Emily and Linda’s Travel Blog

Our main motive for our stay in Paris was to get to beds ASAP on arrival and spend a couple of days getting over jet lag before we met up with our friends Marg and Chris who would be finishing their Viking cruise in Lyon.  We’ve been to Paris a number of times (and Linda did a semester abroad here) so mostly we wanted some slow travel and rest, some good, but not fancy food and to enjoy the ambience of Parisian streets and spaces. Tuesday we woke up a bit late, more like  NYC time and ambled around the corner  to a cafe for breakfast.  Wonderful French coffee as expected, Linda had the “Anglaise”  - over easy eggs with white bread toast and I ordered a tomato & onion omelette that came with more interesting bread and a lovely salad.

Our next mission was to try to book Assistance for the disabled passenger for our SNCF train rides. After attempting it online several times from home and emailing the SNCF, I was told I could go to the station and arrange it.  The RER (light rail) station was near our hotel so we walked over there.  Job one - find an entrance with an elevator for the walker.  That required a bit of circular hiking and multiple conversations, only to end up very near to where we started, but there was indeed an elevator.  Further pondering of signs, conversations with passengers on the platforms, and a trip up an escalator with the walker (strictly”INTERDITE”, happily no gendarmes in sight) which led us to a place with an information booth containing a human being.  Unfortunately on the other side of a turnstile.  Since we hadn’t needed a ticket to enter, we had none to get out with.  Linda pointed out that they take a dim view of being ticketless at the end of a journey.  I looked around for a solution, and saw a green button with a flip up glass cover that said it was for assistance.  With no other alternative, I flipped and pushed at which point an ear-piercing alarm went off.  I closed the cover right away and thankfully it stopped.  Even more thankfully, it got the attention of a very nice woman whose French was slow enough for us to follow.  She patiently explained that the RER is linked with the metro system and has no connection to the SNCF train office of Assistance.  She did explain how to find it (though I was pretty sure it wasn’t as simple as she indicated).  So good thing we started early, but really had not much to show for our morning’s perambulations.  

Second objective  for the morning was to wander the neighborhood around the Saint Germain church, suggested by Linda’s reading as an area with interesting shops and art galleries.  So we cabbed over there to save my legs after the many steps earlier.  There were a few shops of interest, including one called Moustaches - a pet store with some fun items. Including this fetching number, modeled beautifully by a visiting customer. 

We decided Billy didn’t need one at the price, but enjoyed the fashion show.  A little fruit and veg shop caught my eye.  It was called Potager which my French mystery reading taught me was the word for the soup garden near a house.  They had some humongous carrots and the smallest cauliflowers I’ve ever seen. Also some teeny sweet plums thatI initially thought were individual grapes.   Not much in the way of art galleries, but a diverting stroll anyway.  Several cafes were festooned with flowers.  

By then it was time for lunch and we found  a lovely Greek place that had the best moussaka I’ve ever tasted. Linda is getting in touch with healthier eating lately and Paris is certainly a good place to explore salads.  No picture of hers because I forgot until after I had removed the objectionable olives, cucumbers and beets, but I wanted to credit her efforts.  

 Next item on our slow travel/foot saving agenda was a boat trip on the Seine.  Touristy, but a pleasant way to see Paris on a warm breezy evening. The clouds produced a spectacular sky and thankfully only a tiny sprinkle here and there.  

This woman was making some sort of video, lip synching to music and with a videographer opposite her on the other side of the staircase. We never learned more.    

By then we were hungry so, against all advice not to eat within a hundred yards of a major tourist attraction (in this case the Eiffel Tour), we went in search of dinner. The side walk hawkers were out in force, but we resisted them and were rewarded with Chez Ming - a simple pan-Asian place with Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese food.  We learned during some trip past that eating mostly other ethnic cuisines in Paris is cheaper and lighter than traditional French fare.  Successful so far on this trip. 

We left NYC on 9/5 (otherwise known as the Saturday of Labor Day weekend - so no crowds at JFK) bound for Paris /Charles De Gaulle airport.  I’ve requested wheelchair service before, but this was my first trip traveling with a rolling walker.  So the wheelchair service got me through security and up to the gate where I switched to the rollator to take me up to the aircraft door where, as promised, they tagged my device and assured me it would be waiting for me at the door of the plane in Paris.  

Only it wasn’t.  Also MIA were another passenger’s walker and two families’ baby carriage/car seats. The plane emptied, other folks were picked up in wheelchairs while we waited for our gate checked items to arrive.  Nothing. Eventually a 2nd staff person checked the plane’s hold herself and told us they were not on the plane and might have been left behind at JFK, but would follow THE NEXT DAY (!?!) on another plane.  I was pretty aggravated, but the four parents of wee children were understandably crazed, knowing they would not even be able to take a cab into the city without a car seat /carriage.  No actual solutions offered, though they did suggest the parents could check baggage claim to see if the items ended up there.  Off they went and we hope they were successful since we didn’t see them again.  

So that left LInda, me and a Delta staff person whose English was patchy.  By then the wheelchair pushers had disappeared so I had a chair with no pusher and still no rollator. Distressing enough, but since there was no one with “permission” to push the wheelchair beyond the exit door of the ramp, I was also not allowed to leave that area. As Linda has pointed out, “the French are big on rules, but not so solution oriented”.  45 minutes later, I was begging to be allowed to at least use the rest room.  But in a classic Catch 22, I wasn’t allowed to reenter the plane to use the rest room there, nor was I allowed to go beyond the locked door to the main part of the airport without the officially designated pusher.  Not permitted, no other solution offered.  Finally, after going around in circles some more, I summoned enough of my wobbly French to ask if we were being held prisoner? 

In today’s world, this travel snafu is nothing compared to what many are going through at airports, but it came as a great relief when finally  a more senior official showed up and took us via a tiny staff elevator, onto the runway tarmac where there was a transport van with permission to get us to border control (and les toilettes) as well as a new pusher who told us he’d been waiting for us for some time. Not exactly the kind of service for disabled travelers we had been promised.  He told us (truthfully or not) that at CDG, they never have your gate checked items at the door of the plane and that they are always taken to baggage claim.  In any case, we finally located the rollator and were allowed to go.  I have to admit, every single person was perfectly pleasant; just not really helpful until we’d been round and round the same ground with no new thoughts being introduced.  

Anyway, we got into Paris and arrived at the Residence des Arts, a teeny hotel on a quiet side street just a few blocks from the Seine. It’s in a perfect neighborhood, surrounded by restaurants, near transport, with helpful staff and everything we really need. The entrance is easy to miss - almost feels like you should knock on the door and give a password. 

The room is likewise very small (we have to signal our intentions to pass each other) , but has all the necessities - a fairly modern bathroom, air-conditioning (much appreciated during France’s current heat wave) and staff who are pleasant AND helpful.  So a winner overall.  

We napped for a while and then decided a good low-energy activity would be to visit Notre Dame for Sunday evening Vespers, it was a short walk and gave us a chance to check out the ongoing repairs.  The first thing that struck us was how clean it is is now -we had no idea the stone underneath was more golden than gray.  The inside too is much warmer now after the cleaning  

The vespers service was interesting and unexpectedly modern with a priest, an acolyte of some kind, and a female canter with a lovely voice.  I was surprised how involved the congregation was, joining in call and response singing throughout the service. Very different from any time in my experience of Catholic cathedrals.  

Afterwards we walked back along the Seine, peeked into Shakespeare and Co, which had a line out the door, and grabbed a quick dinner at a touristy looking Turkish place with unexpectedly good food  That was enough adventure for one day so we rolled into our beds by 8:30  

Still catching up on the blog.  Hopefully in time to complete it and our June trip to Chicago before we set out to California next month.  

We disembarked from the Viking ship on Tuesday 5/27 and checked into the Inntel Hotels Amsterdam Centre in the Centrum Neighborhood of the city.  Very much in the center of tourist-ville.  Convenient for transportation, but really packed at times with tourists, students on break, graduation parties, etc. with clumps of high or drunk folks from the afternoon on.  If we return to Amsterdam, I'd think about another area (the neighborhood around the Zoo looked very nice and still convenient to trams and boats).  

View or the street below from the upstairs passageway to our rooms.  

Mel and Diana had one day to spend with us before heading home so we wanted to get an overview first.  We walked over to the area around the famous Central Station - still quite grand from the outside, but cut up by construction inside at least for now.  

Nearby we got on a boat tour of the city (which could be followed by a bus tour if we still had the energy).  As we had discovered on our previous boat tour, it's a great way to see the city up close without a lot of walking, but not so great for photos. Still, we did manage to capture a few

In this one we look like we're bracing for impact in Star Trek

After the boat tour, we had a wander around the Flower Market where there was an incredible variety of bulbs and flowers for sale and a really cool building with complicated shutters. 

By then we were ready for some lunch and we happened upon a small cafe called Studio 2 that had a variety of sandwiches, salads,  and a local treat called Poffertjes (small puffy pancakes dusted with powdered sugar).  Definitely needed one for the table. 

By the time we were finished with lunch, it was starting to look a little rainy and some of us were ready for a rest.  But Mel, Diana, and Chris, ever the intrepid travelers, went off to take the bus ride - and unfortunately got stuck in really bad traffic followed by a slogging walk home in the rain.  Not the best moment of the day.  But we finally collected us all together and dry in the restaurant next to the hotel - Humphrey's which has a sort of indoor forest vibe.  By then we were more concerned with getting food and wine into us and didn't take any pictures, but I cribbed a few from someone else's trip. 

Diana and Mel had an early flight back the next morning so we called it a night.  

I realized too late that my last post got uploaded before it was complete (meant to hit Save as Draft, but must have hit Save and Publish by mistake).  I've now posted the photos and extra text that I'd intended to add so you can go back to the previous post to see them if you have the interest.  

The second installment of our Netherlands outing was a visit to a group (fleet?) of windmills.  You really got a sense of the lowlands and their flat beauty - especially since we were blessed by a sunny day with dramatic cloudscapes.   

Mel got this fabulous shot of our tour manager Rene and his trainee toting our cheese purchases back to the boat so we could be hands free for our windmills tour.

As you enter the area where the historic windmills are situated, there's an odd bit of art - a basket, "floating" in one of the canals.  In the basket is a baby and a cat - "Wiegje van Beatrijs" (Beatrice's cradle).  The sign accompanying it says "On 19 November 1421, the St. Elisabeth's Flood took place.  Inextricably linked to this disaster and the village of Kinderdijk is the legend about the child Beatrice, whose cradle washed up on the riverbank near the dyke in what is now called Kinderdijk.  The cradel also contained a cat that kept the cradle balanced by jumping back and forth.  This artwork, by the artist Roel Teeuwen, depicts the legend's story"

The video I shared in my last post talks about how the windmills aren't in use anymore, but we got a different story from our guide.  To be a windmiller, you have to go through quite extensive training on how to operate the windmill and keep it maintained.  There is evidently a long waiting list to become windmillers - who live in the windmill or just beside it.  They are no longer regularly in use to pump water since that's done by electric pumps now, but if the electricity ever fails, the windmills have to be able to take over the work so both the mill itself and the milers have to be ready.  The mills get tested periodically to make sure they're functioning.  

We visited one mill that's maintained as a tourist site to give a sense of the life of a miller and family.  The round part near the top rotates so that the blades of the windmill can face the best wind direction - it's operated by the thing that looks like a captain's wheel at the bottom right.  

Inside the mill is a very compact living quarters with a bed built into the wall  (I would have loved that little cozy space as a kid, but wonder how it worked out for the couple who likely shared it year round).  The plaque in this room said that it was the only heated room in the house.  The kids slept upstairs (I didn't even attempt the ladder to get up there so I have no photos of their quarters).

After the tour, we got to meet one of the current millers - though he's only there part time now.  He told us he'd been working that mill for 30 years.  

Before we left, we got one more group shot

Monday 5/26 was the last full day of our cruise on the Rhine.  Our tour manager Rene is Dutch so he offered a talk in the morning on "All Things Dutch" about Dutch culture and including a taste of Jenever, a predecessor of gin, made from Juniper berries.  Maybe in a mixed drink, but for me a bit much taken straight, even with the cute little shot glasses.  

The morning walking tour in Cologne seemed like a bit too feet-intensive for me so I stayed on the ship and enjoyed some quiet time in the very pleasant lounge. It’s sometimes hard for me to overcome the internal messages about how I should be out there taking advantage of every opportunity to see things. But I’ve come to realize that I need to manage my energy and walking capacity. The folks that did go on the morning tour sent some photos:

As you walk around Cologne, you see gold paving stones that commemorate Jewish citizens of Cologne who were deported and killed.  Sorry you can’t read this one  the closeup didn’t come out  

This is a monument to men who died of AIDS The plaque says, “Cold Corner Nomadic Memory 92, This installation commemorates people who died as a result of AIDS, It is part of the ‘Denkraum: Names and Stones’ project by the German AIDS Foundation and the artist Tom Fechht, Aidshilfe Köln eV.  Further information and a list of names can be found at www.aidshilfe-koeln/de/nus.” (The names are engraved in the paving stones - might have to expand the view to see them  

One of the main landmarks in Cologne/Köln is the Cathedral. Most of the area that surrounds it was decimated during the Allied  bombing in WWII, but the cathedral survived, though damaged (and still being restored ).  It is still one of the 3 tallest churches in the world  

[he first two shots are borrowed from https://mymerrymessygermanlife.com/visiting-the-cologne-cathedral/ ]

This one is more modern and was created by Gerhard Richter to replace a window damaged in the bombing, unveiled in 2007.  Linda, ever the fan of abstract art, pronounced it her favorite, though some critics are disturbed by its modernness, feeling like it didn’t belong in the gothic cathedral   

In the afternoon, Diana, Melissa, Chris and I went to the hokey, but fun Time Ride Köln 1926 virtual reality attraction. We first entered a recreation of a milliner’s shop with a live guide and virtual milliner who explained the craft. Diana tried on one of the hats on offer

Next we boarded a restored street car and donned virtual reality glasses to “enter” the city of 1926. The car rattled and shook over the streets. With a little added imagination, you could feel like you were transported back in time  

A few more from the afternoon and later in the evening

One last shot from the boat in the Rhine River Gorge:.  

Saturday was the only prolonged daytime travel on the boat.  For a good reason - we were cruising through the Middle Rhine Gorge, a very scenic stretch marked by multiple castles on the banks as well as towns and vineyards.  I tried to keep track of which castle was which, but when I looked at my list and my pictures, I wasn't so clear about it after all.  So forgive me if I mis-identify any.  I've done my best.  

Our tour manager, Rene was an amazing narrator.  His ability to tell the stories of the castles (for several hours) and communities along the way was truly impressive.  We've encountered many tour managers and guides in our international travels, but he was certainly among best - knowledgeable, very funny, calm in the face of passengers’ worries and nudging, concerned for our welfare and ready to help in any way that he could (special appreciation from me since he really looked out for me in terms of mobility issues and helped me find ways to enjoy the day trips without too much physical stress).  

The vineyards grow on very steep riverbanks where the grapes have to be harvested by hand.  This is where a lot of the grapes for Rhine Rieslings, Moselles, Chardonnays and other wines are grown.  

The day was sunny and crisp, but pretty chilly as you can see by our attire and extra layers. Worth every shiver though.  Definitely one of the highlights of the cruise for me  

The Middle Rhine Gorge morning is featured on the PBS commercials.  It didn’t disappoint.  In all, there were 20 castles/embattlements, but here are a few.  I’m struggling with formatting so I’ll list them in order

1) Nollig “Castle” c.1300- actually part of the fortifications for the town of Lorch am Rhein

2) Stahleck Castle 12th century, but repeatedly attacked in the 17t century and rebuilt in 1909  Now a youth hostel 

3) Sooneck Castle built in 1834 by the CrownPrince of Prussia

4) Reichtenstein Castle a reconstructed Neo-Gothic castle

5) Rheinstein Castle 14th century- complete with a drawbridge and ivy covered facade

 This one, the Pfalzgrafenstein Castle is specially featured in the ads preceding Masterpiece Mysteries etc.- perhaps because it’s in the river itself so it’s easier to photograph. It was a toll station on the river.  Now a museum that can be reached by ferry.  

One of the later segments of the trip was through a tight bend in the river where currents are treacherous and the famous Lorelei Rock juts out to ensnare ships. The Lorelei was a mythical siren whose beauty and song lured passing sailors to their deaths. 

Friday we woke up in Speyer, which was once a center of Ashkenazic life in Germany. Accoding to our Viking materials, there had been recurring pogroms there. However in 1084, Speyer’s Bishop issued an invitation to Jews to settle there. According to our guide, “it was a business development move, since moneylending was forbidden for Christians and the city needed funds for the new cathedral….In return, the Bishop offered rights and protections that until then were unprecedented in Europe.” A strong Jewish community grew there at the time. You can still see the remains of an 1104 synagogue and a mikvah from 1126. 

[Apologies for the earlier blank post. Hit the wrong button. It also means I couldn’t fully edit this post so there may be some errors/omissions that I’ll have to correct later]

Friday evening, some elected to stay on board while Linda and I opted for the trip to a winery in the Eberbach Monastery, founded by an Augustinian order, but “handed over” to Benedictine Monks in 1131.  It’s now a secularly managed winery and events space/education center/museum  

We walked around the grounds and heard about the rigorous lives of the Benedictines. My summary: Lots of prayer, not much sleep, and they had to invite lay-brothers into the monastery because there was a lot of work to do when not praying.  They also offered herbal medicine and food to the struggling community around them  (Sadly we didn’t get to visit their herb garden on this visit).  

The monastery is supposed to be one of the best restored in Europe (the lion on the lawn is some promotion going on all around the area - like the bulls awhile back in NYC)  

I’ll bent the monks would have appreciated this more modern approach to mowing the lawns:

Next we were led into the barrel room of the old winery for a tasting of 3 different Reislings, the specialty of the winery and the region. All tasty in my opinion, though differing in sweetness to dryness  

After the tasting, we took a tour of some of the other ares in the compound, including the monks’ meeting room and the monastery church. They asked for someone to sing to demonstrate the acoustics which were amazing (our guide said the sound lasts for 7 seconds). After my wine tasting, I was willing to sing a hymn, but there’s no picture or recording sadly. The sound truly did linger  I recall learning in College Glee Club that the music of the time was meant to layer as it progressed  

Last stop on the tour was the collection of wine presses used through the years. Truly impressive in their size (and when you consider they were operated by hand). I wish I‘d taken a shot with a person for scale. 

After the tour we had a lovely dinner in the old refectory and now that we were newly acquainted, we could choose the right wine to go with our meals. As often happens, we were too involved in food and conversation to take pictures of the meal, but it was very good.