Herma and Guenther met us at the hotel and saw us to the train station. We took local trains from Annweiler to Landau and then Karlsruhe, where we grabbed lunch and boarded the French TGV bullet train that would take us to Paris. 
Most of the train ride was run at around 160 KPH (100 MPH) as we traveled over the rails of Germany and eastern France, but as we approached the Paris region we apparently reached higher quality rails because we sped up to a cruising speed of 310 KPH (193 MPH) and at one point hit 320 KPH (200 MPH) — Chris obviously stayed busy checking his GPS receiver. We arrived in late afternoon in Paris at the Gare d’Est train station, splurged on a taxi and checked into our tiny room (with shower!) at the modest Hotel Beaumarchais in the Bastille neighborhood in the 11th arrondissement of eastern Paris.
After a rest, we headed out to discover our neighborhood, had dinner a busy little cafe near the Place de la Republique, and then went back to the hotel to plan our attack of the city for the next two days.