Metz

Our second (and last) stop of the day was the city of Metz.  We really enjoyed looking around and saw some really neat sites.  Enjoy the pictures!!

We still aren't quite used to the narrowness of the roads over here!! :)

The parking garage was an adventure!! Very tiny and tight!!

Our van is not very large, but we thought we were going to scrape the top of it.  I wish we could have gotten a better picture but hopefully you can get the idea!  Do you see how the ceiling comes down in the upper right corner of the picture?  You drive under that going down to the next level!!

We're not used to seeing it quite so tight.

That's our van in the middle - I'm glad daddy was parking and not me!! :)

Shenandoah - poor thing, she was VERY spent by the end of the day.

We were having trouble finding a restroom (which thankfully we eventually succeeded at), but in the process we stopped at a Pharmacy.  We like to do things as natural as possible, so we were very excited to find that they carried homeopathics!!!  We were happy to be able to stock up on a few that we were running low on and the prices are so much better than in the states.  The gentleman that worked there spoke a little English and I think that he was surprised to hear that pharmacies don't carry them back home and that we have to order them online.  

We stopped at a little cafe (yay! they had a restroom!) and...

...had some French coffee!!  It was nice to warm up a little!!

We were hungry (as it was 2:00 and we hadn't eaten lunch yet), so we set out to find a place to eat.  The difficulty wasn't in finding a restaurant (there were so many choices!), but in finding one that was open.  We learned by experience that restaurants close at 2:00 until dinner!! :)  But we ended up finding a delightful patisserie and enjoyed some delicious treats!!

It had several little levels and we ate on the top!

The food was delicious!!!  I don't like quiche, but I learned that the French really know how to make it because it was wonderful!!! :)

After we ate we went to the Cathedral St. Etienne which is one of the tallest cathedrals in France and also has the largest expanse of stained glass of any other cathedral in the world.  This is a back view.

View from the side

A closer look

The front

Close up on the entrance

Inside

(I may have gone over board with all of the pictures, but it was neat to see all of the stained glass and intricacies )

The younger ones weren't too keen on the images :)

We went down into the crypte which was interesting... I didn't realize until AFTER we came out that I wasn't supposed to take pictures.  Oh well!  I'll just post a couple...

The design on the floor was amazing - this crypte actually dates back to the time of the Romans!

This was an interesting story. :)  If you click on the picture it should make it larger

The Graoully came back to life!!!

Daddy and all of us

Mommy and all of us

After going to the cathedral, we went to a French market!!  It was really neat!!  

The fish smelled like...fish!! :)

It was so fun to see all of the stands

The last thing we wanted to see was the Saint Pierre aux Nonnains Basilica which is the oldest church in France with sections dating back to the 4th century.  We didn't actually get out here because everyone was frozen and trying to thaw at that point!! :)