Paris, Lyon, Grenoble, Munich: Part Infiniti
Yikes – I really did horribly at blogging this time around, didn’t I? We kept ourselves pretty busy in Paris, and then our hotels in the other cities either didn’t have free wifi (pronounced wee-fee, in French), or the service was dial-up and not worth the effort.
Let’s see, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, doesn’t it figure that the sun started coming out again as we headed to the train station to take the TGV (high-speed rail) from Paris to Lyon? RailEurope booked us on an upper floor of the train, which, if memory served me well could result in a bit of sea-sickness in me.
And it did. Nothing major. It was pretty mild, actually. Being upstairs definitely made things rock left and right a bit more, and the rapid flashes of trees zipping by the window didn’t help. Randy and I switched seats and I focused on my magazine instead of the window and the rest of the trip was fine.
We stayed in Lyon Part Dieu (the newer part of Lyon). But immediately after checking into our hotel, we took the subway to Viuex Lyon, which was beautiful in a crumbling sort of way. There are two rivers and in between is an old part of town with the City Hall (Hotel de Ville) and opera house. Across the river to the west is a steep hill filled with 15th and 16th century homes and churches (one church was from the 1300’s). Instead of taking the funiculaire we climbed the mountain to the enormous Catholic church that provided views of the city. The red clay rooflines were gorgeous. We climbed back down the mountain and right through an ancient Roman Ampitheatre. They’re mostly ruins, but portions are still used today for concerts.
We ate dinner at an outdoor cafe in Vieux Lyon before walking around, taking more photos, and returning to our hotel. Lyon felt like an older/grittier version of Paris (which it actually is). Immediately after we entered the hotel, it started to downpour.
And downpour is pretty much all it did for the next 2+ days.
Grenoble was a complete wash out. Randy has some business to do so I was on my own. With my trusty umbrella I did walk through the old part of town, and then took the gondola up to the top of the Bastille (an historic mountain fort) and walked down. I was exhausted, and sweaty, and soaked, but it was quite beautiful. I do wish the sun had shone so you could have seen the Alps all around you. Unfortunately, they were mostly covered in clouds. I found the architecture less impressive than Lyon, but the location was far more spectacular (located in a valley with the Alps on all sides of you).
I did get a better view of the Alps the next evening when we flew over them (still snow covered) to get to Munich.
From this point on, we had nothing but sunshine (Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, Monday). In fact, it got downright hot. We got upgraded at the hotel to a junior suite (essentially an end unit on the top floor with a living room and bedroom). We overlooked the top floor of a city garage, but beyond that we could see the twin domes of a 1300’s church.
I liked Munich. It reminded me of Prague, but a bit dirtier. The most unfortunate thing with Munich, though, is that most of it was bombed in World War II. Seriously, nearly every single building in the city was “built in the 1300’s, destroyed in 1944, and rebuilt.” Some weren’t rebuilt until the 1970’s (like the old City hall). As a result, these new buildings were built in the same overall shape as the original, but instead of all of the original ornamentation the historic buildings had, these replicas were just painted to look similar (fake columns, fake cornice, even fake windows). I wish they’d invested the money to actually built to spec.
For instance, we toured the Residenz (former palace) in the heart of the city and some wings of the building were destroyed and others were not. You could stand in a gardent/courtyard and one wall would have all of the gorgeous original detail, the opposite “matching” wall had the detail painted on the flat wall…including fake windows).
We ate lots of German food (Weinerschnitzel, etc…) and walked everywhere. Though, we did take a tram to Nymphenburg Palace. This was actually a disappointment. I’d heard it compared to Versailles, but it is NOTHING like Versailles. The grounds in front of the palace are better than Versailles (since there were gardens and pools), but the palace tour only brought you into about 12 rooms (out of hundreds) even though his building went on for blocks and blocks). We walked around the building and it appeared that much of the building is just used for storage now. Any original interior detailing has been lost (looking in some windows we saw fluorescent tube lighting hanging from the ceiling).
The rear grounds were nice, but less impressive than Versailles (I guess it’s tough to compete). We took the tram back to central Munich and went to two of the Pinakothek Museums (which were impressive in architecture, and in the works they contained).
By then, it was time to leave the city, head to our hotel at the airport, and say good bye to vacation. The airport hotel was phenomenally modern (our hotels rooms, actually, got better progressively every night). Actually, the whole airport was ultra-modern, but Randy got some great artistic shots of our all glass hotel.
Yesterday, I caught my Air France flight from Munich to Paris with no problems. (Unrelated question: why does Paris so rarely let you exit or board planes at the terminal? They always make you walk out onto the tarmac and take a bus..it’s annoying and time wasting). Then I switched terminals and caught my American Airlines flight from Paris to Boston.
Now I’m back to work, jet-lagged, but full of memories. Oh, and gummies. While in Germany we stocked up on our fabvorite Haribo gummies (they have a new flavor that’s great)! We even bought some Schneck Leckers! MMMMM
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Heya Karl – welcome back! Sorry to hear you found Nymphenburg a disappointment – I saw it when I was a little kd (1975) and really kinda loved it – but I didn’t see Versailles until the next year… What Nymphenburg has is the finest baroque pavilion, arguably, in the world – the Amalienburg – out in the gardens – I hope you got to see that (there’s also a fun mock ruin out there) – it’s really the garden pavilions that steal the show there… When I was in Munich at the age of 5, half the Residenz was still bombed-out – very romantic as such, though there were kinda strung-out looking druggies all over the ruins and graffiti everywhere…evocative, really…
Sorry to hear the faked the city up so much in subsequent rebuilding…I’m rather surprised, as, usually, the Germans are so thorough.
Welcome Back Karl! Glad to hear you had such a good time globe trotting. Can’t wait to see some more pictures.
Hi, Fred!.
Oh yeah, that Pavillion is still there (we have some pictures). And the faux ruin still exists, except that it’s more of a ruin now since it’s being remodeled. Apparently it was the first time something was intentionally built to look like a ruin.
The Residenz has definitely come a long way since the 70’s (no druggies, nothing bombed out). Personally, I think it would have been a cool./educational addition to the museum if they left one win in a state of ruin. That way, you can authentically tour the property throughout it’s history.
Instead, they just put up shoddy replicas.
Hmmm…sorry to hear, as noted, that the replicas are so shoddy… I have to go through my old photos – SOMEWHERE I have a 126 (square – remember them?) format color slide of the bomb-shattered chapel or theatre of the Residenz, at sunset, terminating an axis of what I think was the Englischer Garten….I doubt that the barbed wire/chain link and strung-out Jim-Morrison-esque druggies will show up in the picture, but I would like to scan the image and have it – it was, as noted, most evocative and romantic. I can remember driving (well, riding – my mother was driving) through little towns between Stuttgart and Munich where strategic street corner builldings were still eroded away by obvoius machine-gun fire… I suppose one would have to go to East Germany now to see such things, and only in the poorer parts… It’s a bit like how all the fun ruins and grit have been eliminated from Boston due to affluence (so I had to move to Providence to get ’em – grin).