Day Nine: 5/1
Well, today we originally wanted to try to go to Château de Versailles. But, we were exhausted from our full day at Disneyland Paris, so we slept in. Remember that Steve has been to Paris before? Guess what else he missed on that trip besides the Louvre? You guessed it, Versailles. Oh well, our next trip to Paris will definitely include this. We may have to go just for this.
This is our very last day in Paris. Angie is really sad, but we still have over half the trip left, so it was hard to stay sad. After all, we did plan this trip as more of an overview of Europe, rather than try to see everything. So we now know one of the cities we want to come back to visit. Steve has been to Paris before and from his previous experience, he really was indifferent about coming back. After this trip, he would definitely come back again. Perhaps this is the difference between traveling as a college graduate versus an old man?
After we got up, we checked out
of the hotel and checked our bags. We headed out for a walk and strolled up the
Seine. We had breakfast at a restaurant on the river, which was attached to the
boat dock. The river was quite high
today, and most of the dock was flooded.
There were some street vendors, painters mostly. We saw some people playing fetch with their dog in the river.
After breakfast, we decided to
take the 1-hour cruise on the Seine on Bateaux Parisiens. The cruise was
nice, as they had translations in six languages. But we had to hold that silly wand to hear. They need to invent a
better listening device. The cruise was very relaxing. We got a good up close view of the miniature
Statue of Liberty.
After the cruise, we had some ice cream
and continued our stroll on the Seine. It was very peaceful. Since it had rained earlier in the day, the
paths were wet and all of the benches had puddles of water in front of them, so
we could not sit down and enjoy the view.
During our walk back we finally got a good picture of “Le Car”. These
appear to be a very popular car in Paris.
I would really hate to get into an accident in one of those.
After our walk we headed on back to the hotel for tea and to collect our luggage. We decided to have a sandwich with our tea. After we finished eating, it was off to the train station for our overnight sleeper to Rome.
On the train we had complementary champagne and crackers when we departed. We had a very good dinner on the train and ate with a couple from Texas celebrating their second anniversary. They are going to have a hard time topping this trip next year for their third anniversary. They decided on the spur of the moment that they would fly to Paris and Rome.
After dinner we went back to our coach. Our sleeper had a bathroom and a shower. In the future, don’t bother with a shower. The coach is so small, that guess where we had to put our luggage? You guessed it, in the shower. Next time just get a regular sleeper. The coach was basically two twin bunk beds. One bunk is on top of the other. Angie and I decided to sleep in the bottom bunk. While this sounds romantic, it’s quite painful when you wake up at 2am with Peripheral Neuritis!
It was very nice to be lulled to sleep by the sound of the train rolling along. Steve really likes train travel. It’s too bad that the USA does not have better routes and timetables.