Paris

The ferry took us to Cherbourg, France and we got a room in a B&B. Cherbourg isn't far from the Normandy beaches and there were plenty of commemorative items around town for the 80th anniversary of the invasion. The ghost of WWII was present, at least in our minds. We discussed going to the beaches but the guided tours were extremely expensive and we were told the public transportation out there was unsatisfactory. In the end we decided to skip them. Neither of us has any connection to the events and today they are just beaches otherwise. Instead, we wound up watching the movie The Longest Day about it. Very good movie.

The big question we faced was were to go to next. We were new with the Eurail app and couldn't find anything reasonable. It took over twelve hours to go anywhere. We finally went to the trsin station to see what our options were and found out what the problem was - all trains went to Paris. If we wanted to go anywhere we had to go there and catch another train.

Cool!

Our plans are to go to Paris for the Olympics. Sherry's best friend's daughter is competing in the rowing events and we're going to see her. We figured the tourist attractions will be super crowded then so we decided to get ahead of them and go now, with the understanding they'll still be crowded. And, they were.

We were able to book a really nice apartment in the city close to the public transportation. It made us mobile while also giving us the chance to do things on our own schedule and make our own meals. It also gave us a new experience when there was a rave in the street right below us the second night there. I don't think I'd care to have one on a regular basis, but once was pretty neat.

That was later, after doing the tourist thing for a couple days. First, there was something important we Sherry had said it was her dream to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I thought this a little strange because Sherry's afraid of heights. But, I wanted to make sure she got her wish. Ive been there a couple times but never went up so I was looking forward to it. As soon as we got settled in I took her down there and, after some confusion about the tickets, we went up. I wanted to have evidence for everyone that Sherry really did go all the way to the top. She lvery happy happy.

Over a three day period we were able to see most if the sights we wanted to. The crowds were big and obnoxious but we managed and had a good time. After all, at the end if the day we were relaxing with French food and French wine.

Life is good.