July 25th: Paris!
La Gurniere- our B&B
We made it to Paris! Very little sleep, but we're in Paris!! Took a nice walk from the train station down to the Old City- where everything is. Figured out the subway system, which was amazin
gly easy, and we headed to Micheline and Jean Paul's (our B&B for the next 2 nights). Micheline had renovated an old trashed home over the course of 5 years...and here is the beautiful B&B today! Hard to believe that this was located right in the city!
We did the Ri
ck Steve's self-guided walking tour of Paris. Was a good orientation to the city. Saw some of the great places like Notre Dame. Very Interesting! Did I mention that you have to pay to use the WCs? Usually about .50-1euro. The public WCs are gross, so we got pretty good at walking into restaurants like we owned them, using the WC, and leaving. Sometimes we'd think that we were spotted, so we'd buy a soda or something! Here are a couple pictures of Notr
e Dame. Important to watch for pick pockets in the touristy areas- especially Notre Dame. People would come up and ask, "Excuse me, do you speak English," then hold up a sign for us to read. Then while people would read the sign, their chances of being pick pocketed were greatly increased. We just started shaking our heads "No" when someone would approach us. But, didn't have much to worry about since we each had money belts on and there was nothin
g in our pockets.
Paris is divided in half by the Seine River. There are some 36 bridges connecting the two sides. EVERY bridge is named after someone. This one is Alexander the Great's Bridge. Other bridges included Pont Neuf and Princess Diana's Bridge.
We mainly picnicked in Paris. First shopped for groceries at the market- baguettes, cheese (didn't pick the tastiest cheese), fruit, and THE BEST yogurt. Oh, I miss European yogurt. How do the French stay so skinny when their diets consist of mostly bread, cheese, and desserts? (From what I saw, I guess). My take on it... they must skip meals and supplement with smoking. Everybody smokes.
Exhausted, we made it an early evening at La Guriniere.
July 24th: Baden-Baden
Tonight we take an overnight train to Paris! We left Bacharach and headed for Baden-Baden. Ended up taking a little detour (part of figuring out the train stations, but was only about a 45 minute correction). Made it to Frankfurt, and did I say that we did not like the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof? (That is main train station). Okay, we hated the Frankfurt Hbf! After we were getting sick of figuring out how to find the right train, I stumbled upon this add. It took me awhile to figure out what it was, but I finally did...and suggested to Jim that we take a photo. He was completely embarrassed by his wife standing in front of the sign snapping a shot. I had to. Must be the nurse in me! Jim made a run in the other direction. Tried to get him in the shot, but he would have none of it...so I got his photo afterwards! Later we discovered the
Fahrkarten (automated ticket stand that you could get timetable information...and you could print out your whole itinerary...and it gave you the track number of where to go!) Jim called the Fahrkarten Frankincense!
So Baden-Baden is a romantic resort town. Royalty used to come from all over Europe to take the
Kur- a soak in the curative mineral waters, and enjoy the world's top casino (According to Rick Steves). The town has a Parisian feel...kind of like a bistro. Beautiful walking paths and gardens complete with couples strolling around with their poodles.
The Roman baths are still popular in this town. There are two different baths: One naked, and one with swim suits. You actually lose a kilo after the ritual. We weren't into the whole naked bath option, but I was all about losing a kilo! But, I forgot my suit in the lockers at the train station. Oh, well!
Ate supper at the Lowenbrau Biergarten. Started getting sick of pork, but that's all there is here. I had sausage and Jim had roasted pork and potato dumplings. And, being the frugal people we are, we ordered the least expensive drink on the menu- Beer. Jim said he ordered beer because I did. After a few sips, he said he had to stop because the world was spinning.
I think they brought us each a half liter of beer. Did you know that the average German drinks a pint of beer every 32 hours (which is slightly less than the average Irish or Czech)?
We took the train back to Karlsruhe, where we caught our night train to Paris. Nothing like sitting in the dark station at midnight waiting for our 12:30am train to come in. Well, at least there were two nuns sitting near to us :) We didn't reserve a couchette (room with 4-6 bunks to sleep in), but we were told that the seats lay out flat and you can sleep in the compartments on the train. Well, ours didn't fold out, and we ended up sharing a compartment with "Paris" a German man in his 70's probably. Very nice man. We showed him pictures of ND and our family....and he thinks you are all very beautiful! He was a very hard breather, lets say, and maybe had some COPD. So, I spent the night wondering if he was going to make it. Breathe. Pause. Pause. Pause. Cough. Breathe. Pause. Pause. Pause......Pause. COUGH! Oh, it was stressful. It was a bad idea not to have a couchette. We were awake most of the night- no room to lie down, no pillow, etc. Long night considering we don't arrive till 8:00am. Well, Paris (the German) shared his polish caramels with us in the morning, which made the experience well worth it!!
July 23rd: Our 2 year Anniverary
Children Playing!!
Woo-hoo! Today is our 2 year anniversary! Here's a shout out to all friends and family who remember that blessed 104 degree day! Ahh...seems like yesterday. Well, in honor of that, here's the happy couple 2 years ago...
and the happIER couple today...
Spent another day in the Rhine Valley. Lettie had a traditional German breakfast for us: bread, cold cut meat (ham assortment), cheese, and awesome coffee. We headed to Mosselkern where it was about an hour hike in the forest to Burg Eltz (the castle we toured). The hike was so beautiful. We met a couple of Americans along the way. This castle is medieval and was/is owned by 3 families. It took 500 years to build and 33 generations have lived in it. Parts of the castle are still lived in today. Of the areas we were able to tour, we saw an armory and different rooms (living room, bedroom, great hall, hunting room, housewife room, children's room, chapel, one of three kitchens, etc.) There were 20 toilets that all washed down into the moat--pew! In the hunting room were huge animals that the family had hunted in Alaska, Dakotas, etc.
We ate supper at Altes Haus (oldest house) in Bacharach, where we met Marline and Tony from Holland. I think they were our favorite people! We all sat at a table together (as people do in Germany, instead of each party having their own table). They were on a biking trip down from Holland and along the Rhine. Spent about 2 hours eating dinner and enjoyed a nice glass of the area's famous Riesling wine. Mmm...sehr gut!
July 22nd: The Adventure Continues!
Well, we landed in Frankfurt around 11:00am. It was a little strange getting off the plan, because we did not hear ANY English being spoken! First bit of culture. (Well, I think that we had some "airplane culture" yesterday).
Unshowered and having brushed our teeth in a WC (you'll see "WC" signs all over Europe. They are the universal toilet signs aka "Water Closets"), we validated our Rail passes and got on a train to Bacharach, Germany. Our first encounter with a German was at the train validation stand. He asked us where we were planning to go, and we said "all over" and he looked at us like we were insane to go anywhere in Europe without making train reservations. According to him, we should have made reservations MONTHS in advance! Now, up until this point, I had Jim convinced that it would be okay to "fly by the seat of our pants." Well, the German was not helping my case! But, we decided not to spend an obscene amount of money for reservations. This ended up working out without any problems...I think he just wanted to see us freak out. It was easy to get to Bacharach. Left Frankfurt and had one change to make before ending up at our destination.
We were finally at our train stop...sick of moving and being stinky. Time to get off. Jim tried to open the door to get out...it won't open! Aleycia tried to open the door...won't open! Finally a nice man came over to help us figure out this minor problem, and managed to open the door (sounded like he broke it). As the train began to move, Jim and I looked at each other and decided we were NOT traveling to the next town to have to turn around and come back...so we made a quick getaway and jumped! Meanwhile, one of the train workers opens the window and starts yelling at us from the moving train! We had NO IDEA what she was saying, but I don't think she was happy with us. So, we just smiled and waved. Nothing like getting yelled at twice in one day :)
Here's the infamous train station.
We made a small hike to Pension Lettie...our B&B for the next two nights. Dropped our bags off, and headed for the KD Ferry where we cruised the Best of the Rhine. Saw some grand castles. We met "Yurmar" and Japanese man living in Germany who loves German beer and wienerschnitzel.
Made it to another Rhine town and got off the ferry. Headed to Reinfels Castle where we hiked around the castle ruins. We thought these castles were awesome...but had no idea how beautiful the castles were in southern Germany (more to come later).
And we ended the evening with a nice stop at the Biergarten. Took Yurmar's advice to eat the Wienerschnitzel and drink a beer. Our first German meal complete with Apple Streussel & Ice cream for dessert!
Oh, and we showered today!
July 21st, First day of Vacation!
The first day of Vacation! Yay! (Forgive me for posting these late, I'm just not on the ball, so we travel back in time!). We woke up at 6:30am today. Our flight didn't leave till 11am, but we had a few last minute errands to do (like get money..."hondos"). R, N, & B picked us up for a little morning Coffeebreak and Bread Poets, then dropped us off at the Airport. Nothing like a nice morning before a nice flight overseas...or so we thought! Our flight plan was to travel from Bismarck to Minneapolis to New York and overseas to Frankfurt, Germany.
This is us at the airport, before the "events" begin. While waiting to board, we said a prayer for our trip. I kid you not, as Jim was saying "Amen," we hear an announcement overhead "Flight blah blah blah to Minneapolis/St. Paul will be delayed until further notice." Since when is anyone ever delayed in the 2-terminal Bismarck airport? So we wait...and wait...and finally an hour later the plane leaves (mind you, we had a 1/2 hour connection to make in Minneapolis... but we had a back-up plan). Apparently the x-ray machine broke down at the baggage check. Oh, see our backpacks? That's all we brought with us, and they counted as carry-ons.
Well, we made it to MSP, but missed our connection. Remember I said we had a back-up plan? There was another flight scheduled to leave a couple hours later. So, we went and checked the monitors to see which gate that flight was leaving from...and we see "Flight Canceled." (Remember the thousands of flights that were canceled in July/August due to the pilot shortage?). We Started to sweat a little, since the next flight to JFK is at 6pm which would put us in New York after our connection to Frankfurt! So, Jim ends up talking to some of the counter attendants, who weren't very helpful. I'm on the phone with mom trying to figure out what we could do. Mom is on the phone with aunt S who is also searching like mad to figure out how to get us to NY. Meanwhile, Jim heads over to the American Airlines attendant and asks if there is room to get us on their flight to Newark. We end up being on standby. Then get the flight. Arrived in Newark, and looked for a shuttle, which of course wouldn't get us to JFK in time...so go to the taxi stand and ask the taxi if he can drive fast. He says yes!
We hop into the cab and red flags start popping up. The taxi driver is from Africa and is watching some movie from his home country which looks really weird. Kinda freaks me out a little. We start heading down the street and he says that he needs to stop and get some gas. Ugh...we are like in a hurry! Well, $100 later, the driver gets us to the airport just in the nick of time for us to clear our international travel and hop on the plane. We were so relieved to sit in our seats!!
We flew Singapore Airlines and had royal treatment!! The airplane wasn't crowded. Everyone had their own TV screen with about 100 movies to pick from and TV shows and nintendo games, and you could even learn a language! The stewardess' worked hard- we had 2 meals, and they continually were walking by with wine, beer, OJ, and hot towels for our faces! This was so fun, I had a sleeping pill to take, but debated whether or not I was going to take it, because I didn't want to miss out on all the fun! Well, I took it anyway...lights out...next stop Frankfurt, Germany!!
La Gurniere- our B&B
gly easy, and we headed to Micheline and Jean Paul's (our B&B for the next 2 nights). Micheline had renovated an old trashed home over the course of 5 years...and here is the beautiful B&B today! Hard to believe that this was located right in the city!
ck Steve's self-guided walking tour of Paris. Was a good orientation to the city. Saw some of the great places like Notre Dame. Very Interesting! Did I mention that you have to pay to use the WCs? Usually about .50-1euro. The public WCs are gross, so we got pretty good at walking into restaurants like we owned them, using the WC, and leaving. Sometimes we'd think that we were spotted, so we'd buy a soda or something! Here are a couple pictures of Notr
e Dame. Important to watch for pick pockets in the touristy areas- especially Notre Dame. People would come up and ask, "Excuse me, do you speak English," then hold up a sign for us to read. Then while people would read the sign, their chances of being pick pocketed were greatly increased. We just started shaking our heads "No" when someone would approach us. But, didn't have much to worry about since we each had money belts on and there was nothin
g in our pockets.
