Hazel & Ted in Europe

What a great night's sleep in the Ibis! Convinced it would be noisy but never heard a thing and even Ted didn't wake up until nearly 9 am (admittedly 8 am at home). Up, shower and out, walking towards Notre Dame with breakfast on the way. Again, somewhat startled yet ? reassured by a group of 4 soldiers, in full battle gear (helmets suspended from the waist) patrolling the streets near our breakfast stop, taking up the stance of "watching each other's back" when crossing the road, as if on the streets of Kabul. Saw several groups of these during the course of the morning and again later at Gare de lEst. Many police (often unmarked cars but with a blue light on top) vehicles screaming up and down the streets also, making me wonder if there were more than the usual emergencies or whether they were just being over zealous. However, the tourists were plentiful as we walked down past the Pompidou Centre to Norte Dame, along by the Seine into the Gardens of the Tuileries, past the Louvre and then stopped again for some liquid refreshment before making a return meander back to the hotel. By this time the temperature had risen to 28/29 degrees, collected our bags and made the short hop to Gare de l'Est for the TGV to Munich. An elegant station, although they did charge to visit the Ladies, with an old style bit and a modern shopping centre with escalators-the first shop being an M & S Simply Food! Soon time to board the double decker train (yes, top floor for us!) and off we went precisely at 15.55. Very comfortable and rigidly on time at every stop (Strasbourg, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Ulm and Augsburg). Having booked forward facing seats, and having travelled backwards on the Eurostar, Ted and I were more than a little disappointed when, having entered Stuttgart station forward facing, we then exited it with our backs to the direction of travel and so we remained for the rest of the journey. The bar was a little minimalistic to say the least as we had planned to "have dinner" on the train, arrival time being 21.40. This, coupled with the fact that the sparkling French wine had run out, led to our decision to abandon the plan in favour of a Coke Zero for me, a couple of cans of Kronnenbourg 1664 for Ted and a shared packet of M & S chipsticks bought at St Pancras yesterday. C'est la vie!Leggi altro