Tuesday July1 2008

Tuesday

We arrived on Saturday about 3pm by TGV (high speed train). The train ride was a little bit of a let down. For a lot of the ride there was easy limited views of the horizon as there were either berms or trees very close to the tracks so all you saw was blurs go by. This gave Marco a mild case of motion sickness. Ok, you know how it goes when you are on vacation for a while, time becomes sort of abstract until the day before you leave. Well I be there now. I am writing this now at like 7am while I am in a cute little 7 seater Ford diesel wagon that gets great gas mileage ( probably over 50mpg) and would sell great if Ford were to sell them in the U.S., but of course they don't. Also of note the diesels here appear to be very clean burning. Not once have I seen a black puff of smoke come out of a vehicle like in the US. Also, unlike the UK, the place does not smell like a 3rd world country from the diesel fumes. We are on a 2 hour ride to go and see some prehistoric caves with paintings.


We arrived here at the caves early to try and get tickets, as most of the tickets are pre-sold. We lined up for the 9:30 opening and am 6'th in line.

Got tickets to the 10:15 tour. Yeah. We met a nice couple waiting in line who are from Boston doing a bike tour around this region.

Ok, just went through the cave at font Bu Gaume. Interesting. We saw prehistoric paintings using more than 1 color, mostly of bison with some of horses. All for 6.5 €. each. Hard to imagine these being done thousands of years ago by fire light. In some caves they are created from charcoal these have some kind of other stuff that I can not remember but Marco can.
Just had a wonderful lunch overlooking the Dorgone valley from inside the walled town of Domme.

Now headed for the castle of medieval history which is known as Castelnaud and is a restored castle with armaments and is very cool. We are now officially castled out. So many castles, only one set of feet. Stopping on the way back at the grocery store as we are eating in for a change and making pasta.

Dinner was awesome. Pasta with fresh olive oil, garlic, parmesan cheese, salad, garlic bread, wine. Lots of leftovers so we will have to eat in again.

I hope to get this out this evening with some photos. I typed part in memo pad on my blackberry and part in notepad on my laptop so don't be too hard on my writing as it is not easy typing in a car going 120 km/hr.

France - Day 3 + 4 Paris

Paris Day 3

Got up and had another wonderful French breakfast.
Went to train station to do a dry run for Saturdays trip to Bergerac via Liborne.
Changed our train tickets...Another 120Euro down the drain
Went to the Eiffel tower...Waited on line to buy tickets....Waited on line to get to the 2nd tier.....Waited on line to get to the top.....Waited to get back down to 2nd tier.....Waited on line to get back to street level....Oh the view was fabulous.
Walked ...ok limped out feet were so tired to the Palis of Defense, then to the metro, then to the hill with the church (Montmartre). Oh stopped for a chocolate and banana crepe and a waffel with Nutella and whipped cream for Marco. All Very yummy.
Did the hike up the hill, saw the church, eat some very good french pizza, with a beer and some coffee for desert.
Metro back to hotel.
Boat ride around Paris. Saw Eiffel tower lit up in the evening, very very nice.
Went back to Latin quarter where our hotel is and had the best falafel we had in years.
BTW.. Notice a pattern here? Soure feet and great food seem to be the motif of the trip.

Tomorrow Bergerac

Day 4
Our last French continental breakfast at the hotel. Packed up and took our belongings to the metro to catch the high speed train to our next destination to Bergerac. I did not realize that we had reserved seats on the train in class 2. Marco did not fare well and felt motion sickness on the train which could be going as fast as 150 MPH. What made it prone to sickness I think is the high berms and trees along the track where you do not get to see the horizon for long stretches of time. Looking out the window of the train now things that are close by wiz by very quickly.

Cell Carrier in France
F-Bouygues
F-SFR

France - Day 2 Paris

France Day 2

Lets just say we did not sleep too well. My concerns about being on the ground floor facing the street were right on. I used ear plugs and got about 6 hours, Sol and Marco did not fare as well. We asked at the front desk about changing rooms and they are fully booked. They did show us these buttons on the windows that roll down these metal shutters that seem to make our room bomb proof and probably quite silent. So now we have a choice of air or silence, but not both. We will see what happens tonight.

We had a great continental breakfast of the most delicious croissants and coffee. As Sol did note, most places served caned or boxed OJ, not exactly Tropicana. Marco even mentioned that breakfast was the best part of Paris so far!

We then took metro to the Louve. Was quite surprised that there were no lines and it even seemed affordable, almost a bargain at about $10 US and Marco free. Free for under 18. I so love that word! But not to worry, they made it up on lunch.

We inquired about a real tour but it did not start until 2:00pm and it was only 10am so We rented the headsets that gave a great tour of the main attractions and highly recommend it.

We had lunch which was ok and pricey because we wanted to try one more audio tour. There is a cold water machine, pitchers, and ice we found. This was great as we love ice water and it is not to be found often. We drank up.

We then walked most of the way to the Arc de Triomphe. I recommend saving your feet and getting on the metro as we did after our feet started to hurt. There are some nice gardens and fountains, but lots of dust from the walk and you need your energy to walk up the Arc.

The view from the Arc was great and very worth while. After enjoying the sights we came down and walked along Champs Elysees (some very expensive stores and fun people to watch). I forgot to mention there are tons of scooters here and we saw two hit by cars in less than a half an hour on the same road.

For what I think was dinner Marco wanted some good 'ol Mikey D's. This was some McDonalds. Very large with a separate section for Espressos, and deserts. Sol and I split a "Le M". and Marco had to have a "Royal with Cheese" from the movie Pulp Fiction. Afterwords we did have a Frapachino and Cafe au lait. We did a little more walking and finally got on a metro back to the hotel. Our feet were in pain.

Took a nap for a couple of hours and am now back awake and may head out again.

The Fromers guide it great and the map is absolulty super. We use it all the time as it is better than the map we bought. We also picked up a good metro map we shall pass on.

TTFN
Joe

France - Day 1 Paris

Got here early (6:30am) this morning after an ok flight but no sleep. We got a 3 day rail pass (I think about $150 for the 3 of us) and took the train from the airport to the hotel.
The hotel is cute. We are on the first floor facing a small street. No A/C so we open the windows and see and here all, and vise-a-versa. I may be glad for ear plugs tonight;-). Maybe it is a french thing, but our room has a nice modern bathroom but no shower curtain....what is with that?
Went to Notredame and some general sightseeing. A lot of walking. The 3 of us did crash from about 12-5. Just could not keep our eyes open any more. The weather could not be nicer. A lot of people still smoke here. At 7:30pm all these people are hanging out at the cafes for a happy hour type thing. It is so weird that it is daylight after 10pm. We now have to plan our day tomorrow. We want 2 see the Eiffel and that area tomorrow then beddy time.

Ttfn
Joe