Wednesday & Thursday July 31 to August 1 PARIS

This morning's breakfast was in our own "garden". So nice. a good start for our busy day ahead.

 This is the "The Original Bus Tour" bus--- hop-on, hop-off tour bus which we took to tour the city of Paris. It gave us a view of the many facets of the city. Shopping areas, restaurants & cafe's, historical buildings, churches, outdoor market, etc. and people, people everywhere. Here are some of the sites along the way.

People everywhere. There are 26,000,000 visitors a year to Paris.  

Market all along a street which takes place twice a week.

Many outdoor cafes

                                            Large gold dome holds the remains of Napoleon I

Trocadero Gardens 

                                                                          Seine River

                                          There's just so much to see. Paris is a very large city.

Our destination and goal for today ---- take the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

                                   Did I mention there are a lot of people near the Eiffel Tower?

 Standing in line to buy tickets to the top. It took about 2 hours to get to ticket booth ad about anher 1/2 hr. to get on elevator that brought us to the 2nd level of tower. Dd you know that this tower was built as a temporary structure for the world fair in 1889 - Exposition Universelle? It took 2,500,000 rivets to put it together. When it was complete it was the tallest building in the world -- 300m high

There is a monument of Gustave Eiffel, at the base of the tower, who was the engineer of this amazing structure. The Eiffel Tower has more visitors, about 7,000,000 a year, than any other paid monument in the world.

                               We are at the second level of the tower showing some of Paris behind us.

              View of the park where we were sitting the night before from one end to the other.

 Very striking as we look around, as to how white everything looks. Paris is such a huge city with so many buildings. The Seine River is on the left.

                                         This was taken from the top floor..... over 900 ft. high.

 We stopped for lunch at the top. A hot dog is made differently in Paris. Start out with a baguette, then ream out the centre, squirt some catsup and dijon mustard into the hole, and stuff in 2 or was it 3 hot dogs. It was pretty good.

Here we all are at the top with the beautiful city of Paris behind us.

                                                 Pretty pink flowering tree with the Eiffel Tower.

We left the Eiffel Tower about 3 pm, got on the Red Bus and headed out for our next tour stop ........ On our way we saw this bridge lined on both sides with brass padlocks.  { see blog from Venice}

When you stand at a distance the sides of the bridge look gold from all the locks. 

Our next stop "The Louvre", which is the one of the world's largest museums. It contains sculptures, paintings, tapestries. You name it has it. And of course the famous "Mona Lisa" .

                            Here we are at the entrance --Glass Pyramid. It was a very hot day.

                                  Tom & Michael listening to info about what is enclosed in glass.

                                      Sandy  & I listening to the commentary about this sculpture.

 Largest painting in the museum "The Wedding Feast of Cana"-- almost 22 ft x 30 ft.

 The famous Mona Lisa.31 in. x 21 in. which is a lot smaller than I thought it would be. You wouldn't believe the number of people around the painting taking pictures!

See the Mona Lisa behind Tom & I?

                                           Painting and artwork in the ceilings. Incredible!

We spent a few hours at the museum but only saw a fraction of this massive museum. So many beautiful things to see. Lots of stairs up and down.

Panoramic view of The Louvre.

Hop back onto the bus and out to dinner.

                                                             Some city sites from the bus.

                                                                   "McGregor" Shop

                   It always feels good at the end of the day to relax with a good meal and good company.

Tuesday July 30th Verdun To Paris

Verdun, France is the place where one of the major battles took place during the First World War between the Germans and French armies. It lasted 300 days and about 1,000,000 soldiers lost their lives.
We did a 1/2 hour tour of the Citadelle of Verdun. It was on a tram through the underground tunnels. There were no photos allowed.
We also took a drive to the Douaumont Ossuary, which is a memorial containing the remains of soldiers, both French and German, who died in the Battle of Verdun.

 Here is the largest single French military cemetery with over 16,000 graves from First World War. It was amazing to see ----- a real red rose bush was in front of each white cross.

God bless all soldiers.

We continued on our journey to Paris. We arrived at Charles De Gualle Airport to return our car rental and then headed for our apartment ....train, subway,walking. How do I describe my first impressions of Paris? Very busy, lots of people and lots of traffic.  A little over-whelming. Did I mention that there are round-abouts all over Europe. They look crazy to me but they sure keep the traffic flowing. And drivers are very mindful of crosswalks. We arrived at our apartment at 6:30 pm. It is a 1 bedroom, with  pull-out couch, small kitchen and a little garden/patio. So cute & cozy.

                                     Michael planning the strategy for the evening. The Paris adventure begins!

                                               Toasting Paris at dinner at "L'Arc" Restaurant

After dinner we walked over to see the L'Arc de Triomphe which is one of the most famous monuments in Paris, which honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Beneath its vaults lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War One. It is very large as you can see.

Tom & I standing in front of L'Arc de Triomphe, which is in a very busy traffic area. Behind us you can see some cars. Well there is a round- about here with 12 different ways of "escaping" off the round-about! Crazy when you see all these vehicles converging on one another ---- cars, buses, taxis, smart cars, scooters.....

Oh yes, there are also many, many people trying to get pictures at the same time. 

We took a subway to the Eiffel Tower. WHAT AN AMAZING STRUCTURE THIS IS! It's so hard to describe. I just had to keep looking up at it in awe. So beautiful. 

Sandy & Michael convinced us that we had to kiss in front of the Eiffel Tower. It was the thing to do.  

                                                                   So here we are.
                                                          However they didn't do likewise.

                                                             But I got this nice shot of them.

There were so many people around here. There is a huge "park"-- people were sitting on the grass --- like a big party. Some had food and drinks and everyone was taking pictures. There were guys selling bottles of wine and other drinks as well of little replicas of the Eiffel Tower. It was fun being there.

Here is Sandy & me sitting on the grass before dark. This grassy area went as far as you can see behind us.

As it got darker, the Tower became illuminated which gave it an orange glow. So pretty. Then about 10 pm twinkling white lights came on too. What a show! We heard a cork pop on a wine bottle. I guess this is what everyone was waiting for. 

This is a picture with the twinkling white lights.

Si belle! Si belle!

Bon soir!

I 

Monday July 29, St. Goar to Verdun, France

As we walked through the main street in St. Goar, on our way to our next tour, we noticed markings on a sign. These measurements showed the water level when it flooded here. It had flooded in St. Goar just a little over a week before we arrived. We also saw water lines on some of the buildings as we walked along.

Here's Sandy pointing at the level of water down main street when it flooded.

 We finished our time in St Goar with an excursion to Rheinfels Castle in St. Goar. WE took the train up to the castle. Rheinfels Castle is the biggest castle ruins on the Rhein River. The castle is 100 m above the river and was built in the 1300’s. It was a beautiful day to explore around the ruins.

                               Rheinfels Castle, taken from the train as we went up the steep hill.

                                                       Tom & Michael checking things out.

                                     We found this secluded little corner with stairs leading nowhere.

There was a room that was all set up with toy soldiers in the battlefields behind glass

. There many different types in different times. There were probably thousands of soldiers. It was quite interesting to see. I couldn't help but think,  how my grandsons would've loved to play with all these soldier figures when they were younger.

                                                                   Isn't this a cool wall?

               Sandy, Michael And Tom climbed the stairs up to the tower. Can you see them at the top?

                                                  Michael took this picture from the tower.

                                           View of the Rhein River from the tower. Beautiful.

                   I thought this wall was cool looking. Maybe I'll get it blown up, I mean enlarged and frame it.

                                                         Cute couple under one f the arches.

                                          Well, I'll be, another cute, {slightly older} couple.

                                                           Can you guess what this is?

And this? Well Sandy & I had to check out the ladies' room. Since I always have camera with me, I was able to snap the 1st picture, which is the flusher, and the 2nd is a pump, that we had to pump up and down for water, to wash our hands. 

Michael thought it would be a good idea if I blogged on the go. Silly him. No internet connection on the little choo-choo train. We had a good time at the castle. It's very interesting seeing things that we don't have at home.

 On our way back down from the castle we saw this sign & of course thought of some "silly girls" we know.

Tom & I enjoying a German lunch. Wellllllll, it was in a German bakery. Black Forest cake & apple strudel.

More choices.  How are we to resist?

After shopping and buying ourselves a special German souvenir, we packed up our car and headed out for our next destination Verdun, France..

I might have missed some of the scenery as Michael drove, just a bit tired, {staying up late doing my blogs}.

 We traveled through one more country before France ….. Luxembourg! Made a short stop in the city of Luxembourg and snapped these shots.
It was strange to me that there was not a stop as we drove into France ....... just sailed on through. 

Arrived in Verdun, France at 6 pm …. Verdun -“Village de la Paix”.
Checked in at the Ibis Budget Hotel, which we found to be quite unique.

                                 Everything was nat and compact but had everything we needed.

We had dinner here, and after a short drive around the area we turned in for the night.

Tomorrow we will tour Verdun.