We flew from Shreveport to Paris, France, leaving May 12 and arriving May 13, then took a prearranged shuttle van to our hotel in Paris, where we stayed until May 19. Our shuttle driver had a lot of trouble finding the hotel, and we got a taste of what it would be like to drive in Paris. I'm glad that we used the metro (train) most of the time, because traffic in Paris is extremely busy, and the streets have lots of lane changes and a lot are one-way, making navigation difficult.
We took an express train to Zurich, Switzerland on May 19. I had my GPS with me, and it gives the speed that you are traveling. The train was consistently going 185 MPH, but the ride was very quiet and
smooth, even at that speed. We enjoyed seeing the French and Swiss countryside as we rode through them. I thought that our hotel in Zurich was within walking distance from the train station, and it was, if you knew the directions. Unfortunately my directions confused me, and the map I had didn't show that the hotel was a good bit higher than the train station, so we ended up wandering around for about a half hour, hauling all of our luggage up and down steep streets. We finally gave up and flagged down a taxi. For the rest of the trip, we bought a Zurich card, which gave us access to their trolley, train and boat system, which was very convenient, for the most part, plus you get to mingle with the locals, which is interesting. As an example, we had an entertaining conversation early one morning with a very drunk Russian couple who had apparently been up partying all night. Of course we were in tourist towns for the entire trip, but I would guess that at least 75% of the people that we talked to spoke passable English. Most also speak French, German and some, Italian. We tried to learn a few phrases in French and German, so that we could at least say hello, goodbye, please, thank you, and where is the bathroom. Fortunately, the word for bathroom (toilette)is the same in both French and German. We also had a handheld translator so we could key in words in one language and find out the word in another. Shopkeepers nearly always greet you with a "bonjour" or "gritzi" when you walk into a shop, then they say "au revoir" or "auf weiderschein" when you leave.
Our hotel in Zurich was very nice, and the woman at the front desk (her name was "Flower") was extraordinarily helpful. She and Linda really hit it off. The only problem we had was that there was no air conditioning and it was a little warm for that time of year. We opened the window, but there was a street light right outside the window, so we had a lot of bugs in the room the first night. The next morning, I figured out how to operate the shutters so that we could leave the windows open, but the sun out during the day, so the room wouldn't be so hot at night. Many hotels in Switzerland do not have air conditioning, because Switzerland has a fairly high elevation and air conditioning is needed for only a small part of the year. If it matters to you, in Europe, you should always check to see if the hotel where you are making reservations has air conditioning and a bathroom in the hotel room, rather than a public bathroom down the hall.
On May 23, we left Zurich by train to go up in the Alps to Zermatt, Switzerland. Zermatt is a famous ski area at the base of the Matterhorn. Part of the train trip was on a cog railway, meaning that there is a rail with teeth on it going between the two regular rails, and there is a gear on the train engine that drops down into the teeth. This allows the train to go up much steeper hills, and not slide backwards if it stops.
We stayed at a nice hotel in Zermatt which was near the chalet where I had stayed on my guy's trip to Zermatt in February. Since it was the off season, there were very few people in town, and some shops were closed, but we had a great time taking a short train ride up near the top of one of the many ski areas surrounding the town, and then hiking part of the way back down.
On May 25, we caught a train called the Glacier Express to St. Moritz, Switzerland. It's about an eight hour trip across much of the Alps. The scenery is incredible.
We only spent one night in St. Moritz, which is a ski area also, and much of the town was shut down since it was the off season.
We left the next morning by train back to Zurich, where we rented a car. I didn't realize until I got into the car that it was a standard transmission. I had first learned to drive on a car with a standard transmission, and had driven them for many years, but had not driven one for at least the last 30 years, so my driving skills were a little rusty, and I kept forgetting to put the clutch in when I slowed down. I eventually got the hang of it, and when we returned back home, I instinctively tried several times to put the clutch in on my car. We drove from Zurich to Geneva, Switzerland. We had a GPS and it's fairly easy to navigate in Europe outside of the major cities, much like driving in the U.S. The only difficulty we had is that the highway speed limit is apparently 120 kilometers per hour, but they don't post that speed limit. They just post a speed limit for areas with slower speed limits. Until we figured this out, we would see a sign that the speed limit was 80 kph and would drive that speed for a long way with everyone zooming past us. Driving in the cities in Europe is a lot more difficult, as the cities are older and many streets are narrow. You have to pay a lot of attention, because the lane that you are in will often change into a turn only lane, and many streets are one way. With a lot of help from Linda and the ever present GPS, we did OK, and were only lost a few times.
On May 31, we drove back to Zurich, turned in the rental car, and spent the night at the same hotel where we had stayed earlier. We had planned to do some shopping for presents for a few folks back home, but didn't realize that nearly everything in Switzerland is closed on Sundays--even the grocery stores, so we had to make our purchases in the airport in Paris.
On June 1, we took the high speed train back to Paris. We stayed at the Paris Hilton (cute name for a hotel) which is near the Charles deGaulle Airport. That afternoon, we took the hotel shuttle to the airport to do our shopping and find out where our gate would be located. On our return shuttle ride back to the hotel, our shuttle driver pointed out a traffic jam across the way, and explained that an Air France flight was missing, and that the French President, Sarkozy, was having a press conference about it at the airport. Sadly, the flight crashed at sea in a remote part of the Atlantic Ocean between South America and Paris, and it took several days for them to even find the crash scene. We navigated through the traffic jam, and I counted 15 different vans with satellite disks on them from different world wide television stations and networks.
We flew from Paris to Shreveport on June 2.
Many more comments and pictures to follow.
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