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Published: January 10th 2008
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We didn’t think we’d ever be able to say that we’d had breakfast in Tuscany and dinner in the French Riviera! We had to take a train to Nice, France in order to stand a chance of catching a connecting train to Paris, so off we went. After a really pleasant train ride, one of the nicest so far (this time first class actually did mean something, including nice, large bathrooms and big cushy seats), we arrived in Nice in the evening. We quickly found seats two days later to Paris, and found a hotel, so then we were off to explore Nice. It’s a very pretty town, right next to the ocean and the water is gorgeous. It isn’t turquoise blue, but lighter than that, and the beaches and walkways are very nice. Lots of people enjoy the beaches, as well as the local dogs. We noticed lots of dogs and their owners, not only on the beaches, but also at restaurants and shops too. France in general has seemed to be very pet friendly, and it’s very common to see dogs at the dinner table at restaurants. We also went to a beautiful French flower market, and were impressed
by the array of fresh flowers available in the middle of winter. There were also a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, and baked goods. Let’s just say we never went hungry. Nice also still had its Christmas Village up and running, so we visited there too. It was mainly crafts shops and food shops, but we enjoyed freshly roasted chestnuts, as well as freshly made churros with hot Nutella. There were a number of pretty Christmas trees, an ice skating rink and a small fair with rides. We took a ride on the Ferris wheel, and were rewarded with one of the most beautiful sunsets we’ve seen, with brilliant hues of orange and pink casting their light over the city of Nice. All in all, not a bad couple of days for a completely unplanned stop!
We arrived in Paris in on New Year’s Eve. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it…to be in Paris on New Year’s Eve? Well, it may have been on another occasion, but the nasty colds we had go nastier, and the cold in Paris was an even more bitter cold than we had felt yet. So, while we did go out and see the Eiffel
Tower in the afternoon, we tucked in to our hotel rooms pretty early to fight colds (and the cold). The Eiffel Tower is actually pretty unattractive in full day light…just a big heap of metal piled up toward the sky. But at night, when the lights are on, the tower takes on a different appearance, and it actually is quite attractive. The next day, we saw Napoleon’s Arc de Triumph, a massive arch monument to his military feats. It’s quite ironic really…for all the criticism of the U.S.’ imperialism, there sure are a lot of monuments to French heroes like Napoleon and William the Conqueror that did the same thing…just in France’s name. However, we do have to stand up for the French people here. They do have an undeserved bad reputation. All we heard was how rude and mean they would be to Americans, how even if they spoke English, they would pretend they didn’t. And that just hasn’t been the case at all. There have been a couple of people who certainly wouldn’t win the congeniality prize, but by and large, most people in France were friendly and helpful, and did their best even when communication was difficult.
We went to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur, not for the church, but for the view of Paris since it is located on a big hill in an otherwise flat city. We also went to Champ Elysees, the famous boulevard, and it is just packed in with shops and restaurants. It is even home to the most expensive, and nicest, bathroom we have ever seen. For 1.50 Euros, you can take a potty break in individually themed and decorated bathroom stalls, complete with designer toilet paper and a bathroom butler that will open the door for you to enter, as well as clean the stall before the next person enters! It was quite the experience…and quite the business concept! We continued walking down the Champ Elysees after a yummy pastry snack at the best bakery we have encountered, and continued walking toward the Louvre, past a few more palaces along the way. The cold won out before we reached the Louvre, however, and we had to save that until the next day.
We decided it would be a good idea to go to the Louvre first thing in the morning, and that was a wise choice, because the
line grew quickly. We got in, were among the first to get our tickets and headed straight for the Mona Lisa. It really is a very small, unassuming painting, and if it were just hung on someone’s wall, chances are you wouldn’t even look twice at it. But because of its fame, the crowds around it at such an early hour were astounding! We looked at some more Italian art, then looked at Roman and Greek sculpture and finished up looking at German and Flemish paintings before we’d had enough of art for the day. The paintings all sort of blend together after a short time. We tried to go to the Catacombs, but luck wasn’t with us, since they were closed until February. So instead we went to the Notre Dame Cathedral. We were a little churched out, after seeing cathedral after cathedral, capped off by St. Peter’s Basilica, so we probably weren’t the most appreciative bunch. Apparently the cathedral was actually abandoned until a certain book and a certain hunchback made it famous again, and then the church was restored and reopened. After a little more souvenir shopping and a rest at the hotel, it was time to
have our last dinner with Mary and Bobbi before they headed back to the US. The time went very fast, and we were sad to see them go…but no amount of sadness could make us get up at 4 am to see them off to the airport! They had a very early start to a long flight!
Jason and I stayed one more day so that we could go to the Military Museum at the Hotel des Invalides, a facility made for war veterans. It houses a pretty good museum on World War I and World War II, as well as many artifacts from European Wars and has the tomb of Napoleon. If ever a person was immortalized in afterlife, it would be Napoleon. He has to have the largest tomb we’ve ever seen. It isn’t the most garish or outrageous we’ve seen, but it is simply large…very, very large. The World War museums were interesting, but as much as they were talked up, Jason was a bit disappointed…although they did have some interesting artifacts like a German Enigma box, handmade weapons that soldiers used and a good overall perspective of what life must have been like for the
soldiers fighting. With that museum visit, we were prepared for the next leg of our European travels…visiting World War II sites to see where the history we heard so much about actually happened. Jason has always had a deeply personal interest in World War II, and for Tracey it was made more personal to see the places her grandfather served in the 759th tank battalion. From Paris, we’re off to Bayeux, a jump off point to visit the Normandy beaches of D-Day.
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