Paris, je t'aime!

It's been 12 years since my last visit to Paris and even though I've been to France 7 times in the past 3 years I've never had a reason or the desire to go back to The City of Light. Until recently the thought of going to Paris had been a bit intimidating. I love France and I love the French but most of the French people I have met outside of France (that is while traveling) have been from Paris (either that or they lie and say they are from Paris because they don't think Americans know of any other French cities). These "Parisians" unfortunately almost always fit the stereotype of the rude snobby French person, a stereotype that I have never found anywhere in the entire country and I've traveled it from north to south, and east to west. Maybe I was afraid that an unpleasant trip to Paris would spoil my opinion of the rest of the country, but I'm happy to say that it hasn't. Paris IS an intimidating place but only because it's a big rough city. It's a lot like New York but on a more human scale since there are none of New York's larger than life skyscrapers. As far as big cities go I'd say it's a pretty darn good one.

P.S. I took this picture myself! It only took me 12 tries to get it right, 4 to set up the shot (you can see the umbrella at my feet as my marker of where to stand) and the rest to get my hand in the right place.

Chapelle Notre-Dame du Haut, Ronchamp, France

Designed by Le Corbusier, this little church is "on the way" from Basel to Paris. But with waiting time and time on local trains it took me 10 1/2 hours to visit. Not sure if it was worth it, but at least I got a bit of an architecture fix to make up for not going to the Rietveld Schröder House in Utrecht.

Inside the Chapelle Notre-Dame du Haut

Liechtenstein border crossing

I read somewhere that the post office in Liechtenstein would stamp your passport for a fee of something like 3 euro for the people who collect these sorts of things. Well forget that!! The only person who is going to stamp my passport is a border guard and the only way to meet a Liechtenstein border guard is to cross into the country from Austria. I also correctly figured that the passengers on the bus from Austria would not have to face passport control and therefore the only way to get a stamp would be to walk across the border. This was really exciting, all the borders I've crossed and this is the only one I've crossed on foot! They make it really easy, there are Postbus stops on either side of the border so I didn't have to walk very far.

View of the border from the other side

The stamp!

Rare!!

If there was a better way to go then it would find me...

As of Thursday night when I went to bed I still hadn't decided where to go from Germany. Poland was out because the Wizz Air flight I wanted to take from Warsaw had gone up to over $300. That left either Holland and Belgium via Köln or down to Italy via Austria and Liechtenstein. I mapped out the routes, the ICE train to Köln left at 8:29am and the series of trains I would take to Austria left at 9:41am. I woke up at 9:15am and my decision was made for me. I quickly checked out of the hostel where I was sleeping in a storage room in the basement for free because they had sold out before I had a chance to pay for my third night (since I didn't know if I would sell my match ticket). I ran to the train station and bought another Bavaria ticket for 18 euro that would get me (via 4 different trains) all the way from Würzburg to Lindau (pictured above) near the border with Austria. From there it was another train to Feldkirch and then a Postbus to Liechtenstein. Along the way I started pondering the maps in my European Rail Timetable and I realized that instead of backtracking to Feldkirch and then going down to Italy, I could transit Switzerland in a little over 2 hours and end up in France. That way I can still cross the English Channel on my way to London instead of flying from Pisa, and I can give Northern Italy the full time it deserves at a later date instead of trying to go to 6 cities in 4 days. There are a couple places I want to see in Northern France and they make an adequate replacement for the things I would be missing in Belgium and Holland, and saving the Benelux stuff for later makes it easier to combine with a future trip to Northern Germany. Cool! Why didn't I think of this before?!?