Nancy

Back in November I had yet another meeting in Paris. (At this point, I was going roughly monthly. While this might sound like fun, taking the 7 hour train trip there and back for one night in a hotel and a 4-5 hour meeting is really not so great. This trip was made more difficult than usual because Air France was on strike at the time. While I don't usually fly (it's easier to work on the train, and by the time I get to an airport, through security, and then back downtown in Paris, it doesn't really save any time), it meant that all the trains from Frankfurt to Paris and back were fully booked. Unlike most trains in Germany, this route requires a reservation, so when the train is fully booked, you can't get a ticket and then just sit or stand between the wagons. (Not that I'd want to do that for the four hour trip, but it wasn't an option.)

The solution that the travel agent suggested was getting the train in the evening before, and then staying an extra two nights in Paris, and returning on Saturday night, when there was room on the trains once again. While a short vacation in Paris might sound fun, it's not nearly as fun when you're travelling alone, and Jeremi couldn't come meet me there Friday night after work because, of course, all the trains were fully booked.

So we found another solution. I took the train from Paris southeast to Nancy instead, and Jeremi took Friday off work, rented a car, and came to meet me in Nancy for the weekend. We then drove back on the Sunday night.

Nancy was lovely, and we had lots of delicious food and drink (mostly beer) from the region (Lorraine). We really did a lot of eating, partly because it was unusually cold while we were there, snowing even (!). For us, walking from one cafe or restaurant until we were ready to eat something else in another cafe or restaurant was pretty well a perfect weekend. We also managed to go grocery shopping while there, so we had a fridge filled with good French groceries to start the week Monday morning, which was wonderful.

We didn't take many photos, but did get a couple of some of the grand squares scattered throughout the city.


The other highlight of our trip was a trip to Le Musée de l’École de Nancy, with an incredible collection of Art Nouveau furniture and decorative works in a house built in the Art Nouveau style. I can't remember if we weren't allowed to take pictures there, or if we just forgot the camera, but we seem to have no photographic record of it at all. Nonetheless, I loved it.

(On the Sunday night we were heading back to Jena for 7:00 or so, for supper at our friend Rona's place, but we completely got lost on the way home. Not that we didn't know where we were, but we missed a turn-off while chatting and enjoying the drive, and didn't notice until we were in Kassel - about 100 km north of where we should have turned east. Whoops...)