Moving on to Madrid

We are sitting at the Paris-Austerlitz station waiting for our train to Madrid to pull out. There is a WIFI point here, so we were able to check out email.

If you've already checked out the Florence pictures, we've added some more that were previously missed. There are some from the inside of the Duomo, and also there are some showing food that we ate. You can see those here. Below is me eating a dish called Gnudi, which is dumplings of Ricotta and Spinach rolled up in Mozzarella balls:



And here is Michelle eating Linguini with Clams and Mussels:



Paris was fun. We arrived at the Bercy train station yesterday, but there was no baggage check there. We hauled everything down the street to Gare de Lyon, where we shoved our big bags into lockers, and just pulled out what we needed for the next day into our backpacks. Yesterday morning we visited Notre Dame, and had a quick lunch near there. Then we took the Subway over to the Eiffel Tower and looked at that for a while. I fell asleep in the Parc du Champ de Mars while Michelle was writing her post cards, leaving an interesting tan line on the front of my legs. We walked from there to the Hotel Des Invalides, where Napolean is buried. There is a beautiful garden there as well (lots of cool gardens in Paris). To finish off the day we walked up to the Grand Palace. This is under construction, but we were able to snap off a few good photos. Right next to the Grand Palace is something that looks like a Royal mother-in-law unit, called the Petite Palace. Oh, how nice it would be to have a palace so small.

Phillippe picked us up and we went back to his and Sylvie's house. After a quick shower (which was much nicer than the tiny one in the train car!) we went out to dinner. Of course, we went back to the same restaurant that they took me to before. Again, Phillippe and I had way too much wine; we were suffering this morning something awful. But the food was excellent (all 7 courses), and we had a great time visiting with Phillippe and Sylvie. Here is a photo of the group:



Today we took a semi-private tour of the Louvre (just us and one other couple). This is really the way to go, because all the exhibit text is in French, so it would be hard to find your way around. We did the highlights like the Mona Lisa and Hamurrabi´s Code. Also, before the Louvre was a Museum it was a Palace for Kings, and before that it was a fortress. You can walk around underground in what used to be the moat, and see huge stone pilings from where the fortress used to be.

Now we are on to Madrid. We did very little planning for this part of the trip, but Michelle bought a big book on Spain so we should be able to figure it out during our 13.5 hour train ride.

I haven't had time to organize pictures from Venice or Paris yet, but it will be done soon so stay tuned.