We enjoyed our short time here in the Black Forest.  We arrived in Baden-Baden by train yesterday afternoon from Paris and checked into the Holiday Inn Express.  We then walked downtown and to the Christmas Market which we found out is nearly all food booths.  We bought some tasty treats including Glühwein (hot wine) for me and Kinderpunch 🙂 (hot grape…

The Jeanne d’Arc statue near our apartment has been adorned with a Rudolph nose (of course) which has fallen to her shoulder.  Another set of statues that are part of a fancy fountain at Place de la Concorde has also been fitted with red noses which, thankfully, have stayed on.  We had to buy some…

Our Eiffel Tower tour guide on Tuesday was the same one we had in the catacombs which was fine with me because she’s a wealth of knowledge with a dry wit and speaks fairly quickly; none of which is an accurate descriptor for our Versailles tour guide the following morning, but I guess that’s why…

I forgot a few things on the previous post…   Saturday we toured a farmer’s market, bakeries, and other local food outlets with Lydie, our tour guide.  Did you know there are stores that just sell cheese?  I bought a few kinds among the hundreds of varieties available at one of Paris’ many fromageries.  The kids ate…

Did you know Jim Morrison’s dad commanded the American fleet in the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin confrontation?  We saw Jim Morrison’s grave today at the 110-acre Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris’ 20th arrondissement which is what led me to want to read more about Morrison on Wikipedia. The cemetery is one of the most beautiful…

Remember plaster of Paris from elementary-school art class?  It’s made from gypsum which is one of the mineral deposits upon which Paris is built.  For centuries, and possibly millennia, Parisians quarried the limestone and gypsum left by the ancient sea that used to cover this portion of France.  The result is a swiss-cheese effect –…