Colmar, France

We left Paris relatively early (for our crew) this morning and took the train to Colmar which is in the Alsace region in north-eastern France. It is an area that has gone back and forth between France and Germany, so there is a "German feel" to the town as well.

The town is situated along the Alsatian Wine Route and considers itself to be the "Capital of Alsatian Wine." The city is renowned for its well preserved old town, its numerous architectural landmarks and its museums.

We are staying a building where we have two apartments that give us the ability to spread out a little. Not only are the apartments wonderful, but there is a outdoor patio we can sit out on for meals or coffee.

We are all tired today after our hustle and bustle time in Paris, so everyone is enjoying some relaxation time right now before we go out for the evening. Dave has already found the outdoor patio is a great place for sketching.

Our Last Night in Paris

We left Versailles at about 5:45 arriving back in Paris at about 6:30. We decided to eat out again due to the late hour and our desire to take one last walk around Paris. We found a restaurant close to our place and had a very good dinner. The vegetarians in our group were especially happy because there were several good options :-).

After dinner, we went our somewhat separate ways before meeting up at 9:30 for some "famous ice cream" we had heard about over on St. Louis en-l'lle, a small island in the Seine River near Notre Dame.

We've had a wonderful time in Paris, although we all have a list of things we didn't get to see that we will have to save for the next time we're in Paris!

A Trip to Versailles

On Saturday morning, everyone did what they felt like and then we met at St. Michael's fountain before getting on the train to take the 35-minute train trip to Versailles. Before going, we tried to review a little bit of French history - even though the beginnings of Versailles were around for some previous French kings, the real expansion and height of glory for Versailles occurred under Louis XIV, the "Sun King." It was certainly clear that Louis XIV had a huge ego!

In addition to the massive living quarters, church, opera house, etc., there were acres of incredible gardens. At one point, after Louis XIV moved the seat of the French government from Paris to Versailles, there were over 10.000 people who lived and worked at Versailles.

Certainly after seeing it, we had greater appreciation for why the French Revolution occurred, (the disparity between the people who lived at court and the French masses was so extreme), and how the "1%" lived in the late 1700's! None of my photos taken on my "point and shoot" camera do it justice, but suffice it to say that the grandeur and excess was amazing!

Musee d'Orsay

We got up on Friday and walked to the Musee d'Orsay which is located in the former train station, Gare d'Orsay. The museum is noted for the beautiful architecture (vaulted glass ceiling, two massive clocks, etc) as well as a huge collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings.







Greg and I got the audio guides to the museum - I thought it was a great way to see the art as the audio guide gave some background about the paintings and the artist. I came away inspired to take a class on art history at some point - something I've never had in my formal education!

For dinner, we walked for about an hour to a vegetarian restaurant recommended by our tour guide (we've learned vegetarian offerings are few and far between in France :-) only to discover it was just closing as we finally arrived there at 8 pm. Our long walk, however, gave us the opportunity to see some more neighborhoods. We ended up walking back and eating at one of the multitude of French cafes that are so much a part of "the French way of life."

A Beautiful Paris Night

We arrived back at our apartment at about 6:30 from our day's excursions, made dinner, and relaxed for awhile before heading out again at 7:30. Our plan was to go to the Musee d' Orsay for the evening hours and then walk to the Eiffel Tower to see it lit up after dark.

We walked through the Louvre plaza on our way to the Musee d' Orsay - when we arrived, we decided the wait was too long. So we just kept walking towards the Effiel Tower enjoying the sights along the way.

We arrived at the Eiffel Tower at about 9:45 - Andrew's friend, Thomas, who is French and met Andrew and Diana in Chile, joined our group for the light show. It was a beautiful end to a wonderful day!

A Very Full Day!

We woke up on Thursday to no rain - we were all excited and anxious to pack in as much as possible while the weather was decent! Each of us had some different things we wanted to do, so we split forces and decided to meet at the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre in the mid afternoon.






Greg and I went off to go inside Notre Dame. Sonya, our bike tour guide, had told us that the Notre Dame had almost been destroyed by the revolutionaries during the French Revolution, but that it was saved after Victor Hugo wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame.


After that, we wandered around the Latin Quarter and stumbled upon the beautiful Jardin du Luxembourg gardens.





Meanwhile, David, Steve, Andrew, and Diana went to the Centre de George Pompidou which holds a collection of modern art. Mike decide to walk from our apartment up to the Montmartre neighborhood to check out a music store with the idea of purchasing a small guitar.

We all ended up meeting at the Sacre Couer which is a beautiful Basilica up on a hill overlooking the city.









When we started walking back down the hill, we found a really nice outdoor cafe - so we stopped to have a drink and enjoy the beautiful afternoon. I've been noticing all the French men wear scarfs, so we got Greg to wear a scarf while he was having his wine in a Paris cafe!

May Day in Paris

Today was May Day, a national holiday in Paris, so none of the museums were open. We had our bike tour of Paris landmarks scheduled for the afternoon, so we decided to spend the morning walking around Notre Dame. The weather was still very cool, but not raining in the morning.













Because it was a holiday, the line to get into Notre Dame was really long, so we decided there wasn't time to wait before our bike tour. We took some photos outside and then walked for about two hours before having some lunch.

After lunch, we took the metro to the train station where we met up with Sonya, our tour guide from Blue Bike Tours. We started out just fine - at each of approximately 10 Paris landmarks, Sonya provided lots of interesting facts and history. About half way through our 4-hour tour, it started to rain, and then pour! So we spent the last two hours riding in a cold rain (probably about 48 degrees)! All in all, even though we had less than ideal conditions, we had fun and learned a lot abut Paris.


























We returned back to our apartment at about 7 pm, made dinner, and then the guys had a huge, very animated debate on "what is art?" This topic got started because the last landmark we went to was the Pompidou Art Museum where Sonya showed us photograph of a solid blue painting that sold for 7 million euros!