Re: The trip to France, Germany and Switzerland

Tom Elam <thomas.e.elam@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/7/2024 9:13 AM, -hh wrote:

On 9/6/24 1:07 PM, -hh wrote:

On 9/6/24 11:12 AM, Tom Elam wrote:

On 9/1/2024 10:27 AM, -hh wrote:

On 8/31/24 5:13 PM, Tom Elam wrote:

On 8/30/2024 9:38 AM, -hh wrote:

On 8/30/24 9:15 AM, Tom Elam wrote:

To sum it up, fun but not as much as we thought it might be.

 
 
That happens.  On our own last trans-Atlantic outing, we both
caught some sort of not-CoVid bug around ten days in, which was
unpleasant.
 
 
 

Arriving Paris on time we elected to take a taxi to the hotel.
Given it was 4 of us the taxi was not that much more than the
train/Metro and a lot less hassle. The hotel transfer was on us
as we arrived several days before the Viking tour started.

 
 
Price break on four makes it worth doing AFAIC, even before
considering your later comment about your travel companion's lower
physical shape.
 
 

Took our friends to see some museums, the tower level 3, other
spots, and had some incredible meals. However, the friends are
not in the best physical shape and that limited our options. We
traveled by Metro, Uber, taxi and RATP. They were fascinated by
the Notre Dame crypt, Montmarte and Musee D'Orsay.

 
 
I've really enjoyed the Orsay; its also a nice place to plan
taking a lunch break, in the cafe that's "inside" of the clock face.
 
 

The tower experience was slightly compromised by rain and poor
visibility, but at that point we had no other options for another
day. The just-concluded Olympic games had a few streets closed
and the Champ de Mars still occupied by venues and blocked off.
 
Leaving Paris by Viking bus via the Luxembourg American cemetery
we arrived the Viking ship at Trier. Spent a week+ on board,
visited some Moselle/Rhine River towns in Germany and France. A
WWII buff, I was amazed the the Allies ever made it across the
part of Moselle valley we saw.

 
I learned awhile back that my father did one of those Mosel
crossings, somewhat proximate to the town of Zell, if I recall
correctly.  I understand that the river looks somewhat different
today, as the dam system for ship navigation has changed over the
decades (less current; possibly slightly higher average water
levels too).
 
 
 

Viking's U.S. marketing portrays the company's river cruises as
exceptional. In our experience with prior European river cruises
they are not. The ship needed some cosmetic refurb, on day 1 a
"technical issue" delay caused us to miss our first stop, and the
food and crew service was very good, but not great. We also had a
few tour guides that did not speak great English. My wife had to
assist one with translating the excellent French of a local
vineyard owner.

 
I don't recall the details why we skipped using Viking in EU, but
we've had good success with Uniworld and AMA Waterways.  One
trade- off for comparing these two is that Uniworld had free DIY
laundry onboard (helps lighten the bags) but AMA had better wines
& wine stewards at dinner.
 
 

On the other hand we had a medical emergency that led to an
unplanned stop. It was handled well and did not cause any issues
for the schedule.
 
Arriving Basel we did the ship's included city tour that was very
well done. That afternoon we departed for Zurich, toured that
city center for a day and a half by tram with a lake boat ride
thrown in, and had a great meal on the last evening. Jolly good fun.

 
 
There's a traditional swiss restaurant that I'd like to get back
to in Zurich, IIRC, not far from the Fraümunster: a good spot for
Rösti.
 
 

Had a bit of a tram experience. The hotel was a few miles west of
the lake and city center. Departing the hotel on line 4 for our
dinner the tram stopped after about 10 minutes and it was
announced that there had been an accident ahead involving a tram
and car. Line 4 was being delayed and diverted. Almost all the
passengers left the tram. Two young locals offered to show us how
to get to our destination. We followed their instructions and
arrived via a different route with minimal delay. Could have
figured that out ourselves but their assistance was very helpful.

 
 
Things like that happen.  Fortunately, you weren't time-stressed
such as heading to the airport for a departure flight.  Have had
that happen with a train issue in Belgium.
 
 

Flights back through Philly were both on time. Got to experience
the 787 for the first time too.

 
IIRC, the 787's Polaris is a bit more roomy than on their 757
version.
 
 

Next year? I'm voting for 2 weeks in southern/western France via
rental car. The wife has veto power but there is a still lot we
have not seen. And Hugh, I checked with National. My age is not
an issue for them.

 
 
Been meaning to get around to a "drive around" in FR as well:
several different directions though (Normandy, Mont-Saint-Miche,
Bordeaux, Chateaus, etc).
 
Plus one probably unknown to Americans sight is the city of
Bourges, as there's a huge cathedral there that gets compared to
Notre Dame (but without crowds), plus an evening walk through its
old timbered houses section is nice: tastefully lit.  A single
overnight is adequate; figure it as 3.5+hrs (175mi) drive due
south of Paris.
 
And on the rental car, the important thing here is that the risk
of age restrictions is now on your checklist to verify in advance,
instead of getting blindsided at the last minute by it.
 
 
-hh
 

 
We ate in that same D'Orsey restaurant. Much nicer than the small
snack bar on the ground floor.
 
I think the onboard AMA experience is every bit as good as Viking.
But their excursions are better and the cabins a bit larger. My
take is that Viking has become so big that with multiple ships in a
port as seemed to happen frequently they have issues with smaller
places some of the AMA excursions we liked. Example - the small
music museum at Rudesheim. I also remember that the guides were
better and we had more free time in port.

 
FWIW, some of this also depends on which river you're on, as the
ships on the Rhine have grown in size which limits where they can dock.
 
 

I just today watched a YouTube on touring France that may change my
mind a bit about next year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RdNGT1jz8

 
[rearraging]
 

We have done 2 weeks in Normandy/Brittany and about the same in

Paris

plus 2 trips that took us to the south coast. Time to branch out.
Massif Central, Loire Valley and Alsace are high on my list.

 
Yes, there's a huge number of regions in France that US tourists are
utterly unaware of.  There's some pretty wild scenery/canyons
someplace that I can't recall at the moment.  I think I could easily
do 5-6 trips, not too much unlike we've already done in Germany.
 
 

Taking the TGV to a city then renting the car if you need it could
be a lot of fun, even if a bit more expensive. Thoughts?

 
We used the TGV to go from Paris (Gare de l’Est) to
Colmar/Strasbourg (near the Rhine) in 2022:  it was straightforward,
pretty easy, and quite fast city to city:  Strasbourg's just 1:45. 
I've also used the Brussels to Paris "Thales" express too; IIRC, its
just ~90 minutes or so as well.
 
For Colmar, the train station's not super-central, so it was an easy
4-5 block walk pulling our bags.  Once there, there was one day
where it would have been good to have had a car, but it was also
good to not have to worry about parking a car the rest of the time. 
The 'car day' was a trip out of Colmar to an outlying village of
Eguisheim, which is known for the Church of Saint Peter and Saint
Paul (a 13C chapel) and several Alsatian wine producers, as the
shuttlebus the city offered was over capacity & ran too
infrequently.  But it is just as well though, as many of the
Eguisheim visitors were loading up their cars with cases of wines to
drive home; carting away a lot isn't really an option when flying.
 
 
-hh
 
 
 

 
You should have gone to this gem too: https://riquewihr.fr/fr/ or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riquewihr
 
Just 7 miles east of Colmar. Very small and great wines. I just
ordered a case of Riesling from a small winery we know there.
Shipping was a lot more than the wine!

 
Riquewihr is similar and was the either/or choice, as we also visited
Srasbourg too.
 
There's a lot of such small towns w/wineries in the Alsace region; I
think we have a Karen Brown guidebook which has a couple of
self-driving routes that's on the "to do" list .. my basic conclusion
is that if one wants to get to such small villages, it is better done
with a rental car than by mass transit as we had done.

 
 
Forgot to mention that I've looked into the "ship some home" too.
 
The problem I ran into are that State regulations on shipping of alcohol
vary, and NJ is a "nope!" state.
 
For hand-carrying, the last time that I can recall packing some 750ml
wine bottles into checked baggage was from Budapest, and their security
folk (at least I hope it was them!) either didn't have TSA keys, or
didn't care:  they just cut all the locks off.
 
 
-hh
 
 
 

Indiana is OK since about 5 years back. We carry wine home in checked
bags from Europe every trip, never had an issue. The record is 7 bottles
spread across 3 check bags.  We do not lock our bags. You just reminded
me why. Those are flimsy locks that do no real good.

I view such locks simply as tamper detection devices.  We’ve had our bags
ruffled & damaged a few times by probable thieves…think the last one was
outbound to Scandinavia?

Also had a vendor some years back get his big aluminum case broken into
while in domestic commercial airline transport , which triggered an FBI
investigation, for it was transferring a Caliber .50 machine gun.

-hh