Train to Zurich

Leaving France. Next stop Switzerland.

At the Mulhouse train station

G and I returned the rental car this morning in Mulhouse, and now we are taking the train from Mulhouse to Zurich. We will spend the day in Zurich, then we will take an evening train into Austria. Our first stop in Austria is St. Anton am Arlberg, a ski town I visited on my first trip to Europe in 2002.

Colmar: Between French and German

I visited the Alsace region of France on my first trip to Europe back in 2002. The Alsace, located along the German border in the Rhineland, is a special place in France that's not quite French and not quite German. The differences between this region and the rest of France are obvious. Paris and even other cities in France are so fashion forward, and G and I are so not that we never fit in while in those places.

Old Town Colmar

Old Town Colmar

However, Colmar is not a center of fashion. We fit in just fine here.  In the rest of France, women wear high heel shoes all the time, even to the weekly farmers' market. Here, socks and sandals are prevalent. Other than checking out the fashion or lack thereof, we explored Little Venice (characterized by a canal), l'Ancienne Douane (the ancient customs house), the Maison Pfister (Pfister house), and the rest of the old town area.

Pfister House

Murals painted on the Pfister House

Probably my favorite activity was eating at a restaurant with outdoor seating, Dussourd, next to the Dominican church in Place des Dominicains. Impressively, the waiter switched from English to German to French seamlessly and flawlessly. I had a pasta dish featuring a mix of tortellini and ravioli. G had a fish dish and escargot. He had never eaten snails before. I was a little disgusted, but he seemed to like them well enough. However, he had no idea how he was supposed to eat them. I am almost certain he committed a number of faux pas trying to get those things from the plate to his mouth.  I'm not in the habit of photographing my meals, but I regret not taking a photo of G's escargot.

Riquewihr

Riquewihr is another city I have previously visited. Having fond memories of the town, I scheduled a stop on this trip. G and I are suckers for a medieval city, and this one fit the bill perfectly. Riquewihr is well-preserved and looks much like it did five hundred years ago. Like Colmar, Riquewihr was not damaged in World War II. Interestingly, many of the medieval fortifications still exist including the gate and ramparts.

Eleven kilometers from Colmar, Riquewihr is popular for its architecture as well as its wine. Historically, the village was a trading hub for both Alsation and German wine. Although G and I did not try the wine there, we did wander around the medieval streets and into a couple of tourist shops including an amazing Christmas shop.

Gate to the village

A side street in Riquewihr

Main Street

Dolder Tower

Like so many other cities we've visited on this trip, Riquewihr is beautiful. I am so glad we were able to go to one of the little wine villages in the Alsace on this trip.

Sarlat

From Beynac, we visited Sarlat-la-Canéda. Sarlat is a medieval town that developed around a large Benedictine abbey that was established toward the end of the eighth century. The cathedral dedicated to Saint Sacerdos, the Saint-Mary church, and a number of houses were built in the 1300s. The churches and many of the houses still exist today.

Although a prosperous city from the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, Sarlat was no longer popular in the fourteenth century; the city was too far from the river. The town has only recently come back to life when a road was built to pass through. In the 1960s, the French government granted the town funds to restore the building facades and other prized architecture. Today, you can walk through the town and get a glimpse of what the city must have looked like hundreds of years ago.

G and I wandered around Sarlat. We saw the unusually-shaped lanterne des morts (lantern of the dead), the statue of three geese that is the town's symbol, and La cathédrale Saint-Sacerdos.  We also ate outside at a little café in Place de la Liberté. We people watched while we sat and ate.  When we got tired, we drove back to Beynac to spend the night. Beynac is a short distance from Sarlat, but the drive takes some time because the road is windy with elevation changes.

Lanterne des Morts

Old Town Sarlat

La cathédrale Saint-Sacerdos

 

Place Jacques Boissarie

Greg posing with the geese

 I know that some people use Sarlat as their base while they are in the Dordogne Region, but I prefer Beynac. The Beynac Castle is picturesque, the town is on a river, and there is less hustle and bustle. Sarlat is a beautiful medieval city, but I'm glad we decided to visit Sarlat just for the afternoon.

Font de Gaume and Combarelles: Prehistoric Caves

The Dordogne region of France is quite literally filled with prehistoric caves. The Lascaux cave is the most famous of these. We did not visit the Lascaux cave (the original cave can no longer be visited and tourists are instead led through a very good copy of the original). We decided that no matter how good the copy, we preferred to visit actual prehistoric caves.


G and I woke up early this morning to ensure that we would be able to visit both Font de Gaume and Combarelles in Les Eyzies, France. Tickets to visit these caves cannot be reserved in advance; you must line up in front of the ticket office at least a half hour before opening (more in the high season). Only 80 people are allowed to visit Font de Gaume each day, and fewer are allowed to see Combarelles.

Combarelles

We arrived before the ticket office opened, but we still stood in the rain behind thirty or forty other tourists. Fortunately, we were able to purchase tickets for tours in both caves. We visited the Combarelles cave first. The tour was given in French; the English tours for the day had already sold old. We made do with our limited French and the guide's limited English. Combarelles features engravings only. Engravings refer to when the images were carved into the stone rather than painted.

Château de Commarque

Having a couple of hours between our two cave tours, G and I decided to visit Château de Commarque. I had read good reviews of the castle online and wanted to see it.

The castle was built starting around the 12th century on top of a prehistoric cave. Originally consisting of a wooden tower meant to keep the Beynac family at bay, the Beynace family replaced the castle with a stone keep after the it gained control. The keep was gradually added to through the 1700s. The castle changed hands a couple of times and was finally abandoned. After a number of decades of inattention, the castle was rediscovered in 1962 by Hubert Commarque. He has allowed archeological excavations on the site and has worked to restore the castle.

G and I were both impressed with this castle. I'm not sure about G, but out of all the chateaux we visited on this trip, Commarque was my favorite. How often are you able to see a prehistoric cave and a castle in one place?

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Font de Gaume

Font de Gaume, like Lascaux, is a polychromatic cave. Red and black paints were used in addition to the engravings. (The images were engraved or carved into the stone walls and painted in with red and black). 

The animal figures at Font de Gaume were very purposefully placed. The prehistoric artists used the natural slopes and lines of the cave walls to help define their figures. We were shown a line of four bison that must have been planned out in advance as the humps in the rocks fit perfectly with the humps in their backs.  We were even shown scenes including one deer licking another. Furthermore, the artists used shadowing and perspective accurately and effectively.  The end results, as I can attest, are lifelike animal figures.

The tour guide pointed out that there are no known rough drafts of these images or figures. Obviously, only the people who had the ability to create did so.  Additionally, these people had very strong desires to create these images of mammoths, deer, and bison. There were parts of the cave that were only accessible by crawling on one's stomach, and the walls of these passages were covered with images. Add that the caves were dark and the only light came from fire (which doesn't stay still) and that the artists were working completely from memory.

We left the cave completely amazed. Never before had I considered that these cave paintings were purposeful or planned nor had I considered the difficulties in creating cave paintings. 

Mont Saint-Michel

We arrived at our lodgings fairly late last night, well after dark. Despite being tired from the long drive and the long day, we drove toward Mont Saint-Michel and parked at a restaurant near the causeway. We walked the kilometer from the car to the abbey and spent a bit of time exploring the island.

Mont Saint-Michel is an island in Normandy, France. The island boasts an impressive abbey, monastery, and village. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, Mont Saint-Michel is currently under some construction in an  attempt to correct the land alterations that have occurred over the centuries. Originally on dry land, Mont Saint-Michel is currently on a rocky tidal island; over the centuries, sea levels rose, and erosion changed the shoreline. Now, the abbey is connected to the shore by a causeway. The idea is to turn Mont Saint-Michel back into the island it was before the built-up causeway changed the landscape dramatically in a fairly short time. The causeway is currently still intact; the project is meant to be finished in 2015. By that time, the causeway will be removed and only a small bridge that allows water to pass under will exist to link the coast to the abbey.

We went back to Mont Saint-Michel this morning to visit the abbey. I don't know exactly why, but the entry happened to be free today.  Somehow I managed to plan to be here on the right day!  We spent some time touring the abbey and the surrounding village before we left to make our way to west to Dinan then south to Amboise where we would be spending the night.

Despite the construction, the island is both impressive and beautiful. I had originally seen Mont Saint-Michel on a list of the top 10 or top 20 most beautiful places in the world several years ago. Since then, I've been dreaming about coming here. I feel incredible to have had the opportunity to finally see Mont Saint-Michel and to be able to mark it off of my list of places I want to see.

European Car Rental

Knowing that we wanted to visit some out of the way places, G and I rented a car in France. G and I booked our France car through Avis. G normally drives when we go somewhere together at home and I didn't want to, so we rented the car with G as the only driver.

It's rare to find an automatic transmission vehicle to rent in mainland Europe. I advised G to work on his manual driving skills by watching youtube videos and maybe some video games. I don't think he did.

The process of picking up the car was about the same as it is at home in California. We would have been able to rent the car with just a US license, but G went ahead and got an international driving permit. The permit costs $15 plus 2 passport photos, and it's available through AAA. Basically, the international driving permit translates your current US license to other languages. G never actually had to provide this permit, but it was easy and fast to get. You get the permit the day you go to the office, and it's good for a year.

Understandably, G didn't want to rent the car in Paris because he was concerned about driving with a manual transmission. We took a train to Rouen so that we were in a smaller city when he started driving. Additionally, we both had to get the hang of the new signs and driving customs, and doing that is so much easier when the city isn't quite so busy.

G with the Toyota we rented

We were not interested in trying to navigate with paper maps. Since I would be navigating, I wanted to have some sort of GPS-enabled device. We took my iPad to Europe with us and bought a mini SIM data card in Paris - 3G service cost about 30 euros total for the 2 weeks we were there. It is possible to get a worldwide 3G plan through AT&T, but it's more expensive overall. We had 2 gbs for our 30 euros vs. 150 mb for 30 dollars from AT&T. Unfortunately, purchasing a mini SIM card abroad only works for an AT&T iPad. It did not work with G's iPhone.

I'm so glad we rented the car. We are free from train and bus schedules and fares. For the two of us, I think that having the car will be an economical way to tour the country, especially since we will be visiting some out of the way places.

Honfleur

After leaving Rouen, we stopped in Honfleur on our way to Mont Saint-Michel. Honfleur is a port town in the Lower Normandy region of France. 

On the water, the picturesque town boasts cute shops and restaurants along the pier. The city was originally on a significant trade route between Rouen, France and England. Although the city is no longer booming as it once was, the port still functions today.

Greg managed to park a few blocks away from the old town. Greg was still trying to get used to the manual transmission of the vehicle. The city was surprisingly busy with tourist traffic, so we didn't even try to park to closer. We strolled through old down and down the pier. 

We didn't stay long; we had only put about an hour and a half into the parking meter.  Additionally, we still had to drive to Mont Saint-Michel, and we knew the trip would be harder in the dark. Although we didn't have much time, I'm glad we stopped. 

Jeanne d'Arc and Rouen

We stopped in Rouen for a couple of reasons. First, I had been there and enjoyed the city. Second, we needed a city some distance from the traffic and crowds of Paris from which we could more easily pick up a rental car.

Rouen, in the Normandy region, is famous for its association with Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc in French). Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in 1431 when she was just 19 years old. The city is about an hour and fifteen minute train ride from Gare St. Lazare in Paris.

With all of our bags, we left the train station in Rouen and started walking towards the sights. Unfortunately, France seems to have a serious shortage of luggage lockers. None existed at the station in Rouen. The car rental agency was on the other side of town. I suppose we could have picked up the car first, but then we would have had the issue of trying to park. Although not impossible, parking would have been incredibly difficult, especially since G was new at driving a manual.

We first walked by the Big Clock (le gros horloge in French). The view from the top is supposed to be impressive, but with our heavy bags, we weren't able to go in.

We stopped by Rouen Cathedral (la cathédrale de Rouen in French). Unfortunately, we both weren't able to go in since we had our bags with us. Since I had been inside before, I stayed with the bags outside the doors while G went inside.

Hungry, we set about to look for a place to eat. We settled on Pizzeria le Florian. I had a pizza with particularly strong goat cheese. G had a pasta dish. The food was decent, and we were able to wait there a little bit. The car rental agency closes during the lunch hour, so we had to figure out something to do to pass the time until the agency opened again. A long lunch worked out perfectly.

After lunch, we walked back to the square where we were supposed to be able to find the Joan of Arc statue. We found it next to the modern Eglise de Jeanne d'Arc. We walked back toward Rue Jeanne d'Arc where the nearest metro station was located. Avis was a bit over a mile away, and my bags were heavy. I appreciated the break from walking with heavy bags as we rode toward the agency.

I wish we had been unencumbered as we explored Rouen. I think we would have had a different experience. We would have climbed the clock tower, and I would have gone inside the cathedral. However, for the circumstances, I think we did all right. 

Moulin Rouge!

Last night, we went to the Moulin Rouge to see the show. I had heard from a friend who went several years ago that it was a great experience not to be missed.

Having been warned that the dress code was formal, G and I dressed in the best clothes we brought with us, jeans and a button-up shirt for G and green khakis with a button up for me. I was worried we would have trouble getting in; we weren't very formal looking.

We walked from our hotel to the École Militaire metro stop. We rode the metro to the Blanche stop. We could easily see the Moulin Rouge as we exited the underground. We crossed the street and handed the man at the entrance our tickets.

Although we weren't the worst dressed people there, we would have won no awards. The man who took our tickets handed them to another man in a well-pressed suit. He took us to a desk where we were checked in. Then, the gentleman led us through the seated audience and up the stairs at the back of the venue to a balcony. We were seated at a very small table. From our vantage point, we could see the audience below us. Many of them had arrived a couple of hours earlier for the dinner. Because the dinner was rather expensive, we chose to attend the show only (which was also rather expensive). We also had a pretty good view of the stage.

At 9 PM, the show began. G and I both really enjoyed watching Féerie, a revue-style show. The show was a bit cheesy and over the top, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. We listened to the music, watched the dancing, marveled at the costumes, and wondered what the Moulin Rouge would have looked like a hundred years ago.

The show let out around 11 PM, and we walked back to the metro station to take the train back to our hotel. The day was quite long, but I know that G and I are both glad we had the opportunity to see Féerie at the famous Moulin Rouge.

Paris, ooh la la la la!

While in Paris, we did it all. We took the orange elevator up to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. We visited the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa. We strolled down the Champs-Élysées and popped into a few shops. We even braved the catacombs underneath the city. This time, I will let the photos tell the story.

Getting Ready to Leave!

Our itinerary is pretty much set. We will start in France then travel to Switzerland, Austria, and Czech Republic. Then we will fly to Denmark. G will fly home from Copenhagen, and I will fly to Iceland. I will fly fly to Sweden, see Norway, then fly home. We are finishing up our packing and are excited about leaving tomorrow.