I’m off to the Tropcadéro (or thereabouts) to watch the fireworks from the Eiffel Tower, which they normally don’t do, but this year they are for the 120th anniversary of the tower – perfect!
Happy New Years everybody!
Archive for December, 2009
I’m in Paris now, and indeed do have a room at Grand Hôtel Lévêque on Rue Cler – it’s excellent! I’m glad I got a room here, it’s very close to everything as far as I can tell, and it seems to be a very popular part of town (lots of restaurants and cafés open late and such.)
The train ride over was great as well, it was my first time on a TGV, and they are seriously fast. Traveling at 160+MPH is quite the thing to do. I hope we can have trains like that in the U.S. sometime in the future! Quite a step up from the Talgo I took from BCN to Montpellier, and even the Teoz’ that I’ve ridden on elsewhere.
More pictures and updates tomorrow, for now I’ve had a great dinner and I’m ready for bed so I can wake up early and continue enjoying Paris tomorrow! Au revoir!
Hotel to Eiffel Tower
I’ve been in Marseille now for two days, and I’ll be heading off to Paris this afternoon/evening – Paris should be a real blast, especially for bringing in the New Year!
I’ve put in a request for a room at Grand Hôtel Lévêque, which is located right off of the historic Rue Cler – it’s another that comes highly recommended by Rick Steves’ books and travelers all around. Hopefully I get a room there – their website indicated “limited” availability up until the 1st, so we’ll see.
Hostels have been horribly booked for all the cities I’ve been in so far, mostly 1-2 weeks in advance. But I’ve been finding inexpensive hotels that have been working out just fine (I don’t really want to spend too much on lodging, since all I do is sleep there, it’d seem silly to.)
Well, I’ve got a bit more of Marseille to see (and more to eat!) and then I’ll be off to Paris on a TGV train, at an average of 160mph – I’m looking forward to that!
Au revoir!
Marseille Coast - Look at that water!
I’ve added a link to the map for Marseille photos too – it’s at the bottom of the page under the “Links” section – I haven’t uploaded many photos yet, though – but enjoy anyways!
I’m in Marseille now, and have been since yesterday – it’s quite a big city, and it was much more difficult to navigate from the train stations than the other places I’ve been to!
I had planned to be in Marseille before it got dark, but that didn’t quite work out with the train I caught from Arles, so that made navigating the town a bit harder, but I found a hotel that was reviewed decently by the Michelin travel books (yes, like the tires, too) and relatively close to a metro stop. It was easy to get to, and in a good central location – Vieux Port.
I hopped on a tour bus today and saw a good amount of the city that way, and it was also a nice way to learn about the history of the town that I likely wouldn’t have gotten other ways, not a bad deal! Afterwards, I wandered around some of the neighborhoods and a bit of the (incredibly busy) shopping districts. It’s a bit past 9pm now, and I’ve got to go and grab some dinner. More posts & pictures later!
Arles is an excellent little French town, and it was a great introduction to France!
I went to Arles based mainly on a one-liner in Rick Steve’s Europe through the backdoor book, “Take a train to Arles” I think is all it said. Good enough for me! I researched it online a bit, and it looked like a neat place – roman ruins throughout a little french villa, and it’s where Van Gogh lived for a while in the later part of his life. That’s exactly what it is, and it’s quite interesting.
I arrived a bit later in the evening due to my not catching an early train from Montpellier, and I didn’t have a map – so initially I went down what seemed like a bit of a bad road (and I later realized it went in the opposite direction I wanted). Some kids asked me for money, but that’s all and I soon walked back and found my way to the city center, where I found a hotel. There were two hotels open when I arrived, one for 55€/night, and another that seemed more like just a bar – I went in to the bar looking one, told them I was interested in a room – and I was quickly given a key and told the price of 32€/night – I looked at the room, and it was reasonable enough (especially for me – I don’t need anything fancy on this trip) so I went with it. It was called “Hotel Paris / Bar Americaine”. There were no Americans there, but there were a lot of Frenchmen drinking the anise scented absinthe – hopefully they don’t go as insane as Van Gogh!
The city center is fairly small, and very walkable. I had breakfast at a great little place where it looked like a mother, father, and their son where working – they were very nice and made me feel like I knew how to speak French 
There’s several points of interest to check out in Arles, a roman theatre from the first century B.C., a large roman amphitheater from 90 A.D., Van Gogh’s hospital where he did many of his paintings, the underground catacombs called the “Cryptoportico”, and many other things that I didn’t make it to, like Van Gogh’s bridge, which I would have liked to see – but it’s a bit far out from the city center.
Overall I very much liked Arles, it was a small town, with lots of friendly people and neat things to see. And excellent food! Wonderful pastries, bread, cheese, and coffee.
Le Rhône - The river that runs through Arles
My train from Barcelona took me to Montpellier, France – from 8:45 to 13:30 or so. Once I was at Montpellier, I had to figure out how to get to Arles – it’s a stop on the train to Marseille, so that seemed easy enough.
Montpellier is a fairly small town, but it was incredibly busy – it’s a university town, and at the time it was chocked full of students and their parents it seemed. I asked at the information booth what I needed to do to get to Arles – I was told I needed a reservation, so I went to the ticket counter to get one. There I was told that a reservation was not needed! Just hop on the train that says “Arles” at 15:30 – Okay I said (this time the person spoke english, so it was more clear) – and I wandered around a bit.
There were no trains that said Arles near that time, so, I went back to the information booth and asked again – I was assured again that I do need a reservation! Back to the ticket counter. I got some help from another person, who said I did indeed need a reservation, and that I had missed the 15:30 train, but that I could get on a 17:04 train – because of the miscommunication she gave me a first class reservation for free, and I got to check out Montpellier in my newfound time, excellent!
I enjoyed Montpellier quite a bit – a bit too much though, I found myself thinking I knew where I was 20 minutes to my departure time – and ended up going in a few good circles, and then finding that I didn’t have small enough change to purchase a tram ticket! With the help of some nice locals, I found out how to get to the train station on foot (up a bunch of stairs, with my backpack on – oof!) and I got to the platform with 3 minutes to spare, no problem!
One of two tram lines that run in Montpellier
Of course, I took some photos while I was there, and my GPS unit is still working like a charm! Check out the photos on a map here, and you can see what I saw!
Today the weather seems to have followed me from Seattle – it’s been overcast all day and a bit misty – but no bother! I made it out to see La Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi’s famed work of art that began construction in 1882, and isn’t planned to be completed until at least 2020. It’s truly fascinating, the first thing that struck me was how great it was to see the differences in material quality and age from the older material to that which has been recently built. There are so many details – and everything is a detail – to the structure that it’s difficult to describe it all as a whole. I got there with just enough time to do a self-guided audio tour, which was handy. The take away from that was about how Gaudi wanted the interior to be perceived – perfectly, and as an extension to nature. The central columns are shaped like trees with their branches supporting the top of the building, and the windows are designed to allow just the perfect amount (and colors) of light in. The choir can seat more than one hundred singers, and the stones above them are harmonically shaped to perfectly direct the music throughout the entire church. There are also curious cryptograms and hundres of other peculiar puzzles throughout the architecture. I look forward to returning again once construction has completed – I’m sure it will be even more awe-striking then. I took a good number of photos here – and hope to have some uploaded soon. Uploading large numbers of photos is tricky over here, but hopefully I’ll get some up as I go along.
The second major thing I did today, actually before visiting La Sagrada Familia, is book a reservation on a Talgo train to Montpellier, France for tomorrow (Sunday) at 8:45am. That will get me on the way to Marseille (it’s necessary to transfer trains at Montpellier) where I plan to stay for two or three days before heading up to Paris to bring in the new year.
The reason my reservation is only to Montpellier, and not all the way to Marseille is because apparently they just make the reservation from your current location – so I’ll make another once I arrive at Montpellier. This gives me some flexibility, too – I think I’ll stay a night in Arles, which is a quiet and small town/region that’s highly suggested by several sources (Rick Steves, Wikitravel). There seem to be a good number of hotels/hostels/bed & baths available there – so hopefully I can find something decent (and inexpensive!)
Also – the photos that I’ve began to upload from my camera are now often geotagged automatically! This is very exciting, and is due to the Nikon GP-1 GPS attachment that my Mom, Aunt, and Uncle got me for Christmas. Thanks guys!
This isn’t really exposed on Flickr (that I’ve found), but you can get a map for things matching a certain tag – I’m tagging all of my photos on this trip with Eu2010 (among other things) so here’s an awesome way to follow the trail of my travels!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cdine/tags/eu2010/map/
I’ll add a link on the sidebar to the right so this map is always easy to get to.
Well, hopefully my next update will be from Arles, France! Auvoir!
Christmas Lights in Barcelona
I’ve had a nice and slow first day, there’re a lot of people around La Rambla which my hotel is near, either tourists, locals, performers, or vendors.
Tomorrow I plan to go see some of the architecture that I’ve heard so much about, and try to figure out what I’ll be doing to get to France on Sunday.
Here’s a photo of the view from my hotel as I write this.
I’m writing this from the RENFE train waiting to leave the Barcelona airport to Plaça de Garcia, from there I’ll take another trail to Liceu station near my hotel. So far so good! The flights went quickly – the first was a bit cramped but not horrible. I sat next to a man from a border town north of Madrid who was coming home for the holidays, from working up in Vancouver. He was great to talk to a he knew his way around the Charles de Galle airport, and we both had to be rushed to our connections with about 20 others becuse of the delayed flight. We made it though!
Now to find my hotel – and maybe a map – and then some lunch!
Here’s a picture from the RENFE train.
Well, I’m waiting for the plane now at Seatac – it’s a bit delayed but not too bad. Security was a bit busy but not too bad, no trouble at all. My next post will be from Paris or Barcelona!