We had had quite enough of walking from our hotel to Mont Saint Michel, especially whilst carrying all of our fully loaded backpacks, so we spent some time figuring out the local bus schedule and paid for a bus ride back to the visitor center. Navigating local transportation in a foreign language is always a bit of a challenge at first. We were having trouble finding the bus stop, and the first few people we asked didn't speak English, but we managed to point and gesture our way to the right spot on time.
We arrived at the Mont Saint Michel visitor center with enough time for the kids to explore the interactive displays a little bit before our bus back to Rennes arrived. I used the time to run over to the market shop to buy some food for our long journey back to Switzerland ahead. Most places here seem to charge for shopping bags, which I had forgotten, so I ended up buying a reusable bag with a picture of the mont for about $2 - not a bad souvenir, I guess.
Today our plans were pretty much riding buses and trains all day long, from 10:18 am at Mont Saint Michel all the way back to Zurich at 10:26 pm. First was the local bus ride for about 5 minutes. Then the coach bus to Rennes for about 70 minutes. Then a train ride back to Paris for about 2.5 hours.
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| Entertaining ourselves on the train with felt jack-o-lanterns |
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| Once again the clay saves the day! The kids have gotten so much entertainment from this clay - totally worth the $3 I spent on the clay and the $3 I spent on plastic containers to carry it in! This is a clay Link playing an ocarina. |
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| More mini-Links, as Zelda is a common theme during their clay play. |
We had a layover in Paris of about 3.5 hours, which we thought might be just enough time to visit the Catacombs. We decided to give it a try, and rented a storage locker at the train station so we wouldn't have to carry our full backpacks around the city. We all got our hopes up, as we got on the Paris Metro and it appeared we would make it, but much to our dismay there was a very long line to get into the catacombs. We stood in it for a little while, but it was clear that we would miss our train to Zurich by the time we got inside. It was disappointing, so we'll have to make sure to see this the next time we visit Paris! (I definitely want there to be a next time!)
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| The Lion of Belfort, by the same sculptor as the Statue of Liberty, created to commemorate French courage and honor during a castle siege in 1870-1871. This is located in the same square as the catacombs. |
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| We bought them treats to cheer them up! We visited a French McDonald's and bought something not available on the US menu. These were "frappes" - bubblegum, vanilla, and chocolate flavors. It was also neat because we ordered using a touch screen. |
We were quite close to one of the largest cemeteries in Paris, so we decided to walk around in there instead to pass the time until our train to Switzerland.
Then it was back on the Paris Metro one last time to get back to the Gare de Lyon station where our high speed train to Zurich awaited us. This one was the longest one of the day - a four hour trip.
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| We try to buy snacks we don't see in the United States. These were called "Monster Munch" and were ham and cheese flavored chips shaped like little ghosts. The kids and I all liked them, but Joe was not a big fan. |
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| Lily really wanted to get these Lion bars. In the commercials, as soon as you eat them you roar really loud like a lion. She was a little disappointed it didn't actually work. Here's her silent "ROAR!" |
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| More pumpkin faces! |
By the time we got on our last train from Zurich to Pfaffikon SZ, Lily was tuckered out! Luckily Malorie met us with their car at the train station to give us a ride back to her house, because I'm not sure how we would have got Lily to walk that far! It was after 11:00 pm when we finally got settled in, but finally all six of us were together in Switzerland!
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