glass or Plexiglas. They also had an exhibit that ran through WWI and WWII which was actually what I visited first and spent the most time in. It was again interesting to get the French perspectives on what we consider two wars they were deeply in need of being bailed out of. Having done the museums in Britain I know their perspectives already and to see the opinions of the French fighting forces portrayed in a positive light is of course unique. Either way there were still admissions that the French handled WWII especially as a national government at the very least very poorly even if they tried to portray the everyday Frenchman as more active when it came to the resistance.
There was a very high tech and new fangled exhibit on the history of Charles De Gaulle which on some levels was fairly successful and others was a bit awkward. The visitor was given a headset that would read frequencies from various points in the exhibit and follow along with movies being played. Since they had to follow along the movie was inevitably either halfway through or mostly finished by the time it was visited. It ended up making me less likely to wish to sit through half the movie then start it over again so that I hadn’t really the vim or vigor to see the exhibit as they had intended. After the Charles De Gaulle exhibit is where I visited the ancient weapons armory then I realized I was really done.
The day had me walk to the Louvre then Notre Dame then back to the Louvre then back to the hotel then back to the Louvre and beyond it to Invalides. I was very tired especially because the switch from destination walking to museum walking really took a lot out of my legs. As it was though when I had gotten back to the Seine on my way back towards the hotel I thunderstorm rolled in. I pulled out my jacket and put up my hood (I was again one of the few sans winter clothing in the heat) and made my way to the street where all the shops were across from the Louvre. Of course the rain picked up harder the further I went. When I found myself at Le Carousel (the place I had already eaten with the very helpful waiter) and I saw the same waiter was right there I realized it was time to wait out the storm. I had a couple Affligem and the special of the day which he suggested was the best choice. It was roast beef with mushrooms and au gratin potatoes. It again was very good as he suggested. A woman from Toronto ended up sitting next to me and we chatted for a while about various things. She’s obviously been traveling for a very long time and has been to France and to Rome for the past several years she said. She also turned out to be a former English teacher. This killed off the majority of the time that the storm ran across the city and then I made up my mind to have one more beer and see if I could make it to dark to get pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night. Unfortunately I realized after I was done with that beer that it was not going to happen and I headed back up La Fayette where I got into the hotel at about 9:15 or so. The sun really hadn’t set yet as it was. With that behind me I checked through packing and got myself ready for the return trip to Boston as best I could without accounting for the morning cleanup. Since I had scouted the train station I was pretty sure I knew what I had to do to get back to the airport and on my way eventually.
After having the croissant I had killed enough time to run through the shopping of the gifty places along the Louvre and I managed to finish off the rest of the shopping I had to do (I hope). From there I chose to head back to the hotel because the bags of stuff were rather bulky but before I got the room I had a quick lunch at the Quick (no pics included) then dropped off the bulky items and got them mostly packed into the suitcase. I rested for less than half an hour before heading back out again.
Back down La Fayette and to Opera my goal this time was L’Hotel Invalides where the Armories are. It’s sort of Frances poor man’s version of the armories in the Tower of London but after all there was a reasonably large number of items to view. Practically every bit of weaponry from older times was behind glass so I took relatively few pictures there as I don’t like the look of pictures of things behind glass or Plexiglas. They also had an exhibit that ran through WWI and WWII which was actually what I visited first and spent the most time in. It was again interesting to get the French perspectives on what we consider two wars they were deeply in need of being bailed out of. Having done the museums in Britain I know their perspectives already and to see the opinions of the French fighting forces portrayed in a positive light is of course unique. Either way there were still admissions that the French handled WWII especially as a national government at the very least very poorly even if they tried to portray the everyday Frenchman as more active when it came to the resistance.
There was a very high tech and new fangled exhibit on the history of Charles De Gaulle which on some levels was fairly successful and others was a bit awkward. The visitor was given a headset that would read frequencies from various points in the exhibit and follow along with movies being played. Since they had to follow along the movie was inevitably either halfway through or mostly finished by the time it was visited. It ended up making me less likely to wish to sit through half the movie then start it over again so that I hadn’t really the vim or vigor to see the exhibit as they had intended. After the Charles De Gaulle exhibit is where I visited the ancient weapons armory then I realized I was really done.
The day had me walk to the Louvre then Notre Dame then back to the Louvre then back to the hotel then back to the Louvre and beyond it to Invalides. I was very tired especially because the switch from destination walking to museum walking really took a lot out of my legs. As it was though when I had gotten back to the Seine on my way back towards the hotel I thunderstorm rolled in. I pulled out my jacket and put up my hood (I was again one of the few sans winter clothing in the heat) and made my way to the street where all the shops were across from the Louvre. Of course the rain picked up harder the further I went. When I found myself at Le Carousel (the place I had already eaten with the very helpful waiter) and I saw the same waiter was right there I realized it was time to wait out the storm. I had a couple Affligem and the special of the day which he suggested was the best choice. It was roast beef with mushrooms and au gratin potatoes. It again was very good as he suggested. A woman from Toronto ended up sitting next to me and we chatted for a while about various things. She’s obviously been traveling for a very long time and has been to France and to Rome for the past several years she said. She also turned out to be a former English teacher. This killed off the majority of the time that the storm ran across the city and then I made up my mind to have one more beer and see if I could make it to dark to get pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night. Unfortunately I realized after I was done with that beer that it was not going to happen and I headed back up La Fayette where I got into the hotel at about 9:15 or so. The sun really hadn’t set yet as it was. With that behind me I checked through packing and got myself ready for the return trip to Boston as best I could without accounting for the morning cleanup. Since I had scouted the train station I was pretty sure I knew what I had to do to get back to the airport and on my way eventually.
France Day 11
Today I got up at 7am on the dot even though I hadn’t set an alarm. I am not sure why but I went with it. My plans were to take the RER to Versailles and see the palace and the gardens there. The RER has a line that runs along the river then eventually ends out at Versailles where it is a 5 minute walk to the palace. It was very easy to get there once off the train but I had to get to the river to do that part. I opted to walk down La Fayette and then head to the river at Opera. I made one small incorrect turn but righted myself after a short bit and found the entrance to the station in front of the Musée D’Orsay. I showed my pass and the guy gave me free tickets to get on at that stop and because there was no ticket needed to exit at Versailles also a ticket to get back off when I returned. The RER is the Paris commuter line system to the suburbs. The Metro is the in city subway. The Corail runs intercity trains and I then there is the Ter line system which seems like it does the same as the intercities in the form of routes but also makes a lot more stops along the way. All of these are headed by SNCF which is the main France rail company so far as I can tell.
Getting out at Versailles the weather wasn’t terribly great. It was not really cool but not really hot and damp. It had rained overnight and was not raining really by this point but was misty and foggy rather. The first thing I can say about the palace of Versailles is it is very, very crowded. There were so many people here it could have been Disney. In any event I had a small struggle through an undisciplined line to buy my pass to all the sites and then I entered the palace. The pass covered an audio guide and I would have liked to get one but there was a very huge and undisciplined line already waiting to get them. If it had looked orderly I would probably have tried to wait it out but I cannot tolerate lines that shift and people try to shove ahead and the like so I just chose to skip it completely.
All of the rooms of the Palace were jam packed with people and with guided tours either from tour companies that bring people in or also I think from the palace itself though I suspect those were probably in French only. Through the way I heard tours in Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese and German along with English and French. It seemed that each new room you could enter had another tour guide telling his particular story about that particular room for his particular tour. In any event the place is absolutely huge and though I am sure a fair portion of it has been restored from the original it looked in very good shape overall. Some of the rooms like the Hall of Mirrors were very spectacular. There was similar hall in a previous castle I had visited but this was much more impressive in its effect. I think it might actually have been the city hall in Stockholm…
The wander through the apartments probably took me something along the lines of an hour and change but would have been shorter if I was not always getting blocked by people. After the apartments I went out and started walking through the gardens and fountains area. This is gigantic in scope and made the gardens behind the palace in Compiegne seem like small change in comparison. While in the gardens I ended up having lunch at one of the little outdoor restaurants in the garden. I had a pizza and beer. It was decent pizza, the dough was thicker than the other one I had. I ate that fairly quickly and for whatever reason service didn’t make me sit around for another 20 minutes after I was done. I was very surprised by this. From lunch I wandered the gardens a bit more then headed to the Marie Antoinette apartments which are two sets of smaller buildings off set from the rest of the palace. They were included in the price of admission I paid as was the gardens. You can buy each individually or get the whole pass which is cheaper in the long haul which is why I got the whole pass. I saw a lot of people shelling out money for more tickets at the smaller ticket booths in these locations seeming surprised that what they bought didn’t include these other places. The Grande Traison and the Petite Traison were each in turn smaller than the other and not remotely as big as the palace but there were still a lot of rooms in these seemingly smaller buildings and a lot of wealth as well. There were more gardens here for this area as well. In scope it seemed Versailles encompasses several New York City blocks when including everything I did and didn’t visit.
When I was finished with Versailles I got back on the train to Paris except that they had to shut that one down due to a malfunction of some sort so I got on the next one. All trains leading out of Versailles head to Paris anyway and make the same stops. It just delayed me about 20 minutes. I was in an empty car practically until a pile of high school age kids came in and made it the noisiest car on the train I think. In any event they got out before I did so the last few stops were much quieter.
My mission after getting out of the train was to find the touristy shops to buy things at. I had a relatively good guess where to go but I was not 100% certain. I crossed back over the river and headed towards the Louvre guessing that the street opposite it on the far side from the river would be the place to look. I was right. I had already bought some stuff at Versailles and I bought something here, but the main reason for this was to know where to look on day 12, which is ultimately my last day in France because I head the airport early on Thursday. Then it was a matter of turning my way back into Opera which I had found almost by accident and the turning up La Fayette and into Chabrol where I got to the hotel at about 5pm. By the time I was pulling in the sun was actually out and there was a very unpleasant humid heat. I think I drank about 10 glasses of water then washed myself up a bit because I had 3 layers on from the start of the day weather.
I rested up a bit then opted to go out and find dinner. Before I got food I wanted to replenish my Euros on hand so I walked back to a BNP ATM on La Fayette which unfortunately was a lot further away than I thought, probably about halfway back to Opera, maybe further. Either way I got my money and headed back towards Gare de L’Est and looked at a couple of the places I had considered for dinner the night before. It was still early by French terms but there were some people in a couple of the places and I chose one that had 3 people eating. One person solo and a couple (that turned out to be German) and a few people drinking. I actually didn’t get the name of the place. Since I was early and there were very few people in there the waitress was very attentive and very nice. She realized that I spoke English as my main language and tried to accommodate me as much as she could with English though she was a bit limited on that front as I am with French. In any event I chose a set menu of three courses. For starter I chose the French onion soup, if only on the guarantee I knew what it was. For the meal I chose Chicken with Romanin sauce not really knowing what that was, and basmati rice as an accompaniment. The soup was very good. It was actually my first every French onion soup (I am not a soup person) and the cheese was very stringy and the crusty bread sopped the broth well. I enjoyed it. It wasn’t too salty. The chicken turned out to have a very light brown sauce on it. I could not tell totally what the flavoring was supposed to be. It was definitely very savory. I found that I liked the flavor the more I ate it though perhaps my initial reaction wasn’t as good. When I finished this my meal came with a dessert and I chose the glaces (ice cream), two scoops – chocolate and vanilla, and I had an espresso to go with it. By the way if I haven’t mentioned it an espresso is what you get when you order a coffee after dinner. I think I might have before but I don’t want to make is seem entirely like I am espresso hound no matter how much I like espresso.
While I was eating I had fancied the notion of going back to the Eiffel Tower to perhaps get some pictures at night to finish off the evening but when I stood up I realized that my legs had completely finished off their day and were on protest so I headed back to the room to call it a night. The Eiffel Tower from my hotel is about a 45 minute walk, probably more and I wasn’t going to make it back easily in the dark even if I got there. I will attempt to do that on Wednesday if I can but since I am a morning and not a night person I cannot guarantee anything on the matter.
Getting out at Versailles the weather wasn’t terribly great. It was not really cool but not really hot and damp. It had rained overnight and was not raining really by this point but was misty and foggy rather. The first thing I can say about the palace of Versailles is it is very, very crowded. There were so many people here it could have been Disney. In any event I had a small struggle through an undisciplined line to buy my pass to all the sites and then I entered the palace. The pass covered an audio guide and I would have liked to get one but there was a very huge and undisciplined line already waiting to get them. If it had looked orderly I would probably have tried to wait it out but I cannot tolerate lines that shift and people try to shove ahead and the like so I just chose to skip it completely.
All of the rooms of the Palace were jam packed with people and with guided tours either from tour companies that bring people in or also I think from the palace itself though I suspect those were probably in French only. Through the way I heard tours in Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese and German along with English and French. It seemed that each new room you could enter had another tour guide telling his particular story about that particular room for his particular tour. In any event the place is absolutely huge and though I am sure a fair portion of it has been restored from the original it looked in very good shape overall. Some of the rooms like the Hall of Mirrors were very spectacular. There was similar hall in a previous castle I had visited but this was much more impressive in its effect. I think it might actually have been the city hall in Stockholm…
The wander through the apartments probably took me something along the lines of an hour and change but would have been shorter if I was not always getting blocked by people. After the apartments I went out and started walking through the gardens and fountains area. This is gigantic in scope and made the gardens behind the palace in Compiegne seem like small change in comparison. While in the gardens I ended up having lunch at one of the little outdoor restaurants in the garden. I had a pizza and beer. It was decent pizza, the dough was thicker than the other one I had. I ate that fairly quickly and for whatever reason service didn’t make me sit around for another 20 minutes after I was done. I was very surprised by this. From lunch I wandered the gardens a bit more then headed to the Marie Antoinette apartments which are two sets of smaller buildings off set from the rest of the palace. They were included in the price of admission I paid as was the gardens. You can buy each individually or get the whole pass which is cheaper in the long haul which is why I got the whole pass. I saw a lot of people shelling out money for more tickets at the smaller ticket booths in these locations seeming surprised that what they bought didn’t include these other places. The Grande Traison and the Petite Traison were each in turn smaller than the other and not remotely as big as the palace but there were still a lot of rooms in these seemingly smaller buildings and a lot of wealth as well. There were more gardens here for this area as well. In scope it seemed Versailles encompasses several New York City blocks when including everything I did and didn’t visit.
When I was finished with Versailles I got back on the train to Paris except that they had to shut that one down due to a malfunction of some sort so I got on the next one. All trains leading out of Versailles head to Paris anyway and make the same stops. It just delayed me about 20 minutes. I was in an empty car practically until a pile of high school age kids came in and made it the noisiest car on the train I think. In any event they got out before I did so the last few stops were much quieter.
My mission after getting out of the train was to find the touristy shops to buy things at. I had a relatively good guess where to go but I was not 100% certain. I crossed back over the river and headed towards the Louvre guessing that the street opposite it on the far side from the river would be the place to look. I was right. I had already bought some stuff at Versailles and I bought something here, but the main reason for this was to know where to look on day 12, which is ultimately my last day in France because I head the airport early on Thursday. Then it was a matter of turning my way back into Opera which I had found almost by accident and the turning up La Fayette and into Chabrol where I got to the hotel at about 5pm. By the time I was pulling in the sun was actually out and there was a very unpleasant humid heat. I think I drank about 10 glasses of water then washed myself up a bit because I had 3 layers on from the start of the day weather.
I rested up a bit then opted to go out and find dinner. Before I got food I wanted to replenish my Euros on hand so I walked back to a BNP ATM on La Fayette which unfortunately was a lot further away than I thought, probably about halfway back to Opera, maybe further. Either way I got my money and headed back towards Gare de L’Est and looked at a couple of the places I had considered for dinner the night before. It was still early by French terms but there were some people in a couple of the places and I chose one that had 3 people eating. One person solo and a couple (that turned out to be German) and a few people drinking. I actually didn’t get the name of the place. Since I was early and there were very few people in there the waitress was very attentive and very nice. She realized that I spoke English as my main language and tried to accommodate me as much as she could with English though she was a bit limited on that front as I am with French. In any event I chose a set menu of three courses. For starter I chose the French onion soup, if only on the guarantee I knew what it was. For the meal I chose Chicken with Romanin sauce not really knowing what that was, and basmati rice as an accompaniment. The soup was very good. It was actually my first every French onion soup (I am not a soup person) and the cheese was very stringy and the crusty bread sopped the broth well. I enjoyed it. It wasn’t too salty. The chicken turned out to have a very light brown sauce on it. I could not tell totally what the flavoring was supposed to be. It was definitely very savory. I found that I liked the flavor the more I ate it though perhaps my initial reaction wasn’t as good. When I finished this my meal came with a dessert and I chose the glaces (ice cream), two scoops – chocolate and vanilla, and I had an espresso to go with it. By the way if I haven’t mentioned it an espresso is what you get when you order a coffee after dinner. I think I might have before but I don’t want to make is seem entirely like I am espresso hound no matter how much I like espresso.
While I was eating I had fancied the notion of going back to the Eiffel Tower to perhaps get some pictures at night to finish off the evening but when I stood up I realized that my legs had completely finished off their day and were on protest so I headed back to the room to call it a night. The Eiffel Tower from my hotel is about a 45 minute walk, probably more and I wasn’t going to make it back easily in the dark even if I got there. I will attempt to do that on Wednesday if I can but since I am a morning and not a night person I cannot guarantee anything on the matter.
France Day 10
So I didn’t really rush to get going this morning because either option really sort of left a later exit. I had reserved the car with Alamo but I was not sure how likely I was going to be able to pull it off and then also get back to Paris from Caen. The rental place didn’t open until 8am and if I had to go straight to Paris I wouldn’t really be able to check into the hotel until 12 at the earliest.
I had the hotel call me a cab after I checked out and he appeared to use some roundabout method of getting to the train station but after all was said and done the fee was cheaper than I expected (I wasn’t going to walk with baggage to the train station, far too long a walk timewise with stuff in tow). When I got into the station I asked what times the trains left for Paris in the afternoon and the girl showed me a schedule that went pretty far into the night at worst case. I was told I wouldn’t need to reserve any seats on any of the trains I chose.
Armed with that concept I walked about a block away (not far really) to the Alamo rental place which is actually just a small part of Citer who is a French car rental place. In any event the guy was on the phone but I explained my intentions and he said that it was doable. The time to get to Mont Saint-Michel he said was really in the 1:30 range not 2 hours. It was still before 9am when I had the car rented and was on my way. The car was a Citroën C3 hybrid diesel that I chose purely on the fact it was an automatic. It was a sluggish car at best being a hybrid economy vehicle but the mileage (kilometerage?, fuel efficiency?) did appear to be pretty good after all. I think the trip turned out to be 250 or so kilometers from Caen to Mont Saint-Michel and back. That’s rounded. I am not sure of the exact. The guy from Alamo/Citer gave me basic directions to get to the highway then told me the signs would get me there. He was spot on. It really was an easy drive and I was actually in the monument by 10:10am.
As I said in the phone posting, the moment I rounded a corner past a hedgerow I saw it from a fair distance still but it was striking to look at. I really did swear in awe. I drove a bit further to look for a pull off to take a picture from and eventually found something, though much closer than I had initially seen it. Without getting into a long boring history lesson (You can look it all up on your own if you are interested. Wikipedia would work fine.) Le Mont Saint-Michel is a very old abbey and monastery that was also used as a prison by the French for many years. Legend has it that the idea to build the abbey was provided by a vision from God somewhere in the 9th century. In any event the island is a large granite island and the structures are built atop that, giving the whole its massive appearance. It was built and rebuilt a couple times and was used as a fortress during war where it was never captured. It also has survived the World Wars and several natural disasters amongst other things. The bay around the mount will draw out and in with the tides giving the appearance that is totally accessible by land (without the artificially built bridge that now serves as the way in and a car parking area) when the tide is out as it was when I was there. I would have loved to have had the time to stay long enough to see the tide come in. Aside from the man made bridge the whole island is then surrounded by water and the pictures of it that way look very spectacular. I will take what I can get though because this almost didn’t happen I figure.
I again had to conquer the issue with money and now this tops the Pierrefonds expedition in total cost but I believe in this instance every penny of it was worth it. I walked through the whole of the moment, went through most all of the gift shops at some point and of course did the abbey tour using one of the preprogrammed audio guides. Actual guided tours provided by the facility were only done in French it seemed plainly obvious. The place is truly incredible and I am very glad I got there as early as I did because by the time I left at about 1:30 or so (maybe a tad later) the parking lots were absolutely full and there was just a ton of people around. I really liked the abbey tour and guide was even informative. I was able to listen to all the audio and I liked it in general. I walked all around the ramparts and was able to get a lot of pictures from many different angles. They said the abbey was not off limits for taking pictures as well so I chose to ignore my basic rule of not taking pictures of the insides of churches and the likes. The ramparts and the town itself are a veritable maze to wander through. Along the way I bought myself a hot dog at a small shop. Well, closer to the end really. In any event it was a hot dog on a cut of French bread. It wasn’t bad but I couldn’t help but feel I tasted mostly the bread (which they had toasted after the hot dog was done). I liked it but it was a quick meal on the go because if I sat somewhere I’d want a beer and I was driving in a foreign country for the first time (aside from Canada which doesn’t count).
When all was said and done I probably should have stayed about an hour longer because the train that I ended up taking to Paris didn’t leave until over an hour after I got to the train station. The drive back from the monument to Caen was a bit squishy. I missed a turn on the way out but I was able to wing it a bit and make an educated guess or two and have a lot of luck on my side (for a change) so that I ended up on the A84 sort of by accident and was heading back to Caen probably only losing about 5 or 10 minutes time. The return into Caen was partially a worry issue for me because I had to refill the tank and the directions out were easy but I had no directions in. They don’t use exit numbers here and it seemed rare that the signs actually mentioned the names of the highways. I picked the first sign that said Caen Centre and tried that. It brought me in through about 4 rotaries (roundabouts) and eventually I found that I was coming in from a completely different direction than I had expected but fortunately one that I recognized from the cab rides and walking. I was able to negotiate past the train station, past the rental place and find the gas station he had mentioned then turn around and park somewhat close to the place with relative ease after all. I even put diesel in it for them when I filled it up. The guy was surprised I was back so soon but I told him I had no traffic and did not really eat lunch there so it worked out well. I had about 3 and a half hours there and I got to do what I wanted to do. He said ok and took the key and I was on my way.
Getting to the train station I found that I should have made it about 4 and a half hours but by then it was already too late. Better to be safe than sorry I generally figure. So I listened to The Edges of Twilight by The Tea Party on the cell phone which killed the intervening time perfectly then boarded to the first class car sans reservations because I was told I could. The car was pretty close to full at the outset and the first stop of Lisieux (again) filled it up even further. I was glad there were fewer stops on the way back than there was on the way out.
From St Lazare I had to reverse navigate my way back to Gare du Nord where it would be a straight walk to the hotel in less than 5 minutes even including the luggage. I did find that there was indeed an underground route to the RER magenta line which would go to Gare du Nord. Actually I think it is just the E line which on the maps is colored magenta and the E line stop that connects with Gare du Nord is called Magenta. Either way when I got to the ticket counter outside the metro entry it was closed and there was only a ticket machine which wouldn’t let me select English though I could kind of figure out what was going on sort of. I was lucky enough to have a French woman behind me who realized I didn’t understand French well enough and offered to help me. The machine did not take bills. I only had copper change by this point and was expecting to pay a person with a 5 Euro bill. So I tried both of my cards and the machine would accept neither. The lady was very nice and paid my fare for me. I offered her the 5 but she refused to take it. I thanked her profusely and got my way down to the train where I had to wait about 5 minutes for it to leave. St Lazare is a terminus and works east only from that station. Gare du Nord is only one stop away. It is at least a 4 minute ride. I would expect the walk is not terribly long but I wasn’t about to try it with luggage in tow.
After issuing out at Magenta I wended my way through till I found the Gare du Nord exit near the Grande Lignes I was expecting and headed straight for the hotel. The woman at the desk remembered me and gave me my key. While I was begging for a different room and got one, they sent me to room 49, right across the hall from 47. It may be slightly smaller with a larger bed (only one) but you still have to climb up and down 49 steps to get to it (not great with luggage in tow). I really only just dropped off my stuff and turned right around to get something to eat because by the time I was in the room it was already 8:10pm. I was pretty tired and very hungry. My plan was to try the Café Indiana again because I was pretty sure they were serving food and I was right. I may have spotted a couple places to use Tuesday and Wednesday as well as I am now entrenched in Paris for sleeping quarters until I leave on Thursday. I had the steak again and didn’t take a picture of it because it was a repeat. Unfortunately, the waitress didn’t ask me how I wanted it cooked and I got it murdered to death. Fortunately, I was very hungry and was able to eat it anyway. I accompanied that with two Affligem and then followed with an espresso and the Apple Pie Indiana which was a sort of dry American style apple pie with crème fraiche on the side and vanilla ice cream too. I wasn’t sure how they expected me to eat it since the ice cream and crème both came in little plastic cups. I opted to dip the pie in the crème and then ate the ice cream separately.
A note about French service. When they ask you if you are done they for some reason don’t even remotely consider bringing you the bill. They just wander off and leave you there. I can’t even conceive of the concept in America where they are dying to get people out of tables just to get rid of them or to clear up space so new people can come in. In America we are agreeable to the concept because unless in party of some format we don’t really need to hang around the restaurant after we are done. I witnessed this waitress just forgetting about several people (most of whom were French) as well as myself. I and the guy at the table next to me had to flag down another server to get our bills because she apparently even decided to go out and smoke. This of course is not a solitary incident. You have to specify that you want to pay blatantly or you will sit for another 20 minutes for no reason at all. Personally it kind of offends my northeastern sensibilities but when in France…
I had the hotel call me a cab after I checked out and he appeared to use some roundabout method of getting to the train station but after all was said and done the fee was cheaper than I expected (I wasn’t going to walk with baggage to the train station, far too long a walk timewise with stuff in tow). When I got into the station I asked what times the trains left for Paris in the afternoon and the girl showed me a schedule that went pretty far into the night at worst case. I was told I wouldn’t need to reserve any seats on any of the trains I chose.
Armed with that concept I walked about a block away (not far really) to the Alamo rental place which is actually just a small part of Citer who is a French car rental place. In any event the guy was on the phone but I explained my intentions and he said that it was doable. The time to get to Mont Saint-Michel he said was really in the 1:30 range not 2 hours. It was still before 9am when I had the car rented and was on my way. The car was a Citroën C3 hybrid diesel that I chose purely on the fact it was an automatic. It was a sluggish car at best being a hybrid economy vehicle but the mileage (kilometerage?, fuel efficiency?) did appear to be pretty good after all. I think the trip turned out to be 250 or so kilometers from Caen to Mont Saint-Michel and back. That’s rounded. I am not sure of the exact. The guy from Alamo/Citer gave me basic directions to get to the highway then told me the signs would get me there. He was spot on. It really was an easy drive and I was actually in the monument by 10:10am.
As I said in the phone posting, the moment I rounded a corner past a hedgerow I saw it from a fair distance still but it was striking to look at. I really did swear in awe. I drove a bit further to look for a pull off to take a picture from and eventually found something, though much closer than I had initially seen it. Without getting into a long boring history lesson (You can look it all up on your own if you are interested. Wikipedia would work fine.) Le Mont Saint-Michel is a very old abbey and monastery that was also used as a prison by the French for many years. Legend has it that the idea to build the abbey was provided by a vision from God somewhere in the 9th century. In any event the island is a large granite island and the structures are built atop that, giving the whole its massive appearance. It was built and rebuilt a couple times and was used as a fortress during war where it was never captured. It also has survived the World Wars and several natural disasters amongst other things. The bay around the mount will draw out and in with the tides giving the appearance that is totally accessible by land (without the artificially built bridge that now serves as the way in and a car parking area) when the tide is out as it was when I was there. I would have loved to have had the time to stay long enough to see the tide come in. Aside from the man made bridge the whole island is then surrounded by water and the pictures of it that way look very spectacular. I will take what I can get though because this almost didn’t happen I figure.
I again had to conquer the issue with money and now this tops the Pierrefonds expedition in total cost but I believe in this instance every penny of it was worth it. I walked through the whole of the moment, went through most all of the gift shops at some point and of course did the abbey tour using one of the preprogrammed audio guides. Actual guided tours provided by the facility were only done in French it seemed plainly obvious. The place is truly incredible and I am very glad I got there as early as I did because by the time I left at about 1:30 or so (maybe a tad later) the parking lots were absolutely full and there was just a ton of people around. I really liked the abbey tour and guide was even informative. I was able to listen to all the audio and I liked it in general. I walked all around the ramparts and was able to get a lot of pictures from many different angles. They said the abbey was not off limits for taking pictures as well so I chose to ignore my basic rule of not taking pictures of the insides of churches and the likes. The ramparts and the town itself are a veritable maze to wander through. Along the way I bought myself a hot dog at a small shop. Well, closer to the end really. In any event it was a hot dog on a cut of French bread. It wasn’t bad but I couldn’t help but feel I tasted mostly the bread (which they had toasted after the hot dog was done). I liked it but it was a quick meal on the go because if I sat somewhere I’d want a beer and I was driving in a foreign country for the first time (aside from Canada which doesn’t count).
When all was said and done I probably should have stayed about an hour longer because the train that I ended up taking to Paris didn’t leave until over an hour after I got to the train station. The drive back from the monument to Caen was a bit squishy. I missed a turn on the way out but I was able to wing it a bit and make an educated guess or two and have a lot of luck on my side (for a change) so that I ended up on the A84 sort of by accident and was heading back to Caen probably only losing about 5 or 10 minutes time. The return into Caen was partially a worry issue for me because I had to refill the tank and the directions out were easy but I had no directions in. They don’t use exit numbers here and it seemed rare that the signs actually mentioned the names of the highways. I picked the first sign that said Caen Centre and tried that. It brought me in through about 4 rotaries (roundabouts) and eventually I found that I was coming in from a completely different direction than I had expected but fortunately one that I recognized from the cab rides and walking. I was able to negotiate past the train station, past the rental place and find the gas station he had mentioned then turn around and park somewhat close to the place with relative ease after all. I even put diesel in it for them when I filled it up. The guy was surprised I was back so soon but I told him I had no traffic and did not really eat lunch there so it worked out well. I had about 3 and a half hours there and I got to do what I wanted to do. He said ok and took the key and I was on my way.
Getting to the train station I found that I should have made it about 4 and a half hours but by then it was already too late. Better to be safe than sorry I generally figure. So I listened to The Edges of Twilight by The Tea Party on the cell phone which killed the intervening time perfectly then boarded to the first class car sans reservations because I was told I could. The car was pretty close to full at the outset and the first stop of Lisieux (again) filled it up even further. I was glad there were fewer stops on the way back than there was on the way out.
From St Lazare I had to reverse navigate my way back to Gare du Nord where it would be a straight walk to the hotel in less than 5 minutes even including the luggage. I did find that there was indeed an underground route to the RER magenta line which would go to Gare du Nord. Actually I think it is just the E line which on the maps is colored magenta and the E line stop that connects with Gare du Nord is called Magenta. Either way when I got to the ticket counter outside the metro entry it was closed and there was only a ticket machine which wouldn’t let me select English though I could kind of figure out what was going on sort of. I was lucky enough to have a French woman behind me who realized I didn’t understand French well enough and offered to help me. The machine did not take bills. I only had copper change by this point and was expecting to pay a person with a 5 Euro bill. So I tried both of my cards and the machine would accept neither. The lady was very nice and paid my fare for me. I offered her the 5 but she refused to take it. I thanked her profusely and got my way down to the train where I had to wait about 5 minutes for it to leave. St Lazare is a terminus and works east only from that station. Gare du Nord is only one stop away. It is at least a 4 minute ride. I would expect the walk is not terribly long but I wasn’t about to try it with luggage in tow.
After issuing out at Magenta I wended my way through till I found the Gare du Nord exit near the Grande Lignes I was expecting and headed straight for the hotel. The woman at the desk remembered me and gave me my key. While I was begging for a different room and got one, they sent me to room 49, right across the hall from 47. It may be slightly smaller with a larger bed (only one) but you still have to climb up and down 49 steps to get to it (not great with luggage in tow). I really only just dropped off my stuff and turned right around to get something to eat because by the time I was in the room it was already 8:10pm. I was pretty tired and very hungry. My plan was to try the Café Indiana again because I was pretty sure they were serving food and I was right. I may have spotted a couple places to use Tuesday and Wednesday as well as I am now entrenched in Paris for sleeping quarters until I leave on Thursday. I had the steak again and didn’t take a picture of it because it was a repeat. Unfortunately, the waitress didn’t ask me how I wanted it cooked and I got it murdered to death. Fortunately, I was very hungry and was able to eat it anyway. I accompanied that with two Affligem and then followed with an espresso and the Apple Pie Indiana which was a sort of dry American style apple pie with crème fraiche on the side and vanilla ice cream too. I wasn’t sure how they expected me to eat it since the ice cream and crème both came in little plastic cups. I opted to dip the pie in the crème and then ate the ice cream separately.
A note about French service. When they ask you if you are done they for some reason don’t even remotely consider bringing you the bill. They just wander off and leave you there. I can’t even conceive of the concept in America where they are dying to get people out of tables just to get rid of them or to clear up space so new people can come in. In America we are agreeable to the concept because unless in party of some format we don’t really need to hang around the restaurant after we are done. I witnessed this waitress just forgetting about several people (most of whom were French) as well as myself. I and the guy at the table next to me had to flag down another server to get our bills because she apparently even decided to go out and smoke. This of course is not a solitary incident. You have to specify that you want to pay blatantly or you will sit for another 20 minutes for no reason at all. Personally it kind of offends my northeastern sensibilities but when in France…
Monday, May 11, 2009
A Citroën and an explitive
I did manage to rent the car. It was a diesel hybrid chosen because it was auto. The drive was a straight shot. When Mont Saint-Michel came into view I said, "Oh *explitive sort of meaning wow*," because it is very impressive. This post by phone.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
France Day 9
I of course had grand plans for Day 9 because my intention was to get to Mont Saint-Michel. I got up early for a Sunday and walked down the bus stop and found it didn’t start until 9am. Fine by me, the walk to the stop is only about 10 minutes. I walked back and had the buffet breakfast by which I mean I had some cereal, a croissant, glass of very pulpy orange juice and a cup of coffee. When I finished this I walked back to the bus stop and rode the bus into St. Pierre Station then walked on to the train station. At the ticket office I found out that for some reason far beyond my comprehension the first trip to Mont Saint-Michel starts at 2pm and it takes about 2 hours to get to the city of Pontorson where you would still have to take a bus for 9km. That means not arriving to the monument until past 4pm. The places closes at 7pm if I am lucky then it would be a two hour ride back to Caen but the likelihood that a train was coming back from 7pm to 9pm was near impossible. Then I would most likely have to taxi back to the room for the return. So basically, France defeated me again.
I ended up wandering the city of Caen for the rest of the day. I was in town by 9:15am and did not get back to the hotel until after 3pm, so I did make a full day of it. I walked through just about all of the main part of the city and saw all of the major churches and revisited the chateaux as well as found an open air market happening down by a pier on the river where a ferry apparently lets in. The market was all either food stalls many of which smelled very good or the typical flea market junk or counterfeit clothing and watches that you always find. It was unfortunately still very early when I was walking through it and I didn’t end up buying any food. I can’t bring any of the produce they had home either so while some of it looked very good I skipped past it all.
From the market I found one of the two abbeys in the town. This one was smaller and on the eastern side of the city and was closed for the day because it was Sunday. I am sure it is an historical place and was attached to an older church. The abbey building however looked newer. There was a large park in back of that and I walked through that for a bit. I walked back through the town and revisited the chateaux to see if there was anything I missed but really just passed through it sort of quickly. The museums were closed for Sunday. From there I took sight of the other large church which was St Etienne and also had the other abbey on it. Also closed but this time for the lunch period of 11am to 2:30pm or something like that I didn’t bother to go in. It was just past noon when I got there. I walked back to the center of town where in search of lunch I ended up eating at Quick. Which is the French version of McDonald’s. Unfortunately, their name may be a bit misleading as I had to wait for about 5 minutes for my Double Cheese (Doo-blay cheez) burger. Though she gave me the fries and drink right away. The place was fairly busy. The girl didn’t speak any English. The food was better than McDonald’s maybe by the slightest bit but not much really if at all. By the way the chronology for today during the wanderings is a bit of a blur to me. I went all over the city eventually and it was a very nice day out (yes, people here were still wearing their winter jackets) and I enjoyed the waking. I am just not 100% sure if I went from A to B to C or A to C to D to B, etc. In any event I walked a real lot and visited about every site to see in the city I am pretty sure, recognizing that aside from the chateaux everything was closed.
After eating I was undecided what to do. I sort of thought of looking for a café to have a beer but instead though I would try to walk back to the hotel. While on the bus ride into town I kept close eye on the way we went and found that there appeared to be a path that came down the hill and along the road and allowed a pedestrian to walk across the street up a distance and make it to town. I initially took the wrong street and had to backtrack a ways when I realized my mistake but on the second attempt I found the correct street and took the path and it did indeed come up to the street that the Memorial bus stop was on which lead right up to the Memorial. I returned to the Memorial because the place was so crowded on Saturday I stayed out of the gift shop after finishing the visit and my guess paid off because the place was only an eighth as full at best as it was on Saturday. I browsed the shop and bought a couple things then went up to the cafeteria and bought an iced tea because I was very thirsty by this point. Of course my politeness made me let someone order in front of me though I probably arrived to the counter first and it turned out to be one of those orders from hell. All I wanted was the iced tea. I could have been done in seconds but ended up having to wait for about 10 minutes. Yay me. After I sat and drank the bottle and then rested my legs for a very few minutes I walked back to the hotel and typed up stuff.
I got here just after 3pm and I started on the plot that I had hatched in my brain not to be completely defeated on Mont Saint-Michel. I got online and searched the rental car sites for the area and the Alamo site claims they have cars that are automatics available tomorrow. So I put a reservation on it (no money down) and I am going to try to get there when they open tomorrow and rent a car for the day. The drive from here to there should be about 2 hours or less down the A84. I have seen estimates as low as 1 hour 17 minutes but 2 hours to be on the safe side. It was something like 68 miles anyway but I am not sure of road speeds and all of that. From there I should be able to stay a couple hours and then drive right back to the rental place and then hop on a train back to Paris where I can check back into my hotel there. I am sure that all sorts of hell will go wrong, most likely that I won’t be able to find an automatic (I’m not about to pay for the clutch on a foreign car to learn how to drive stick with no one to show me), or who knows what else. If they don’t have a car I can drive then I will just get on a train to Paris and call this area quits. I know I won’t be able to stay too late in Mont Saint-Michel if I can get there but I am going to try anyway. It will amount to being more expensive than the visit to Pierrefonds including having to purchase fuel I am sure. The reason I am not taking a train to Mont Saint-Michel on Monday then heading straight into Paris is that I have no means of keeping my luggage on a train though I could store it in a car for the time after I check out. The hotel is so far out of town there’s no way to get in from the train, get the luggage if they would store it here and then head back to the station without far too much time being wasted. Lastly, the train station in Caen is too small to have lockers. I did a quick sweep but there’s nothing there for that or I would have considered that option (heck it would be the cheapest on one day of rail pass travel) as the best. So basically I am expecting total defeat number 2 but I have my war face on and I will try what I can to win anyway.
On a side note, the French apparently play rugby, or so the TV shows…
After resting for a while I went down to the hotel restaurant and had lunch. This time I had the upside down tomato pie for a starter and then the sliced duck with red wine sauce for the main course. Both were good though the red wine sauce was perhaps a bit sweet for my taste. To follow I had an espresso and the pineapple carpaccio which was very thinly sliced pineapple with a syrup of some sort over it. I liked it but I was actually trying to have the apple pie with vanilla ice cream. I didn’t have the heart to argue with them.
My only hopes are tomorrow works out the best or signals its failure early. Renting the car then not getting there would be worse than not renting the car at all.
I ended up wandering the city of Caen for the rest of the day. I was in town by 9:15am and did not get back to the hotel until after 3pm, so I did make a full day of it. I walked through just about all of the main part of the city and saw all of the major churches and revisited the chateaux as well as found an open air market happening down by a pier on the river where a ferry apparently lets in. The market was all either food stalls many of which smelled very good or the typical flea market junk or counterfeit clothing and watches that you always find. It was unfortunately still very early when I was walking through it and I didn’t end up buying any food. I can’t bring any of the produce they had home either so while some of it looked very good I skipped past it all.
From the market I found one of the two abbeys in the town. This one was smaller and on the eastern side of the city and was closed for the day because it was Sunday. I am sure it is an historical place and was attached to an older church. The abbey building however looked newer. There was a large park in back of that and I walked through that for a bit. I walked back through the town and revisited the chateaux to see if there was anything I missed but really just passed through it sort of quickly. The museums were closed for Sunday. From there I took sight of the other large church which was St Etienne and also had the other abbey on it. Also closed but this time for the lunch period of 11am to 2:30pm or something like that I didn’t bother to go in. It was just past noon when I got there. I walked back to the center of town where in search of lunch I ended up eating at Quick. Which is the French version of McDonald’s. Unfortunately, their name may be a bit misleading as I had to wait for about 5 minutes for my Double Cheese (Doo-blay cheez) burger. Though she gave me the fries and drink right away. The place was fairly busy. The girl didn’t speak any English. The food was better than McDonald’s maybe by the slightest bit but not much really if at all. By the way the chronology for today during the wanderings is a bit of a blur to me. I went all over the city eventually and it was a very nice day out (yes, people here were still wearing their winter jackets) and I enjoyed the waking. I am just not 100% sure if I went from A to B to C or A to C to D to B, etc. In any event I walked a real lot and visited about every site to see in the city I am pretty sure, recognizing that aside from the chateaux everything was closed.
After eating I was undecided what to do. I sort of thought of looking for a café to have a beer but instead though I would try to walk back to the hotel. While on the bus ride into town I kept close eye on the way we went and found that there appeared to be a path that came down the hill and along the road and allowed a pedestrian to walk across the street up a distance and make it to town. I initially took the wrong street and had to backtrack a ways when I realized my mistake but on the second attempt I found the correct street and took the path and it did indeed come up to the street that the Memorial bus stop was on which lead right up to the Memorial. I returned to the Memorial because the place was so crowded on Saturday I stayed out of the gift shop after finishing the visit and my guess paid off because the place was only an eighth as full at best as it was on Saturday. I browsed the shop and bought a couple things then went up to the cafeteria and bought an iced tea because I was very thirsty by this point. Of course my politeness made me let someone order in front of me though I probably arrived to the counter first and it turned out to be one of those orders from hell. All I wanted was the iced tea. I could have been done in seconds but ended up having to wait for about 10 minutes. Yay me. After I sat and drank the bottle and then rested my legs for a very few minutes I walked back to the hotel and typed up stuff.
I got here just after 3pm and I started on the plot that I had hatched in my brain not to be completely defeated on Mont Saint-Michel. I got online and searched the rental car sites for the area and the Alamo site claims they have cars that are automatics available tomorrow. So I put a reservation on it (no money down) and I am going to try to get there when they open tomorrow and rent a car for the day. The drive from here to there should be about 2 hours or less down the A84. I have seen estimates as low as 1 hour 17 minutes but 2 hours to be on the safe side. It was something like 68 miles anyway but I am not sure of road speeds and all of that. From there I should be able to stay a couple hours and then drive right back to the rental place and then hop on a train back to Paris where I can check back into my hotel there. I am sure that all sorts of hell will go wrong, most likely that I won’t be able to find an automatic (I’m not about to pay for the clutch on a foreign car to learn how to drive stick with no one to show me), or who knows what else. If they don’t have a car I can drive then I will just get on a train to Paris and call this area quits. I know I won’t be able to stay too late in Mont Saint-Michel if I can get there but I am going to try anyway. It will amount to being more expensive than the visit to Pierrefonds including having to purchase fuel I am sure. The reason I am not taking a train to Mont Saint-Michel on Monday then heading straight into Paris is that I have no means of keeping my luggage on a train though I could store it in a car for the time after I check out. The hotel is so far out of town there’s no way to get in from the train, get the luggage if they would store it here and then head back to the station without far too much time being wasted. Lastly, the train station in Caen is too small to have lockers. I did a quick sweep but there’s nothing there for that or I would have considered that option (heck it would be the cheapest on one day of rail pass travel) as the best. So basically I am expecting total defeat number 2 but I have my war face on and I will try what I can to win anyway.
On a side note, the French apparently play rugby, or so the TV shows…
After resting for a while I went down to the hotel restaurant and had lunch. This time I had the upside down tomato pie for a starter and then the sliced duck with red wine sauce for the main course. Both were good though the red wine sauce was perhaps a bit sweet for my taste. To follow I had an espresso and the pineapple carpaccio which was very thinly sliced pineapple with a syrup of some sort over it. I liked it but I was actually trying to have the apple pie with vanilla ice cream. I didn’t have the heart to argue with them.
My only hopes are tomorrow works out the best or signals its failure early. Renting the car then not getting there would be worse than not renting the car at all.
Still No Picture Posting
Sorry, but this place worked out as bad as the last one when it comes to internet connection speeds so I won't be able to post the rest of my pictures until I am back in the states.
Saturday, May 09, 2009
France Day 8
Start to finish today was a long one. I got up before six to make sure I was completely packed and ready because I would be taking several hours of trains to get to Caen (kind of pronounced like Khan from the Wrath of Khan but in that French cut off way). Reception didn’t open until 7 but I was pretty much there only a couple minutes after. I was not the first person there as someone was already having breakfast. I checked out and had the hotel call me a taxi which I took to the train station. He seemed to have started the fare before he got there but how can I argue with a guy that doesn’t speak English? In any event it wasn’t near as expensive as the rides to and from Pierrefonds. When I got the station I booked the trains I needed to Caen. One to Gare du Nord and from there I apparently needed to get to Gare St-Lazare where I would be able to get on a train to Caen. There was about 50 minutes to make the change from one to the other.The first train was an express to Gare du Nord and only took about 45 minutes from Compiegne having no stops. I tried to do what research I could on my cell phone through google to figure out how to get to St-Lazare. It turns out there is only one stop of the magenta line (not kidding, magenta) from Gare du Nord to St-Lazare. I was able to twist my way through Gare du Nord and find the metro station and more specifically the magenta line and purchase a ticket. Of course the metro at St-Lazare does not exit into the main train station but I was able to orient myself fairly quickly and get into the station where even though it wasn’t supposed to head out for half an hour I was able to already board the train to Caen because it was waiting at the track (voie).
I got situated and went through day 7’s pictures to orient them correctly as I hadn’t done that yet while I was on the train then I thought about writing the early events to that point but opted not to and instead tried to just relax and watch the countryside. There was a stop at Lisieux which had a very impressive moment apparently called the Basillica of St Therese up on a hill. I was surprised to find out it was built from 1950(something) to 1970(something). I am not sure if it was a rebuild of something destroyed in a war or if it was a completely new building. In any event the google search that provided that information from the phone made the concept less interesting to me so I didn’t read too deeply on it. There is also a very huge looking cathedral in that town but I wasn’t able to get pictures of either due to train movement or placement of the train in the station. I suppose it goes without saying the town had a huge church. So far I haven’t been to a town or city that hasn’t had several in France. The whole train ride was moderately uneventful but I did meet an American couple from Florida and gladly gabbed in English for a while with them. They have been to a few more places than I have. They were very nice and were also heading to the Normandy area though one stop up on the train line.
After disembarking I was able to get a taxi to the hotel. The map made the trip look really far and I wasn’t about to go searching for buses at that point. The ride wasn’t terribly expensive but I was right to not try to walk this one as there is a point where we crossed a highway with no apparent walking paths around it I could discern. The hotel is really just outside of town and meant for someone who has a car it seems. When I checked in they were still cleaning rooms because they had a full day the day before (probably due to the fact that the Caen Normandy Memorial is right up the road and it was Victory Day yesterday) so I was only able to drop my bags off and get on my way back out the door. My pictures of the new location do not start with the room for this reason, it wasn’t really cleaned yet. Fortunately, as I said the D-Day Memorial was right up the street in walking distance so I visited that for some time. It was interesting and in some respects it didn’t mince as many words (there were actually English signs and boards) about the French involvement in World War II. I had sort of expected some euphemistic texts but they admitted the French rolled over quickly and then ended up collaborating with the Nazis along the way. The monument is of course an international type thing and there were sections on the British and the Americans and their involvement as well. The was a movie about the Battle of Britain that was actually in English with French subtitles and in the area where they had letters from various soldiers in the war the audio sections from Americans and Canadians were read in English as well. I was a bit surprised at this but I was happy for it.
When I was done with the Memorial I had spotted a bus stop across the street. I checked the times on it and I had a few minutes so I took a short foray to see if there was actually a way I could walk into town. The distance isn’t really that far to the center of town it is just blocked by that highway so far as I could tell even after venturing to it. So I walked back to the bus stop and got on board. The Memorial stop is a terminus and starting point so I was able to tell the bus would be there in a few minutes because he was sitting at the end of the line coming in when I got back there. I rode the bus into the town to pretty close to the Caen Chateaux which was a fairly interesting old fort and castle which if it was still standing would have been from around the early times of the Normans. 11th century at that latest. The castle was however destroyed by bombing in the war and recent efforts to excavate have turned up a bit of interesting stuff around there. This area was all free to enter and I wandered around it for a bit trying to get everywhere I could and take all the pictures I could. I found the free Museum of Normandy inside and went through that. It was a collection of archaeology from the Norman areas here in northern France over time. I liked it a lot even though the building was small. It did house a lot of artifacts and surprisingly there was English translations for the placards on most everything here as well. The fortress walls also house a museum of bad art, sorry I mean modern art, but I didn’t remotely consider going in there.
By the time I was done with the fort and the ruins and the museum it was getting close to 5pm and I was unsure how to secure my bus back to Memorial if it was even possible. I started backtracking the route as best I could with aid from the GPS (it’s amazing how things look very different on foot than they do in a bus) and managed to find the Sabron stop where the bus had let some people on while heading into town. Across the street it had a return bus stop that did indeed head to Memorial and I only had to wait about 4 minutes for it. I took that and then I walked back to the hotel to relax a bit and get some of this written. Fortunately the hotel does have a restaurant and they serve dinner starting at 7:15 (yes later than the Campanile) and I will have to make use of that (or I would have to walk down to and eat at the restaurant in the Memorial if they stay open that late.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t consumed anything at all since the night before by the time I got to the room and I immediately drank several cups of tap water (by the way the only tap water I haven’t liked here is the Ibis Amiens. I am not sure if it was the water itself or their pipes but the hotel seemed newer so I will lean towards the water itself. After that I found the brewpot and made some Nescafe provided by the hotel to at least have something going into my stomach and then set about to writing this. The hotel again has wifi which is nice and I tested the speed of uploads and it looks like I might be able to get day 6 up if I am lucky but I doubt I will be able to get the 300+ pictures from day 7 up with the speeds I appear to be getting. Still it is better than nothing.
After relaxing a bit by watching the BBC on the TV in the room, The Weakest Link – a show I’ve never watched, I went down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. There was a already a fairly sizeable crowd of older Brits who apparently were in the area on a tour of some sort occupying the room. Nonetheless it was easy to get seated. Today I opted to have a started because I was starved to go along with a Leffe and the bread they gave. The starter was listed on the English language menu as eggplant crumble and it was very good. It was sort of like it sounds, a bread topped eggplant dish. I liked it a lot. For the main course I chose to have the sea breem with citrus sauce. It also was very good but perhaps I was so hungry I wouldn’t have noticed. In any event the sauce wasn’t very citrusy but I liked it. It was accompanied by haricots verts and boiled white rice. I wasn’t expecting plain boiled white rice but it was cooked correctly and an enjoyable part of the meal. I opted not to have a dessert because I had the starter and just finished off with an espresso which was a bit small for my taste before heading back to the room where I made a tea to finish off the night.
For the sake of mention for those who would understand and care on the BBC apparently there is a show called Tonight’s the Night and Captain Jack from Torchwood is apparently the host. I assume it is a basic talk/variety show but it was mostly over when I turned the TV on. They were having a contest to have an “alien” film a scene in the Tardis for the show at a later date. Then he finished off the show by singing and dancing. It was a bit strange because he doesn’t have a distinctive voice. It was not however surprising.
I got situated and went through day 7’s pictures to orient them correctly as I hadn’t done that yet while I was on the train then I thought about writing the early events to that point but opted not to and instead tried to just relax and watch the countryside. There was a stop at Lisieux which had a very impressive moment apparently called the Basillica of St Therese up on a hill. I was surprised to find out it was built from 1950(something) to 1970(something). I am not sure if it was a rebuild of something destroyed in a war or if it was a completely new building. In any event the google search that provided that information from the phone made the concept less interesting to me so I didn’t read too deeply on it. There is also a very huge looking cathedral in that town but I wasn’t able to get pictures of either due to train movement or placement of the train in the station. I suppose it goes without saying the town had a huge church. So far I haven’t been to a town or city that hasn’t had several in France. The whole train ride was moderately uneventful but I did meet an American couple from Florida and gladly gabbed in English for a while with them. They have been to a few more places than I have. They were very nice and were also heading to the Normandy area though one stop up on the train line.
After disembarking I was able to get a taxi to the hotel. The map made the trip look really far and I wasn’t about to go searching for buses at that point. The ride wasn’t terribly expensive but I was right to not try to walk this one as there is a point where we crossed a highway with no apparent walking paths around it I could discern. The hotel is really just outside of town and meant for someone who has a car it seems. When I checked in they were still cleaning rooms because they had a full day the day before (probably due to the fact that the Caen Normandy Memorial is right up the road and it was Victory Day yesterday) so I was only able to drop my bags off and get on my way back out the door. My pictures of the new location do not start with the room for this reason, it wasn’t really cleaned yet. Fortunately, as I said the D-Day Memorial was right up the street in walking distance so I visited that for some time. It was interesting and in some respects it didn’t mince as many words (there were actually English signs and boards) about the French involvement in World War II. I had sort of expected some euphemistic texts but they admitted the French rolled over quickly and then ended up collaborating with the Nazis along the way. The monument is of course an international type thing and there were sections on the British and the Americans and their involvement as well. The was a movie about the Battle of Britain that was actually in English with French subtitles and in the area where they had letters from various soldiers in the war the audio sections from Americans and Canadians were read in English as well. I was a bit surprised at this but I was happy for it.
When I was done with the Memorial I had spotted a bus stop across the street. I checked the times on it and I had a few minutes so I took a short foray to see if there was actually a way I could walk into town. The distance isn’t really that far to the center of town it is just blocked by that highway so far as I could tell even after venturing to it. So I walked back to the bus stop and got on board. The Memorial stop is a terminus and starting point so I was able to tell the bus would be there in a few minutes because he was sitting at the end of the line coming in when I got back there. I rode the bus into the town to pretty close to the Caen Chateaux which was a fairly interesting old fort and castle which if it was still standing would have been from around the early times of the Normans. 11th century at that latest. The castle was however destroyed by bombing in the war and recent efforts to excavate have turned up a bit of interesting stuff around there. This area was all free to enter and I wandered around it for a bit trying to get everywhere I could and take all the pictures I could. I found the free Museum of Normandy inside and went through that. It was a collection of archaeology from the Norman areas here in northern France over time. I liked it a lot even though the building was small. It did house a lot of artifacts and surprisingly there was English translations for the placards on most everything here as well. The fortress walls also house a museum of bad art, sorry I mean modern art, but I didn’t remotely consider going in there.
By the time I was done with the fort and the ruins and the museum it was getting close to 5pm and I was unsure how to secure my bus back to Memorial if it was even possible. I started backtracking the route as best I could with aid from the GPS (it’s amazing how things look very different on foot than they do in a bus) and managed to find the Sabron stop where the bus had let some people on while heading into town. Across the street it had a return bus stop that did indeed head to Memorial and I only had to wait about 4 minutes for it. I took that and then I walked back to the hotel to relax a bit and get some of this written. Fortunately the hotel does have a restaurant and they serve dinner starting at 7:15 (yes later than the Campanile) and I will have to make use of that (or I would have to walk down to and eat at the restaurant in the Memorial if they stay open that late.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t consumed anything at all since the night before by the time I got to the room and I immediately drank several cups of tap water (by the way the only tap water I haven’t liked here is the Ibis Amiens. I am not sure if it was the water itself or their pipes but the hotel seemed newer so I will lean towards the water itself. After that I found the brewpot and made some Nescafe provided by the hotel to at least have something going into my stomach and then set about to writing this. The hotel again has wifi which is nice and I tested the speed of uploads and it looks like I might be able to get day 6 up if I am lucky but I doubt I will be able to get the 300+ pictures from day 7 up with the speeds I appear to be getting. Still it is better than nothing.
After relaxing a bit by watching the BBC on the TV in the room, The Weakest Link – a show I’ve never watched, I went down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. There was a already a fairly sizeable crowd of older Brits who apparently were in the area on a tour of some sort occupying the room. Nonetheless it was easy to get seated. Today I opted to have a started because I was starved to go along with a Leffe and the bread they gave. The starter was listed on the English language menu as eggplant crumble and it was very good. It was sort of like it sounds, a bread topped eggplant dish. I liked it a lot. For the main course I chose to have the sea breem with citrus sauce. It also was very good but perhaps I was so hungry I wouldn’t have noticed. In any event the sauce wasn’t very citrusy but I liked it. It was accompanied by haricots verts and boiled white rice. I wasn’t expecting plain boiled white rice but it was cooked correctly and an enjoyable part of the meal. I opted not to have a dessert because I had the starter and just finished off with an espresso which was a bit small for my taste before heading back to the room where I made a tea to finish off the night.
For the sake of mention for those who would understand and care on the BBC apparently there is a show called Tonight’s the Night and Captain Jack from Torchwood is apparently the host. I assume it is a basic talk/variety show but it was mostly over when I turned the TV on. They were having a contest to have an “alien” film a scene in the Tardis for the show at a later date. Then he finished off the show by singing and dancing. It was a bit strange because he doesn’t have a distinctive voice. It was not however surprising.
Friday, May 08, 2009
France Day 7
So, May 8 is not really a big day for Americans but it apparently is a holiday for the French. Victory Day it seems. I had to check that on my google calendar where I had added French holidays. Why do I know this, you ask? Well, because after I got to the bus station and time for the bus to depart for Pierrefonds was overdue by about 45 minutes I started to wonder if I was going to be defeated yet again. I went back into the train part of the station and they were able to get across that, “today is a special day in France.” Special day indeed. The day that we had officially saved their bacon from having to speak German for the rest of their lives. The day the end of WWII on the European front was made official.
So the only way to not be defeated today was to bring to bear on it the one thing that will generally win. I threw money at the problem. This in the form of taking a taxi from Compiegne to Pierrefonds. Not going to get into the pricing but suffice it to say that this will be the most expensive single castle visit I ever make even counting for inflation in the future. Nonetheless I had to consider it the price of success over defeat. I was not up for a second total defeat and not so soon after the first.
Pierrefonds is a very small town whose dominant feature is the Chateaux. It rests on a hill overlooking the main square. There is an older church down by the main square as well. The Chateaux was originally very old however King Louis XIV didn’t like it for some reason and had it torn down. Well it wasn’t completely torn down but a large amount of stone were taken from it to use for other projects and the castle pretty much looked like a ruin for a long time. Some time after that the French set to restoring it to its former glory though since the restoration I do not believe it has been occupied. It is a very large and beautiful castle and they suggest it is the castle that Cinderella’s Castle for Disney is based upon. I am not sure if it is true but I certainly could believe it. The externals do show a bit of age and some preservation work really does appear to be in order but it is a pretty grand site.
When I got to the town I immediately headed up to the castle and it was dead quiet all around. Fortunately I wasn’t finding any gates blocked. I did have the basic fear that with the buses being shut down then there was a chance the monuments could be closed as well. Fortunately as I got to the main entrance after walking the path around and up to it I could hear voices, there was apparently a group tour of some sort there just ahead of me. I had received a discount card for entry from the Compiegne Palace visit I had made the day before and I presented that to at least save a couple Euro off the total price of this trip. There were no guided tours in the place but I was able to buy an English language guide book for a couple Euro. A lot of the place was open but a fair amount was closed to the public as well. Unfortunately there was no entry to any of the high towers to see out of or whatnot. I would really have liked to have been able to do that. In any event I scoured the entire area that was open and since I never found any signs that said no cameras or pictures I took as many as I could. I had to double back on a couple places because I was unsure if I should at first but decided what the heck, there wasn’t even a lot of employees there.
It is obvious that a lot of the building has been rebuilt, especially from the inside where the walls and floors are often in much better shape than you’d expect. Especially the stairwells are all a lot more even and easy to walk up and down even though they are spirals.
If I had to guess I spent over 2 hours up around and through the castle and after that I walked back into the town and then tried to find some vantage points for more pictures. There weren’t as many as I had hoped and I had no access to one whole side of the castle from as far as I could see (unless it would have been a very very long walk. After doing this for a bit I returned to town and found a place to have lunch called Le Commerce. The menu seemed to be mainly salads and a few seafood dishes. I was a bit nervous about how I was getting back so I opted just for a salad which I guessed on. It was Le Commerce also. It was a ham and cheese green salad with a hard boiled egg and a baked potato on the side. I skipped on the potato but ate most of the salad and all of the bread they gave me. The French are obviously very into their bread and if you do like bread this is definitely a great country to visit to experience great bread. I had always thought that the people walking or riding bicycles with their baguettes was a cliché and didn’t really happen at all. However I have been able to witness that it is for real. People will buy bread and walk around and munch on a giant loaf as well as apparently buying fresh bread to take home every day. Back to the story at hand, sorry. After the salad to buy some time I ordered a desert which was coffee ice cream (again with frozen coffee beans) with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. They put a little frou frou drink umbrella on it even. I think the French are also serious about their coffee ice cream and it is very good. I did actually get a picture of this dessert. After that I bought some more time with a coffee which actually wasn’t an espresso but was obviously made by that sort of coffee maker. Nonetheless it wasn’t bad at all.
When I finished the meal completely I asked the waiter that showed he could speak English if he could help me get a taxi in as many words. They were very pleasant and called me the cab without making me dial and try to express myself over the phone. I left a bit bigger tip than I am sure they usually get since their prices were service included according to the bill. It wasn’t a very long wait until the taxi arrived and I had him drive me back to the hotel rather than the center of town which yielded no savings. It was still relatively early in the day but I needed to relax a bit and I figured I could get this much written anyway.
I was then faced with the fact that the cleaning people still hadn’t gotten to my room and I was waffling on what to do when the lady pushed the cart in front of my window. So I decided to head back into Compiegne center and see if maybe any souvenir shops were open. Of course, it being a holiday and all we wouldn’t have any of that. I did a few laps of all the major areas and there wasn’t a souvenir except postcards to be had. I ended up walking back to the gardens of the palace and then out beyond them where there are some very significant walking and biking paths. I walked pretty deep out through some of the wooded area then came back in through the main open area that I have several pictures of from the palace’s back door basically. When I had gotten back in front of the palace I decided that I had been walking for some two hours already and I should head back to the room. I mulled the idea of sitting at a café and having a beer but decided against it because I was afraid to lose the momentum I had walking and lock up. I got back to the room a bit after 5pm and decided to use the tub to soak my feet in hot water and watch the Easter episode of Dr Who I had yet to watch. It being an hour long I paused when the water got to be only tepid and finished in the main room. Since I was now very far from town and unlikely to walk back I would have dinner at the hotel again. The service was very nice but not a one of them spoke any English. Nonetheless at least I knew they would serve food and I could have a couple beers.
I ended up ordering the Pavé du boeuf with pomme frites mainly because I was uncertain if the turbot which caught my eye would be fresh enough, after all I’m not really near the ocean in Compiegne. After ordering the beef and getting it truly rare I am sorry I didn’t try for the turbot after all. The beef was really good and chef cooked it to an almost uncooked state for me. One of the best representations of rare I have had in a very long time. Don’t get me wrong this wasn’t the Kobe beef from Japan but it was a very satisfying piece of rib steak nonetheless. I would guess if they could provide beef that good I would have enjoyed the turbot. I wish I’d tried the beef yesterday, then I definitely would have had the turbot today. I accompanied the beef with eventually 3 bottles of Affligem Blonde. After that I headed back to the room to finish out the night and prepare for more travel on Saturday.
I figure I will give you another couple France tidbits because I have a few minutes. One, there was a mantle in Pierrefonds that had two reliefs of squirrels on it. It made me notice that I have not seen one squirrel of any sort since I have been in France aside from fake ones. Even when I was walking through the woods today I was on the lookout for any but there was not a one to be found. I find it a bit strange since the other European countries I’ve visited had squirrels of some form or another. Two, when you are walking in the cities or towns always keep an eye out where you step because the people that walk their dogs do almost nothing to pick up after their droppings. It seems sort of fortunate that I have not seen a very large number of people who own dogs but those people obviously don’t care about keeping the sidewalks clean for other pedestrians. I find it almost as disappointing as the graffiti near all the train tracks and even in a few other places but at least dog dropping wash away after time. They don’t seem to be doing anything to get rid of the graffiti. So far the cleanliness of France is in very stark contrast to the cleanliness of Sweden and even in all the grim overcast and rain that I saw there I felt their cities were more tidy. Of course I’ve mostly seen Paris through grim overcast but I don’t think it’ll change my opinion much on the cleanliness to have some sun on it. You’d think for a country with so much pride in itself that they would have more pride in the way they keep things. I will say at least they clean up most of the trash on the streets and garbage removal looks prompt.
I fear I may have to go to Paris Gare du Nord then on to Caen to get to my next stop but I am hoping I can sort it out pretty quickly and be on my way early in the morning on Saturday. Hopefully the Friday holiday does not spill over to Saturday or I may cause an international incident. If you see me on the news, that’s why…
As with the issue last night, no pictures posted unless Caen has a reasonable connection speed.
So the only way to not be defeated today was to bring to bear on it the one thing that will generally win. I threw money at the problem. This in the form of taking a taxi from Compiegne to Pierrefonds. Not going to get into the pricing but suffice it to say that this will be the most expensive single castle visit I ever make even counting for inflation in the future. Nonetheless I had to consider it the price of success over defeat. I was not up for a second total defeat and not so soon after the first.
Pierrefonds is a very small town whose dominant feature is the Chateaux. It rests on a hill overlooking the main square. There is an older church down by the main square as well. The Chateaux was originally very old however King Louis XIV didn’t like it for some reason and had it torn down. Well it wasn’t completely torn down but a large amount of stone were taken from it to use for other projects and the castle pretty much looked like a ruin for a long time. Some time after that the French set to restoring it to its former glory though since the restoration I do not believe it has been occupied. It is a very large and beautiful castle and they suggest it is the castle that Cinderella’s Castle for Disney is based upon. I am not sure if it is true but I certainly could believe it. The externals do show a bit of age and some preservation work really does appear to be in order but it is a pretty grand site.
When I got to the town I immediately headed up to the castle and it was dead quiet all around. Fortunately I wasn’t finding any gates blocked. I did have the basic fear that with the buses being shut down then there was a chance the monuments could be closed as well. Fortunately as I got to the main entrance after walking the path around and up to it I could hear voices, there was apparently a group tour of some sort there just ahead of me. I had received a discount card for entry from the Compiegne Palace visit I had made the day before and I presented that to at least save a couple Euro off the total price of this trip. There were no guided tours in the place but I was able to buy an English language guide book for a couple Euro. A lot of the place was open but a fair amount was closed to the public as well. Unfortunately there was no entry to any of the high towers to see out of or whatnot. I would really have liked to have been able to do that. In any event I scoured the entire area that was open and since I never found any signs that said no cameras or pictures I took as many as I could. I had to double back on a couple places because I was unsure if I should at first but decided what the heck, there wasn’t even a lot of employees there.
It is obvious that a lot of the building has been rebuilt, especially from the inside where the walls and floors are often in much better shape than you’d expect. Especially the stairwells are all a lot more even and easy to walk up and down even though they are spirals.
If I had to guess I spent over 2 hours up around and through the castle and after that I walked back into the town and then tried to find some vantage points for more pictures. There weren’t as many as I had hoped and I had no access to one whole side of the castle from as far as I could see (unless it would have been a very very long walk. After doing this for a bit I returned to town and found a place to have lunch called Le Commerce. The menu seemed to be mainly salads and a few seafood dishes. I was a bit nervous about how I was getting back so I opted just for a salad which I guessed on. It was Le Commerce also. It was a ham and cheese green salad with a hard boiled egg and a baked potato on the side. I skipped on the potato but ate most of the salad and all of the bread they gave me. The French are obviously very into their bread and if you do like bread this is definitely a great country to visit to experience great bread. I had always thought that the people walking or riding bicycles with their baguettes was a cliché and didn’t really happen at all. However I have been able to witness that it is for real. People will buy bread and walk around and munch on a giant loaf as well as apparently buying fresh bread to take home every day. Back to the story at hand, sorry. After the salad to buy some time I ordered a desert which was coffee ice cream (again with frozen coffee beans) with chocolate sauce and whipped cream. They put a little frou frou drink umbrella on it even. I think the French are also serious about their coffee ice cream and it is very good. I did actually get a picture of this dessert. After that I bought some more time with a coffee which actually wasn’t an espresso but was obviously made by that sort of coffee maker. Nonetheless it wasn’t bad at all.
When I finished the meal completely I asked the waiter that showed he could speak English if he could help me get a taxi in as many words. They were very pleasant and called me the cab without making me dial and try to express myself over the phone. I left a bit bigger tip than I am sure they usually get since their prices were service included according to the bill. It wasn’t a very long wait until the taxi arrived and I had him drive me back to the hotel rather than the center of town which yielded no savings. It was still relatively early in the day but I needed to relax a bit and I figured I could get this much written anyway.
I was then faced with the fact that the cleaning people still hadn’t gotten to my room and I was waffling on what to do when the lady pushed the cart in front of my window. So I decided to head back into Compiegne center and see if maybe any souvenir shops were open. Of course, it being a holiday and all we wouldn’t have any of that. I did a few laps of all the major areas and there wasn’t a souvenir except postcards to be had. I ended up walking back to the gardens of the palace and then out beyond them where there are some very significant walking and biking paths. I walked pretty deep out through some of the wooded area then came back in through the main open area that I have several pictures of from the palace’s back door basically. When I had gotten back in front of the palace I decided that I had been walking for some two hours already and I should head back to the room. I mulled the idea of sitting at a café and having a beer but decided against it because I was afraid to lose the momentum I had walking and lock up. I got back to the room a bit after 5pm and decided to use the tub to soak my feet in hot water and watch the Easter episode of Dr Who I had yet to watch. It being an hour long I paused when the water got to be only tepid and finished in the main room. Since I was now very far from town and unlikely to walk back I would have dinner at the hotel again. The service was very nice but not a one of them spoke any English. Nonetheless at least I knew they would serve food and I could have a couple beers.
I ended up ordering the Pavé du boeuf with pomme frites mainly because I was uncertain if the turbot which caught my eye would be fresh enough, after all I’m not really near the ocean in Compiegne. After ordering the beef and getting it truly rare I am sorry I didn’t try for the turbot after all. The beef was really good and chef cooked it to an almost uncooked state for me. One of the best representations of rare I have had in a very long time. Don’t get me wrong this wasn’t the Kobe beef from Japan but it was a very satisfying piece of rib steak nonetheless. I would guess if they could provide beef that good I would have enjoyed the turbot. I wish I’d tried the beef yesterday, then I definitely would have had the turbot today. I accompanied the beef with eventually 3 bottles of Affligem Blonde. After that I headed back to the room to finish out the night and prepare for more travel on Saturday.
I figure I will give you another couple France tidbits because I have a few minutes. One, there was a mantle in Pierrefonds that had two reliefs of squirrels on it. It made me notice that I have not seen one squirrel of any sort since I have been in France aside from fake ones. Even when I was walking through the woods today I was on the lookout for any but there was not a one to be found. I find it a bit strange since the other European countries I’ve visited had squirrels of some form or another. Two, when you are walking in the cities or towns always keep an eye out where you step because the people that walk their dogs do almost nothing to pick up after their droppings. It seems sort of fortunate that I have not seen a very large number of people who own dogs but those people obviously don’t care about keeping the sidewalks clean for other pedestrians. I find it almost as disappointing as the graffiti near all the train tracks and even in a few other places but at least dog dropping wash away after time. They don’t seem to be doing anything to get rid of the graffiti. So far the cleanliness of France is in very stark contrast to the cleanliness of Sweden and even in all the grim overcast and rain that I saw there I felt their cities were more tidy. Of course I’ve mostly seen Paris through grim overcast but I don’t think it’ll change my opinion much on the cleanliness to have some sun on it. You’d think for a country with so much pride in itself that they would have more pride in the way they keep things. I will say at least they clean up most of the trash on the streets and garbage removal looks prompt.
I fear I may have to go to Paris Gare du Nord then on to Caen to get to my next stop but I am hoping I can sort it out pretty quickly and be on my way early in the morning on Saturday. Hopefully the Friday holiday does not spill over to Saturday or I may cause an international incident. If you see me on the news, that’s why…
As with the issue last night, no pictures posted unless Caen has a reasonable connection speed.
Bandwidth Limiter
If I had to guess I would say the hotel here has a bandwidth limiter on their wifi so I can't get pictures uploaded right now. I tried 4 times with Day 6's set and was unable to get any posted. Hopefully Caen will have something otherwise I won't be able to post pictures until I get home.
Thursday, May 07, 2009
France Day 6
Today started with a moderately early evacuation of Amiens. I think the events of the previous day had me in mind to get out as fast as possible. Not that Amiens is a terrible place, it just has a terrible bus station. I was hoping to make sure the train exit to Compiegne went more smoothly. Fortunately it did. I got to the station by about 7:40 and the next train to Compiegne left at 8:05. They said I didn’t need a ticket since I could validate a day on my pass (something I was expecting to do anyway). So I waited the few minutes till the track (voie) was announced on the big board and then got my way to the train. I think I had a few moments wondering if I was on the right one until the sign in the train lit that its final terminus was Compiegne. The train ride took a bit over an hour and a half and was fairly uneventful. It went mostly through farm country again but there were a few cool sights to see. I am convinced every town or city in France has a very large church (eglise).
Arriving at Compiegne there was one special thing that had been different from all the previous days except Provins. There was actual sun in the sky indeed as I started using the cell phone GPS to navigate to the hotel (I saw the taxi stand but since the map didn’t look horrible I figured I would try the walk) and I started to sweat profusely on the walk wearing a jacket and two layers. I shed the jacket as quick as I could. I am still amazed that people around here were still wearing winter jackets in this weather. And this was still happening after noon when the sun was full on. Anyway, I got to the hotel which turns out to be about 1.75 miles from the train station or so (maybe a little more) in around an hour with the suitcase in tow and the fact that the GPS stopped me about 300 yards short of the actual destination which caused me to dig around for probably about 20 minutes before I took a guess and found the place. The Hotel Campanile Compiegne is far outside of town and is more of what we would call a motel traditionally than a hotel. That is to say that it is a series of single story (or two story) buildings that have several room all with their own parking and external exits rather than central building. The room is reasonably sizeable but the beds are two sub-twins again rather than the large comfy bed from the Ibis. In any event the bathroom is full sized and has a tub with shower so I may soak my feet along the way. When I got here just past 11am they checked me in with no issues. I moved over the room and did a small unpacking and charged the phone for a few minutes because it was giving me the squawks because I had used the GPS so much to get to the room. Still I didn’t want to eat lunch at the hotel so I decided to charge it a little then hope it held out for me.
I walked back into town, which was much easier without the suitcase and backpack. From there I made a reasonably quick visit to the Church of Compiegne which appears to be something from the 12th century again and was in a similar state of unkempt as the church in Provins. Nonetheless it was very large and you could tell that a lot of expense went into building it even if the upkeep was a little bit limited. I think the lady was telling me they were closing the doors at noon but I am not sure. I was basically about to leave anyway. No pictures from inside again.
From there I moved on to the Palace of Compiegne. I however was told the Royal Apartments were closed until 1pm and then went and had lunch across the street. This turned out to be pork medallions in a light sauce with a hint of ginger and potatoes au gratin. I enjoyed it a lot. I also had ice cream for dessert due to the heat but forgot to take a picture of that item. It was 3 small scoops of vanilla, chocolate and pistachio ice creams. They were good and hit the spot just right.
After finishing I headed back to the palace and finally go to take the tour. This squat structure is not really as grandiose as many palaces are but like the Royal Palace in Stockholm it housed a fairly cool set of Royal Apartments with all the period furniture and art and so on. I think the Palace at Skoklosters was more interesting overall (if partially for external appearance) but this one was worth a visit. Napoleon had set it up as an autumn residence during his rule as well as previous kings Louis the XV and XVI using it as well. Most of the décor was set from Napoleon’s usage though a couple rooms due to being destroyed for various reasons (fire, WWI , WWII) had been rebuilt to the Monarch’s period instead. They had a self guided audio tour that I used through it. For whatever reasons though they reversed the order from back to front for the direction you go through versus the direction the audio guide logically follows. That said it really didn’t affect things much and I really enjoyed going through it. I would say it also reminded me of the royal apartments of Windsor Castle from way way back on my first international trip from high school.
While on the tour I noticed a huge gardens behind the palace with people hanging out so when I finished inside I made that my next goal. A couple turns around the palace and I had found them without issue. I spent a bit of time walking through them and with the shade of the trees and trellises it all turned out to be a very pleasant amount of time spent. From there I walked back towards the center of town and found the town hall which I took a few pictures of then went into the bureau de tourisme. There I found that indeed I should be able to take a bus to Pierrefonds tomorrow and that it leaves from platform 27. I decided from here to walk back to the station and see if I could scope this out. I think I figured out where the bus should be and I found the ticket office to purchase the tickets.
After that it was just past 4pm so I was in a zone where I needed to decide what to do. I had walked a lot during the course of the day so I chose to return to the hotel where I would have to have dinner there (since it is in the middle of nowhere and I would be too far from town). On the way I found a butcher and bought a beer and an orange soda from him. He was very nice and spoke English very well. He said he had been studying it for 14 years. He was very welcoming and wished that my trip in France was very pleasant. I told him overall it had been and that I really liked Compiegne so far. Continuing on I got back to the room with relative ease and sat down to the beer and some of the writing I had to do for this before relaxing until I could eat dinner.
I watched a couple episodes of a British TV show I had on my computer ( No Heroics for those who care I am all caught up on that) then went over to the restaurant for dinner. I arrived at about 7:20 and was the only one there at the time but the place was pretty well full by the time I left an hour or so later. I had penne l’arribiatta, 2 Affligem and an espresso in the course of the time I was there. This time no one even pretended to speak English but somehow we managed to communicate ok. I can actually understand a lot more than I can speak which I guess helps a little with some pointing and so on. In any event the penne was cooked properly. There wasn’t a lot of sauce but what it had was spicy enough for me. It had a kick that hung around for a little while anyway. The Affligem were also Blondes and I enjoyed them. The espresso was reasonable as well. This will all be charged to the room on my way out (the room is already paid for so I should only have to settle for any meals I have here). I skipped the entre (salad course) and dessert as well because I already had the ice cream early and the salad bar did look good but I wasn’t in the mood for it. Fortunately some of the other people that came in skipped the salad bar so I didn’t look totally alone on this one. After that it was back to the room where I found I had a security shade that totally blocks light out. Might be easier to sleep than normal tonight even with the sub-twin bed.
Arriving at Compiegne there was one special thing that had been different from all the previous days except Provins. There was actual sun in the sky indeed as I started using the cell phone GPS to navigate to the hotel (I saw the taxi stand but since the map didn’t look horrible I figured I would try the walk) and I started to sweat profusely on the walk wearing a jacket and two layers. I shed the jacket as quick as I could. I am still amazed that people around here were still wearing winter jackets in this weather. And this was still happening after noon when the sun was full on. Anyway, I got to the hotel which turns out to be about 1.75 miles from the train station or so (maybe a little more) in around an hour with the suitcase in tow and the fact that the GPS stopped me about 300 yards short of the actual destination which caused me to dig around for probably about 20 minutes before I took a guess and found the place. The Hotel Campanile Compiegne is far outside of town and is more of what we would call a motel traditionally than a hotel. That is to say that it is a series of single story (or two story) buildings that have several room all with their own parking and external exits rather than central building. The room is reasonably sizeable but the beds are two sub-twins again rather than the large comfy bed from the Ibis. In any event the bathroom is full sized and has a tub with shower so I may soak my feet along the way. When I got here just past 11am they checked me in with no issues. I moved over the room and did a small unpacking and charged the phone for a few minutes because it was giving me the squawks because I had used the GPS so much to get to the room. Still I didn’t want to eat lunch at the hotel so I decided to charge it a little then hope it held out for me.
I walked back into town, which was much easier without the suitcase and backpack. From there I made a reasonably quick visit to the Church of Compiegne which appears to be something from the 12th century again and was in a similar state of unkempt as the church in Provins. Nonetheless it was very large and you could tell that a lot of expense went into building it even if the upkeep was a little bit limited. I think the lady was telling me they were closing the doors at noon but I am not sure. I was basically about to leave anyway. No pictures from inside again.
From there I moved on to the Palace of Compiegne. I however was told the Royal Apartments were closed until 1pm and then went and had lunch across the street. This turned out to be pork medallions in a light sauce with a hint of ginger and potatoes au gratin. I enjoyed it a lot. I also had ice cream for dessert due to the heat but forgot to take a picture of that item. It was 3 small scoops of vanilla, chocolate and pistachio ice creams. They were good and hit the spot just right.
After finishing I headed back to the palace and finally go to take the tour. This squat structure is not really as grandiose as many palaces are but like the Royal Palace in Stockholm it housed a fairly cool set of Royal Apartments with all the period furniture and art and so on. I think the Palace at Skoklosters was more interesting overall (if partially for external appearance) but this one was worth a visit. Napoleon had set it up as an autumn residence during his rule as well as previous kings Louis the XV and XVI using it as well. Most of the décor was set from Napoleon’s usage though a couple rooms due to being destroyed for various reasons (fire, WWI , WWII) had been rebuilt to the Monarch’s period instead. They had a self guided audio tour that I used through it. For whatever reasons though they reversed the order from back to front for the direction you go through versus the direction the audio guide logically follows. That said it really didn’t affect things much and I really enjoyed going through it. I would say it also reminded me of the royal apartments of Windsor Castle from way way back on my first international trip from high school.
While on the tour I noticed a huge gardens behind the palace with people hanging out so when I finished inside I made that my next goal. A couple turns around the palace and I had found them without issue. I spent a bit of time walking through them and with the shade of the trees and trellises it all turned out to be a very pleasant amount of time spent. From there I walked back towards the center of town and found the town hall which I took a few pictures of then went into the bureau de tourisme. There I found that indeed I should be able to take a bus to Pierrefonds tomorrow and that it leaves from platform 27. I decided from here to walk back to the station and see if I could scope this out. I think I figured out where the bus should be and I found the ticket office to purchase the tickets.
After that it was just past 4pm so I was in a zone where I needed to decide what to do. I had walked a lot during the course of the day so I chose to return to the hotel where I would have to have dinner there (since it is in the middle of nowhere and I would be too far from town). On the way I found a butcher and bought a beer and an orange soda from him. He was very nice and spoke English very well. He said he had been studying it for 14 years. He was very welcoming and wished that my trip in France was very pleasant. I told him overall it had been and that I really liked Compiegne so far. Continuing on I got back to the room with relative ease and sat down to the beer and some of the writing I had to do for this before relaxing until I could eat dinner.
I watched a couple episodes of a British TV show I had on my computer ( No Heroics for those who care I am all caught up on that) then went over to the restaurant for dinner. I arrived at about 7:20 and was the only one there at the time but the place was pretty well full by the time I left an hour or so later. I had penne l’arribiatta, 2 Affligem and an espresso in the course of the time I was there. This time no one even pretended to speak English but somehow we managed to communicate ok. I can actually understand a lot more than I can speak which I guess helps a little with some pointing and so on. In any event the penne was cooked properly. There wasn’t a lot of sauce but what it had was spicy enough for me. It had a kick that hung around for a little while anyway. The Affligem were also Blondes and I enjoyed them. The espresso was reasonable as well. This will all be charged to the room on my way out (the room is already paid for so I should only have to settle for any meals I have here). I skipped the entre (salad course) and dessert as well because I already had the ice cream early and the salad bar did look good but I wasn’t in the mood for it. Fortunately some of the other people that came in skipped the salad bar so I didn’t look totally alone on this one. After that it was back to the room where I found I had a security shade that totally blocks light out. Might be easier to sleep than normal tonight even with the sub-twin bed.
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
France Day 5
Today will actually go down as the first day I actually completely failed at my attempt to achieve an objective. My intentions were to go to Albert to see the Somme Battlefields 1916 Trench Museum. I made my way over the train station and could see that it was likely that the trip to Albert would be on a bus which was fine. I went in and bought the ticket and attempted to find the bus depot portion of the station at Amiens. However I was completely thwarted and when I thought I found it just after the bus was supposed to leave I saw a bus pulling away and assumed I had missed it. I went back upstairs (there was a lot of stairs and twists and turns involved in all of this) and the guy told me another was due to leave very soon. I raced back and indeed there was a bus where I had been before and I got on it after showing my ticket because the driver nodded for me.
It turns out this bus was not going to Albert but was set to go to the middle of nowhere to a location called TGV Haute Picardie. I am not sure what the purpose of this station is but it was really in the middle of nowhere. I hadn’t realized it wasn’t the Albert stop at first and did as much walking as I could to discover that I really was not where I was supposed to be. I walked all the way back and bought I ticket back to Amiens. The wait for this wasn’t terribly long at least and the ride back was fairly quick. I arrived back a little bit before noon at this point. Having not had my ticket actually checked off for Albert I decided I would have another go at it. I wandered around a bit more and eventually found what I think is the actual bus station. There was supposed to be a bus leaving for Albert by 12:20 or so and I figured I could still see the museum with most of the day still around. It isn’t getting dark before 8:30 or so. So I sat and waited for the bus to arrive and then after a few minutes it did. But then when I tried to get on board showing the pass the man driving the bus said something really fast 3 times and basically pushed me away from the bus. The platform even said Albert on it. He didn’t look at the ticket at all. He did let some other people on. He was directing me to go to another location but I cannot for the life of me say where that would have been. That’s pretty much when I gave up on the trip to Albert because the sign boards had no other trips showing Albert at all on them. I was really annoyed and disappointed at this point because that particular museum was something I really wanted to see. Unfortunately it was not to be I guess. I do think I mumbled something about hating the French at this point.
After I got out of the train station I decided to head back to the house of Jules Verne which is a museum as well. I figured I would at least do that to get something in. Of course when I got there at about 1:00 the place was closed until 2:00. So I walked back into town and then got lunch which I had been planning on skipping at a café called Le Queen’s. I had a 1664 beer which was very Budweisery and a burger in roll with all sorts of stuff on it. I ended up eating the thing like a local though it turned out to be very messy to do so with knife and fork. Nonetheless I survived the experience and the burger was even good. Eating there and walking back to the house of Jules Verne wasted enough time for the place to be open and I took the tour with an English language guidebook much as a bunch of the tours I had done in Sweden happened. There was an actual French guided tour that started just the moment before I got there so I had to delay a bit until I found a place to get around them then I was able to move away from them and do things at my pace rather than theirs. I had tried to listen to what the guide was saying but she was speaking rather fast and I could only pick out a word here or there that really had no context at all. It was better that I moved away from them.
When I was done with the tour I headed back to the hotel and rechecked my email where I got the alert that Bank of America had stopped my account due to suspicious activity. I had to call them and they of course didn’t provide the international free number just their in US 800 number. I called them and sorted out that I was in France. I asked why previous trips hadn’t set it off but this one did (and several days in). She suggested it may have been the internet connection I paid for online. I guess that does make sense. In any event they have unstopped my account which is nice of them and I can again continue to use it. I did have the credit card as well but they probably would have stopped that after one purchase also for all I know. The Bank of America International no charge number is 001-602-597-2395 for the record. Or so the girl told me anyway. Today will probably be the day that has the fewest number of pictures I’ve ever taken in travel (no pictures allowed in the house of Jules Verne) and the first almost complete failure day I have had in solo travel.
I think filled with the defeat when I got back to my room after the Jules Verne house I just up and gave up and finished reading the book I had brought along with me. It was about 600 pages long and I had about 150 or so to go. I technically was going to finish it on the plane rides back but decided to just kill what I could of the night with it instead. I decided I was even still full enough from my somewhat late lunch that I didn’t feel like eating dinner so I just packed up my stuff as best I could in preparation for going to Compiegne tomorrow. I hoping it won’t be so bad. It will be a train and not a bus and there is even a line that goes directly there so far as I could see on the train station board. The bigger adventure will be getting from Compiegne to Caen. That will be a fairly long ride and I will have to change trains I am sure. If there is a greatest chance of failure on getting to a place I have reserved a room that is it. That said I am only minorly disheartened by today’s events and will move on with the bad experience behind me. It had to happen someday. And heck I did get to go to the house of Jules Verne anyway.
The paltry sampling (3) of pictures from today is posted here.
With Compiegne I may again fall out of internet range. I certainly hope not. I definitely will have that issue when I return to Paris.
It turns out this bus was not going to Albert but was set to go to the middle of nowhere to a location called TGV Haute Picardie. I am not sure what the purpose of this station is but it was really in the middle of nowhere. I hadn’t realized it wasn’t the Albert stop at first and did as much walking as I could to discover that I really was not where I was supposed to be. I walked all the way back and bought I ticket back to Amiens. The wait for this wasn’t terribly long at least and the ride back was fairly quick. I arrived back a little bit before noon at this point. Having not had my ticket actually checked off for Albert I decided I would have another go at it. I wandered around a bit more and eventually found what I think is the actual bus station. There was supposed to be a bus leaving for Albert by 12:20 or so and I figured I could still see the museum with most of the day still around. It isn’t getting dark before 8:30 or so. So I sat and waited for the bus to arrive and then after a few minutes it did. But then when I tried to get on board showing the pass the man driving the bus said something really fast 3 times and basically pushed me away from the bus. The platform even said Albert on it. He didn’t look at the ticket at all. He did let some other people on. He was directing me to go to another location but I cannot for the life of me say where that would have been. That’s pretty much when I gave up on the trip to Albert because the sign boards had no other trips showing Albert at all on them. I was really annoyed and disappointed at this point because that particular museum was something I really wanted to see. Unfortunately it was not to be I guess. I do think I mumbled something about hating the French at this point.
After I got out of the train station I decided to head back to the house of Jules Verne which is a museum as well. I figured I would at least do that to get something in. Of course when I got there at about 1:00 the place was closed until 2:00. So I walked back into town and then got lunch which I had been planning on skipping at a café called Le Queen’s. I had a 1664 beer which was very Budweisery and a burger in roll with all sorts of stuff on it. I ended up eating the thing like a local though it turned out to be very messy to do so with knife and fork. Nonetheless I survived the experience and the burger was even good. Eating there and walking back to the house of Jules Verne wasted enough time for the place to be open and I took the tour with an English language guidebook much as a bunch of the tours I had done in Sweden happened. There was an actual French guided tour that started just the moment before I got there so I had to delay a bit until I found a place to get around them then I was able to move away from them and do things at my pace rather than theirs. I had tried to listen to what the guide was saying but she was speaking rather fast and I could only pick out a word here or there that really had no context at all. It was better that I moved away from them.
When I was done with the tour I headed back to the hotel and rechecked my email where I got the alert that Bank of America had stopped my account due to suspicious activity. I had to call them and they of course didn’t provide the international free number just their in US 800 number. I called them and sorted out that I was in France. I asked why previous trips hadn’t set it off but this one did (and several days in). She suggested it may have been the internet connection I paid for online. I guess that does make sense. In any event they have unstopped my account which is nice of them and I can again continue to use it. I did have the credit card as well but they probably would have stopped that after one purchase also for all I know. The Bank of America International no charge number is 001-602-597-2395 for the record. Or so the girl told me anyway. Today will probably be the day that has the fewest number of pictures I’ve ever taken in travel (no pictures allowed in the house of Jules Verne) and the first almost complete failure day I have had in solo travel.
I think filled with the defeat when I got back to my room after the Jules Verne house I just up and gave up and finished reading the book I had brought along with me. It was about 600 pages long and I had about 150 or so to go. I technically was going to finish it on the plane rides back but decided to just kill what I could of the night with it instead. I decided I was even still full enough from my somewhat late lunch that I didn’t feel like eating dinner so I just packed up my stuff as best I could in preparation for going to Compiegne tomorrow. I hoping it won’t be so bad. It will be a train and not a bus and there is even a line that goes directly there so far as I could see on the train station board. The bigger adventure will be getting from Compiegne to Caen. That will be a fairly long ride and I will have to change trains I am sure. If there is a greatest chance of failure on getting to a place I have reserved a room that is it. That said I am only minorly disheartened by today’s events and will move on with the bad experience behind me. It had to happen someday. And heck I did get to go to the house of Jules Verne anyway.
The paltry sampling (3) of pictures from today is posted here.
With Compiegne I may again fall out of internet range. I certainly hope not. I definitely will have that issue when I return to Paris.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
France Day 4
Today started relatively early with me checking out of the Champagne et Nord and heading over to the train station. I got to Gare de l’Est and started to go through the line at the SCNF office before something struck me and I turned out to be right. I found a brochure and it turns out that trips to Amiens leave from Gare du Nord rather than the station I was at. Fortunately this walk was far less than 10 minutes and I was situated in the correct line at the correct station with reasonable ease. I booked passage to Amiens starting at 9:10am and arriving at 10:33am. So basically a second 1:20 minute ride in a row. That was fine by me. I was in first class thanks to the rail pass and the seat was comfortable. The car was obviously no smoking and the trip was fairly uneventful. When I arrived at Amiens I was able to find a map to give me a basic orientation but even with that I walked probably a bit more than I needed before I was able to make google maps figure out where I was trying go.
When I got to the hotel the guy at the desk told me that though I had reserved a non-smoking room he didn’t have any and to wait about half an hour till past noon. I did so and read for that spot before bothering him again. By this point he apparently found room 505 and I was upstairs in no time. In comparison to the 49 steps of the Champagne the relative ease of the elevator was very nice. The room is gigantic by European standards with a full size bed and a regular hotel sized bathroom. This will likely be the highlight of my accommodations in France so I will hope to sleep well while I am here.
After quickly getting settled in I managed to make my way to Au Bureau which was a lunch and pizza place that was far more busy than it appeared from the outside. And people were actually eating inside. I had some difficulty finding a space but they stuffed me on the end of the bar and I managed to have 3 of a blonde beer that appeared to be Beglian (Leffe) and a 4 cheese pizza (4 fromages) which was served European style which meant that it was not sliced to eat and I had to eat it with fork and knife. Again I saw people eating hamburgers in the roll with fork and knife and found it amusing. It looked as awkward as eating the pizza that way was.
After lunch I went straight to the Notre Dame Cathedral Amiens. I walked around it one time and then went in and did the full circuit of the building. Again I only took pictures from the outside though the monument to the American soldiers who defended Amiens in 1918 almost made me take a picture inside. I did not however. The upper reaches of the ceiling are about 135 feet or so and the cathedral is as large as they come. It obviously has seen some better days but I do believe it is still in active catholic use based on the seats inside and all the visible cues I found. In any event it is obviously very old and had to have taken what was equivalently a fortune to build as did every old building built in the name of God. Sometimes it is more awe inspiring that people could go through this trouble than is the motivation behind it. In any event it was definitely worth the visit and I took my time through it.
After finishing the cathedral I walked around town for an hour or two before heading back to the hotel to rest up for a bit.
After probably sneaking a nap for about an hour and a half I decided I should get some food. The prospect of going for a long walk was not great in my mind so I instead chose to just try the hotel restaurant as the Ibis here has one. It was partially a mistake. The menu was limited and I ended up having some tagliatelle carbonara. I forgot that carbonara was a cream sauce with ham in it. At least that is what it was here. I don’t think it tasted bad but there was a large clump of pasta that had clung together during cooking so it was not really cooked at all. I didn’t eat that part. After having the pasta I decided on some vanilla and coffee ice cream. These were both really good with the coffee ice cream even having frozen coffee beans in it. We’ll see if it affects my sleep. I hope not. Tonight I opted on no alcohol and only 2 ice teas. This all will be charged to my room which is a good thing because I forgot to go to an ATM today. In any event the meal was on the mezza-mezza range and from there I went upstairs to prepare this and upload as many photos as I could, after which I was aiming for some sleep. Small note, can’t find a way to make the TV which is actually HD here turn on. Second small note, the location of this hotel is good to downtown but not great to the train station.
When I got to the hotel the guy at the desk told me that though I had reserved a non-smoking room he didn’t have any and to wait about half an hour till past noon. I did so and read for that spot before bothering him again. By this point he apparently found room 505 and I was upstairs in no time. In comparison to the 49 steps of the Champagne the relative ease of the elevator was very nice. The room is gigantic by European standards with a full size bed and a regular hotel sized bathroom. This will likely be the highlight of my accommodations in France so I will hope to sleep well while I am here.
After quickly getting settled in I managed to make my way to Au Bureau which was a lunch and pizza place that was far more busy than it appeared from the outside. And people were actually eating inside. I had some difficulty finding a space but they stuffed me on the end of the bar and I managed to have 3 of a blonde beer that appeared to be Beglian (Leffe) and a 4 cheese pizza (4 fromages) which was served European style which meant that it was not sliced to eat and I had to eat it with fork and knife. Again I saw people eating hamburgers in the roll with fork and knife and found it amusing. It looked as awkward as eating the pizza that way was.
After lunch I went straight to the Notre Dame Cathedral Amiens. I walked around it one time and then went in and did the full circuit of the building. Again I only took pictures from the outside though the monument to the American soldiers who defended Amiens in 1918 almost made me take a picture inside. I did not however. The upper reaches of the ceiling are about 135 feet or so and the cathedral is as large as they come. It obviously has seen some better days but I do believe it is still in active catholic use based on the seats inside and all the visible cues I found. In any event it is obviously very old and had to have taken what was equivalently a fortune to build as did every old building built in the name of God. Sometimes it is more awe inspiring that people could go through this trouble than is the motivation behind it. In any event it was definitely worth the visit and I took my time through it.
After finishing the cathedral I walked around town for an hour or two before heading back to the hotel to rest up for a bit.
After probably sneaking a nap for about an hour and a half I decided I should get some food. The prospect of going for a long walk was not great in my mind so I instead chose to just try the hotel restaurant as the Ibis here has one. It was partially a mistake. The menu was limited and I ended up having some tagliatelle carbonara. I forgot that carbonara was a cream sauce with ham in it. At least that is what it was here. I don’t think it tasted bad but there was a large clump of pasta that had clung together during cooking so it was not really cooked at all. I didn’t eat that part. After having the pasta I decided on some vanilla and coffee ice cream. These were both really good with the coffee ice cream even having frozen coffee beans in it. We’ll see if it affects my sleep. I hope not. Tonight I opted on no alcohol and only 2 ice teas. This all will be charged to my room which is a good thing because I forgot to go to an ATM today. In any event the meal was on the mezza-mezza range and from there I went upstairs to prepare this and upload as many photos as I could, after which I was aiming for some sleep. Small note, can’t find a way to make the TV which is actually HD here turn on. Second small note, the location of this hotel is good to downtown but not great to the train station.
France Day 3
Today started at 7 but I guess I should have started at 6:30 with the shower and all because I was heading over to Provins from Gare de L’Est via SNCF train. The process involved me first forgetting the rail pass and having to go back to the hotel room to get it, then getting it authorized so I could use it. This particular trip didn’t require advanced reservation for seats but I am sure the trip to Amiens on Tuesday will. There was a small catch in that you need a slip ticket to get through the gates to get to the local line trains. Fortunately I found a booth where a man looked at my pass and gave me a couple entry tickets for that purpose. Either way I ended up leaving on the 8:42 train instead of the 7:45 train with my mistakes. In the long haul I don’t think it mattered much though.
The ride took 1:20 or so and the unfortunate thing for the morning was the fact they had opted to turn the heat on in the train even though I think it was already reasonably over 50F out. Still the ride was relatively painless otherwise. When I got off the train I took some guesses on pathing and initially chose incorrectly from where the walled city was as well as Cesar’s Tower. This however did afford me a couple nice distance pictures. I didn’t have a map and the train station was a small one that didn’t have any amenities so I basically winged the whole day. By chance I found a long walking path that eventually led me to part of the garrison walls that was still standing. I followed this up a very steep and long climb and eventually there was a section where the wall was restored and you could go on it and such. I did this for a while and then found there was also a garrison wall spectacle which turned out to be a show that they run about falconry from one corner of the wall. I am sure the speech was all very tacky as some of the costumes and voices were but I really couldn’t pick up more than a word here or a word there. In any event I think the show lasted about 45 minutes or so and they had all manner of birds and even a couple dogs and horses to go along. Absolutely nothing was in English at all, which wasn’t surprising but they did bring the birds right up close to people. I suspect the only reason they ran this show at that time was because there were 3 classes of school kids who were probably on class trips to Provins from elsewhere. I was entertained by it and sort of had fun trying to take pictures of the birds in flight.
After the show ended I made my way towards the medieval city and got lunch at a small café/brasserie where I had Steack Haché and Pomme Frites (hamburger and fries where the hamburger was not on a bun) and they even gave it to me rare. I almost forgot to take a picture of the food but I did catch myself after one bite so I guess it will just show that they really cooked it to rare. As with other servers so far in France I’ve had a challenge communicating since my French is really poor and they don’t appear to speak a lot of English. I had to say rouge to get across the concept of rare but it appeared to work.
After lunch I found Cesar’s Tower which is a strange thing because it is an octagonal tower set on a square base with a round wall about it. In any event the visit wasn’t expensive and I got to go all the way in to the top of the bell tower (where when it was 1pm it even struck while I was up there). One thing for any of you wannabe castles freaks that I may or may not have mentioned before but definitely should have by now. Get used to the idea of long narrow spiral staircases with relatively unsafe steps. This tower while very small in comparison to most castles was by no means any exception to the rule and indeed I am sure there were times I felt I was going to fall down the unevenly spaced steps with rounded and broken edges. Nonetheless it was very worth the climb.
From the Tower I walked just a short distance and visited the old church nearby. It is Catholic in denomination and was built over 10 centuries ago it said. It appeared very old but was in reasonably good shape if lesser ornamented than a lot of older churches. I did manage to find an English language brochure to take back. As a rule I do not take pictures of the insides of churches even if I think the church may allow it. I saw a lot of no doing this signs but I really didn’t see something for a camera. Either way I chose to not take pictures inside.
From there I chose to just wander around the area a bit. I discovered that all of the shops and a lot of the restaurants were closed today, probably because it was Monday. It meant no souvenirs and I opted not to stick around town for dinner because the choices would be limited I guessed. After wandering for a bit I made my way successfully back to the train station without having to consult the GPS and still having no map. I am sort of proud of that fact. I had to wait a few minutes before boarding the train back but not terribly. I used the time to post from my phone about the lack of internet anyway.
The train ride back was exactly the same duration as the train ride to was with all the same stops. I got back just before 5:00pm and opted to get to the room and take off my shoes and relax a bit before heading out to find dinner.
I would have to say I really liked Provins a lot. I only wish I chose a day when more of the town was open. The streets however were lesser crowded even with the various school trips about and the weather today was absolutely perfect all the way through with only the occasional clouds that party cloudy (as per the three forecasts I had so far) should actually be. The temps were nice and really a lot of sun. Still people around here are bringing their winter jackets everywhere. If I didn’t stand out as not European enough the fact I don’t have a jacket with me probably shows it completely.
After a very brief respite I headed out to find dinner but was confronted by the fact that no matter how many places I passed that were open the only thing I saw people inside doing was drinking alcohol or drinking coffees. There was literally no one eating. It was already past 6pm and I wandered for over 45 minutes before I decided to stop at one place that a lot of people were drinking to see if anyone ordered some food while I had a glass of red wine, which wasn’t bad at all. But no one there ever did order food. I thought it strange because of the very huge menu board in front of the place that a lot of people stopped and looked at. After drinking the glass of wine I gave up on that and moved on again. I did another twisty turny circuit and came up with the realization that the only places I saw people eating were the McDonald’s, KFC and a Pizza Hut. In retrospect I wish I chose the Pizza Hut but by the time I realized this I was pretty far away from it and didn’t feel like walking all the way back. I was actually very close to the hotel when I decided to bite the bullet and just eat at McDonalds. I don’t know if it is a rule in Paris that no one eats on Monday night, but I swear people were eating on Saturday and Sunday. I suppose they may be waiting until later but I didn’t have the energy to stay out there to find out. The burger was very McDonalds with too much ketchup and mustard but the bacon on it was tasty. I didn’t bother to take a picture of it. For some reason it was called the Royal Bacon (I would have thought that name would be used by Burger King which I am pretty sure I have seen around here). In any event it wasn’t satisfying except that it filled my stomach. I obviously didn’t hang around long from there and just headed back up to the room to finish this up and transfer my pictures to the laptop.
The ride took 1:20 or so and the unfortunate thing for the morning was the fact they had opted to turn the heat on in the train even though I think it was already reasonably over 50F out. Still the ride was relatively painless otherwise. When I got off the train I took some guesses on pathing and initially chose incorrectly from where the walled city was as well as Cesar’s Tower. This however did afford me a couple nice distance pictures. I didn’t have a map and the train station was a small one that didn’t have any amenities so I basically winged the whole day. By chance I found a long walking path that eventually led me to part of the garrison walls that was still standing. I followed this up a very steep and long climb and eventually there was a section where the wall was restored and you could go on it and such. I did this for a while and then found there was also a garrison wall spectacle which turned out to be a show that they run about falconry from one corner of the wall. I am sure the speech was all very tacky as some of the costumes and voices were but I really couldn’t pick up more than a word here or a word there. In any event I think the show lasted about 45 minutes or so and they had all manner of birds and even a couple dogs and horses to go along. Absolutely nothing was in English at all, which wasn’t surprising but they did bring the birds right up close to people. I suspect the only reason they ran this show at that time was because there were 3 classes of school kids who were probably on class trips to Provins from elsewhere. I was entertained by it and sort of had fun trying to take pictures of the birds in flight.
After the show ended I made my way towards the medieval city and got lunch at a small café/brasserie where I had Steack Haché and Pomme Frites (hamburger and fries where the hamburger was not on a bun) and they even gave it to me rare. I almost forgot to take a picture of the food but I did catch myself after one bite so I guess it will just show that they really cooked it to rare. As with other servers so far in France I’ve had a challenge communicating since my French is really poor and they don’t appear to speak a lot of English. I had to say rouge to get across the concept of rare but it appeared to work.
After lunch I found Cesar’s Tower which is a strange thing because it is an octagonal tower set on a square base with a round wall about it. In any event the visit wasn’t expensive and I got to go all the way in to the top of the bell tower (where when it was 1pm it even struck while I was up there). One thing for any of you wannabe castles freaks that I may or may not have mentioned before but definitely should have by now. Get used to the idea of long narrow spiral staircases with relatively unsafe steps. This tower while very small in comparison to most castles was by no means any exception to the rule and indeed I am sure there were times I felt I was going to fall down the unevenly spaced steps with rounded and broken edges. Nonetheless it was very worth the climb.
From the Tower I walked just a short distance and visited the old church nearby. It is Catholic in denomination and was built over 10 centuries ago it said. It appeared very old but was in reasonably good shape if lesser ornamented than a lot of older churches. I did manage to find an English language brochure to take back. As a rule I do not take pictures of the insides of churches even if I think the church may allow it. I saw a lot of no doing this signs but I really didn’t see something for a camera. Either way I chose to not take pictures inside.
From there I chose to just wander around the area a bit. I discovered that all of the shops and a lot of the restaurants were closed today, probably because it was Monday. It meant no souvenirs and I opted not to stick around town for dinner because the choices would be limited I guessed. After wandering for a bit I made my way successfully back to the train station without having to consult the GPS and still having no map. I am sort of proud of that fact. I had to wait a few minutes before boarding the train back but not terribly. I used the time to post from my phone about the lack of internet anyway.
The train ride back was exactly the same duration as the train ride to was with all the same stops. I got back just before 5:00pm and opted to get to the room and take off my shoes and relax a bit before heading out to find dinner.
I would have to say I really liked Provins a lot. I only wish I chose a day when more of the town was open. The streets however were lesser crowded even with the various school trips about and the weather today was absolutely perfect all the way through with only the occasional clouds that party cloudy (as per the three forecasts I had so far) should actually be. The temps were nice and really a lot of sun. Still people around here are bringing their winter jackets everywhere. If I didn’t stand out as not European enough the fact I don’t have a jacket with me probably shows it completely.
After a very brief respite I headed out to find dinner but was confronted by the fact that no matter how many places I passed that were open the only thing I saw people inside doing was drinking alcohol or drinking coffees. There was literally no one eating. It was already past 6pm and I wandered for over 45 minutes before I decided to stop at one place that a lot of people were drinking to see if anyone ordered some food while I had a glass of red wine, which wasn’t bad at all. But no one there ever did order food. I thought it strange because of the very huge menu board in front of the place that a lot of people stopped and looked at. After drinking the glass of wine I gave up on that and moved on again. I did another twisty turny circuit and came up with the realization that the only places I saw people eating were the McDonald’s, KFC and a Pizza Hut. In retrospect I wish I chose the Pizza Hut but by the time I realized this I was pretty far away from it and didn’t feel like walking all the way back. I was actually very close to the hotel when I decided to bite the bullet and just eat at McDonalds. I don’t know if it is a rule in Paris that no one eats on Monday night, but I swear people were eating on Saturday and Sunday. I suppose they may be waiting until later but I didn’t have the energy to stay out there to find out. The burger was very McDonalds with too much ketchup and mustard but the bacon on it was tasty. I didn’t bother to take a picture of it. For some reason it was called the Royal Bacon (I would have thought that name would be used by Burger King which I am pretty sure I have seen around here). In any event it wasn’t satisfying except that it filled my stomach. I obviously didn’t hang around long from there and just headed back up to the room to finish this up and transfer my pictures to the laptop.
France Day 2
Today probably had about as much walking as day 1 did, but it was a heck of a lot more organized. I started out by having a croissant and coffee from the cafeteria breakfast here at the hotel. I think I will be charged for it but I can’t guess how much just yet. I’m going to skip it the rest of the stay I am pretty sure. I got going a bit later than I normally would partially because I slept late due to being very tired from the air travel and partially because my neighbors kept me awake much longer than I had hoped to be due to their speaking German at very high volume across the hotel to each other (so far as I can tell).
After breakfast I walked up to Gare du Nord and found any sort of Paris map I could find. For reasons I don’t pretend to understand this city just does not have a lot of versions of city maps available with advertising on them and all that like most other cities do. At least not that I can find. The one I was able to get is a brochure for the hop on, hop off bus tours. I used that to plan my route down Lafayette to Opera and then a few twists and turns and I was on Champs Elysees. I walked up to the Arc de Triomphe and found that you can actually go up to the top for 9 Euro I think it was. You have to get to it through tunnels as it is surrounded by a large roundabout (rotary for those of you back home). The climb to the top was a heck of a lot of stairs up a spiral staircase and I had to pass a lot of people trying to catch their breath. By the time I got into the first floor, there were two inside before getting to the top, I had to catch my breath as well. The problem was it was warmer than outside and very humid so I didn’t stop in there for very long before making my way all the way to the top. I spent a few minutes there and took in the cool breeze before heading down. The walk down the stairs was much easier than the way up.
From the Arch I made my way back to the Eiffel Tower and when I got there I bought an apple donut and a big bottle of water. After finishing both of those off I got in line for the elevator ride up to the second floor of the Tower. The line was about as long as they were on Saturday but I figured it appeared to be moving quick. I think all totaled it took me about 45 minutes to get into the elevator. The ride was quick but there were some women who apparently were more bothered by heights than I am and though I think they were speaking Italian there is no doubt about the nervousness they projected. Personally, for a change, this ride didn’t bother me at all. I suppose if I had gone all the way to the top I would have been bothered by that one but partially due to that line waiting to go up and the fact I didn’t even reach the top of Tokyo Tower I decided not to get all the way up there. I did however walked the stairs down instead of taking the elevator on my way out after spending a while taking pictures and just looking out. The first floor had a restaurant and a cafeteria but I opted to press on from there after checking out the views some more. There were a ton of stairs from the second floor all the way down to ground level but since it was downward and I took a fairly leisurely pace I managed to do it ok.
From the Tower I walked to the Seine and got on a Batobus boat after buying an all day pass. This I rode once around their route then got off at Musee d’Orsay (which was actually the first stop after the Eiffel Tower. The boat was enclosed and at times got a bit warm but often a cool breeze blew through and I sat near a door that was opened. I figure the whole ride was probably about an hour and a half or so. When I got off at last I decided to head for the hotel. It appears that a lot of restaurants are closed on Sunday. I got to the hotel by about 4:40pm and decided instead of getting food first I would go in and write some of this and relax for a few minutes. I suspect they eat supper late and don’t start serving until later than American restaurants over here.
My cell battery decided it had had enough work for the time being and I had a small scare thinking I forgot the USB charger for it but fortunately I was just dumb enough to put it in the wrong place but it did go with me.
After a short rest where I almost fell asleep a couple times I set out to find Gare de L’Est and get dinner. Gare de L’Est is really about the same distance as Gare du Nord which is great. I will be using Gare de L’est to get to Provins on Monday hopefully and definitely to get to Amiens on Tuesday. The worst case scenario is that I figure it all out on Monday but hopefully things will go smoothly.
After finding Gare de L’Est I needed to get dinner and sort of wandered around for a short bit (as I said before a lot of places appear to be closed on Sundays) and then settled on the Indiana Café (no I’m not making it up. It was supposed to be TexMex but I ended up ordering Steak Au Poivre and a couple more Belgian beers then having a coffee (which turned out to be an espresso and some Ben and Jerry’s caramel ice cream. After settling up I headed straight to the hotel to crash even though it was only around 8:30pm. My legs and feet were very tired.
After breakfast I walked up to Gare du Nord and found any sort of Paris map I could find. For reasons I don’t pretend to understand this city just does not have a lot of versions of city maps available with advertising on them and all that like most other cities do. At least not that I can find. The one I was able to get is a brochure for the hop on, hop off bus tours. I used that to plan my route down Lafayette to Opera and then a few twists and turns and I was on Champs Elysees. I walked up to the Arc de Triomphe and found that you can actually go up to the top for 9 Euro I think it was. You have to get to it through tunnels as it is surrounded by a large roundabout (rotary for those of you back home). The climb to the top was a heck of a lot of stairs up a spiral staircase and I had to pass a lot of people trying to catch their breath. By the time I got into the first floor, there were two inside before getting to the top, I had to catch my breath as well. The problem was it was warmer than outside and very humid so I didn’t stop in there for very long before making my way all the way to the top. I spent a few minutes there and took in the cool breeze before heading down. The walk down the stairs was much easier than the way up.
From the Arch I made my way back to the Eiffel Tower and when I got there I bought an apple donut and a big bottle of water. After finishing both of those off I got in line for the elevator ride up to the second floor of the Tower. The line was about as long as they were on Saturday but I figured it appeared to be moving quick. I think all totaled it took me about 45 minutes to get into the elevator. The ride was quick but there were some women who apparently were more bothered by heights than I am and though I think they were speaking Italian there is no doubt about the nervousness they projected. Personally, for a change, this ride didn’t bother me at all. I suppose if I had gone all the way to the top I would have been bothered by that one but partially due to that line waiting to go up and the fact I didn’t even reach the top of Tokyo Tower I decided not to get all the way up there. I did however walked the stairs down instead of taking the elevator on my way out after spending a while taking pictures and just looking out. The first floor had a restaurant and a cafeteria but I opted to press on from there after checking out the views some more. There were a ton of stairs from the second floor all the way down to ground level but since it was downward and I took a fairly leisurely pace I managed to do it ok.
From the Tower I walked to the Seine and got on a Batobus boat after buying an all day pass. This I rode once around their route then got off at Musee d’Orsay (which was actually the first stop after the Eiffel Tower. The boat was enclosed and at times got a bit warm but often a cool breeze blew through and I sat near a door that was opened. I figure the whole ride was probably about an hour and a half or so. When I got off at last I decided to head for the hotel. It appears that a lot of restaurants are closed on Sunday. I got to the hotel by about 4:40pm and decided instead of getting food first I would go in and write some of this and relax for a few minutes. I suspect they eat supper late and don’t start serving until later than American restaurants over here.
My cell battery decided it had had enough work for the time being and I had a small scare thinking I forgot the USB charger for it but fortunately I was just dumb enough to put it in the wrong place but it did go with me.
After a short rest where I almost fell asleep a couple times I set out to find Gare de L’Est and get dinner. Gare de L’Est is really about the same distance as Gare du Nord which is great. I will be using Gare de L’est to get to Provins on Monday hopefully and definitely to get to Amiens on Tuesday. The worst case scenario is that I figure it all out on Monday but hopefully things will go smoothly.
After finding Gare de L’Est I needed to get dinner and sort of wandered around for a short bit (as I said before a lot of places appear to be closed on Sundays) and then settled on the Indiana Café (no I’m not making it up. It was supposed to be TexMex but I ended up ordering Steak Au Poivre and a couple more Belgian beers then having a coffee (which turned out to be an espresso and some Ben and Jerry’s caramel ice cream. After settling up I headed straight to the hotel to crash even though it was only around 8:30pm. My legs and feet were very tired.
France Day 1
Today started of course with the flight out of Logan first into Dublin then into Paris Charles De Gaulle. I should mention at the outset the same bartender from Houlihan’s was there and she remembered me yet again. I ordered burger which they did provide rare but I didn’t end up finishing it. The flight to Dublin left on time and turned out to arrive about a half an hour early. The flight itself was uneventful with only a couple small bumps here and there. Nothing to write home about. I sat next to a retired British ex-pat who lives in Vermont. She was going to visit her family just outside of Cornwall. It was also her first flight on Aer Lingus. The plane was an Airbus 330 and seemed very new. All the seats had monitors but I only watched the GPS for the flight and read until they turned off the lights but I wasn’t able to sleep. The food on the flight was better than I expected (not gourmet but palatable) however I didn’t eat a lot of it due to having the burger in the airport.
When we landed in Dublin I was quickly able to check that the Bruins won 4-1 and was happy with that. I picked up Meteor as the service network. Dublin’s airport was a weird sort of maze and it took a bit of work to get through passport control and security rescreening before finding my way over to my gate for the flight to Charles De Gaulle. For reason I cannot fathom the temperature of the gate was probably around 40F. I didn’t bother to wear my jacket on the planes because it is usually not necessary. I sort of froze a bit as I read waiting to board. To add to this we had to board the plane directly from the tarmac and the doors were open to the weather without gates, both front and back. This meant the plane was also freezing until they finally closed the doors and the climate equalized. The first flight was about 5 hours and small change the second was about 1 hour and 20 minutes. We also landed in France ahead of schedule by about 15 minutes.
The sky in France was pretty grim when we landed and the airport seems a bit old and tired and is even more of a maze than Dublin was. Nonetheless getting through passport control was easy enough. Finding the train station was a bit more work and required the services of an airport shuttle tram to the end. From there I had to wait a few minutes before getting my ticket and boarding a train to Gare du Nord (basically north station). The train ride was a little bit more than a half an hour and I used the time to program the GPS so I could find the hotel easier than I found the hotel in Sweden. The GPS directions were a bit strange to get used to but I had found the hotel within 10 minutes so it had to have worked. The bad news was the hotel didn’t check in until 1pm according to the desk so I left my suitcase in a storage area and went out and found lunch at a café a few blocks away.
I had cabbage stuffed with French sausage (chou farci) with aligots (which I have no idea exactly what is but it seemed like a sort of cheese fondue. Unfortunately my choice was a tad salty but good nonetheless and I ate the non-aligots stuff but left most of the aligots behind as I was far too filled up. I couldn’t tell if the basic service fee was included in the bill so I hope I didn’t undertip them. Ah well, based on the salt I likely wouldn’t eat there again. Apparently lunch places don’t start serving until noon by the way.
One instant impression of France/Paris is that it is not as clean as Sweden was so far and there was a heck of a lot of graffiti going along the train route, even more than in Boston. I am sure the grey skies didn’t help make things look clean, but it sort of had a New York City feel by way of tidiness which is a bit unfortunate.
After eating lunch (déjeuner) I managed to get back to the hotel and check in. They put me in the back section on the third floor. The section doesn’t have a lift so far as I can see. Fortunately the luggage doesn’t go with me everywhere while I am here. The room is more sizeable than I expected and has to sub-twin beds in it. I guess I can use one to keep the suitcase on anyway. Probably the one near the window. The bathroom is again a converted closet but it will certainly suffice.
After getting in and writing this part I opted to take a shower and get cleaned up so I could do more for the day it still being fairly early. Unfortunately this hotel will be sans internet it seems but it at least appears clean. I called home to say I was ok and then got on my way.
I have always believed that if you want to learn a city you must walk it. That’s exactly what I did for more than four hours today. My path was neither planned nor logical. I merely started walking towards what I thought would be the direction of the Seine and was correct in that regard. From there I did what I could to find the various major points of interest as I walked around. I didn’t have the benefit of a hand map and GPS on the phone really didn’t state where the points of interest were either so I had to sort of wing it by signs. They don’t really put a lot of signs that say in general go that way if you want to see the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame Cathedral but if you start to get close to it then you’ll start to see the signs. Of course with the Tower it is already in site by the time you see the signs, I think so too with the Cathedral. In any event I didn’t record my track like I should have so you won’t be able to see the goofball path I took directly. The picture progress may give you some hint of it when I am able to post those though. For its height, the Eiffel Tower is not really visible a lot from range. I could understand the Tokyo Tower not being visible from range due to all the tall buildings in Tokyo but there’s really nothing tall in Paris aside from the Tower so I found it strange it was not easy to see until I realized it is on the other side of the world from everything else important.
I have done the walk through London and realized it is huge. I’ve been around NYC and know that it is inconceivably big on a scale like no other. Stockholm was spread out but no so gigantic. I didn’t get an impression of size from Copenhagen or Dublin or Cardiff or Edinburgh and I know that Boston is moderately sized but not huge. I was unprepared for the actual distances involved in Paris. That said I did manage to get around to everything from say 2:30pm to 7pm except the Champs Elysees and the Arc du Triomph both of which were able to evade me. By the time I got under the Eiffel Tower I really needed to rest my feet though so I sat there for about half an hour and people watched. If you really want to see some interesting things sit and watch people underneath the Eiffel Tower on a long weekend with decent weather. I hadn’t realized until just before I left that May 1 is France’s Labor Day and they all have it off. Due to that the entirety of Paris was super crowded. The lines to go up the tower or to go into Notre Dame Cathedral were both gigantic on a scale that really defies description. Needless to say I have opted to leave those tidbits for another day here.
After resting for a while there I started in the general direction of the hotel and looked for someplace to eat. I found an outdoor/indoor restaurant named Le Carousel and chose to eat outside there. That was partially a mistake because EVERYONE in Paris smokes including the nice 2 Italian couples that sat next to me not long after I ordered. The breeze did carry most of it away at least. In starting to order the waiter corrected me in both beer selection (he told me to get the Belgian) and main course selection (he told me to get the lamb knuckle). He was right on both counts and the meal was superb. When the Italians saw my plate the two gentlemen also ordered the lamb and they and I repeated “C’est Bonne” to the waiter a couple times. I decided I needed a tad more rest before starting out again so I ordered a double espresso (Lavazza) and the crème brulee and enjoyed both of them. This receipt did not appear to have a service charge and the waiter was very appreciative of what I left for a tip. He steered me right so I was more than happy to leave something. Oh, while I was waiting for the food I called in to Peter and the group and chatted until the food came then sent email pictures of the meal and the dessert. As I was getting ready to go I programmed google maps on the phone to guide me in. I was still 2.9km from the hotel but it worked out a bit better than the nokia maps because I had better judgment of where I was on the map and it took me maybe 45 minutes or less at a slower pace to get to the hotel. That’s where I wrote this in word to be posted. It being about 9:30 I will probably just kill a few more minutes then go to bed for the night for a very well deserved rest after being awake and about for a fair bit over 24 hours straight. My feet really need the rest right now and I’ll definitely have to use the second pair of shoes to relieve some of the tough points caused by the first pair.
When we landed in Dublin I was quickly able to check that the Bruins won 4-1 and was happy with that. I picked up Meteor as the service network. Dublin’s airport was a weird sort of maze and it took a bit of work to get through passport control and security rescreening before finding my way over to my gate for the flight to Charles De Gaulle. For reason I cannot fathom the temperature of the gate was probably around 40F. I didn’t bother to wear my jacket on the planes because it is usually not necessary. I sort of froze a bit as I read waiting to board. To add to this we had to board the plane directly from the tarmac and the doors were open to the weather without gates, both front and back. This meant the plane was also freezing until they finally closed the doors and the climate equalized. The first flight was about 5 hours and small change the second was about 1 hour and 20 minutes. We also landed in France ahead of schedule by about 15 minutes.
The sky in France was pretty grim when we landed and the airport seems a bit old and tired and is even more of a maze than Dublin was. Nonetheless getting through passport control was easy enough. Finding the train station was a bit more work and required the services of an airport shuttle tram to the end. From there I had to wait a few minutes before getting my ticket and boarding a train to Gare du Nord (basically north station). The train ride was a little bit more than a half an hour and I used the time to program the GPS so I could find the hotel easier than I found the hotel in Sweden. The GPS directions were a bit strange to get used to but I had found the hotel within 10 minutes so it had to have worked. The bad news was the hotel didn’t check in until 1pm according to the desk so I left my suitcase in a storage area and went out and found lunch at a café a few blocks away.
I had cabbage stuffed with French sausage (chou farci) with aligots (which I have no idea exactly what is but it seemed like a sort of cheese fondue. Unfortunately my choice was a tad salty but good nonetheless and I ate the non-aligots stuff but left most of the aligots behind as I was far too filled up. I couldn’t tell if the basic service fee was included in the bill so I hope I didn’t undertip them. Ah well, based on the salt I likely wouldn’t eat there again. Apparently lunch places don’t start serving until noon by the way.
One instant impression of France/Paris is that it is not as clean as Sweden was so far and there was a heck of a lot of graffiti going along the train route, even more than in Boston. I am sure the grey skies didn’t help make things look clean, but it sort of had a New York City feel by way of tidiness which is a bit unfortunate.
After eating lunch (déjeuner) I managed to get back to the hotel and check in. They put me in the back section on the third floor. The section doesn’t have a lift so far as I can see. Fortunately the luggage doesn’t go with me everywhere while I am here. The room is more sizeable than I expected and has to sub-twin beds in it. I guess I can use one to keep the suitcase on anyway. Probably the one near the window. The bathroom is again a converted closet but it will certainly suffice.
After getting in and writing this part I opted to take a shower and get cleaned up so I could do more for the day it still being fairly early. Unfortunately this hotel will be sans internet it seems but it at least appears clean. I called home to say I was ok and then got on my way.
I have always believed that if you want to learn a city you must walk it. That’s exactly what I did for more than four hours today. My path was neither planned nor logical. I merely started walking towards what I thought would be the direction of the Seine and was correct in that regard. From there I did what I could to find the various major points of interest as I walked around. I didn’t have the benefit of a hand map and GPS on the phone really didn’t state where the points of interest were either so I had to sort of wing it by signs. They don’t really put a lot of signs that say in general go that way if you want to see the Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame Cathedral but if you start to get close to it then you’ll start to see the signs. Of course with the Tower it is already in site by the time you see the signs, I think so too with the Cathedral. In any event I didn’t record my track like I should have so you won’t be able to see the goofball path I took directly. The picture progress may give you some hint of it when I am able to post those though. For its height, the Eiffel Tower is not really visible a lot from range. I could understand the Tokyo Tower not being visible from range due to all the tall buildings in Tokyo but there’s really nothing tall in Paris aside from the Tower so I found it strange it was not easy to see until I realized it is on the other side of the world from everything else important.
I have done the walk through London and realized it is huge. I’ve been around NYC and know that it is inconceivably big on a scale like no other. Stockholm was spread out but no so gigantic. I didn’t get an impression of size from Copenhagen or Dublin or Cardiff or Edinburgh and I know that Boston is moderately sized but not huge. I was unprepared for the actual distances involved in Paris. That said I did manage to get around to everything from say 2:30pm to 7pm except the Champs Elysees and the Arc du Triomph both of which were able to evade me. By the time I got under the Eiffel Tower I really needed to rest my feet though so I sat there for about half an hour and people watched. If you really want to see some interesting things sit and watch people underneath the Eiffel Tower on a long weekend with decent weather. I hadn’t realized until just before I left that May 1 is France’s Labor Day and they all have it off. Due to that the entirety of Paris was super crowded. The lines to go up the tower or to go into Notre Dame Cathedral were both gigantic on a scale that really defies description. Needless to say I have opted to leave those tidbits for another day here.
After resting for a while there I started in the general direction of the hotel and looked for someplace to eat. I found an outdoor/indoor restaurant named Le Carousel and chose to eat outside there. That was partially a mistake because EVERYONE in Paris smokes including the nice 2 Italian couples that sat next to me not long after I ordered. The breeze did carry most of it away at least. In starting to order the waiter corrected me in both beer selection (he told me to get the Belgian) and main course selection (he told me to get the lamb knuckle). He was right on both counts and the meal was superb. When the Italians saw my plate the two gentlemen also ordered the lamb and they and I repeated “C’est Bonne” to the waiter a couple times. I decided I needed a tad more rest before starting out again so I ordered a double espresso (Lavazza) and the crème brulee and enjoyed both of them. This receipt did not appear to have a service charge and the waiter was very appreciative of what I left for a tip. He steered me right so I was more than happy to leave something. Oh, while I was waiting for the food I called in to Peter and the group and chatted until the food came then sent email pictures of the meal and the dessert. As I was getting ready to go I programmed google maps on the phone to guide me in. I was still 2.9km from the hotel but it worked out a bit better than the nokia maps because I had better judgment of where I was on the map and it took me maybe 45 minutes or less at a slower pace to get to the hotel. That’s where I wrote this in word to be posted. It being about 9:30 I will probably just kill a few more minutes then go to bed for the night for a very well deserved rest after being awake and about for a fair bit over 24 hours straight. My feet really need the rest right now and I’ll definitely have to use the second pair of shoes to relieve some of the tough points caused by the first pair.
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