Good-Bye EUROPE! - Wednesday - Oct.6

au revoir, à bientôt

Travel Day.  CDG-KEF-SEA-PDX.   It wll be a long day.

Jan and I took some pics out both windows of our cab on the way to Charles de Gaulle Airport.  The morning was brilliantly bright, of course, after our monsoony day at Versailles!

    Wish I knew what this was :

au revoir Eiffel Tower ..

We made it to the gorgeous new terminal 2B at Charles de Gaulle Airport.    Ready to start our journey home.

wait for me!  ....   (looks like an Ikea airport! :) )

Hello Reykjavik!   and KEF

    Now, onwards (7.5hr) to Seattle .. in a beautiful newer Boeing 757!   I think it still had the 'new car' smell.  And, it was nice to only be filled partially.

Jan took some incredible photos outside her window of Iceland and Greenland.  Enjoy :

Wow.  The setting sun really accentuates the view!  We made it to Seattle and then on to Portland.   Jeanette and family were tracking our flight and texted me when we touched down and welcomed us to Seattle.   I called her when we were waiting to transfer our luggage.  She said Cameron had exciting news.  A beluga whale was stuck in Elliot Bay.  Whoa!

  Don and Sissy were waiting for us in Portland.  Good to see friends.  Good to be home.

Final thoughts-

What a wonderful exciting trip to Europe!

Europe celebrates breakfast!  (my favorite meal)

River cruising with Ama Waterways is the best!

Train travel in Europe is way fun! (and exciting at times!)

The Rhine River is an amazing, important water highway.

474 miles of river cruising, 813 feet of elevation gain

428 feet of lift by locks

Rhine River castle views were .. SPECTACULAR!

Zermatt and the Matterhorn .. wow!

France’s historic small towns were fun to discover.

And .. the CATHEDRALS !!    wow-wow-wow

Looking forward to Spring’2022 for our next river cruise

through Provence in France.

Thanks for following our adventures!     

Joe & Jan

 

Paris - Versailles - Eiffel Tower - Tue. - Oct.5

After breakfast we walked to a pharmacy to get our covid-antigen test.  We were told to come back in 20min. for the reports.  We passed!  Negative.  Yay!  We get to come home!

We put the reports away in our room and headed over to the Invalides Station for the RER train to Versailles.

We got on at the Invalides station, upper right, and traveled down to Versailles on the yellow 'C'.  We came back on the yellow 'C' and got off at the Champ de Mars station to see the Eiffel Tower.

Versailles is 12-miles Southwest of Paris.  Jan had researched the weather.   Slight rain until 2.   NOT!

Walking from the train station it started to rain harder and harder and then .. when we arrived at the large open courtyard .. it slammed into us with 30mph winds and torrential rain showers.

Many umbrellas were turned inside out.   Most of us were soaking wet.   Once inside everyone tried to shake most of the moisture off and find a way to hold on to soaking windbreakers and dripping umbrellas.

The Palace of Versailles is MASSIVE!  Home to several kings and their courts.   Built originally in 1623 as a hunting lodge.  Staggering data such as :  700 rooms,

1976 acres of land including the massive gardens with 400 sculptures and 50 large fountains are but a few of the items that took 36,000 workers to build.

Here's some restoration work being done today :

Some pics from the opulent rooms and spaces :

This is the coronation room :

The Hall of Mirrors was built in 1681 by Venetian glass craftsmen.  357 mirrors!

Lavish, lavish, lavish ..no wonder they had a revolution!

A large hall with battle scenes and busts of generals :

We peeked out of several windows at the gardens :

See all that standing water?    wet .. wet .. wet

By this time, the rain had stopped (for now) and the line was extremely long.

We headed back towards the train station stopping for a late lunch of French onion soup and a burger to warm up.   Then over to the Rive Gauche station for a train.

The skies started to lighten up and spots of blue appeared.  Here's a pic looking across the Seine to the West after we got off at Champ de Mars station :

The Eiffel Tower made its presence known !

Closer and closer and closer we approached :

A competition for the world's fair, it took only 2yrs, 2mon, and 5days, finished in 1889!  

It has .. 2,500,000 rivets!   As we walked eastward towards our hotel along the green space, the heavens and storms opened up again and torrents of rain scattered hundreds of tourists and students.  I should've noticed the fast moving cumulus clouds!

An interesting day.  I guess the thunderstorm made me pause and think about how extravagant the French kings and Napoleon and the government spent the treasury on this grandiose palace and let their people starve.

But I can really celebrate the technical achievement and engineering skills that had French engineers design and build this tower, the Suez Canal and start the Panama Canal.  

Time to pack and prepare for a long travel day from Charles de Gaulle airport to Iceland to Seattle then to Portland!   What a trip we had!   I'll compose one more post with a few travel pics and some final thoughts.

Take care.   

 

Paris - l'Orangerie - Sainte-Chapelle - Mon. - Oct.4

Paris awakens on Monday morning.  The streets are buzzing with cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians.  Brisk fall weather is in the air.  Sunny skies beckon us eager tourists as we hike across the Seine.  

The Musee de l'Orangerie has a special exhibition :

This is very avant-garde .. a distinctive form of expressionism straddling figurative and abstract art.  Also in the collection are some pieces by Cezanne and Renoir and Utrillo and Monet.

On the main floor, in two separate very large oval rooms with natural skylight domes were very LARGE Monet water lily paintings.   I'm sure the partial glimpses I give you below will not do them justice :

to give you a scale :

Let me make it up to you by presenting my own canvas of specially selected pics from our walk along the Seine to Ile-de-la-Cite' and Sainte-Chapelle :

leaving Musee de 'Orangerie-

Looking down at part of The Tuileries Garden space which was made public in 1667.  It's a wonderful, very long space where Parisians celebrate, meet, stroll, and relax.

Then we walked over to the Louvre entrance.   What a fantastic-looking surrounding area!

and then the iconic Louvre's entrance :

Onward we hiked along the Seine :

And then .. Sainte-Chapelle appeared :

What a magnificent structure. Built between 1242-1248.   A gem of 'high gothic' architecture.  The king wanted it built to house the relics of the Passion of Christ.   The most famous of these relics was the Crown of Thorns, acquired in 1239 for a sum that greatly exceeded the cost of building the Chapel itself.

This sight was surrounded and protected by many many police. Security was very evident.  Several checkpoints.

There were two sanctuaries, one on top of the other.

Here's some pics from the top one :

We felt claustrophobic going up then coming down the very narrow staircases :

Down to the lower sanctuary :

What a lovely and spectacular cathedral!

Across the street we went to get lunch.  While sitting and enjoying the world go by, an image of a man carrying a hockey stick and his gear bag reminded me that I have some hockey-watching to get back to!

Now we need to convince our feet that we need to hike back to the hotel.   It turns out that today's trip and thousands of steps totaled .. 7-miles !!!!  Yikes!

Enjoy some pics from the OTHER side of the Seine :

Oh yeah, I forgot, we hiked down to gander at the repair construction progress at Notre Dame.

They anticipate it will be ready for visitors by .. 2030.

keep walking Joe .. Jan is waiting for you !!

This is the back of the Nationale Assemblee, remember from yesterday, on the way to the Orsay?

and finally a view from the Invalides with the Eiffel T :

What a glorious sunny day!   So many beautiful sights!  This place is old!   Makes you appreciate what has gone on before you!   How did they construct so many magnificent structures?

My feet are numb.   Rest up, one more full day of adventures and sights.   Versailles awaits!

'We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.'      :)