Meredith and I woke up sometime in the morning to the sound of thunder, and it was raining lightly when I ran out to try to get breakfast, but by the time we checked out of the hotel, it had stopped raining, and by the time we boarded our train to Paris, the sun was out. But sometimes things still pop up, and there was a mechanical issue with our train, so we had to get off and then wait for another train.

As such, we got underway ninety minutes late, which simplified our Paris plans. I had been torn as to what to do – I wanted to go to the Muesee d’Orsay, but it was going to be tight. Our original train was getting in at 3:45, and the museum closed at 6:00. Now, we were getting in at 5:30, so there was no issue with going to our hotel first.

We decided to go up the hill to the Sacre Coeur (Sacrd Heart) church area; the views of Paris are fantastic because of the hill, and the streets around the back of the church are full of restaurants. We took the Metro and walked (with stairs, of course) and got to the church to find the square full of people. It was a pleasant evening, but the crowds surprised me, it being still March. We got in the line to get into the church, and got in fairly efficiently, and got to stroll around the simple and elegant interior of the sanctuary.

We headed to behind the church for supper, and did a little art souvenir shopping first. Dinner was in a busy restaurant, but they seated us in a small room upstairs, so it was quiet. Supper was not quick, taking over thirty minutes to get our food, and about ninety minutes to finish dessert, but we were not in a big hurry.

We went back to the square to see the Eiffel Tower lit up for night, and then walked toward the Moulin Rouge so we could see it. Along the way, we found an open store that carried macarons, which Victoria had been looking for as gifts. She was very excited, and we laughed as she tried to make up her mind which flavors to get.

We did make it to the Moulin Rouge, and took an all-get-fired photo in front of it, but it was fun. We rode the Metro back to our hotel, bracing ourselves for the early wake-up call to start the long trip back home tomorrow. Lord willing, we will be back in Toronto by about 1:00, which could put us home by 8:00 pm. Then, work on Monday.

France was delightful for us for this vacation, and we had a great time with our group. We had good weather, most things went smoothly, and we ate some good food, saw some amazing sights, and generally had much fun together. It is hard to imagine spending a week in a better way.

Some days on vacation, you just get blessed. The forecast for today, even as of this morning, was rain on and off all day. We managed to get through the entire day and evening with just one short drizzle of about five minutes, and the morning was great, with puffy clouds and warm temperatures in the low 60s. We got a long day of touring in (my pedometer on my watch logged 14.2 miles for today), and we had a really good day.

Meredith N., Regina, and Shelby decided to do their own thing this morning (shopping and going to the Russian Orthodox cathedral), so Mer, Victoria, and I all set off about 8:30 to head over to Castle Hill, a high point of land on the east side of Nice where a castle used to be. The castle was destroyed in the early 1700s by King Louis, who did not want to risk having to fight the castle someday, but it is still called Castle Hill, and now there is a park and playground at the top. We walked through the flower and fruit market in the old town along the way to take in the sight of rows and rows of pretty flowers being sold.

There were stairs to climb to get to the top of Castle Hill, but Nice was kind enough (and wise enough) to supply an elevator. Sadly, it did not start operating until 10:00, and it was only 9:00. So, the stairs it was. There were several viewpoints along the way to stop and rest at, and the day was very fine for views.

We reached the top and wandered around – it is quite a large area on top of the hill. We came across a cafe that was just opening at 10:00, and since Victoria had missed breakfast this morning (other than a mini-croissant in the market), we stopped to enjoy a light snack and great views. We swung down the front of the cafe area to see the huge artificial waterfall, and then decided to take the elevator down to the seafront again. It was sunny, at least for the time being, and Victoria wanted to try being the needle in a huge human-sized sundial near the “I Love Nice” sign. Since Mer and I wanted a rain-free picture of the sign, we agreed it would be fun. The sundial was hard to figure out, because you needed to make some time-of-year correction we did not fully understand, so we moved around on the dial until we simply got the right time. Voila! Victoria was also kind enough to take our second picture at the sign.

We all wanted to visit the cemeteries at the top of the hill, so we went back up the elevator. The first cemetery was the Jewish one, and it was small and crowded, but was still in at least some use (based on the dates on the headstones). Next door was the much larger and less crowded Christian cemetery, which was also still in use. I assume the size difference in the two cemeteries dates back to a much earlier time when Jews would have been forced into smaller spaces, but I am not sure of the actual history.

We walked down the back side of the hill and the all the way around it, since that was how the road went. We went back to our crepe place for lunch, and the others showed up there toward the end of our meal, having just come from the Russian Orthodox church. That was a little funny, in that that was where we were going next, so we made plans to meet up later to go to the Matisse Museum.

We walked over to the church, stopping at a bakery along the way (it was a munching kind of day). The church is beautiful, in a traditional Orthodox style, even though it was only built about a hundred years ago. We went inside and were offered the chance to take a tour, which we were happy to do since none of us speaks Russian and we knew very little about the Orthodox faith. Our guide spoke good English and took us on a tour of the icons (pictures of saints) in the church. She also showed us a door that was built for the Tsar of Russia, but he was killed by the Soviets before he ever got to use it, so the door has been barred shut so that no one will ever use it.

The church was built fifty percent by the Tsar to honor his son who died at twenty-one years old of spinal meningitis while in Nice, and fifty percent by donations of Russians living in Nice, which had become very popular. Since it was built, Russians have continued donating art and icons to the church, so that it is very beautiful inside.

We finished off our tour with a small chapel outside the church that had been built before the church was constructed. The chapel honored the son who had died, and was built around the location of the bedroom where he actually passed away. It was brightly decorated inside, with some modern paintings based on traditional icons. The entire tour only lasted a little over thirty minutes, but it was very informative.

We swung by the hotel so I could look up the bus line we needed to get to the Matisse Museum, and then we headed over there. We met the others at the entrance around 4:30. The museum closed at 6:00, but we had read it was quite small. In we went.

I knew almost nothing about Matisse. His work looks really simple and abstract, sometimes looking like a sketch or caricature. But he did enough “traditional” drawings and sculpture, especially in his early work, to show how talented he was; the simple-looking art was a conscious decision on his part. The museum housed three floors of his art, spanning his long life. Since I cannot read French, I could not read the placards next to the art, so we all finished up fairly efficiently – we were done by 5:00.

Mer and I wanted to see the nearby Franciscan church and monastery/gardens, which the others had seen while waiting for us to get to the museum. We agreed to meet for supper at 6:30, and Mer and I walked the short way across the park to the church. It was simple and tasteful, painted with scenes from the life of Saint Francis. The gardens were not fully in bloom yet, but there were some flowers out, and there were pleasant views of the east side of Nice (away from the beach/bay).

The evening wrapped up, still rain-free, when we all met for supper and then gelato. Victoria and I wanted to get back to the hotel to rest, and the others went to the Promenade des Anglais. Mer told me they went to the fancy hotel, the Hotel Negresco, for drinks (which included hot chocolate). I was back at the hotel watching boules (a ball game like bocce) on TV. I like quirky foreign television, and sports do not require me to understand words.

Our rain-free (more or less) Nice portion of our vacation is drawing to a close. We have our five-hour train ride back to Paris tomorrow, and then home on Sunday. Nice has treated us very well.

On vacation, you need to have transportation, even if it is just walking, which we have done a lot of. This vacation, we do not have a car, so we have spent a fair amount of getting to stations, waiting for trams and buses, then getting to where we are going, only to have to walk more. It is an okay way to get around, but when the more tech-savvy members of the group talked about using Uber to get a ride home the other night, it reminded me there are other ways. Sadly, Uber does not work for a group of six, so we are still bus-bound.

All of this by way of intro to getting out to Cap Ferrat, a small peninsula very near Nice. We left the hotel a little after 9:00, and after walking, riding a tram, walking, getting a bus, and walking, we finally made it to our destination on Cap Ferrat around 10:30 am; by car, it normally takes about 25 minutes. C’est la touriste!

Where we got to was well worth it – the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild. The villa was built by a wealthy daughter of a banker, and she bought seventeen acres of land on the high ground on the narrow neck of land out to the peninsula. Here, with views in all directions, she built a lavish villa and sculpted seven elaborate gardens in the early 1900s. When she died in the 1950s, she left the place to the French government as a public space.

The house is impressive, with an indoor courtyard designed to look like an outside one. From it branch the main rooms – a couple of receiving rooms, a dining room, and Rothschild’s bedroom and bath. The upstairs had a viewing terrace, as well as more bedrooms. All the rooms had lots of windows for the views.

The gardens are amazing. The main garden directly behind the house includes a huge fountain that has choreographed water jets, set to classical music that plays every twenty minutes. We never heard the same music repeated while we were there, and the fountain was great fun to watch. Above the fountain was a Greek-style round temple, with a cascading stepped waterfall that fell into the main pool for the fountains.

From the main garden, you could wander through six other gardens – a rose garden (not yet in bloom), a Japanese garden, a rock garden, a Florentine (Italian) garden, a Provencal (local) garden, an exotic plant garden, and a Spanish garden. Scattered throughout the gardens were sculptures and fountains. We were there sufficiently early enough that we often had rooms in the house or places in the gardens to ourselves. It was grand.

We finished up around 1:00, and decided to split the group again. Mer and I wanted to go to Eze-le-Village, where we had seen the ruined castle on a hill when we had gone by on the bus the day before. The others wanted to get back to the hotel to change into nice clothes and then go to Monaco to at least see the lobby of Monte Carlo and other parts of the town. We all rode the same bus partway back to Nice; Mer and I got off early in order to climb up to the middle Nice-Monaco road to catch a bus back to Eze. Turns out it was quite climb, involving a lot of stairs. We were not sad to sit for a bit before the bus came.

Eze is not very big – mostly some shops on a couple of streets leading up to the former castle. We grabbed a quick crepe and ate it while we sat on a bench before proceeding up to the castle. Much of the former castle has been turned into shops and restaurants, and even a high-end hotel (starting at 370 euros a night). It was fun to wind through really narrow streets, looking in shops crammed into rock-bound rooms. We made our way all the way up to the top of the castle, where we paid to get into the garden there.

The views really were incredible. The mountains were on one side, and the sea on the other, and you could see in every direction. The gardens were well-laid out, with cactus on the sea side, and a Mediterranean garden on the land side. Sprinkled throughout were statues of semi-finished women, who all had different expressions on their faces; the less finished torsos seemed to suggest trunks of trees. It worked well for a garden.

We explored the rest of the castle, including making it to the church and graveyard that are up on the hill. We found some really narrow back streets, and got to see into one very fancy room of the hotel when the door was left open. We walked back down to the main road, where we stopped at a bakery to get a snack and ask where the bus stop was.

After thirty minutes of waiting for a bus, I decided this was a stupid waste of time. I thought it would be brilliant to walk down the Nietzsche Footpath, a steep and rugged 1.7-mile path down to the bigger Eze-Bord-du-Mer. What could go wrong? It seemed better than waiting for a stupid bus (which was going to be another thirty minutes before it came, if there was room to get on).

About seventy-five minutes later, after some rough footing, a few gasps of panic while slipping, and several astonishing views, we got to lower Eze. The Nietzche Footpath is not built for speed. Oh – it was named for Nietzche since he thought of the concepts for his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra while walking on the trail. How he could have thought of anything other than planting a firm foot, I’m not sure, but he managed.

I had planned on getting the bus back to Cap Ferrat to eat supper and then walk around the coastline, but that had disappeared in a fog of fatigue. We took the bus back to Nice, and then rode the tram, before walking to a restaurant for supper. We got back to the hotel around 9:00, on foot, of course. The others seem to be still out on the town – I hope they are having a wonderful time in Monaco. They can at least get a train back to the station in Nice, which should make for an efficient and comfortable end of their evening.

Some days of touring with Meredith are a gamble, but she usually comes out a winner. You may walk, say, 13.7 miles in a day, but she has good things to go see. And, as a bonus, you can usually count on sleeping well that night.

Today, Mer let me sleep in until 8:00 am, with us meeting the rest of the group in the lobby at 9:30. Mer wanted to go see the Marc Chagall museum, and that did not open until 10:00 – thus the late start. We walked to the museum, which turned out to be up on a hill, causing some panting. Sometimes, you do have to suffer for your art. We got there right after 10:00 and got into the museum with a plan to meet back together at 11:30, since the free audio guide was supposed to take about an hour.

The Marc Chagall museum started out as the Biblical Message Museum, housing seventeen huge paintings on Biblical stories that Chagall donated to France, with the condition the government build a museum to house them. So Chagall got to be the first major artist who helped design a museum to house his work. The collection has since grown, so the museum got renamed, but the original seventeen paintings (and one mural) are still there on display permanently.

Chagall was born in Russia in a practicing Jewish family, and so both Russian themes and Jewish themes show up in his art. The stories he painted were all from the Jewish Scriptures (the Old Testament), but often he painted his hometown into the background. He also used the idea of Russian Orthodox icons, making sure that Moses or Abraham or David always looked the same in each painting to help identify them.

Chagall seemed to have a complex relationship to Jesus. He often depicted Jesus as crucified somewhere in his work, and the audio commentary said it was to represent the suffering Jew or more generally the suffering of humanity. I can see that, but Jesus was often painted into scenes of moments where God helps people (like the sacrifice of Isaac, or Jacob’s ladder dream). I’m not sure how that all works out for what Chagall meant, but I think there is a lot going on in his work.

His art is very modern, bordering on sketches. He crams his backgrounds with images, sometimes mixing Biblical stories, sometimes cramming in different times in the same work, sometimes adding strange creatures or plants. On the whole, I liked his work very much – I found it thought-provoking and interesting. I’m not sure I would qualify it as “pretty,” but I liked it.

We had lunch at the cafe, sitting outside (yay!). After lunch, Mer and I went back in to the museum to finish a small wing we had missed and to see the film about Chagall’s life. The others left to go to Eze-le-Village, a nearby town where they make perfume. Turns out the Chagall film, which was advertised to be in English, was in French, so we gave up on that pretty quickly.

We went back to the hotel to regroup, then to the train station to buy transit passes for the tram and bus system, so we could catch a bus to Cap d’Ail, a small(ish) town on the way to Monaco. We got off there so that we could walk along an ocean path into Monaco itself. The path had great views of the houses and buildings along the coast, as well as the ocean and the cliffs above the towns. We backtracked a few minutes to go out onto a very small peninsula park which could see toward both Nice and Monaco. The walk was a great way to get into the city.

Monaco is crazy. It is crammed full of buildings and ingenious roads and pedestrian ways that maximize use of space. There are signs of wealth everywhere, from high-end shops to luxury car dealers to advertisements for one-bedroom condos for 3.2 million euros ($3.9 million). We walked up the main hill in Monaco to the palace area. We passed by the palace, but did take in the cathedral, which is modern, but simple and peaceful. There are cute streets and shops around up on the hill, but we were pressed for time, so we took a bus from there to Monte Carlo, the famous casino. We could not get in, as we were not dressed for it, but we did see all the high-end cars parked out front. The cafe with the view of the casino was selling $35 cheeseburgers. We passed.

We then did something almost unheard of for us in Europe. We went to a chain. Starbucks. We needed a bathroom, and so we gave in. I do have to say that the hot chocolate and pastry we bought were excellent, and since it was a rooftop Starbucks, it may have one of the best views of an American chain shop anywhere. After the rest stop, we walked back to the bus stop, where we took a bus that brought us back to Nice along a higher road, so that we could see a different perspective. We passed thought the perfume town, which looked beautiful, and I now hope to get to it tomorrow.

Back in Nice, we went with a safe choice for supper – it was late, and I was not feeling adventurous, so we walked back to our crepe restaurant from two nights ago. Then, it was home to the hotel, where we caught up with the others and heard about their day (and they loved the perfume town, Eze-le-Village). I really did log 13.7 miles walking today, and I am really tired, but I came up all aces for tourism today.

One way to get a good local experience when traveling is to hire a local guide. If you also hire one who drives, you save on a rental car AND you don’t have to drive on terrifying mountain roads. So, we met Cici this morning outside the hotel around 8:00 am.

Cici was was taking us on an all-day tour of “the Grand Canyon of Europe” – the Gorges du Verdon, which is the largest canyon in Europe. It is about two hours away from Nice, so Cici filled us in on Nice and the region as we drove along on the highway, until we got off in Grasse, which is known for being the first place to produce perfume:  perfumes have been made here since the 1700s. It is lesser known for the roads that go up and up into the mountains surrounding it. Beautiful views – glad I was not driving.

We continued along before stopping in an adorable little village, Castellane. The funny thing about Castellane is that it is the “big town” of the very rural area. It had a few places to eat, so we grabbed some tea and hot chocolate and used the bathroom. We did not have time to climb up to the ruins of the castle, or the even higher church built on the edge of a cliff above the town. Mer and I explored the in-town church and then ran back into the group as they explored the town. With its being March, the place was mellow and cute. Cici told us that in August, it is almost impossible even to move in the town, since it is the gateway to the Gorges.

We piled back in the van and got on a winding road that was hugged between a river and the mountains. Sometimes the mountains overhung the road. The van had a sunroof, which was fun to look out of, up the side of the cliffs. The river dropped away as the road kept rising, and then Cici took us down to a parking area where we could get out and walk down rock stairs to the river itself. The path down was dwarfed by limestone mountains, and the path continued on for miles. We took it down as far as the river itself. We did not test it out, as the warning signs told of how the river could rise quickly as the nearby dam raised and lowered the water level, but Cici told us it was very cold, as it was all melt water from the mountains, some of which still had snow on the peaks. The climb back up the stairs was tricky and induced some strained breathing in the group, but it was worth it.

For balance, since we had been to the bottom of the gorge, Cici took us to a viewpoint called Point Sublime. Walking out to the point was eerie – mostly bare limestone with some scrub brush clinging to it, with looming mountains all around. It felt almost alien. The point was okay for me – a good, solid viewing platform with good handrails. I stayed away from the edge, but was otherwise okay. Mer loved it, of course. Victoria went with us, but the others decided to hang out on a rise of rock part way along the Point Sublime trail.

Cici was then going to take us to another cute villiage for lunch, but it turned out the road was closed until Saturday for road work. So she improvised and took us to the village the long way around, which was how we were supposed to go back home – through the mountains and over the second highest bridge in Europe. I was sitting on the passenger side of a high-up van, so I could see down into the gorge. Usually straight down. I suddenly found the view of my lovely wife, sitting beside me, to be intoxicating. I could not take my eyes off of her. When we got to the bridge, I was slightly ill at the height of it, followed by a climb out of the bridge area. Ugh.

Happily, the landscape calmed down some as we pulled into a small village for a late lunch. We had a great meal in Aiguines. It was a very welcome break from the overwhelming drive.

We finished the touring part of the day in an amazing little town called Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. The town was pushed up against some cliffs, with a small river running through the village. Partway up the cliff was a small chapel, and way above the chapel, strung on a wire between two massive rocks, was hung a star. Tradition holds that a knight said that if he came back from the Crusades, he would hang a star between the two cliffs. Nowadays, the star is put in place by helicopter.

We had about forty-five minutes to explore the town, so Mer and I checked out the twelfth century church in the main part of town, before seeing if we could climb to the chapel on the cliff. Mer was kind enough to let me go ahead, and I made it up the switchbacks to the church in about fifteen minutes, which gave me about ten minutes to pray inside. Mer came along then; I was very proud of her for persevering. We walked down together and got back to the group only a couple minutes late. The others had explored the shops in the village and had seen us making our way down from the chapel.

Cici then drove us back to Nice, which took about two hours. She dropped us off about 6:00 pm, having done a really excellent job of driving and narrating and answering questions. Getting a guide was really the way to go.

After a thirty-minute rest, all of us walked over to the old section of Nice, where we had supper at a pizza place owned by actual Italians, and we followed that with gelato in the old town. We went back to the hotel, where Mer and I retired to the room around 9:15, while some of the others went back to the seafront to check out the main classic hotel in town, the Hotel Negresco, where you are allowed in if you visit the bar for a drink or some food.

It was a day of highs and highs, as it were, but well worth it.

Today was another travel-intensive day, but it was an interesting one, as we were traveling to Nice by high-speed train. We left the hotel around 8:00 am and grabbed both breakfast and lunch at a bakery on the short walk to the train station. We got to the station early (of course), but the wait was only about forty-five minutes. Then, we were off on our five-hour trip to Nice.

Meredith and I both like trains, in that you can see the countryside go by. We were able to see the flat farmlands around Paris change into rolling hills and then some small mountains, and then the sea appeared. Since the train was a high-speed one, we only stopped about five times, and then that was all in the south of France. Meredith was excited to see glittering ocean and palm trees.

We got to Nice a little after three and walked a few blocks to our hotel, which is centrally located, only about four blocks from the ocean. We got situated and then discussed plans. Mer wanted to take a bus to one end of the ocean walkway, the Promenade des Anglais, and then walk back, a walk of about four miles, all along the ocean, and walking toward the prettier end of Nice. The others decided to opt for a tourist tram, which took them all over the city, and gave them audio commentary along the way. That worked out well in that Meredith N. had hurt her foot missing a step on the train, so she did not want to strain it with too much walking. When we all met up later, they all said how much they enjoyed the tram.

We walked down to the main road along the coast, and after walking a few blocks, we caught a bus that took us to the edge of Nice’s airport, which is on the far end of the Promenade. We then strolled along back toward the center of town. We enjoyed the sun and the water, and we enjoyed not being cold – it was in the mid-to-high 50s. We stopped along the way to smile at the only-men playing boules (like bocce) on the seaside boules court, and we walked a (very short) distance along the gravel beach. It was hard going, so we popped back up to the walkway.

We were supposed to meet the others at a crepe restaurant at 6:30, and after a quick rest stop at the hotel, we got there at 6:38, only to discover that they did not open until 7:00. Welcome to Europe. We waited until 7:05, and when the others still had not turned up, we went in and ordered. Happily, before the food showed up, they came in; they had gone to another creperie with a similar name. It all worked out fine, and we had an excellent meal. The restaurant had a 30s swing-music/jazz theme going on, so the music was great, and the waiter gave Victoria a hard time for not finishing her meal, which was really funny.

We went back to the hotel to grab more clothes as it got colder, and then Meredith, Regina, Shelby, and I headed out. Meredith N. and Victoria wanted to get some rest (it was 9:00 already), and so they stayed back. The four of us went back to the Promenade to finish the rest of the walk, ending at the foot of Castle Hill at the end of town, where we got sprinkled on by one cloud for about five minutes. Meredith and I pressed on to go see the huge and tasteful war memorial on the other side of Castle Hill, while Regina and Shelby decided to go check out the local casino. I’m not sure yet how they fared. Mer and I found the memorial and then walked down to the old section of Nice, where, after a few false starts, we found the gelato (ice cream) stand we were looking for. We ate in a small church square and then headed back to the hotel, walking through one of Nice’s main squares and getting to see some interesting streets along the way.

For a day we started in Paris, and one where our touring did not begin until almost 4:00, we had a successful run around Nice. It is a great little town, and we are looking forward to exploring it more. After a good night’s sleep.

This spring break trip involves me and Meredith, with three co-workers – Meredith, Regina, and Victoria – and a former student, Shelby, who is also Regina’s daughter. The main part of the vacation is going to be spent in Nice on the French Riviera, but first we have to get there. That meant driving to Toronto again to use the cheap airport with a direct flight to Paris.

The first part went very well. The trip went well, and we all met up at the airport, where we got through security efficiently, which put us at the gate three hours before the flight was to leave. Since the flight started boarding about an hour before departure, that really put us there two hours early. Not too bad, and we puttered the time away reading, wandering, and eating.

The flight was great, and so we arrived in Paris. Customs was efficient, and so we found ourselves trying to figure out the train system to get into Paris proper, when we figured out that although we had brought a guidebook on Nice, we did not have one on Paris. Ooops. Mer and I put our heads together and figured it out, and so, in the end, we got to our hotel around 11:00 am, Paris time. Sadly, the hotel was very busy this weekend, and so our rooms would not be ready until standard check-in time at 2:00.

That was a curve ball. Mer and I count on grabbing a two- or three-hour nap on arrival to help break up jet lag, and now we would have to tour in Paris, running on no sleep for about twenty-three hours. Not an insurmountable issue, but it did mean we were a bit foggy.

We decided to go get lunch, and I remembered there were good restaurants on the two islands in the Seine River, where Notre Dame is located. We walked there along the river, which is always a good way to get to know a city. We found a small cafe on the Ile Saint-Louis, the smaller of the two islands, and we ate a leisurely lunch. The weather was quite good, and the sun came out, so we walked over to Ile de la Cite, the bigger island, and walked in the park surrounding Notre Dame. Today was Palm Sunday, so the lines to get into the church were quite long. We enjoyed the outside of it, and then made our way back to the hotel, where we got some rest.

We got launched on Paris Tour part two at 6:00. We decided to take a riverboat tour of the Seine, so we took the Metro over to the Champs-Elysees  and walked down to the river. We got on a fairly crowded boat where the top deck was roped off. We were confused until we finally figured out the river was so high that the boat barely could get under bridges. Anyone sitting on the upper deck would have been in danger from low clearance. In fact, the boat turned before Notre Dame because it could not make it under one pedestrian bridge, but we still got great views of the city, especially the Eiffel Tower.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the tour, but by then it was 8:00, so we found a creperie (crepe restaurant) where we had supper. Since it was so close to the Champs-Elysees, we took the time to walk up to the Arc de Triomphe, where we took the pedestrian tunnel to get right up to it. Since it was now almost 10:00, the crowds were largely gone, and Victoria even got a picture of the full Arc with no traffic in the picture, which is very difficult to do.

From the Arc, it was back to the Metro and home to our new, modern, and funky hotel, which includes iPad-controlled lighting, shades, and TV. It is in a perfect location, next to the train station, for us to catch our train to Nice tomorrow morning.

We kicked around several possibilities for today – going back to Sintra, exploring the beach town Cascais, or puttering around Lisbon. We settled on Lisbon, to finish up the couple of remaining sites we had not yet seen.

After breakfast, we ran back home to get umbrellas since it was spitting occasional rain, and then we walked along a new (to us) road to go to the cathedral here. Along the way, I needed a bathroom, and we ran across a free archaeology museum that had restrooms. The museum was only one floor, but was interesting and well presented. It focused on the remains of the Roman wall of the city and the buildings that had been built along it, which turned out to be mostly for processing fish and fish oils. The ruins were encased in glass, so we were able to walk over them and look down on them. Great little place, especially for free.

We made it up to the cathedral, which is an impressive medieval church built like a twin-towered fortress. It is massive and solid, and it survived the 1755 earthquake and is still in use. St. Anthony (of Padua, where he died) was born near this church and was baptized there. It is simple stone inside, with only a few paintings. There are three brilliant stained glass rose windows. The church excels in impressing the weight of history and worship onto you.

To save wear and tear on week-long-stressed knees, we took the small bus from near the cathedral up to the castle, which dominates the high point of the town. It is huge, with multiple walls, including the inner keep, which had multiple gates and intact ramparts. The castle was built by the Moors around 900, and was conquered by the soon-to-be Portuguese king around 1150. One of the famous heroes of Lisbon threw himself into a closing gate and used his dying body to keep the gate open so the castle could be stormed.

The views from the castle are great from every angle. We got to see the entire city and finally put it together in our heads, resulting in our laughing at how close some of the major squares are, when we had been thinking of them as very separate places. That is the the result of piecing the city together from meandering trolley rides. We got to walk along many of the tops of the walls all around the place. It continued to sprinkle on and off, but never to the point of discomfort.

We walked back down toward town, stopping in at a very cool art shop that seemed to be featuring creche (nativity) sets. Some were very moving in execution or simplicity; others were strangely whimsical. The shop itself was in an interesting space, with a rocky floor and a brick roof. Of course, my favorite works were over $1,200 and $800 each. I always seem to pick out the expensive ones.

Lunch was inside because of the rain, but it had cleared up by the time we finished. We walked home and rested for an hour before heading out for our final evening on the town. It was mellow – we walked up to the iron tower elevator (near the ruins of the convent) and took the elevator down, where we walked through a couple of squares to look for the market set up in one of the squares. We found it, and it was the same as two days ago, so we went back up to the convent area and had supper in a square facing one side of the convent. It was a pretty place to eat, and then we went home.

Lisbon treated us well, and we enjoyed the city very much. It is walk-able, interesting, and people-friendly, and we are thankful indeed to have been here this week.

One of the reasons to travel is to discover things of wonder. That wonder can be natural (like the Alps) or artificial (like the Eiffel Tower). Even better is when you find something that captivates you that you never even knew existed. Especially when it is wonderfully quirky.

Such is the Quinta da Regaleira house and estate in Sintra. It was mentioned in our Rick Steves guide book, and online reviews said it was fantastic, but nothing really prepared me for the actual site. We took the train back to Sintra, where the Moorish Castle still played peek-a-boo with us through the fog and we only saw the Pena Palace tower dimly right at the end of the day. So, still not a great day for views from the mountain.

But, happily, the town of Sintra and the Quinta da Regaleira were both below the cloud line, and it was a nice day to be outside. We spent about five hours roaming the grounds and (briefly) the house, so we were happy the rain from Thursday had gone.

We walked from the station to town, which involves walking around a steep valley, so that you actually see the town close at hand the entire walk. The sidewalk is lined with sculpture, which is a good touch. The Quinta da Regaleira is above the town, so we continued our walk to the main gate, which is about halfway up the sloping grounds of the estate.

And what grounds. We decided to head up while our legs were fresh. Not long into the uphill walk, we came to the waterfall on the estate. With a pond. With stepping stones across the pond. Which led to the underground passage that led behind the waterfall. That led to the underground passage that led to the “Initiatic Well,” a spiral-staircase-encircled well about ninety feet deep. But halfway up the stairs there was another underground passage that we HAD to take.

This dumped us out at the “Portal of the Guardians,” a semi-circular wall with two climbable towers on either side. That overlooked the “Terrace of the Celestial Worlds” with its tall ziggurat tower. That you can climb and see the Moorish Castle from.

But we were climbing up. So up we went, along winding paths through dense trees to the Grotto of the Virgin, a cave currently without a shrine. That marked the highest point in the estate, so we followed the western wall path down before heading over to the Unfinished Well, which also had stairs leading down, to the (obviously) underground passage that led to the Grotto of the East, another cave, near the Aquarium, a cave with one wall of glass to let the viewers see the water on the other side (fairly tame in late November).

That finished the upper half of the grounds. We made our way down to the lower half, finding and climbing the quite tall Regaleira Tower with its grand views of the Moorish Castle and the town of Sintra. We had to backtrack there a bit to find a way down to the Fountain of Regaleira, which was a huge wall of mosaic stone with a super-small fountain with the output of about what a drinking fountain would put out. It was fun in that way.

Back to the western wall path, only to be distracted by the Labyrinthic Grotto, my favorite part of the park. It was an opening leading to a series of narrow passages that wound around. Some of the paths led to other paths, and some were dead ends. They finally came to a huge muddy cave that looked out onto a small pond. Happily, there was a stairway out, next to the Balnearium Fountain and a small “natural” bridge across the pond. After crossing it, we made a quick dash over to look at the decoratively tiled Pisoes Loggia, and then a beeline toward the cafeteria for lunch, taking us past a row of statues of Greek gods.

Lunch was outside on the patio, looking over the house and grounds and mountain, with a couple of different kitties wandering about. That is about as ideal an eating spot as you can come up with. After lunch, we went and visited the ornate Chapel, where we climbed a spiral staircase to its small balcony, before climbing it back down all the way to the…wait for it…underground tunnel that took you to the base of the house.

We toured the first floor of the house, with its magnificent views, but sadly, the second and third floors were closed for restoration, so we did not get to climb up to the balconies. We did spend some quality time sitting out on the main floor balcony, watching the fog come and go on the mountain.

To make sure we saw everything, we finished off the row of Greek gods. That was it. A very well-spent five hours of child-like wonder.

Why is all of this here? I’m not sure. The brochure tells you how Carvalho Monteiro hired architect Luigi Manini around 1900 to expand the house and grounds, but does not say why. Some of the things in the house suggested there was an ideal of a “philosophical estate” where nature and contemplation were stressed, but it never really got to the why of the entire place. I think Carvalho had money and imagination and playfulness. I am very grateful – what a great place to wander and wonder.

We took the train back to Lisbon, and then home to rest for forty-five minutes. We wanted to explore more of the Alfama neighborhood (the old one that survived the 1755 earthquake), so we had a relaxed supper up there, where we had a good time with a fun waiter who gave us a hard time, and then we chatted with a Korean man who lives in New York doing graphic design for commercials. We then wandered the narrows streets up to and back down from the castle area, before walking over to the upper shopping district for dessert, where we finally got to see some Christmas lights. The municipal lights have been hanging all week, but haven’t yet been lit. Happily, the mall came through for us with a spectacular color-changing tree. After dessert, we headed home, but sadly, not through any secret tunnels.

Even on the best of vacations, sometimes rain must fall. Or at least is predicted to fall; we were supposed to get heavy rains and winds, starting sometime between 10:00 and 11:00. So, we decided today would be a good museum day. We started with a late breakfast, and finished up well after 10:00, and we were thrilled at the sunny skies – we would not have to get soaked walking to the museum. Off we went to escape the coming torrents, to our refuge – the Gulbenkian Museum.

The Gulbenkian Museum was founded from the collection of a wealthy Armenian who was granted refuge in Portugal during World War 2. When he died, he left his impressive and eclectic art collection to Lisbon as a thank you. The collection includes ceramics, textiles (mostly rugs), wood work, sculpture, paintings, furniture, and more, spanning ancient Egyptian art, Islamic art. Chinese art, European art, and others. Many of the pieces were obscure to me, but he had several sculptures by Rodin, and some paintings by Monet, Manet, Degas, and Renoir, and an entire room of paintings of Venice by Guardi.

I loved the European art, especially the religious art. There was a wooden statue of Mary that was very moving – she was old and sad, and this was not a modern statue (I think it was from 1700 or so). I also liked a huge tapestry called something like “The Children’s Dance,” in which a bunch of Cupid-like children were dancing. And then you notice that one of the ones up in a tree had inverted a quiver of arrows, and the arrows had fallen on a dancing child, who was now looking unhappy and bleeding. Odd.

I loved the Rodin sculptures. Mer laughed at one called Sister and Brother, in which two siblings were cozy – she said it was just like me and my sister. Next to it were two lovers kissing passionately, and I said that was just like us. Mer saw that it was called Early Springtime and remarked that we were more of Early Autumn. Touche.

There was a special exhibit called “Beyond the Mirror” which explored the mirror in art. It was interesting, showing how the mirror was portrayed in early art, and then later was used as the subject of art itself. So we had exhibits where the focus was on the reflection of someone, or we had art that incorporated real mirrors. It was well laid out, and it was a thoughtful theme to trace in art.

We got done with the Gulbenkian around 1:30, and came out to cloudy but dry skies. We wanted to go to a couple of museums back out in Belem (out by the monastery), so we had to take the subway to the train station. When we emerged at the train station, it had rained, but was only sprinkling, and so it was in Belem as well. We walked the ten minutes to the Museu Colecao Berardo, a modern art collection spanning (roughly) from 1900 to today.

I am not the biggest modern art fan, but I like early modern art and religious modern art. This museum had no religious art, but a solid collection of early modern art. It also had three fourths of the school-aged population of Lisbon there, but we managed to avoid them, on the whole. About half the collection was from recent modern art, which usually makes me mad. It did so again today. I think I finally figured out why. Art should point to truth, and modern art rejects the idea that there is truth, or even that art should have a point. So, in the end, it mocks real art that does point to truth. And that makes me angry. I also get a bit ticked off when art that I could have easily made with no training ends up framed in a museum. At any rate, I was no big fan of the second half of the museum, although I still found a couple of pieces I liked for the color or pattern.

After a rest stop at a cafe, we made our soaking and windy way over across the street to the National Archaeology Museum, which is a small museum in the long wing of the monastery. They had three small exhibits – one on an excavated area of Portugal, covering from the stone age through the Romans; one on Egypt; and one on Roman artifacts dealing with death and the gods. It was well laid out, and the Portuguese exhibit even had some artifacts you could touch, but I was getting a bit tired and hungry. Three museums in one day were a pretty good haul. We made our really wet and windy way back to the train, to have the rain stop for the day when we got to the station. Twenty minutes of being in the rain was not bad for a day forecast to have it all day long.

Back in Lisbon, we had a traditional Thanksgiving meal at an Italian restaurant with pizza and steak. Dubbs said we should all say some things we were thankful for, which was a good idea on Thanksgiving. After sharing a few things each (including family, friends, health, good living, good jobs), we ate well. That made me feel much better, so that I was happy to go to the shopping street to see if the Christmas lights were on yet. They weren’t. We comforted ourselves with dessert, and I began to think about bed.

Then Mer said she wanted to do the Trolley #12 tour. #12 runs a small circular path around the main part of downtown Lisbon, and even though it covered some of the same ground we had already done, it had some new areas too. Off we went. It was amazing how well it tied together areas we had come at in a roundabout way, or had popped up in from the metro. We did the whole track in about twenty minutes, getting off at a small market in a square, where we browsed and bought a few things. Then it really was back on the metro and back home for the evening. And the forecast has the rain ending by 10:00 tomorrow morning. Back to outside touring we go!