A Weekend In Metz
At the crossroads of Europe, to discover Metz is like reading a history book. From the Roman era to the present day, centuries of history are carved into the stone, showcased by the golden limestone of Jaumont, spelling out the details of their heritage.
My friend Alejandro has been studying abroad in Metz (pronounced 'Mess') and since it was on the way from Munich to Paris, I decided to pay him a visit. Later, I scratched the idea of visiting Paris to spend more time in Switzerland, but I figured if won't be much of a detour to swing by.
As I got in pretty early at 6 am, I had to wait a bit for Alejandro to come get me. As we got to his place, we both were pretty tired - me from the crappy sleep I got on the train and Jandro from being up late the night before so we both passed out for a few hours. Later we decided to just make it a relaxing day and catch up, especially since the weather was pretty gloomy anyways. At some point we managed to get out to a supermarket to pick up a few things for dinner and a couple bottles of cheep(er) wine that turned out to be surprisingly good.
Feeling a bit guilty about not getting much accomplished during the day, we headed into town after dinner to check out some clubs. Apparently, Friday night is not the happening time in France (traditionally, Saturday night is the go-out-and-party night), so most of the places were already shutting down. We ended up staying at one club almost until close and then wondered back (quite a walk!). As we did not go to sleep until almost 4am, Saturday was not much different in terms of productivity.
Finally, on Sunday, we headed out for a walk around town. Being a provincial city, there was not much in terms of sight-seeing. Luckily, Alejandro knew his way around and took me to the Porte des Allemands arc, then through the gardens of Place Saint-Louis city center to Moselle river. The river walk took us to Temple Neuf next to the Opera-Théâtre and into the narrow streets of old town. Our last stop was Cathedrale St-Etienne - an impressive structure with high ceilings and huge amount of stained glass windows.
That was about it for the city highlights. I have decided to press on with my journey and, with Jandro's help, got the train ticket to Geneva for Monday morning.