November 25 Cruise - Paris to Paris

 We leave for our first stop at 6:00 pm and wake up in La Rochelle -Guyon.  First excursion is a trip to the chateau with good uphill hike to the cliff top.  One interesting room was a cut out of the limestone cliff and then smaller holes out of the walls.  Pigeons would come to roost there at night and they would collect the poo to be used as fertilizer in their fields. There were over 200 of these cutouts for the birds.  Or next excursion was a coach ride to Auvers-sur-Cuse which the last home for Vincent Van Gogh.  He had many well received paintings here and was cool to see many of the places in those paintings.  

First excursion after stopping in Rouen is a day trip to Honfluer which a nice port city as the Seine enters the Atlantic.

Next up was a stop over at Omaha Beach and the museum for history lesson on the battle for Normandy. Nothing else to say.

 Next was a day stop at  Les Andelys which had a castle built by Richard the Lighthearted around 1200.  Not much left of the castle but it looks impressive on top of the cliffs overlooking the town. They also have a Norte Dame church but there is quite a few churches in France that use the Norte Dame name. 

 Last stop before getting back to Paris is the Chateau de Maimaison. Famous as the beloved home of Josephine Bonaparte, Napoleon's first wife, who bought it in 1799 and lived there until her death.

  We now head back to Paris for three nights before starting the Paris to Zurich leg. First we took the Metro down to the Louvre and did a tour by ourselves.  The only floor we visited was the European Art work.  This museum has a crazy number of works so I guess we will have to come back to check out one more wing.  Went on the Hightlights of Paris tour with an extended stop at Norte Dam Cathedral and then headed over to Versailles  for the castle created byLouie the 16th as he did not like hanging out in Paris.  This ended up being a problem for him in the end as the people of Paris started to feel disconnected.  Last stop before the next step was a nighttime visit to Paradise Latin Cabaret.  Much like Molin Rouge with very good performers.  

November 25 Cruise Paris to Zurich

The next cruise required us to bus over to ship with stops at Reims Cathedral and the cemetery memorial in Luxembourg.  This memorial contains over 5,000 American soldiers.  

First stop after getting back on the boat is Tier Germany  which was a big Roman city with some the best remaining ruins left north of the Mediterranean. 

 The next stop was Cochem Germany which included a tour of winery and then the Reichsburg castle that was originally built in the l1th century, destroyed in the 17th and then rebuilt. 

 Out next stop was Koblenz Germany which is where we enter the Rhine river.  We did a walking tour around town and then did a day cruse through the famous are with castles up both sides of the canyon, 

Next stop was the town of Mainz with a walking tour and a church with stain glassed windows designed by Chappel.  

Next stop was a bus ride to Worms where a lot of the Martin Luther action took place. In the afternoon headed over to Heidelberg castle which was destroyed and never rebuilt.

 Next stop is the town of Strasbourg where we did a town walk with a lot other history and one of the better Christmas Markets. 

 We then did a walking tour at Basel before heading by bus over to Zurich for two nights.  We did another walking tour of Zurich before heading home,  Up at 4:30 in the morning and got home about midnight and lost eight hours of time zones - that was a long day.