European Wonder - Part 3

Day 5 - The Jungfrau

Today, Aug 2, is my brother, B's, birthday. Instead of being home to celebrate and/or give him a singing telegram phonecall, we are ready to take our optional excursion up the Jungfrau - the highest peak in Europe. Candace tells us that it'll be cold up there so we all bundle up with a ton of layers, tanktops, tshirts, longsleeve shirt, light fleece, and rainjacket. I even use my sarong as a scarf. We catch the cog railway in Lauterbrunnen and begin our 1.5 hour ascent. As we get farther and farther up the temperature does indeed begin to plummet and we are all grateful for the extra layers not necessary down below.

We travel through Alpine meadows amidst the sound of chiming bells, cowbells that is. The meadows are littered with cows out to pasture, each one with a large bell fastened around its neck. The meadows are beautiful with all sort of small wildflowers. The views are amazing as well. Eventually the train enters a tunnel into the mountains and we continue on in semi-darkness until we reach our destination perched at the top of the mountain.

We emerge into glaring sunlight bouncing off the glacial snows and marvel at the fact that its the middle of summer and we are surrounded by a winter vista. We spend some time sledding, wander through an "ice castle", take tons of photos from above the clouds, and send postcards from the top of Europe. A truly lovely way to spend the day. After descending on the train we went through town where S&S bought Swiss Army Knives - apparently you can only get them in green in Switzerland. Then back to the camp where we had a dinner of fondue, pork chops, divine potatoes, and veggies.

Day 6 - Its Leaning...

Another day of much driving - we are on the way to Italy. In the afternoon we end up in Pisa to see the leaning tower. The stop will last about a half hour so its run off the bus, run through the bathrooms, and run to take a few pictures of the tower. SJ takes the quintessential tourist photo of herself "holding up" the tower. Back to the bus and we continue on to Florence, or Firenze, as it seems to be called here.

We are staying in a camping village where we are staying in metal cabins. Not too bad, but certainly not the kind of camping I am used to out amongst the trees. In addition to the tents, campers, and cabins, there are several restaurants, a pool, dance hall, bars, and more. Truly a city unto itself.

Day 7 - Florence then to Roma, no Firenze, no Roma...are we going the right way?

We begin the day with a walking tour of Florence which is interesting, but most of the details slip before I have a chance to write them down. The center of the city is very beautiful with old buildings and statues throughout. We see the Medici palace and a copy of the David statue. Because its a Monday all of the Museums are closed, not that we really have enough time to explore any. The Duomo in Florence is the most ornate thing I've ever seen in my life. Impressive, but almost like marble threw up all over the structure. (Sorry for those of you who love this type of decoration, its just not my cup of tea).

A quick lunch followed up by more piling back onto the bus to move on towards Rome. We are scheduled to have an evening walking tour of the city. After a while we get off the highway, turn around and head back toward Firenze (Florence), then we get off again and go back towards Roma....after a good deal of circling we end up in a parking lot near Rome's airport. Our driver is lost and out of driving hours. Wonderful. Needless to say, we miss the walking tour and after some cell phone discussions acquire directions to the campsite. This turns out to be the last straw directions wise and we'll receive a new driver for the rest of the tour...one who manages to not get lost a single time.

European Wonder - Part 2

Day 3 - Parisian Adventures

Today we experience our first trip breakfast, which will come to be fairly representative of the entire trip. Croissants, bread, and ham and cheese....a little strange, and monotonous by the end of the trip, but not overly bad. All of us are wishing for smoothies or egg sandwiches or sugared cereal by the end of the adventure. After breakfast, we all pile onto the bus to be dropped off either in the Place de la Concorde or by the Eiffel Tower. We choose the latter because we are taking a bike tour that begins from the tower. Our first task upon arriving is to supplement breakfast with crepes. The man makes them fresh right in front of us, absolutely delicious!

The bike tour turns out to be led by a young guy from Texas and partway in Steph points out that all of the bikes has little name tags. Turns out I'd picked the Guinness bike :-) We see everything from the Eiffel Tower to les Invalides, to a thrilling ride in front of traffic at the Place de la Concorde, to the Tuileries and the Louvre. We stop for lunch in the Tuileries gardens at a garden cafe. Expensive, but lovely. Biking is actually a really nice way to see the sights in Paris, I'd recommend it to anyone going there.

After the bike tour, we decide upon a trip out to Notre Dame Cathedral which seemed easy enough. Unfortunately the line was partially closed and we had to try for a bus and some walking. We make it eventually and spend some time wandering around the cathedral. My favorite thing about cathedrals is usually the ceilings. I love to look at the arches and how they constructed the huge vaults. The buildings are so impressive, especially because they were constructed so long ago.

Once finished with Notre Dame, we decide to head on over to the Rhodin Museum. It doesn't look all that far on the map and the metro we'd need is the closed one, so we decide to walk. An hour and a half later we arrive. Ooops! At least I navigated successfully and we didn't get lost once...it just took longer than expected. The ladies I'm with take a wander around the gardens and then sit down while I continue to explore and take pics. We think with the Thinker too. The hands on many of the statues are so real. The Gates of Hell was another impressive piece. They were just writhing with images.

Then we were off to the Champs de Mars to meet up with our tour group for a picnic by the Eiffel Tower followed up by a Cabaret performance at the Paradis Latin. This was seriously amusing, especially after the half bottle of red wine I consumed. Topless ladies prancing around the stage singing, a trapeze artist hanging over the heads of the audience, buff guys in ridiculous costumes, and a ton of random settings and props. The most memorable is a future number where an alien comes down from the ceiling in a full on space ship. Magnificently Crazy.

Day 4 - The Road to Switzerland...is confusing

We rise early to hop on the bus for the rather long trip through France to Switzerland. Actually there will be a number of days devoted almost entierly to the bus, a fact that none of us really thought about when we booked the tour. Of course, a number of the trips end up being longer than expected because we have been given a green driver with a propensity for getting lost. We end up having to backtrack in Switzerland and arrive at the campground at least an hour overdue.

When we do arrive, we discover that we are staying in some lovely cabins in a breathtaking Alpine Valley. Dinner is amazing, some Swiss dish I've forgotten the name of. Its also Swiss National Day so there are fireworks which boom off the surrounding mountains. The group retires to the campground bar after dinner to celebrate and a good number procees to get completely trashed. Apparently in Europe, music is a good 10-20 years behind what we tend to listen to over here. All they had in the juke box was 90s techno, which although amusing quickly got old and I soon escaped to sleep. That is until the arrival of our more lively roommate who stumbled in sometime in the wee hours of the morn.

For more photos, visit my flikr site here http://www.flickr.com/photos/atreides22/sets/

Pics!

Ok, here's Days 1-3 of the tour (London, Dover, and Paris).

Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/atreides22/sets/

I hope the link works right - lemme know if there are problems seeing things!

European Wonder - Part 1

Day One – Get to London

We arrive at Newark airport in the later afternoon, anxious for our plane that is scheduled to leave around 9 p.m. It is my second time traveling across the Atlantic, SJ’s too, but for SB it is a first. Waiting is my least favorite of activities. I always just want to get it over with, unfortunately a plane ride is nothing but waiting – waiting to get on the plane, waiting to take off, waiting to land. The trip was not the best – I was unable to sleep and when we had a turbulent landing after a less than appetizing in-flight dinner I almost spewed.


Nevertheless, the three of us emerged into London alive and exhausted at about 9:30 a.m. local time. We were determined to get on local time despite it being the wee hours of the morn at home so we tubed up to the hostel, dropped our bags, and were off to lunch at Wetherspoon. Now, in London instead of finding a nice sign that tells you to either seat yourself or wait, like at most places at home, the restaurants we ate at in Europe left this particular piece of information a guessing game. It turned out here that you seated yourself and ordered at the bar. So, to start things off right I had a strongbow cider, burger, and “chips” aka “fries” if you live in America.


A tangent on money for a moment – what’s with all the coins England? Pounds, two pounds, 50 pence, 20 pence, the list goes on and on. I still have pounds of pounds in coinage left kicking around because no one will change them back! It was certainly different to be somewhere where coinage is still a big part of money transactions, not at all like here where the most common thing is to use plastic or throw a 20 at the cashier.

After lunch, we headed back to the tube to travel off to Westminster. We managed to make it off the tube despite all falling asleep at different moments because of the soothing motion. Our first stop was Buckingham palace which I wasn’t all that impressed by. It was no medieval castle – more businessey, modern, and stiff looking to me. But we did see some guards in funny hats. Completing our photo ops there, we moved off in the direction of Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and Parliament. We also took a trip on the London Eye – a massive ferris wheel giving great views of Westminster and the city. It was a bit of an adventure to get on and off – the wheel doesn’t stop so you just have to leap on while its going around…don’t trip! After the eye it was back to the Globetrotter hostel for dinner and sleep because of exhaustion and a very early 5 a.m. wakeup in order to meet up with the tour group.









Day Two - Hellllo Ladies!

Up early to meet the tour group and get on the road - first stop, Paris! The three of us drag our bags down to reception, check out, and discover that our tour group is made up of 40 girls and 6 boys, two of whom proceed to seemingly not speak for the rest of the tour (they were Korean and I don't think their English was all that great). Anyway, I hadn't realized that I'd signed up for the sorority tour. So much for vacation romance :-P

The tour participants are Americans, Aussies, Kiwis, Koreans, Vietnamese, English, Canadian, and more. Our trip leader, Candace turns out to be a delight, fun and infinitely patient with the a group of sometimes rowdy 17-30 somethings.

The bus takes us from London to Dover where we board a ferry for Calais. The cliffs are pure white, amazing. During one of the world wars the people burrowed caves into the cliffs to hide people and even a hospital. We land in Calais, France an hour and half later where we all pile onto the coach that will be our second home for the next two weeks. We choose the back of the bus for our slot. After a full day of travel, we arrive in Paris around 6 p.m. We "enjoy" a rather poor dinner - the vegetarian option turned out to be just Green beans and fries - then take a bus tour of the city. Our first stop is Monmartre where we ascend the steps to the Sacre Couer. Magnificent views. We also see the Opera House, Place de la Concorde, Champs D'elysees, Eiffel Tower, Moulin Rouge etc.





Full on pics soon to be available via flickr once I figure everything out! Stay tuned.