Getting Home...the debrief

Later this week I'll share a few more photos.

However, after unpacking last night, raiding the frig for a bite to eat and taking an Ambien to help get our body clocks adjust back to mid-America time, I realized that my planning worked quite well.

Over the years I devised some check lists, strategies and travel tips that I will try and jot down for you...if you're interested.

Planning ahead does make for a much more enjoyable holiday, that's for sure. We think that there's a lot of adventure and education to be enjoyed by traveling more independently and not on big buses or up the gang plank of a 3700 passenger ship to wherever.

It's exciting to even just pick up a few words for French or Italian and use them. And, it's an experience to realize that a dinner with plates of unfamiliar flavors, colors and shapes can be exciting and unforgettable.

Sure, the Matterhorn at Disneyland and DisneyWorld is an thrilling experience; but another way is to go see the real thing instead. The movie with Hugh Jackman was just awesome, but you really need to go to the Queens Theater in London and see the real Les Miserables.

Our style is to touch, feel and experience life. It's those memories that will sustain us when the rocking chair beckons.

Cheers,
Bob 

"Are you Rick Steve's?" Asked Mary

...as we checked out this morning from the lovely Kennard Hotel in Bath. "No, I am not" I said with a smile and a sense of pride while showing her my very handy Rick Steves day bag which has served me quite well on this journey.

The Kennard turned out to be just about the pick of the lot as far as accommodations in fact.  Although our room required a hike up 5 flights of stairs, it was perfect as host host/owners thought of everything that would make a room convenient and comfortable for a guest.  The whole hotel of 16 rooms was decorated stunningly and the breakfast dining room was amazing as was the breakfast.

But let me back up to Friday morning when we caught the early train from Paddington to Bath to meet our friends the Moons. It is only about 1 1/2 hours to The popular and historic town of Bath. Yes, there are baths there...well, but you can no longer enjoy them since they are now a historic landmark. The Celts knew of them before the Romans started building the first bath house there in about 46AD. For the next 400 years until the fall of the empire they continued to expand the Roman Baths as a tourist/holiday/health destination for the wealthy from as far as Syria and all of Europe. It is an amazing site. To speed ahead in time, the English began developing the town of Bath in the late 18th century as a resort and holiday place and it still is today. We chatted with a number of Brits who said that Bath is absolutely their favorite place to go.  

No place in town is much more than about a 15 minute walk so much need for a taxi. It is a combination of Roman ruins, Victorian building, new building in the unusual Palladian style of architectural and a bit of modern with the typical cathedral at the center of town.  But, of course, since about the 16th century, it is the Church of England and not of Rome. 

We spend some time catching up with Keith, Jen, Milly and Isobel and found the girls are noww teenagers.  They treated us to one of the very best meals on our trip at Martini's, a classic Italian restaurant. Since they are friends with the owners we had a fabulous experience that began with Proseco and ended appropriately with Lemoncello.  Bon apetito!  

We are on our way back to America today...Saturday... The train from Bath to Paddington in London and then another direct train to Heathrow. Our day started at 6am with a walk by the river in Bath and will end at home in about 19 hours if all going smoothly. 

If you have enjoyed my dribble,  want more information for your own travels or want to see our  video when it's done, let me know. Cheers, Bob 

Oh, I forgot.  On Thursday day....our last in London...we dined at the Savoy Hotel dining room across from our hotel. My oh my, what an experience. As you may know it is quit was famous place.  But surprisingly the experience was fairly reasonable.  I think About €60 each. The other photo is of Dawn and Margaret at The Mask, a gin bar at our hotel. And, yes the gin specialties were wonderful. 

London is not Paris

After a very pleasant trip on the EuroStar across France from Paris and ducking under the English Channel at Calais we arrived in London just short of midday. The train is amazingly comfortable and fast....only taking a bit over two hours.  

London is another world. The pace is even faster and certainly more crowded if that is possible. But, it is well organized and a bit easier to understand how the city is layers out. Uber is much slower to reap d because of the traffic and taxis are literally always within site. So we uses them. However, in London the tube is infinitely efficient and just takes a slight amount of map reading to master getting from A to B whilst changing from the Blue line west to Red line east or some such. And it is cheap for a pass.  

Our first distinction was the Tower of London. On place I had not been to before.   It is basically the prison; albeit lovely digs for certain guests before execution of sentence and not so nice for others. In contrast, the Crown Jewels are also housed in this fortress along other things. You can see the mass of red poppies outside the tower which was in preparation for the British Armistice Day celebration. Now we know the origin of the poppies in America sold here. 

Next we told the Tube to the station near the London Eye on the Thames. It is like a giant ferries wheel with a view of over 25 mile on a clear day. It affords a wonderful with of the Parliament building, down to Westminster, Big Ben and central London. 

But, highlight of the day was the last minute tickets we got from our hotel concierge for Les Miserables.  We had good seats in the lower balcony.  I stilling have the music ringing in my head. Oh boy, it was just an unforgettable experience.  The audience must have applauded for 6 or 7 minutes at the end....even though it's been playing at the Queens Theater for over 20 years now.  The movie with Hugh Jackman is certainly a great flick but nothing like the real thing. 

The play is long as you know so we walked across the street to a Chinese restaurant for another unforgettable experience.  Everything on the menu was £3.95!  The long family style tables were so sticky that you dared not leave your arm resting on it too long lest it become permanently attached.  But the food was really delicious! 

And, all the time we were there, there was an argument and near fight between a drug guy, the manager and two of his friends.  We tried to encourage her to call the police but she did not.  Who knows, she may not have wanted the police to ask here if she was in England legally. 

The evening ended with a taxi ride back to the Strand Palace Hotel. I turned out to be another lovely hotel choice in a very good location.  It was the nicest hotel yet.   

Cheers for now, Bob and Dawn. 

I typed this while on the train to Bath. 

60 miles and 600 photos and counting

Tuesday - Paris
We are not really sure if it's 60 miles....of walking ....but perhaps. Or, more.  We just know that every day on our journey we spend a lot of the day walking. But, that's how you get to know people, places and experience how life really is and soak up the culture and appreciate the history. While America is the best, our history is rather plebeian by comparison.

600 photos... Ah, more. I will likely spend a couple weeks putting together a video of our best photos and video to show you....if you are interested. So far all my planning has worked out perfectly without ever seeming structured or over organized.  The weather has been spectacular and we have been healthy.

I am typing this from London since I am usually a day or so behind, have to good through tranferring photos off my phone onto the IPad for storage and then upload to the cloud and finally write in the blog and move photos into it. Sometimes connections are slow and Dawn says hurry up :-)

So off we went via the Uber taxi to the Latin Quarter... No not those 'Latins'. It's really the intellectual  center of Paris in a way and where the Sorbonne is located.  Then off to Rue Cler which is the shopping and market street for locals for the most part.  We saw no tourists there and just breathed in the life of Parisians there.  We stumbled into a cooking store there which was for mostly professionals  cooks and were in heaven and, yes, we did happily drop some euros there!

We found the old tree in Paris, as you can see.  Not too exciting but, hey, probably several thousand years old....from Roman times. And the smallest house in Paris...2 windows and a door wide.

I had on the list to find this shop near the Louvre which does wine tastings.  They were booked. Darn.. But they squeezed in 4 more for the evening cruise on the Seine that was a 3 Champaign tasting and was a fantastic experience..  The Champaidns were superb and raised our standard for Champa ign that's for sure. The boat cruise started right at the Eiffel tour so that was nice too.

Back near our hotel, we had dinner near out hotel.  It was another experience, for sure. An Italian restaurant run by Jews that was rather formal but with TV screens all around showing volleyball. The pasta was OK...but it was late and we were tired so no worries.

Guess that's it for now. Cheers, Bob

* oh the red head: I love taking photos of people when I can and thought she was an interesting subject. Sometimes I ask first and sometimes just wait for a chance.

The photos of Dawn below is a story to tell at home.

Downtown Paris

Driving in downtown Paris on Monday

This is what's it's like to drive in Paris 

The city of stairs

After  another nice 2 hour train trip from Bayeux into Paris at the Gare St. Lazare station, it was only a 10-15 minute walk to our hotel with only minimal confusion about streets.  Yes, they are/can be confusing.  Since it was Sunday, traffic was not too bad....except until we took an Uber car to the Champs des Élysées.

A bit about Uber.  It's what Amazon is to books as Uber is to taxis. It bypasses the traditional taxi system in Europe....and even now in some US cities.  I just pull up the Uber app on my IPhone and it knows where we are, I type in where we want to go and the it shows a car, photo of the driver and license plate number with the car moving along toward us on the map. The car comes usually within 5 minutes, you pay now money to the driver, you just say Merci, hop out and you are set for your next adventure. I have my CC on deposit with Uber and it is half the price of the usual taxi. Most cars are Mercedes and new.

Our first stop was the Champs des Élysées and a walk up to the Arc de Triumphe.  It is what you would except: impressive. However, Margaret counted the steps to the top and it is an exhausting 375! But worth the trip for the view.  Next we Uber'd over to Montmartre which is the highest point in Paris.  Sacre Coure is on top...which is a lovely large church. There were thousands of people around mostly just enjoying a lovely Sunday afternoon on the grass and looking at the view of the city. Paris is huge!

Next we journeyed to Notre Dame Cathedral to experience the 6:30 Sunday mass. Surprisingly, getting around central Paris does not take a long time even with traffic.  While everyone is in a rush, they are polite drivers.

Notre Dame is impressive for sure and it is on an island in the Seine River, of course.  Then another call to Uber and we are back at our lovely little French hotel....with more stairs to our 3rd floor room. The room is quite nice, too. We found some dinner at a nice sidewalk cafe.  Aur reovoir, Bob.

Saturday was a fabulous tour of D Day Battle sites.

This first photo is the entrance to La Rapiere Restaurant which was superb. 

 However, we started Saturday morning with Renee from D-Day Battle Tours picking us up at or hotel in Bayeux and driving about 30 minutes to St.  Mare Eglise for the start of an absolutely fantastic private tour of the important locations in the Normandy battle.  All I can say is, wow, what a sacrifice and dedication those thousands of American boys had.  It makes you proud and puts a lot into perspective. Renee is the owner of the #1 rated tour company and is a walking encyclopedia of D Day history.  Of course it starts in St Mare Eglise because that is where the paratroopers landed in the middle of the night before the men hit the beaches. You may or may not be surprised to know that the French in this area are almost most patriotic about America than many Americans. 

We then we on to Utah Beach, Omaha Beach, Point du Noc and the the huge D Day cemetery's which is amazing.  Nothing in the whole 8hour tour was like what I expected....so much better.

Our last night in Bayeux we lucked out with reservations at the top rated French restaurant in the town. It was not a disappointment, for sure.  I started with roasted red pepper and chorizo strips soup, then truffle risotto and shrimp, an apple sorbet topped with Calvados palate cleanser, roasted sea bass,  followed by a selection of cheeses and finally the most unusual and delicious lemon piemeringue pie ever. 

I am typing this from our room in Paris--- a classic old hotel --- while getting ready to take Uber to Notre Dame to experience the mass and then find a good place for dinner. I am always a day behind in reporting to you because of the process of transferring photos from my iPhone to my iPad and then to Picasa and finally to this blog....all while trying to use as much free WiFi as possible...and some times there is not so I just use data and my phone as a hot spot...for you techies. I have taken over 150  photos so far so am hoping for a good shop when we are home again.   Cheers for now, Bob.      

Friday in Bayeux

We love the cobbled streets, all the tiny French cars and narrow sidewalks. We walked miles today around town, but that's the charming part of Bayeux.  Of course the cathedral is in the center of town. It is as large as Notre Dame in Paris and apparently as famous.  We spend quite a bit of time looking around in it this morning. It was built in the 12th c. And just amazing. 

Our second stop was the Tapestry Museum. Sounds weird but it is all about a 70 meter long tapestry created around 1066 to chronicle a battle between King Harold from England and William the Conquerer, the Norman king and the good guy in this case.  It was fascinating.  

Then we hiked off to the WWII Museum which commemorates the British saving the city of Bayeux a couple days after the landing at the Normandy Beaches. The French are so grateful to the English and the Americans.  What an amazing time. Fortunately Bayeux did not get the bejeepers bombed out of it like nearby Caen.  So much of the city is as it was 70 years ago.  

Last night we got reservations at L'Angle Saint Laurent restaurant which is reportedly the 2nd best in town. It WAS fabulous! We had the Gourmet Menu which started with warm truffle foamed milk then  oysters, prawns and escargot.  Next veal over green beans and pea pods and a gastric filled by the cheese course and finally a chocolate concoction to die for and then a chocolate with marshmallow inside....all with wonderful local wines.  We needed that 20 minute walk back to our hotel for sure.  Tonight we have reservations for the #1 restaurant in town after our 8 hour private tour of Normandy. Au reovoir from France.  

Thursday in Bayeux

Bayeux is such a lovely town. Our hotel is only about a 10-15 walk from the center of the town so it's ideal.  We walk around the town last night and I stooped several locals to inquire where to eat.  They directed us here to the La Burchiere which turned out to excellent.  It is on the town square.  No, I don't speak French but it's amazing how well you can do with a smile, speaking slowly, some sign language and guts.  We all just ordered appetizers (starters) and desserts which proved to be plenty when accompanied with some nice French wine.