Thursday, May 19, 2011

Day 17

Leaving at dawn we headed out via Eurail to Amsterdam. We arrived around 11AM and were able to drop our bags off at our Hostel and make it back to the Visitors Center to meet a group that was doing free walking tours of the city.
Here is the Anne Frank house, Ashley went here last time she visited Amsterdam, but with a line that stretched down the street and around the corner. So, we decided that the Van Gogh museum was more our style.

Here is an underground Catholic Church that seats 300 people and is home to one of the worlds largest organs. When Catholicism was banned in Amsterdam, more than 300 people would attend this church and shortly after hymns would be blaring into the streets.
The police, not being idiots and good Christians, would not work on the Sabbath. So complaints were filed on many Sundays, but not looked into until Monday came around. Which as we all know, there were no Catholics at mass still so the church remained "hidden."
Another beautiful and surprisingly not smelly canal.
Tulips! We did find some but the fields had not yet bloomed so we did not get to experience the fields of rainbow colors.


Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Day 15 and 16

The last two days that we spent in Troyes was spent shopping for souvenirs, taking pictures of the town, and having one last amazing meal! Here we are walking down the street with some of the beautiful decorations of the town. Here is Ashley's favorite sign, maybe in the world, a cat with glasses that light up at night. It is for an optometrist's office.

Here is a picture at Gerard our favorite boulangerie in town and all of the amazing pastries that they make fresh everyday (this is where I successfully procured breakfast yesterday)!
On our last night in Troyes we went to this restaurant called Crieux du Vin. It had some amazing food bought locally and they specialize in pairing food with wine.

Here are some of the fountains at night, the first is where the French men were fishing earlier in the week. The second was my favorite and was on our walk to the centre ville, or town center each day.

Day 14

We made it back to Troyes, both in one piece from the first part of our traveling.

Today was a big deal after waking up, Ashley decided that she was going to take a shower then we would go pick up a baguette from the Boulangerie. But I felt confident and wanted to prove myself in french. So, I took off into Troyes, where very few people know English, to provide breakfast.

Voila! I did it, I came back successfully with a Baguette and two Pain au Chocolat.

Later on, after some packing and eating our amazing breakfast we went to meet Ashley's friend Sarah and a couple of her friends for some drinks and walked around Troyes to see the sights.
Here are some of Troyes beautiful fountains (wait till you see them at night they are awesome).
Some French men sitting in the middle of town fishing with "cane" poles.

One of the parks in Troyes that Ashley walked through daily.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Day 13 Easter Sunday

Wanting to go to Easter Mass at Notre Dame de Paris was on our list of things to do for our trip. So we chose to stay with Mary and Brent even though a floor spot was all that was open at their place. We woke up and readied for mass getting to the Cathedral 45 minutes early to stand in line our odds looked good. With 15 minutes left till the start of mass we were close but then for some reason it looked like 4 or 5 other lines had started and were prepared to enter for mass in front of us. So sadly, since we did not embrace the French way of not waiting in lines and just cutting to the front we were denied entry. After much consideration we chose to walk back home and see a few sites on the way.
Hotel De Ville, Paris' city hall and the center of all things political in Paris.
Centre Pompidou, a modern art museum with a very unique exterior. The building was created to be inside-out. Meaning that all the duct work, electricity, and utilities are on the exterior of the building instead of the inside hidden within the walls.



Near where Mary and Brent live in Paris there is a square and Metro station stop called Place de la République, this is where the Statue of Marianne is located.



Marianne is to the French as the Statue of Liberty is to the United States, but theirs is not surrounded by water. "Why is this an important fact to point out?", you ask. because this is where many of the protests begin in Paris and once they have gained mass and strength they typically march to Place de la Nation. Everyone remembers this past year when the french went on multiple strikes, and large protests were occurring.



Day 12

Travel day included an early morning wake-up with a train leaving at 7:05AM.


Once making it from Interlaken our train took us to Bern, where we switched to the TGV, the fast trains in Europe. From Bern we took off to Paris to stay with Ashley's friends Mary Clare and Brent, that are also from the great state of Nebraska.
That evening we went to check out the Eiffel tower. It was lit up for the evening and each hour it sparkles. We stayed the evening and planned on going to Notre Dame in the morning for Easter Mass.








Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Day 11

Last day in Interlaken, so we decided to rent bikes and see the town and both lakes. We have always wanted to try out a tandem together and they had one last one to rent. So we did it! Here I am checking out the first lake of Interlaken with our Tandem.
As you stroll through the middle of town there is a large open park and green space where most of the tourists flock to watch the extreme sport enthusiasts land. Not sure how many we watched but you could tell that they had a ton of jumps under their belt as I can not imagine a softer landing.

Here we are on one of our breaks, Ashley has been without her bike for too long and at this point our rear ends are starting to feel the time off our bikes.

Have to get a picture of the two of us riding!

And now I think Ashley is pedaling less and less, she has discovered I have pretty good balance of the bike and she does not need to keep her hands on the handlebars. So she needed to document our trip while in action.The picture that gave her lackadaisical pedaling away!


Day 10

Today was our hike day, we headed out to get tickets up to Alpiglen but the train was not running there yet due to the snow still being around that area. They are still skiing at the higher altitudes so that limited what we could do for hikes. We decided to head back to Lauterbrunnen, which was at 800 meters, for our starting point for the day. From there we decided to try and hike up to Suls which has a beautiful mountain lake that would be a perfect endpoint for our hike. We planned on taking the bus to Isenfluh, which is at 1081 meters, but just missing the bus we decided to just hike to Isenfluh.
An hour later we took our first break in Isenfluh where we decided to take some pictures. We saw this Nordic Walker which was one of the hundreds that we saw throughout our time in Switzerland.
Here is a picture of the climb that we had to endure most of the hike. The picture truly does very little justice to the quad ripping incline.

As we neared the top of the hike we found our first alpine meadow where we could see all three of the major peaks Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau. This picture was taken about the same time the fastest accent of Eiger occurred in a mere 2 hours and 28 minutes!

As you can see the snow was still in full force when we reached the 1901 meter mark. We were only 20 minutes away from our alpine lake and I made the difficult decision that we should head back down since we did not get an early start due to new plans being made the day of the hike.
So at this altitude we decided it was time for lunch of bread, apples, and Rugen Brau, the locally brewed beer.



As you can see the sun was starting to set on the top of the peaks putting us in the shade for most of our decent. Here Ashley got a great picture of me descending into one of the small meadows near the town of Isenfluh.