B-Man's European Adventure

“OK, so here's my official trip report. Photos are being sorted and uploaded this week....

Milan:
Spent total of 22 hours here. Saw the Last Supper fresco by Da Vinci. Spectacular. Must see for everyone. Toured the Duomo (the main cathedral) - cool.

Venice:
Great room in a 13th century building that overlooked a large courtyard ("campo") with a church, etc. Able to avoid tourists pretty well. BowlderGal got sick, then recovered in time for her birthday. Took a gondola ride.

Lucerne:
Went on the "Golden Round Trip" to Mt. Pilatus (steamer to cog railway to aerial tram to gondola (the aerial kind, not the Venetian kind) to bus). Fog limited visibility to about 50 feet at the summit. Heard lots of clanking cowbells. Stopped at midpoint on the way down and did alpine slide. Saw prologue of stage bicycle race in town.

Interlaken:
Our day to view Jungfrau, Eiger, etc. Took train into mountains. Rained all day. Couldn't see squat. Good Mexican restaurant on ground floor of our hotel.

Lyon:
Rented car. Did laundry.

Loire Valley:
Tooled around the French countryside on back roads - excellent! Went to several chateaus, some big tourist attractions, some not. Ate escargot.

Paris:
Hotel booked on Orbitz turned out to be a nasty rathole in a scary neighborhood. Found new hotel in great neighborhood (Marais) within an hour - THANK YOU RICK STEVES!!! In one day, did the following (spelling of some of these is likely incorrect - so sue me): Eiffel Tower, Arc d'Triomph, Champs Elysee, Tuileries Gardins, Musee D'Orsay, Louvre, Notre Dame. Saw lots of really weird modern art at the Pompidou Center - I love that stuff!!!

Travel:
Took TGV train back to Milan to fly home. Went really really fast.

That's about it!”

“Great trip BM. I traveled in Europe when I was a teen w/ my parents. We were in England for about a week. Then, France, Italy (only one day), Switzerland and Germany.

There are so many places and so many things to see. 4 weeks wasn't enough. I would love to spend a whole summer there.

IMO, wrt scenery, Switz was, by far, my favorite. But, I saw the coolest stuff in France. Paris was great but the rest of the country was amazing. And, I don't care what people say (Buddha Bear...), I found the French people to be extremely polite.

Not really on topic but...The most interesting and the funniest thing we saw wrt interaction between tourists and locals was a woman in France trying to get a hotel room. The man behind the counter wasn't speakig English and the tourist (an American) didn't speak a lick of French and didn't even try to be polite about it. Just cursed cause, as she put it, the French were to stuck-up to learn English for the tourists. So, after arguing w/ the Frenchman behind the counter, she finally walked away. When we got up to the counter, I and my mom's friend began to ask the man about rooms. We did so in French, to the best of our ability. He stopped us part way and said w/ a n accent, "Oh, I speak English"... then he smirked.”

“Ein zimmer, bitte.”

“BM: Great trip! Probably not enough time, but still.... I would do it in a sec.

tara bull: that was funny!”

“Vous avez une chambre avec deux lits?

At least that's what I think we said.”

“Ha! Yeah, we found the French folks (in shops and restaurants, anyway) to be very polite and cheerful. Especially when BowlderSon would order in French or ask where the bathrooms were in French. Never thought I'd see snooty Parisian waiters melt....

Also, I've always understood the French in general to be very uptight about their wine - only drinking the best stuff, not stooping to drink beer. But I found that the locals were drinking beer at about a 10-1 ratio over wine, and it wasn't even especially good beer - just Heineken!”

“Ooo, forgot to mention. We saw a trio of Paris cops patrolling on roller blades. The best part was when they actually pulled some guy over! "Yeah, I was hot-roddin' around town, but I got a speeding ticket. From cops on roller blades...."”

“What is zis slanderous attack on moi pee-pal? You come to our country, you speak-uh our language, iz zat so hard, silly outraaaaaaageous Americans? zwe are polite and happy to you in our restaurants because zwe pee in your food. Haw haw haw!”

“Everybody goes to Switzerland to eat Mexican food. I hear it's the going thing to do.

BTW Bowlder, your ill-gotten gains will go out in today's mail. Congrats. Collecting on a bet with a Phillies fan is akin to taking candy from a baby. I hope you're proud of yourself! (Okay, j/k)”

“I have no shame!”

“OK, here I am hiking up on Mt. Pilatus near Lucerne, Switzerland. Nice visibility, eh? Shirt's pretty cool, too....”

“wow, bm, you saw a LOT of stuff.... was it just as you dreamed? lol”

“My head is still spinning from the trip. In fact, we went over to the beach overnight to celebrate my cousin's 30th birthday the day after getting back, so 15 hours after getting home, we were on the road again!!”

“holy moly. bet it was an awesome trip though... worth it?”

“Yes, definitely glad we went. Funny you mention "worth" - it was really really expensive over there. Our dollar is so weak right now - I think it cost about 50% more than I anticipated (not an exaggeration).”

“Finally got photos captioned. There are a ton, so only go there if you have a lot of time. Lots of spelling errors of places, I'm sure - oh, well....

Italy
Switzerland
France I
France II”