Next morning, we visited the castles of France.First, we visited Le Château de Pierrefonds.
You must see how macho I looked in the outfit of the
Knight of the Roundtable.
The architecture of Pierrefonds is rounded like the fort in Arabian lands, or like the moors of the Normandy era. At one angle, it made me feel like Robin Hood. Anyway, history had recorded the rule of the Arabs in Spain including the southern France for about 500 hundreds years.
It was natural that the architectures of the Arabs had some influence on the building of these castles in France.
This is now a post from one of the small windows of Pierrefond castle. The scenery of the river was so enchanting that I couldn't help it and want to record it in the camera.
The second castle we visited was Le Château de Shantilly. This castle had an Anglican architecture.The French do spent their time visiting these castles over the weekends. Even youngsters were seen lingering in the castles.
The roofs were sharp triangles with high narrow minarets. There were domes in between which gave it a look of Roman Catholic Church.
On the way home for lunch, we stopped at a bakery in the vicinity of Quermoy-Viller. 
Until we arrived at Gare du Nord train station, no inspector came asking for tickets. I began to doubt if my sister had deliberately delayed us, so that we do not have time to buy the tickets, and enjoyed a free ride. It reminded me of the commuters who jumped over the barriers in the train station when I first arrived into Paris, few days ago.
Though, the night was freezing cold, we managed to make our way buying tickets to Dortmund in Western Germany, with a sleeping cabin. Each ticket cost Ffr421.00. Guys don’t be alarmed. At that time S$1.00 was about Ffr30.00. Therefore divided by 30, the ticket was about S$140.00.
The train moved northwards via Koln and Dusseldorf and reached Dortmund in the early morning. We wandered in the city of Dortmund looking for budget hotels for a night only.
We found a large compartment for temporary storage of our luggage, and wandered our way in Dortmund. We went asking for room but found that they were expensive.
The roofs were sharp triangles with high narrow minarets. There were domes in between which gave it a look of Roman Catholic Church.
On the way home for lunch, we stopped at a bakery in the vicinity of Quermoy-Viller. The terminology used for bakery & confectionery shops in France is
Boulangerie-Patisserie.
We occupied the whole afternoon, packing and relaxing, as my wife and I will be leaving for Amsterdam that night. We sat chit-chatting with my sister in the living room. We reminisced over our times in Singapore, until we were late, and had to rush to the Creteil train station.
We arrived at the station just in time before it moved. We jumped up to the train cabin without bothering to buy the ticket first. As the train was already about to move, I did not bother to asked about the ticket counter. Surely we can buy it while on the train.
Until we arrived at Gare du Nord train station, no inspector came asking for tickets. I began to doubt if my sister had deliberately delayed us, so that we do not have time to buy the tickets, and enjoyed a free ride. It reminded me of the commuters who jumped over the barriers in the train station when I first arrived into Paris, few days ago.
Though, the night was freezing cold, we managed to make our way buying tickets to Dortmund in Western Germany, with a sleeping cabin. Each ticket cost Ffr421.00. Guys don’t be alarmed. At that time S$1.00 was about Ffr30.00. Therefore divided by 30, the ticket was about S$140.00.
The train moved northwards via Koln and Dusseldorf and reached Dortmund in the early morning. We wandered in the city of Dortmund looking for budget hotels for a night only. 
We found a large compartment for temporary storage of our luggage, and wandered our way in Dortmund. We went asking for room but found that they were expensive. As we wandered I saw the advantages of having trams in a city area. The pedestrians and drivers always gave way to the trams. The trams frequently horn its way through the crowded city.
532 words
Drafted on 07.04.2007
Edited on 22.07.2007 at 0905hrs
At Woodlands Avenue 5
