Saturday, June 9, 2007

Another Amazing View

Dad- tonight you need to watch The Eiger Sanction with Clint Eastwood while drinking hot chocolate to share in our day. We saw Eiger, Jungfrau and Monch. And although Eric was tempted by the technical climb to the top of Eiger, he returned to reality without too much convincing from me. It was gorgeous, and to everyone, we HIGHLY recommend a trip to Switzerland. Paris was great, and we loved it, but this is so different. So peaceful, so unbelievably beautiful. It is amazing to be here!

A jungfrau in front of Jungfrau


Well, I may not be a young maiden anymore, but it made for a good title. Can you believe this view? The clouds cleared enough for us to snap a few pictures, but then returned, bringing rain with them and interrupting our full day of hiking. I opted for the train ride back to town (instead of the 2 plus hour hike in the rain, especially if we're going to do an even longer hike tomorrow!) Eric reluctantly agreed. Poor Guy.
PS Eric says to click on the picture to enlarge it enough to read my hat.

The pictures don't do it justice!


The peaks behind us extended upwards for another 7,000 feet!
(And if you're wondering about the look on Eric's face, it's because he was caught eating a big piece of Toblerone in celebration of our mountain experience!)

Greetings From The Top of the World


Well....maybe not quite the top, but close!

And what an incredible day of hiking we hide. I survived the very scary gondola ride (enough so that Eric decided we are doing it again tomorrow!) I just looked straight ahead and breathed deeply, ignoring the man who was trying to get me to look at the fox and the mountain deer, called a chamois, down below.

Once off the gondola, we enjoyed a leisurely hike among the peaks and valleys. It was amazing to see the wild flowers growing inbetween the lumps of melting snow. We even had to hike through avalanche zones and areas where the melting snow had created little waterfalls. It was a fantastic day, and I will post some more pictures now.

Not Something You See Everyday!

Coming back from our hike, we passed a family walking their billy goats (complete with long beards!) on leashes.

View from Breakfast


Eric's Thoughts from Switzerland (der drei)

Ever since coming to Switzerland, I have been awe struck by the
scenery. It seems that everywhere you look in this country is beautiful hills, mountains, rivers, and forests. After arriving in the Lauterbrunnen valley, I have to upgrade the word beautiful to breathtaking. There is not a direction you can look without being stunned by the sheer natural wonder of this place.

We went on hike yesterday along the river shown in the background, and around each bend was one spectacular view followed by another. This place is going to be difficult to leave, but I am sure that Jenny and I will make an effort to come back here.

The valley also has the effect of making someone feel very small. The village we are staying in is at an altitude of 2,612 feet. The mountains that are seen in the background of some of the pictures are 12,000 feet (on average, some are taller, some are shorter). That is quite an elevation difference.

Well, we are going to be heading up into the mountains today, and while we are not going all the way to 12,000 feet, we are going to be up at an altitude of around 7,000 feet. I am looking forward to it.

Take care everyone! More from Switzerland another day.

Lauterbrunnen Valley Day 2


We're losing track of the days, so we don't know what to title our entries anymore! :-)


Ahhhh, Switzerland. I don't even know what to say, because it is all so beautiful and indescribable. After posting pictures yesterday, we went for a hike along the river. We hiked for hours, losing track of time and just enjoying the views from every twist and turn, the wildflowers, the different butterflies and insects.... it is all so amazing! The air is so clean and fresh, and you can smell the scent of trees and flowers. We hiked past big sheep, and stopped to feed them grass. They make interesting bleating noises - different from American sheep (isn't that funny?)
Today we are going to tackle the high altitude alpine hikes, the ones that you have to take a very scary gondola ride to get to. (You all know how deathly afraid of heights I am!) I'm taking inspiration from my friend Melissa, whose descriptions of her gondola ride in Chamonix sounded amazing. Plus this is a hike I really want to do, so I'll just have to deal.
All the stores close early today, so I don't know if we'll be able to post anymore after our hike, but we'll give you and update as soon as we can.
And a big hi to Julie and her summer school class. This is why you have to work hard in school, so that you can do all of these crazy fun things when you get older. We have seen so many teenagers in our travels. And today we met other people who are here from Houston and from Dallas. All of our Revere kids would love these experiences! (OK, teacher voice going back on vacation now!) :-)

Friday, June 8, 2007

On our way up the waterfall


Our hotel


View from our room


Hi from Lauterbrunnen


Wow. We are awed beyond words at the beauty of this valley. The 54 minute train ride up here was incredible. I can't get over how large the lakes are around here. And when we transfered to the second train and entered the valley.... oh my! Breathtaking! We are in a daze - entranced by the beauty of the Alps. We've already hiked a waterfall, and are now on our way to hike down a river. Tomorrow is the serious alpine hiking. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll let these photos be the rest of my blog. :-) Mom and Dad - this is the place for you!!!!

One More Bear Picture (because they are so cute)


Doesn't that just make you smile?

Scary Seafood Pizza


Eric Typing: I had to post this picture after reading some of the comments. : ) It doesn't look that scary, does it?

It was delicious. I know it doesn't even look like a pizza, but it was very good.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

Eric's Thoughts from Switzerland (der zwei)


Well, another amazing day here in Switzerland. The feeding of the bears was quite possibly the highlight of my day. The bears proved quite entertaining with their begging behaviors for the food. Jenny quoted me in her blog about it being the best 3 Swiss Francs that I ever spent. Well, it was. I highly recommend if you are ever in the Bern area that you stop to feed the bears.

The other amazing thing I did today was defy death. Well that might be a little dramatic, but I went swimming in the Aare today, and there are all these warning signs that tell you that it is dangerous to swim in the river, and that only experienced swimmers should do it. Well, the current is really strong, and there is a dam down river so if you don't make the last exit, it would probably lead to you getting sucked under and drowning, but I did not feel that I was ever in any real danger. The biggest obstacle that I had to overcome was the cold. The water temperture was 15° C (which is 59° F). But after my third trip down the river the water felt almost bareable. : ) Grabbing the exit rails from the river was only a little tricky because you are moving so fast and they tended to be wet and slippery, but after a few trips I got better at this as well. I think my experiences in the Grand Canyon helped prepare me for both the cold and the current. Anyway, this was another experience that I highly recommend. (I know, I know, you are all thinking I am nuts, but it really was fun).

The final experience worth sharing was the meal we had tonight. We ate at an Italian restaurant (yes I know we are in Switzerland), but the food looked really good, and after Jenny's aversion to the first Swiss meal we had, we thought this would be a better alternative. I ordered a seafood pizza (don't knock it until you try it). Not only was this the best meal that I have had while in Europe. It was the best pizza I have had period. I am looking forward to the food in Italy even more.

Well, I am done for now. Take care everyone.

Switzerland Day 2: Part 2


Good evening from Bern. We had another glorious day. But first, let me respond to some of your comments:

Mike: Our hotel in Paris was the Hotel Royal Phare on Monte Piquett (not sure about the spelling of the street name.) It was a very simple, small room. But the bed was comfortable, and we had clean linens every day. There was even a small refrigerator and a hair dryer in the room, and we had our own bathroom. It was right near a metro stop (Ecole Militaire), a small grocery store, and Rue Cler was the next cross street. It was 76 euros per night, which was one of the best deals we found while searching for a place to stay in Paris. We would stay there again.

Julie: We'll bring you back some chocolate - it is soooo amazing here - rich and smooth. Yum! For everyone else, we are also going to try to bring back some chocolate because it is unbelievably good!

Mom and Dad - We will help you plan an itinerary that you will enjoy better than hot chocolate in front of the travel channel! Love you!

Kristin: We're still on the hunt for some hot chocolate - I'm guessing it's in the higher alps region, where it's colder. We head there tomorrow and will let you know what we find. :-)

Now back to our blog....
Eric's quote of the day "That was the best 3 swiss francs I've ever spent!"

This was his comment after we purchased fruit to feed the bears at the bear pit. We entertained a crowd of about 50 people while we fed fruit to the previously comatose bears. I was gesturing with my hand for the bear to sit up, which we had seen them do yesterday, and he put his hands in a begging gesture. The crowd awwwwed. So I threw the bear some fruit, and he did it again. Eric made some hand gesture and got his bear to lay on his back and grab his foot in a cute pose. We'll try to post a picture of that. (The reason we were the only ones with the fruit is because we had seen the tiny window yesterday. It looks closed, but if you ring a bell, the bear lady will sell you fruit. I tell ya, I think we need to bring one of those bears home with us!) Wonder how Julie and Josh would feel about cat sitting then?

From the bear pit, we went on another beautiful walk around the Aare river, this time on the other side of town. It was hot and we were really anxious to get to the part of the river where you float down (yes, even I was so hot that I was willing to take the risk of going over the dam.) So we made it back to our room to change, and by the time we got to the part of the river we needed to get to, rain clouds had come in, and it was on the coolish side.

But this didn't stop Eric, and he braved the freezing cold water, 4 different times and had a blast. I made it as far as waist deep, and then thought, "The heck with this! If I can't feel my legs, how will I ever get out before the dam?" I know, definitely not as adventurous as my husband, but I still had fun!

And now for the culinary highlight of our trip, we just got back from the best meal we've had so far on our trip. Eric found an Italian restaurant, off the main drag, where many, many locals were eating. The food was so unbelievably good - we cleaned our plates! We both had pizza, but it was unlike any pizza we've had before. The crust was very thin and light, the sauce was light, all of the ingredients were light, so it didn't make us feel too full. Now you know how adventurous Eric is with food, and his pizza was no exception - mussles, prawns, squid, cheese and sauce. Mine had pears and gorgonzola. Delicious! It was called Rialto, incase anyone is headed to Bern.

So tomorrow we head to the Berner Oberland, which is the Alps region, to the town of Lauterbrunnen. In a much earlier posting, I put the website for the hotel we are staying at. It looks like such fun. The rain has come in tonight, so we're a little worried about the weather in the Alps and if we'll be able to hike or not. I'm sure it will be an adventure one way or another!

I will end now so that Eric can post his thoughts. :-)

Scary Bee Internet Cafe


By the way, we mentioned that we didn't go to the internet cafe yesterday because of bee swarm. We thought we would share this picture with you.

If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can get a feel for how many bees there are. We are not exactly sure why they were there.

Eric's Thoughts from Switzerland


Wow! This is an amazing country. I always remember being amazed when I was small child, and my family and I used to come skiing here, but nothing prepared me for my reactions as an adult. The country is just filled with beautiful hills and mountains everywhere. The buildings are uniquely Swiss and interesting. The city/town of Bern (pop. 110,000) where we currently are staying is amazingly clean and pedestrian friendly (for the most part; there is a huge amount of construction in the downtown area). There are so many wonderful things to see here. There is a river that is the color of a swimming pool. There is a pit with bears (the picture is of one of the bears; they do cute begging behaviors for fruit that you can buy to feed them). There is a zoo where you can see about half the animals in the zoo just by wandering around in this park area. Jenny and I just wandered aimlessly for the day with no real goal or objectives, and we had simply an amazing time. The whole experience seemed surreal. The people here are also very courteous and helpful considering this is an area where we are hitting the language barrier the hardest. Most of the locals speak Swiss German although we are finding they use some French (which I took in high school and college) and many do understand some English. The biggest problem we are having is reading signs and menus.


I think the most interesting thing about how much fun we are having is that this town was just intended as a brief stop over before heading into the mountains.


Anyway, I am done for now. I hope all of you are well.

Switzerland Day 2


We are at an internet cafe, with the same crazy foreign keyboard. Eric is trying to upload pictures, but it is complicated. We only have 29 minutes, so we'll see if he can complete his mission (easier than CounterStrike, right?)

I started to tell you about the Aare River, and how we found this incredible zoo while we were on our walk. What was neat was to see moms and dads taking the kids around the zoo. We saw some amazing animals and couldn't get over how trusting a place wiz. is. There was a rainforest exhibit, where we could actually sit with the monkeys and other animals and birds. Amazing! Eric had a great time taking pictures of the little fuzzy baby ducks interacting with the flamingoes in another exhibit. Again, we were right there and could touch these creatures (but didn't).

Something else that was funny about the zoo was that several animals looked like they had mange. They were ratty looking, and we thought they might be dying. Then we realized that they were shedding. Of course! It snows here in the winter, and is warm in the summer. We had a good chuckle over that!

From the zoo, we continued our walk down the river. Now here's the kookey part I wanted to tell you about. This is an incredible swiftly flowing river, and people actually get in it and float down. But you have to be careful that you are able to grab one of the exit polls, otherwise you will float into the dam and die. It was funny to watch little heads bobbing up and down in the river. And of course you know that my husband is chomping at the bit to do this. I'm perfectly content to take pictures from the side. :-) But it looks super freaky because the current is so swift, and there are all sorts of warning signs telling you how far you have to the exit poll, and how you must swim hard to get there. Not my idea of relaxation, but it's totally Eric's thing. Forgot to mention that the water is freezing cold (of course - melted snow!!!) So we will have to update you about that this evening.

In the meantime, while we wait until the afternoon for the water to warm up a little, we are having fun wandering through the town. We are learning how to be better travelers. For example, we had no clue what the menu said last night (that's the other thing too - with French, we could figure most things out. But with this Swiss-German, we have no clue!) Well, what we learned today is that we should always just go to little delis or grocery stores where we can see what we are getting, and the food and drinks are much cheaper.

My favorite part of the grocery store was the chocolate bar aisle. There were the huge bricks that my dad mentioned, as well as tons and tons of different kinds. So we are having fun buying samples to decide which is the best to bring home. :-) Haven't seen any hot chocolate yet - maybe that's higher up in the alpine region.

We're on our way to see the town cuckoo clock do its hourly performance (which we keep missing) and then off to feed those cute bears. Hopefully Eric will get a picture posted, and we'll let you know how that river float goes!

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Hi from Switzerland


We are on a cheesey hotel computer, with another foreign keyboard, and no way to upload pictures. We saw an internet cafe, but it was literally swarming with hundreds of bees. So we'll try to do our best to update you, but forgive any typos, grammatical mistakes, or short hand.

First, I have to say that traveling by Eurail is amazing! So much better than flying! We were on the train for 5 hours, and it felt like a vacation. Comfy seats that reclined, a bar to rest your feet on, and lots of space. I slept for a couple of hours, Eric too.

The first things we noticed was that as soon as we passed the French/Swiss border, the architecture immediately changed and became very distinctly Swiss (think Heidi or Swiss Miss Chocolate and you'll picture what I mean.) And the landscape became even more amazing - everywhere green, hillsides full of cows, huge huge lakes, it was breathtaking!

We arrived to our destination of Bern, the capital of Swiz. and it was crazy busy - bustling with people and tons of construction everywhere. I think they are retrofitting buildings, or something. But when you look passed all of the mess, it is an incredible, indescribable city. Old world style architecture, statues and murals everywhere, flags everywhere, colors like you wouldn't believe! We were awestruck as we walked through the town. Oh - tons and tons and tons of shops- like clothing boutiques, and upscale type shopping.

We walked to the end of town and came to the bear pit, which is literally a pit with 2 live bears in it. They are so cute and beg for food (you can tell that they are well fed.) We ended up watching them for about 30 minutes. Bern is (German?) for Bear, and the town is named for the bear because that is the first animal that the duke who found the town hunted and killed. (I guess it is a good thing that the first animal wasn^t a turkey or something). The bear pits have been here since the 1400's, though the bears aren't quite that old.

From the bear pits, we walked along the Aare River - so amazing and beautiful - a bright tourquoise color. Along our walk we stumbled across the most amazing free zoo. It wasn't listed in the guidebook (shame on R.S. - I'll have to e mail him.) We couldnt believe that it was free. We walked around for hours.

I have to end this now - others waiting for computer. I'll try to write more later.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Jenny Overwhelmed


Eric: My wife overwhelmed by the beauty of the garden.

If you want to see her thoughts about the garden, read "Paris Day 6."

Response to Comments

Thank you so much to everyone who has been posting comments to our blog. I see we even have a new friend, Mike. We will be happy to offer you any information or answer any questions you may have, and look forward to hearing about your plans for another European adventure.

Mom and Dad - You guys are great and I love your comments! Mom - we have a place in Rome - we found it right before we left. The place you saw on the R.S. special was already booked. And we've already encountered the gypsies - they are at all of the tourist biggies - Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, etc. Hope you guys are well. Dad - I'll look for that brick of chocolate. So far stomach has been O.K. I love you guys!

Daniel J. - I can't begin to encourage you enough to travel- you would love some of these places. Work hard and get a good job. Then dream big and go for it! I know you will love it (and we may just tag along!) :-) Hope you are well - miss you!

Grandma - Notre Dame was incredible! I got a book for you.

Julie - We are glad that you made it back safely from London, and we can't wait to hear more about your trip (and see pictures too!) That's funny that you guys also got lost in the Louvre too! I hope summer school is going well and that you are having fun at school.

Ed - Hope you are also enjoying summer school! Thanks for the comments that make us laugh!

Rick - Yes - travel! I can't encourage you enough! (And like I told my brother - we'll tag along with you guys!) :-)

The CounterStrike Guys - Eric took a picture for all of you, of the French soldiers and the big scary guns that they walk around with (he actually thought they were impractical, and that you would all get a laugh.)

Eric's Thoughts (Part Cinq)


This time my thoughts are coming from a trip to Monet's Garden (I know what you are thinking, "How did Jenny manage to drag me to place like this?"), but the place was absolutely amazing. I was convinced to go initially by the prospect of a bike ride through the French countryside, which was way cool, but after I got there, the beauty and serenity of the garden invades your soul.

I know, I know sounds schmaltzy and poetic (or maybe pathetic is a better word), but it is true. I can see how Monet was inspired to paint his many beautiful paintings in such surroundings. His house and garden are in a peaceful little community called Giverny. The coolest part of the garden was the water lily garden (made famous by many of his paintings) which has a very heavy Japanese theme. As you know, I am partial to things from Japan because I met a certain special someone there.

I think the highlight of my day was seeing my wife overwhelmed by the sheer beauty of the garden. (see blog titled "Jenny Overwhelmed")Her emotion touched me deeply.

Alright enough with the emotional stuff. Being away from Counter Strike for too long has made me soft; hmm... I wonder if I could download a copy onto this computer and ... Jenny, why are giving me that look? I am just joking. Really.

Well, that is all for now guys. The next time I write I will be in Switzerland. I'll have to figure out what I am going to use for continuation of my numbering system when I am there.

Paris Day 6 - Au Revoir


Day 6 Highlights: First Eurail Ride - Bike Ride through Vernon to Giverny - Monet's Garden - Seine River Cruise

It's hard to believe that this is our last night in Paris. The time has gone by quickly, but we've really enjoyed ourselves! I can't say enough about how incredible Paris is and I highly recommend spending at least several days here. It took about 4 for us to finally get over the jet lag.

It's hard for us to say what our favorite moment has been, because they've all been so incredible! Today fits right in with new and amazing experiences! We validated our rail passes, and rode to Vernon, an amazing quaint little town that you don't really read about in the guide books. From Vernon, we rented bikes and rode 4 miles each way to Giverny to see Monet's Garden. What an amazing experience to bike through the French countryside! We encountered so many nice people! One lady even shouted to us from her garden and asked us to stop. She ran inside and grabbed a pre-printed note written in English which gave directions to a very nice path to Giverny. I thought that was so sweet of her. She wanted nothing in return. Just being friendly.

As we rode up and down small hills, we passed many small homes, lots of beautiful flowers and amazing views of the hillside. It was a peaceful experience. And then we got to Monet's Gardens with the swarms and swarms of pushy tourists. Ugh! But we didn't let that ruin our time.

Monet's Gardens were amazing beyond words. I got teary-eyed (I know - this is a daily occurence, but it is truly amazing to be at these places!) To see the pond of waterlilies, and know how many different paintings were made of this place, gave me chills. There were so many different and beautiful flowers - and the smell in the air - was like perfume - it smelled so good. I could type on and on about Monet's Gardens, but what made it extra special was seeing how much Eric enjoyed it as well. He was as into taking pictures of flowers as I was. It was just such a wonderful experience.

After our tour of Giverny, we rode back to Vernon and wandered around for a couple of hours. We found a beautiful church - a smaller version of Notre Dame - very peaceful and interesting to walk around. We also walked around the Seine (which apparently is an incredible long river!) It was fun to see the houses that look like old timey chalets. I hope we will be able to upload some pictures so you can see (lobby computer was being used though.)

Now we are on our way to have a romantic dinner and an evening cruise on the Seine so that we can see all of Paris lit up at night. Tomorrow, we leave very early for Bern, Switzerland, and begin the next leg of our journey: Alpine hiking, biking, and a visit to a chocolate factory and the town of Gruyere to have some more cheese! I'm not sure where there will be internet cafes, but if we find one, we will keep you updated.

Monday, June 4, 2007

Paris Day 5

Picture from the top of Notre Dame.

We are in the process of updating the stories that go along with all of the pictures we've posted in the past few days. So check all the old pictures, back to Rodin's Garden to see if we've added any information. (The cyber cafe is closing in 20 minutes, so we'll see how much we can get done!) :-)
Love to all of you and we miss you! We also wish that we could type for hours and hours to give you all of the great details. But not enough time or euros! :-)

Eric's Thoughts (Part Quatre)

This was an amazing view from the top of Notre Dame. I think the
gargoyle might have given that away, but you never know. We had to
climb over 400 steps to get to the top of the church. The view was breathtaking. You can get a panoramic view of the city. In fact, if you look closely you can see the Tour Eiffel in the background.

The climb to the top was definitely worth the trip, but we have finished the day completely exhausted (which seems to be the norm for us; I think we are averaging six miles a day.) The climb to our fifth floor room (Jenny wanted me to correct this because technically we are on the sixth floor; the Europeans refer to the first floor as floor 0 or B) at the end of the day seems like a climb to the summit of Mount Everest.

Paris Day 5

Day 5 Highlights: Running Errands - Notre Dame - Luxemborg Gardens - Laundry

Still having trouble waking up in the mornings. I didn't sleep well last night because my knees were killing me. I haven't mentioned how many stairs are all over Paris. Not to mention that we climb 6 flights of stairs every time we return to our hotel. We scaled over 400 stairs on the Eiffel Tower, and today, we scaled 422 to the top of Notre Dame. And what an experience that was!

But before walking 2.5 miles to Notre Dame, we had to run errands. We had to reserve our seats for the train to Switzerland. That was actually pretty easy - there is a special office that helps with the reservation process. From there, we went to the post office to mail post cards, and get a box to mail some things home (like the Rick Steve's Paris Guide - we love the info, but it weighs a ton!) Then we went to the store. Eric needed some lotion and I was trying to find face wash. It was so funny trying to figure out what the different products were. We laughed and laughed and hopefully ended up with the right things! :-)

We also stopped by a fruit stand and a boulangerie to pick up sandwiches to take with us. And then it was off on our adventure.

We enjoyed a beautiful, although very hot walk along the Seine. I was scared by a homeless guy who yelled at us because we didn't give him money. But that was the only incident on an otherwise incredible walk. It continues to amaze us how many beautiful buildings there are in this city - it seems like at every turn.

We arrived at Notre Dame, and I was overwhelmed by the beauty of it. It's amazing to know that it took over 200 years to build, and that meant that many of the builders never saw the completed church. It was built stone by single stone, and the people had to bend over and pull a rope to lift the stone (that's why many of them became hunched over.......Ah - now I get the idea behind The Hunchback of Notre Dame!)

I'm also amazed by all of the history behind the different carvings and icons on the outside of the church as well as the inside. Not enough time to go into details. Bummer! But there is a funny statue of the architect who helped repair the church in the 1800s on the roof.

Anyway, the highlight was climbing to the top of the bell tower. The views were incredible! Again, Paris is such a large city! I am always amazed by these views. And I especially enjoyed all of the different gargoyles. There's the "bored" gargoyle, who's leaning on his hands, sticking his tongue out. We have some great photos, but too many to post.

We spent several hours at the church and then wandered over to Luxemborg gardens, which reminded me of Central Park in New York. Tons of people enjoying a beautiful day!

After a long walk home, we tackled our first try at doing laundry. It went well, thankfully there were some helpful people to explain exactly what to do (quite different from back home!) We felt accomplished, and will head to Switzerland with clean clothes. As you know, we are trying to travel light, and only brought 5 outfits with us. So we will need to do laundry every so often. It was fun!

Sunday, June 3, 2007

Les Hotel Invalides


We walk by this building multiple times each day. Tres Jolie.
(This is Eric typing again)
We are not even sure what this building is or contains, but it is an amazing piece of architecture. It may contain Napolean's tomb as there is a picture of Napolean on the outside. I could probably read more about it, but that would require effort, and I am on vacation. : )
The primary reason we shared it with you is because it is very close to our hotel, and we always seem to be walking past it.
Speaking of our hotel, we are very happy with the place. We are right next to a street called Rue Cler. It is a very cool street with numerous cafes and shops. There was a street market over the weekend that was selling all kinds of amazing paintings, furniture, books, antiques, etc. I highly recommend that if you are planning a trip to Paris you try to stay in the Rue Cler area. It is very peaceful and close to many of the sights you would want to see.
Well, that is all for now. Take care everyone.

Eric's Thoughts (Part Troix)

Paris really agrees with my wife. She looks tres belle.

Paris Day 4: Paris Catacombs

Eric really wanted to tour the catacombs, and our friends Melissa and Alex said that it was fun and interesting, so we decided to go.

I can't remember if I've told you much about the Paris Metro - well it's amazing and quite easy to use. The best part is that it costs 1.40 euro to go anywhere in the city. You can transfer as many times as you want, and it doesn't cost extra. The only time you pay again is if you leave one station and then re-enter at another. So it wasn't too difficult to get to the catacombs, even though we had to make a couple of transfers.

Once we left the final Metro station, the entrance to the catacombs was literally right across the street - it can't have been any easier to find. (Hmmm - I wonder if there is a reason for that!) Well, Rick Steve's recommended that you bring a little flashlight with you, so we did.

You start off climbing 60 feet below ground, down narrow winding stairs (see there are those stairs again!) and then walk for several minutes through underground tunnels. There are no bones at this point, just interesting rock walls - interesting to see how the catacombs were formed, etc. I kept joking that we were in a cheesey Sci-Fi movie, because I just knew there was some kind of cave critter waiting to get ahold of us (especially since we were pretty much alone.) Groups kept passing us by. (They didn't have flashlights, so they weren't fascinated by the rock walls like we were.)

Well, here's where the story gets creepy and I swear that I am not making any of this up, or exaggerating! Just before you enter the area with the bones, there is a sign that says something to the effect of, You are now entering the empire of the dead (but it was in French, so I don't remember the exact translation). Silly us, poked fun at this sign, and even posed for "Oooh I'm so scared" pictures. At the exact same moment that we entered the tombs, BOTH Eric's and my flashlights went out, at the exact same time. Eric's even sparked as it went out. Mine just died. We tried for several minutes to get them to work, but couldn't. So we stepped back out the way we had come, and fiddled with the flashlights. Eric's was definitely dead - the bulb burnt out, and mine took several minutes to come back on. After that, all joking was put aside and we were quite reverent for the rest of the tour.

What I didn't realize is that the bones are right there as you enter, and I found this a bit disconcerting. But then I decided to tackle the experience from a scientific point of view, and ended up finding it interesting to see how the different skulls ended up. Some were glittering and shiny, some were discolored, some had odd holes in them. It was all very fascinating and I would recommend the tour, even to the semi-sqeamish.

In Rodin's Garden


One of our most favorite places. Cyber Cafe closed. Typing on French keyboard with 1 finger. More details and response to comments tomorrow.