Cruise Planners "On the Road" - River Cruising on AMA Waterways - Paris to Amsterdam on Ama Lyra - November 4-14 2014 - Naples to Paris - Days 5 &6 - Luxembourg, Embarkation, and Bernkastel, Germany

TGV High Speed Train

Day 5 started perfectly with luggage pick up promptly at 0800 - we wouldn't see our bags again until getting into our cabin aboard Ama Lyra eight hours later.  In the intervening time, we did a multi-mode trip to meet the ship at Remich in Luxembourg.  Leaving the hotel by motor coach at 0915, we had a narrated trip to the Gare de'l Este (East train station) where we caught a high speed train (verified as high as 192mph on my GPS) from Paris to Metz, France.  

Paris East Train Station

From Metz, we caught another guide-narrated motor coach ride to Luxembourg.  We ate lunch here in Luxembourg City - pretty city - food looked wonderful but was pretty blase' after eating in Paris for 4 days.

Downtown Luxembourg City - Cold and Wet

Grave of General George Patton

After getting back onto our coach after lunch and souvenir shopping in Luxembourg City, we re-boarded our bus; next stop - the U.S. World War II Military Cemetery between Luxembourg City and Remich.  The cemetery was somber but beautifully maintained -- according to our guide, most of those interred here perished during the Battle of the Bulge. It is also the final resting place of General George Patton - the reason his grave is separate is because the amount of foot traffic around it when it was with the rest of graves killed all the grass.  So now he rests in a separate plot.

US WWII Cemetery between Luxembourg City and Remich

A retreat allows private time to contemplate the triumph and tragedy of war

We re-boarded the bus one more time for our short trip to Ama Lyra.  Overall, we were extremely impressed with the coordination and logistics of our pre-cruise activities.  Our cruise director Uwe had everything in hand at all times and every leg of our trip, thanks to excellent local guides, was a learning experience.

Once we were off the bus, we walked directly aboard and had two wonderful surprises.  First, check-in took about one minute - a new all time record for cruise ship check-in.  Then we found out we had been upgraded - thank you Ama Waterways.

Re-united with our bags - we unpacked and got ready for the Captain's Dinner.  Dinner was fanstastic - starting with a crabcake and crawfish appetizer, followed by a medium rare sirloin steak and excellent dessert.  White and Red wine is included and accompanies each meal - really quite good.  

This specific cruise is known as the President's cruise because Ama's President & CEO Rudi Schreiner is on board.  We've spent time with him each evening and are learning a bunch about the cruise business from him.  After dinner, the party really got started...  With live dance music, we danced until 1am when we walked upstairs to watch Ama Lyra approach her first lock on the Mosel (or Moselle if you prefer the French spelling).  Then off to bed to recharge our batteries for our first day on the Mosel.

Cruise Planners "On the Road" - River Cruising on AMA Waterways - Paris to Amsterdam on Ama Lyra - November 4-14 2014 - Naples to Paris - Day 4 - Paris - Paradis Latin Cabaret and Musee' d'Orsay

Well, last night at Paradis Latin Cabaret was an experience that all should consider - especially if AMA Waterways in making your excursion reservations...  As noted yesterday, we couldn't have got the tickets and round trip transportation for the price we paid for the excursion.  Then our party of 6 was shown to the first table on stage left - outstanding!  Arriving at 8pm, we ate an included three course meal with accompanying Rose and Red wines - with champagne for the show.  Food was actually pretty reasonable for event fare - and our server managed to find us little bowls of vanilla ice cream to accompany our apple tarts.

How was the show?  Really good - yes there was a fair amount of feminine pulchritude in various states of costuming (or not) and masculine beefcake as well - all tastefully presented - interspersed with high boy unicycle and trapeze acts; and a very talented singer filling in a fast paced 2 hour set.  The dance numbers were modern, with excellent music and some innovative sets to boot.  And yes, the chorus line also did the traditional "Can Can" as well...

Our Program cover

We snuck this picture

This is the official picture - 10 Euros - not bad

Sorry - no pictures of the show - we'll leave that to your imagination...

So after a late night last night - after midnight - we got up leisurely this morning and fueled up at our included breakfast at the Pullman Montparnasse - the breakfast is ok - would we eat there if it wasn't  included?  Honestly, most likely not - but we have had enough energy to walk for 5 hours each day and delay our lunch until 2:30pm each of the last two days.

Directly from breakfast, we headed to Musee' d'Orsay via Rue Invalides -- hate to be boring but the sun was out, puffy clouds dotting the blue sky, and slightly warmer than yesterday.  The sun shining off of the gold enhanced roofs and monuments was truly magic...

Cafe Zazous in background

Les Invalides

Front of Les Invalides

Most beautiful bridge in Paris

Musee' d'Orsay

Beautiful Sky

Selfie at Musee' dOrsay

Lunch at the Bistro on the corner of Rue St Germain and Rue Raspail

We spent 4 hours walking through the three floors (0,2, and 5) of exhibits at Musee' d'Orsay.  Just as we had at the Louvre, we had bought tickets on-line at home.  We walked right in and had our tickets validated.  Wow - the Impressionist exhibits on the 5th floor were exceptional and set the stage for being able to see the influence from this period as it matured into the Neo-Expressionist period.  I think we also found our French ancestors in the sculptures of "Bourdelle" on the ground floor...

After the museum, we ate lunch at the bistro above - nice meal and this Bordeaux stuff is starting to grow on us...

But we weren't done...  about two hours after we got back, we saddled up again for a trip up to Mont Marche to see the Sacre Cour (Church of the Sacred Heart) and the night lights of Paris as part of the AMA Waterways tour.  We took a min-bus up to the Bohemian side of town and the heart of the "Red Light" district centered on the famous caberet, "Moullon Rouge".  From there our expert guide continued to narrate our track up the hill on a tram to reach Sacre Cour.  The weather was clear, windy, and cold but the moon was full -- better yet, when we entered the church, there was a service underway with nuns singing in the background -- you would think the timing was planned that way for us.  After a brief walk, we arrived at the main plaza where we were able to choose from about 10 different restaurants for dinner before resuming our tour 90 minutes later.

After dinner, we met everyone at the funicular for the trip down the hill and the brief walk back to our bus.  Our guide's monolog was both informative and entertaining -- including her non-plussed comments about some of the stunts being pulled around our mini-bus by Parisian drivers.  Made Valerie and I feel like we were back home in Napoli, Italy.

Then for the highlight of our evening, we arrived at the foot of the Eiffel tower just before the hour.  We were directly across the river and could see three sides of the tower - and then - the "twinkling" started - the entire tower began twinkling - no other way to describe it.  From what we were told, this event started with the Millennial and has continued since then despite cutbacks in the amount of time this is done each hour.  Open the short video below if you want to see what we captured last night

So, with our arrival back at the Pullman Montparnasse, our pre-cruise activities came to a close,  This morning, we put our bags outside our door at 0800; we headed down to meet Uwe our cruise direction at 0915.  All aboard our bus to Garde d'lEste (Paris' east train station) to catch our high speed train (TGV) to Metz.

Overall, I have to say we have been very impressed with the organization and execution of our AMA Waterways pre-cruise activities - we wouldn't have changed anything except for the hotel -- the location was excellent, but the accommodations were only so-so, and the hub bub in and around the lobby was much too convention like for our taste.

Cruise Planners "On the Road" - River Cruising on AMA Waterways - Paris to Amsterdam on Ama Lyra - November 4-14 2014 - Naples to Paris - Day 3 - Paris - The Louvre

The beauty of arriving in daylight after a large time change is that you can get outside and have the sun reset your Circadian rhythm.  So yesterday after arriving, we went out and about -- had pasta for dinner last night and piece de resistance -- an Ambien at bed time. Voila' - almost 10 hours of sleep last night - ready for the Louvre this morning.

We awoke with the sun shining, a slight breeze (<10mph), and crisp temperatures in the mid-50's, ready for our walk to the Louvre - took perhaps 45 minutes at a nice stroll mostly along Rue de Rennes to get to the Seine and our first look at the Louvre.

Valerie along the Seine

Jim with Louvre in the background

There was a slight line at the Louvre's entrance but as promised, if you buy your tickets ahead of time -- and you pay attention to the signage out front -- you skip right past all the people in line for tickets, and walk right in.  We had bought our tickets on line from home about a month ago and everything went perfectly.  We did the same thing with our Musee d'Orsay tickets - we'll see how those work tomorrow.

Val with Louvre entrance in background

Love birds enjoying themselves

So how was the Louvre?  Valerie and I had both been here before in other lives with other people -- but love, like art, is timeless, in the eye of the beholder, and depends on how light reflects on the subjects...  We think the sun was shining perfectly and just for us today, what do you think?

 

The exhibits - with the exception of the Mona Lisa were crowd-free and we had minutes alone in entire hallways with no one there except us.  A perfect way to contemplate 3000+ years of art and history.

We stopped at a little pizza place along Boulevard Raspail on the way back.  We split the pizza and had a glass of Chianti just because it seemed to fit.  All told -- according to Fitbit -- our walk there and back - with our walkabout in the Louvre -- encompassed 16,000 steps, 22 floors, and 7.31 miles.  Eating all this good French cooking, we better be walking everywhere!

Tonight, we are doing an AMA Waterways optional excursion to the Paradis Latin Cabaret -- we checked out all of the "Cabarets" before signing up -- this one is rated as the most authentic, provides good food and wine along with the show -- and having shopped it, price-wise we couldn't have beaten AMA Waterways' price.  I doubt cameras will be allowed tonight - and even if they were, I shouldn't be posting photos on a "G" rated blog.  Tomorrow - Musee d'Orsay....

Pizza, Chianti, and lots of Love...

Eating in Paris - or how to explain why I love French Cooking

Wow - two for two today within 15 minutes walking distance of our hotel.  We by-passed each and every traditional Bistro and Cafe - menus seemed just a little too confining - Steak Tartare, some kind of lamb, a Foie Gras, a Pate', Duck confit, etc - in other words traditional French dishes - and stopped at L'Atlantique for lunch because they had a broader selection.  A shrimp risotto that was to die for and an equally good traditional English fish and chips.  For dinner, another four blocks away on the other side of Galeries Lafayette Montparnasse, Cafe  Le Zazous met the challenge.  We each ordered a two course meal for 25 Euros - Valerie had a goat cheese stuffed crepe with honey dressing and salad as an appetizer with a sautéed scallop risotto for dinner.  I had a pasta with creme sauce, sun dried tomatoes and prosciutto and a chocolate souffle' with salted caramel for dessert.  This was accompanied by a very reasonably priced 2011 Pomerol which was delicious.  Will be doing some Trip Advisor-ing tomorrow on these restaurants; probably the hotel as well.  Two out of three positive reviews is a reasonable batting average, right?

Fabulous lunch at L' Atlantique

Eiffel Tower lighted up at night

Great Atmosphere at Cafe Le Zazous

Evil Dessert at Cafe Le Zazous

Did we mention that seeing the Eiffel tower all lighted up just down the street didn't suck either?  So Paris on day one, despite crazy traffic and a long ride -- an even longer wait in a pedestrian lobby of a businesspersons' hotel for a room to be ready - still makes you feel like you just have to live some part of your life here someday.  More pictures tomorrow... Have to sleep off the jet lag...

Cruise Planners "On the Road" - River Cruising on AMA Waterways - Paris to Amsterdam on Ama Lyra - November 4-14 2014 - Naples to Paris - Day 2

Arrival at Charles de Gaulle was perfect - our AMA Waterways arranged driver was waiting when we exited baggage claim at 0730.  Very smooth transition into a very nice and new BMW sedan.  Driver was wonderfully calm during the almost 3 hour (yes 3 hour) drive into downtown Paris.  Note to self - don't arrive in Paris on a weekday during rush hour.  Traffic was really bad -- at least Valerie got a little bit of sleep.

Rush hour traffic 

Once we arrived, we were met just inside the door by Uwe, a member of the AmaLyra cruise staff.  He gave us our Paris package and helped take our luggage over to check in where we were met by a surly hotel receptionist who informed us that our room wouldn't be ready before noon.  Note to self - as we have watched at least three sets of aircrew arrive from the airport and immediately get rooms, don't stay at hotels where all of the available rooms are waiting for folks who just got off the same plane you did but are wearing polyester jackets and skirts with stripes and things.  The hotel Pullman Montparnasse is not scoring points in our book; forget about check in and the clerk -- the lobby is completely non-descript and maybe a 3.5 star at best.   Considering how much we paid for this hotel, we would get our own hotel next time and see about meeting AMA Waterways pre-tours in the hotel lobby.  Maybe things will improve once we get into our room - we're hoping...  Another piece of intel has to do with eating in Paris on weekdays -- before noon, you can get a croissant, orange juice, etc - lunch doesn't start until 12:00 - so after flying all night you are going to be pretty hungry by the time things open to eat a regular meal.  We are definitely hoping things improve after we get into our room and something to eat.  After all, it is Paris...

*** Addendum...  We did get into our room only to find that the room assigned us - 1803 - had clearly hosted a smoker in the very recent past - including a burn on the carpet.  In a non-smoking hotel with a 150Euro fine advertised - the nicfix must be worth it I guess...  They moved us to 2101 - much better although for a hotel with a rack rate starting at 530 Euro's - I would consider the room underwhelming.  The location is great - but this is definitely a businesspersons' hotel not a leisure traveler's first choice.  Then we went to lunch just down the street - we'll eat there again and get pictures next time - fabulous is all we could say.

Pullman Montparnasse Lobby with Aircrews checking in

Cruise Planners "On the Road" - River Cruising on AMA Waterways - Paris to Amsterdam on Ama Lyra - November 4-14 2014 - Naples to Paris - Day 1

Two months back from Alaska's Inner Passage, we are back on the road -- or more accurately back up in the air - again.  We departed Naples this morning driving our one-way Dollar rental up to Regional Southwest Airport (RSW) in Fort Myers.  Renting one-way each direction is cheaper than using covered parking or taking a taxi.  RSW is compact and the rental car companies are on-site so it is a short walk across the street from drop-off to check-in counter (maybe 300 yards total).

We are flying United - after paying a fair amount for a coach class ticket - wondered why I continue to exhibit irrational brand loyalty when our upgrades across the water didn't come through... Well, first off, we got to choose our seats when we booked in the "Premier Zone".  So we at least have good coach seats across the water -- then, we were upgraded to First from Ft Myers to Newark.  Then when we got into Newark, since we are Star Alliance Gold and on an International segment, we get to use the United Club gratis -- just the ticket for a 5 hour lay over.  I guess flying 1.6 million miles on one airline still gets you something.

Assuming thing go according to plan, we will arrive at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris tomorrow morning and meet with our AMA Waterways rep for the transfer to our hotel.  Tomorrow we'll find out if booking your Paris museum tickets on line is the hot ticket...

New United/Continental livery

The United Club is busy on a Monday workday

Most beautiful traveling companion in the world

Trans-Atlantic Cruise Aboard Celebrity Reflections - April 26-May 12 - Spain Port Calls - Tenerife, Malaga, Cartegena, and Barcelona

First up,  Tenerife in the Canary Islands - our first land fall since Miami.  Arriving at sunrise on May 4th, we had spent 8 nights at sea, sailing about 180 hours to cover the 3870 Statute Miles (3370 Nautical Miles) at an average speed of almost 19 knots.

Sunrise over Tenerife

Pulling in behind Cunard Queen Victoria

To maximize our time ashore, we decided to take a bus tour.  We saw a very pretty, well kept town -- in both tourist and commercial districts.  The markets were well stocked, especially with fresh spices and flowers.

Heading out on our guided bus tour

Cobble stone streets in old town

Market in the background - beautiful clouds

Hills of Tenerife

Historic Building

We also did a couple of wine tastings - history of wine in the Canaries was very interesting - at one point in time, their wine was the most highly regarded in the world.  In our opinion, the wine we tasted was drinkable but we not interesting enough to take back to the ship.  What we did take back to the ship though were several of the local spice mixes which were reasonably priced and truly tasty.  We have used them since returning home and really love the variety they add to our meals.

Wine Tasting Location #1

History of Wine in Tenerife was really interesting

All in all, Tenerife was a very nice stop with friendly and warm people.  Next up, Malaga...