Giverny and Monet’s Gardens
Early morning; we have the gardens to ourselves before the crowds arrive.
Early morning in Vernon/Giverny. It is so chill I am wearing a sweater over my dress.
Monet’s house at Giverny. Every painting in the house is a reproduction; the originals are at the Marmottan, or in other art museums.
The gift shop is bright and full of goodies.
Some choices from the nearby Impressionist Museum. Camille Pissarro was one of the earliest Impressionists.
The Impressionist Museum has a wonderful cafe’, Oskar’s, which also has really good coffee.
Buying macarons
I can walk forever when the temperatures are cooler!
Tauck Treats: A Day of Amazement in Paris
Sunrise over the Seine, and yes, that is the Eifel Tower and it is another glorious (and hot) day. We are still jet lagging, which means getting up early is easy.
It is wonderful to have a grandson who has a good eye with a camera.
The area where we are docked is modern, with businesses, apartment blocks, a little industrial, and – we are right by a beautiful park with an air balloon, convenient to a train station just steps away on a major line that can take us anywhere we want to go (K discovered this yesterday and shares with us) and we are sleeping on the Seine with a view of the Eifel tower. For me, it just never fails to thrill.
Tauck Treats. Today is a day like no other, for me. Today, I just do what I’m told, go where I am taken and I don’t have to make things happen, just be fully present. I love it. Tauck doesn’t tell you everything you’re going to do; it is a mystery, a treat when it happens. One of today’s treats is that they are giving us Euros to find where we want to eat. The amount is generous, and some are choosing to eat street food and spend the rest on souvenirs.
One surprise is that we are on a smaller, private Bateau Mouche. This is really fun! We are doing the same trip, only one way; we board right next to our ship and will get off at Ile de la Cite’.
I love his bird’s eye view – I wonder if he has to walk up all those flights carrying his groceries? Maybe they have retrofitted an elevator?
We arrive; the normal toilets are blocked off with the upcoming Olympics, so Tauck makes a deal with a local store to let us use their restroom – a familiar store on the Left Bank (Subway.)
It’s a long line, but serendipitous – we start to meet our cruising mates. Here is one of the unexpected blessings. The cruise is full of families of all shapes and kinds. Some are celebrating, and some are grieving and overcoming losses. Some are traditional and some are not. The families are formulated all different ways with one thing in common – they love their children and grandchildren, and the trip is a wonderful way to spend time together. We all have a lot in common, no matter what our differences might be.
We are in the group that starts with the Citroyen Tour, and we have to be a party of three so we ask to take N with us – she is a lot of fun.
We arrived back at the meeting point to discover our other three family members had not been able to go, they were one car short! We agreed to take N on the next activity, and then split up for lunch, agreeing to meet in an hour.
We walked a short way into the Left Bank and found a place to eat that sang to our souls.
Our time in Paris is short; we are happy to make the most of it!
Pork with sauce, frites, and salad
Steak frites and salad
I forgot to take pictures of the chocolate mousse!
Across the street was a very beautiful small church, Sainte Severin. As we stood outside looking at it, the waiter ran after us carrying my husband’s “go bag” with our maps and water jugs. He was so kind and went to a lot of trouble to catch us.
We meet up with our family, grab N and head for our group meet-up.
We love Paris. We’ve spent a lot of time in Paris. AdventureMan and I agree that our next experience blows us out of the water. It is thrilling, and it brings history to life in an intense way – you are a participant!
It is called Eternelle Notre Dame.
If someone told you that you would experience the history of Notre Dame Cathedral, you might go ho-hum. I did.
We were guided downstairs to what I am told used to be an underground parking lot, now a museum and virtual reality area. N went with a couple of her friends, and we were right behind her. You only “see” the persons in your group, but others appear, and we always know which one was N, so we felt comfortable that she was safe.
We were suited up with a backpack thing and helmet, including goggles that covered our entire upper faces. It felt a little creepy but I was curious enough to endure it.
And then the adventure begins! Your medieval guide appears and gives you instructions. You see a path and you follow it, or if you do not, you wait for instruction. Sounds simple enough, right? At the beginning, it is.
You are surrounded by medieval Paris. You meet the craftsmen and watch them work. They are just beginning to build the cathedral.
Now I will stop telling you about the experience or I may tell you too much. Perhaps I am too suggestible. My husband said I nearly gripped his hand off! There were times I could NOT move forward, I was so afraid. I knew this was make-believe, but my lying eyes told me otherwise. Once, I groaned aloud!
It was one of the most memorable, intense Paris experiences I have ever had, and I feel like I was there, all the many years they spent building the cathedral. I had no idea! When I can re-visit the real Notre Dame of Paris, it will be with new eyes and new appreciation!
(I screenshotted these images off TripAdvisor, which sells tickets for this visit.)
N had a great time, too. We met up with her parents and then parted company. Here is the truth – sometimes we are bad examples to our grandchildren. We skipped the walk. We told the guide we knew how to return to the ship, and we went to a cafe to sit and talk about our Eternelle Notre Dame experience. What was really fun was that the walking group went by and we waved at our family from our cafe’ table.
We had an iced lemon drink, leisurely found our way to the metro/train station, and caught the train to Javel. It was a short walk to the ship, where we met up for a lively dinner.
Aachen – Christmas Markets on the Rhine
That this trip would go to Aachen is one of the reasons I eagerly wanted to take this trip. We visited Aachen around twenty years ago, and the minute I walked in the church, I was stunned by this candelabra:
It is huge. It is glorious. This was the church of Charlemagne, and it is a very very old church. I don’t know why it is so special to me, but I love this church. Now I can recognize all the Moorish elements; that could well be a part of its attraction to me.
Wikipedia says the Aachen cathedral was consecrated in 805 AD, and is the oldest cathedral church in Europe.
“It is claimed as one of the oldest cathedrals in Europe and was constructed by order of the emperor Charlemagne, who was buried there after his death in 814. For 595 years, from 936 to 1531, the Palatine Chapel, heart of the cathedral, was the church of coronation for thirty-one German kings and twelve queens. The church has been the mother church of the Diocese of Aachen since 1802.”
I knew from previous visits that you had to buy a ticket to take photos in this church. You have to find a policeman selling permits, and he puts a permit on your camera. There were a lot of people taking photos and being told they had to pay. There were signs, but they were small and not very visible. I felt sorry for the people who were scolded and told they had to pay.
Looking up int the dome. The black and white arches remind me of the Alhambra in Spain. So simple, so elegant.
Guess I really have a thing for those arches, LOL.
Outside view of the Aachen cathedral / church. What is really funny is that it looks like blue sky, and maybe, just maybe for a few minutes, it was. Mostly what I remember is a very cold day and a very chill rain, so chilly that we only wandered around the Market for maybe half an hour and then found a cozy cafe where AdventureMan could get some hot chocolate for his sore throat.
The Winter Specials!
Hirschsteak! (Deer steak) Gänsekeule! (Goose leg) Muscheln! (Mussels Alsatian style)
Shops full of the Aachen special spice cookies. Love the way they decorate their windows.
People beginning to gather for their shopping, and for drinking Gluewein with their friends.
I love this statue. I think it is called Greed, or The Love of Money.
Here is Didi’s Chocolate Shop where we found our tour guides, also having a hot drink and comparing notes while the tour guests shopped. I ordered Mint Tea and got a huge pot of boiling hot water and a bundle of mint leaves. It was lovely, so fresh, so fresh. AdventureMan also loved his hot chocolate.
When we left, we were all to gather at the tourist info stop. We were all there, and nothing was happening so a couple people went inside the tourist place, and then the guides showed up and hurried us down a street. Fortunately the people inside could see the end of the line far off down the street and hurried to catch up with us. We know they would have sent people back for them when they were discovered missing . . . or we think so. It felt like a disaster narrowly averted.
We speak the language. Still, we would not want to be left behind in a strange city and have to find some way to get back to a boat that we don’t really know exactly where it is.
Arriving on the MS Grace for Christmas Markets on the Rhine
Late in the afternoon, we board a bus for a very short drive to our ship, the MS Grace. We are greeted with enthusiasm and shown into the Lounge, where drinks and hors d’oeuvres are waiting for us.
The ship as all decorated for Christmas.
It doesn’t take long to get to our room, which we like a lot. It doesn’t have a balcony, just doors that open, I think they call it a French balcony. You can’t go out, but you can stick your head out and watch the world go by.
The bathroom is spacious, which is really nice when you are going to be sharing with someone, like AdventureMan. It really mattered to me, especially later in the trip, that the water in the shower was really hot and they never ran out of hot water.
Lovely closet! Room for us both to put all our things away, and hang up hanging clothes, store our luggage and even dress when the other person is still sleeping and one of us really needs some coffee 🙂
The dining room is not intimidating. There is always room. There are only maybe 100 passengers on board, so by the end of the trip we have favorite people we like to see and talk with at meals. The food was pretty good, too. I can’t drink a lot of wine any more, but they had a Sancerre that was cool and crisp and dry and went perfectly with fish. They had a good number of options at every meal, soups, salads, main courses and desserts. One person I saw even ordered two main courses; I’ve not seen that before, but it seems that Tauck really takes good care of demanding customers.
This is what it looks like out our window. It’s a good thing we spent so many years in Germany; we know what late November is going to look like (this looks pretty good for late November) and we are prepared for the grim greys and the cold. Even better – it’s what we came for. Winter!
For months, we have been following a thread on CruiseCritic; a thread about which cruises were going and which were not because the levels of the Rhine River have been so low, historically low. Some cruise lines cancelled, some made elaborate changes and ended up with unhappy customers. Tauck told us up front what our options were – we could opt for a later trip or do this trip with a mid-trip “ship swap.”
On the day we went to Heidelberg, we left our packed bags in our rooms, boarded our bus with our day packs, spent the day in Heidelberg, boarded our bus with our day packs and ended up in a little French town near Baden Baden on the Inspire, in the same exact room with our bags where we had left them on the Grace. Totally class act. Yes, it was a little disruptive having to pack and unpack – once – during the trip, but no hotel overnights, no packing and unpacking all the time, in fact as little disruption as possible, considering near the Lorelei the river was impassable for the 130m boats. They took a difficult situation, and did a good job making the best of it.
This is what our trip looked like, except that the last night was in Colmar, not Kembs. I think they changed for 2019.
What we liked a lot about going with Tauck is that they really do things beautifully. Presentation isn’t everything, but attention to detail really does make a difference. The ship was immaculately clean, and we lacked for nothing. Another thing we like is that we are very private, and very independent travelers. We don’t stick with the tour groups, we go off on our own and meet up with the group later. We like to find our own places to eat, go back to old familiar haunts, etc. What was really fun was that we met a lot of people like us who also took off on their own and went to fun places. On nights when we didn’t care to go to the dining room, we could get a perfectly delicious little dinner just down the hall from us, or even have it in our room. We like that.
They also gave a lot of cultural information, and not just information, but after a day exploring, there would be some local specialty the guides would be sharing on the bus; a special gingerbread, a special cookie, a chocolate candy, LOL at one place we even got a bottle of whiskey to put in our coffee, and a special coffee cup to put it in. OK, OK, I hear you, yes, we paid for it in the cost of the trip, but those little extras make a customer feel good, and it’s a competitive market. I admire their strategy.
Hotel Ernst in Cologne/Koln, Germany
We are refreshed, we have eaten good German winter food, and . . . I am ready for a bath. We check into the hotel and our bags have already been delivered to our room. Our room is a long walk, but we don’t mind. We have discovered that there is THE elevator, and around the corner another, secret, less used elevator. Our room is on a very quiet corridor.
We can see the cathedral from every window in our room, even from the bathroom 🙂
Look at that lovely inviting marble bath tub 🙂
Hmmm. Very clean and modern looking, but . . . not so much for privacy.
Oh yes! I do love a good closet.
I remember keys like this when I was a little girl. No no no – no key cards for the Ernst.
This is the view from the terrace coffee room, looking over the cathedral and the crowds coming and going for the markets.
AdventureMan heads off to see a war museum and I head for that gorgeous marble tub. As I am exiting the tub, AdventureMan returns and we settle in for an afternoon nap. We snooze about an hour and wake up only a little hungry, not big hungry, and decide to try the Chinese restaurant next door.
When we moved to Pensacola, our son sat us down and said “There is something terrible I have to tell you. Pensacola has no really good Chinese restaurant.” He watched our faces for signs of horror.
We love Pensacola’s seafood, and the really good little Vietnamese restaurants we find here. But oh, I yearn for Chinese, and love my trips out to Seattle where I can find a great meal or two.
We leave our hotel and head for the Peking. We know we’ve made the right choice, as we head up to the second story, we are behind a group of about twenty Chinese people, carrying bags of wrapped packages, some sort of party. They are in a separate room.
The Peking is up above the McDonalds
Table overlooking the cathedral and square
Peking Hot and Sour Soup
Peking Crispy Duck – wow! We thought we weren’t hungry, but this duck was so good we ate every bite.
Our first day and evening back in Germany are wonderfully fulfilling.
As a final bonus, the Hotel Ernst is gorgeous at night.
I love this misty, eerie photo of the Cologne Cathedral at night.
Christmas Markets on the Rhein
Horrors! I haven’t written since pre-Thanksgiving?? That’s the way my life is going, and I just have to take a minute when I can find it and keep up.
You may all think of aging, retiring grandparents as people sitting in rocking chairs on their porches, just waiting to die. The truth is very different. Retirement, at least early retirement, can be one of your most active times of life.
It is in our case 🙂
We made a choice. We have our grandchildren every day after school. It is delightful, and it is hard work. For me, it means having to carve out time for the things I want to do early in the day. AdventureMan picks up the grandchildren, brings them to our house, makes a healthy snack, supervises their homework and manages their time and experiences. I support AdventureMan, and specialize in hugs, intensely personal discussions, and rough-housing. I can make them laugh uncontrollably. I can cry with them when the world is dark and incomprehensible. I can help them have faith in themselves. I can encourage them to try, try again.
So, from time to time we run away and play, AdventureMan and I.
One of our favorite things we get in the mail are travel brochures. Most of the time, we don’t care, but the really good thing is that from time to time we get one that ignites our imagination, and we are both all in.
“Here’s what I want to do,” I said to AdventureMan, thrusting a Tauck tours brochure into his hands. “I want winter food. I want to wear winter clothes. I want to see the Three Kings Cathedral in Cologne again, and that glorious candelabra in Aachen. And look! It goes to Heidelberg! Strassbourg! Colmar!”
Here’s why we are still married after all these years. AdventureMan reads through and his eyes light up and he looks at me and says “You want to do this?” and I say “Yes!” and minutes later he is on the phone and we are committed. And we are dancing for joy.
Although we tend to be frugal by nature, history and habit, we are also pragmatic. If the flights are domestic, under four hours, we go economy. When we go overseas, we go business, and we make sure the seats go flat so we can sleep.
Our flights go smoothly, and we arrive relatively rested and excited. AdventureMan sends me off to change money while it is convenient, and I come back to discover I’ve kept a growing group waiting for me. Yikes. I apologize profusely and then just keep a low profile. Tauck is a little plusher than our Viking trips; we have a limo that we share with one other couple from Dusseldorf to Koln. The trip is quick, and we arrive at the Hotel Ernst efficiently. Our baggage is already there.
People check in, and we discover that everyone has a room except for us and one other group, and as things happen on these trips, the other group and us had a special relationship for the rest of the trip. We were both independent travelers. Our room was unlikely to be ready for a couple hours.
I’d like to tell you that I was a good sport, but I was not. I wanted a shower. They offered me to shower in the spa and I was not happy with that. They were really trying to please me, and I was trying, but I was not happy.
AdventureMan, who knows me well, said “I think we need a walk,” so I gave the hotel people the number of my brand new International-equipped iPhone, specially bought for times like this, and out the door we went. Out the door of the Ernst looks like this:
This is the magnificent Cologne Cathedral. The Hotel Ernst faces the Cathedral.
The world looks new and fresh. I take a deep breath and smile again, it smells like home. We find our German comes back as if once again, we lived here and spoke it regularly. We walk, I take pictures, and when we find the Fruh, we know it is time to have our first meal back in Germany.
There is a method to our madness, when we choose a travel destination. This, for us, isn’t about Christmas Markets, although those are beautiful and fun. This is about feeding a need deep in our souls, a need for winter, a need for winter food and walking in the cold air wrapped in our heavy German coats. No, it isn’t rational. Yes, it’s the way it is.
Walking into Fruh is like walking back in time. We could be in Heidelberg, or Mannheim, or Wiesbaden, or Kaiserslautern, or any of the German towns where we have been so blessed to live.
Cologne is very proud to have it’s own beer, and you find it everywhere. It is served in tall thin glasses. I don’t drink a lot of beer, but I can drink a small glass of Kolsch. AdventureMan says the Bavarians call the glass a “test tube” because of its long, thin shape.
At first, we didn’t know. When AdventureMan tried to order a Pils, the waiter said in a loud, brusque voice “Kolsch! Kolsch! We only serve Kolsch!”
Cologne is not so much a tourist town. The tolerated u with grace; we speak German, but they treated us as outsiders. We know the difference. We didn’t mind so much; we are outsiders now.
I wanted you to see the menu, also known as Tageskarte, or daily menu. I also like to look at it and sigh; these are not foods you find in Pensacola. They are not foods you find, for the main part, at restaurants in the United States that call themselves German. Brusque loud voice and all, we are delighted to be at Fruh. They are all the winter foods I was hungering for so nostalgically, deer medallions, goose, heavy winter cauliflower soup . . . ahhhhhhh. . . .
We know we are in the right place. The locals fill in, with their shopping bags, meeting up with friends, we feel at home.
I had Hirschmedallions for my first meal, little deer steaks, with broccoli. This is new to me. I don’t remember food being served with broccoli before.
AdventureMan had Schweinesteak, pork steak, and a big bowl of home made potato fries. This is more the heavy, vegetable free cooking I remember.
As we ate, the hotel called to say our room was ready. On our way from the Fruh to the Hotel Ernst, the Weinachtsmarkt, the Christmas Market by the Cologne Cathedral, was beginning to open, and I saw my first vendor of roasted chestnuts.
We all sing nostalgically about “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” but the truth is, no matter how much my French and German friends rave about roasted chestnuts, I don’t like them. I don’t like their texture. I am sort of intellectually delighted to see my first chestnut vendor, but not really excited to eat any of them.
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