Parisian icons

After heading back to the hotel for a rest we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower. I had heard reports from many people saying that the Eiffel Tower hadn't been something that they'd really been interested in seeing, but once they were there they'd found it to be quite impressive, and it was basically the same for me... I was happy to go and see it, but not at the expense of missing something else. It wasn't a priority.

And I am so glad we went! It really is quite an impressive structure.

After visiting there we stopped in at a pizzeria for dinner and then walked 3km back to the hotel through the Paris evening.

We started Sunday with a visit to the Louvre Museum. I wasn't particularly interested in the exhibits, but more in the building itself.

A cool Sunday morning

Inside looking out

My favourite room

Yes, we did see the Mona Lisa. And no, I still can't work out why it's so famous...

After the morning at the Louvre we walked through Tuileries Gardens. The day was warming up and it seemed all of Paris had come out to enjoy the sun.

After resting up at the hotel for a bit we headed out to Boulevard Saint-Germain for a coffee and then grabbed some picnic food for tea. It was very nice to sit on the bank of the Seine River and eat good food and drink good wine in excellent company.

Yes Mum, of course we ate our vegetables before we had dessert...

After dinner we took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe and then walked down Champs Elysees to the Roue de Paris (ferris wheel) on the Place de la Concorde while the sun went down. It was a very nice walk to take at dusk, despite the traffic.

Georgia took this great photo from the top of the Roue de Paris

And that was the end of Paris! The next morning we flew out... Georgia headed back to work in Iraq and I was on my way back to Italy. It was awesome to be able to share my first time in Paris with my sister!

Paris: Two seasons in two days

I flew from Munich to Paris, arriving in Paris in the pouring rain at 9pm. I was supposed to change metro lines at Notre Dame for one that went near my hotel in Saint-Germain, but I couldn't work out how to get where I needed to go, and there was lots of stairs and no escalators or lifts. So after dragging my suitcase up and down several flights of stairs I gave up and walked to the hotel in the rain. It would almost have been poetic if it hadn't been so bloody miserable... walking along Boulevard Saint-Germain at night in the rain carrying my leopard-print umbrella. What the poetic image doesn't show is that my umbrella kept threatening to blow away, I was dragging a suitcase with one wheel that doesn't cooperate with the others, and at times I was almost ankle deep in water because the 'streets' had turned into rivers! Not romantic at all really...

But I found my hotel, and because I'm a sucker for punishment I dumped my bags and went straight back out to do some laundry because I hadn't done any since Poland...

I had felt the headache coming on that day and started taking some preventative pills to ward of the migraine that threatened, but I had a pretty miserable night anyway. I think that 4 weeks of non-stop travelling are starting to take their toll. I'll probably fall apart completely for the first couple of days when I get home... But after a sleep-in I took more meds and made myself head out for a gentle look around anyway. I had the most expensive coffee of my life €6.50 (or AU$9.30), and it wasn't even a good one! I found an amazing food market that was kind of like a supermarket but full of delicatessens. There was every kind of deli food you could think of (and some you probably couldn't), and each section had a cafe part as well. I bought a ham and cheese pastry thing and some fruit and headed back to the hotel to wait for my sister who was turning up that afternoon. We went for a bit of a wander through Saint-Germain and around the outside of Notre Dame. Then we took a metro to Champs-Elysees. It was cold and windy and not good light for taking photos, so we found a restaurant and I shouted her the birthday dinner that I couldn't for her actual birthday in January (because we live on opposite sides of the planet)...

The next day dawned bright and clear and we were ready for some real sight-seeing! We started in Luxembourg Gardens, which were very pretty and starting to look like spring.

Luxembourg Palace

Luxembourg Gardens

After enjoying a coffee in the gardens we moved on to the Paris Pantheon. Unlike it's ancient Roman counterpart, this Pantheon is only about 250 years old, but still very grand.

Then we did the beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral, outside and inside...

I'll save the rest of this day for another post because a) it's bedtime, and b) the speed of the internet in this hotel is killing me (slowly)!

A day in the clouds

I left my Prague hotel at 4:15am and flew to Munich via Brussels, and then caught a train southwest into the Bavarian Alps in Southern Germany. What a beautiful part of the world... definitely worth revisiting one day. I got to my hotel in the alpine town of Füssen in the late evening so just had time for a quick look round town to find some dinner and then curled up in my hotel for the night.

My reason for staying in Füssen was to visit Castle Neuschwanstein, a 19th century castle that has fascinated me for a long while. Neuschwanstein is the castle that provides the inspiration for the Disneyland castle. In the same area is a second castle, Hohenschwangau Castle so I visited them both along with the Museum of the Bavarian Kings.

Unfortunately photography is not allowed inside the castles or the museum, but I took a lot of photos of the outsides and the beautiful surrounds. On the day that I was there the clouds were so low that visibility was next to nothing and it was raining on and off. It made for quite an eerie mood at times.

I started off by walking through the village of Hohenschwangau and up the road to Hohenschwangau Castle. The whole area is picturesque, even in inclement weather.

Hohenschwangau Castle

Looking at Neuschwanstein from Hohenschwangau

As I said, no photography is allowed inside the castles, so I bought a small guidebook that I will scan into my photos when I get home. But if you Google 'interior of Hohenschwangau' and look at the images you will get an idea of how stunning it is.

After touring Hohenschwangau Castle I wandered back down the hill and took the shuttle bus up the much bigger hill to a stop above the castle from which you can access Queen Mary's Bridge. It has a fabulous view of Neuschwanstein Castle and views further down the valley. But by now the clouds had really come down. I quite liked seeing it like this though. All over the internet you can find pictures of these castles on sunny, clear days. It was good to see it in a different mood.

Queen Mary's Bridge

Looking upriver from the bridge

View of Neuschwanstein Castle from Queen Mary's Bridge

Then I headed back down the pathway to Neuschwanstein Castle.

Camouflaged castle

Inner courtyard

Again, no photos allowed inside but Google 'interior of Neuschwanstein Castle' for an idea of what I saw. After the second tour I walked back down the hill for some lunch and a look through the Museum of Bavarian Kings (which was only mildly interesting). I left just in time because then the weather really packed it in!

But back in Füssen the weather hadn't caught up yet so I went for a stroll. It is a very cute little town!

I had only booked two nights in Füssen as my only intention was to visit the castles, but having been there I would have liked longer to explore the region. Bavaria is beautiful and I had a "Sound of Music" moment or two (Füssen is very close to the Austrian border). I'd like to spend a week there.

As fate would have it, the next day was crisp and clear. I took these next photos from the train station and the train on my way out of town back to Munich.

The Hills are Alive...

Astronomy and alchemy

On Monday it wasn't raining, but stayed overcast all day. I stayed on my side of the river and headed for the Town Square.

In the corner of the square is St. Nicolas Church. A bit lovely...

What I really wanted to see was the Astronomical Clock. I have received a couple of postcards of it through Postcrossing and it fascinates me, although I have no idea how it works. But now that I've seen it I am going to find out!

One problem I have had all over Europe is that the coffee is foul! In most places I've had to add sugar to make it palatable, and I don't usually like sugar in my coffee. Instead of being a nice daily treat, it has become something I endure to get my daily dose of caffeine. Thank goodness I only ever have one or two coffees a day, because if I had to maintain a 4 or 5 a day habit I think I'd just have to quit and deal with the withdrawal headaches. However, I have had a grand total of 2 really good coffees in during my trip (sad when it's so few that each one is notable and memorable!). The first was in a pink 1950's diner style cafe in Vienna (with a really bad sandwich), and the second was in Prague in a completely nondescript, plain looking cafe that I wouldn't have even noticed if I hadn't been looking for a place to sit down and write some postcards home.

The pretty streets of Prague

My next stop was supposed to be at a place called the Klementinum, which looks to be a library similar to the amazing one I visited in Vienna and wrote about here. But I got there and the entry was boarded up. The signage was all in Czech so I had no idea what the story was, but I found out later on their website that there is some sort of dispute with the government so 'services are disrupted'.

So I wandered onward and went to the Speculum Alchemiae Museum instead... Intrigued???? It is a small underground space that was discovered when ancient walls were broken down during the devastating floods in Prague in 2002. In the 16th century Rudolf II opened a secret alchemy lab and, among many other infusions and elixirs, attempted to create gold out of mercury and lead. When the political situation changed in Prague the lab was walled up and hidden, and remained like a time capsule until it was unearthed (and partially destroyed) in 2002. It has been recreated using some of the surviving original equipment and some genuine period pieces.

It was very hard to take photos because the lighting in the underground vaults was very dim. Then I walked past this guy on the way home and I was finished in Prague.

The different layers turn, making senseless shapes until it resolves into this

I had to get up at 3:30am to head to the airport the next morning. I was looking forward to seeing the castles of Bavaria!