Paris

By the time Jenny and I reached Paris, we were exhausted from the sleepless train ride and had become somewhat numb from the constant barrage of beautiful and incredible things we had seen. Consequently, we took fewer pictures and hurried through sites faster than if we had started our vacation in Paris. Even after an exhausting week visiting Germany, Switzerland, and eastern France, Paris resonated with freshness and vitality, and kept us in a state of unending awe.




While many sights in Paris close by 6:00, the Eiffel Tower stays open until midnight, making it an ideal spot to visit after you've been kicked out of the Louvre, Versailles, or your favorite restaurant. In the evening the lines were short, so after checking out its underside, Jenny and I quickly made it up the 276 meters to the third floor.



We found that the view from the top floor was breathtaking, although Paris actually looked better from the second floor. The skyline was more diverse when lower, and less of a homogenous blur. Like Washington D.C., Paris has a strict building code that limits the heights of its buildings. One or two skyscrapers got through by mistake, but nowhere does the city have the overwhelming crowded feeling that you get in other major cities like New York. The city is a gem.



We watched as night fell and the city lights flicker on, one by one. Then suddenly, the Eiffel Tower exploded with sparkles of light as thousands of light bulbs flashed in scintillating patterns. When we finally made it back to our hotel room, we collapsed, utterly exhausted from a full day of sightseeing.





Paris is a beautiful city to walk around.



Here is the Paris Opera House, for all you Phantom fans (or not). We only saw the lobby before we were hurried out, as a show was starting and no more tours were available for the evening.




At the time of the trip, we lived in the Washington D.C. area, and so as I walked through the Louvre, I couldn't help comparing to the Smithsonian. Roughly, the two are comparable in size. The Smithsonian includes many buildings and houses many types of collections, including science, history, and art. The Louvre is a single, enormous building that contains only art. Both contain many types of art from many cultures. While the Smithsonian's collections include artwork up to the present, the Louvre's collections are more focused and stop somewhere in the 1800's, before Impressionism. Of course, Paris has other museums to cover other subjects and time periods of art. While the Smithsonian and the nearby museums contain the best collections of art in the United States, by far the Louvre has superior art. I suppose that is the U.S. had a historical figure like Napoleon, who pillaged many other countries for their wealth and art, the museums in DC would be as good as the Louvre.



After seeing so many churches and cathedrals, especially those in Ulm, Freiburg, and Strasbourg, the Notre-Dame Cathedral of Paris seemed small and unfinished. Originally, the cathedral was designed with towers, but the money ran out before the project was finished.



The gargoyles at Notre Dame were the best we've seen, though, and the building itself was ornate and beautiful. I'm glad that we made the time to see it.

We returned by train and cab to the airport at Ramstein AFB to find that flights to Dover were canceled for the next two days. I had planned plenty of time to get back in case this happened. Although we were still in Europe, we were done vacationing, and spent our time relaxing and recuperating in the excellent base lodging before flying back home. On the day we flew back, the terminal was full of anxious travelers, and there wasn't nearly enough room on that free flight for everyone. Fortunately, as I'd started taking leave a couple of days prior to even leaving for Europe, we were high on the list and almost at the very front of the line. On the way home, we chatted with some of my med school classmates who had caught a hop like us, and gone to Czechoslovakia together. Little did we know then that Jenny and I would someday have a chance to return to Europe, this time to make it our home.

Versailles

By the time we got to Versailles, we were totally exhausted. Our minds were buzzing with sleep deprivation, our feet ached from a week of hiking through Germany and Switzerland, and we were hungry. Well, at least the last one could be remedied. We bought baguettes, and munched on them as we got our tickets and entered the palace courtyard.



A row of sculptures lined a walkway near the entrance. Jenny's favorite was Joan of Arc. Ornate marble and gold fill the palace with regal splendor.



Here is the queen's bedroom, and a detail from the ceiling.



It's hard to describe the splendor of the Hall of Mirrors. Louis XIV really knew how to spend that tax money. Here I am in the War Room. I also took a photo of Jenny in the Peace Room, but like many things in life, it didn't turn out well.



The rooms of artwork celebrating French History seemed to go on and on.



After seeing the palace, we collapsed in the sculpture gardens. I wanted to keep going, but Jenny felt quite satiated. A guide told us that the water pressure was inadequate to keep all fountains going at the same time during Louis XIV's time, so a given fountain would be turned on just before they came into the king's view, and off as soon as he left.



This is about as far as we made it in the Versailles Gardens. The gorgeous landscape stretched to the horizon.

The Train Ride to Paris

After making our way to the train station in Kaiserslaughtern, we boarded the night train to Paris. We planned to get a good night's sleep, so that we would be fresh to explore Paris in the Morning. The ticket counter had closed by the time we arrived, but we were told that we could purchase a ticket on the train. Our American cash was low by this point; we had spent our Deutsche marks carefully so that we would not have extra German money when we left Germany, and to get the best exchange rate, we planned to get the rest of the franks we needed once we got to Paris. Soon after the train started moving a stewardess came by and asked whether we had a ticket. We told her we would like to buy one to Paris, and she told us that she could sell us a ticket as far as Trier, the last city in Germany, but that after we entered France we would have to buy a ticket from the French for the rest of the journey.

We bought a ticket, and had just become comfortable when the stewardess came by again to tell us that the cars on the train would separate at the next station and go to various destinations. The section we were in was bound for Frankfurt, and we needed to go to the section bound for Paris. We rounded up our luggage, and began moving from car to car towards the section we needed. Each car was sealed from the next with a locked door, and to move between cars we had to get the attention of someone on the other side who had a key. Usually, this meant banging on the door and waiting. Soon we reached a car that had a narrow hallway on the left and a row of rooms with bunk beds on the right. We were beat, and ready to find a place to sleep. This car looked promising, and we hoped it was headed the right direction. Before us, stood a man in a uniform. After telling him that we were headed to Paris, he made room for us to pass, and told us, "Go down two coaches." So, we had finally reached the right car, I thought, and there must be a place for us two doors down. We entered the second door on the right, relieved to have found the right place, and began to put our luggage down. Immediately the man in the uniform was upon us, furious, and pounding the wall with a large key. "I think I speak English," he barked, "Go two coaches down!" Well, now I know what "coaches" means. We headed down the aisle, now intent on moving two cars down.

There were several college kids from Colorado waiting before the next door. They also were bound for Paris and needed to get through the doors. After about ten minutes a lady with a key showed up on the other side, and let us in. We got through the remaining car and began looking for a room with space. We wanted to sleep on a bunk on the train, but had been told by the college kids that these had all been reserved. After finding a room with six seats and only three occupants, we put our stuff down and tried to make ourselves comfortable. We needed sleep. The train was to arrive in Paris at 7:00 the next morning, and we wanted to be well rested so that we could hit the sights. A young couple sat across from us, jabbering loudly and playing video games on their cellular phones. After asking, and learning that they spoke some English, Jenny asked them where they were from, and they told us they were Gypsies. About an hour later, they got off the train, and for the first time we were able to drift off to sleep.

We awoke to a loud voice speaking in French. A man in a bright uniform stood before us, wanting to see our tickets. We showed him the ticket we had brought to Trier, and, offering him a credit card, explained in English that we needed to buy a ticket to Paris. He told us that they did not accept credit cards on the train in France, and asked us for a certain amount in cash. Jenny began scrambling through the belt pouch. We gave him the few franks left from our trip to Colmar and Strasbourg, and the rest of our American dollars. The man added the money, performed a conversion, and told us he needed more. Jenny turned to me, wide eyed, and said, "I don't think we have enough." Just what we needed, I thought, to be stuck on a train with no way of paying for the ticket. Glaring at us impatiently, the man asked us for our passports. I imagined the two of us in jail, trying to communicate with the cops with Jenny's high-school level French. We began to rummage for our passports. Suddenly Jenny said, "I found some more. I hope this is enough," and handed the man the deutsche marks she just found. The man counted it, and nodded. Apparently, it was enough. We both heaved a sigh of relief, grateful that it all worked out. Glancing at my watch, it was almost 3:00 in the morning. With the train arriving at 7:00, we would have about four more hours to sleep. We settled down and tried to get the rest we could before our arrival in Paris.



We arrived little rested, but running on adrenaline. Really gross showers were available at the train/metro station for a fee, and these helped wake us up. We dropped our luggage off at our hotel room, and then headed for Versailles.

Heidelberg

We arrived in Heidelberg almost breathless from hurrying. After spending the morning at Rothenburg, Jenny and I only had a little time to see the Heidelburg Castle. We had a train to catch in the evening to Paris from Kaiserslaughtern, and had to drop off our renal car in Ramstein in the meantime. The two of us sped into town and grabbed a parking lot in the middle of the university, the first spot we found that seemed remotely close to the castle that overlooks the city.


After asking another tourist for directions, we ran up the crisscrossing streets towards the castle. The neighborhood was filled with old mansions in a distinctive style perched over red sandstone walls that held the hillside back. Ivy climbed up the walls, houses, and gazebos along our path. By the time we reached the castle, we had less than two hours to enjoy it.



We bought tickets and rushed past the guards into the courtyard.



The ruins gave me an evocative feeling of ancient grandeur fallen into decay.



The castle’s history begins in the 1200’s, and ends when Louis XIV destroyed it in the 1600's, during the Thirty-Years War. Mark Twain later visited the ruins, and recorded his impressions.



As I gazed into the innards of an ivy covered tower with one side collapsed, I imagined how regal and secure the castle must have seemed before the Sun King visited with wrath and destruction.



The castle overlooks the city and Nekar River.




With no time for a formal tour, Jenny and I looked through the courtyards, gazing up at the broken walls and down at the city below, and then visited an excellent pharmacy museum and art museum within the castle. Even though I would have preferred spending a whole day leisurely soaking up the atmosphere of the castle and nearby area, I’m glad for the time we had to see Heidelburg.