 1 Saturday 10 July, 2010 The next day. Paris is a wonderful city, but in a heat wave in the middle of the tourist season, it's no fun. Because of this I stayed at the hotel while Jenni visited the Musee d'Orsay, an art gallery famous for French art dating from 1848 to 1915. These buildings surround the gallery. |
 2 Saturday 10 July, 2010 Jenni catches the metro to Solferino, a couple of blocks away from the gallery. The gallery is known for its collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces by painters such as Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin and Van Gogh. |
 3 Saturday 10 July, 2010 Jenni returned at 11:30 and we checked out of the hotel. We left our luggage in the hotel's locker room and caught a metro to the main shopping centre in Paris. This area was extensively modernised by Baron Haussmann and Galeries Lafayette is located on a boulevarde named after him. |
 4 Saturday 10 July, 2010 Inside the Galeries Lafayette was extremely crowded. Galeries Lafayette has stores in Berlin, New Yory and Dubai. |
 5 Saturday 10 July, 2010 We wander down Boulevarde Haussman and are overwhelmed by the crowds. This is a very unpleasant place to be in summer. |
 6 Saturday 10 July, 2010 We go into the Galeries Lafayette food hall because David Jones' food hall was modelled on it. Immediately after taking this photograph I was yelled at for taking pictures, so after a short walk around, we left. |
 7 Saturday 10 July, 2010 We walk down Haussmann for a short while. What amazed me was the enormous number of people queuing up to buy high priced goods. But, I've always believed that there is always a market for top quality goods, it's the other end that is more elastic. |
 8 Saturday 10 July, 2010 At the intersection of Haussman and Rue de Caumartin we see Au Printemps (At Springtime), a large department store with branches in Paris, France, the middle East and many countries in Asia. |
 9 Saturday 10 July, 2010 The crowds were unbelievable. It was claustrophobic. |
 10 Saturday 10 July, 2010 The reason for the crowds soon become obvious; tourist buses transported overseas visitors here by their thousands. There were so many buses, that they double parked. |
 11 Saturday 10 July, 2010 We wander down towards the Paris opera and see this delightful building, typical of those erected during Haussmann's beautification program. It is at the intersection of Rue Scribe and Rue Auber at Place Charles Garnier right opposite the Paris Opera. |
 12 Saturday 10 July, 2010 Swinging the camera around to the left we see the 4 star Le Grand Hotel. The buildings in this area are magnificent and date from between 1852 and 1870 during Haussmann's beautification program. Huge areas of slums were removed and tree lined boulevardes put in their place. Impossible to do anything like this today of course. |
 13 Saturday 10 July, 2010 Paris opera. |
 14 Saturday 10 July, 2010 In front of the Paris Opera looking up Place de l' Opera |
 15 Saturday 10 July, 2010 Interesting statues adorn the side of the Opera in Rue Halevy. Galeries Lafayette is nearby. |
 16 Saturday 10 July, 2010 It was way too crowded so we returned to the hotel to collect our luggage. On the way we passed an Apple store. Apple had just released another product and crowds were gathered competing to buy it. Steve Jobs is a most remarkable innovator and marketing man. |
 17 Saturday 10 July, 2010 After collecting our luggage, we caught a metro to the Gare de l'Est TGV station and had a late lunch there. We arrived about 1½ hours ahead of time for our trip to Strasbourg. |
 18 Saturday 10 July, 2010 At Strasbourg station, Chantal met us after which we retrieved our rental car from the garage at Michele's hotel. We then followed Chantal home and met Alex again and Ivan, their grandson. The screensaver has a picture of Uluru posted in our honour - Nicolas (Chantal's son) and Louise are smooching. |
 19 Saturday 10 July, 2010 Alex and Chantal kindly vacated their bedroom for us and made us very welcome. First order of business though was a "douche" to wash away the day's sweat and grime. |
 20 Saturday 10 July, 2010 Tonight's specialty is served with salad. |
 21 Saturday 10 July, 2010 Chantal had prepared an Alsacian specialty - baeckeoffe (baker's stew). It's pork, lamb and beef topped with potatoes and cooked for a long time and it was delicious. We have since made it at home as we work our way through our Alsacian cook book. |
 22 Saturday 10 July, 2010 An incredible storm came up late that night and reduced the heat wave by many degrees. |
 23 Saturday 10 July, 2010 It was almost tropical in its ferocity. Next morning, other than a few small branches, no damage was visible. |
 24 Saturday 10 July, 2010 A very nice surprise came with dessert - an ice cream cake decorated with a "Welcome" sign. We were overwhelmed by Chantal and Alex's hospitality. Next stop: Nürnberg, Germany where we meet Wolfram and Gisela |
