Let them eat cake!

Our second day in Paris proved to be less stressful--at least until that night. We started the morning with a bus tour. It was nice to relax and see the monuments. They let us stop every once and awhile and get out to take pictures. I was excited about this because it's hard to take good pictures out of a bus window. 

After the bus tour, my group left for Versailles. We met up with another tour director, and she guided us through. There was much better weather this year at Versailles. We ate lunch in the gardens and then met inside for a guided tour. 

The hall of mirrors--very crowded. 

Mary Antoinette's room.  

After the Versailles, we had one hour free time before we had to meet back up with our group, so the girls literally ran through the Lourve to take a picture of the Mona Lisa. Dad and I would of had to stand in line for tickets, so we didn't go in. 

We met back up with our group for dinner and a Seine River cruise. We had to rush through dinner in order to make our cruise time. We took a slice of dessert pizza with us as we briskly walked over to the river. It was fun to take pictures from the boat. It was a relaxing way to spend the evening. 

 

After the cruise, we all went to the Effiel Tower. I don't even want to re-live the stress of getting the tickets for that event, so I'll move on :) We walked to the second floor of the tower and took the elevator to the top from there. I think walking to the second floor is a once in a lifetime kind of event--I will only take the elevator from now on! 

 

I was the only group leader that went to the top, so I ended up being responsible for getting all the various students back down. I gathered up all but two adults and their children (they wanted to stay up there longer). We were afraid to miss the last train, so we left the tower without them. We found out later their phones were dead--their group leader was very stressed when she realized all this. They made it back to the hotel by 1AM. They had asked directions the whole way home. 

Paris!

Paris has surely proved to be stressful! Sorry for the late blog. 

We arrived in Paris around 2pm on Friday. They started us at Notre Dame Cathedral. We did a quick walkthrough and then had some free time. Because my group was spending the majority of Saturday at Versailles, I wanted to take them over to the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Élysées. Another group decided to follow us, which made navigating the metro a bit more stressful. At one point, one of our girls didn't make it on the metro, so I stayed behind with her (after getting shut in the metro doors). We were able to catch the next one and meet the group. 

We quickly took pictures at the Arc and then walked back over to Notre Dame. It was a 3 mile walk in the 90 degree weather. All completed in 60 minutes. Needless to say, there were lots of complaints. 

When we got to our meeting place, we saw a very serious model taking pictures with a pair of sun glasses, leaning on a wall beside the Seine River, with a smoldering expression. I couldn't quite capture the moment. 

After dinner, we went to Montmartre. We walked by the Moulin Rouge and up to the Sacré Coeur. The health data on my phone says we walked up 33 floors today. I'm pretty sure 32 of those were just getting up to Sacré Coeur. 

We made it back to the hotel about 10:30 to check in. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep before I even had my bag pushed through the door. 

Colmar

We have gotten a day behind in blogs--wifi hasn't been strong. 

Today will be a short blog day because there isn't too much to say about Colmar. I discussed the possibility of skipping a day of blogging and just pick back up in Paris, but then Dad assured me our mass audience of readers would feel the loss of a missed blog day. So I hope all 5 of you enjoy it--because this one is for you ;)

We spent two hours traveling from Switzerland to France. We stopped in the Alsace Region in France--a quaint town of Colmar. They are known for their storks and being the town that the creator of the Statue of Liberty is from. 

We had five hours of free time before we headed to our hotel. We spent the day picking up our souvenirs: ornaments for me, a pig figurine for Rachel Atkinson, and a city map for Dad. 

We stopped at cafe and had pastries and coffee/cokes. 

We went inside Unterlinden Museum that had several painting and sculptures that dated back to the 1400s. Dad was surprised at how they were out on the floor, in touching distances, and not in protected casings. 

We went in St. Martin Cathedral. 

We visited "Petite Venise" or Little Venice. It was a fun picture stop. 

Now we are back on the bus headed to our hotel. Tomorrow, Paris! 

We just passed their mini Statue of Liberty :) 

Lakes and Peaks

It was Dad's turn to blog again: 

We spent today in Lucerne. We started our day with breakfast on the terrace overlooking Lake Lucern. It was a gorgeous, mostly sunny day.  The beautiful lake with the view of snowy peaks above was fantastic for our leisurely meal.

 We took our bus for a short trip to Lucerne where we boarded gondolas for our lift to the top of Mt. Pilatas. The first two legs up the mountain were in small 4-person gondolas, but the final ascent was thankfully in a more substantial one which held about 40 people. 

As we neared the summit we passed through the clouds. The discharge point was really on the top of the mountain, where there are two hotels and a large open area for viewing the landscape below. 

You can take short climbs to other peaks of the mountain for other spectacular views. There were just a few small patches of snow left on the mountain at the beginning of summer. Although the clouds kept us from getting great pictures of the lake and the city of Lucerne, we did get some good views in the other direction as the clouds began to lift in the early afternoon. 

We also saw a mountain goat  climbing along a nearly vertical part of the mountainside - how do they do it?  

We had a nice lunch on the mountain and took the inclined railway down. Here we boarded a boat for a cruise across the lake to the city. The boat takes people to different towns along the lake and our trip had several stops and took over an hour. All the while we had spectacular views of Mt. Pilatas. 

When we arrived in Lucerne we were given a short walking tour of the city by our tour guide, then had some free time to shop. The highlight of the city tour were the bridges over the river Reuss. The most famous, the Chapel bridge, is adorned with flowers its entire length. It also has reproductions of 17th century art overhead in the rafters - very impressive!  

During our walking tour, we found a DuPont sign. We couldn't resist the photo opportunity. 

Back at our mountainside hotel, we enjoyed a goulash dinner with a delicious dessert of fresh strawberry pie. 

Romeo and Giulietta

Today we experienced the city of Verona! We were able to explore the city for 3 hours--but we ran out of time to see everything we wanted to. 

We started our tour by the Roman Areana. It looks very similar to the Roman Colosseum but is much smaller. This arena is still used for operas. We saw Egyptian props outside the theater being used for an upcoming play. 

Our guide tooks us over to the Casa di Giulietta. The courtyard was extremely crowded and no where near as quaint as in Letters to Juliet. Tourists (ourselves included) packed the area. It was difficult to move around. I took several pictures of the balcony, and dad took a picture of me with Juliet on his camera. 

The other English teacher and I decided to write letters and send them to Juliet. We wanted the full experience. I pretended to put it in the wall, but you really just put it in a mailbox--not as magical. 

We did some shopping and then headed to the bus to finish our trip to Switzerland. The views in Switerland are amazing and it was fun to watch people stare out the windows in awe.  

We drove through a 12 mile tunnel on our drive through Switzerland--it went from around 65 degrees to 95 degrees very quickly! Apparently Norway has the longest tunnel with 20 miles! 

We got to our hotel and was surprised to see how beautiful our view was. Everyone was hoping for a balcony view. Dad and I did not get one :( But the view from the restaurant on the ground floor is amazing.

More from Switzerland tomorrow! 

Ciao! Ciao! Ciao!

Today our adventures took place in Venezia (Venice for those of you not fluent in Italian, like me...) I have been practicing my Italian courtesies, and I almost have Dad and Rachel Atkinson on board with it. 

We took a beautiful water taxi over to a glass blowing demonstration. I'm thinking of purchasing the taxi...it's definitely my style haha. 

The taxi took us over to the main land. We started with a walking tour and then moved to the gondola ride. I enjoyed this one more than last year's. Dad commented on the experience saying, "It exceeded my expectations. I was overjoyed that I got to cruise down the Grand Canal." (I might be paraphrasing.)

After the gondola ride, we went in search of a traditional Italian pizza. Dad ordered a spicy salami pizza (their version of pepperoni) and Rachel A. and I shared a Margherita pizza (cheese). 

 

We then went to Doge's Palace for a walk through. I bought a book about how Casanova escaped from the prisons there. We were able to walk through the Bridge of Sighs, which was an interesting experience. 

This is me last year and this year at the Bridge of Sighs!