Carcassonne and AirBnB

Holy smoly, that is one hell of a castle. I can see why Belinda wanted to come here. Either that or she loves hearing me bitch as we walked up the hill to it.  You can see how amazing it was. Just breathtaking. Inside not so much. Basically a continuation of the tourist shops down the hill. But the structure was still cool.

And this guy was fearless

But these girls were too

This is our first, and maybe last, AirBnB. When we checked the AirBnB site out this place looked very nice. Our criteria was only that it be near the station, which I guess this is. It's about a 20 minute walk through a nice part of town. We waited at the front door for Jovi, our contact, and she was prompt and helped us later at the pharmacy but that was the end of the good part. On the website this looked liked a modern, clean apartment. It's not modern and we're not sure about the cleanliness. It doesn't seem like a bad neighborhood, but then again it does. We were told not to walk in the kitchen area after 10pm so we wouldn't wake the guy downstairs. Apparently the ones upstairs didn't have the same constraints. This morning about 645 it sounded like people jousting while riding Shetland ponies. Kids crying. So that was our new wake-up time. We figured we could sleep on the train. It's five hours to Madrid.

This was a very basic apartment, not a part of someone's home nor was it a Bed and breakfast. There were two bedrooms, separated by a halfway. Alice liked that. She said we make too much noise. ?? A small common room and kitchen area and a bathroom. Size wise very good. What looked like a nice remodeled kitchen and bath on the website were just laminate flooring laid down but not finished. The toilet roll holder was broken and curtains didn't open easily. Not a clock worked so it was always "is that the right time?" Part of the ceiling in one bedroom was falling down. The place smelled musty and the girls (well really, old ladies) were afraid to take a deep breath. The soap dispenser was empty but there was a bottle of body soap. There seemed to be plenty of hot water which is probably the most important issue we look for so that was good. At $100 for the night, it just wasn't what we thought it would be. It was middle of the road pricing but bottom of the barrel facilities. All in all we rated it a 1/5.

The dinner we had last night was one of the best, and cheapest. We ate at a creperie called Le Ble Noir. At least a 4/5. One guy handled 9 tables of 24 people. Our crepes, salad and drinks were perfecto.

 

It was a short walk back to our room and a fitful sleep.

Tuesday we had to be at the train station by 917 and I'll have a whole separate post about that. Trains cancelled, connections missed, additional tickets bought, yada yada yada.

Short Day in Beaune

Our hotel in Beaune was directly across the street from the train station which was a great location. We had a metal screen that dropped down outside our window which blocked a lot of the light and noise, although there was little traffic, pedestrian or vehicle. We slept in until about 9 and then walked about 6 blocks to the old town centre.

We had a lovely quiche and coffee in a little bakery and then walked around a bit and visited the Hotel Dieu.

This was a restored poor persons hospital and for a measly 7.50 euro we were given an excellent audio guide that explained how this was established in 1443, and was presented by the "husband and wife" who set up the hospital. It continued operating until the 1970's. Very well done.

We spent about two hours in it and then went back to our walkabout. Unfortunately, Alice spied an antique show and I was on my own for another hour or so. Fortunately, for me there were a number of bakeries and I had a vanilla flan and latte. Should have waited for a Mexican restaurant for the flan.

This is a small town, about 28,000, but very nice and clean, and in the middle of Burgundy country. It was about 1500 so we decided to have a nice meal and then Belinda and Alice planned to visit one of the "caves" to taste wine. For 12 euro you get to taste 4 reds and 2 whites. B said they were all excellent. She's comparing them to Red Box.

When they went to taste wine, I walked back to the hotel room and read for a little while, napped, and read a little more. They returned about two hours later and we never left the room. It was too far to walk in for dinner and the hotel restaurant had closed early so Belinda and I shared a Snickers. (We didn't tell Alice) We were still trying to recoup from the previous 16 hour travel day so we all fell asleep early. Monday should be just 6 hours from Beaune to Carcassonne where we will spend just one night.

This is a short post. A quiet day but for me one of the highlights. The hospital museum was excellent.

Prague to Beaune, France

Up at 0530! Actually up at 0215 because for some reason someone is calling a number that runs through our Google Voice. You see in order to take advantage of technology I forwarded my house phone to Google Voice because it would take a message, transcribe it and email it to me on my cell phone. Love, love, love, technology. In a practice run it works fine. In fact, call my home number and hear my message. Jess has called twice and it worked. Now I didn't tell it that when Jesse calls, take a message. He's our son. I want to hear from him. But three other calls have gotten through at 2 or 3 in the morning. And here's the really odd thing. It always happens on days when we need to get a good night's rest because we have to get up early for a travel day. So now I'm starting to hate technology! I'm mean if they can't get voice mail to work right, what else doesn't really work right? Can I trust it to do my banking? I'm starting to wonder.

So we're on a bus from Prague to Manneheim. It stopped in Nurnberg for 20 minutes, long enough to get a coffee and a Berliner. "Ich bin ein Berliner!"

Lots of wind turbines and solar panels in the countryside. Lots more clean energy here than in the States that's for sure. Call your Congressperson. And the bus has WiFi AND a WC, that's a toilet. I'm glad for one, girls glad for the other. It poured, in fact, hailed for a while but we made it to Manneheim and caught our TGV (fast) train to Chalon sur Saone, France.

This is scenery at 198 mph.


Our local 20 minute train from Chalon sur Saone to Beaune was almost two hours late late, but fortunately there were two super helpful French ladies also waiting for the local train. They really helped us understand that the train was coming and on what track because two trains came in at the same time going to the same place. It was an interesting discussion because they didn't speak English and Alice didn't speak French. I don't know why I brought her.

We didn't get to our hotel until about 2130, but  gratefully, it was right across from the station. I mean like I could read the train schedule from our room. But train stations here are pretty quiet except for the passengers. And in towns like Beaune, they are very quiet. No whistles, horns, clanking or diesel sounds. Once in a while there is a whoosh sound. We are so 1800's in the States.... But I prefer the States. This is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live here. As I said, it was late so we went straight to our room. GOOD NIGHT !

More Prague

It's Thursday and we had a leisurely breakfast at our BnB. That's the way I'm referring to any place we stay at that provides us breakfast. It does not mean AirBnb or Days Inn or The Ritz. These are basically rooms in someone's home or maybe a five or six room apartment style building. There's not really a"front desk" but someone is usually around. Next time I want someone around to bring food to our room.....as well as carry our luggage up the three or four flights of stairs that everyone seems to have. I thought that's why Alice came. In this place we have to go through three sets of locked doors! I don't think there's a lot of crime. I think the owner just gets a kick out of making his "guests" do that. Plus we all have to go out together. Once one leaves, the doors are locked and your stuck. AND THAT FRONT DOOR ! It took two women to open it. Seriously. I couldn't help... I was holding the camera.

Also, every place we've stayed is on the top floor, INCLUDING THOMAS' !!! At least Thomas had an elevator, sort of. Our three pieces of luggage and two people could ride in it. Alice and I left the stairs for B. She likes stairs. Tomorrow she's going up one of the bell towers here. 384 steps! Good for her. I'm having a latte and watching.

Speaking of steps. Today we headed to the Prague Castle. We wanted to get an early start because we heard it was going to be 85 degrees today but breakfast got in the way. About 10 we headed across the Charles Bridge, with a few thousand other tourists. There are people everywhere. This place really is like Disneyland, only real. Including the crowds! Once across the river we had a choice: take the number 22 tram for $1.50 or climb at least a quarter mile of steps! Even Belinda thought it might have been more than that. In close to 85 degree heat! WHY DID WE DO THAT?!

At that point I really didn't care about some stupid castle. I've been to Disneyland. OK, it was interesting and we did come to Europe to sightsee but like I said, next time, different level of accommodations AND a private tour guide who can deal with all this stuff.

We watched the changing of the guard at the castle gate and spent the next few hours meandering around relatively level ground.

Then it was time to hike back down, thinking it would be easier than going up. By the time we got back to our room we all needed showers and our clothes needed washing. STUPID STUPID STUPID!

We rested for a couple of hours and then headed back out to find something to eat. Since we hadn't had lunch due to our having heat stroke we found a place quickly, which may not have been the best idea. The food was fine, actually pretty good, but as we were checking out restaurants the weather was changing. We knew it was going to be about 20 degrees cooler the next day, Friday, but didn't think much about it until the wind came up. Of course in our haste to eat, and in our desire not to walk very far, we selected a table under some umbrellas next to the sidewalk. Now these umbrellas were all weighed down with a concrete base that must take four guys to move. No problem because we weren't going to go inside. There were two steps up to the door. Our mind changed when the first umbrella fell over next to us right after I said "It's getting windy." Suddenly we could handle two steps but by the time we got up to move, everyone else had too, and filled up the restaurant. You know how you feel when you just eat too quickly because you don't want to be late for the movie? That's how I feel right now because we scarfed that meal down. It was scary windy.

On the way back to our room is when B saw the bell tower and has now made her plans to summit it tomorrow. I'm having my latte.
***
Day two, or three depending on how you count them, was nice and cool and sure enough Belinda and Alice headed for the tower.... BUT they took the elevator! I'm proud of B for trying something different but then I didn't have time for my latte. Belinda is at the top of the tower here.

 We watch the highly overrated "Astrological clock" strike the hour of 11. More interesting was the crowd, and I do mean crowd, of people waiting for it.

Hell, come to Mount Angel if you want a show. The clockworks itself is something to see, the hourly striking not so much. We then caught the underground with the girls heading towards the one museum they hadn't seen yet, the Mucha Museum, while I headed for an important meeting with representatives from AVAST, the antivirus software maker. Number one or two in the world for free antivirus. They have products for the pc and Android phone. We use it at the literacy center and have been extremely happy. And it's free! We met back up after our excursions and had lunch on another beautiful square in front of the National Museum which, thank gawd, was closed for renovations. We had bought a couple of 90 minute metro passes so we decided to head to the funicular near some gardens on the opposite side of the river. When we got there we found it was closed until March! THANK YOU BELINDA! The one reason I wanted to go to Prague! (Whew... It involved stairs). So we decided to catch the next streetcar and ride it to the end, which we did, and then grabbed a different one and rode it back to our local square by the clock. We had a Polish sausage, beer and a Coke on the square and listened a bit to the musicians playing in the area and then walked back to our room for any early bedtime. We have to get up at 0530 to catch a 0712 bus to Manneheim and then a train to Beaune, pronounced Bone, France. Thank you, Zuzana, for all the food tips and places to visit!

When we got back to our room I was perusing my emails and read this one. " The U.S. Embassy in Prague informs U.S. citizens residing in or traveling through Europe that travel may be delayed or disrupted across the region, including via land borders." I look forward to it. Not that all these countries are part of the EU there's no "border crossings" and therefore no border or country stamps in our passports! What the hell are our passports for if not to flaunt where we've been? We may get two stamps, one for arriving at the Netherlands and the other for entering the US!  How disappointing is that? We could have just gone to Canada!

Berlin to Prague

Wednesday morning we caught the 1045 train to Prague and got here about 1545. When we were waiting at the Berlin station all the ICE trains (inter-city express) were modern, sleek machines. So excited, especially since we were in first class! Then along comes our train. Without a doubt the oldest train we've been on! First class was the last car. The only difference was we weren't in a compartment.

My exciting traveling companions. 

I had more of a conversation with the young Korean girl sitting next to me who couldn't speak English. 

We're used to free beverages and attendants. Not on this train. But we did get a free bottle of water as we pulled into the Prague station! We were met at the station by our driver and taken to our pension in the center of old town. We are just a few blocks from the Charles Bridge, which is one of the reasons people come to Prague, I guess. Our room is nice with three separate beds. Apparently Alice called ahead.

The view from my bed-

We headed out for a short walk and boy was it. Around the corner from our room was a church where a Vivaldi concert was about to begin so we got tickets and went in.

The string quartet was excellent but for some reason they thought throwing in some gawd awful pipe organ music was something we wanted. It wasn't. I kept expecting Bela Lugosi or Vincent Price to jump out from behind the alter. But it was worth the $20 each. Since tipping is discouraged here I figured I'd make it up at the next meal.

We had a nice dinner, but I think the girls had a little too much wine. They kept rocking like they were still on the train and then stumbled around outside on the sidewalk and blamed it on the cobblestone. In Alice's case I think she just wasn't used to having a man walk that near.

We headed out onto the Charles Bridge and holy smoly it was crowded.

We thought it would be an early night but it's 2330 now and we're pretty exhausted. I'm so tired I'm not even laughing at me.

Not a Day of Rest

Today is Tuesday, 15 September. I say that to remind me where we are. I am in a fog. Young Thomas is used to walking everywhere. And boy did we walk yesterday. Even Belinda the goat said she wished she had a pedometer. And it rained. We probably took public transport at least 16 times and then walked and walked.

We tried to find out favorite Hooters but apparently it went bust......

Belinda and Alice went to the Neues Museum which had Nefertiti and the "Golden Hat". You'll have to look those up but they're pretty big deals.

A chocolate Titanic and some stupid tourists !

We had dinner at KaDeWe, the absolute best department store in the world. For some reason I kept getting asked for directions from stupid tourist, probably because I look like I know everything. So I started pointing people in one direction or another not really knowing what they were saying or where things were. I also taught Alice some German. I told her that whenever someone does something really nice for them to say " du bist ein esel". She actually said it very well practicing and Thomas overheard and said "huuh"!  He then explained it meant " dumb ass" and my humiliation of Alice failed.

As much as I like technology sometimes it's a pain in the butt. Last night at 0200, 2am, I got a call on my tablet from American Express because we had filled out an application for a Delta Airlines AMEX card in Detroit. Remember we had about a 12 hour layover and we were looking for anything to occupy the time. Anyway they were trying to confirm our application and when I looked at the tablet I thought it said it was from Jodi. Remember it was 2am. By the time my brain caught up I just said call me back in a few weeks. We won't fill out applications for credit cards again. Besides we have a credit freeze on our accounts at the three credit bureaus to stop ID theft so none of these companies can access our info anyway. By the way, if you want to protect yourself from ID theft, this is the best and, most importantly, cheapest way to do it. A one-time $10 fee locks your account. Period. Dave Ramsey won't tell you that. He makes to much money off of Lifelock!

Right now Alice is trying to figure out how to send all the....(be nice Alan).. things she bought home. I hope none of you expect anything more from me than this free blog. It's priceless anyway. And you have me. Kitty woke me up this morning because she was hungry. So I elbowed Belinda and said "what does she want?" Belinda said she was hungry and then got up to feed her.... Well she's not my cat!

I think we're headed out for another trek and to find a post office for Alice. "Oh gawd!"

Bye Bye Brugge

Friday during our walk around Brugge, Belinda and Alice found a flea market and had to decide which was the heaviest item they could buy.

Before we left for the train station this morning (Saturday) we had breakfast at our BnB with a couple from just outside Brussels who asked about Donald Trump and whether he was really running for President because they think he's a joke. We told them no, he's serious and we really think he'd do well for international relations. Then we all laughed and agreed on one thing- he's an idiot !

We left Brugge at 0850. It was sad. I mean it was cloudy and about to cry😢. We went through Brussels and on our last train for the day we cruised at 245 km/h from Koln to Berlin, arriving at 1706. And this isn't the fast train. I laugh when I hear people in the US talk about high speed rail. Hell the damn local trains here do 70-90 mph. Amtrak would be overjoyed with that. On the other hand we can have wine and beer on the train. All electric overhead wires AND NOT AN EFFING TRAIN WHISTLE TO BE HEARD!!! We so live in the 1800's when it comes to our rail lines. All concrete ties and seamless rails here. We need to make our trains more people friendly. Stopping the horns is the first step and if you really want to do that let me know. It can be done. Oh, it's raining out the window. Stupid statement... it's not raining inside. Anyway apparently Germany is sad to see us arrive. But Thomas and Friends were not.

We arrived on time, of course, these are German trains. Clean, fast, efficient. And the Nutella was ready for us. Felix, Carola, Thomas, and Olaf were excited to see us as you can tell by this staged photo. They immediately took us out partying.

(www.folsomstreetfair.com)

We also went to a cabaret show tonight, which was very, very fun, and then just toured the city on a city bus, going to the Brandenburg Gate, Sony Center, Holocaust Memorial, Potsdamer Platz, American Embassy and some other sites that were architecturally or historically significant. You can always come see what we did. Check with me and I'll give you Thomas's phone number to make your reservation.

Typical dinner with Alice

I still haven't been able to make a local phone call on this trip. Called back to the kids but not our BnB down the street. I'll find out what's going on. I'll let you know so you won't worry. Brought two tablets and a phone with us. Everything is Android.  Both tablets are Acers. One is a $130 8" tablet and the other is a $80 7" tablet, both from Costco of course. Both seem to work exceptionally well. Of course I have the bigger one because I've been told size matters! It is absolutely amazing what technology has done for travel. I used to print off pages and pages of notes. Now I just load PDF files on all our devices. Plus we can communicate with the world, when we have WiFi or when Verizon works. By the way because my phone didn't work when we arrived in Amsterdam I couldn't call or text Verizon to tell them. So I posted a comment on their Facebook page and they Messaged me until we got it figured out! I was impressed. Now if I could just figure out what codes to use locally......

Finally figured out the phone issue. Verizon said to preface the phone numbers with +1, then the country code and number. NOT!  It's 00, then the number. Yay! I know you were worried.