European Vacation, Amsterdam to Paris

in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

SUNDAY:  
The above picture is really from Saturday, but it is from Amsterdam.  On Saturday afternoon, we toured the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.  This ship model was done in the late 1600's and it is amazing.  The star of the museum though is Rembrandt's Night Watch.  It was difficult to get near or to spend any great time looking over due to the crowds and the guides.  I am glad to have seen it.  It is immense.  

Sunday morning we left the ship and taxied to our motel about a mile from the ship.  Nancy took the train to the airport to travel back home.  Jo-Ellen would stay with us another day and leave for home on Monday.

Our hotel was 200 yards from the train station. After dropping off our luggage, we took the tram to the Van Gogh museum.  It was my favorite museum on the trip. I am not a huge fan of Van Gogh, but I really felt that the museum was well laid out and I learned a great deal about Van Gogh.  I didn't feel rushed and I thought that the audio tour was just right, not too lengthy but having some good information about Van Gogh and his paintings.    


In the evening, we toured the Anne Frank house and then went to a Rijsttafel ("Rice Table") dinner.  It is a mix of Dutch and Indonesian culture.  Think Chinese where everybody orders a different entree and then you share.  You get to eat a lot of different foods at one sitting.  The Anne Frank House is worth doing but it is a lot of climbing up tiny stairs.  I don't think that I have read the entire diary, but only snippets. I might give it a read now that I have toured the house and heard more of her story.

Statute of Anne Frank

The West Church, near the Anne Frank House (she heard the bells of this church during her time in hiding)

The Rijsttaffel

Burp!

MONDAY:  

On Monday, we boarded a train for Paris.  We arrived 3 and half hours later.  We then took the Paris Metro to our hotel.  When we left the ship, we thought that we were done with tiny rooms and tiny bathrooms.  We were wrong.  Our room in Paris was the same size or a bit smaller than our room on the ship.  The bathroom definitely was smaller and not as well planned as the bathroom on the ship.

In the afternoon, we met Louise and Sean as we walked down to Notre Dame (the Notre Dame).  Louise and Sean had just gotten off the train from the airport and were walking up to our hotel.    

Ken at the Paris train station

The view from our hotel room (the nicest thing about our room...notice the rental bike station on the other side of the street)

The side view of Notre Dame (that's Deb taking the same photo)

From inside the cathedral nearly behind the altar

A view of the Seine from the bridge leading to Notre Dame

From the back side of Notre Dame (IMHO, the best view of the cathedral)

TUESDAY:  On our first full day in Paris we traveled to Versailles (French for "Palace without bathrooms").  The wait to get into the Palace when we arrived had to be at least 90 minutes.  We opted to see the gardens first.

A view of the gardens looking away from the Palace

Looking at the back side of the Palace

In front of one of the many fountains

The gang walking toward one of the smaller "retreat" palaces

Late in the afternoon, we made our way into the Palace.  Our wait was only 50 minutes. A word about the bathroom situation.  Apparently the French only need to go to the bathroom twice a day.  That would explain the near complete lack of public restrooms.  There had to be 10,000 people visiting Versailles that day.  I doubt that there were no more than 60 bathroom "units" (stalls and urinals) on the grounds of Versailles.  When you do the math, it does not yield a great result. About 10% of the visitors were grade school age children.  Plan on waiting a long time in line to use the limited facilities.  The Palace is worth seeing but once is enough. 

Getting to information overload?

WEDNESDAY:  Wednesday was dedicated to seeing more of the typical tourist sites of Paris.  First stop, the Arc de Triomphe.  It was built to celebrate Napoleon's victories.  The views from the top are quite nice.

Looking West

Eiffel Tower as viewed from the Arc de Triomphe

We were then going to proceed to the Eiffel Tower, but it was closed due to a strike that was in its second day.  After lunch, we made our way to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart).  It is located on the highest point in Paris.  After you get up the hill (we took the cable car), it is 300 steps to the top.

 

Looking down at the courtyard below the church

Later in the afternoon, as we made our way back to our hotel, we stopped at the Luxembourg Gardens.  It seems less overrun by tourists than the other sites that day.  It seemed a bit like a much smaller version of Central Park in NYC.  We rested and watched kids pilot toy sailboats across the pond. 

Being French in the Luxembourg Gardens

On Wednesday evening, we took a one-hour cruise on the Seine. Here is where I got my best shot of the Eiffel Tower.

THURSDAY:  
Thursday was our museum day.  We trekked over to the Louvre.  Yes, it was crowded, but you still need to go if you are in Paris.  We did manage in about 5 hours to see a good deal of the collections.  I spent most of my time in the Italian section.  Most of it is religious art so be prepared for many paintings of the Annunciation, Jesus and John the Baptist as infants or toddlers, the Crucifixion, and Jesus be taken down from the Cross (Pietà).    

The Pyramid

Looking away from the Pyramid toward the Tuileries Gardens

The Grand Gallery

The next picture is of the Mona Lisa.  I did get a bit closer than this, but I was still about 10 people back from the painting at my closest view. I checked back several times and the crowds never did seem to be less than is shown here.

Notice all of the cellphones in the air...

The next set of pictures is taken from inside the Louvre, from the second or third floor.  These pictures give an idea of how large the museum is. 

After the Louvre, we managed to get to the d'Orsay museum.  It is directly across the Seine from the Louvre.  We liked (Susan and I at least) the d'Orsay a bit more than the Louvre.  The d'Orsay has a more "modern" focus.  The artwork seemed to mainly from the 19th Century and early 20th Century.  The Louvre has artwork from much earlier.  We toured the Impressionist wing (Monet, Manet, Degas and Gauguin). The other nice thing about this museum is that photo taking was not allowed.  Part of the problem with the Louvre was that so many were taking several shots of each painting.  Sometimes, taking several shots with different family members in front of the most famous paintings. At the d'Orsay, you could get closer to the paintings and spend some time looking at particular paintings. 

That evening, our last, we had our best meal in Paris.  Thankfully for our aching feet, the restaurant was only about 100 yards from our hotel. 

From inside the d'Orsay toward Sacre Coeur

 

FRIDAY:  

Friday we took a bus to the airport and headed home.  Our flight was delayed an hour, but we arrived in Pittsburgh around 6 pm (after leaving Paris at 3 pm).  

I am happy to be home, but I really enjoyed the trip.  I thought that the river cruise was a really good bargain.  The food was very good to excellent.  There was always enough to do and see and still some time for relaxing on the boat.   

Other travelers' photos

From the butterfly garden (Jo-Ellen)

Susan and Tom at the farewell dinner (Jo-Ellen)

Tom, on a rental, in Koblenz (Jo-Ellen)

All of us, sans Deb, in Hedeilberg (Deb's)

Tom and Susan's European vacation 2013

This is intended to be a brief journal of our 2013 European vacation.  We did a one-week cruise on the Rhine River, an extra day in Amsterdam and four days in Paris.  I will try to include some of the best pictures from every day of the trip.  Our neighbors, Ken and Deb Simkowski, were with us throughout the entire trip. 

SUNDAY:
We arrived in Zurich on Fathers' Day.  I might have slept an hour on the flight, at most.  The most memorable thing about the Zurich airport was the absolute quiet.  From lack of sleep, I might have missed the "No talking" signs walking off of the plane.

We met Susan's sister, Jo-Ellen and Jo-Ellen's daughter, Nancy.  They arrived on Saturday and looked very adjusted to their nine-hour time change.  Jo-Ellen and Nancy did the cruise with us.  

Since we had some time to kill before boarding the cruise ship, we took a tram to central Zurich and had lunch.

The highlight of lunch was the revelation that only "ladies" need to watch their waistlines in Switzerland.  Susan asked for a Diet Coke and got this Swiss equivalent...

Around 3:30, we boarded a bus for Basel.  There we boarded our cruise ship.  We did not know how lucky we were to be able to take our cruise.  The Rhine had been closed for two weeks due to flooding.  That evening we barely cleared several bridges.  The pilot house could be lowered about five feet to shrink the ship's height, but it forced the first mate to stick his head out of the moon roof.

 

Our captain piloting us through locks and under bridges

Our room was small, but the rest of the ship had plenty of space.  And because we had only 130 shipmates, we got to meet many of them.  Surprisingly, it seemed that Americans were in the minority.  It seemed that the largest group of passengers hailed from Australia and New Zealand.  Close behind were Canadians (eh?) and even a fairly large group of Japanese passengers.
  
MONDAY:
Our first stop was Strasbourg, France.  Strasbourg is part French and part German. It was my favorite city on the cruise.  It has canals linking it to the Rhine.

 

Our ship

From the center of the cathedral

TUESDAY: 

Our next day began in Speyer and ended in Heidelberg.  Speyer was smaller and very nice.  The cathedral was one of the oldest in Europe.  Construction was started nearly a thousand years ago.

View of the cathedral from the Old Gate

Susan and I also climbed up the Old Gate. I tried to translate the German signs thinking that some elevator cost one and a half euros.  We walked around a group of school children and up to the top. As we came back down, we got yelled at in German and that I understood very well.  Three euros later, we were on our way. (My German got better as the cruise went on...not so much speaking, but reading it). 

View of Speyer from Old Gate

In the afternoon, we were bused to Heidelberg to see the castle and the town.  Our guide, Bertold, bragged about often seeing Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi.  He had to mention it several times in the ride over from Speyer.  Below are pictures of the castle which is quite a hike up the hill even though the bus took us most of the way up.

View from the castle down to the Rhine

The tour of the castle took us up until about 4:00 and then we were given time to roam the town.  Since it was 97 degrees, most of us parked ourselves at a cafe and did very little roaming.  Jo-Ellen went in search for a birthday card for Susan and stumbled upon, you guessed it, Steffi Graf and her family (Andre and the two kids).  Steffi was shopping in the store where Jo-Ellen went in search for a card in German. Because of the guide's bragging about Steffi, Jo-Ellen recognized her.  She was very nice and helped her pick out a nice card. 

A view of the castle from the town

WEDNESDAY:  

This day started in Mainz and the Gutenberg Museum.  We got to see a demonstration of the printing press.  Our guide (Georg) was very good.  A large portion of Mainz was destroyed in WWII.  By comparison, most of Speyer was untouched.  The last picture below is of a Roman temple that was discovered below a mall. 

I couldn't get a picture of the cathedral from a distance

One of the side altars

 

That evening we had a tapas dinner.  It was very good.  The other pictures show the high water along the Rhine. 

THURSDAY:  

During the morning of Day Five, we did our castle tour.  The weather wasn't great, but it was tolerable.  In the afternoon, we were in Rüdesheim.  I endured 30 minutes of music cabinet museum for a taste of Rüdesheim coffee (a German version of Irish coffee).  Susan stuck it out through the entire tour, while the rest of us bailed out early despite the heat and lack of shade. 

Loreley Rock...never heard of it, but I guess that many have...

 

On to Koblenz...
Koblenz is a city at the intersection of the Rhine with the Moselle River.  Susan and Jo-Ellen did a tour of a manor house with a butterfly garden, but I had decided to see if I could rent a bike after our walking tour of Koblenz.  10 euros later I was on my way.  There were paths along both rivers. It was a bit like the Peninsula here.  Besides bikers, of which there were many, there were families with young children and many just strolling along the two rivers.  Still, I got about 90 minutes of riding in and enjoyed my time in the saddle.  It was one of my suggestions to the cruise company that they have more opportunities to ride.  Most days we had an hour or two of free time to go back and see something that the guide breezed by.  If you wanted to go back, your choice was usually to walk.  With a bike, you could have seen a bit more.  For most of the cruise, you could see a bike path along the Rhine and cyclists on it. 

A neighborhood about two miles south of the intersection of the two rivers

FRIDAY:
 On Friday we arrived in Cologne.  We were only there for about 5 hours and it was raining most of that time.  Our guide's English was not the greatest and there was a graduation mass at the cathedral.  We only got to see the back of the cathedral and the side aisles.  Cologne is a fairly large city (~750,000).  It was totally destroyed in WWII (except for the cathedral).  I wish we could have spent more time there. Susan, our neighbors and I did manage to have some time at a cafe on cathedral square. 

Eau de Cologne

Rubbing noses with this statue is supposed to bring good luck

On Friday afternoon, we left for Amsterdam.  Friday was Ken's birthday so we arranged for a some cake (and we celebrated Susan's birthday, which was the following Monday).

Happy Birthday!

It was also our farewell dinner of the cruise.

Nancy and Jo-Ellen

Ken and Deb

The whole gang with Sabin, our waiter

SATURDAY:  

On Saturday morning, after 15 hours of cruising, we docked in Amsterdam.   The first pictures are of the bicycle "problem" in Amsterdam.  The next day, the NY Times had a long article on the problem with too many bikes in Amsterdam.  Although I had seen a lot more bikes in Germany and France than are here in the US, it was hard to take a picture in Amsterdam without having a bicycle in it.  The first picture is taken near the train station.  There had to be 5,000 bikes within a quarter mile of the station.  The second picture is a bike SUV.  The center carrier is used by contractors, for carting kids or carrying groceries.  Although only about 5% of the bikes, there was a noticeable number of these multipurpose bikes.  The last picture is a typical street scene.  Notice that across the street there is also a number of bikes parked.  

The Amsterdam Train Station

Saturday morning we did the canal tour.  It took about 90 minutes.