We left Metz early in the morning, to make sure we'd have enough time in Saint-Avold. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake. We found the apartment building where dad used to live, and it was cool to see, but we had the unfortunate problem of having nowhere to put our bags. Neither Metz nor Saint-Avold's train station had a luggage locker, despite the fact that every train station everywhere has one (actually this is bit of an untruth; St.-Avold's train station did have luggage lockers but they were full of garbage and accepted francs). So, we were wandering through a fairly sketchy neighborhood of a small French town with our baggage in tow, which did not make us feel super comfortable (except for dad who is immune to these things. He even snuck inside the apartments to get some pictures, which unfortunately are mostly blurry)
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| From August 16-19 Paris |
After some initial confusion caused by dad not knowing which direction we were facing, we did manage to identify both of the apartments where he and his family lived when my grandpa was stationed at Two-Wing Air Force Base in France. We also found the location where several of the stories I have heard over and over again took place, which for me was a lot like visiting the Plains of Abraham or Louisburg, in the sense that it's weird to be in a place you've heard about so many times. Basically it's just like a national or international historic place, but it's historical only to me and my family.
Anyways, it took us an hour and a half or so to wander around Saint-Avold, and then we wanted to go back to Metz (rather, everyone but dad wanted to go back to Metz). So, we walked back to the train station, and took the train back to Metz. Once there, we did a bit of geocaching, and then took the train to Paris, where we got in late, but not too late to eat at a lovely Parisienne Restaurant across the circle from us. It's very clear that in France, they really care about food. It doesn't matter where you eat, or what you eat, it always looks and tastes great.
The following morning, we decided we wanted to take a walking tour of Paris. It was three and a half hours long, so only Darcy, Mom, Chris and myself went. To get to the walking tour we had to walk past some tall tower.
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| From August 16-19 Paris |
The Eiffel Tower is way more impressive than I thought it was going to be. The Eiffel Tower is probably the most recognizable landmark in the world. I have seen pictures of it many many many many many times (and so will you, if you view the slideshow). But the pictures never really convey just how tall it is. I have seen taller (CN Tower, and the Macau tower) but I have never seen one as elegant. Both towers I mentioned are basically pillars of concrete with a round bit on the top. The Eiffel Tower is called a Pylon shape, and it's in the middle of a big field, with a beautiful river behind it, so its title of "most visited tourist attraction in the world" is probably well deserved.
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| From August 16-19 Paris |
Someone knows how popular the tower is, because the grounds underneath, and everywhere around it are crawling with street vendors selling little miniature eiffel towers. This is actually illegal, as there are licensed shops that are selling the same things for about twice as much. All of the vendors are obviously recent immigrants, and all of them are very aggressive. They'll just walk right up to you, chanting "one euro one euro one euro" and stay there until you ignore them for long enough. Anyways, every so often the police will swing by, and suddenly all the street vendors will run away, laughing and joking as they do. It was quite a sight to see.
I also found out that the Eiffel Tower was constructed as a gateway for the 1889 World Fair, and when it was constructed, the Parisienne people hated it. It's been around long enough for them to get over it (they have some new things to hate). Also, it was supposed to be taken down twenty years later, but M. Eiffel wanted it to stay up, so he convinced them to use it as a radio tower. Lastly, Montreal wanted to borrow the Eiffel Tower for the World Expo in the 1960's, but the tower people decided not to. Not because that's RIDICULOUS, but because they were worried France wouldn't let them put it up again.
So, we went on our walking tour, with a very informed and friendly tour guide named Gill. He was originally from the states, but was living in Paris with his fiancée. We really liked him, and we ended up being the only people on the tour, so it was kind of like having a personalized tour. It was very interesting to learn about the history of Paris, and to see things like the palace where Kings lived, or the military school where Napoleon dazzled his teachers.
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| From August 16-19 Paris |
The tour ended at Notre Dame de Paris, which is a pretty cool building. It's free to go inside, and the line was short, so unlike our usual M.O. we went inside. I have never been in a Cathedral before (except in video games), and Notre Dame is one of the biggest, so it was majestic. There were alcoves along the walls, carvings around the choir, and beautiful stain glass windows. I'd show you lots of pictures, but you're not allowed to take pictures inside, and unlike every other tourist in there, including my mom, we decided to respect their place of worship. Random Side Note: Before the Nazi occupation, all of the stained glass (and there was a lot) was removed from Notre Dame and hidden, as the Nazis were not known for respecting French property.
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| From August 16-19 Paris |
After our walking tour was over, we went back to the Hotel, collected dad, and went to the Arc de Triumph. The arc is another famous landmark that is way bigger than I anticipated. What's so impressive about it is that it was built in Napoleon's time, and mainly because he said so. That's pretty crazy.
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| From August 16-19 Paris |
After the Arc, we wandered back to the Tower (down part of the Champs-Élysées, which is really really long after doing a three and a half hour walking tour) and watched the sun go down behind the Eiffel Tower, while the lights slowly came on. Also, at 10:00, they put on a light show for five minutes that is pretty cool.
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| From August 16-19 Paris |
The next day we returned to the tower bright and early, because we were going up it. Chris and dad were sleep deprived, so stayed behind. I mentioned already that heights are not my thing, whenever they are above about three stories. The Eiffel Tower is a bit more than three stories tall. I knew I couldn't make it to the top, or rather would not enjoy it at all if I did, but Darcy and mom wanted to. The Eiffel Tower has four legs, and at the moment, they have elevators running in two legs, and stairs running in a third. Darcy and mom decided to stand in line for the elevator, while I stood in line for the stairs. Actually, I stood in line with them for quite a while, before wandering over to the stair line. Guess who made it up first? (me).
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| From August 16-19 Paris |
The Eiffel Tower has three floors. The first and second floors have restaurants, museums and interpretive stuff on them. The third floor is on the top. The stairs only go to the second floor, and that was just fine by me. The second floor is about half of the way up, and also where you transfer from the leg elevators to the summit elevators. So, I waited around, after climbing over 700 steps, for about twenty minutes. Keep in mind, this is just after the tower had opened, and I waited in line with them for about twenty minutes AND I was stuck behind a big tour group. My point is that the line is very long.
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| From August 16-19 Paris |
Anyways, the view from the second floor is pretty spectacular (Darcy: "but not as good as the top!"). Apparently, from the top, all you can see is Paris, in every direction as far as the eye can see. But Paris is pretty, so that's nice.
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| From August 16-19 Paris |
I have to say that as the Eiffel Tower was the second tower that we climbed this trip, I preferred the view from Bruges' Belfry, or Heidelberg Castle (remembering I did not get to the very top of the tower) simply because you could see detail on the cute little houses. The view from the Eiffel was pretty breathtaking, but not as pretty.
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| From August 16-19 Paris |
Moving along, that afternoon we all went on a walking tour called "Paris in WWII," led by Gill. We didn't know it was going to be, but we weren't upset that we had him again, as we quite liked him. Once again, it was just us, so we had a very personalized tour. In fact, my dad liked him so much that they chatted pretty much the whole time about pretty much everything. That was ALSO very interesting. I didn't know much about how the Nazi's took western Europe. In particular, I didn't know how fast they had done it.
That tour ended back in the Place de la Concorde, which we had also visited on our first walking tour. This square was the site of all guillotine executions during the French Revolution, as well as being the site of a major tank battle during the Liberation of Paris, on August 25, 1944. It's really hard to imagine this tourist filled square as being running with human blood, or being shelled from the Arc de Triumph.
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| From August 16-19 Paris |
After our tour, we went out for dinner, and then went to bed, as mom, dad and Chris were heading back to PG the next day, and Darcy and I were going to Parc Asterix.
The next morning, we hopped on the train to Charles De Gaulle airport, said goodbye to my family, stood in line for a stupidly long time to drop off our luggage, and promptly got lost trying to find the shuttle for Parc Asterix. Finally, after wandering all through Terminal 3, we found it, and took off to the Park.
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| From August 16-19 Paris |
Parc Asterix, for those not familiar with the comics, is based on the world in Asterix. Asterix and his friend Obelisk are Gauls, in the time of Julius Caesar, and they are attempting to fight off the inevitable Roman invasion of Gaul (France). This is a kid's comic, I should mention. Anyways, it's an amusement park that we thoroughly enjoyed. Darcy and I went on lots of rides, and Darcy went on a couple by herself, if it looked like they might be too scary (or I was too dizzy). We watched a Dolphin show, we saw some Romans being incompetent (the major source of humor in the books) and ate some not entirely overpriced food. All in all, a good time was had.
After we finished at the park, we headed back to Charles De Gaulle, boarded our plane, and flew to Venice, where we are now. I am writing this at the end of our first day in Venice, so I'll have another post up fairly soon, but that's it for now. If you're desperate, here is a slideshow of two days in Paris and one in Saint-Avold:
Stay tuned for our exciting Venice update, coming soon.
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