October 7, Taking Off
We’re at the gate in Newark and will begin
boarding United flight 54 soon for the flight to Paris.
We’ll be staying on the Left Bank at Hotel 3
Colleges, around the corner from the Pantheon. Not like the Roman Pantheon.
This is an 18th century building where they bury famous French people.
Monday we are headed for Provence, where Larry
will pick us up and take us on a road trip. We’ll be staying at a town called Beaumes-de-Venise
in the guest house of Larry’s friends, who grow wine grapes.
We’ll stay one night at a small motel about 9
kilometers from the airport because, for some reason, there were no rooms
closer.
If you go to Paris, book a flight to Orly.
Charles de Gaulle is bigger, much farther away from the city, and a general
pain in the ass. I won’t try it again.
Be well, all.
Harry
October 8
We got to Paris—well, within remote striking distance,
at Charles de Gaulle Airport—on time. According to the airport website, you can
take the RER B line, apparently part of the Paris Metro system—for about half
an hour to a rail station in the city. I was planning to take a cab to Hotel 3
Colleges from there.
According to the man at the information desk
at the airport, that entailed a transfer. I’ve done that before lugging bags.
It isn’t terrible, but even so, I opted for Line 4 of Cars Air France, a bus
service. I had read about it and knew it would take longer but get me closer to
the hotel.
It took over an hour to reach Gare
Montparnasse, which is near Le Dome and the Galeries Lafayette where we bought
the bracelet charms a year ago, and then there was a brief cab ride on top of
that. Had we gone to Orly, a cab ride would have cost the same as the bus and
cab rides together, or less, and would have gotten Joanna and me door to
door in half the time. Or less.
But I was thinking: Oh, we can take United to
CDG and get points on our travel accounts. That was downright stupid. Fly to
Orly.
By the way, there’s a story that goes with those
bracelet charms. When we bought them we talked to the salesperson at Galeries
Lafayette and in the chat told her we were from Montclair, New Jersey. Her
sister, Rimi, was in Montclair at a bakery called Petit Parisien.
A couple of weeks ago, we stopped at Petit
Parisien and met Rimi. Her sister is in Luxembourg now. Is that cool or what?
As small as it is, there’s still room in Luxembourg to let people in.
We got to the hotel with little difficulty. I
told the driver “Otel Twa Collezh, sayz roo cuzhah.” Wow, I felt so sophisticated.
He had no idea what I’d just said. “Do you
have it written?” “Sure, here.” “Oh, Cuzhahss.” 16 Rue Cujas. Rhymes with
“pas,” non? Non. Go figure.
But he got us there, and Joanna recognized
some of the sights—le Galeries, le Dome—on the way.
We checked in (or enrolled) at 3 Colleges and ate
breakfast at a place around the corner, Cafe le Duc. My breakfast was three
cups of coffee, goat cheese on a baguette, and muscadet, a good breakfast wine.
Give me a break. It was 2 in the afternoon here. Joanna had an equally good sandwich
of ham and butter on a baguette. But she drank water.
I don’t see how she can do that. Hell, water
rusts iron and sinks ships. What’s it going to do to you?
Anyhow, le Duc is a great stop. It’s after ten
local time, and I’m writing this from the same cafe.
We did visit a few other places in between.
We left the cafe this afternoon and went to
the Pantheon, around the corner. It was originally a church dedicated to St.
Geneviéve, patron of Paris, and after it fell into disrepair, was rebuilt by
order of some Louis. Maybe the 15th.
Then came the Revolution. Talk about a weird
mix of stuff. There are murals on the wall showing St. Geneviéve saving Paris
from the Huns and St Geneviéve dying, and the baptism of Clovis.
As you might expect, there was one that held
particular interest for Harry. Joanna noticed it first: the crowning of
Charlemagne. It even had a caption: “In the year 800, at the feast of the Noel,
Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor of the West.”
Good or bad, it’s picture of the day, hands
down. It shows that Harry is back in the domain of Charlemagne. All right.
“Where is Voltaire,” I ask. “La bas,” the guy
said, pointing through the floor. He pointed me the way to the stairs. I have
to brag. I actually remembered to ask, “Ou se trouve Voltaire?” And I didn’t
need a translation of “la bas.” Think of it. An exchange involving six whole
words of French, and I got it—all right, with a little help from sign language.
We went down the spiral stairs to the crypt.
Voltaire’s tomb faces Rousseau’s—the rationalist vs. the romantic. Very
appropriate.
We also saw some more serious stuff in the
crypt, and I won’t make jokes about that. There is a national hero named
Moulin, who was a Resistance fighter captured and tortured to death by the
Nazis. He gave up no one. One of those he didn’t give up is down there, too—Andre
Malraux, the writer. Besides being a French Resistance fighter, Malraux earlier
had gone to fight for the Spanish republic during Franco’s Civil War.
When you come out of the Pantheon, yu can look
down Rue Sufflot (named for the Pantheon’s architect) and see the Eiffel Tower.
After the Pantheon, we started toward Notre
Dame, which is just down the hill. We stopped for Campari and soda at a bistro
called Perigord on Rue St. Jacques. Very charming place. We looked at the menu
and made a note of it.
We also detoured to an old church that houses
a medieval museum and walked through its medieval garden. The foot of the place
is the Boulevard St. Germain.
We got to the cathedral just in time to be
locked out of the crypt again. Damn, I want to see the tombs of those guys killed
by the stormin’ Normans at le Petit Pont. This crypt shuts at 6, and nobody
gets in after 5:30. It was five to six when we got there. Fair enough.
We didn’t go into the cathedral. We’ll be back
for a service on Sunday.
We walked in the garden behind the cathedral
under a darkening sky. We decided to head back home. We got there all right and
picked up my umbrella and Joanna’s raincoat, then headed for Perigord.
Snails, boeuf bourguignon, fish (for Joanna)
in a yellow sauce, and let’s see, a couple of merlots, a rosé, and some
house-made custard.
Very nice.
The tables are very close together, and as
Joanna pointed out, it was like a bar because strangers were talking to each
other. We may have upset a young Korean lady at one table as she watched me
draw snails out of the shell and then eat them. That, or she was fascinated by
the process.
They serve snails in the shell, and give you
those spring-loaded tongs to hold them so you can reach into the spiral with
the little fork. I haven’t done that for a while, but I managed all six.
At the table on the other side was a couple
visiting Paris from Amsterdam. The guy was Polish and the girl Russian. He was
a chef on a touring boat. The boat makes tours of Holland and stops at various
cities, where the passengers get out and bike for the day, and then return to
the boat at night.
He agreed that the food in Amsterdam is iffy
at best. But the beer and the muffins are damned good.
The rain picked up while we were in the
restaurant. So it was a good thing that we went to the hotel first.
It’s about 10 now. Maybe later. It’s still
raining outside le Duc. The Mac has a plastic bag, so all is well. The place is
filling up with students. The waiter asked if I wanted to move to a quieter
part of the restaurant while I worked. No need for that.
But now, here’s Harry, signing off at le Duc
after an indeterminate number of Bordeaux.
God bless us
everyone, and my apologies to the atheists.
October 9
Hi Grasshopper, and
a note to fellow readers,
Please note how
generally cooperative and polite Harry's various exchanges with the Parisian
locals have been.
Not to sound like a
shill for the French Tourist Board, but having just been in Paris a week ago, I
was noticing the old stereotype of rude Parisians refusing to speak English was
shattered for me on numerous occasions. I can't tell you how many times servers,
shopkeepers, etc. would happily answer my terrible French in English, and the
service in most places was gracious.
The assumption by
many Americans that "of course they ALL speak English" is also
ridiculous, and most people that couldn't speak English were very patient with
my bad language skills.
Even local folks in
the streets, cafes, and shops would exchange pleasantries, or offer to help out
with recommendations. Several exchanges were in halting combinations of French
and English. It was often fun.
So, if you've been
thinking of visiting Paris, but are concerned about unaccepting locals, my
recent experiences and those of other travelers contradict this. Many young
people are learning English, and many Parisians appreciate our business and
presence there.
Paris is a very
interesting, beautiful place every serious traveler should visit.
Salutations de
Provence,
Larry
October 9
My wife and I went to Paris and Provence several years ago. I
(usually a curmudgeon) agree completely with Larry's assessment of the locals!
Jack T.
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