Paris

We four girls met up in Paris as planned...but my luggage didn't! It finally showed up after we'd been in Germany for a couple of days, so thank goodness Moira and I are about the same size!

The first day in Paris, we took a bus tour of the city, which was much better once we got up top where it was cooler and we could see. That's a nice way to get your bearings, and it was an easy thing to do for those of us who were jet lagged!

The next day we did something that I've wanted to do for 20 years--ever since I was in Paris before and missed it because of labor strikes. We went to the Musee D'Orsay! That is truly a museum that I could spend a week in, easily. Of course, we were on a whirlwind tour, so we only spent half a day there, but I'm ready to go back already. We concentrated our time on the 4th-5th floor--the Impressionists, of course. It was quite moving for me to be that close to pieces of art that I have seen and read about all my life. Pisarros, Monets, Van Goghs, Sisleys. Wow. It really was breathtaking. And the Orsay building is truly a work of art in itself. What a glorious thing that they used it in this way. It really was a dream realized for me to get to spend a few hours there. We used the Rick Steves' Orsay podcast tour, which is a must for any visitor with an mp3 player. Get it here. We also used his tour of historic Paris to learn what we were looking at at Notre Dame and in the Left Bank area. Highly recommended. Thank you Rick & company!!


Our next big adventure was taking a train to Wurzburg to visit Yvonne. That was fun! Lovely way to travel--and fast! I loved it. I don't think they had the superfast ICE train from Paris to Wurzburg when we lived there--it SURELY beats driving!