Day 19, Paris

OK, so I know it's been too long, but it's been a crazy past several days. I survived the 7 hour train ride from Vernazza to Venice, but it rained most of the time I was there which was only a day and a half. Despite Venice being a very interesting place to visit, I thought it was kinda creepy. It may have had something to do with the gray skies and rain, but all the buildings feel dead, if that makes any sense. I toured the Doge's palace and St. Mark's Basilica, spent some time in famous St. Mark's square, I even braved the rain and went to Murano, which is the glass making island. After that, there wasn't a whole lot left to do except just wander and shop, which is exactly what I did. I headed back to the train station with plenty of time to catch my overnight train to Paris, or so I thought.....so Europe uses the 24 hour clock, so 5:00 pm is 17:00, which is easy enough, but for whatever reason, I looked at my ticket which was for 20:07, and thought 10:07 pm. So, I missed my train, had a minor panic attack, spent the night in a 25 euro a night room in the corner of an old lady's attic, and caught the next train which was at noon the next day and lasted 12 hours. I felt lucky to get the seat, since I ended up sitting in the train station next to a girl who said they told her the previous night the train was full, but I felt unlucky to be stuck in second class for such a long ride. I hope that will be the worst train ride I ever have to take because let me tell you, it was miserable. The silver lining was that I did enjoy passing through the French Alps which I would have missed out on if I had made it to my original train. So even though I lost a day in Paris and breathed enough second hand smoke to do some damage I'm sure, I eventually made it to Paris by midnight on Saturday and it was worth all the trouble.

I had to rearrange my itinerary and cut out the day trip to Rouen, but Sunday was Versailles day and it was wonderful. They play classical music and run the fountains on Sundays during the summer and it was quite a treat. I spent all day there (well, almost all day....I did get lost trying to find the place for about an hour or two) just soaking it all in. The palace was nice and all, but for me it was all about the gardens. They go on forever, so I rented a bike and rode around for a while, stopping at Marie Antoinette's "hamlet". It was all too cute, with flowers in the window boxes, swans and jumping fish. It felt like the setting of a fairy tale.

That night I did a blitz tour of Centre Pompidou (the modern art museum) while my clothes were washing, then had a lovely dinner with the best creme brulee I've ever had for dessert. I wandered over to the Eiffel tower and though I was too late to go up to the top, the view from the bottom was pretty good too. Yesterday I did the

Notre Dame cathedral, the Louvre, and a night time bike tour through Paris. Today I did the Musee D'Orsay, picnicked under the Eiffel tower on quiche, and walked the Champs-Elysees. This city is just so gorgeous, it's hard to know what you should be looking at. In every other city, the museums and monuments all stand out, but here all the buildings look like museums and there are monuments and statues everywhere. I really like Paris, and I'm even getting to practice my French which somehow people are able to understand. Everyone has been very nice (some have been too nice) so I'm very relieved. Time has gone by so quickly and there are so many things that I just didn't have time for. C'est la vie. Tomorrow I'm off to Colmar where I'll hopefully have enough energy to ride a bike through the Route du Vin and check out some wineries. I only have a partial day there after the train ride, which this time I will not miss!!!