We finally left Munich for King Ludwig II's fairytale castles. We returned to the Romantic Road route, south through Bavaria. On our way we searched out Weiskirche, (Church of the Meadows), built in the 1700's to house a weeping statue of Jesus. The church, with a modest, stylish exterior explodes into a flamboyantly baroque overkill (I think) of exuberant homage to the statue housed within the high alter. I kept giggling at the sight while Bruce admonished me to behave. Weiskirche is not far from Oberammergauer, the medieval town famous for the passion play it puts on once every decade as continuing thanks that the plague bypassed the town, 700 years ago. This year is the play's first appearance for the new millennium and the 48,000 tickets were sold out a year ago! We passed through the town in our travel and I don't think I have seen a town so overrun by tourists as this one was. It was appalling. In other years I suspect it is a clever little town with attractive buildings, but this year I believe they had created a different kind of plague. Not far from Oberammergau was Ludwig II's only completed castle and the smallest, Linderhof. Built on an island (which we didn't realize since the rivers that surround it were so small) it is an exquisite jewel of a castle with beautiful grounds and plentiful fountains. (Brief history here,) Ludwig lived in the mid-1800's in Bavaria, what is now the SE portion of Germany, Munich is the capital. He was crowned king at age 18, was painfully shy and tended to escape reality with daydreams of heroic legends. He was fascinated with the composer Wagner and his epic operas. He was also pretty wealthy and spent that wealth erecting some incredible castles. When he ran out of his own money he used state monies and really pissed off the ministers and government infrastructure. So, they had him declared unfit to rule and imprisoned him in one of his state houses. The next day after the ruling, he and his attending physician were found drowned in a couple of feet of water in a lake outside of Munich. Suicide or Murder? This has never been answered, BUT, a mere 6 weeks after his death, Neufschwanstein (the fairytale castle Walt Disney copied for Sleeping Beauty) was opened to the public as a museum in order to recoup some of the money Ludwig wasted. Having been open continuously for the last 120 years, or so, it has made far more money for the German government than Ludwig ever spent. Monday night we slept in a campground at the base of the mountains where Neufschwanstein was built.

Tuesday, 9/5/00

We intended to wake up early and beat the tourists buses to the castles. That didn't work too well as we woke up late, so we got in the middle of a throng of tourists from everywhere. It was almost as bad as Oberammergau, except we expected it here. There are 2 castles to see within walking distance of each other; Neufschwanstein, the more famous and flamboyant one, and Hohenschwangau, the castle he lived in as a child. You tend to be herded through the whole process, from buying the tickets to touring the castles, but it is worth the price of $14/person to see both castles. They were pretty cool with lots of ornate furnishing/architecture/wall murals/etc, not to mention the personal prestige of seeing the most famous castle in the world. A short walk from Neufschwanstein is the Mary Bridge with a fantastic view of the castle, another piece of advise; if you come to see these castles, be sure to go to that bridge. We enjoyed our day at Konigschloss (King's Castles) and I can't add much to that. Around 4 PM we got back on the road following the edge of the Bavarian Alps towards Lake Constance and the Black Forest. I imagine this to be Heidi country. We got to see sheer granite peaks bursting above the tree line, great dark patches of coniferous trees and alpine meadows, and very impressive to us Californians, it is September and everything is GREEN and not on fire! We dropped into the Lake Constance area and spent the night at Lindau on the SW edge of the lake.

Wednesday 9/6/00

Today we went in search of Hansel and Gretel's deep dark forest, and we found remnants of it. All my life I have heard of the Black Forest and I imagined being within a never-ending forest with great tree trunks and a dark green canopy allowing little light through; birds and large and small animals rustling just out of sight and a small path leading through the forest that was the only safety from being forever lost in the immensity of the forest. Well, today's reality is not quite like that, but I was able to catch glimpses that it may have been 200+ years ago. The Black Forest, Schwarzwald in German, is a coniferous forest that once upon a time covered a vast tract of land in western Germany. Today it is broken up by farmsteads spreading out and eating up the great trees. Yet there are still smaller areas where the forest rules supreme and here I could look into the trees and imagine getting lost and fearing to never find a way out. We drove a loop through the southern portion of the forest up to the central and back south.I should mention to those of you out there who are not experienced map navigators (I certainly am not), that the maps we use here have scenic routes outlined on them, I wonder if the U.S. maps have them and I'll bet they do, I just never knew. We use these routes as often as possible, they are off the main roads (freeways) and scenic is usually an understatement. Today's route took us west along Lake Constance, which borders Switzerland, Austria and Germany, to Titisee, a tourist town on a small lake of the same name. Our original plans were to spend the night at Titisee, but it was TOO touristy and too early in the day so we continued northwards to Triberg, the cuckoo clock capital of the world (and all we got was a magnet and a pin) then we looped southward to stop at Frieburg for the night (where there is supposed to be a good internet cafe. Perhaps we'll finally get the web page updated????) Always we were in the Black Forest and in terrain formed by glaciers long ago, resulting in sharp peaks and deep valleys. Forest was broken up by villages and farmlands, somewhere in there we came across that great river Danube, again, in a much diminished form since it was closer to it's source. Today, Thursday we will spend in Frieburg, a university town and tomorrow we head for Colmar in the French Alsace region. Heading north we will then cut back into Germany to Stuttgart and then make a beeline to Paris. We are giving ourselves 10 days to do this -we will try to connect in Stuttgart but if you don't hear from us until Paris, don't freak!
TTFN!!

9/9/00 - Saturday, Colmar

Well, as you know by now, we got the last installment of the diary out while we were in Colmar, France. And not only did we succeed there, but we also found summer again! We didn't realize how high up in the mountains we had gotten around Ludwig's castles and the Black Forest, but when we descended into Colmar, we did some descending, right into the Rhine/Rhone river basin. Last night I realized I saw my first satellite and shooting star since we arrived in Europe - not only was it clear enough to see, but it is finally getting darker earlier and we are actually still up when the stars come out!!So, lets see: Frieburg was a handsome town that we could not enjoy since our whole reason for stopping was to work the internet. Lonely Planet (travel book) was wrong about internet access there, but didn't say enough about it's attributes, which are several. While we were cursing German technology, we wandered the streets of a 900 year old town that has a lot of well deserved pride. I guess there was a lot of damage from WWII but the city has been tastefully rebuilt. The cathedral was breathtaking (with 123 tributes to the virgin Mary alone!!) although under lots of restoration. Sidewalks in the downtown are built with little rocks crating a mosaic look, and in front of stores are circular designs depicting what the store sells (or sold originally): fish for a fishmonger, scissors for a seamstress, etc. Very clever. Some of the buildings were gorgeous and the city had the typical upbeat atmosphere of a university town. The next day, we left Frieburg around noon for Colmar, a whopping 45 miles away. Colmar is in the Alsace and within another wine making region. On our way in we stopped at Neuf Brisach, a star shaped military citadel built by a famous 17th century French general whose name escapes me. It's outer defenses are built in the shape of an 8-sided star and the inner is squared off into 48 equal parts. It was never captured by enemy forces and is very well preserved, especially since it is now a town and probably used more than ever it was as a citadel. We thought it was very neat. Then it was into Colmar, a wondefully preserved medieval town with little canals, beautiful churches, a lot of old (1600's) houses, beautiful art and the home of the French sculpture Bartholdi, who created our Statue of Liberty. There is a museum called the Unterlinden, a former monastery, which houses some beautiful art and statues and the Isenheim Alterpiece painted by Matthias Grunwald, an absolutely stunning piece of art depicting scenes from Jesus' life and death. The Crucifixion painting makes you want to weep, and the Resurrection to jump for joy! That alone is a reason to come to Colmar, but on top of that is the historical center which has been classified as a "safe guarded sector" which means it is preserved forever and you could have walked down the very same streets 300 years ago with no difference. Pretty awesome! We will leave Colmar tomorrow, working our way north through the Alsace district via the Route des Vin. And, we are back in France (or should I say out of Germany?) where we can speak French to people, no matter how roughly. And I would like to report that the French are not snobs and have been very sociable to us. We will be going back to Germany soon for another taste of the Black Forest and a mission we are on. Did we tell you about our chair dilemma? How in England we paid a king's ransom for two excellent, 2-year warrantied camping chairs. After 1-1/2 months one of them blew out, after we left England and had no chance of returning it to the dealer. They were made in France or so says the paperwork, but we couldn't get an address or a town to contact them. While in Augsburg, we had to buy another chair (that's where the blowout occurred), paying another king's ransom, but had some luck with our campground owners who helped us find an address in Germany just outside Stuttgart. So, we are heading there to get our chair fixed/replaced/refunded/or some sort of satisfaction, then off to Paris. We will keep updating this diary and send it off when we get a chance.

Sunday, 9/10/00

Well, to start things off, we have lost a day! This should be Saturday, not Sunday and we don't know how long we have been off, at least since Thursday. Weird! (don't pay attention to Sat.'s date at top of this letter, it was done correctly, but without thinking.) We left our campground just outside Colmar, on the banks of the Ill river, to take the Route des Vins northward through the Rhine Valley in Alsace. It is a small, scenic road winding through the foothills of the Vosges mountains (all that is left of the ancient range) in another of those internationally-known wine regions. Once again we saw hectares and hectares of vineyards stretching out for as far as we could see. We drove through precious little villages, all dedicated to wine making and saw more wineries than can be counted. Again, unfortunately, we are not "winos" so we couldn't appreciate that aspect of the drive as much as some others we know, and it was 10:30 in the morning, so we didn't stop at the any of the numerous "caves" for wine tasting/purchasing. Possibly we will regret that later on, but fortunately there will be more chances, especially as we will be traveling through France during the harvest season. Among the stand-out villages we passed, St. Hippolyte won the prize for beauty, AND had this massive castle, Haut Konigsbourough perched on the hills above it. The castle was constructed in the 1800's to recreate the original 1100's castle that had been destroyed. It was awesome! The whole Route de Vin is picturesque beyond hope, but other outstanding villages were Dambach-la-Ville, Itterswiller and Andlau. A couple of villages after Andlau we jumped off the Route des Vins to head back east to Germany and Stuttgart. Again we took a scenic route, in France the D426, and in Germany, the 35 to Lahr, (where they were having a festival of some sort which included blocks and blocks of flea markets - Bruce and I about died cuz we couldn't stop to buy anything - no room in Queenie!!) Then we took another lovely scenic route back through the Black Forest towards Bad Peterstal and learned an important lesson: DO NOT FOLLOW THE LITTLE WHITE ROADS ON THE MAPS WHILE IN A QUEENIE-MOBILE, she cannot go everywhere! But god, she tries!! We had returned to mountains and found ourselves on a steep, lengthy, windy road and before we reached the summit Queenie, who was crawling up the grade in 1st gear, had overheated badly enough that we had to stop. Finally we made it to the top, but she was screaming at us the whole way, you should have heard Bruce: "I'm sorry Queenie, I'm SO sorry Queenie, we won't make you do this again, etc., etc., etc." Once we reached Bad Peterstal we came upon a larger (still scenic) road, the 28, to Freudenstadt, still mountainy but not so steep, and she made it, slowly, but she made it. Just outside of Freudenstadt we stopped at a campground with fantastic views of the Black Forest (probably my last view this trip, cause Queenie is rebelling) and made camp.  Tomorrow, MONDAY (I have it straight now) we head for the chair factory.

Monday, 9/11

Driving day. Left the Black Forest mountains descending into Stuttgart. The Lallemand chair distributor for Germany is about 40K west of Stuttgart off Hwy 10. A tiny town and a tiny distributorship which we never would have found had Bruce not picked a particular farmer to pull over and ask directions from. The man turned out to be our Guardian Angel; not speaking English, he got his keys, jumped into his car and took us to the location. After thanking him profusely, Bruce showed the woman who ran the chair company our damaged chair and she happily replaced it and threw in a head cushion as well. All is well that ends well. We found our campground in the middle of Stuttgart, on the banks of the Neckar River (same river Heidelburg is on) and backed up to the Oktoberfest fairgrounds which is preparing for a Sept. 23 opening. We walked the grounds watching the HUGE production being assembled. It is going to be one-hell-of an oomp-pah-pah party and we have mixed feelings about missing it. (Peg would like to go, Bruce says no-no-no!!) Tomorrow we go to the Mercedes Benz museum and see what else Stuttgart has to show us.

9/14/00 Thurs. Metz, France

Well, we have found another little jewel that is off the American tourist path. Metz, the capital of the Lorraine provence sits at the conflux of the Moselle and Sielle rivers and has been inhabited for 2000 years plus, first by the Romans then onwards through French history. It was burned to the ground by Atilla the Hun, visited by at least three saints and now has a gorgeous cathedral begun 1000 years ago, a chapel built by the Knights Templar in the 1100's, and many other historic sights. The historic buildings are lit up at night and very pretty. We spent a day and 2 nights in a charming campground on the banks of the Moselle within the city limits and fed swans, geese and ducks our baguettes. We are in the midst of Dutch campers trying to get home but blocked by the gas strike in Belgium. Of course everyone wishes to talk with us, and of course if they don't speak English, they can't!! The weather is holding and our camping costs are $8.90/night including electric and hot showers. Best price yet! We highly recommend the town and the campsite - if you are heading this way, put it on your list. But once again I get ahead of myself: We spent Tuesday in Stuttgart, doing the walking tour of the old town center and seeing the sights which included more beautiful architecture, giant squares with fountains and memorials. Stuttgart began in 960 as a stud farm (what stuttgart means) but within 150 years had achieved prominence in Germany. It is where Mercedes Benz is located and where Bosch created spark plugs. It has lots of parks and may be one of the greenest cities in Germany. We ended our day at the Mercedes Benz museum which marked the history of the company from the first cars (1890) through the 1970's. Lots of beautiful mint-conditioned vehicles. Wednesday we were on the road trying to avoid the autobahns. Queenie has a bad case of indigestion, she is farting (backfiring), not holding her idle at all and stalling every chance she gets. We think the hard drive up the hills on Monday upset her so we were trying to take it easy. Driving west towards Saarbrucken we took a route around the city and finally stopped at a mechanic in Bliesekastel, a small town just SE of Saarbrucken. The mechanic determined she had gas in the oil, changed the oil for us, remachined the oil drain plug which was leaking, put her on a diagnostic machine, said she was cured, charged us $60 (we thought a fair price - European health care seems cheap!) and sent us on our way. He was right, she is running smooth as silk again. Driving into France we experienced our first taste of toll roads. Peggy (the navigator) was furious that we ended up on one, everyone we have talked to says they are easy to avoid and here we were smack dab on one! There was a parallel non-toll road but we couldn't figure out how to get to it, and since we had eaten up time getting Queenie repaired we decided to take the easy (but more expensive) way into Metz. The total toll was 30 francs ($4) to go about 45 miles - could get expensive! At any rate we arrived and found our way to the previously mentioned campgrounds where we set up camp, made a late dinner of (I hope our last) bratworsts/saurkraut then proceeded to be up most of the night with what, indigestion? Bruce thinks we got what Queenie had, gas in our oil!!

9/18/00

Friday we headed west from Metz towards Chalons-en-Champagne, in the Champagne region of France. For aregion world famous for it's champagnes, we didn't see a single grapevine, and wondered if the French perhaps had a secret ingredient of corn in their champagne, since there was plenty of that growing!! Just outside of Chalons is the teeny tiny town (pop. 600) of L'Epine, with the neatest basilica built to house a miraculous statue of the Virgin. The church is Gothic style and looks much like it larger neighbor, Reims Cathedral, and has loads of wild looking gargoyles. It is interesting to come across this elaborate church in the midst of farmland and small villages.We had planned to camp in Chalons, but finally we have reached the time of year when campgrounds are closing for the winter, and our chosen campground was closed. We continued 45 KM north to Reims and found a campground, 14km outside the city. It was open and cheap, in a pretty setting on a river, and that is about all it had going for it. It was the first campground I have been to in 4-1/2 months where I refused to shower - they were a little too primitive for my tastes! (I should have taken a photo of them, but just now thought of it - darn!). That night the wind blew as though trying to tear the trees down and we had a restless night because of it. Fall has revisited us, the morning was cloudy and gray but surprisingly not rainy. We hurried through breakfast (croissants and Nutella!!) and drove into Reims. Reims is like the capital of the Champagne region and home to some of the best-known champagnes, but it is also the Cathedral City where all the kings of France have come to be coronated since the 11th century. Joan of Arc saw Charles VII crowned here in 1429. It was an important outpost in Roman times and so has quite a lengthy history. We came to see the cathedral and we were impressed !It is gothic style (pretty ornate) and building began in 1211. The front entrance has 2,300 statues carved on it! And they are beautiful. The interior is extremely tall with beautiful stained glass windows dating from the cathedral's inception to contemporary Marc Chagall windows, which replaced some stained glass windows destroyed during WWII. It is one exceptional building. We walk along it and can't believe the craftsmanship it took to build these churches. There is nothing built in the 20th centurythat can compare to the detail these structures have! And you would not believe what cars and pollution are doing to these works of art! The cities are being coated with black grime from the exhausts of cars and while restoration work is constantly going on, some sort of solution is going to have to be found before all of these ancient treasures are destroyed. I kept returning to the outside of the cathedral, enthralled by the statuary and the stories they told. There was a scene depicting the crowning of Clovis, the first Christian French king on Christmas Eve, 498 AD, scenes depicting the martyrdom of saints connected with the cathedral, the Last Judgement was depicted, scenes from Christ's life and the Madonna's, saints, popes, kings, angels and the ever-present gargoyles, all carved out of stone! The building is a fantastic work of art! At 2pm we took a mini-train tour of the rest of the city and were shown other important buildings/squares/fountains/statues.Finally satisfied with our Reims visit, we hopped into Queenie to head for Epernay, another city in the Champagne district where we planned to spend the night. Once again that campground was closed, although we found a trailer city set up right next to the campground. For about a half a second, we thought of stopping, but decided these were gypsies coming to harvest the grapes and we probably would not be welcome (or safe?). We continued west along a scenic champagne route and finally found the grapes! Once found, they were everywhere and ready for harvest. The farmers and pickers were preparing to harvest and for miles we found small enclaves of the dual-axle caravans owned by the itinerant workers. The vineyards followed us all the way to Chateau-Thierry where we found a campground to spend the night. A much nicer campground than the previous night too (a good thing, I wanted a shower!!). We spent the evening after dinner with a Scottish couple camped next to us - there were only 7 campers in the whole campground - talking travel, geo-politics and the like. Next morning it was on to Paris!!! Ah, Paris. What can we say about Paris that hasn't been said a thousand times before? Our first visit was in 1999 and we are so excited to return. Ah, Paris! This is a city with class - not snobbery - but class. We are staying in the Bois de Bologne campground, at the western edge of the city, our closest landmark is the Eiffel Tower, probably 4KM away. We are perfectly situated to explore the city. A bus will take us from the front gate of the campgrounds right to a Metro station where we can go anywhere in the city. A small drawback is, I am catching a cold and so we are delaying our first visit to the city for a day or 2 to see how I am going to go; downhill or not. We are taking this time to get wash done and reorganize Queenie and ourselves. Our awning is up for the first time in a month and we are enjoying the stretch. Rain has returned so it looks like our first visit into town will be wet, but we have returned to Paris! We'll talk more about Paris next time. TTFN!

Sunday 9/24/00 - Paris France

I have fallen in love with two cities in my life, the first was San Francisco about 10 years ago, and the second is Paris. We made our first trip to Paris in 1999, a 7 day/6 night affair with this beautiful city and we were both anxious for a return visit. On our first trip we were in constant motion, seeing as many sites as we were able to squeeze into the week we had. This trip has been much more relaxing, after 4 days of visiting the city, we have yet to go to a museum, we are simply strolling around enjoying the feel of Paris.  While I was in Queenie fighting my cold, Bruce was getting the feel of the campground, meeting our neighbors and getting acquainted with the staff, he helped another new arrival set up his caravan. The man is Gerard, a former policeman from Toledo, Spain, who was retired out of the force due to an accident in which he sustained a back injury. He is in Paris for 3 months to train for a job running a Spanish shopping website listed under Yahoo shopping. He is here alone, his wife and daughter are staying in the Canary Islands (with her folks) while he is away. Now understand, we speak very little Spanish or French, Gerard speaks both, and more English than our French, but it's still limited. We have managed to communicate a lot of information using the 3 languages and the help of a Spanish/English dictionary. We are having a blast. Gerard drives into the city each morning for work and has been taking us with him. We drive to the Arche de Triomphe and must make our way around it through the most exciting and horrendous commuter traffic we have ever been in! Imagine 12 boulevards converging onto a roundabout filled with cars trying to merge in and out of the lanes in the roundabout and back out a different boulevard. It is a giant game of "Chicken". Gerard manages well, having police driving experience, but Bruce and I cringe at times witnessing the audacity of some of the drivers!  We leave Gerard to his daily work and walk to the Champs Elysee, 3 blocks away, from which we decide where we would like to go that day. We have walked the Champs Elysee to the Place de Concorde, a beautiful square with a 3,300 year old Egyptian obelisk and beautiful fountains and statues and the site where 200+ years ago Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were brought to the guillotine for execution. We have walked through the Jardins des Tuilleries on our way past the magnificent architecture of the Louvre.   We've walked the Rue de Rivoli with it's upscale shops across from the Louvre. We have walked the Marais district, once a swamp, and where the Bastille once stood. We walked the Montmarte district with it's portrait artists and white Basilica de Sacre-Coeur. We walked to the Pompidou Center of Modern Art to see the the fountain and square and watched a young Australian play his digeradoo (SP?) to an enraptured audience. Of course we returned to the Isle de la Cite where Notre Dame and St. Chapelle reside.  Paris has some of the most lovely  buildings to be seen in any city anywhere.  The architecture in the city is striking with 400 yr old Renaissance structures like those facing Place Royal or the Mansard roofed 3-4 storied buildings radiating out from the Arche De Triomphe etoile.  I love to just walk and look at the lovely structures!  One of the reasons we came to Paris now is we are meeting up with Michael and Cheryl, people from California with whom we have been corresponding since beginning this trip but have never met. They are beginning a month long trip through France in Paris and we wanted to meet them and decided to combine our Paris visit with a couple of days with them. It is delightful to talk with someone familiar with the same people and places back home. They are giving us new input for conversations for the next couple of months!!   We are also on the lookout for our wandering aunt and uncle who according to last report are presently in England but will be heading to France some time and we hope to catch them on their way through.  Tomorrow (Monday) we will buy a museum pass which will get us into approximately sixty museums and other paid-entry monuments for free (well, not free, but...) and then we will spend some time at the Louvre, Musee D'Orsay, Pompidou Center, Musee Picasso, and many other spots we wish to see.

Monday, 9/25/00 Paris

Today, Gerard drove us to his work, off Ave. Marceau and we walked to the internet shop, one block off the Champs Elysee where we posted the diary and checked our email. Sorry that the webpage is not working at this time, I don't know why; suspect it is on Microsoft's end rather than mine, and am trying to remedy it, though progress is slow. It may end up I will have to get a new address for the page, if that happens I will let everyone know.  After finishing up there (and I must say, the equipment is top-notch at this particular place - I love Paris!!), we headed upstream towards the Arche de Triomphe and the Tourist Info Board to purchase our museum passes. The plan was to climb the stairs to the top of the Arche and view the city, then head for the Louvre in afternoon: The reality was, as we walked to the entry gate I changed my mind,  I thought it would be great to get photos of the view at night, and didn't want to climb the stairs twice. I had thought of this the night before, but we had been snappy at each other and I didn't want to bring it up then. Well, I should have; my beloved husband, whom I have always thought to be the more flexible of the two of us, went ballisitic at my change in plans. It was no big deal to me but, wow, Bruce was not happy! Since it was noon-ish already, I convinced him going to the Louvre would get us back on schedule and got back into his good graces, (barely).  With our passes we were able to bypass the ticket lines (always the holdup at the museums) and directly enter the museum. The Louvre is laid out in three wings (shaped like a very long letter U), the Sully, Denon and Richelieu. Last year we got to the Sully and Denon, so this year we chose the Richelieu, with sculptures and lots of paintings by the Dutch/Flemish masters. Jan Vermeer's "Lacemaker" is in this wing in the company of Rembrandt, P.P. Rubens (in a less apocolyptic mood), the Van Dykes and more. The sculptures, by French sculptors of the 17th century, were magnificent and plentiful. Even if you have no interest in museums, it must be admitted that the Louvres has an IMMENSE collection of art. After 5 hours in one wing, (with evacuation alarms going off and anxious visitors looking for nearest exits - "It is nothing, nothing, no problem. A mistake") we finally dragged ourselves home to collapse and rest up for the next day.  A couple of asides: We have heard and found it to be true, that when you are in the city (probably any city) you must stay alert for pickpockets. A couple of days ago on the metro, Bruce (Mr Suspicious - and thankfully so) caught a little girl, age 10 or so, trying to reach into the pants pocket of a tourist. She squealed, her brother (and partner) hollered and they both ran out of the metro car. The intended victim was grateful and we learned to watch everyone.  Another aside is: If someone comes up to you and says "English?" or "Do you speak English?" - just say No, they are probably  beggers who will heap verbal abuse on you if you refuse them money!! An attractive woman caught Bruce with it, adding, "I am from Romania, give me some money" (direct and to the point!) then was pissed when he refused. It is a different world out there folks, much different from what most of us are used to back in the states. We tend to look on it as an adventure - I often think of Dicken's England with Oliver and the Artful Dodger - and watch our backs.

Tuesday, 9/26/00

Too tired to get up in time to hitch a ride with Gerard, we made a deal with ourselves; sleep in and then give Queenie the cleaning/reorganization we have been promising to do since we arrived in Paris. We packed a box of non-essentials to mail to my folks for retrieval when we get home, tossed out, cleaned and repacked everything else and felt much better for it. Then we walked to the supermarket for groceries and upon our return where presented with 2 tickets for the Paris Tour bus, leftovers of an English couple on their maiden tour with their camper, leaving today for Spain.  Well, that changed our plans. We decided to go into the city after all and take the bus tour. We thought, Perfect - we can go to Musee D'Orsay, visit Cheryl & Michael, take the bus tour this evening and wrap it up at the Arch to climb to the top and shoot photos, then the metro to home.  The Musee D'Orsay is my favorite museum in, I think maybe my favorite anywhere. It holds a collection of art that is limited to the years of 1848-1914 (or damn close). During this time the whole focus of painting expanded from classical to various schools of art such as impressionism, pointillism, realism and other schools I am not familiar with. Here is Van Gogh, Renoir, Degas, Manet, Monet, Pissaro, Colbert, Whistler (yea, his mom is here), etc, etc, etc. Anyone with an interest in the Impressionists will think they have died and gone to heaven at this museum. Once again, as I felt in Amsterdam at the Van Gogh museum, looking at the originals of paintings I have admired for years, made my heart sing! I knew Degas loved his ballerinas, but I did not know that he was also an excellent portrait artist. The same with Tolouse Latrec, his posters of the Moulin Rouge are world famous, but he also painted excellent studies of people. We stayed at D'Orsay til we were kicked out at closing, then made our way to Cheryl and Michael's apt to say hello and see how they were doing. Our schedules are different and we are not meeting up quite as much as anticipated, but it is a pleasure when we do. They were preparing for an evening excursion as were we, so we didn't stay long, but made plans for dinner at Queenie on Thursday. Deciding we were hungry, we stopped at our "world famous soup de l'onion restaurant" discovered on last year's trip, for a bowl of French onion soup.  Situated right across from Notre Dame, you can have your meal looking up at the gargoyles sitting on the cathedral. As it turned out, the sightseeing bus doesn't run at night. No tour bus for the "City of Lights" which are viewable only at night? What's with that???  Disgusted, we crossed the square in front of Notre Dame and saw a long line of people queuing up in front of the church. A sign read "Concert Tonight. Gregorian Chant, the Lamentation of Rachel, 8:30 pm." Well, I started begging and Bruce took me to the concert.  Imagine going back in time 200-300 years or more. No tourists, only a church of God, being used for the purpose it was built. It is evening, the lights are muted, perhaps 300 people are in attendance, the interior of the church soars above us, and soon we are listening to an acappela choir singing in the ancient chant developed in Pope Gregory's time. The acoustics of Notre Dame are perfect, the voices lovely. We do not know the story of Rachel and it is sung in  Latin or French, but that makes absolutely no difference, it is magnificent.  When the concert was over it was 10pm and we knew we had a hour to get to the bus and home. First we had to find a bank so we could buy a metro ticket (great, get $200 to spend $1.50!!),  then we had to make 2 transfers to reach the bus station to get to the campground. We went from the Sublime of Notre Dame to the Ultimate of Grossness in the Metro, witnessing an indigent use the walkway as his personal toilet (Nos. 1 AND 2).  We finally got to the bus stop at 11:05 and wouldn't you know it the bus was on time, meaning we missed it! Hailing a taxi was an adventure but finally we succeeded and got home around 11:45. Phew! For a day in which we planned to do little, we did a lot!

Wednesday, 9/27/00

Well, poor Bruce's plans got messed up again! HE thought we were going to head for Isle de la Cite (Notre Dame area) first thing this morning, I thought we would go to Napoleon's Tomb first. Once again, I failed to see the difference if we swapped timing, but somehow it mattered.  I had us walk towards the Seine River this morning, rather than our usual Champs Elysee route. I wanted to go to the Pont d'Alma where an impromptu memorial for Princess Diana had been set up, and see if it was still there.  Then walked  to the Invalides complex and perhaps see the Army museum and Dome church, THEN on to the Isle de la Cite. We made it to the Pont (french for bridge) de Alma and there was the memorial, which is actually a memorial to the French Resistance of WWII and an exact replica of the flame on our Statue of Liberty. For the last 3 years people have been posting photos and messages in Diana's memory on the memorial at the sight of her death. We took some photo and then argued our next direction. We went to Isle de la Cite.  We came out of the Metro at the Conciergerie, the old city prison and site of St. Chapelle, that most exquisite of Parisian churches. St. Chapelle was our first stop, it was 11 am and an English speaking tour which had begun at 10:30 was still in progress, so we hurried upstairs  and jumped in to learn how to read stained glass windows (from bottom to top, left to right) and what they said.  St. Chapelle, is a small, 2 story church, built by King Louis IX in 1241-1248 to house the Crown of Thorns he purchased. The lower floor, quite attractive in itself, was used for prayer by servants of the king's household while upstairs was reserved for the royal family and invited guests. The upper floor has 13 bays of stained glass windows, so tall and so closely spaced that one barely notices the stone supports in between them, giving the impression of total windows. These windows represent different books of the Bible from creation to revelations. The colors blue and red are predominant. Have I used the word exquisite recently? Sorry, I am again.  This is really a site that should be on everyone's list to see if they are coming to Paris.  After dragging ourselves out of St. Chapelle, we did the tour of the Conciergerie, famous for being the prison of the Revolution. Marie Antoinette and 2,779 other victims spent their last days here before a final trip to the guillotine. Explained in some detail, it was pretty sordid. Last on our agenda on the Isle de la Cite was the Crypt de Archeology where we read about and looked at the original foundations of Paris, beginning in Roman times and covering 17 centuries of occupation. Pretty interesting, but didn't really send me. By now is was close to 1pm, we stopped for a bite to eat at a Turkish Kebab restaurant, then walked to the Georges Pompidou Fun House. We visited this unique building, built to house the famous collection of modern art. The building has blue air conditioning ducts, green water pipes, yellow electrical lines, red escalators and white ventilation funnels all on the outside, leaving space inside for a free-form museum of modern art.  With all due respect for those of you who appreciate modern art, we don't get it.  A major collection, here are works by Picasso, Ernst, Dali, Pollard, Chagall, Matisse, Rousseau, Calder. Some of the art we liked, most of it we didn't understand, and many made us laugh. Because we don't understand modern art, it is like a Rorschach - interpret it as we please, and we pleased to laugh, sometimes so hard we cried (and had to leave the room lest we offend anyone). Finally, after only an hour or so, Bruce took me away, and that was the end of the Fun House.  We went home and made dinner for Gerard, a small thank you for driving us daily into town. It rained all night and a general transportation strike is due Thursday in Paris. The metro, buses, RER and trains are expected to be stopped, if so, we just might stay home rather than hassle walking all day in the rain.