Sunday morning was filled with last minute preparations for leaving. We finally had a nice breakfast in our hotel (for free) at 7:30AM. Becky had been up since about 4:00.
By design, we left
plenty of time to relax on Sunday before heading for the airport and our 3:40PM
departure for Paris. We arrived at the
airport shortly after noon, having taken the hotel shuttle there, and breezed
through all the usual preliminaries.
Then the waiting began. Early on,
we realized the flight had been delayed by twenty minutes---that eventually
became an hour.
We made up no time on the flight, so we arrived in Paris an hour late. The flight itself was quite pleasant. The plane was a two-story Airbus (operated under the banners of Air France, Delta, Alitalia, and Tahiti Air) and we were on the upper deck.
The “Premium Economy” seats were not quite as comfortable as expected, but the facilities around them were very nice. There was even a reasonably-sized storage bin next to the window seat where Becky could store all the “stuff” that accompanies her on a flight. And the entertainment options were amazing---more than 100 movies, a great number of TV shows, vast music choices, etc. I opted for episodes of The Big Bang Theory and old Two And A Half Men shows that starred Charlie Sheen. I still laugh out loud at them.
We landed (a little roughly) at Charles de Gaulle airport, taxied for about 20 minutes, and then started the one-mile walk to the train that takes you to the main terminal so you can walk another half-mile to the baggage claim area. I hate the new airports since they are so big. Due to differing bathroom needs, Becky and I got separated, and, because I didn’t stay with the group coming off our plane, I missed a shortcut to passport control that cost me about 15 minutes and so we met up after she had picked up our luggage. She was not pleased that I had disappeared.
We made up no time on the flight, so we arrived in Paris an hour late. The flight itself was quite pleasant. The plane was a two-story Airbus (operated under the banners of Air France, Delta, Alitalia, and Tahiti Air) and we were on the upper deck.
The “Premium Economy” seats were not quite as comfortable as expected, but the facilities around them were very nice. There was even a reasonably-sized storage bin next to the window seat where Becky could store all the “stuff” that accompanies her on a flight. And the entertainment options were amazing---more than 100 movies, a great number of TV shows, vast music choices, etc. I opted for episodes of The Big Bang Theory and old Two And A Half Men shows that starred Charlie Sheen. I still laugh out loud at them.
We landed (a little roughly) at Charles de Gaulle airport, taxied for about 20 minutes, and then started the one-mile walk to the train that takes you to the main terminal so you can walk another half-mile to the baggage claim area. I hate the new airports since they are so big. Due to differing bathroom needs, Becky and I got separated, and, because I didn’t stay with the group coming off our plane, I missed a shortcut to passport control that cost me about 15 minutes and so we met up after she had picked up our luggage. She was not pleased that I had disappeared.
We then met the tour person (Caroline, from Grand Circle
Tours) who directed us to the large bus that took only the two of us to the Novotel Hotel in the suburb of Roissy for
the night. Shortly after we arrived, Becky
took off for a walking tour of Roissy.
I begged off; I was too tired after my version of the long march through the airport. I took a shower and did two crossword puzzles. What joy! On her foray into Roissy, Becky picked up sandwiches and wine for a late lunch/early dinner. Yea!
I begged off; I was too tired after my version of the long march through the airport. I took a shower and did two crossword puzzles. What joy! On her foray into Roissy, Becky picked up sandwiches and wine for a late lunch/early dinner. Yea!
At 6:30, we joined our fellow travelers in a ballroom for a
pre-trip pep talk and information session,
followed by a quick drink or two. We had pleasant chats with some of our “red group” compatriots. (The color groups are for crowd control and distribution of the talents of the several program managers.) We hit the sack at 8:00PM.
Tuesday started out with breakfast, naturally, that was better than I expected, and then, a little later than expected, we left the hotel and boarded the bus for the trip, ultimately, to Honfleur where we were to spend the next few days---on the ship---before starting down the Seine toward Paris. The first destination of the bus was the War Memorial Museum in Caen---a four-hour trip. On the way, the bus got a bit stuffy because the air conditioning system was kaput.
That was quite disappointing for a four-star-rated travel company. Then the rain outside combined with the hot air inside and we got fogged up windows---including the windshield. Suddenly the air conditioning came on and the situation improved markedly. Becky said she knew the trick: It is costly for the bus operator to run the A/C, so they pretend it doesn’t work as long as they can hold out. We finally arrived at the museum, which was rather impressive.
Caen is the nearest city to the several Normandy beaches that were assaulted on D-Day, and it took the brunt of the several weeks of fighting that ensued. It is now a bustling city of 200,000. Our second order of business at the museum, after walking through the main exhibit showing the details of the landings at the several beaches, was to have lunch in the cafeteria. The food was good but the crowd was large enough to make it a long wait to get it. We survived. Under the museum is the actual bunker where the German general in charge of coastline defense had his headquarters. It has been stripped of all its contents (except for a few displays) and cleaned up, but it still is eerie to contemplate what went on down there.
After the museum, we got back on the bus for the one-hour ride to Honfleur, where we boarded the ship---the MS Bizet. It holds a maximum of 120 passengers, and there are 117 on this trip. It was built in 2001, and refreshed recently, but is considered old, nonetheless, according to one “expert” passenger.
It’s nice enough; I have no complaints. After settling in, we attended the Captain’s Welcome Cocktail Party, which, in addition to champagne, etc., included a number of introductions and speeches,
and was followed by dinner. The dinner included the usual frou-frou things one would expect at a Captain’s Welcome Dinner---including a little caviar---and was delicious. I was a sort-of good boy and stayed away from the most egregious (i.e., caloric) offerings.
It was also spared from my attending the tour. I stayed back and read, instead. (I don’t enjoy group walking tours.) Later in the day, after a nice lunch on board, I hit the town for a personal tour with my guide, Becky. It really is a charming and lovely place. Honfleur, with a permanent population of 8,000, is located on the south side of the mouth of the Seine. It is a very popular resort. I was told that on weekends the population quadruples.
Across the channel from where our ship is docked there is a large RV park---filled with small RVs. This is Europe, after all, with its tiny streets. Just a few miles away, on the north side of the river mouth, is Le Havre, which was severely bombed during WWII because it was an important port on the English Channel.
After dinner, the ship had a presentation by a fellow from Caen who had been involved in the French resistance during WWII. He was hard to understand, and a bit dotty, since he was 95 years old, but his comments were interesting nonetheless. Of particular interest were his stories of the problem of hiding allied pilots who had parachuted into the area after their planes were shot down. One trick was to hide them in haystacks.
The Germans figured that out and periodically would search farms and probe the haystacks with pitchforks to root out the hidden pilots. Another trick was to take them to a local hospital with forged identities and tell the staff that they were deaf and dumb so there was no point in trying to communicate with them verbally. It worked for a while, then they had to come up with a different ruse.
We woke up Thursday morning to no electricity and,
therefore, also no water in our cabin.
The problem was ship-wide.
Breakfast featured sandwiches since the kitchen could not cook
anything. Not a great way to impress the
guests. We shortly left for the day’s
bus adventure. Thursday was the day to
visit a number of D-Day sites---our primary reason for coming to the Normandy
region in the first place. We started
with the Longues Battery, an arrangement of four concrete bunkers with big guns
aimed toward the English channel. followed by a quick drink or two. We had pleasant chats with some of our “red group” compatriots. (The color groups are for crowd control and distribution of the talents of the several program managers.) We hit the sack at 8:00PM.
Tuesday started out with breakfast, naturally, that was better than I expected, and then, a little later than expected, we left the hotel and boarded the bus for the trip, ultimately, to Honfleur where we were to spend the next few days---on the ship---before starting down the Seine toward Paris. The first destination of the bus was the War Memorial Museum in Caen---a four-hour trip. On the way, the bus got a bit stuffy because the air conditioning system was kaput.
That was quite disappointing for a four-star-rated travel company. Then the rain outside combined with the hot air inside and we got fogged up windows---including the windshield. Suddenly the air conditioning came on and the situation improved markedly. Becky said she knew the trick: It is costly for the bus operator to run the A/C, so they pretend it doesn’t work as long as they can hold out. We finally arrived at the museum, which was rather impressive.
Caen is the nearest city to the several Normandy beaches that were assaulted on D-Day, and it took the brunt of the several weeks of fighting that ensued. It is now a bustling city of 200,000. Our second order of business at the museum, after walking through the main exhibit showing the details of the landings at the several beaches, was to have lunch in the cafeteria. The food was good but the crowd was large enough to make it a long wait to get it. We survived. Under the museum is the actual bunker where the German general in charge of coastline defense had his headquarters. It has been stripped of all its contents (except for a few displays) and cleaned up, but it still is eerie to contemplate what went on down there.
After the museum, we got back on the bus for the one-hour ride to Honfleur, where we boarded the ship---the MS Bizet. It holds a maximum of 120 passengers, and there are 117 on this trip. It was built in 2001, and refreshed recently, but is considered old, nonetheless, according to one “expert” passenger.
It’s nice enough; I have no complaints. After settling in, we attended the Captain’s Welcome Cocktail Party, which, in addition to champagne, etc., included a number of introductions and speeches,
and was followed by dinner. The dinner included the usual frou-frou things one would expect at a Captain’s Welcome Dinner---including a little caviar---and was delicious. I was a sort-of good boy and stayed away from the most egregious (i.e., caloric) offerings.
There was open seating and we partnered with two other
couples we had met along the way. The
blend was terrific. It was a thoroughly
entertaining evening. Dinner took two
hours. At home, dinner usually lasts no
more than 15 minutes. We hit the sack at
9:30 and slept very soundly.
Wednesday morning arrived at 7:30, and we had to hustle to
get ready for breakfast which ends promptly at 8:30. That was followed by a group tour of the
historic town of Honfleur, which was totally spared from the effects of WWII
because it had no military significance.
It was also spared from my attending the tour. I stayed back and read, instead. (I don’t enjoy group walking tours.) Later in the day, after a nice lunch on board, I hit the town for a personal tour with my guide, Becky. It really is a charming and lovely place. Honfleur, with a permanent population of 8,000, is located on the south side of the mouth of the Seine. It is a very popular resort. I was told that on weekends the population quadruples.
Across the channel from where our ship is docked there is a large RV park---filled with small RVs. This is Europe, after all, with its tiny streets. Just a few miles away, on the north side of the river mouth, is Le Havre, which was severely bombed during WWII because it was an important port on the English Channel.
After dinner, the ship had a presentation by a fellow from Caen who had been involved in the French resistance during WWII. He was hard to understand, and a bit dotty, since he was 95 years old, but his comments were interesting nonetheless. Of particular interest were his stories of the problem of hiding allied pilots who had parachuted into the area after their planes were shot down. One trick was to hide them in haystacks.
The Germans figured that out and periodically would search farms and probe the haystacks with pitchforks to root out the hidden pilots. Another trick was to take them to a local hospital with forged identities and tell the staff that they were deaf and dumb so there was no point in trying to communicate with them verbally. It worked for a while, then they had to come up with a different ruse.
The next stop was Arromanches, overlooking Gold Beach, which was attacked by the British on D-Day and which they thereafter built a major (though temporary) port for bringing in supplies to the troops.
We had lunch in the town itself, which was a perfectly charming seaside city. Becky was able to find a store there with a very cute coat to add to her massive collection.
After lunch we went to the American Cemetery in Coleville
sur Mer. It is the principal place where
we buried our dead from the D-Day invasion.
It overlooks Omaha Beach. There
are nearly 10,000 graves there. Very
somber, very impressive.
Then we went to Omaha Beach, actually walking on the sand. It’s a lot longer than I had thought. There are a few memorials there and a touristy atmosphere, unfortunately. But it is, after all, a famous and important place.
Our last stop was Pointe du Hoc, where 220 Rangers scaled a 100-foot seaside cliff to get to where there were some big guns installed. Most of them died from small arms fire on the way, and when the survivors got to the top they found that the big guns had been moved elsewhere. They also found that their scheduled replacements had gone somewhere else. Such is war.
Aside from the D-Day focus, the inherent bus tour of the Normandy region was very nice. The area is largely rural farmland and the buildings---even the post-war ones---are very quaint. It seemed like we were driving through a huge postcard.
We finally got back to the ship just before 7:00 and found that the electrical problem had been fixed, but not in time for the kitchen to have prepared dinner. To compensate, they gave us a 45-minute open-bar happy hour on the ship then walked us to a restaurant in town where all 117 of us had dinner.
The Coq au Vin was not very good and the wine was at least free and plentiful, but we survived. At midnight the ship left Honfleur, heading for Caudebec, a mere two hours away---up the Seine.
In Caudebec the following morning, we all went for a walking
tour of this very small city. I ducked
out of the tour early, naturally, and went back to the ship to read and
relax.
After lunch, we boarded the bus for a two-hour trip to the coastal city of Etretat. It’s a very lovely, upscale place with chalk cliffs as the physical attraction. Very interesting. The Germans occupied the town during the war, but didn’t destroy it. Why would they? It was probably used as a retreat for high-ranking officers. There are two bunkers right on the beach as reminders of the past.
After lunch, we boarded the bus for a two-hour trip to the coastal city of Etretat. It’s a very lovely, upscale place with chalk cliffs as the physical attraction. Very interesting. The Germans occupied the town during the war, but didn’t destroy it. Why would they? It was probably used as a retreat for high-ranking officers. There are two bunkers right on the beach as reminders of the past.
I must say that, as much as we like to think the French don't appreciate us, they make quite an effort to thank the U.S., the British, and the Canadians around D-Day every year, and especially on each of the recurring 10-year anniversaries. This was the 70th anniversary, and there were signs of thanks everywhere---even at the end of August.
After Etretat, we rode to Fecamp, the site of the factory where Benedictine is made. The factory, in which all Benedictine and its offshoot, B&B (standing for Benedictine & Brandy) that is distributed world-wide is made, was built in 1901, designed, inside and out, to look like an old palace. The design worked.
Besides the facility for the making of the liqueur, the palace holds the extensive art and artifact collection of the family that used to own the brand---which was recently bought by Bacardi. Somehow that takes a little of the magic away.
We then returned to the ship for the dinner that was supposed to have been served the previous night. It was just fine, thank you. Just before dinner we left Caudebec and headed upriver for Rouen.
Saturday morning Becky went on the Rouen walk with most of
the passengers. A few of us stayed back
and had a relaxing time. I’m struggling
to finish a James Patterson novel and I’m almost there. After lunch, Becky and I went back to town
and had my personal tour. Rouen is where
Jeanne d’Arc met her fate and there are a few memorials to her.
There is also a church dedicated to her, built in 1979 and garishly modern. It does not fit in with the otherwise nice architecture of the town, excluding from “nice” all the stuff built in the ‘50s after the place was almost leveled during the war. Otherwise, the place is a busy shopping and tourist Mecca. It’s Saturday of the last weekend in August and everyone in France seems to be here for the last hurrah of the summer season.
The huge cathedral in Rouen was heavily damaged in WWII and they have been painstakingly restoring it ever since. It is not nearly finished, and one must respect the doggedness of the faithful. There are two matched large clocks (“les gros horloges”) in town, of which the folks are very proud. But only one of them shows the correct time. Strange. Tomorrow, first thing, we head for Les Andelys.
Les Andelys is a small, pretty town with but one industry besides tourism---making taillights for cars. We were told the city fathers are worried that the one factory will close soon due to the business slowdown that has affected everyone. That would be too bad for this nice place. The buildings are of typical Norman architecture and they give the place a nice, calm feel.
The big challenge of the day was to climb up the hill to the ruins of a castle. Becky exempted me from that, having seen the route. She of course ran up the hill with some of the other stalwarts on this trip, while I wandered.
Later, we walked the town together, down back streets and beside little streams. It really is charming. After dinner, we sailed to nearby Vernon and berthed for the night. There is only one dock in town and we ended up with four cruise boats tied together---side by side---at the dock.
At one point, Becky, on our balcony, playfully knocked on the hull of the adjacent ship and watched the man in the nearby cabin go crazy continuously answering his cabin door in response. Finally, his wife came out of the bathroom and traced the sound. She opened their window and for the next ten minutes she and Becky had a fun conversation---ultimately joined by another passenger in another cabin on the adjacent ship and another on our ship. Everyone on the other ship was from Pennsylvania.
Monday morning we bused a short distance to Giverny, to visit the home and gardens of Claude Monet. Quite lovely and impressive, although I believe the principal garden was overgrown and the plants placed far too close together. But who am I?
Later in the afternoon, we bused back to the Giverny area to visit an apple farm and taste various libations made from that simple fruit. The apple juice was very nice; the increasingly alcohol-laden others were barely drinkable. By the way, in France all apple cider is alcoholic. That ended the educational part of the day. We leave Vernon early Tuesday morning.
Tuesday morning we sailed for Conflans-St. Honorine. That took 4 1/2 hours, during which we had breakfast, listened to several briefings, and had lunch. We had a whole hour to tour Conflans, and that was too much time. One thing they do in Conflans (and also in Paris, we later learned) is to convert old (read "beat up") barges to houseboats and tie them up---four or five abreast---at the dock. They are pretty depressing.
At 3:00 we bused to Auvers sur Oise. By the time we got there, I was too tired to do anything, and I stayed in the bus for the two hours our group toured whatever was in Auvers sur Oise. (Its claim to fame is as the place where Vincent Van Gogh killed himself after spending his last years there.)
I had a nice nap. Dinner Tuesday night was a mix of international dishes prepared from recipes belonging to the several chefs Grand Circle employs across the fleet. Interesting. After dinner there was entertainment---Evelyne, a singer who couldn't stay on key. It was pretty trying.
The big excitement occurred just after dinner---we finalized our negotiations to buy the home in Williams. Now we'll see if escrow comes up with some glitches.
Overnight, we sailed to Paris, arriving at 5:30 Wednesday morning. After breakfast, we boarded a bus for a 2 1/2 hour tour of Paris. We saw all the usual sights one sees in Paris. It looked the same as it did the last time we were here.
Becky decided to get some excitement, and some distance on het Fitbit, so she walked the two miles from the Eiffel Tower to the ship at the end of the tour. She arrived in time to still catch lunch. After lunch, she took off again for parts unknown. Our dinner was the Captain's Farewell Dinner and we had filets mignon, baked Alaska, and the usual goodbyes. (We're not leaving the ship for two more days, but somehow that didn't matter.)
The next day (Thursday) I wasn't feeling well enough to do anything, having picked up a "bug" somewhere, so I hung out at the ship while Becky roamed around Paris. Before she left, she talked to Nicole, our program director, about my situation and Nicole called a doctor who came to the ship. He decided 110 Euros later that I had a virus and prescribed some gonzo stuff for me to take only if I came down with a fever.
On her meanderings through Paris, Becky picked up the prescription. Friday we left the ship and fought Paris commuter traffic with our big bus for a half hour before breaking free and heading for the Loire Valley for our four-day "extension."
Halfway to Blois, we paused for a "technical stop" (that's cruise lingo for a pee break) at a truck stop. The place was full of gendarmes! They were accompanying five Brinks-type trucks ostensibly full of Euros. French police are very dominating when they walk around with their automatic rifles. We stayed away from them, and they finally left after a half-hour.
On the way to the hotel in Blois, we stopped for four hours at the Chateau de Chambord, an amazing former palace of among others, Louis XIV. It really is outrageous and, like the palace at Versailles, et al., was quite enough to justify the eventual revolution. (The chateau property is comprised of 13,438 acres---21 square miles---and the wall around it is 20 miles long.) After seeing as much as I could, given my weakened condition, I sat by the bus for an hour before we left.
We ended up at our hotel, the Hotel Mercure, a disappointing place with small rooms and limited facilities within the rooms. We ate dinner as a group at a local restaurant. It was quite good. I then slept, fitfully, of course, and after breakfast the next morning, went back to our room and slept while the gang went on a three-hour local tour. Becky brought us Paella for lunch from a local place. It was delicious.
After lunch we hit the Chateau de Chenonceau, an absolutely marvelous place (privately owned, amazingly enough, and the second-most-visited chateau in France---after Versailles) at which every famous Frenchman and woman has spent some time during the past 500 or so years. The chateau actually sits on the Cher river.
We spent four hours there, then headed for the Chateau Chaumont, an only slightly less-visited place. The last chateau also has some fabulous gardens that were spread around among about 40 landscape designers recently for what would be a "showcase house" if it was a house. The event is called the International Garden Festival and lasts for six months.
I didn't bother to observe any of it since I don't give a rip about flowers. That night for dinner we ate leftover Paella, which the hotel warmed up for us, and we split a sandwich from the local shop. We were too tired to do anything else. Sunday morning we headed out early for the city of Ange and the Clos Roussely, a small winery located there. We got a tour of the place from its owner, Vincent Roussely, a very nice young man who is devoting his life to his passion for winemaking which goes back four generations in his family.
It was a very interesting tour and a very nice few hours we spent there---which ended with a wonderful buffet lunch and tastings of some of his excellent wines. We then went to Amboise, a larger city on the Loire, with the distinction of being where Leonardo da Vinci spent his last three years and is buried. We walked up a long hill to the house where he stayed. It's beautiful and has lovely grounds.
Conveniently, there was a tram parked in front of the house which, for 6.5 Euros apiece, promised to take us on a tour of the city. We did it, and it saved a lot of walking. We decided, as a group, not to tour the local chateau, since we had had enough of them in the past few days. While Becky got some more steps in for her Fitbit, Dick and Priscilla Offhaus and I spent an hour having a drink at a sidewalk café. Very French.
Dick and Priscilla are a slightly older couple from Illinois I would like to emulate at some point in the future. They were RVers when much younger, have travelled everywhere in the world but are not jaded, they watch out for each other's safety very carefully, they hold hands when no one's looking, and they both thoroughly enjoy Dick's very dry sense of humor. We arrived back at the hotel for a farewell drink with Nicole, last-minute instructions regarding our leaving for Paris the next morning, a pickup dinner from a local store, and an early hitting of the sack.
Tuesday started early. We left a 5:30 AM wakeup call, but were up before 4:00, anyway. We hadn’t packed the night before, so we had to hop on it. It didn’t take long, of course, since there were no decisions to make. We had breakfast in the hotel at 6:30, got on the bus to the airport (Charles de Gaulle) at 7:00,
got through the preliminary activities quickly, and then just sat. Our plane was not scheduled to leave until 10:30, so there was plenty of time to kill. One thing we decided to do, since the arrival there had been so harrowing for me, was to order a wheelchair for me. There was no way I was going to walk a mile and a half carrying my very heavy carryon bag. We had to wait for more than an hour to get the wheelchair. But it was great. As expected, we were waived ahead of all lines, and, eventually, we were the first passengers to get on the plane. How great is that?
There is also a church dedicated to her, built in 1979 and garishly modern. It does not fit in with the otherwise nice architecture of the town, excluding from “nice” all the stuff built in the ‘50s after the place was almost leveled during the war. Otherwise, the place is a busy shopping and tourist Mecca. It’s Saturday of the last weekend in August and everyone in France seems to be here for the last hurrah of the summer season.
The huge cathedral in Rouen was heavily damaged in WWII and they have been painstakingly restoring it ever since. It is not nearly finished, and one must respect the doggedness of the faithful. There are two matched large clocks (“les gros horloges”) in town, of which the folks are very proud. But only one of them shows the correct time. Strange. Tomorrow, first thing, we head for Les Andelys.
Les Andelys is a small, pretty town with but one industry besides tourism---making taillights for cars. We were told the city fathers are worried that the one factory will close soon due to the business slowdown that has affected everyone. That would be too bad for this nice place. The buildings are of typical Norman architecture and they give the place a nice, calm feel.
The big challenge of the day was to climb up the hill to the ruins of a castle. Becky exempted me from that, having seen the route. She of course ran up the hill with some of the other stalwarts on this trip, while I wandered.
Later, we walked the town together, down back streets and beside little streams. It really is charming. After dinner, we sailed to nearby Vernon and berthed for the night. There is only one dock in town and we ended up with four cruise boats tied together---side by side---at the dock.
At one point, Becky, on our balcony, playfully knocked on the hull of the adjacent ship and watched the man in the nearby cabin go crazy continuously answering his cabin door in response. Finally, his wife came out of the bathroom and traced the sound. She opened their window and for the next ten minutes she and Becky had a fun conversation---ultimately joined by another passenger in another cabin on the adjacent ship and another on our ship. Everyone on the other ship was from Pennsylvania.
Monday morning we bused a short distance to Giverny, to visit the home and gardens of Claude Monet. Quite lovely and impressive, although I believe the principal garden was overgrown and the plants placed far too close together. But who am I?
Later in the afternoon, we bused back to the Giverny area to visit an apple farm and taste various libations made from that simple fruit. The apple juice was very nice; the increasingly alcohol-laden others were barely drinkable. By the way, in France all apple cider is alcoholic. That ended the educational part of the day. We leave Vernon early Tuesday morning.
Tuesday morning we sailed for Conflans-St. Honorine. That took 4 1/2 hours, during which we had breakfast, listened to several briefings, and had lunch. We had a whole hour to tour Conflans, and that was too much time. One thing they do in Conflans (and also in Paris, we later learned) is to convert old (read "beat up") barges to houseboats and tie them up---four or five abreast---at the dock. They are pretty depressing.
At 3:00 we bused to Auvers sur Oise. By the time we got there, I was too tired to do anything, and I stayed in the bus for the two hours our group toured whatever was in Auvers sur Oise. (Its claim to fame is as the place where Vincent Van Gogh killed himself after spending his last years there.)
I had a nice nap. Dinner Tuesday night was a mix of international dishes prepared from recipes belonging to the several chefs Grand Circle employs across the fleet. Interesting. After dinner there was entertainment---Evelyne, a singer who couldn't stay on key. It was pretty trying.
The big excitement occurred just after dinner---we finalized our negotiations to buy the home in Williams. Now we'll see if escrow comes up with some glitches.
Overnight, we sailed to Paris, arriving at 5:30 Wednesday morning. After breakfast, we boarded a bus for a 2 1/2 hour tour of Paris. We saw all the usual sights one sees in Paris. It looked the same as it did the last time we were here.
Becky decided to get some excitement, and some distance on het Fitbit, so she walked the two miles from the Eiffel Tower to the ship at the end of the tour. She arrived in time to still catch lunch. After lunch, she took off again for parts unknown. Our dinner was the Captain's Farewell Dinner and we had filets mignon, baked Alaska, and the usual goodbyes. (We're not leaving the ship for two more days, but somehow that didn't matter.)
On her meanderings through Paris, Becky picked up the prescription. Friday we left the ship and fought Paris commuter traffic with our big bus for a half hour before breaking free and heading for the Loire Valley for our four-day "extension."
Halfway to Blois, we paused for a "technical stop" (that's cruise lingo for a pee break) at a truck stop. The place was full of gendarmes! They were accompanying five Brinks-type trucks ostensibly full of Euros. French police are very dominating when they walk around with their automatic rifles. We stayed away from them, and they finally left after a half-hour.
On the way to the hotel in Blois, we stopped for four hours at the Chateau de Chambord, an amazing former palace of among others, Louis XIV. It really is outrageous and, like the palace at Versailles, et al., was quite enough to justify the eventual revolution. (The chateau property is comprised of 13,438 acres---21 square miles---and the wall around it is 20 miles long.) After seeing as much as I could, given my weakened condition, I sat by the bus for an hour before we left.
We ended up at our hotel, the Hotel Mercure, a disappointing place with small rooms and limited facilities within the rooms. We ate dinner as a group at a local restaurant. It was quite good. I then slept, fitfully, of course, and after breakfast the next morning, went back to our room and slept while the gang went on a three-hour local tour. Becky brought us Paella for lunch from a local place. It was delicious.
After lunch we hit the Chateau de Chenonceau, an absolutely marvelous place (privately owned, amazingly enough, and the second-most-visited chateau in France---after Versailles) at which every famous Frenchman and woman has spent some time during the past 500 or so years. The chateau actually sits on the Cher river.
We spent four hours there, then headed for the Chateau Chaumont, an only slightly less-visited place. The last chateau also has some fabulous gardens that were spread around among about 40 landscape designers recently for what would be a "showcase house" if it was a house. The event is called the International Garden Festival and lasts for six months.
I didn't bother to observe any of it since I don't give a rip about flowers. That night for dinner we ate leftover Paella, which the hotel warmed up for us, and we split a sandwich from the local shop. We were too tired to do anything else. Sunday morning we headed out early for the city of Ange and the Clos Roussely, a small winery located there. We got a tour of the place from its owner, Vincent Roussely, a very nice young man who is devoting his life to his passion for winemaking which goes back four generations in his family.
It was a very interesting tour and a very nice few hours we spent there---which ended with a wonderful buffet lunch and tastings of some of his excellent wines. We then went to Amboise, a larger city on the Loire, with the distinction of being where Leonardo da Vinci spent his last three years and is buried. We walked up a long hill to the house where he stayed. It's beautiful and has lovely grounds.
Conveniently, there was a tram parked in front of the house which, for 6.5 Euros apiece, promised to take us on a tour of the city. We did it, and it saved a lot of walking. We decided, as a group, not to tour the local chateau, since we had had enough of them in the past few days. While Becky got some more steps in for her Fitbit, Dick and Priscilla Offhaus and I spent an hour having a drink at a sidewalk café. Very French.
Dick and Priscilla are a slightly older couple from Illinois I would like to emulate at some point in the future. They were RVers when much younger, have travelled everywhere in the world but are not jaded, they watch out for each other's safety very carefully, they hold hands when no one's looking, and they both thoroughly enjoy Dick's very dry sense of humor. We arrived back at the hotel for a farewell drink with Nicole, last-minute instructions regarding our leaving for Paris the next morning, a pickup dinner from a local store, and an early hitting of the sack.
Monday morning, we left the Loire Valley and headed back to Paris. We stopped first at Chartres, the location of a famous cathedral. It's a magnificent structure which has deteriorated a lot over its 500 years---including at least two wars,
and is currently undergoing an ambitious 5-year renovation. Because of all the work going on inside, it's hard to appreciate quite how overpowering this place is. Perhaps its most famous feature is the vast array of stained glass windows it has. They are truly staggering.
After viewing the cathedral, we stopped for a sandwich lunch at a local shop. The flutes with ham and cheese were excellent. We ate them sitting on a bench in the middle of a lovely shopping area most of whose shops were closed because it was, well, Monday. Following that we strolled around more of the shopping area until I gave up and stopped for a glass of wine while Becky got more mileage into her Fitbit.
The older section of Chartres is really quite charming, though the rest of the city looks pretty much like any other commercial city. We left for Paris at 2:00, and arrived two hours later at the Novatel, the same hotel near the airport we were in when we first arrived in Paris before getting on the ship. It was like coming home.
By pre-arrangement, we had dinner at a nearby restaurant (La Vitrine) with Dick and Priscilla (stopping to look at another church on the way there, of course)
and an after-dinner drink with them at the hotel. It was a nice way to end the adventure. They are nice people. Tomorrow morning, we fly to Los Angeles.
Tuesday started early. We left a 5:30 AM wakeup call, but were up before 4:00, anyway. We hadn’t packed the night before, so we had to hop on it. It didn’t take long, of course, since there were no decisions to make. We had breakfast in the hotel at 6:30, got on the bus to the airport (Charles de Gaulle) at 7:00,
got through the preliminary activities quickly, and then just sat. Our plane was not scheduled to leave until 10:30, so there was plenty of time to kill. One thing we decided to do, since the arrival there had been so harrowing for me, was to order a wheelchair for me. There was no way I was going to walk a mile and a half carrying my very heavy carryon bag. We had to wait for more than an hour to get the wheelchair. But it was great. As expected, we were waived ahead of all lines, and, eventually, we were the first passengers to get on the plane. How great is that?
The flight was uneventful.
Basically, it was a repeat of the flight two weeks ago---only a bit
longer---and we arrived a few minutes early. I watched the same old TV show episodes on the in-flight
entertainment package. (I was disappointed that the change from August to September had not changed the available programming.)
I also watched the movie Chef. We had heard some time ago that it was a good film, but both of us were blown away by it. What fun! And the music was great! (I ordered the CD the following morning.)
I also watched the movie Chef. We had heard some time ago that it was a good film, but both of us were blown away by it. What fun! And the music was great! (I ordered the CD the following morning.)
We breezed through the Passport and Customs stops (thanks, again, to being in a wheelchair) then had to wait over an hour for the shuttle to the Embassy
Suites where we had left the truck. We headed
to the Jonathan Club downtown and got there about 4:00 (1:00 AM in Paris), and
collapsed. We were both exhausted since
we had been up for 21 hours but for a little fitful sleep on the plane. Two hours later we ordered room service and not
much later went to sleep.
Naturally, we were both awake very early Wednesday morning. We know it will take a day or so to get back into our normal rhythms. Becky got a haircut and facial Wednesday morning at her favorite salon a block away from the club, and we left to pick up the dogs about 11:30 AM. They were excited to see us, of course, but, then, they are always excited. We had an unexciting trip to Barstow (Ramsey and Kelsey slept most of the way) and the Hampton Inn & Suites. It's a pretty nice place. We had Panda Express for dinner. As usual, it was excellent. It was an early evening for us.
Thursday morning, Ramsey misjudged his daily wake-us-up jump onto our unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room, and landed with his claws on the right side of my face. It looks nasty, but the damage is quite shallow and I assume the healing will take just a few days.
We left Barstow, headed for Williams, shortly before 9:00 Thursday morning. and arrived at the railway RV park around 2:00. It took a while to get set up again, and we didn't finish unpacking for quite a while---mainly due to the fact that we both were tired from coughing. (Becky picked up a cold two days ago.) We scrounged up dinner from the freezer, and watched our usual TV shows. We were home, and the French Connection was officially over.
Naturally, we were both awake very early Wednesday morning. We know it will take a day or so to get back into our normal rhythms. Becky got a haircut and facial Wednesday morning at her favorite salon a block away from the club, and we left to pick up the dogs about 11:30 AM. They were excited to see us, of course, but, then, they are always excited. We had an unexciting trip to Barstow (Ramsey and Kelsey slept most of the way) and the Hampton Inn & Suites. It's a pretty nice place. We had Panda Express for dinner. As usual, it was excellent. It was an early evening for us.
Thursday morning, Ramsey misjudged his daily wake-us-up jump onto our unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room, and landed with his claws on the right side of my face. It looks nasty, but the damage is quite shallow and I assume the healing will take just a few days.
We left Barstow, headed for Williams, shortly before 9:00 Thursday morning. and arrived at the railway RV park around 2:00. It took a while to get set up again, and we didn't finish unpacking for quite a while---mainly due to the fact that we both were tired from coughing. (Becky picked up a cold two days ago.) We scrounged up dinner from the freezer, and watched our usual TV shows. We were home, and the French Connection was officially over.
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