Before I get too far into this I should make a disclaimer and let it be known that I'm actually back home in the States already - hooray! We got into Raleigh last night around 10:30PM EDT, but I still want to do this thing some justice and have a complete record of the trip - I'll go back quickly to Monday night in Paris and work up to arriving back in the States.
Sunday evening in Paris was one of my favorite nights of the whole European experience. We packed a little bit of food and headed for the city a couple of hours before sunset, taking the train into La Defense which is the “downtown” of Paris. Lots of major corporations are headquartered there, as well as many government bureaus, and, of course, the famous Grande Arche. It was fascinating to walk around the area, being that it was probably the first strictly big-city atmosphere that had been experienced on the whole trip! We hopped the Metro down to the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe, walking down the grand boulevard before crossing the Seine at the beautiful Pont Alexandre III. Walking along the Seine we had a great view of the Eiffel Tower as the sun set off to our right and some ominous looking clouds started to roll in. Though the rain held off until we made it back to Versailles much later in the night, the clouds were pretty epic as the sun went down and dusk eventually turned to dark.
Grabbing a small bit of real estate on the lawn under the Eiffel Tower and just sitting and watching the day turn to night behind the huge steel structure was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my trip. The tower looked incredible in the light of Magic Hour, twinkling with bright flashes of light at the top of every hour. Just after 11PM it was time to get moving – the dark clouds had brought with them some wind and chilly temperatures, but of more importance was making sure that we could catch the last train of the night out to Versailles. I got to have my crepe under the Eiffel Tower just like back in 2003 before heading to the Metro to go catch the train. It was a perfect summer night in the City of Lights, one that I'll not soon forget. Unfortunately it did start to rain once we made it to Versailles and we had to walk through it for a bit to get back to the apartment, but being that it was the first rain we'd had in over 3 weeks we weren't complaining too terribly much!
Tuesday morning was an early start, filled with packing and preparing to make the journey from Paris to Frankfurt. We left Lucille's and Romu's keys with Romu's sister around 7AM and caught the train into Paris, then took the Metro to Gare de L'Est, the train station from which our ride to Frankfurt was due to leave. Unfortunately, though, there were no reservations left available on the direct TGV leaving around 9AM and we ended up having to sit around and wait for a more indirect route – through Strausbourg and Offenburg before heading up to Frankfurt. The wait wasn't too painful, and before too long we were whipping across the French countryside at over 300km/h again – incredible! I have to say that the French, German, and Austrian trains really impressed me, and that I could totally get used to having such great long-distance transportation available here in the States – hopefully someday soon! Just so you know, the TGV holds the world speed record for trains, an astonishing 574.8km/h set in 2007 – over 355 miles per hour! There are YouTube videos of the record run if you're interested!
We arrived in Frankfurt shortly after 5PM and decided to change trains and head to Koblenz in order to check out part of the Rhine Valley, arguably the prettiest part of Germany. The Rhine snakes up to the north and west of Frankfurt toward Cologne, cutting a deep channel into the hills which are lined with vineyards and spotted with dozens of old castles. It was the most beautiful hour and a half train ride (each way) of my trip and I'm really glad we decided to do that instead of hanging in Frankfurt. We made it to our hotel that night, out near the Frankfurt Airport, in order to be close by (and to use a free airport shuttle!) for the flight home on Wednesday. It really set in that evening that the trip was coming to a close, though after being home for nearly 24 hours I can honestly say that it still feels a bit surreal!
The flight home was not much to write home about, save for some surprisingly good airplane food – cheese tortellini for lunch with some Laughing Cow cheese (so delicious) to put on bread. Coming through Customs and security in Chicago was a bit unnerving, but without much ado I made it back to Raleigh around 10:30PM on Wednesday the 8th! It's felt really good to be home, though of course I'll be missing so many of the things that made my trip truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
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