Day 24 Thur Aug 2

My last full day of the trip, we started with a bus ride to the Tuilerie Gardens which leads one to the grounds of the Louvre.  We spent about a hour or two walking around and entered the underground of the Louvre.   There is a new shopping mall under the park and Louvre, complete with a Apple store and a Starbucks.   We visited both.   After an American coffee, it was off to  Trocadero which is across the river from the Eiffel and afforded a great photo-op in the daylight. After lunch, another bus ride to the Ecole Militaire  which is the location of Napoleons Tomb as well as an interesting military museum. I discovered that a great way to see Paris is from the rear seat in a city bus for 1.5 Euro...
So for my last night I wanted to take John & Sandra out for dinner.  Now I love steak frites and I saw an article on the best places in Conde Nast while flying. I picked out one that I thought was walking distance. Turned out it was  a half hour walk and when we finally got there...It was closed. We did settle on a nice cafe out of way and had a bottle of the local Burgundy with roasted duck and chicken.   As we walked home through the neighborhood,  I resolved that this wasn't my last night, but the beginning of a beautiful relationship, Sam....

PHOTOS HERE

Day 23 Wed Aug 1

We started the morning at fantastic  Arc de Triomphe.   Followed by a bus ride to "B.I.A."; Breakfast in America is a famous American style dinner in the Latin Quarter. After a big juicy cheeseburger,  John and I stopped for some Cuban's which we enjoyed w/coffee for the remainder of the afternoon.  After Hors d'oeuvres  served up by Sandra,  John and I walked to the Montparnasse Tower, which has an observation deck which is the highest point in the city.  The sun sets behind the Eiffel Tower and it is magnificent.

PHOTOS HERE

Day 22 Tues July 31

John had one more day of class at the Sorbonne, so Sandra and I started       walking toward the Latin Quarter to meet him for lunch.   A stroll  through the Jardin du Luxembourg and eventually to a kebab shop where John met us and we had lunch.  More walking through the Latin Quarter and I caught the Metro to the Musee d'Orsay  complete with my downloaded  audio-visual guide to the Musee that I purchased from the apple store.  The museum was in a converted train station. The app didn't work. I was frustrated and pissed....cause I really don't like art museums. I thought w/my new I-Pad and my a-v app that I would learn something.   So I spent an hour walking through the Orsay attempting to use the guide and left.  Mother,,,I did go to an art museum   Spent a total of 1 hour of this trip of 25 days....Not bad. That evening;  we did the evening bike tour from Fat Tire tours.  This made my seventh bike tour on the trip.  Never at night....It was way cool traveling around Paris at dusk and after sunset.  The tour culminated with a boat ride and wine on the Seine. Home in bed  at 12:30

PHOTOS HERE

Day 21 Monday July 30

Out the door at 08:00 for the 9:02 to Munich and the flight to Paris.  The train, in 2nd class , is great with businessmen on tables working on their computers.  I on mine creating this blog. A fast transfer in the Munich Bahnhof,,,without even stoping for cafe which I love in the train-stations.  On the U1 to Flughafen in 6 minutes.   Damn I am good at this travel stuff.   I ought to be a travel writer ...  The Munich Flughafen is as large as Bush...  Checked in, passed thru security and off to the Air France Lounge.
An uneventful flight to Paris and on the Air France "Les Cars" shuttle bus to town. When I got off the bus at Gare de Montparnasse, Sandra was waiting and after a 15 min walk, we were at 18 Rue de Littre..; their home in Paris.  John returned from class and at 7, we went out for dinner at a local creperie.  I had the gruyere and chicken and it was great. Stopped at a typical cafe for coffee, creme brûlée and a cuban cigar...

Day 20 Sunday July 29

Now I have become pretty sold on these bike tours.  So I found the only tour in Salzburg, the Frauline Maria bicycle tour of Salzburg.  By now having done like 6 bicycle tours on this trip, I was getting rather complacent and didn't really ask any questions.  Just showed up and got on a bike and we were off. At the first stop,  Our guide Jonas, talked incestatnly about the filming of the 1965 movie "The Sound of Music". Aparently, the city only licenses this group to talk about the movie and its production, cause all the other tour companies do the history.  So whether I wanted it or not, for the next 4 hours, I saw and heard more info on Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer and the VonTrapps than I can remember.  I did enjoy the cycling and the scenery when we got out of the city.   Met a man who left the US working for a company called "Peregrine Financial".  Found out while traveling last week, that his company had gone under due to embezellment and the SEC had to come in.   I haven't heard from my office in a couple of days.  Better check in.

I finished the afternoon with Sausage,sauerkraut, and bier in a authenic Bavarian Biergarten.   Then  decided to hope on the bus and go out to the airport to visit the "Red Bull" Hanger 7 exhibit.   Apparently the guy who bought the formula, and branded it was from Salzberg.  He sees himself as a Richard Branson type and has a multimillion dollar hanger,exhibit open to the public at the airport.  

As I was waiting for the bus to return to city center, I got soaked from one of the hourly rain showers and at that point began to question my logic in hotel choices.  You see, I had not booked the most expensive hotels on my trip.  Location seems to be the primary factor in the pricing of hotel in Europe, not necessarily the amenties.  Most important to me was the bedding, A/C and wireless internet.  My only criteria for location was that  a metro, bus stop be fairly close.   I limited myself to a 100 E, and up to this day, I had done a good job.   But Salzburg is different.  There is no Metro.  They have a pretty good bus system, but the perpherial lines run q 30" on Sunday which was a big issue for me.   So I messed up in Salzburg and was in the wrong place.  The helpful gals made up for the location issue.

PHOTOS HERE

Day 19 Sat. July 28

I was on the 9:14 to Salzburg.  Decided to try 2nd class since the trains were so nice.  The trains were nice...the travlers not so nice.  It was pretty much a zoo getting on the train on Saturday morning. Who would have thought.   I guess a lot of people go to the mountains on the weekend.  So this nice young gal and I found a seat together.   She was from Belgrade Serbia and was getting her Masters in Civil Engineerig at the University in Vienna.  She gave me lots of pointers for next summers trip to the Adriatic.

Arrived in Salzburg at noon and litteraly had to throw a china-man off the steps so I could get off the train.  These second class travelers are like ants...  Anyway  found my hotel and was off to the old city.   Long narrow pedistrian streets with high buildings on both sides.  They had these little walk-through tunnels every 75 yards or so that cut through to the next street.  There were some great shops and cafes in these tunnels, so you had to explore them all.  Currently the Salzburg Festival had started the previous weekend and was in full force.  Salzburg was the birthplace of Mozart and this festival was analagous to the Aspen Music Festivle, but with more glitz as the Europeans would have it.  I found the schedule and different venues.  Afte a quick clean up and shower in the room.  I returned to the main venue and attemted to buy an unclaimed ticket at the ticet office.  It was 10 min,  till showtime and the ladies just laughed when I explained that in the US, will call-tickets frequenly go unclaimed are sold just before showtime.  I won't describe their comments.  There was a very nice lady picking up her tickets who described a "platz" around the next church where Siemens had erected a giant screen and in open air,  I had a beer, cigar, and watched the performance with the other 500 peasants for free.

PHOTOS HERE

Day 18 Friday July 27

Morning Vienna Bike tour which leftt from the Opera.  Our guide Rudi  was a little arrogant Dutchman who spoke in Dutch to the one person on the tour who also spoke English.  Then he did the translation in English. Any way he knew his history and warmed a little latte on.  The tour lasted 4-5 hours and he showed us some great spots.  We finished in time to return to St. Peters's Basilica  for a faboulous 45 min.  Organ recital of Hayden and Mozart.  Dinner at the Danube consisted of Pizza, while wine, pastry and a good Cuban cigar.  Then it was back to the DerWilhemdorf to buy a train ticket online and bed.

PHOTOS HERE

Day 17 Thur July 26

Arrived the previous evening on the train from Budapest.  Had a great ride w/3 young ladies traveling togethere from Barcelona. They were friends and all worked for different hotels in Barcelona.  They were using some of their percs.  One, named Angeles had been to Wien prior so she gave me the scoop.  Had a huge piece of Weiner Schnitzle the first evening and dreamed about it the whole night. After the usuall huge breakfast buffet at the hotel I was off to see the city.  First stop, the Parliment. Since I could never see the Hungarian center, I thought I better see some piece of government of the old Austrian-Hungarian Empire.  Unlike my previous expeience, I got off the trolley, walked into the ticket office, and immediately joined a Englisih speaking tour.  These government buildings are beauiful and ornate, unlike our U.S. counterparts.  Next was a ride along the "great cirlcle" road of Vienna.  Passed a noted ice cream shop that Angles had mentioned,so I got off.  But my father's childhood nagging about eating sweets before meals bothered me. Imagine that, halfway around the world and 50 years later and I was worried.  So, I found a tratoria and sat down for a .5Ltr of Mineral Water and a salad.  I wasn't expecting much, but they really know how to do salads in Vienna.  After lunch it was only a 5 min. walk back to Zanoni & Zanoni for my double scoop of Pistacio. I walked along the great boulevard of Franz Joseph and arrived at the Opera.  Now this is where all the action is.   I walked along a pedistrian only street lined with upscaled  shops and multiple cafes. Also noticed several high end watch and jewlery stores.  I then thought about my Breitling Aerospace watch.  It had been giving me signals that the battery needed changing.  What a great place to have one of these fine Austrian watchmakers check and change my battery. I convinced the 3rd store I entered to let me wait, instead of returing the next day.  During the 45 minute wait, I was served my choice of champaign, wine or coffee.  The watch was returned.  It had been cleaned, water-pressure checked and battery replaced. Want to guess how much they charged me....I took pictures and a hard back catalog of their store to serve as my receipt. There were no performances of music for me to see, but I did find the Museum of Music which presented a faboululous rendition of the famous composers of Vienna;  Hayden, Mozart,  Bach and others.  Also had a screening room where they showed the New Years Concert of the Vienna      Philharmonic.  I will have to return one day and see this live.

PHOTOS HERE