Our alarm was set early (6 am), and it was pretty tough to get out of bed. We dragged ourselves up and in and out of the shower, and then lugged our suitcases down the stairs to check out. As we checked out the clerk said that he expected payment at that time, but Kuniko had already paid by credit card a long time ago. This is a sensitive topic for us, especially after last summer in Granada and the episode we went through there. I could tell Kuniko’s anger was starting to come up, and I was starting to move out of the way. The clerk apparently saw it too, and so he rechecked his files and found that he was in fact in error. He blamed his coworker, but it was a little pitiful in my opinion. Anyway, we left our bags there for safekeeping and hit the road.
Our goal this morning was to see Versailles Palace before our flight out to Portugal. On paper it seemed doable, and we already had e-tickets for Versailles so it was just a matter of logistics. And as it turned out, it was pretty easy to do.
From our hotel we walked to Invalides station, which was only about 10 minutes’ walk. From there we bought tickets and caught a train to Versailles Palace. The train was already just sitting there waiting so we got some seats and were pretty much the only people in the train car. It was a nice ride out to Versailles, passing some interesting neighborhoods and beautiful buildings. We ate some chocolate on the way, soon enough we arrived at the station around 8 am. We stopped in at Starbucks for a coffee to go and then walked down the street until we found the Palace. It was hard to miss. The front gate was quite dramatic with statues and shiny gold gates, just like at our house.
We had already bought tickets, and I had heard that the gardens were open an hour before the palace opened, so we walked behind the palace and spent a lot of time in the gardens. They were huge! As we walked around the grounds it was a little cold, but the sun came out now and then and warmed us up. The beautiful flowers, fountains and pools were everywhere, and the scale was really impressive. Around opening time we walked back around to the front of the palace to join the line, and we found that it had grown tremendously while we were exploring the gardens. Uh, oh – maybe a small miscalculation here. We lined up at the back, and it took about an hour to get inside the palace. Luckily the weather was good, we could do lots of people watching, and the line moved pretty fast. By the time we neared the front of the line it had grown even more. I would hate to arrive at that time and try to get in.
Inside the main gate they had a security check, and they looked inside Kuniko’s bag and even under her hat, but we made it through. Once inside, there were a lot of people – maybe too many. Each room had so many people in it that it made it a little difficult to move without walking in front of someone taking a picture. There were a lot of reasons to take a picture, too – the interiors were beautifully (and ostentatiously) decorated, with each having some sort of theme. Because of all the photography the flow of visitors was slower than usual. I didn’t mind, since I was also taking a lot of pictures, but I could tell Kuniko wanted to move it along a little faster.
Some of the rooms had historical significance, some were decorated in a unique way, and it seemed like there were decoration styles for just about every taste. I really liked the darkest rooms with no windows, that were decorated in black and red. The hall of mirrors was beautiful as well, with chandeliers catching the sunlight and spreading it out down the long hall.
We went through the palace fairly quickly, finishing up after an hour. The lines outside were even longer as we walked back to the station, and between the station and the palace there was a steady stream of visitors walking. It was easy to catch a train back to Paris, and we could see inside each train going the opposite way there were tons of people going to Versailles. So I guess our timing wasn’t so bad, and I’m sure those people going in were going to have to fight even larger crowds.
Back in Paris we walked back towards our hotel to pick up our bags, but we felt like it would be a better idea to get something to eat first, before we had to manage our bags at some restaurant. So we hit a small corner brasserie (the kind with red awnings). The place had a relaxed atmosphere, and we took a table facing the street so we could watch people walking by. I can’t say enough how nice it is to eat and drink outside on the street and watch the world go by. This has yet to catch on in the Kansai area, so we always try to get our fill in Europe. The waitress spoke English, and they had an English menu, so I knew we must be near the Eiffel Tower. We ordered a couple of big glasses of wine – rose for me, red for Kuniko. I ate some spring rolls stuffed with warm goat cheese and mint, with a little sweetness in the spring roll wrapper. It was really good. Kuniko had a very substantial ham and cheese omelet, heavy on the cheese. A few tables down a young American couple were discussing deep topics and maybe having a fight, but by the end of the meal they had seemed to patch things up. Ah, Paris.
With brunch completed, and a little bit of a buzz from our wine, we went back to our hotel and collected our bags. As we walked with our bags we happened to see a taxi. I flagged him down and he stopped, but he already had a passenger. He told us to wait five minutes and he’d be back, so we sat and waited. At the end of the quiet street we were on there was a much busier street, and I could see taxis driving back and forth along it, so I started to wonder if this was a good idea. We waited about ten minutes, and then gave up on our taxi and went to the busier street to catch another cab. As you might expect, as soon as we got to the busy street there wasn’t a taxi to be found. We waited a few minutes here and eventually a cab came by. And wouldn’t you know it – it was the original guy. He swore up and down that he went back for us, and I believed him, but it was kind of an awkward ride to the station. He took us to a station but it turned out to be the wrong station, and we spent a few minutes walking to the correct one. Once we got our suitcases down to the platform, bought our tickets and caught the correct train, everything was cool. The Paris metro was not exactly clean (especially compared to the London underground and Japanese trains, which are admittedly high standards). When we got on the train to the airport a nice lady gave up her seat so we could get our bags and bodies near each other. The ride was a little long, but there weren’t so many stops before the airport. While we were riding the train an old guy played the violin (rather poorly) in our train car, looking for donations afterwards. It was just the right thing for a train in Paris, I thought.
We got to Charles de Gaulle airport with plenty of time to spare, and went to check into our flight to Porto in Portugal. We were a little early, so we had to wait about 30 minutes off to the side until we could get our bags checked into EasyJet. In the baggage line we spotted a musical group, who were checking a giant tribal drum made of a log – I wondered how much that costs in baggage fees.
Our flight to Porto was about 25 minutes late, but that is to be expected with the cheap low cost carrier flights. We just sat and read our books and soon enough they were calling us to board. We had the aisle and center seat, with an antsy middle aged woman trapped behind us in the window seat. She was clearly uncomfortable with the arrangement and kept trying to communicate with someone else on the plane. We just sat down and went right to sleep, which made ignoring everything much easier. The flight was a pretty noisy one – maybe the noisiest flight I’ve ever been on. There was not one but three screaming babies, lots of turbulence, and the boy behind us kept yelling out “Papa!” every time he saw something out the window. Our zen training served us well, however. Thankfully it was a very short flight, and soon we were descending to the runway at Porto.
But there was one final surprise in store for us. Just as we were about to touchdown the plane suddenly accelerated and took off again. That was a first for me, and everybody on the plane was wondering what was going on. The plane began to circle over the ocean and head back to Porto, and after a while the captain announced that there was a dog loose on the runway, and that they would try landing again after it was safely captured. Everybody laughed at the story, and soon enough we landed safely and taxied to the terminal.
Maybe I’m cynical, but I had doubts that there was really a dog on the runway. If the pilot made some kind of mistake, or if there was some technical trouble with the plane, the last thing he would say on the announcement would be, “I made a mistake, let me try again.” I figured the dog on the runway was a funny situation that would make people relax, and then they could have a planeload of calm passengers for the second attempt. This is only my theory, though – who knows?
We got our bag quickly, cleared customs, and grabbed a taxi right away. We were the only people in the taxi line. The driver was very aggressive, and it was our introduction to Portuguese drivers. Thanks to his aggressive driving we made it into Porto very quickly. He took us to the address that I had shown him, and it was clear that it was a bad neighborhood. I was pretty nervous, until he realized he had made a mistake, and he took us around to another place. This might have been a way to get a little more fare – I wasn’t quite sure. However, the final destination was a much nicer area so it was with much relief that we got out and unloaded our bags. Our hotel was located on a busy shopping street, mainly filled with pedestrians. The streets were cobblestone, and the sidewalks inlaid with black and white tiles to form tasteful designs along each street. I really liked the architecture as well – most houses had tiles inlaid into the front with various colorful designs. We were off to a good start in Porto.
We checked into our hotel, the Grande Porto Hotel which was historic, clean, and very old-fashioned. We really liked our room – it was spacious, with a big modern bathroom, air conditioning, and a refrigerator. It was nice to know that for the next three nights we’d be very comfortable with plenty of room to spread out.
First item on the agenda was to go out and explore the city. I had a plan to go see the riverside, so I used the GPS application on my phone to lead us to one of the bridges on the river. I didn’t realize it, but we ended up on the top of the bridge, and all the stuff we wanted to see was at the bottom. It was dark, and we were a little wary of the vibe in the area. Since we didn’t know the town at all, we thought it best to head back to our hotel and get something to eat nearby.
Across the street from our hotel was a restaurant that had tables out on the street, so we grabbed a table and soon had some glasses of wine in front of us. The restaurant was called the “Majestic Café” and later we found out that it was famous. I’m not sure if it is famous for the food, the architecture, or the history, but we really liked it. Our waiter was really friendly and helpful, and he gave us lots of freebies. With our wine we ordered some dinner. Kuniko had duck cooked in port wine, and I had cod cooked in garlic oil, on top of boiled eggs and potatoes. My dish had a pretty dramatic presentation, and even the people at the table next to us wanted to take a picture of it. We finished the dinner with a couple glasses of port, and then went back to our hotel. Before bed we turned off our alarms and put out the “do not disturb” sign. That was a very busy day.
