April 7, 2010 (Wednesday)

Germany. We wake up in our train’s “deluxe” cabin, and we’re in Germany! We figured out how to change my bunk bed into a sofa, and the porter brought our breakfast of cold cuts and bread.

Berlin. We pull into Berlin, and an announcement is made that the train will make three stops, and the second stop is the main station. So, the train stops once, and, at the second stop, we (along with a nice couple from Australia who heard and understood the intercom announcement like we did) get off—but it’s not the main station! The train attendant sees us having exited the train and gets very strident about us getting off at the wrong stop. We do not know what we heard wrong, but two couples seemed to have heard the same thing. We get back on, and while waiting for the next stop, chat with the couple from Australia. They also are traveling on a grant, because the lady is an art professor and is in Germany for one week to view certain pieces of art. They appear to be about our age, and we laugh about how you finally get grants toward the end of your teaching career. Finally, we’re off at the “main station,” which was the third stop, not the second, and soon are in a taxi to our hotel.

Askanischer Hof. The Askanischer Hof is a small boutique hotel, but our room (#16) is huge. We are on the second floor with a great view of the avenue outside. Guess this huge room makes up for the itty bitty rooms in London, Paris, and the train! The hotel is along the main downtown avenue that is a premier business and marketing district. We learn later the next morning that the hotel used to be the home of a prominent Berlin family that had significant history in Berlin leading into WWII.

Pergamon Museum. We get directions to take bus 100 to Museum Island. We finally find it and get to the museum area. The bus ride takes us through some pretty parks. The stop “near” the museum isn’t really that near at all, and we walk a good ways on to the museum island. Finding the Pergamon Museum was confusing. We get in a ticket line of some kind, but I just don’t think it’s right, so I go up to the front to ask, and learn that there’s a different line for the Pergamon Museum. So off we go to the next long line. This line is really long, and that does not make my “boy scout” happy. When we finally get to the ticket counter, we see why the line was moving so slowly. Only one person is selling tickets for hundreds of people!! These Europeans!! And, aren’t Germans supposed to be the epitomy of “efficiency”? We finally get in, and I have to put my backpack in a locker.

The wait was worth it. The museum is stunning! Besides the reconstructed great Altar of Zeus (taken from Pergamum, Turkey) and the Ishtar Gate (great processional gate entrance of Babylon), the museum also has items from Miletus (the Miletus market gate) and other wonders. This museum, literally packed with famous archeological artifacts, has so much to see. We even have an extra temporary exhibit to view called “Return of the Gods,” which is an exhibit about the Greek gods. Also, a magnificent coin collection, about which we had no idea, has one of the most comprehensive and magnificently preserved coin exhibits in the world. Jerry is just floored at all the illustrations for his classes, especially his Exploring the New Testament class. We spent five hours in the museum and 1 hour in line for a total of 6 hours! [That will become the record for time spent in any museum of our entire trip.—Jerry]

A beautiful old church at the front of Museum Island catches my photographer’s attention, and Jerry takes some pictures. I need to research the church to find out the name and how old it is. We think possibly the church survived the bombing of Berlin in WWII. [Jean later found out the following history: The church is called the “Berliner Dom,” or Berlin Cathedral. This Evangelical Church was built between 1895 and 1905. At the time the church was built, the edifice was considered a Protestant counterweight to St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. Bombed heavily in WWII, reconstruction of the church structure did not begin until 1975. Restoration of the interior began in 1984, and in 1993 the church finally was reopened.—Jerry]

Mondial Hotel Café. We walk down the boulevard until we finally can catch a taxi back to the hotel. We freshen up in our huge room and are off to find supper. We end up at the Mondial Hotel Café just up the street. What a find. Wish we had stayed here, because the staff falls over themselves helping us, even though we are not even staying there. For example, I asked about WiFi, and they gave us their code to use FREE. We called Jerry’s sister, Cindy, to check on the Stevens/Hyde clan, our house-sitter, Angela, and my Mother. Checking in with everyone was nice. We asked if a computer was available, and, wouldn’t you know, the hotel manager brought a laptop to the table, hooked it up, and let us use it for FREE. We checked email, etc. So, the folks at the Mondial Hotel, where we were not even staying, were very helpful, and, to top off everything, the food was delicious!

We went the short distance back down the street to our hotel, where I use the front desk computer to print our boarding passes for tomorrow’s flight from Berlin to Turkey. Also, I arrange for a taxi at 9 am tomorrow. Overall, a great day. Off to bed.

For a video of the Berlin action today:

April 6, 2010 (Tuesday)

We’re up at 5:45 am, get ready, pack, and take luggage down to the hotel lobby to leave until after we get back from our day trip. When we get back this evening, we have an overnight train to catch from Paris to Berlin. Our day trip is out into the French countryside to find the town of Angers, where a castle that long had been an important medieval fortress, the Château d’Angers, houses the famous Apocalypse Tapestry that Jerry is dying to see.

The cab comes right on time at 7:15 am, and we’re off to Gare Montparnesse station for our train. The station is huge. We get a little breakfast from a café where the servers were very rude. They refused even to try to help understand selections and prices, speaking French only, dismissive of our presence, and motioning we should just get out of line if we could not speak French. I managed to speak enough French to get us a little bite to eat for breakfast. Jerry got so mad at their rudeness. All he could think of were the young American boys spilling American blood on French beaches to save France from the tyranny of Nazi Germany.

Then we are off to view the boards to determine which platform our train will be on and look for an ATM. (We need more Euros.) I tried to get info about the trains, and Jerry found an ATM. The platform number is supposed to be posted 20 minutes before the train leaves. We have a long, cold wait. The terminal is exposed to the outside air, and the waiting area is cold and drafty. Our anxiety level rises as time passes and our platform number still is not posted. Finally, when we have only 9 minutes before our train is scheduled to depart, the platform number we are supposed to go to shows up on the main board, so we rush to that platform and hop on the first car we get to just to make sure we are on the train. We figure out what car we are on and discover we are several cars away from ours. We have to walk through several cars to get to our reserved seats. We finally find our seats just seconds before we are off to Angers. Whew! That was close! [If you would like to see where Angers, France is, click the Google Maps link below. After you are finished, use the back button on your browser to get back to this page.—Jerry]

Angers Map (Google Maps)

[A little history from Jerry: The Apocalypse Tapestries were ordered by Louis I d’Anjou, who wanted to depict the scenes of the Bible’s book of Revelation. The master weaver contracted for the work was the famous Parisian artist Nicolas Bataille, working with Robert Poinçon, who designed and executed one hundred tapestries from 1375–1382. Only seventy tapestries survive, a loss of the Revolutionary period of French history. These tapestries are the oldest, most extensive, and best collection of medieval tapestry in the world. They are important not only for their craftsmanship and artistry, however. They are important to biblical scholars because they are a silent testimony to how the images of the Apocalypse were interpreted in their day. The conceptualization and depictions in the scenes of each tapestry panel become a commentary on fourteenth-century political struggles in the turmoil and uncertainty of Western Europe under Muslim invasion and conquest. In the tapestries, the forces of Antichrist are strikingly Muslim in appearance, dress, and weaponry. Only 71 years later, in fact, after the completion of the tapestries, Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire fell to Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire in 1453. Thus, in a way, their world did come to an end. They really were not all that wrong in seeing the “end of the world” coming.—Jerry]

An hour and 40 minutes later we’re in Angers! Miracle of miracles, outside the Angers train station the Garmin gets a signal and directs us right to the castle! The hike is a short uphill walk. Road construction made the way a little confusing, but suddenly the castle appears up ahead. The castle grounds are so beautifully manicured!

We get our tickets and head straight for the Apocalypse Tapestries Museum housed in part of the castle. The time is about 11:15 or so. Yea! Photos are allowed! Just no flash. Jerry is in heaven. We enter the museum area and are taken aback by how huge the tapestries are in real life. Jerry proceeds to take pictures, and I follow along, but mostly I sit on the benches and stare in wonder at the scenes before me. By a little after 1 pm, two hours later, we are starving, but we do not want to leave the tapestries yet, so we eat some peanut butter crackers I have in my pack and drink some water. We then go through the exhibit again in sequence through the tapestry panels, with me attempting to translate the descriptions. With Jerry’s help, we manage to go through the scenes of the book of Revelation depicted in each panel of the tapestry.

After hours in the museum, and some time in the museum store, we finally leave the tapestry exhibit. We walked around the castle grounds and up on the turrets. The castle grounds and the vistas along the walls are beautiful. A little café on the castle grounds looks delightful, and we stop and get a Coke. We have a nice conversation with the waiter who is from Algeria. His English is very good. We hate to leave, but we need to make our train back into Paris.

We walk back to the Angers train station and get assistance from an attendant to get the correct platform and boarding station (S). The train ride from the French countryside back into Paris is uneventful. We arrive back at the Paris train station and hail a taxi, but our driver speaks NO English. I manage enough bad French to ask him to take us to the hotel door and wait while we get our baggage at our Hotel Louvre Forum. I can’t believe he actually understood me, but apparently he did, because we arrive at our hotel. We retrieve our bags in storage from the hotel lobby and are off to the Garde d’Lest (east train station). We get our platform information and then get some supper at a café (lasagna and Greek salad). Very good! We test the Garmin a little, because she worked when we were in Angers. The unit is back to refusing to get a satellite fix. We are starting to hate that thing!

We board our overnight train to Berlin and look for our “Deluxe” sleeper. Well, not exactly what I thought, to say the least, about accommodations called “deluxe.” I tried to clarify to the attendant that the room to which he pointed us simply could not be our room, because our tickets said “deluxe.” The attendant nodded yes he understood, but that this was, in fact, our room. Jerry got so tickled at me in this whole exchange with the attendant and evidently my expression of disbelief in response. I thought we surely had the wrong car and coach or something. I told the porter (who spoke no English) “no, we had deluxe” and he nods and points to the little sleeper with bunk beds. Yes, there is a shower that’s about 6 inches wide, and yes, there is a small sink on a moveable arm that either has to be moved into the shower or over the commode to get in the bathroom! Now that’s “deluxe”! Funny how pictures in a brochure can make rooms look so huge. We learn only later from seasoned travelers that since we have private accommodations, no matter how small, the privacy itself was “deluxe.” Otherwise, you share bunks of four with anyone and a common bathroom for the entire car! So, in fact, the porter was exactly correct. He had taken us to our “deluxe” cabin.

Jerry was nonplussed by the cramped quarters. He simply immediately went into his “boy scout” mode and got us all organized and set up efficiently, making extraordinary use of every square inch like he was on a campout in the cramped quarters of a tent. Yea for the boy scouts! I wrote in our journal while Jerry set up his charging stations on the commode. Yes, that’s right. On the commode. The only electrical plug in our entire “deluxe” cabin is in the tiny little bathroom right above the commode with no shelf. Glad we didn’t accidentally flush anything down.

Finally, lights out, and I attempt to sleep, but the sounds and train movement makes rest for me difficult. Jerry, however, had his earplugs and did fine. In any case, we’ll wake up in Berlin tomorrow morning!

Here is a video of the Angers action today:

April 5, 2010 (Monday)

We’re downstairs by 7 am for breakfast so we can get to the Louvre for tickets at 8:30 am. We walk to the Louvre and go to the underground Carousel shopping area (our hotel manager told us about this entrance which is out of the weather). The ticket machine won’t be activated until 9 am, so we go down the escalator and wait in a short line to buy tickets and then wait for the Louvre to open. Maybe 25-30 people are ahead of us. This line is a lot better than the line of 1000+ yesterday! We enter the museum at 9:30 am and find our way to the Mona Lisa. She is exquisite. The crowd is small, so we can get to the front and stay a bit. And, we can take pictures! Amazing! We viewed the Wedding of Cana on the opposite wall which is a huge work or art. Then, off to find the Venus de Milo. She’s gorgeous as well. We next go to the Graeco Roman area. So many artifacts to see and so little time! We also see the Winged Victory of Samothrace, Athena, Minerva, etc. We get a lunch inside the Louvre and buy a few postcards and magnets at the shop. The Louvre is now filled with people. On the way out, we stopped at the Apple store in the Carousel, but they have no iPad to see yet—first release is only in America.

After finishing the Louvre, we go across the street to the Royal Palais and take the long Metro ride to the Eiffel tower, which is not conveniently located to anything is Jerry’s opinion. We walk around the park area along the river to view the tower. We see beautiful blooming flowers and statues along the avenues. We decide we do not have time to go up into the tower. The weather has cleared, and the day is beautiful!

After seeing the Eiffel tower, we go back to the Metro. The ticket machine doesn’t work with our tickets. Oh no. Finally the machine does take Jerry’s ticket, and he goes through, but now my ticket won’t work! I’m stuck on the outside, and I’m a little nervous about the situation. We tried my ticket multiple times, but it just won’t work, so Jerry told me to crawl under, which I did with a security camera pointed straight at me. No police appear, so I guess we’re okay.

We get back to the hotel and freshen up for our dinner cruise and illuminations tour tonight. We get a taxi to the tourism office, and after a wait, get on a van and are taken to our cruise boat. Our table is near the front of the boat, so we can see really well. Going up and down the Seine River, we pass famous buildings, including the Louvre we had visited that morning (which is in the background of the picture of Jerry), and go under beautiful bridges. It’s a great trip. The scenery is stunning. The sky is clear. The food is great. We have a wonderful time.

After the dinner cruise, we have about 45 minutes to wander around before getting on the bus for the illuminations tour. We stumbled on the “Bourbon street” of that area, one street off the main street by the river. We walk through this “Bourbon street” district feeling quite at home and come out at the Notre Dame Cathedral, which is even more beautiful at dusk. We take a few photos, Jerry hoping one of them turns out nicely, and then head back for the illuminations tour.

The tour is on a big double decker bus. Fortunately, we can sit downstairs because the brisk night wind on the top and open deck of the bus is very chilly. Paris—the city of lights—so beautiful. We go past the Eiffel Tower, Arch de Triumph, Champs de Elysses, National Academy of Music, and many other sights. At the Eiffel Tower the lights begin sparkling, and the display is spectacular.

We got off the tour bus at the Louvre, where we started our long day in Paris early this morning. We enjoyed a nice leisurely walk down Paris streets back to our hotel, reminiscing sights and sounds of the day. We have to pack and get ready for the early train to Angers tomorrow morning. It’s midnight by the time we’re finally off to bed.

Here is a video of the Paris action today: