Paris-Cologne February 2007 trip report

[WillTravel]

Today (back three days now), I was missing traveling where I have nothing better to do but walk around the cities and enjoy myself.

Here's a meandering, overly detailed trip report of our Feb. 2-11 trip that I took with my 15-year-old daughter. Even now I think I am starting to forget stuff, and I like to write down the details so I can remember.

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Feb. 2
I had a madhouse scramble at work to finish up last-minute things. No amount of organization would have helped - this was beyond my control. On Feb. 1, I had worked for 14 hours, went home and did three loads of laundry, and packed in a mad rush.

At 5 PM, a friend walked with me to the QuickShuttle bus pickup spot downtown, and gave me some chocolates and books for the trip. We met up with my daughter, and chatted a bit before it was time to board the bus. The QuickShuttle took us to SeaTac airport, arriving almost at 11 PM (we left just after 6). I went to Ground Transportation and called the Radisson shuttle to come pick us up. We were starving, because I hadn't eaten since noon. BTW, we got the Radisson on Priceline for a $43 USD bid, for a total of $57 with taxes and fees.

The Radisson is next to a 24-hour restaurant called 13 Coins. Wow, what luck we thought. The only unfortunate thing was, when we went over there, we found that we would have to wait at least 1/2 hour. We had an 8 AM flight, and it was almost midnight at this point. My daughter refused to go anywhere else. I headed down International Boulevard to look for some take-out. I found Jack in the Box, a 24-hour restaurant. I went inside and they told me to go through the drive-through. I thought this was stupid, but obediently walked outside to the drive-through window, at which point they told me I could come inside. I found Jack in the Box is not too great for vegetarians, but I found a couple things my daughter would eat, and more that I could eat, so at least we had something.

Then to bed, for a few hours sleep before an early morning shower.

Feb. 3.
I had checked in online, so thought we were OK for a slightly later arrival at Sea-Tac (we got to the Continental counter about 6:30 AM). A woman started yelling at me for using the luggage drop that people who check in online can use, rather than waiting in the same line to check in that she was in. I pointed out that we had checked in online, and she said she had too. I then said she was welcome to come and use the luggage drop too. She was mad and sputtering, but didn't leave the lineup. Another passenger pointed out to the woman that I was right, and she did shut up, but my daughter saw her later on the flight and said the woman scowled at her. My daughter said she was very tempted to tell the woman off, but I'm proud of her restraint.

We arrived at Newark, and had a reasonable layover time, and got the flight to Cologne. There was lots of space on this flight, and of course that's very pleasant (if not so great for the airline).


Feb. 4
Cologne is a really pleasant airport, and the luggage arrived so quickly, and the immigration check was very quick. I had previously decided we would take the S-Bahn train into town. I was feeling jetlagged and stupid, but managed to buy two tickets, read the schedule and determine the platform, and validate the tickets. The price was 2.30 Euros for each ticket (possibly my daughter was due a discount, but I couldn't figure that part out for sure). By 9:15 we had caught our train, and we arrived around 9:27. I noticed our hotel to my left while standing on the platform - it's very close to the train station - the Breslauer Hof am Dom. We were in the hotel by 9:30 AM.

TBC ...

[WillTravel]

We arrived at the hotel, and the friendly young check-in clerk told us that our room would be ready by 1 PM.

We then headed out and started walking. I took a quick look in the cathedral, but a service was going on, so it was a bad time for tourism. (This was Sunday morning.) But we noticed some sort of processional with a cross, lots of priests, what appeared to be an archbishop and maybe even a cardinal, heading into the church.

We continued walking in the general area, at this point totally exhausted because it was past 1 AM Pacific time, and we hadn't much sleep to start out with. But we kept going.

I came across a "Schoko" train (apparently "Choo-choo") "train" that does a circuit around Cologne. It's not exactly a train, and not exactly a trolley - almost more like a wagon with enclosed cars. The driver didn't speak English, but we understood that we could get on the train and buy tickets later. Some other people got on (Germans) and away we went. The commentary was in German, but I understood a few words, like Fishmarkt. We decided to get off at the Chocolate Museum. We still weren't able to buy tickets, which didn't seem right, but away we went. I'm not quite sure how that is supposed to work. We then set off on a random walk along the river and through the Old Town. We had in mind to go back to the Chocolate Museum when it opened at 11 AM, but never got there. We noticed lots of people with German flags painted on their faces - I think there was some sort of soccer match. There were lots of police cars along the waterfront - maybe they anticipated trouble. Eventually we went to the Hard Rock Cafe, which was fine, although pretty much as expected.

We then headed over to Museum Ludwig, which is a great contemporary art museum. But boy were we flagging at this point. We kept on looking at stuff, but at 3:30 PM we could hardly move. We went to our hotel room and started watching TV - our goal was to stay awake until 7 PM. I kept giving Anne light punches so she'd wake up. Eventually 7 PM came, and we both succumbed. But then we got a call from home at 10:30 PM. At this point, we realized we were hungry. Anne didn't want to go out, so I volunteered to look for something at the train station, and I found a tomato/mozzerella baguette and a slice of pizza for us to share. Of course I was sort of awake at this point, so I decided to go for another walk, and maybe get something else to eat. But Cologne is dead at 11:30 PM. I walked past a McDonald's and wondered if I was desperate enough for that - I decided not. Along came a guy in a car who offered to take me on a ride to the southern part of Cologne - I declined, and quickly decided it was best to not be out at this time of night. I got some pretzels at the train station, and called it a night, and fell asleep soon enough.

Feb. 5,
We woke up at a relatively normal time. We had an excellent breakfast at the hotel, paid, and checked out, and walked back a few steps to the train station for our 10:14 train to Paris.

I had purchased the tickets on the Thalys site for 58 Euros for each roundtrip ticket - you can get great deals if you book in advance. You have to choose France as your country, though - and always choose the option to print out your own tickets - never to mail the tickets. These tickets are nonchangeable.

TBC

[pointofnoreturn]

Wonderful! That's kind of unfortunate regarding the lady at the airport but I can't wait to read the rest of your report!

[WillTravel]

Yes - that lady still annoys me when I think of her! I should let it go by now.

Our trip across Germany, Belgium, and France took 3 hours and 51 minutes, and we held very closely to the schedule. Note that if the train is departing at a certain time that actually means you should be there at least 10 minutes ahead of that in order to board, take your place, etc. The train is very long, and it can take a while to get to the right car.

I've never been to Belgium, so it was interesting to see bits of it from the train station. Liege looks like an interesting place and I'd like to go there. However, much of Belgium was in fog. At Brussels Midi, the train has a longer than usual stop, because it's getting decoupled and relinked to train cars going to Paris which left from Amsterdam. The conductor came around at some point, and was not at all bothered by our printed-out tickets. I read the Thalys magazine, some books, looked out the window, and time passed pretty quickly. However, the aisles and seats and legroom are not that spacious in second-class - for us the train was cheaper to go from Cologne to Paris (even when Germanwings had a sale), but if a budget flight had been cheaper I wouldn't hesitate to take that instead. It's a somewhat nicer to take the train, but not extremely so.

We arrived at Gare du Nord, and were quickly accosted by someone offering us unlicensed taxi rides. However, I knew that the only place to go is the taxi stand. I had previously done research on www.ratp.fr and I had determined there was no easy way by metro or bus to get to our hotel from Gare du Nord - there'd either be lots of walking, stairs, and two metro lines - or there'd be lots of walking, a bus, and lots of walking. So we waited in the taxi queue (it probably took about 10-15 minutes) and got a taxi. Our taxi driver didn't know where our hotel was - it's a short street and he had to look it up in his map book. I notice he kept the meter running. I kept throwing out stuff that was nearby - Folies Bergere, rue Trevise - and he finally found it. The taxi fare was about 7.40 Euros - I gave him 9, although that's possibly too big a tip.

Next the hotel - it's taking a long time for me to get to the Paris sightseeing part!

[herrbert]

Liege looks like an interesting place and I'd like to go there.

You are the first person ever, that I hear saying something nice about Liege. (and I tend to go along with all the others saying, that Liege is rather a grey, bleek & unattractive industrial town)

eagerly awaiting the next parts ...

[WillTravel]

Well, the Thalys magazine made Liege sound very interesting, and I looked out the window and saw picturesque streets, but since I haven't been there, probably best to trust those who have .

Our Paris hotel
Mercure Monty - 5 rue Montyon, 75009
We really liked this area and this street.

The Mercure Monty had a rather plain, verging on shabby, lobby, but the rooms were done up nicely. There's a winding staircase with stained glass windows all the way down. The rooms are definitely on the small side - I have probably had pretty good luck but in several years of 3* hotel rooms in Europe, this was probably the smallest I've had. However, there was sufficient room for our suitcases, we could walk around the room, and the bathroom is good with enough space to shower and dress comfortably and nothing will get wet when you shower. Everything was in good order, and the drapes, upholstery, and bedspreads matched. The staff is good. In short, everything works well and that alone is something to prize in a hotel.

Rue Montyon is a short street with an Ed's Epicerie and a laundromat, two or three Moroccan Sephardi kosher couscous restaurants and some other restaurants too, a patisserie on one corner, and a kosher sweets shop on the other corner (actually the kosher sweets shop is probably just across Rue Montyon). Rue Montyon is a really short street, and our taxi driver had to look it up and still had problems finding it. The street is quiet, but there is definitely residential life on it with parents taking kids to school, people walking dogs, etc. We were one block from Boulevard Fauberg Montmartre, about two short blocks from Boulevard Montmartre, and several blocks from Boulevard des Italians and Boulevard Haussmann.

This is the area of the 9th that is bordering on the 2nd. The Grands Boulevard metro on Boulevard Montmartre is just a few minutes walk from the hotel, and we also used the Cadet and Notre-Dame-de-Lorette metro stops if we wanted to get on other lines directly. We never did use the buses much, but there are numerous bus options too. Some parts of the 9th are sleazy, but there's no hint of that in this area.

We did not hear any English-speaking tourists in the immediate vinicity, but obviously there must be tourists given all the 2* and 3* hotels in the area. Based on the posted prices on the other hotels, I think we got a good deal for 75 Euros per night, although it still feels expensive. The Hotel Chopin and Hotel Vivienne, for example, are 2* hotels in this area, both are mentioned in guidebooks like Let's Go, and both are more expensive.
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[WillTravel]

Monday afternoon, Feb. 5
Once we got to our hotel, we set out to the Grand Boulevards metro stop (about two blocks away) to get our Carte Orange transit passes. If we had taken two small photos with us, we could have saved the 4 Euros each in the photo kiosk (which look just like those in the movie Amelie). But for 15.70 Euros + 4 Euro photo, for a one-week transit pass, is a pretty excellent deal, IMO.

I had read in Let's Go that there was an FNAC store on Boulevard des Italiens, nearby our hotel. But, it no longer seems to exist. So we just went for a walk along the various boulevards, looked at the Opera House (one of my favorite buildings), and went to have dinner at the Pizza del Arte, an Italian restaurant on Boulevard Montmartre. Why eat Italian food in Paris - well, I like it, and my daughter likes it, and she's vegetarian and it's easy to accommodate her with that. I've never done a proper gastronomical exploration of Paris - but someday. We shared a really excellent panna cotta dessert with raspberry coulis - the rest of the meal was pretty good too. With drinks and enough to eat (but certainly not full courses in everything), our bill was about 35 Euros.

I had reserved places for a play at Sudden Theatre, near the Simplon metro stop in the 18th. They were performing three one-act Tennessee Williams plays, in English. A trio was singing southern folk songs before the plays, and at intermissions. Now - I don't know how many of the other audience members picked up on this, but within a few seconds, my daughter and I realized how similar they sounded to Peter, Paul, and Mary, and they were singing many of the same songs too. They're a very good-looking trio (probably better than the original, to tell the truth) and they sing very well. We enjoyed the plays, although I think I prefer other Tennesee Williams plays to the ones they chose. It was interesting to walk through this particular area of Paris as well.
www.mondaysat7.com/

[madamtrashheap]

Glad you got to see a little of Cologne, despite the jetlag (sometimes it kills, other times it's fine) and that the play in Paris - how about the other show(s) you were going to? Been great reading your travel tales, can't wait for the next
installment!

[WillTravel]

I haven't forgotten about this - I just haven't had time to post! Maybe next week.

[pointofnoreturn]

Don't worry WT, just take your time and post when you can!

I haven't been around much (gah, university is killing me!) so don't worry - I am reading the reviews, just not able to post a proper reply!