|
Post by thill25 on Apr 23, 2011 19:50:08 GMT
The wife and I (and our friend Chad) took a trip in March to Metz, Nancy, Strasbourg, and Paris. We left on March 25th (thanks to a gas explosion in Miami) and returned on April 5th. Day 1The Flights Over: After a long stressful night in fear that our flight would again get screwed up after the debacle in Miami, ( anyportinastorm.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=tips&action=display&thread=4903 ) we boarded our connector to Atlanta. I got a lot of funny looks because of my Lucha Libre mask, but I ignored them and continued towards the gate. Once in the air, we could relax a bit knowing that our trip was finally underway. Well, two out of the three of us could relax ( I hate to fly). We landed in Atlanta and decided to have a bite to eat in order to prepare for the eight hour flight ahead. Alyson (my wife) had pizza while Chad opted for McDonalds. I went for a somewhat healthier option of a protein shake and a Clif bar. We were now prepared to endure what would become the longest eight hour flight I've ever been on. I'm not gonna lie...the flight to Paris was shitty (literally and figuratively). We were stuck in the back of the plane next to the flight attendants station and the bathrooms. This was a blessing and a curse since Alyson developed stomach issues halfway through the flight. Apparently, airplane food sucks....who knew? Where's thill? That's right...wide awake in Row 47 right between the shitters. The bitchy flight attendants thought it would be a good idea to fight with one another the entire flight. It made me want to pull a D.B. Cooper somewhere over Canada just to get some peace and quiet. To make matter's worse, one of them had on "old lady perfume" which smelled like skunk ass. Every time she passed by with the food and beverage cart, I gagged. The one saving grace (sort of) was that they played "The King's Speech", which if you haven't seen, is a great film. In addition to the wonderful color 17 inch CRT televisions to keep me entertained, I was sitting across from Mr. "It's-a grea-idea-to-have-seven-glasses-of-red-wine-and-take-an-Ambien" Guy. His drunk ass stumbled around for at least two of the eight hours looking for refills and trying to figure out how to take off his neck pillow. I was impressed that he was able to: 1. Not puke 2. Not open an emergency exit 3. Walk off the plane when we landed Bravo! Finally, we landed in Paris at about 5:45 AM local time. Thank sweet baby Jesus this part of the trip was over. I'll continue a little later because reliving this nightmare makes me need a beer.
|
|
|
Post by frenchmystiquetour on Apr 23, 2011 20:50:58 GMT
Sounds like a great flight. I assume you didn't take Air France, huh? They actually serve decent food and they have professional and well mannered flight attendants. They can't do too much about the drunk Ambien guy though. The big thing for me on any of those long flights is to have that tv on the back of the seat in front of you. At least you had that.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2011 21:03:14 GMT
Oh, I have taken the very same flight many times. When an airline employee flies standby, guess what sort of seat he gets? And remember when smoking used to be allowed? I'm surprised that I am still alive...
|
|
|
Post by thill25 on Apr 23, 2011 21:23:29 GMT
Aéroport Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle Roissy: If you've ever been to CDG, you know that most of time upon exiting the aircraft, you will be directed to a bus in order to reach the terminal. I'll admit, it is a great feeling to be on the ground, but the last thing I want to do is get on a bus. We were herded on like cattle and proceeded to the terminal. Once at the terminal, we picked up our luggage and then followed signs to the rental car location where we could find Avis (pronounced A Vee in French). Little did we know, Avis was located (what seemed like 3.2 kms away) in Roissy-en-France. We used Auto Europe to rent the car, and we had taken to time to notify them that our flight was cancelled due to the fire in Miami. However, they did not inform Avis of our situation. This presented a problem. Luckily, Aly was a saint and managed to get everything squared away. The rental car we obtained was a 2011 Renault Megane: (I have some real pictures which I'll post later.) We decided to call her Meg. Meg was great little car. We were able to fit three full suitcases in the trunk and she got over 800 km on a tank of diesel. Her best feature was the built in Tom Tom GPS. Her worst feature was the 15 blind spots. This is Aly and the back of my chrome dome inside of Meg: And we're off!!
|
|
|
Post by thill25 on Apr 23, 2011 21:25:55 GMT
Sounds like a great flight. I assume you didn't take Air France, huh? They actually serve decent food and they have professional and well mannered flight attendants. They can't do too much about the drunk Ambien guy though. The big thing for me on any of those long flights is to have that tv on the back of the seat in front of you. At least you had that. LOL...It was an Air France flight, but we had the old school televisions in the center aisles. Totally sucked!
|
|
|
Post by frenchmystiquetour on Apr 23, 2011 21:45:35 GMT
Well, so much for my glowing critique of Air France. If you had the center aisle only tv you must have been on one of their Boeing's. The Airbus's have the tv's on the back of the seat. I'm always holding my breath when I go to the airport hoping I'll get the Airbus.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Apr 23, 2011 21:48:57 GMT
Airbus? Dunno about Air France, but I'm forced to use Continental's airbuses all the time. No matter how tiny your carry-on, they have to take it away from you so they can break whatever is precious enough to hand-carry.
Thill! I love this report already. This is the trip real people have, or at least the kind I usually have. The glowing reports of happiness, excitement, fun flights, etc. always make me think the people reporting are lying or, more likely, were on drugs.
Onward ~~ more! more!
lucha libre mask -- *snork!*
|
|
|
Post by thill25 on Apr 23, 2011 22:35:54 GMT
On the Road: We headed away from the airport toward Verdun. This was not our final destination, but a place I wanted to stop because of the WWI history. In case some of you aren't familiar, here is some info via Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_VerdunAlong the way, we decided it would be a good idea to chug the Five Hour Energy shots that I packed. Here's a pic for you guys that don't live in the U.S.: They are supposed to wake you up and keep you awake via B vitamins and about a cup of caffeine. I'm not sure I buy that, but I'll give the company the benefit of the doubt since I was working on more that 24 hours without any sleep at this point in the trip. We were starting to settle in, get comfortable, figure out the GPS, the radio (no auxillary plug for the iTodd), and breathe a sigh of relief that we were FINALLY in France, when we happened upon this: I think it was on the N2 heading towards Reims. We didn't take many pics along this first stretch of road. I think we were still soaking it all in. We made a pit stop to use the bathroom at some small town, but the only thing we could find that was open was a toy store. We decided to go have a look and pick something up for some friends. Aly found a book that pretty much fit how her flight went: We also found the smallest toilet in France: Little did we know that we were heading right towards the center of Reims. I thought for sure that the GPS would lead us around the city, but it plopped us less than a kilometer from the Notre-Dame de Reims, so we decided to make that our first stop. It's a Roman Catholic cathedral built in the 12th century and was the cathedral where some of the kings of France were crowned. We stayed for a bit then headed towards Verdun. I'll post more later...
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2011 4:51:13 GMT
Great pictures. The autoroute used to go directly through the center of Reims now it goes around it. However, if you set a GPS for Reims, that is obviously where it will take you -- on the old autoroute. But I'm glad you got to see the cathedral, one of the finest in France.
Can't wait to read more!
|
|
|
Post by mich64 on Apr 24, 2011 14:26:59 GMT
Thill I have been reading your trip report to my husband and he has been laughing and enjoying it so very much. He has to do some explaining to me, but we are both enjoying your writing style.
My husband says we are not lost, we are just seeing something we were not planning to and sometimes it leads to enjoyable adventures and helps us to relax instead of stress over a timetable.
I am eagerly awaiting more adventures of Thill and Aly. Cheers, Mich
|
|
|
Post by thill25 on Apr 24, 2011 15:50:05 GMT
Great pictures. The autoroute used to go directly through the center of Reims now it goes around it. However, if you set a GPS for Reims, that is obviously where it will take you -- on the old autoroute. But I'm glad you got to see the cathedral, one of the finest in France. Can't wait to read more! The GPS was actually programmed for Verdun, but we had it set to avoid highways and tolls. Therefore, it took us "the fastest route" while avoiding the tolls and highways. Later in the trip, in order to save some time, we included highways, but avoided tolls. The cathedral is beautiful. It was well worth a slight detour.
|
|
|
Post by thill25 on Apr 24, 2011 15:51:27 GMT
Thill I have been reading your trip report to my husband and he has been laughing and enjoying it so very much. He has to do some explaining to me, but we are both enjoying your writing style. My husband says we are not lost, we are just seeing something we were not planning to and sometimes it leads to enjoyable adventures and helps us to relax instead of stress over a timetable. I am eagerly awaiting more adventures of Thill and Aly. Cheers, Mich I'm glad you guys are enjoying the report. I've got a few stories about getting lost later.
|
|
|
Post by thill25 on Apr 24, 2011 15:57:24 GMT
Well, so much for my glowing critique of Air France. If you had the center aisle only tv you must have been on one of their Boeing's. The Airbus's have the tv's on the back of the seat. I'm always holding my breath when I go to the airport hoping I'll get the Airbus. It was a Boeing. 767 me thinks...
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2011 16:09:47 GMT
Actually, Air France doesn't fly the 757 or the 767. They fly the 747 and the 777. Some of the 747's do not have personal screens, but all of the 777's do. However, your seating chart above is definitely a 777. Maybe they ran out of planes and had to lease one from somebody else.
|
|
|
Post by thill25 on Apr 24, 2011 16:14:33 GMT
Actually, Air France doesn't fly the 757 or the 767. They fly the 747 and the 777. Some of the 747's do not have personal screens, but all of the 777's do. However, your seating chart above is definitely a 777. Maybe they ran out of planes and had to lease one from somebody else. Not sure...That is exactly how the cabin looked, but we did not have personal screens. One of our flights was a 767, but it could have been the flight home on American.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Apr 24, 2011 19:04:06 GMT
Love that line of arches -- magnificent!
|
|
|
Post by thill25 on Apr 24, 2011 19:04:30 GMT
On the Road (cont'd): Our initial plan, before the cancelled flight, was to go to Provins then proceed to Troyes, which would have been a total drive time of about three hours. To say we were not prepared to drive 5+ hours the first day was an understatement. This was definitely the hardest drive we encountered on our entire vacation because of the sleep deprivation. Unfortunately, we didn't have a choice because all our hotels were prepaid for the entire trip. Finally, after about four hours we arrive at our first planned destination half asleep and truly amazed at how many roundabouts we encountered. Verdun: We made a quick stop at the tourism office (which was closed when we arrived), but we decided to park there to take a quick walk around and grab some lunch. Here we see Meg and I'm holding her flat key which took a little getting use to... ***Some of these lower quality pics were downloaded from Chad's Facebook album. I uploaded them to Photobucket to fill in a few gaps. I'll probably get copies of his full sized pictures at some point.*** We spotted a mustached man on a motorcycle that had pulled over to eat his lunch: a tasty looking sandwich. Aly and I had told Chad how much we enjoyed eating sandwiches when we tour around France. We went on and on about the cheese, meat, butter, and my God...the bread! So, Aly asked the man where he purchased this delicious looking sandwich. He gave her some directions, all I managed to understand was gauche and droite. We were glad at least one of us spoke French. ;D We headed off to find Chad his first French sandwich. What we found was La Mie Câline, which is a French franchise. The sandwiches were 1,000,000 times better than you'd find at any American franchise. I had salami, pickles, and butter while Chad and Aly picked up ham, cheese and butter. We walked over to the waterfront and gazed at the Meuse River while we ate our lunch. A View of the Meuse River looking towards the Tourism office: After we ate we walked around a little more...Here are a few of the sites we encountered before heading to the Battlefields. The Châtel Gate: Monument de la Victoire: Monument aux Morts:
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2011 20:06:10 GMT
You just made me realize that I have never visited Verdun even though I have passed through it 100 times.
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on Apr 24, 2011 20:57:26 GMT
You must, Kerouac. Though I just cried about those hundreds of thousands of young men, French and German mostly, who lived and died so horribly.
Channelling Jaurès and Rosa Luxemburg...
thill, that is a great report. I'm useless when jetlagged - I could not drive a car or ride a bicycle safely.
|
|
|
Post by thill25 on Apr 24, 2011 22:05:49 GMT
Next we visit the battlefields, but I gotta go eat and watch "Buried" before I move on.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2011 22:23:07 GMT
You must, Kerouac. Though I just cried about those hundreds of thousands of young men, French and German mostly, who lived and died so horribly. Lagatta, I have visited the battlefields at least a dozen times, not longer than 2 years ago the last time, when I took my nephew there. I also remember the first time I went, at age 6, to hear that the French soldiers drank their own urine during the siege, to survive. That is the sort of detail that you never forget. It is the city of Verdun that I have not visited, which is not the exact location of the battles.
|
|
|
Post by frenchmystiquetour on Apr 24, 2011 22:26:17 GMT
Waiting.
|
|
|
Post by bjd on Apr 25, 2011 7:13:37 GMT
Me too --- that's an area of France that I do not know at all.
|
|
|
Post by hwinpp on Apr 25, 2011 7:30:37 GMT
Very promising start, Thill!
My rememrances of Reims are good. But I always found the landscape there pretty somber.
|
|
|
Post by lola on Apr 25, 2011 14:22:50 GMT
What a fun report, thill.
People who should not wear perfume: 1. Flight attendants 2 Nurses 3. Anyone who buys the kind I don't like and then goes out in public.
I have fond memories of our rental Megane a few years ago. We fretted about our luggage the first couple of days because we didn't know that the hatchback automatically unlocked if the key was within a certain radius. More in a series of smarter-than-us technologies.
I'm glad your GPS took you near the cathedral. The rose window does my heart good this cloudy morning.
|
|
|
Post by cheerypeabrain on Apr 25, 2011 14:51:32 GMT
fascinating and entertaining report Thill....total respect for the flight....(longest I've done is 4 hours and OH had more bruises from me squeezing his arm than he got from me when I was in labour.....) X
|
|
|
Post by thill25 on May 3, 2011 20:40:05 GMT
I haven't forgotten about you guys! Busy weekend and busy week has cut into my posting time!! I'll be back with more pics and stories (hopefully, this weekend!)...
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on May 3, 2011 22:12:53 GMT
It's fine. Really. Don't let the collective thrumming of our fingers bother you.
|
|
|
Post by thill25 on May 7, 2011 15:11:43 GMT
We walked around the city of Verdun about an hour before heading off to the battlefields which are only a few kilometers outside of the city. Our main goal was to visit the Douaumont ossuary ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douaumont_ossuary)and drive around a bit. Here's a great link that explains the battles in the area: www.kaiserscross.com/136501/41912.html I can't imagine the hell that these soldiers went thorough. It's also amazing to see the images in 1916 vs. the area now...The area is heavily wooded as compared to mud, crates, and trenches during the war. We were surprised by how vast of an area the battlefields actually cover. It was more like a National park than a memorial site. There were trails, picnic areas, museums, the ossuary, and a few villages scattered around the area. Here's a map of the area: We stuck mainly to the far east of the map visiting the Douaumont area. By this time it was late in the afternoon and we didn't have much time to spend here. I was really disappointed we were only able to stay about two hours. We had to make it to Metz before dark because we were all starting to crash. Here are a few pics of what we encountered: I'll edit my post and add more pics later... Gotta head out to meet some friends for lunch!
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on May 7, 2011 16:00:28 GMT
Oh my goodness -- I didn't expect to be blind-sided by emotion looking at photos of a groomed battlefield, but am sniffling as I write this. Somehow, the endless arched hall and the final misty shot of the lumpy terrain are even more evocative of the tragic waste of lives that took place there then are the innumerable crosses.
Can you explain some of the features, please -- the tower and its berm, plus why it's covered, and what the hall is for?
|
|