Day 14
Today we leave Vio's and head to Paris. A little sad to be leaving our new German friends. Even Louis looks a little sad as we pull out of the driveway. It is a long drive on the autobahn. We are only 45 minutes to France but then still a long time to Paris. We pass many vineyards and wheat fields. This is Champagne country of France!
We stop in Verdun on the way. During World War I, the Americans joined the French fighting against the Germans. We drive through Douaumont where millions died in the battle in 1914-1918. Andres Maginot had built a wall along one side of Verdun to protect the city but the Germans just marched around the wall and entered and killed millions of people in a very short time. There is a cemetery where there are crosses as far as your eye can see - thousands, maybe millions of crosses. Some have names, some say "unknown soldier" Some say "three unknown soldiers". The Ossuainede Douaumont is a huge monument building where thousands are buried in mass graves within.
Down the road where the battle actually took place, there still are all the fox holes and huge craters where bombs were dropped. This goes for miles and miles. There are white crosses every so often where many died. We stop and walk through the fox holes and fields for a while. Amazing the impact it has to realize so many died there and how they literally crawled from one hole to another trying to survive.
Then we are on to Paris! We get there about 5pm and check into the hotel. We are staying at the Mariott in Neuilly. We have a suite with a big living room, kitchenette, separate bathroom from the main bathroom and large bedroom. Neuilly is a suburb of Paris - a nice, quiet area, upper class. We head into Paris about 15 minutes away to Le Vaubon for dinner about 8pm. Restaurants don't fill up until about 8:30pm on any night. It takes about 2-3 hours for dinner - People eat slow and sit and talk. This restaurant is right across the street from Napoleon's tomb. About 10pm they light up the tomb and it is beautiful. The gold dome is brilliant! Then we drive over to the Eiffel Tower to see it lit up. It is a beautiful blue and gets deeper and deeper blue as the sky gets darker. There are hundreds of people all standing around and sitting on the grass watching it. At 11pm they start blinking bright lights within the Eiffel tower and it is spectacular. Very much worth waiting for! A very memorable first evening in Paris! We are in Paris - hard to realize!
A few thoughts about France and the French:Most do not speak English so much harder to communicate here. Many restaurants don't even have an English menu or anyone who speaks English. Words are nothing like German or English. Places are not as clean as Germany but still not as dirty as in Mexico. Bathrooms are not clean and they do not have the toilet seat cleaners. Yet, Paris is a huge, massive city - millions of people live here. All the buildings look alike with beautiful ornate carvings in white stone. There are rows and rows of apartment buildings - all white stone with rot iron black railings around the balconies. Driving is crazy! They have no designated lanes on the roads - they drive anywhere, with hundreds of motor scooters and motor cycles that weave in and out of traffic and go down between the lanes. And yet there is no smashed cars or bent bumpers. There is no honking or impatient drivers. The huge round-about at the Arch of Triumph is really crazy and wild driving. You have to be aggressive and keep going fast or they will run right over you. There are Smart cars everywhere. They can park two to a parking stall front to back because they are so small.
There are no gas stations! Until you look close and see that they are under ground and so you enter and go down a ramp to them. The fumes are strong down there. There is a strong police presence here - very different than in Germany. At the Eiffel tower, Louvre, and Notre Dame there are military police walking around with machine guns.
