Thursday, October 5, 2017

Day 1 - Traveling to Paris and Strasbourg!

We arrived at JFK later than we'd planned and had to hurry right through everything, arriving just as our plane had begun boarding.  Seats were tight, but the food wasn't too bad and there were good movies to select.  Although we all tried, none of us slept more than a few minutes, arriving in Paris at 6:45 am, local time, but just after midnight NY time!  We spent quite some time in customs and we then sat at the train station for two hours!



    
Paris Train Station

Paris train station

Selfies at the train station



The train to Strasbourg took only about 2 hours, and I slept through the whole thing!  In Strasbourg we quickly found our airbnb and met host Daniel outside.  The two bedroom apartment is comfortable and well appointed.

Outside the train station in Strasbourg




In front of our apartment building



Living room (looked just like the picture on airbnb.com)




bedroom 1




bedroom 2

kitchen


After a quick unpack, we headed out to the area known as Petite France.  The buildings were hundreds of years old and the streets were narrow.  We all got hungry and had salads and pizza, and then we were stuffed!

This and next four pictures taken around Strasbourg









Lunch!



Barrage Vauban - a 17th Century dam that you can walk through or over (we went over)



Near our apartment



On top of the Barrage Vauban




View from the top of the Barrage Vauban


We all came back to the apartment in the late afternoon and crashed!  We all slept soundly till about 6 pm.  Then we showered and changed.  Deena decided she was done and got into pajamas.  Initially, I felt the same way but then David and I got a bit hungry and went out for tapas (delish!).  When we came back, we had trouble with the lock to the apartment door - even with Deena inside trying to open it!  We finally figured it out and then pigged out on some pastries we'd bought earlier.