It was a wonderful four days stay in Paris last September 2014 when we had driven into Paris after spending a memorable school friends reunion in Groningen, Holland.
Paris has been a dream country and sure enough this is the reason why this single city attracts majority of tourists and travelers from around the world. We were lucky to see the major landmarks of Paris but due to shortage of time we still missed many.
Leaving Paris was not that easy and reminded me of Bonnie Tyler's song 'I was lost in France' time and again.
Passing by Austerlitz Viaduct
Austerlitz Viaduct is a single-deck, steel arch rail bridge crosses the Seine. It is used for the railroad traffic on Line 5 of the Parisian Metro Network. It links Gare d'Austerlitz on the left bank to Quai de la Rapée on the other side of the river.
Before we leaving Paris, we still had two destinations to visit: The Notre Dam cathedral and the Carrefour shopping centre. I have already written a separate post on visit to the Cathedrale Notre Dame.
Carreefour is a big multinational retailer chain, with its stores are spread around the world. In Pakistan it operates under the brand name of Hyper Star. We just had enough time to find a parking and visit the store and I was lucky to buy to pair of joggers - one of which though did not last my second Schengen trip and its sole gave away and thus my 24 Euros too!!
It was getting late and we had to cross Belgium and enter Germany through Holland to a German border town of Viersen where a lovely Pak-German family awaited us for our night stop over.
Belgium is perhaps the only country Schengen country which has street lights throughout its length of motorways. Unlike other countries, therefore, we had a well lit night drive through Belgium on deserted roads as it was late at night.
By the time we reached Viersen, Germany, it was almost one in the morning and the entire town of Viersen was asleep. Thanks to the excellent navigation of the BMW we were driving that we did not have to ask directions - even if we wanted to, there was no one around. So we reached dot in front of the house of Mr Qamar Baig, friend of a friend of mine, who was awake waiting for us. Since we were utterly late, Mr Qamar's German wife who had come from the work late in evening was asleep and we met her on the breakfast table in the morning.
A sleeping Viersen
Now we were back into Germany - but we still had a lot of travelling to do to reach Kiel from where we started our Schengen tour almost ten days ago. I will talk about our stay in Viersen, then a quick run through Düsseldorf.
Stay tuned for my remaining part of Schengen tour!!
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