From Italy to France...

Posted Monday, July 20, 2009 (from a B&B in the French countryside near Normandy) - Photos taken Sunday.

No comments required - the Eiffel Tower.

Another view.

Paris streets are very different from those in the towns in Italy - no cobblestones, here but still narrow. This is the street where our B&B is located.

On Saturday, after saying our goodbyes - Ginny, Bob and I spent the day, either on trains or waiting for trains, from Sorrento to Naples to Rome where we boarded the overnight train for Paris.

The sleeper compartment for the three of us was approximately 6' x 8', with the three bunks suspended one above the other. The trip took 15 hours from Rome to Paris - over the mountains, through the mountains, around the mountains, down the mountains and back up again - stopping along the way several times during the night. As we sped through the darkness of the night, I don't know if I was more concerned that I would roll out of the bunk as we careened down the mountainside - or that the straps holding the two bunks above mine would decide to turn loose.

Sunday morning, in Paris, the skies were overcast, with a strong breeze, and the temperature was a chilly 59 degrees. Wasn't this July?? It didn’t matter that the weather was unseasonably cool - and we felt like we needed a blanket to wrap up in …..this was Paris. “There, just in front of us is Notre Dame …..Look! There’s the Louvre. Is that the Seine?” Everything that we’d read about or heard about, we were seeing.

Sunday afternoon, we joined the thousands of people flocking to the Eiffel Tower. It was just as gigantic as it had appeared in all the photos and movies. If I could remove the souvenir shops and erase the people, how perfect the photo would be.

The cruise down the Seine took us under ancient bridges, past the Sorbonne, between the Orsay Museum and The Louvre and past Notre Dame Cathedral. Paris was a city outside with people everywhere along the river bank - walking, biking, or just sitting watching the river traffic.

We ended our perfect Sunday afternoon by stopping to get some loaves of French Bread, Cheese, Grapes and Wine - we couldn’t speak their language, but we would enjoy their food!