To Float on the Wayward Wind

Before I headed to Paris I had always heard people murmur in low voices about the city and how wonderful, even magical, it is. Other people, in on the secret, would murmur back, "Oui, oui - Paris." I never understood this. I thought, yes I really want to go and yes it's such an iconic, historic city, but I don't know why I'll come away thinking of it the way the murmurers do. Yet come away with that perspective on Paris' magic I did. It was a whirlwind couple days, interrupted in the middle (wonderfully) by a day trip to Versailles and a three-day excursion through the Loire Valley. After some terrible difficulties with travel I finally arrived and made my way from Charles de Gaulle to the local area of my hotel. Immediately I was greeted by the Notre Dame as soon as I stepped out of the metro system. I could not have asked for a more impressive, iconic greeting welcoming me to the city of Paris. As it turned out, Hotel Henri IV was ideally located on the...

Well, it's been a while since my trip to Scotland - things have been so busy! I've decided to break up my blog posts into smaller chunks. So the trip to Scotland will follow in Edinburgh, then the Borders tour I took, then the Highlands tour. First, my whirlwind trip through and around Edinburgh itself, a day that lasted many, many hours. My train schedule was really screwy. I was told when I booked that the only available way to go was up to Sterling, north of Edinburgh, and then back down via a train change that was set to happen around 4:00am. When I was on the train to Sterling we stopped at a station called Edinburgh Waverly. Because trains can have similar names to places they are near but not be the station for that place, I did not get off here. After rousting myself before 4:00 to make the train change, though (a very cold endeavor), I took the train back to Edinburgh... Edinburgh Waverly. Anyway, I got there and checked into the hostel where I was staying, but of...