Chaos Leaves Town

As I said last time, I took a day off, and stayed in the apartment all day except for a couple three interesting excursions. One was to see if my host was right about how close to the subway we were…he was…within walking distance so I didn’t have to bother with the bus unless I wished to. Then I toured the neighborhood looking for an ATM, an upscale grocery store, a nice bar, etc. Found all those things and more. But I didn’t bother with photos because I already had 700 pictures of places I’d been and knew I’d be putting most of them here on the blog. You’ll have to imagine a modern French city I guess. Here’s a shot of the apartments I was staying at. Up on the 4th floor right in the middle of the building. This part of town is kind of upscale with all sorts of high classed business nearby. My host, Youssef, gave me directions to a fancy ‘French’ restaurant and I thought I’d try it for dinner after I wandered around the neighborhood for a few hours. During my wanders, I did find some street vendors and one of them had a nice set of brass locks that would fit nicely on those wire under-the-bed drawers for luggage I found typical hostels have.

The apartment is on a quiet side street which ‘T’s into two main streets, both of which end up on a large 5 lane city street heading into downtown Paris. So though there was lots of activity nearby, it was very quiet here on this street.

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I was comfortable at the hostel, but it was time to move on since I had reservations for a flat in Paris that looked really nice on AirBnB. This morning was a traveling day and after my shower, gathered all my stuff up, carefully searched around for anything I might have misplaced, dragged my luggage downstairs, had breakfast and coffee, then turned in my key at the front desk.

Oh, that reminds me, I’d paid for 3 nights at this hostel, and the 2nd night I went up to my room around 11PM and my key card had been shut down. No longer worked in the electronic lock. Damnit. So back down to the front desk to make them turn it back on. There’s almost always a several person line checking in or out, or asking questions, day or night but at least the desk is manned 24/7. The advantages of staying here outweigh the disadvantages though…at least at this hostel, but it’s only the 2nd one I’ve ever stayed at (first one was that one night in downtown Naples) so we’ll see how the others stack up. When I was planning this trip, I’d research hostels in every city I’d planned on staying in and most cities had 3 to 25 hostels, depending of size of the city. Then I’d read through the reviews and some hostels sounded horrible. None of them had only great reviews, there was always something that someone didn’t care for. But, you wade through the reviews and make your best guess on a place to stay. I figured if a place had a 75% or greater ‘Liked’ rating, I’d stay there, and not if it was lower. That seemed to work for me fairly well so far, but like I said, I’d only stayed at 2 hostels in Europe so far.

After checking out, I’m back onto the subway, and 20 minutes later at the Eiffel Tower, only this time, dragging my carry on bag with my computer bag attached and lying on top. Weather had started to turn from incredibly good, to not so good, and I was wearing my light jacket to accomodate.

So here I was on the dock, below the tower, queuing up for the riverboat ride. Looking up at the tower you can see it’s a bit cloudier then yesterday. I was like the 8th or 9th person aboard, found a nice seat up topside where I had a great view. Can’t remember what it cost. Maybe 14€? After everyone boards, off we go.  There are several styles of riverboats, including dinner cruise types. The one below is an inclement weather type. It’s a working river so there are plenty of work boats around.

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Next morning in Paris, I’m up, showered, shaved, breakfasted and coffee-d by 8:45. Off I go on the subway to the closest subway station to the Eiffel Tower. Had to start with this map of Paris they gave me at St. Christopher’s Inn, just to find places I wanted to go. There’s two stations nearby the tower and they’re both quite the walk. Here’s the subway map I carried with me. Same map that was on every station wall of the system: Paris Subway.

I had to travel from the Gare du Nord station to the Champ de Mars station. Which required changing trains. Seemed like a potential mistake filled day but off I went.

And a short 20 minutes later, without mistakes in the subway travel portion, I see the tower in the distance and hoof it over there. Takes 12 leisurely minutes from the Metro station to this spot to take the picture. Mostly over parkland and crossing a couple streets. But there she is, the Eiffel Tower. They tore it down just after my visit in my honor so to bad for youse guys.
Those things hanging down from under her skirt are scaffolds for the remodeling. They’re making it easier to get up to the top.

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Next morning, up at 7:30 AM. Down to Belushi’s for breakfast of cereal and milk, some fruit, a little cheese, a cold cut slice or two, and coffee. At least the cereal was good. What am I saying…it was all good. Just not use too having cold cuts for breakfast is all. Then out front and wait on our tour guide. She shows up at 8:30 and 10 minutes later our group of 25 or so heads off to ride the subway. We’re within a 5 minute walk from the underground platform. This is part of the training to help us get around town. And it was helpful. The subway system is so big in Paris that it’s easy to be confused just because of the scale of the thing. The guide helps us all buy tickets at the machines, guides us to the correct platform and onto the subway. Fairly modern. Comfortable. Within another 10 minutes we exit to a plaza with some famous statue. And our guide hands us off to another guide waiting for us in the plaza. This one will be guiding us all 5-6 hours of the walking tour. No money is collected by anyone. These are free tours and if you feel like donating you’re welcome to but it’s not required. You can leave the group whenever you wish too.

Eventually, there must have been 100 people queuing up for guided walking tours here. Each group will be around 25 people. The guides all have formal training, and official sanction from the Paris government. We happened to be the first bunch that showed up. Very soon though the plaza was crowded.

I took advantage of the lull and had me a cafe’. Remember: “To err is human. To loaf is Parisian.” -Victor Hugo

These little cups of coffee are expensive. Have to learn to sip them instead of gulping them like at home. They are very strong so don’t really need as much. The little packets are sugar. Needed them. This one was like almost $5 USD.

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May 3, 2014, I board the train at Torino Porta Susa at 7:39. Yikes. Early. I got to the train station around 6:30 as well. So that means I got up at 5:30. That’s not me usually. Not on most trips. The train is heading to Paris Gare Lyon, with an arrival time of 1:23 PM (13:23). I wanted to get there early because it’s a huge city and I was a little confused of where the hostel was. I knew it was within walking distance though. And, after I arrived, I wanted to get a sample of that famous French cooking if I could along the route. But to start off, here’s some pictures of the Italian countryside and the Western Alps.

Very nice on the train. Comfortable. Sadly, no WiFi.

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The next day, back to the museum. I had spent 6 hours the day before and pretty much covered all the smaller items in the Egyptian collection, now it was time to go into the statuary section of the museum. I knew it would only take a couple hours based on the brochure, and I planned afterwards on going to another nearby museum that has a city history collection. There were no flash pictures allowed and it tended to be rather dark in this portion of the museum but I did my best to hold the camera steady. Some pieces had accent lighting so those pictures turned out well. Many of the others are rather shaky and just turned out OK. During my tour of this portion of the museum, I wished they’d turn the lights up. Some areas were just too darn dark. And the funny thing was that this statuary was solid stone! No paint anywhere to fade. I didn’t understand what they were trying to do with the low light levels. Mood lighting? For stone? It’s not like these pieces are rare and fragile oil paintings by the masters that might fade if there’s too much flash photography done.

Some of these were in excellent condition. And yet were thousands of years old. The vagaries of life, time, and history I suppose.

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The next day in Turin, I headed off to the world’s largest Egyptian museum outside of Egypt. Established in 1824 at the university based on a private collection plus the collection the university already had. I knew from reading that this was a large collection but wow, is it ever. And there are thousands of day to day objects missing from many other collections. Not everyone was a pharaoh and those objects help give a sense of what it could have been like for regular people. Egyptian history is fascinating.

First, I had to get there and this is what I found outside the apartment. It was coolish too. Was starting to wonder if I should just toss my cargo shorts and buy a sweater to take its place in my small bag.

You might notice how heavy the rain is in the above shot. It’s taken just outside this mall when it started coming down. The mall is kinda purdy. This was more of a business mall where the lawyers, accountants, and realtors hung out. Still, pretty building.

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The next couple days, I just spent wandering around new Pompeii, and visiting the malls, cafes, and shops near old Pompeii. Since I am traveling light, about all I could do was look and not buy. Oh, I did buy another shot glass for my bartender friend in Rosamond, California. With just a carry on bag and a computer bag, didn’t really have much room for trinkets.

I did need to find a place to stay in Turin so I didn’t waste all my time. A couple three hours were spent gathering information on what to see and do there plus finding a place to stay. Which I did eventually. My tablet computer with WiFi was really coming in handy. It’s got an built in unlocked phone too. Before I left the states, I’d bought ($8 USD) and installed a mapping program called Skobbler that included maps of all the countries of the world where I could just download the countries I’d be needing. Also bought a SIM for the phone built into my Android Tablet from a company in England. Both items were pretty handy while I was in Europe without a set itinerary (after Pompeii). I was constantly aware of how inconvenient it would be if my tablet was stolen so I kept a tight rein on it. One tricky thing I did was attach the computer bag to the metal handle tubes of the carry on bag instead of just plopping it on top. When you’re running for your next train, it could easily fall off or be stolen by a grab and dash thief without the little cables I’d found for the job.

Worked on my travel plan most of one day, but with a nice place to sit and enjoy the sunshine that came along occasionally between clouds. That table there on the right of the picture on the patio is where I’d set up and work. My room right behind. I did find the business card for the place: B&B Villa Rocla.

If I turned around, here’s the direction I’d go to get out on the street. The front door of the hotel was locked most of the time except when they expected someone. All the tenants like me would go in or out that electrically controlled, coded gate. It let out on a small & steep alley on the right just past that car gate which lead to the main street. And here’s the communal kitchen where I cooked my dinner every night. The lower part of that tall cabinet looking thing is actually the refer. Behind me in this pic would be the sitting room and then the door to the main street. Usually locked. The mama didn’t mind me hanging out in here because I’d always clean up after cooking my dinner or making a snack. And do all the dishes in the sink. Because that’s what I do. Thing is, this big of a place you’d think they’d install a dishwasher. They didn’t even have a dish rack so I’d just place the wet dishes on a towel and lean them up against the wall if possible. Not very convenient.   Continue reading →

My last post kind of ended suddenly, and what actually happened is that I walked to the little cafe that was just before the exit gates. Outdoor place, set up with a tiny kitchen and several quaint tables. Just the place to relax in the dappled sunshine of late afternoon in old Pompeii. Had some of their soup and a cappuccino to go with it. There’s free WiFi here but I didn’t bring my tablet. Ahh, relaxing. Then I walked to the east exit that I had a picture of in my last post, here. After leaving ancient Pompeii, and crossing the street right after all the strip malls and such, I noticed a RV park! Huh. I’ve gotta see that. So I walked in and checked it out. The prices per night were pretty much what I expected right outside an internationally known ruin, but what surprised me were the small parking spaces. They require a small RV. I couldn’t get my 37 footer in here, nowhere to park! This is a new RV park too. So my side dream of renting a big RV and touring Europe is out the window. This was just one of the two RV parks I passed on this street and they were both designed for small RVs. Nothing bigger then about a 24 footer. Most of them were without slides too.

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The next morning (April 24th, 2014), I again walk over to the ancient city of Pompeii. The weather is even nicer today, mostly sunny instead of mostly cloudy, so that’s good. My hotel is around a mile from the ruins and the 15 minute walk is invigorating plus it gives me the opportunity to scope out where other business are nearby. Turns out that this particular area is a little subdued. I’m not certain if it’s a typical Italian neighborhood or not. The street the hotel is on is kind of a main drag, at least during rush hours. Most of the business are closed up, or gated, or periodical. Up around the corner there’s a tiny hole-in-the-wall store that I got all my groceries at, then there’s a small coffee shop…oh, wait, two of them, very close together. Both of them serve food in the form of sandwiches and one of them is a full blown (though small) broasted chicken place. But they both do a brisk business with those tiny cups of Espresso. At outrageous prices (well, they do have to ship it all the way from Brazil…or rather they did in the 1800’s). Up and down that street, the same thing, very few open businesses. During my week here at the hotel, the neighborhood didn’t really seem all that lively. I’m not complaining, but it would have been nice to go out at least once. There wasn’t a club anywhere nearby so, didn’t get to do that.

This picture is looking up the street towards Pompeii, taken just across the street from the hotel. When I visit the ruins, I start by walking up this street until I reach the off-ramp from the freeway (where this street ends going in this direction) and then take a right. Onto another street heading east towards the ruins. I’d have to walk east on that street under a large overpass with the freeway above, past a couple fields of multiple kinds of vegis and some grapes for wine. Also by a casino of all things. Then I’d end up at a multi-mall area with numerous businesses on the ground floors of numerous hotels. Turned out that this was all right downhill from the Pompeii ruins.

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