Back to Paris to fly out
So here’s a real quick recap of the past couple days: My train to Cinque Terre from Sorrento took most of the day and I didn’t get to Vernazza until 4:00 pm. I checked into my room, and then spent the rest of the night…
Full-time engineer, part-time traveler
France
Day 15: Reims/Mons
I left for the train station around 8:00 this morning for my 9:15 train. I got there a little bit early and saw Josh there – he’s headed south-east near the German border and then going to Switzerland. I didn’t have much trouble finding my…
Day 14: Reims
I didn’t do a whole lot today. I woke up around 8:30am and got breakfast downstairs with Josh. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a loaf of French bread with strawberry jelly before. There wasn’t a whole lot to it, but it was good. After…
Day 13: Reims
Before I left the hostel this morning, I bought 200 GB of online storage from Google. I’m in the process of uploading all my pictures (at their original resolution) to Picasa web albums for people to download and so I can use it as a…
Day 12: Paris/Reims
Turns out the national strike didn’t effect me at all; it was mostly in southern France. There were two TGV (high speed) trains leaving for Reims this morning so I woke up at 6:30am to catch the earlier one. I checked out of my hostel…
Day 11: Paris (still)
I woke up this morning around 8:00am, ate breakfast at the hostel and then took the metro to the Louvre Museum. I got there around 9:05am, (they open at 9:00am) but the line was still pretty long. For some reason, the opening of the museum…
Day 10: Paris
Yeah, so waking up at 5:30am to catch the sunset didn’t happen. I rolled out of bed at 6:45am, ate breakfast at the hostel, and then walked around the empty city. I took some nice pictures over the reflection of the Seine River and then…
Day 9: Paris
I woke up this morning around 7:30am with a little bit of a sore throat (probably thanks to some people in the Clemson group being sick 🙂 ) and walked around to tried and find an internet café. It turns out that no one in…
Day 8: Paris Update
After lunch, I crashed and went to sleep until 7:00pm. Because Paris is so far north, it has very long days and doesn’t get dark until around 9:15pm, so I had a couple more hours of daylight. I took some picture of Notre Dame in…
Day 8: Paris
I woke up today at 6:55am and said goodbye to everyone from Clemson. I’ve really enjoyed spending time with them and while we didn’t know each other before the trip, I think we all had a really good time and developed good friendships. As soon…
Day 7: Rouen, Versailles, Paris
Today we left the hotel around 8:45 am and took a quick tour of the historic district of Rouen. We visited the Rouen Cathedral (which had four bombs dropped on it during World War II) and a church dedicated to Joan of Arc. The Rouen…
Day 6: Normandy, Caen, and Rouen
**I finally got the chance to upload some pictures so go back through my previous posts and look at them!** Today we left the hotel at 8:45am (which had a ping pong table which we played on for three hours) and took the trip to…
Mont Saint-Michel and St. James Cemetary
Today was probably the best day so far. We left our Mister Bed hotel around 8:30 am and made the trip north-west to Mont Saint-Michel. This island is famous for it’s monastery which was built by monks and completed in 1523. It has become one…
Wine tour and chateaus
We left the hotel around 9:30am and toured a vineyard, Plou & Fils in the Loire valley. We went through the cave (which keeps the wine cool) that the family dug out by hand about 500 years ago. We got to taste a lot of…
Chartres Cathedral and Tours
Today we woke up at 7:00am and left Paris for Tours, stopping by the Chartres Cathedral on our way. We aimlessly walked around by ourselves in the Cathedral but then managed to get a public tour with Malcolm Miller, a famous historian on Chartres. He…
The Louvre and other Paris Sights
On our way to the bus tour, my camera slipped out of my hand and fell right on the sidewalk. It’s a good thing I had a lens filter on it because it got a nice crack in it. So here I am just on…
Notre Dame and a walking tour
Today was a busy day. We arrived early in the morning and dropped our stuff at our hotel. We made our way into Paris and started by attending the 10:00am mass at Notre Dame. For mid-May, it was pretty cold so I’m glad I brought…