Franco-Italia 2011

Day 1, Paris @ Panthéon, France

2011-05-10T18:52:17.000Z

Day 1, 5/11/11, Paris arrival
We arrived at CDG in the late morning after a direct Air France flight from LAX. The flight was nice with decent movie selections (Gnomeo and Juliette), good food (salmon shepherd’s pie…weird but good), and Asian soft drinks. Our baggage came right out and we were able to validate our rail passes easily on the way to the train into Paris. Ever wonder why you hear about “backpacking through Europe” and not “wheelie luggage-ing through Europe?” It is because wheelie luggage is a PAIN IN THE ASS. Dragging even a small bag through crowded trains and metro turnstiles, up and down stairs, over people’s feet, and across cobblestone streets makes P90X seem like a day at le’Spa.
On the outskirts of Paris, we had to maneuver a bit to switch to a metro line. We jumped an exit turnstile to get outside the station just so that we could buy a metro ticket that would let us back into the station and onto the metro that we needed to ride. The metro was crowded and stinky, but we made it the rest of the way to our hotel stop just across the river from Notre Dame.
We dragged our asses (and our baggage) up some more stairs and located our hotel without trouble (Best Western at Jardin de’Cluny). The hostess was friendly and spoke very good English, which was refreshing after figuring out the train routes in French. In the hotel, we discovered the smallest elevator known to man. The two of us barely fit and I had to hold my bag over our heads. Out room was small but very nice (better be for 160€/night). We showered off the travel stink and headed out across the river to see Notre Dame.
In the courtyard in front of the cathedral, a group was standing around a guy with a 4 foot inflatable dick trying to get people to sign it with a sharpie. Weird. I am not sure the carved saints watching over the square appreciated this maneuver. The inside of the cathedral was amazing, if not standard for a cathedral (ornately carved gothic style stone, high ceilings, stained glass, etc). While we were inside, a priest gave a sermon while a choir sang. The hard, cavernous interior made for some very cool acoustics with a lot of haunting reverb…perfect to strike fear into the hearts of peasants of the middle ages (or to rock out to Def Leppard). We exited and walked around the outside to find the entrance for the tower tour, but found instead that it had already closed for the evening.
We walked down the street to find St Chapel and discovered that we had to enter through the hall of justice. The St Chapel was very different than Notre Dame. Though the exterior was stone, the interior looked to be made of brightly painted wood and the first floor was a single short level. The second floor was a huge room with floor to ceiling stained glass windows all around.
We left St Chapel and took the metro to the Eiffel tower. The line to go up was very long, so we walked to a recommended restaurant. We had a fantastic dinner consisting of onion soup with cheese (French onion soup…but they don’t call it that here), legumes, fillet mignon w/ béarnaise (for Nic), a croque monsour (grilled cheese…which had cheese on both the inside and outside of the bread…for me) with salad and fries, followed by a crazy pastry blump filled with hot liquid chocolate and a side of vanilla ice cream. We were pretty much zombies at this point, so we caught the metro home and crashed out hard.

Day 2, Paris @ Panthéon, France

2011-05-12T05:11:45.000Z

Day 2, 5/12/11, Paris
We both woke up at 4am but fortunately we were able to get back to sleep until 8. The hotel served breakfast in a subterranean dungeon. Breakfast was a serve yourself and save affair which included hard boiled eggs, croissants (the bomb), various breads (pain), yoghurt, nutella, meats, cheeses, and choco-crispy cereal, tea, coffee and jus du pamplemouse.
We booked over to Notre Dame and ascended for a tour of the bell tower. After climbing perhaps 400 million steps of a stone spiral staircase, we reached the top. There we found a bunch of crazy gargoyles, a huge8” thick bell, and an elementary school tour group (apparently, kids make yummy gargoyle food).
We descended and headed across the courtyard (which was covered in tents for a festival du pain) for a tour of the crypt. The crypt underneath the courtyard was a very cool archeological excavation which outlined the early settlement history of the island and had exposed much of the original stone buildings and walls.
The Louvre was next on the list, so we cruised over via metro. We first walked into the courtyard square area and I was blown away. The huge yet ornately decorated building impressed me more than much of the art inside. We walked most of the galleries and exhibits and determined that our universally favorite piece was the sculpture “Winged Victory of Samothrace”. Most of the galleries were chocked full of paintings of Mary’s boobs, baby Jesus, satyr’s, nude dancing nymphs, angels, more boobs, portraits of guys in frilly crap, and a few hundred more of baby Jesus suckling Mary’s boobs. We finally got to the Northern European section where the artists had painted different things like dead pheasants, landscapes, and horrible shipwrecks.
From the Louvre, we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower. The line was much shorter and we were able to catch the elevator after a mere 20 minutes. We rode to second floor and found out that top was open despite signs and attendants at bottom indicating otherwise…so… we rode to the top. The top was windier and colder than the second level, but definitely worth it for the enhanced view.
After hanging out on top for a while, we descended and had another wonderful dinner at a tiny restaurant nearby. Nic had some escargot and then bunny in mustard sauce followed by crème brule. I had a risotto with asparagus, a beef steak, and then a KILLER coffee macaroon which was really more like a meringue with a side of vanilla ice cream. After dinner, we walked back by the tower to see it at night, and then cruised home.

Day 3, Paris – Lyon @ Panthéon, France

2011-05-13T01:34:15.000Z

After repeating breakfast in the dungeon, we headed to a mobile phone shop across the street where we were able to acquire a pre-paid sim card for my phone. We hit up the garden at the Rodin museum for a whopping price or 1€. We saw the thinker, tortured dudes, the gates of hell, and other similar bronze sculptures of people in dynamic tortuous poses. Walking around the garden was very peaceful. The sculptures were well spaced out and we didn’t experience art overload like most of the other places.
We walked on to Napoleons tomb where we saw his huge sarcophagus surrounded by extremely overdone stonework. The tomb was adjacent to the war museum, so we perused the ancient armor section. On display was armor of all types (plate, mail, baby, jousting, duck foot, moustache, etc.), swords, crossbows, and guns (including weird stuff like a 3 barreled pistol of death, revolver rifles, and sword/gun combos). We saw a section on Napoleon’s history which included his stuffed horse.
We walked back to notre dame to catch boat ride but missed it and went to a café instead for some lunch. I had a Jambon de Paris (ham and butter on a baguette), Nic had a crepe forrestiere (crème freiche, mushroom, chicken) and a yummy grimbergen beer.

We checked out of the hotel and dragged our crap onto the metro for the ride from hell to the train station where we would catch the TGV (high speed train). The regular RER metro did not go through for some reason so we had to make a bunch of extra switches during rush hour on the extremely crowded metro to reach the correct station. Once on the TGV, we had a killer train ride to Lyon.

After arriving in Lyon just after sunset, we took a metro downtown and set off on foot to find our hotel. We somehow missed the street a few times, and when we found the hotel at the location listed on the map, it turned out that the Lonely Planet guidebook had listed the wrong hotel. Not having a better map, we called the correct hotel for directions. Even though it was right up the street, we missed it several times as well. We finally arrived to a splendor of neon colors and metal (diamond plate walls). We proceeded to check in and sack out.

Day 4, Lyon @ Fourvière, France

2011-05-14T10:58:19.000Z

We woke at 9:30 to a nice cool rain, dressed appropriately (gore-tex for the win), and headed to the metro. On the way, we passed a crazy fountain in the place de Terreaux which featured a nude woman driving a team of 4 aquatic horses with webbed/clawed feet, reined with seaweed, and breathing steam intermittently from their nostrils. We grabbed a pain au chocolate outside the opera house, and jumped the metro to the tourism office where we picked up a Lyon City Pass. The city pass (31€ for 2 days) gave us unlimited access to public transport (bus, metro, funicular), guided tours, and museum access.

This was immediately put to use as we took the metro across the river and hiked halfway up the mountain to meet Simmi Singh for lunch. Simmi is one of Nicci’s oldest friends, and she turns out to be totally awesome. She is living in Lyon teaching English to scientists at university. We met her (and 3 of her friends) at a house/convent/museum where she had hosted a dinner the evening before. She immediately prepared a feast of Indian food for us while we strolled around a garden patio with killer views of the Lyon city.

After lunch, we booked back down the mountain to catch a guided tour of vieux Lyon (old town) which comprises the largest preserved renaissance district second to Venice. The tour took us through many “troubles”, or fancy secret passages through buildings to inner courtyards. During the tour, we avoided the main old town square in front of the cathedral because right wing government protesters were on the march. Riot police were out in force (with sweet shoulder pads and a bulldozer/van) to keep multiple opposing protest groups from coming in contact with one another. As far as the guide could explain, one protesting group liked to eat ham, while the other group opposed racism. It must be more complicated than this. I don’t think I’ve ever supported racism by eating bacon.

We finally skirted the protesters and made it into the cathedral (St John) where the tour ended. Nicci and I stayed to watch an extremely old cuckoo clock ring the hour. It featured angels and baby Jesus instead of birds and gnomes, but it was still very cool. Apparently, it has astrological mechanisms as well, and will keep time and an accurate calendar until 2016, when the original scale (from the middle-ages) runs out. Just before leaving the cathedral, we heard 2 loud explosions outside. When we made it out, the square was mostly cleared and we were able to escape without incident.

We hopped on the funicular and rode it up the mountain (underground…in a tunnel!) on a mission to visit the Gallo Roman museum. Since the funi let us out directly in front of the Basilica, we stopped there first and were totally blown away by the insane level of interior decoration. Instead of the traditional bare carved rock, this place had brightly covered tiling and extreme textural detail on everything. The place was covered with iconography of Mary, and we found out that it was built as a promise to the Prussians to keep them from invading. We marveled for a few minutes, then exited and walked to the Gallo Roman museum. The museum itself was a very cool modern concrete building and it contained a great collection of tiny bronze Roman sculptures (oh yeah…action figures), bronze weapons, and aqueduct fragments including water pump technology and lead pipe. The museum closed on us before we were able to make it all the way through, but we were able to check out the reconstructed amphitheaters outside before heading back to our hotel.

Simmi met us for a quick dinner of Kebabs and we headed back up to the Basilica for a classical music concert inside the crypt. The concert performance combined with the acoustics of the building made for a stunning event. After the show, we trekked back into vieux Lyon with Simmi where we ended the evening with heaping bowls of glace-bio avec sorbet et de fruits (organic ice cream with sorbet and fruits).

Day 5, Lyon @ Fourvière, France

2011-05-15T10:53:24.000Z

We slept in until 10:00, prepared for the predicted thunderstorms, and headed out along the riverfront market to meet Simmi for breakfast. The market is sort of like a farmers market on crack. It happens many times per week, and everything including books, wine, dried and smoked meats, legumes, honey, fruits, pastries, bread, and rotisserie chicken and boar is sold. Everything looked extremely fresh, and we realized the distinct lack of supermarkets in the city.

We met Simmi at a restaurant which happened to be out of pastries. This was unacceptable for a French establishment, so we walked to Simmi’s apartment where we sat along the river and ate risotto and chicken. The three of us scurried back into town for a Saone river boat tour, which we caught at the last minute and in a sudden downpour. The tour took us around Barbarian island which was named for Saint Barbara whose father beheaded her and was then struck by lightning. The island was home to Charlemagne after he retired.

After the boat tour, Simmi escaped to get some work done, while Nicci and I toured the museum of fine art. The museum had a really cool collection of Egyptian artifacts including sarcophagi, weapons, sculptures, stone tablets, and action figures. The featured museum exhibit was Islamic art of the Orient, but we only found one room of this collection. Still, we saw some very cool pots, armor, weapons, and blankets.

We had a short nap, followed by dinner at Leon de Lyon. Nicci had a pre-fixe menu consisting of what amounted to French sushi, a white fish main course, and some ice cream cheese for desert (fromage blanc). I had a delicious chicken and veggie dish followed by some sort of extra chocolate pistachio tart served with chocolate pudding covered in raspberry gel and a coffee chocolate wafer thingy. It was awesome. After dinner, we walked around vieux Lyon for an hour or so to check out the city lights before heading back to bed.

Day 6, Montreux day trippin @ Montreux, Switzerland

2011-05-16T12:16:51.000Z

Despite triple checking the time last night, we somehow missed our 6:30 train to Geneva. We hung out at a coffee shop near the train station for 2 hours and caught the 8:30 train instead. The2 hour ride to Geneva was beautiful, covering a lot of French countryside through pretty valleys, canyons, and plains. After some confusion at the Geneva train station, we found our next train to Montreux and headed off. This train headed around the north side of lake Geneva and featured killer views of les Alps across the lake. We stopped in Montreux, withdrew some Swiss Francs from an ATM, and picked up the most delicious tomato and cheese panini ever made. American tomatoes from the grocery store are effectively tasteless red water balloons. I’m not sure we will be able to make it through a meal when we get home.

After devouring les paninis, we hopped on a bus to Chateau de Chillon, where we saw a baby swan learning to groom his feathers. We toured the castle under direction of an audioguide. The castle was ridiculously cool, and we learned the evolution of the various structures and castle occupants as we went along. This castle featured some of the first latrines, which were literally bench seats with holes cut in them hanging out over the lake on the second story.

The castle tour over, we caught another bus back into town where we grabbed a round of beers before catching the train back to Lyon. Switzerland is awesome. The commonly spoken languages include French, German, and Italian, and nearly everyone we met spoke fluent English. The country is very clean, intellectual, safe, and just seems to have its shit together.

Day 7, Beaujolais, Oingt, and Perouges @ Oingt, France

2011-05-17T10:22:30.000Z

Naples, Italy @ Naples, Italy

2011-05-18T05:00:00.000Z

Rome, Italy @ Rome, Italy

2011-05-19T12:40:41.000Z

Rome-mania (=Romania?) @ Rome, Italy

2011-05-20T07:10:44.000Z

Vesuvius, Italy @ Vesuvius, Italy

2011-05-21T05:51:05.000Z

Positano, Italy @ Positano, Italy

2011-05-22T05:07:08.000Z

Naples, Italy @ Naples, Italy

2011-05-23T05:00:37.000Z

Paris, France @ Paris, France

2011-05-24T05:56:39.000Z

Euro Disney @ Paris, France

2011-05-25T00:11:13.000Z