Paris, France - Day 1
Friday, April 12, 2024
Our day began in Schwäbisch Hall, Germany at the Rebers Pflug Hotel. We all woke up hungry after our less-than-wonderful fancy dinner last night. Even Tory said she felt ready to eat something substantial this morning which might’ve been the first time all week.
The online reviews raved about the breakfast served at this hotel, and we found their remarks to be spot-on. Germans really do breakfast right! It wasn’t a large spread of food by any means, but the quality of offerings were gourmet and delicious.
The breakfast buffet was served in the small dining room near the front desk lobby. A selection of homemade jams, sliced cold cuts and local cheeses, granola, yogurt, fruit, and freshly baked breads were provided. The restaurant had a wide assortment of high-end teas to choose from as well as coffee, hot chocolate, and juice for beverages.
The woman working the breakfast dining room was so friendly and accommodating. She spoke great English, and chatted with us about our family’s travels and our next stop in Paris.
After breakfast, the four of us grabbed our bags from our hotel room and lugged them down the four flights of stairs to our rental car in the parking lot outside. Our original plan was to drive to Stuttgart, Germany this morning to catch the high-speed train to Paris, but all the tickets on the trains going out today were sold out. Therefore, we booked train tickets departing from Frankfurt to Paris. Andi wasn’t super excited about this option as it meant dealing with a bigger, busier city so he decided that dropping off our rental car at the Frankfurt Airport would be the most seamless option. From the airport, we’d take the commuter train to the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (central train station) to catch our connecting train to Paris.
Total drive time took us about two hours from Schwäbisch Hall to the Frankfurt Airport, and honestly driving there was a breeze along the German Autobahn. Since the highway is federally controlled, there’s very few on-and-off ramps and limited access to towns along the way. This makes for a speedy drive between destinations as traffic flows smoothly along the highway. We did make one stop along the way at a service station to recharge our electric vehicle before returning it the company. Andi realized there had been a pre-set on the charging capacity which had only been allowing us to charge the car up to 80%. That might’ve been why we felt like we burning through a charge so quickly!
Dropping our rental car off at the Frankfurt Airport provided to be a smart choice. The exit was right off the Autobahn, so we didn’t have to drive very far in the city of Frankfurt. Andi’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when the Hertz rental car employee at the airport handed him the bill for our four-day car rental. Our rental car ended up costing far more money than we were expecting; the tax charge alone was 30%! Hertz even charged us for an extra day’s rental because we were 10 minutes late in returning the vehicle.
Andi thought we were overcharged, and marched straight to the Hertz rental car counter as soon as we entered into the airport building. He talked to the employee there for about 20 minutes or so, and yes — they overcharged us compared to the agreed-upon rate. In the end, he saved us about $100 off our total bill. There was nothing we could do about the 30% government tax rate though. In the end, renting a car in Germany was one of the most expensive things we did during our entire three-month European vacation. Germany, as a whole, has been the most expensive country we’ve spent time exploring in this spring.
By now it was about 1:30pm. Andi and I figured we’d have the best selection for lunch options at the Frankfurt Airport so we decided to eat here before taking the commuter train to the Frankfurt Central train station. I was craving those delicious German sausages we enjoyed at the Munich Airport earlier this week, but unfortunately I didn’t see that same restaurant here. In fact, our food choices were quite scrappy in this area of the Frankfurt Airport.
Andi decided to order lunch from a restaurant called Best Worscht in Town while Tory, Aden, and I opted for McDonalds. I’m not a huge McDonalds fan, but sometimes it’s faster and easier to order food from a kiosk (no need to talk to anyone) and get food exactly as you’d expect it. Our McDonalds meals were ready in minutes whereas Andi’s meal took much longer to prepare. Tory swears McDonalds’ quality of food is better in Europe.
Andi ordered the daily special from Best Worscht in Town which was a curry sausage and fries. It turned out to be a German sausage with a heap of curry seasoning dumped over it, and fries with a glob of mayonnaise on top. Honestly, his meal was inedible. “Why can’t anything be easy?” he muttered, feeling hungry and defeated. I shared some of my quarter pounder cheeseburger with Andi, and between the kids and I, we had enough McDonalds french fries left to pass around.
Disappointed in the quality of our last German dining experience, we left the Frankfurt Airport food court area and located a bank of train kiosks for purchasing tickets. The kiosks were so confusing, and Andi couldn’t figure out which tickets we needed to buy to get to Frankfurt Main. There weren’t any customer service employees around, or actual ticket stands; only these electronic ticketing kiosks. We were currently in the basement of the Frankfurt Airport, not even sure where we were suppose to go to find the commuter trains. Every directional sign posted throughout the airport was written in German. Another traveler stopped us to ask where he could find the commuter trains, so I know we weren’t the only ones confused.
“Screw this!” Andi said. “We’re taking a cab.” Why on Earth we even attempt to mess with train travel is a mystery! For Americans who aren’t used to traveling this way, it’s such a headache figuring out where to go. Not to mention, the commuter trains are always packed with people and disgustingly dirty.
The four of us walked upstairs to the main level of the Frankfurt Airport, and found the front of the building where a long line of cabs were waiting to take passengers to their destination. “Where to?” the cab driver asked us. “Frankfurt Central train station,” Andi responded. “You know you could’ve just taken the train there,” the cab driver said. “It’d have been cheaper.”
Yeah, we know. It’s not as easy as it seems!
I still wasn’t sure we were in the right place when we arrived to Frankfurt Main. None of the train boards listed a high-speed ICE train to Paris. Most of the trains listed on the boards were a different train company than ours. Was this one of those instances where the board said a different location name because its final destination was somewhere further down the line? Andi tried asking someone at a train ticket counter, and the lady very rudely let us know that she didn’t work for TGV (the train company we purchased our tickets from) and therefore, it wasn’t her problem to help us find our train. I watched the train boards obsessively the next 20 minutes until I finally saw our train number displayed. We were in the right place. Phew! I could finally breathe.
It was just past 4:00pm now, and our train didn’t depart for Paris until 5:30pm. Andi left the kids and I in the terminal to go buy food to take with us on the train for dinner. We weren’t due to arrive in Paris until 8:30pm tonight, and Andi knew we’d be hungry and tired by the time we arrived at our airbnb. There were a few kiosk-style restaurants and convenience stores in Frankfurt Hbf, but nothing we could take with us on the train. Andi searched throughout the terminal, and then ended up walking down the street to find a grocery store. Along the way, a homeless person started yelling insults at him, and then that guy got into a fist-fight with another bum. Andi said there were people strung out on drugs all over the place — definitely not a safe place for a family to walk around in the city.
Meanwhile, Tory, Aden, and I camped out in a free space of the terminal and watched the minutes tick by. Andi returned a short time later with a shopping bag full of snacks and convenience foods for dinner. God bless Andi, and his willingness to find provisions for our dinner. He recounted all the drama he’d seen on his walk to the grocery store — yikes!
I had some postcards from the kids that I really wanted to mail before we left Germany, so the four of us walked around the main station for a while before it was time to board our train. I mailed the cards, but there wasn’t much else to see or do.
Around 5:00pm, it was finally time to board our train. Andi splurged, and bought us seats in Classe 1 which meant we had comfortable, pre-assigned seats together with a little table in between. The best part was that it was peacefully quiet in our train car!
We waited until the train departed to dig into our dinner bag. Andi scored some great finds — bread and Nutella, sliced turkey and cheeses, meat sticks, two kinds of hummus and spreads, fruit, chips, crackers, and chocolate.
Whatever this “meat” salad was made of was very tasty!
Total time from Frankfurt Hpf to Paris Est was 3 hours and 40 minutes. At one point, the high-speed train reached a speed of 195 mph, and we definitely felt the velocity! The suction of the train speeding through tunnels along the way took my breath away.
Somewhere in the French countryside, our train slowed to a stop on the tracks. The train conductor announced over the loud speaker what was happening, but his message was in German and French so I have no idea what he was saying. We waited at a standstill on the train tracks for about 20 minutes before the train took off again. This delay caused our arrival time into Paris to be pushed back about 45 minutes.
All in all though, European high-speed trains are a very comfortable way to travel. Nice, comfortable seats, a quiet environment, free internet access, and a quick way to get from place to place. Travel by high-speed train is a better customer experience than flying on an airplane, though the rigmarole of buying a ticket and figuring out where to go is the same.
We arrived to Paris’ Gare de l'Est railway station around 9:30pm, and took an Uber to our rental airbnb located in the 3rd arrondissement (district) of the city. I don’t like arriving to a new place in the dark because it’s really hard to find my bearings. The Uber driver dropped us off at the entrance of an alley with construction particle-board on the ground. We walked down the residential alleyway until we located the airbnb address, but there was no key for the unit in the lock box. Hmm.
Andi messaged the airbnb host, and she seemed equally confused. She told Andi to locate another lock box hidden in some bushes toward the end of the street near an open courtyard. We found the lockbox she described, and there was a key in there. OK, good! We had a key to the airbnb apartment. It was 10:30pm by now, and we were all exhausted from a long day of travel.
Except, when we opened the door to the airbnb it was a disaster inside. A woman greeted us at the door, and looked just as surprised as we were. She apologized, explaining that she was the hired housecleaner. She didn’t think we were coming to check into the apartment until tomorrow. Ugh. Now what?
Really, there was only one thing to do — Andi asked the cleaner how long she’d need to finish the job, and she responded that it would take her two hours to complete. We told her we’d leave and come back then. Tory and Aden were so confused. “But I don’t want to go get something to eat now,” Tory pleaded with Andi. The finish line on this long travel day was so close! We were all more than ready to collapse into bed for the night.
We didn’t have a choice though. Our rented apartment was occupied for the next two hours. Luckily, Paris is a city that never sleeps and there were plenty of restaurants open and people out-and-about on the town.
The four of us walked for a few blocks around the 3rd arrondissement before settling on a bar/restaurant with open seating inside. Andi and I ordered two aperol spritzes, and the kids each ordered Cokes. Andi also ordered mozzarella sticks and a platter of french fries to share. At least the loud music blasting in the restaurant kept us awake until it was time to walk back to the apartment.
The woman who’d cleaned our apartment apologized profusely for her mistake, and the airbnb host was also very gracious in deducing our bill by half. We’d already got a great rate on this apartment rental due to our last-minute booking, so Andi was feeling pretty good about the bargain.
The cleaner had tears in her eyes when she explained that she’s going through a lot right now. She is originally from New Jersey, but has lived in Paris for the past 10 years. Her father is terminally ill, and on Monday she’ll be flying home to see him one last time before he likely passes away. My heart went out to her after losing my own dad earlier this year. I completely understood how all-consuming the grief could be. And, it was no big deal — we were still able to get into our rented airbnb tonight. Or, tomorrow? Whatever way you want to look at it, as it was now 1:00am.
This airbnb was a very nice space with two bedrooms, one bathroom and a kitchen/living area. Technically, Andi and I’s bedroom also had a shower in it, so maybe they classify this as two bathrooms? That part was a little strange.
Nevertheless, we were so glad to finally be in Paris with safe, warm beds to sleep in tonight. We have the whole weekend to explore Paris, and then we’ll fly home to the United States on Monday.
