Interlaken, Switzerland - Yo Da Lay He Hoo!

And yes, if you are wondering we've talked about the game on The Price is Right many times about the little climber who falls of the cliff if you over bid.

Okay, with that said. I think we have gathered enough information to correctly say that all hostel breakfast are the same. Not bad, not good, just the same. We had breakfast at the hostel with high hopes of some hot food, no dice.

After filling on european cereal we took as Heather calls it, "the machine that does the walking for you" up the very steep mountain/hill into the center of Bern. At the train station we were sad to see they were no longer giving out free ice cream like the day before. The train to Interlaken from Bern is only about 50 minutes. Charlie wrote yesterday's blog while Heather read. The journey was beautiful. Many times we'd point out the window, then our jaws would hang slack at the sight of these mighty mountains and turquoise lakes on both sides. So far Switzerland has two very excited fans.

Interlaken was taken off the trip plan but happily added back on a few days ago when Berlin was cut out. Interlaken is a small town surrounded by two mountains and two lakes. (Hence the name Interlaken) The Aare River flows through the town. Interlaken is located between Lake Brienz to the east and Lake Thun to the west in the area called Bödeli, however the main attraction is probably the magnificent Jungfrau mountain (4158m). The town couldn't have been more traditional Swiss and we were very very happy!

First we wondered the town looking at all the little outdoors, ski and snowboard stores. After a while we decided it would be a good thing to try to find one of these two huge lakes. We had no map this time so headed off in a direction we thought logically made sense for a lake to be. Along the way we saw cute Swiss chalets, Swiss watch shops and made friends with two goats named Julie and Marco. We were noticing the town getting a bit more country as we headed toward more farm country. In the distance we could hear wind chimes on a few houses... how cute. Heather made a smart remark about: "it's probably a bunch of roaming cows with bells around their necks." You guessed it, she was right on. We had a good laugh watching these very noisy cows wonder around while we took some pictures.

Thinking the cows meant we'd gone too far we headed back to town to see our two friends the goats and look for lunch. Neither of us our sure how normal people eat in this town, it's unbelievably expensive!! Average meal was about 35-40 Swiss franks per plate.. yikes no thanks. We found some reasonable food to share and two new Swiss beers to add to our list.

The city was so beautiful with it's small town old world charm and snow capped mountains. We walked quite a ways down the river to one of the lakes. We must have sat down in silence for almost 1/2 hour just enjoying this peaceful place.

On our walk back we imagined what this city would be like in all the different seasons. Para-gliding was a big attraction this time of year, it was fun to watch all the people circle the city and land in the center park.

On the train ride back we walked through the dining car. It was a lot like the one on White Christmas... too bad we don't have any Swiss franks or it would have been fun to sit down for a snack.

Charlie is not feeling the best, well honestly both of us are extremely tired! We make our way back down the big hill/mountain to our hostel to find out where our new room is. Turns out we'll be in a BIG room, 20 beds.... yikes. Charlie took a long nap hoping to recoup a bit while Heather got ready and did some planning for the next few stops.

Hungry as usual we head back up the big hill/mountain. One of the nicest things about Europe is the spontaneous little things that are always going on that we've just stumbled into. We followed our ears to the sounds of a choir singing. A traditional Swiss choir was singing in the main square all dressed in tradition costumes. One song was even complete with yodeling which made us both smile from ear to ear.

Too tired to really enjoy a meal out we did our traditional stop at the co-op for some bread and meat to go with our cheese from the picnic the day before. We took our meal back down to the hostel and ate while listen to a pretty intense football game on tv.

With an early train to catch to Munich, Germany in the morning we hit the hay. Draw your own conclusions of how much sleep we got in a room with 20 people coming and going all night. Ughh.

Bern Switzerland...Bear pits, bicycles, and beauty

Sleep is such a wonderful thing. The past few weeks of hectic travel caught up to us, and luckily we were able to catch up on some much needed sleep. About 12 hours worth to be precise. We awoke around 1130 am, sleeping through breakfast, but that was fine by us. First on the agenda was laundry. Thankfully our hostel had a washer and drier, and we were at the end of our weeks worth of clothes. After changing euros for swiss francs from a nice man in line at the lunch room, we were set. After showering and changing into clean clothes we were off to explore.

We've found it a bit chilly here in Bern, probably due to the elevation, as we are just north of the Swiss Alps. Bern is a stunningly beautiful city. Lush green hills, old world charm, and the river running through town is the brightest, light turquoise color you could imagine. Our hostel is situated right on the river, at the bottom of a hill/cliff below the main part of town, which means we must walk up a very steep grade. There is also a gondola you can take up it, but it wasn't in operation, which disappointed Heather as she wanted to take the machine that "does the walking for us". First stop after trekking up the hill was the train station to make sure we have seats on the train to Munich. The ticket clerk was very friendly, chatting to us about oktoberfest and how busy the trains get to Munich during that time. With seats reserved for us, it was off to explore.

We were quite hungry at this point as it was almost 3pm, so we wandered into the local coop supermarket. Actually it was more than a supermarket, on the main level it was a department type store, with the supermarket on the lower level. This was the largest supermarket we'd been to yet in Europe, as most were just small corner market type places or specialty shops like bakery's. First part of the store was a large deli area with hot prepared food, all of which area awesome. The rest of the store was set up like any other supermarket. First stop was the cheese for some of that famous swiss cheese. Heather wanted to get a few slices of a few different varieties of cheese so she stood in line. We should add when you think swiss cheese in the states you think of white sliced cheese with holes right? Well at this cheese deli in the store, there were maybe 30 varieties of swiss white cheese. The older woman slicing the cheese didn't speak much english so was having a hard time understanding Heather, when an older gentleman in line offered to help. He was very kind and happy to assist Heather in her quest for sampling swiss cheeses, and he picked out 3 types that we would enjoy. We were very grateful for his help and thanked him, and he wished us a good day. Along with the cheese we got a bag of crackers, an apple, a small chunk of wonderful bread, a bar of swiss chocolate, a hot noodle/potato dish, and what we would describe as a small meatloaf. We wandered into the train station to find a place to eat it, as the station here is like a shopping mall inside, tons of stores and restaurants/food courts. First food court we sat in we didn't realize belonged to one of the fast food chains, and we were kindly told "picnic no good!" We wanted to say our picnic was very good, but we got the hint and packed up and moved on to another place. On the way past the main schedule, there were people handing out free ice cream cones!! yes free!! We each scored a free strawberry ice cream cone, which we had to eat before the rest of our meal in fear of it melting. We settled down in the waiting room for trains and finished our delicious first meal in Switzerland.

After eating we started walking down some of the cobblestone streets, and came upon one of a few places where you can rent bicycles for free, you just need to leave a deposit. We thought this would be a great was to get around so we signed the forms and peddled away. We took a brief stop at the Munster Cathedral, but it was just closing up so we didn't make it inside. Up the road aways was the infamous Bern bear pits. The brown bear is the official animal of Bern, so they have 5 or so in a mini zoo like setting on the edge of town. Only one was outside walking around while we were there, so we snapped a couple pictures of him. We wondered to ourselves if all of them got to growling and making bear noises if the whole town could hear them? We peddled off to return our bikes and on to starbucks to use the internet. On the walk back from starbucks we ran into some kids playing in one of the many fountains. They were taking turns running through, and were absolutly soaked. We were sure they would get hypothermia soon. We also came upon 2 older men playing chess on a large chess board made of stone on the edge of a market square. There was a good crowd gathered around them, watching them move the big wooden pieces. One of the men was quite colorful and made funny expressions every time his opponent made a move. Upon arriving back at the hostel room we found we had a new roommate. The Neighbors cat had taken up residence on Heather's bed. We weren't sure at first if our roommates had snuck it in, or if it came in the open window, so we walked to reception to inquire. He told us it was the neighbors cat after giving a brief discription, so bak to the room we went where we turned him loose outside. We took it easy that evening, charlie took a nap while Heather read and played online. About 9pm we wandered off in search of dinner, and were guided to a small pizza place by the hostel staff.

It was a cozy little neighborhood type place where there were maybe a dozen people watching a football (soccer) game on tv. We sat down in one of the 8 or so tables and ordered a beer and some pasta. The 2 men working there must have been father/son, and we're super nice and great hosts. Soon after we sat down the place really filled up, there were about 20 people in there and it seemed packed. All there to watch the game, kind of cool we thought as it was like being in an place in the twin cities with everyone there rooting on the twins or the wild. About 10:30 we were quite tired and walked a the couple blocks back to the hostel in search of one more good nights sleep, with intentions of getting up for breakfast and heading to Interlaken for a day trip.

Comments

We live for people leaving comments are so sad you "have" to sign up for gmail to do so. Grrr, well if you want leave us comments. So far Lindsay Lenzen is the comment queen.

Charlie is taking a rest now, travel really hits us hard once and a while.

H & C

Paris - Last Day on to..... ??!?!?!?!?

A rocky start to the morning with the evil little alarm waking us up at 6:30am. Something must have shifted from warm summer nights to fall in Paris, we both froze in our sleep. A cold shower was really no help but did the trick of waking us up. Heather stashed as much bread, butter and cherry jam from our last free Paris breakfast as she could in a ziplock bag and we were off to catch a taxi to the train station and Berlin, Germany.

Neither of us were looking forward really to an 8 hour train ride to Berlin. Be careful what you wish for. We got to the ticket window to find all trains to Berlin booked, the best they could give us was an over night which would get us into Berlin the next morning at 4am. Ummm no thanks, over night trains were a HUGE extra fee because you needed to book a sleeping cabin plus pay an additional fee to cross countries. But this didn't get us down. We knew this trip was about flexibility. We went off to do some internet research of where can we go ASAP. The ticket people at the train station must love us. We went back about an hour later with the question "where can we go ASAP?" ... the answer.... Bern, Switzerland! We had planned to travel to Bern (pronounced more like a mix of Barn and Burn) but not till about 9 days later. So good buy-bye Berlin... perhaps another trip.

Really not much to report from today. We got our tickets which did not leave Paris till 5pm and headed to the south train station on yet ANOTHER taxi. After lugging our bags a few blocks we both broke down and decided to get a locker at the station (no bargain there). With our 358 lb backpacks safely stowed we could explore a new region of Paris.

Ok let's be honest, all we did was eat great food, try amazing french wine and count the hours down till we headed out. So a few bottles of wine, a cappuccino, a plate of spaghetti Bolognese, tomato tar-tar and shrimp, creme brule and many baskets of french bread later it's time to head out. Heather got an impromptu french lesson when she tried to order another beer in 1/2 french and 1/2 english. They two waiters were nice enough coach her and make her say it 3 times before they would let her order!!

By the way, we've both done very well with our limited language skills... thank God most of Europe speaks very very good English!!

First class never felt so fine!! We had facing seats with a table between us. Heather napped away the better part of the trip. But of course we were smart and brought our own snacks from the grocery store not to mention a bottle of nice french wine that we paid a little under 2 euros for.

It is NOT a lie when they say that wine/beer is cheaper than water and soda in Europe. And big congrats to anyone who has success ordering regular "free" tap water at a restaurant... it's only happened once for us.

A four hour train ride wasn't long enough, we both were tired and could have used a bit more sleep. We got outside at the train station in Bern, Switzerland and found it to be quite chilly. The walk to the hostel was a bit more challenging in the dark. We found it in about 10 minutes and were happy this place didn't have 5-7 floors. We got checked in and then checked ourselves into bed for a long long night of sleep!

France - Day trip to Normandy/Omaha Beach

After hitting the snooze button on the alarm twice, we rolled out of bed at about 830am, another early morning in Paris. We quick dressed and walked down to the kitchen to scam some free breakfast of cereal, fruit cocktail, toast, hot chocolate and coffee. Back up to the room, this time on the 4th floor, to pack our bags and store them for the day. We had no trouble finding a cab this morning, unlike last night, to take us to St Lazarus train station for the train to Bayeux, France. We got ourselves situated in some very comfy first class seats, these first class eurail passes might just pay for themselves. The train ride was a bit rough and Heather napped for a bit. The ride was a lot like going back in time, many of the farm places and villages look like very little has ever changed. We passed through Caen, which was almost completely destroyed in ww2, and was now a modern looking city.

Upon arrival to Bayeux, we crossed the parking lot to the bus pickup spot. There was nobody in the ticket office over noon hour, we couldnt make heads or tails of the schedule as it was in French and in no logical order we could stumble our way through. We should have taken this as a sign, but to our luck a bus came up and stopped and we asked the driver what time the bus 70 left for Omaha beach. Finding we had a bit over an hour wait, we walked into town to find lunch. Bayeux is home to a HUGE cathedral, and also the worlds largest tapestry, some 70 meters long....thats a bit over 200 feet long for those not on the metric system. It was done to show William the conquorer taking over the region back in about 1067, so its also quite old. We chose not to see it as it cost about 7 euros, and decided on lunch instead. We found a little cafe just inside the village and ordered an order of fries and kind of a pizza sandwich with tomatoes, ham, and cheese. On the walk back to the station we found some cheap ice cream cones we enjoyed on the walk back. There's something about the ice cream here in its soft creamy goodness, nothing like the usually hard ice cream in the states. Walking the streets of the town they hang flags of all the allied forces that liberated the area from the Germans in ww2. Kind of cool to see they are still thankful for it, and also I'd imagine they are up because this seems to be a huge tourist town as its close to all things Normandy related. We finally caught our bus to the Cemetary, which turned out to be about a 25 minute ride on a very crazy bus that would make about anyone sick from all the roundabouts and fast turns. (Yes including Heather)

We arrived at the cemetery with about 2 hours to spend. The first thing we noticed was this place is immaculate. Absolutly spotless. The grass is bright green and maintained better than any golf course. All the trees and shrubs were neatly trimmed. There were gardens of beautiful flowers and plants. The headstones were shining white and spotless marble. Very impressive for being over 50 years old and being exposed to the rainy/foggy weather the area can get. Our day here was perfect weather, sun shining, few clouds, and a nice, but a bit cool breeze coming off the ocean. We made our way around the edge of the cemetery a bit where there was a huge plaque depicting the various beaches that were invaded and where the troops of each country had landed. This was at the top of the hill overlooking the beach itself, and they have a walking path down to the beach. They say plan on 10 minutes walk down, and 20 back, so we decided to do this first. The trail kind of zig zags down the hill onto the beach through the brush, which was a lot thicker than imagined. The beach itself is beautiful. The calming sounds of the waves coming ashore, the fine grains of sand that run on for miles in each direction. A bit to the northwest you could see point du hoc, but for some reason today there were no tours of that site. Looking up the hill towards the memorial site it was hard to imagine what took place here in june of 1944. It really puts things into perspective just how brave the soldiers were who took this beach and the others near it. The walk back up took about 20 minutes as said, with one break on a bench to rest our weary feet.

The next area was the cemetery itself. Like much of what we've seen on our trip, its hard to put this into words. Its the final resting place of over 9000 US soldiers that gave their lives for freedom in ww2. Walking through you feel emotions like awe, thankfulness, patriotic and proud. Like we said, the place is immaculate. Any way you look at the headstones, in any direction, they are in perfect rows. We checked out the various statues around the grounds, and also the chapel on site. We walked back towards the visitor center and passed through the memorial and the garden of the missing, which shows all the names of the missing in action in the region. Inside the visitor center you had to pass though a metal detector, which we thought was silly because it looked like just a few plaques, but soon saw a stairwell going downstairs. It was full of various soldiers uniforms, weapons, things they carried with them, and tools they used. They had 2 areas where films were being shown with stories being told by those who fought in the battle, along with story boards of what happend leading up to the invasion and also the aftermath.

With about 15 minutes before the bus was scheduled to come, we headed back outside to catch it. About 20 minutes after the bus was supposed to be there we got a bit worried, so we went back to the visitor center to find out how we can get back to Bayeux since it looked like the bus didn't come since we were 2 of 4 people that got off at this stop. We figured they thought it wasn't worth their time for just 4 people and just flat out didn't come. We never saw the other 2 people that got off with us so they must have found other means back to where they were going.

Luckily for us the man working the information desk was an American who offered us a ride when he was off at 6pm. He was very nice and very knowledable about the history of the region, neither of us got more than a few words in the whole ride back, we're guessing he was happy to have 2 people interested in the history of the region to speak to. Turns out he lived in Minneapolis for about 3 years in the uptown area, again small world. After a nice ride back to the station and meeting yet another great person, we sat and waited an hour for the next train to Paris.

We arrived back to Paris to the hostel to find we are now in room 145. We thought great, we dont have to walk up 5 flights of stairs!! Wrong!!! apparently that room is on the 4th floor, room 5, the one is meaningless somehow. So back up the stairs we go to get some much needed sleep.

Paris - Chocolate Croissant dreams in the city of lights!

Bon Jour! It's one thing to wake up in a new city or even a new country everyday but something hits hard and fast when you wake up and your first thought is: "I'm in Paris!"

A happy night of sleep behind us with our friendly roommates was wonderful. We trekked down the "7.5" flights of stairs and ladders to a french breakfast at the hostel. Granola, toasts, jams, yogurt, juice, hot chocolate and lattes.

Our day began by walking a few blocks to the louvre. I know we said "its huge" but there is no way to even really understand it's size until you've seen it. Compared to all other museums we've seen this one was a bargain. Only 9 euros to enter the most impressive museum in the world! We made lots of references to the movie and book "The DiVinci Code" but sadly we did not run into Tom Hanks. It's sunday morning and just a little bit after the Louvre opened, time to get the big one out of the way before the mob really hits: Mona Lisa. It wasn't hard to find even though with tons of wings, multi-levels, twists and turns everywhere you just follow the crowd. We were prepared for this Mona Lisa to be quite small, perhaps over prepared. Actually we both thought it was a lot larger than we expected. Her knowing secret eyes did follow us. It's one thing to try to get the perfect picture but actually standing there without a camera in front of your face is most important. We saw impressive the Venus De-Milo statue (the one with no arms). Even Napoleon's apartment was set up to walk through... that's what we're in the market for, a dining room table that seats 40. Everything about the Louvre was beautiful, even the ceilings where priceless works of art. It's not an exaggeration that you could spend 2 or more days and not see everything. But with time ticking away in Paris we stayed a little less than 3 hours and got a really good taste.

Since we are now experts at walking and figuring out a new city's streets in less than a few hours we took off for the Eiffel Tower on foot. With the same logic as the night before "if we can see it we can walk to it" we arrived about an hour later. It was very nice walk down the Siene River with many street artist selling drawings, bus tours on one side and boat tours on the other. I'm sure we'll rant about what we think about people who pay 30+ euros to go on a bus tour (grr). The day was perfect, a cool breeze in the air and a clear sky. The Eiffel Tower was brilliant to say the least. To travel up the elevators was around 8 euros and a long wait in line, we felt just a special sitting under it and enjoying the view. We walked down the park took a few amazing pictures. We encountered our first "street scam" but Charlie was lucky enough to have read about it before so we just kept walking. We saw the building across the park where Napoleon was buried but didn't know that until a few hours later or we would have gone in.

We both feel the exact same thing in Paris: under dressed. If we could wear a sign around all day with an apology for our un-fanciness we certainly would. How do these woman walk for hours on cobblestone streets in 4" high heels?! The fashion here is just unreal, anything goes and does. Heather does herself a great curiosity everyday but not going into any store that sells shoes or handbags.

It's said in Paris: sleep on the street, skip the museums but: EAT EAT EAT. Will do! We had lunch a block from the Eiffel tower at a place called Le Dome. We met two different friendly american couples that we shared our travel stories with. Two young men in the Air Force living in Germany had rented a car to come to Paris for the day and the other was a couple from Phili. I'm sure every one is quite sick of hearing " (fill in the blank) was the best or most delicious ever" but here we go again. In Paris it was time to take a break from beer and drink wine! The salad we ordered can only be described as eye candy. The freshest tomato slices, thick round cuts of buffalo mozzarella, fresh herbs all layered in olive oil and a hidden green salad underneath. With a dish of crusty french bread we were in heaven. We ate slowly and enjoyed every bite, how many times in our life will eat a lunch like this on the park by the Eiffel tower.

Paris is visually beautiful, that is understood but with all beauty there can be some hidden secrets.
In the mid 1700, Paris they need stones to build the city, so tunnels deep underground where dug out and the mining began. Around the late 1700 some problems arose: namely the plague (not to mention bodies were not buried deep enough and eroding). Paris was running out of places to bury all their dead. They needed a means to an end. It was decided to respectfully move all the bodies out of the graves and transport them under Paris. Some 6-7 million people were exhumed and moved by cart down the streets flanked by priest blessing them. So began: The Catacombs.

After lunch we grabbed a taxi across the street smartly knowing the walk was too far and our time in Paris was valuable. Our taxi driver turned out to be the "Ulrich" of Paris. He told us history of Paris, beautiful points of interest to see including a white cathedral on a hill with panoramic views, how to get good deals on lunch specials and Napoleon's tomb. We must say that French, English, Dutch, Belgium... everyone in Europe is almost uncomfortably friendly. Our kind driver told us stories of his own trip to the Catacombs, by the end we felt like friends.

The Catacombs can only let in 200 at a time so the wait outside was about 10 minutes long. The entrance we went in wasn't more than a door on a normal looking street. We thought about telling the ticket woman we were american teachers to get a 3 euro discount but decided not to when the guy in front of us got caught doing the same trick. It was 156 stairs down in a tiny twisting staircase that was so dark and never seemed to end. We stepped in to eery silence. We knew from very old pictures that these tours used to be done only by candle light. If you've ever been in a haunted house you know the feeling of something scary could be lurking around any corner. The passages were short and narrow. Water dripped from the ceiling making the smooth stone floors slick. The walk hundreds of feet below Paris' beautiful streets was about 45 minutes. The first half showed the history of the mining. Many many dark corners where blocked off with barred doors. We probably only were able to view a very small part of the entire system down there. We came into the first room with the dead. It was so surreal. Hauntingly silent. The bones were stacked so neatly. No flash photography was allowed. A few places in the catacombs had alters for prayer. Some of the skulls had bullet holes in the heads, we wondered what story went with each bone. Many famous poets, nobles, artists and actors are in the catacombs. During the walk many of their stories were displayed. Anyone caught stealing bones from this place is taken directly to the police. At the end we climbed an even more narrow set of spiral stairs up about 80 steps. We hadn't seen the sun in a while and walking outdoors was quite a shock not to mention we had no idea where we where exiting. As usual we followed the ragged out of breath crowd.

On a side note: bathrooms are NOT free in europe. We said we would never pay... Heather broke down in Brussels and forked up the 1/2 euro. You'd think since we paid all that money for our rail pass at least the bathrooms at the station would be free?!?! Nope not even at McDonalds.

Another side note: Dogs are welcome about everywhere. This is great news for us since we are big time animal lovers! Does your dog want to ride the train? What about go out to dinner? An extra seat at the table for your pooch? No problem!

Charlie is the map man! He figured out where we were and what looked like about 6-7 blocks from Notre Dame. Like ALL sites in Paris it's much farther than it looks. We walked nearly and hour hoping to hear those famous bells ring. One block away we got distracted by a market on the street and had to stop for a snack. Typical Paris mimes did their act for a few coins. Notre Dame was beautiful like we knew it would be. It sits on a small island in the Siene river. We walked inside bypassing the "visitors line" to the "mass line"... hey we're catholic we get special treatment right??? One thing we've noticed about every church is they don't have pews, just chairs that sometimes hook together, very strange. We sat for a few minutes, said a prayer then walked around. We were nearly pushed down by security as a crazy guy jumped on the alter and started shouting something in french... we are sure he's off to the guillotine later. Heather lit a candle for her cousin Christopher and sent good thoughts and prayers his way. Back outside we just missed the last group that was allowed to climb to the top and tour, oh well we have been up and down enough stairs. With the bells of Notre Dame ringing we headed back toward the Lourve and our hostel.

We walked past the UGLIST modern art museum, it looked inside out. Heather refused to take a picture worried it might break her camera. We are surprised Paris puts up with it. We were moved to a different private room tonight on the 4th floor. Ok who is paying attention that really means floor....??? We cleaned up in or "private room" with two bunk beds but still had a shared shower/bathroom with the floor.

The plan tonight was to see Moulin Rouge... a big dream of Heather's. Finding a cab in Paris is a little harder than one would think. Cabs dont just pull over on the side of the street when you hail them, you have to be next to a "taxi" sign. Step one, find a taxi sign. We asked some friendly french police on roller blades and they directed us a few blocks down. (if we could have walked we would have... way too far) After an hour of unsuccessful attempts and hailing cabs full of people we gave up and started walking back to the hostel, wouldn't you know it one pulls up. At this point we are both very happy and a little sick of standing around. Pulling into Moulin Rouge was NOT what Heather thought it would be. Kind of like seeing Michalgelo's david in paper mache. Heather nearly told the cab driver he brought us to the wrong Moulin Rouge. Not much to see on this sketchy part of town, the show looked terrible and the only thing worse was the price. We walked around for about 20 minutes decided we didnt like this part of town... cut our loses and grabbed a cab back home. On the walk back we finally had dinner at a little place on the corner that was still serving food at 10:30pm on a Sunday night. Nothing a few glasses of french red wine, a tarragon salad with avocados and crawfish tails and one of mixed greens and crisped goat cheese and procuitto wouldn't cure.

One thing we've noticed about Paris, you can't swing a baguette in this town with out hitting at least two jack russell terriers. EVERYONE has one... they must come free when you move to town. Darn cute dogs!!

But all in all for being in Paris a little over 24 hours we'd seen:
- The Louvre
- The Eiffel Tower day/night
- Notre Dame
- The Catacombs
- Champs Eylsis
- The Arc de Triumph
- Moulin Rouge
- Napoleon's grave
- The Pantheon

and MUCH more!!!

So off to bed we go, even with Heather's heart broken a little by Moulin Rouge the day was made for us.

H & C