Week 1 - Trier, Paris and Antwerp

We started our journey on May 13 with a short 2h flight from Atlanta to Chicago and a 4h stopover there before we continued with Lufthansa's 747-800 on the 8.5h flight to Frankfurt. We had booked our tickets with United miles and were lucky enough to score Business Class fares for the longhaul section of the flight. Lufthansa's brand new longhaul international Business Class offers full flatbed seats, a real treat for Matt's long legs, as well as an amazing 3 course meal and a great Riesling to go with it. 

The flight was a bit bumpy so we didn't get quite as much sleep as we had hoped but it was still a great flight. We breezed through immigration and customs (no lines!), and my dad picked us up outside for the 2h journey back to Trier. 

It didn't take long for my parents to start serving us delicious food and wine and we continued to eat and drink pretty much all evening.

The next day the weather wasn't in our favor so we decided on visiting the Rheinlandpfälzisches Landesmuseum to learn about the Roman origins of the region and Trier's historical status as the oldest city of Germany and the former capitol of the Northern Roman Empire. It was then called Augsta Treverorum and the city today is still full of Roman ruins, including a full amphitheater, thermal baths, the big black gate called Porta Nigra and many more. It is also home to the largest ever discovered gold coin treasure from the Roman Era.

We finished off the day with dinner at my dad's favorite place on earth, Mannebach, where the owner even displayed one of his paintings. 

The next day we drove the 150km to the French city if Nancy and spent the day strolling through the beautiful town center, palace, park and a dedicated Art Deco museum.

Sunday, we ended up just relaxing and having a few drinks with my high school friend, Eva. 

The next day we got ready to take a 1:30m train to Paris via Saarbrücken but were alerted early in the morning that the high speed ICE train we were supposed to catch in Saarbrücken wasn't stopping there anymore due to a freight train derailment on the track about 100km away. This meant that we had to catch an alternative route via Luxembourg with the French TGV instead of the German ICE that we had bought tickets for. My parents ended up giving us the 40min ride to Luxembourg so we could catch the earlier train that would eventually get us into Paris on time as planned. 

From the Gare du Nord train station we took a 6 stop metro ride and a 15min walk to our hotel in the Northwest of the Montmartre district. It was possibly the smallest hotel room I've ever been, barely enough for our suitcases to fit past the door and bed but also very stylish and modern. It had been completely renovated in 2011, which was one of the reasons we had chosen it.

After freshening up a bit, we started exploring our neighborhood, through the tiny cobble stone streets of Montmartre and up various steps to the Sacré-Cœur cathedral.

We spent about 2 hours just walking around, enjoying a drink in a street cafe and figuring out our dinner plans. We followed positive Yelp reviews to a small place and were amused by finding another American couple at the table next to us. They had also been drawn to the place via Yelp. 

5/19

Our first full day in Paris was filled with standing in line. We had decided to hit up the catacombs first thing in the morning but due to the bottle of red wine at dinner the night before, we didn't make it to the catacombs until 10 minutes before they opened. The line was wrapped around the block and we ended up standing in line for 1.5h before we finally made it down underneath the streets of Paris.

The catacombs are definitely one of my highlights from this trip already, beautiful and  creepy at the same time. They were essentially limestone mines that ended up being use as bone dumps because the city's cemeteries had reached unsanitary levels of overcrowding in the 18th century. So one by one, they ended up dumping old bones to make room for new graves, and eventually they started arranging then in the beautiful patterns they are still in today.

After we reemerged from the catacombs, we grabbed some lunch at a nearby store and then headed to the Jardin du Luxembourg nearby, where we strolled around for a bit and then headed to the Elise Saint Sulpice.

Next was a quick stop at the Pantheon where we decided not to go in but walk to the Notre Dame cathedral instead. 

Just after we reached the cathedral, it started to rain so we hid out under our umbrella for a while until the rain passed and we could continue.

We had originally planned to then go to the Centre Pompidou but when we arrived, we were surprised to realize it was closed. We then hopped back on the Metro and went to the Rodin museum instead. 

Once we got back to Montmartre, we quickly found a good dinner place by the hotel and fell into bed, exhausted from at least 8 miles of walking. 

5/20

The next day, we slept in a bit longer and went to the Louvre first thing after leaving the hotel. We spent a good 2-3 hours there, enjoying pretty much every single one of the permanent collections. 

From the Louvre we walked through the entire Jardin des Tuileries and then hopped on the metro to the Musee Moderne de la Ville de Paris before walking over the Eiffel Tower.

As our last stop of the day, we walked by the Hotel National des Invalides. After a long metro ride home we got dinner and fell into bed. 

The next morning we had a 10:30 am Thalys train to catch from Gare du Nord to Antwerp Centraal Station. 

5/21

The 2.5h train ride from Paris to Antwerp was very pleasant. The Thalys is a comfortable high speed train with stylish pink and orange seat colors ;-)

We got off at Antwerp's Centraal Station and walked the approximately 10min to our hotel. Antwerp's main train station is easily one of the most beautiful in the world. Amsterdam's is getting pretty close if you ask me but this is just so pretty. 

The area surrounding the train station and our hotel is what is known as the Diamond district with several dozen jewelers, diamond trades, the International Diamond Bank and generally everything involved in the diamond market. Matt really did not like the idea of his wife being surrounded by that much bling. 

After freshening up, we walked through the nearby Stadspark, a nicely groomed little city park that featured a lot of monuments and statues as well as a lake. 

From there we made our way through the theatre district without a real target, just wandering around until we decided to settle for a drink at a nearby cafe where we ordered two "bollekes", which is their local beer De Koninck served in the typical Belgian chalice style glasses.

From there we tried to walk further towards the water and North to eventually hit the main town center with the cathedral etc. Antwerp really has a lot to offer. With roughly half a million inhabitants, it considers itself the Fashion and Design Capital of Belgium. The city is filled with cobble stone streets, old architecture, modern design, plenty of shopping and plenty of bars to fill up on Belgian beers and delicacies. 

After a walk along the river front, we made our way east into the city center again and eventually came to the Saint Paulus church. Entrance to the beautiful courtyard and church itself was free so we went in. 

Starting to get hungry we then stopped by a sandwich place and enjoyed two "belegde broodjes" on the market square. Having now located the center of town, we identified the main shopping streets, much to Matt's dismay, where we went to buy a new jacket for me because my leather jacket had left me freezing for several days at that point and I was ready to give up. 

To Matt's horror, even the shopping malls are gorgeous in Antwerp.

At that point we were pretty exhausted and went back to the hotel so I could take a quick nap before dinner. We had seen a place called Amadeus near the Saint Paulus church that had an interesting old interior and advertised spare ribs as the best ribs in town. They turned out to be correct. 

We took a short metro ride and walk to the restaurant and both ordered the massive rib plates that came with a side salad and a potato with an unidentifiable butter substance in it.

Turns out, it was a delicious butter curry mix that went incredibly well with the sweet ribs. 

We ate and drank so much that we skipped the Metro and walked all the way back to the hotel and fell into bed. We did notice that Antwerp is also stunningly beautiful at night. 

5/22

This was going to our only full day in Antwerp so we tried to get it all in. We started off with the Rubenshuis, which is Paul Peter Rubens' estate that was turned into a museum, right in the middle of Antwerp's shopping district. 

The place was definitely worth its money and not only what is probably the largest collection of his paintings, it also gave a good insight into life during the times as we walked through rooms filled with antique furniture, his collections and possessions. 

We were starving by the time we left the Rubenshuis and proceeded to try out Belgian Fritten, their specialty, otherwise known as french fries with mayo. 

Then we finally got to see the Stadthuis, the city hall, and the town square by day and it was equally beautiful

We decided against going into the big cathedral as it seemed a bit expensive and was probably more beautiful from the outside anyway. 

Next, we walked back over to the water where we'd seem them set up for a food truck festival which we had eagerly awaited. It wasn't open until 5pm so we had to spend some more time walking around and hitting up a few Belgian Beer Bars to Matt's delight.

Once the festival opened we indulged in several types of street food and just sat in the sun by the water until it was time to move on. I have to say that the food trucks were way more creative in their styling that the ones in San Francisco. SF, you're been one-upped on the hipster scale.

On the way home we made one more pit stop at a bar called Beer Kafetaria. I liked it because it featured a French Bulldog in the logo and touted various beer selections. We were not disappointed.

Stuffed, we made our journey back to the hotel. Thankfully, all that walking helps you digest all that warm camembert with honey we ate.

Week one accomplished.