Europe Trip 2015 - Day Eleven

Breakfast in Jardin du Luxembourg after drinks and croissants at a street cafe. The missus wasn't impressed with the white metal paths and grass that you weren't allowed on. Found a bench to sit on for our breakfast and then eight ponies were tied up next to us. I shared my apple with two of them.

Croissants and drinks

Road with a view

I love the dinky traffic lights for drivers at the front - no lights on the far side of the intersection

Jardin du Luxembourg

Keep off the grass

Spot the tourists

More grass to keep off

Hungry visitor

Talk about in your face

 Statues abound in the park and there was one of the Statue of Liberty too. Lots of joggers and people doing tai chi. Before heading out for the day we purchased some hideously expensive sunscreen from a pharmacy.

Statue of Liberty in Jardin du Luxembourg

Fill 'er up - electric car "refueling" station

 Walked to Notre Dame Cathedral from our place which took only about 10 minutes. We were quite well situated in the Latin Quarter which turned out to be a good location.

Notre Dame Cathedral

Busy Seine

National Assembly building

Travelator that seems to go on forever 

 Wandered through a lot of back streets in the general direction of the Eiffel Tower. After a couple of hours of walking and coming to the realisation that we still had lots of walking to do the decision was made to rest and then catch the metro. Wise choice. Managed to locate a seat in the shade for a well earned rest near the Trocadero which was our meeting place for a tour. Grabbed a bite to eat.

Met Lindsay, from Philadelphia, for our City Wonders tour. She gave us lots of history regarding the tower - it was up against 106 other designs in a competition - and never rant out of anything to inform us of.

One of the first views of the Eiffel Tour

Le Eiffel Tour

We're about the same height

 Skipping the line, part of the tour package, was a good idea as the queue was still long. Our tour group only had 12 people but there were a couple of tours being run concurrently. Stayed on the second level until we had walked right around and then the tour was complete. By this time most people were itching to reach the summit. Our tickets were valid for the summit so no queuing for that either. Perhaps the waiting time for the elevator to the top took longer than the tour! Some kids in the line, rich Americans by the look, were quite annoying. Other kids were well behaved but not that many were actually on the tower.

Nice view from the top but sunny and windy. Long queue to get back down to the second level, by elevator only, before we took the stairs to the bottom. Haggled with one of the souvenir sellers for a large replica tower from 25 euros to 20 to 19. I was going to offer 15 euros but the missus settled on 19. Back at the Trocadero station I questioned another seller for the same souvenir and had offered it for 20 euros and then dropped to 15 as I walked away. Damn. Arrived home about 8:30 pm needing a rest.

View of the Champ de Mars

View from up atop the Eiffel Tower

Les Invalides

I've grown a bit

Look at the ants below

Plenty of steel work

  

Europe Trip 2015 - Day Ten

Had to be up reasonably early to leave by 7:30  as we had a bike tour to Versailles commencing at 9 am for which we had to meet 15 minutes early at St Lazare. Actually had no difficulty taking the metro and arrived 20 minutes earlier than necessary. Would hate to have been carrying luggage though.

Our guide was Thibault who had been working for Blue Bike Tours for three months. The missus was almost left behind as she went to buy water and Thibault said that we should leave as early as possible. Train ride from St Lazare to Versailles took 45 minutes, at least. There were two Aussies (us), two English and 10 Americans on the tour. First stop was the markets to purchase our picnic lunch - bread, cheese (two kinds), strawberries and juice.

Ate salmon and choc banana crepes at the markets. Nearly had to leave the missus behind as she had to go to the toilet at the time we planned to walk to the bike garage. Honestly, hard to tour with someone that causes everyone to be late. He he. Obtained our personalised bikes and ventured into the grounds of the Palace of Versailles.

Best crepes, that we had, in Paris

Bike tour to Versailles

 From the Grand Canal you can see the palace building in the distance. Rode through some of the 2000 acres estate with Thibault stopping to give us history lessons along the way. Picnic held at the west end of the Grand Canal.

Palace of Versailles from the Grand Canal

Picnic lunch

 Kind of rushed the tour of the Grand Trianon by keeping it to 30 minutes but the Petit Trianon, the private residence of Marie Antoinette, wasn't too bad. The small farm built for her enjoyment was interesting. The tour then took us back to the garage to return the bikes before walking to the palace entrance. Here Thibault bade us farewell after providing us with audio guides. The tour was quite enjoyable and a worthy experience.

Inside the Grand Trianon

The gardens at the Grand Trianon could do with a little bit of water

Stylish bedroom

Inside the Petit Trianon

Quite well colour coordinated

Small farm built for the pleasure of Marie Antoinette

 Palace of Versailles - what an extravagant an gorgeous building. Incredible. Toured upstairs and flattened the phone battery taking photos. Bumped into our fellow tourists a few times. Lots of Chinese tourists at the palace - busloads of them.

Entrance to the Palace of Versailles

One of the main halls

Incredible ceiling

Exquisite artwork

Gold, gold, gold

The Hall of Mirrors was crowded

The Hall of Mirrors without so many visitors on display

Camouflage?

Managed to photograph a room without anybody in the shot

Just look at the ceiling, chandeliers, artwork, etc

Bought some meat in the markets on the way back to the train station. Even though I said exactly what I wanted in French the lady repeated it to herself before she understood. Quite funny as she didn't need to correct me. Must be my accent. Very hot train back to St Lazare and we baked in the afternoon sun. Luckily we missed what appeared to be a 60 minutes delay at the time we arrived. Just made it to Esprit, in the huge shopping area within the train station, before they closed and bought some clothes. Didn't arrive home until 8~8:30. Not many shops open but bought some fruit.

Dinner in the garden at 9 pm. Spaghetti, tomato, apple, beef sausage, Cantonese rice and marinated pork. Yum.

Europe Holiday 2015 - Day Nine

Up at 7:30. Markus' wife was still ill. Markus prepared bread, meats, cheese and yogurt for breakfast. Then we went shopping for German cosmetics and the missus found almost everything that was on her list. Yes, she'd prepared a list just for German shopping.

This strange bike would take a bit of getting used to

Lovely buildings in Heidelberg

They still have cigarette vending machines in public

 After the shopping Markus checked the timetable and saw that our ICE train was running 15 minutes late. He had warned me about Deutsche Bahn not being very reliable and once again they weren't. At least you could rely on how unreliable they admitted to being as it was, indeed, 15 minutes late. There was no difficulty in catching our train as it pulled up at the station where it was supposed to. Short trip to Karlsruhe then a quick change for the TGV to Paris.

Euro petrol prices

It's a mini, not a maxi

Guide to the wagon/carriage arrangement for different train types

 We waited at the correct section on the platform for our wagon but the train wagons were lined up backwards so we had to run to the other end of the train to board. Some passengers were obviously complaining to the conductor who didn't seem to care too much. A couple were in our seats so they had to move. Dammit, I paid nine euros for my reservation so they my seats.

Our TGV to Paris

Tony Abbott would be horrified with the scenery

Nice photo considering that we were travelling at over 300 km/h perpendicular to the traffic

319 km/h - topped out at 320 I recall

  After departing Strasbourg we came across our first beggar, in our carriage, who was adamant that we should give him some money. This I refused to do. It was only after he left empty-handed that I realised that I had all of my coins sitting on the table in front of me. No wonder he was expecting to get paid.

Could do with some bug cleaner after that run

 We arrived in Paris at Gare de L'est and walked to Gare du Nord, as instructed by our host. Grabbed some tourist guides and purchased a couple of museum passes. Took a bit of finding. Had to find the train line, RER B, which we did, but our destination wasn't mentioned. I wasn't about to board any old train lest we became lost with all of our luggage. Asked three people and the third, who wasn't French, was able to tell me that the platform we were on wasn't for our train. That much I had guessed. I saw some other platforms over yonder and realised that was where we needed to be. And so it was. Reached Luxembourg station, followed the street directions and were then at our apartment with our host waiting for us. Her daughter was with her and we gave her a kangaroo. Spoke for quite some time as I wanted as much information as I could obtain about getting around. And she was very good about it.

Courtyard outside our apartment which is on the left

 We were too tired to see much - bought some fruit and veg and items from the nearby shops for dinner. At 9 pm we decided that a walk would be pleasant but Jardin du Luxembourg was closed and they were kicking people out. Took to the local streets instead.

Pantheon was just around the corner

Parisian buildings in silhouette

Europe Holiday 2015 - Day Eight

At 2 o'clock there was a thunderstorm. Planning to get up at six we were awake by 5:30. The missus had a dream about her parents which is usually a warning that something bad will happen. She said to be careful today.

Took our luggage to the nearest taxi stand and waited for five minutes before I went looking for another one. By the time I got back a taxi had just pulled in. He didn't accept Visa card but did take euros - I was practically all out of Czech koruny. I asked to go to the bus station, "Florenc?" he asked. Yeah. When we arrived he didn't have sufficient euros to give me change so gave me koruny and a little bit extra as he didn't have the right change. Turned out that it was the wrong place. We needed to go outside the main train station. The clerk in the bus station was very helpful and insisted that we take the metro even though it was only one stop as we were so short on time. Lucky that the change from the taxi driver was enough to buy two metro tickets for us and two for our luggage (?!). Only waited two minutes for the metro and it was not even three minutes away.

I asked for directions at the ticket office, good thing I'd been here the day before, and was told to go two levels up. Nothing but trains there until I had an "aha" moment and thought to go outside. Sure enough, that's where the bus stops were. While the missus went to the toilet two Korean girls asked me where their bus was. I could read enough of their ticket and had noticed a bus stating that it was going to Munich so was able to help them out. Why do I always get asked for directions when I'm on holidays?

Our bus arrived on time. The driver and conductor were not pleasant at the start of the journey until they were prepared to leave. No wifi on the bus as it wasn't working. Bit of a bummer. Lovely fields, very few cattle or sheep, and busy roads. Border police checked our passports.

On the bus to Nürnberg

Look at that solar array

Quite a bit of traffic on the approach to Nürnberg

 Near our destination, Nürnberg, there had been an accident so there was a great deal of traffic. We were two minutes late arriving at the station and so only had nine minutes to retrieve our luggage, find our platform and board the train. Did it with four minutes to spare.

Our ICE train

 Sat next to a lovely young man by the name of Manuel. His 18th birthday was on the day that Angela Merkel became chancellor. He's been to Australia, had studied in London and was an engineer who had graduated and was looking for a job for the last three months. On his way to an interview.

Our train was delayed by 35 minutes due to a tree on the line and Manuel insisted that we took a different train to the one on our ticket as we had missed our connection. This was despite the fact that our tickets clearly stated that they were for a particular train and no other. My friend in Heidelberg, Markus, was texting me and telling me to change trains also. The conductor on the next train accepted our explanation and we managed to grab some seats. Markus was waiting for us on the platform. As we haven't seen each other for 21 years he almost greeted someone else! Not that either of us has changed much. His wife was sick and so was unable to me us. We had about a 30 minutes dive from Mannheim to Heidelberg. Markus had prepared some sweets - cakes and patisseries. Then we walked through the town and along the Nacher River to Altstadt (Old Town). Castle ruins were impressive and there was a lovely square in the town. Perhaps the most surprising thing was to find a Korean shop.

Heidelberg tram

Beautiful houses along the Nacher River

Ruined castle along the Nacher River

Lovely little town square

Town square, castle ruins and Korean shop (on the right)

 Had dinner at the Hotel & Restauraton Goldener Falke - pork and spätzle for me. Fantastic meal for three with two drinks which came to 50 euros. The walk back through the town was on the longest pedestrian street in Germany. Shower, drinks and bed after midnight.

Golden Falcon Hotel and Restaurant