Bavaria Day 1: Paris Stopover
Today we've returned from a week travelling by train through Bavaria visiting Munich, Prague, and Vienna. I'll write a post for each day of our trip in the coming days. Sometimes when travelling, we bring Margo's laptop and write as we go, but I was well glad to not have to haul the laptop bag about on this trip. And now with our new camera we have plenty of storage, so we no longer need to transfer photos to the laptop before taking more pictures. (At the highest resolution, I could take one photo a minute for over ten hours, so it's effectively bottomless for a week's travel.)
We left Ipswich early Saturday morning, getting to the new Eurostar terminal at St. Pancras station by mid-morning. The station reopened in November after hundreds of millions in refurbishment and a new tunnel under much of the London approach, shaving twenty minutes off the crossing and bringing the total time of the London-Paris trip down to just over two hours.
Margo scheduled a night in Paris for us as a gentle start to our trip as we had much further eastward to travel. It was good to see the city again; the long, straight boulevards, and the railed balconies on the buildings. We were booked into the Hotel Michelet Odeon, just across from the Odeon Theatre in the Left Bank. In the taxi ride from the Gare du Nord train station, we passed the Pompidou Centre and crossed the Seine near Notre Dame cathedral.
On our taxi ride, and throughout the evening, I noticed lots of people riding the new brown-grey city bicycles. It is a new programme that started recently (last summer, I believe) and is modeled in part on Amsterdam's bicycle fleet. It seems to be well-used, and there was a parkign area for the bikes across the street from our hotel.
Also nearby was the Luxembourg Garden, so once we were settled, we took Sarah there to spend the rest of the (late) afternoon in the children's play area until it closed at 5. She spent much of her time waiting in line to ride the rope slide ...
... and the rest of her time climbing the rope Eiffel Tower:
Margo and I both noted how Sarah's Parisian playmates looked like models: stylish clothes, great haircuts.
Walking back through the Garden, past Luxembourg Palace ...
... we observed lots of Parisians sitting on benches and in chairs, just enjoying the afternoon sunlight, and the beauty of the surroundings.
We returned to our hotel, where I got this photo of the Odeon.
Afterwards, I went on a solo stroll to the nearby Boulevard St-Germain shopping street, and beyond it to the Seine.
For dinner, we visited the nearby Aux 2 Oliviers restaurant, a referral of the hotel. Margo and I had two-course meals with a half bottle of Bordeaux. For entrees, I had a rocket salad, and Margo had crème brûlée foie gras. Our plat courses were salmon crumble for me, duck for Margo. Sarah had a tagliatele pasta with salmon and creme fraiche. For dessert I had a crème brûlée, and Sarah and Margo each had a chocolate profiterole.
And that was our Saturday, one week ago. I hope to capture more days tomorrow.
We left Ipswich early Saturday morning, getting to the new Eurostar terminal at St. Pancras station by mid-morning. The station reopened in November after hundreds of millions in refurbishment and a new tunnel under much of the London approach, shaving twenty minutes off the crossing and bringing the total time of the London-Paris trip down to just over two hours.
Margo scheduled a night in Paris for us as a gentle start to our trip as we had much further eastward to travel. It was good to see the city again; the long, straight boulevards, and the railed balconies on the buildings. We were booked into the Hotel Michelet Odeon, just across from the Odeon Theatre in the Left Bank. In the taxi ride from the Gare du Nord train station, we passed the Pompidou Centre and crossed the Seine near Notre Dame cathedral.
On our taxi ride, and throughout the evening, I noticed lots of people riding the new brown-grey city bicycles. It is a new programme that started recently (last summer, I believe) and is modeled in part on Amsterdam's bicycle fleet. It seems to be well-used, and there was a parkign area for the bikes across the street from our hotel.
Also nearby was the Luxembourg Garden, so once we were settled, we took Sarah there to spend the rest of the (late) afternoon in the children's play area until it closed at 5. She spent much of her time waiting in line to ride the rope slide ...
... and the rest of her time climbing the rope Eiffel Tower:
Margo and I both noted how Sarah's Parisian playmates looked like models: stylish clothes, great haircuts.
Walking back through the Garden, past Luxembourg Palace ...
... we observed lots of Parisians sitting on benches and in chairs, just enjoying the afternoon sunlight, and the beauty of the surroundings.
We returned to our hotel, where I got this photo of the Odeon.
Afterwards, I went on a solo stroll to the nearby Boulevard St-Germain shopping street, and beyond it to the Seine.
For dinner, we visited the nearby Aux 2 Oliviers restaurant, a referral of the hotel. Margo and I had two-course meals with a half bottle of Bordeaux. For entrees, I had a rocket salad, and Margo had crème brûlée foie gras. Our plat courses were salmon crumble for me, duck for Margo. Sarah had a tagliatele pasta with salmon and creme fraiche. For dessert I had a crème brûlée, and Sarah and Margo each had a chocolate profiterole.
And that was our Saturday, one week ago. I hope to capture more days tomorrow.
posted by Michael Nelson at 12:31 pm
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