April 12-19, 2019

“You only get so many springtimes, better not waste them”

– JD Schlandt

France was the destination for our tenth trip together out of the country since we arrived in the United Arab Emirates.  Each trip is different, and we weigh the pros and cons of self-travel versus using different tour group services.  Egypt and Jordan are examples where the tour service was good; for this one, we decided to paddle our own canoe (we did use a couple of day trip tour group options).  Lynn again handled the agenda and did another masterful job.  This one-week vacation included four days in and around Paris followed by three days in the Normandy region.  As I typically do, I did a little research for some basic information and fun facts.  Here they are.

• The name ‘France’ comes from the Latin word ‘Francia’, for country of the Franks.
• France has a nominal GDP of about 3 trillion dollars (7^th), and a population of about 67 million (21^st).
• Marseille is France’s oldest city, founded about 600 BC by Ionian Greeks.
• The basic principles that the French Republic must respect are found in the 1789 ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’, that holds the rights of man are universal, valid at all times and in every place. Oddly, this did not extend, when written, to women and slaves.  The key drafts were prepared by Lafayette, working at times with his close friend Thomas Jefferson.
• France is the world’s most visited tourist destination, with 83.7 million visitors in 2014.
• In 2016, France became the first country in the world to ban supermarkets from throwing away or destroying unsold food. It must be donated to food banks or charities.
• The French invented the metric system in 1793.
• A French law prohibits people from naming their pigs Napolean.
• French writers have won the Nobel Prize for Literature more than any other country (15).
• The guillotine was last used in 1977. It was the official mode of execution until the death penalty was outlawed in 1981.
• The oldest recording of a human voice was recorded by French inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville on April 9,1860. 
• The average French person eat 500 snails each a year.
• France produces about a billion tons of cheese each year.
• The French army is the only army that still maintains pigeons for communication in an emergency.
• France produces 75% of its electric power from nuclear, resulting in it being only 17^th in the world in carbon emissions despite being heavily industrialized.
• Until 2012, there was one STOP sign in the entire city of Paris.
• Exchange rate for this trip was 1€ = $1.13.

Our flight to Paris was at 8:00 AM, so as is our custom, we stayed the night before at a Radisson Blu close to the airport to take advantage of the free long-term parking they provide if you stay at their hotel the day before and after vacation.  We went up early and spent a leisurely day.  Our airport experiences have been good at Abu Dhabi, and we can typically get to the departing gate in less than an hour from arrival at the airport.  We had a direct flight to Paris on Etihad on an Airbus 380-800.  I understand the basic physics of air flight, but it never ceases to amaze me that these massive planes get off the ground. 

We arrived in Paris and negotiated the train to downtown without incident.  Lynn studies the metro systems in advance, making movement around town much less of an adventure than it would be if I were responsible. We checked into the Citadines Apart’ Hotel Saint-Germain-des-Pres on the south bank of the Seine in downtown (a big name, but I’ll spell it out in case anyone is interested).  This was a pricey place at $251/night, but it had a wonderful location, with a nicely furnished kitchen, and a short walk to most of the major sites we were interested in seeing.  I noticed no plastic bottles of water were provided, a trend I saw most of our stay in France.  I don’t think I saw more than a couple of dozen the entire week, an encouraging observation for me.  France, and the European Union in general, seem much more active in encouraging recycling and reducing single use plastic than the US.  I also noticed large (maybe 8-foot-tall by 6 foot wide) glass bottle recycling bins on the street, a nice touch for a town in a country known for its wine.

We arrived a bit late in the day for taking in any museums, so we headed out for a walk around town site seeing.  The temperature was a refreshing 50°F.  We checked out the street vendors and picked up a four-day museum pass for 130€ for both of us. This covered every place we went except the Eiffel Tower and did not include transportation to the venues.  More expensive tickets were available that included metro transportation, but our hotel location allowed us to walk to all of our targets except Versailles. Transportation for that was 14.60€ round trip for both of us.  We found a nearby small grocery store and picked up some groceries for next few days – cheese, crackers, wine, fruit. I love to meander around grocery stores in the countries we visit.

We dropped the groceries off in our room and turned our attention to dinner.  After consulting with the concierge, we headed out for Chez Fernand.  We had been well advised.  This was a small restaurant with a wood beam roof, old stone walls, and the best French Onion soup I have ever had.  Served in a small cast iron pot, it was simple perfection. That was followed by the specialty of the house, Beef Bourguignon, beef cheeks slow simmered with new potatoes and carrots in a heavenly sauce. Wine was available in a convenient 46 cl size, about 2 glasses each.  This extraordinary meal was 104€, plus a 5€ tip.  We have not mastered the nuances of international tipping. We want to do what’s right, but it’s not always easy to know what that is. We returned to the hotel for the night, and as we did all week, we turned off the heat and AC and opened the windows.  This is a blessing we don’t have in the UAE, and we enjoyed it.

I was up early the next morning (that’s just the way it is, can’t help it even on vacation). At 6:30 in the morning the streets of Paris are quiet.  Weather was unseasonably cool at 38°F, still, with clear skies and calm winds this was refreshing. Our first stop after breakfast at the hotel was Musee D’Orsay. This museum, opened in 1986, was originally a train station in 1900.  A variety of art is there, but we focused on an amazing Impressionist exhibit of Cezanne, Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and others.  There was a lot to see this week.  We weren’t slaves to an agenda, but we did move with purpose.  We spent a couple of hours here before heading to our next stop, Musee Rodin.  This museum was formerly a hotel where Auguste Rodin did his work and was donated to the state on the condition it be turned into a museum.  His work that I was most familiar with, a statue called ‘The Thinker’ stands prominently in a small outside garden.  This popular sculpture has been recast many times for displays around the world. If this museum is on your list, you can give it a good look in about an hour, including a nice stroll through the garden outside.

The Eiffel Tower was next on our agenda and was one of a few itinerary items where we did have a scheduled time.  This was not covered by our museum pass.  Different tickets are available; we got the ones to the top for 51€ for both of us.  Lynn had studied the maps and found an area of town with a farmer’s market along the way.  She knows I like to browse such places and we were off.  Long rows of booths were set up with all manner of fruits and vegetables (the quantity and variety of mushrooms was noteworthy), seafood, meats, cheeses, take away food, arts and crafts. As we left, we could see the Eiffel Tower a short distance off.  We still had a few minutes and decided to grab a quick lunch of marinated duck and herb potatoes with a cappuccino.  

The Eiffel Tower is certainly one of the most recognized landmarks in the world.  Originally constructed for the 1889 Worlds Fair, the tower receives about 7 million visitors each year.  The structure is 324 m high (1063 feet) and was the tallest structure in the world from 1889 until 1930.  Bring your patience for this visit.  We waited about 20 minutes to clear the initial security screen, then in a holding line waiting for our appointed time for another 10-15 minutes, then for about 30 minutes waiting for the elevator between the first landing and the final elevator to the top.  The view from the top is splendid in all directions but at the highest elevation in Paris you bear the full brunt of the wind, so bring a windbreaker if the temperatures are cool. 

Our next destination, the Arc de Triomphe, was easily visible from the top of the Eiffel Tower.  We made our descent and headed in that direction, making our way through the dozens of street vendors selling their collections of souvenirs. We didn’t help them much, as memories and refrigerator magnets were all we took home.  Our fine weather continued as we crossed the Seine and walked up the chestnut lined Avenue d’lena (the horse chestnut is the predominant tree lining many Paris streets).  We arrived at the Arc in the middle of the rotary by way of the underground tunnel and headed up the 284 steps on the tight spiral staircase to the top.  I think we were well over 10,000 steps for the day by this point. Construction of this monument was directed by Napoleon in 1806 to celebrate victories of French forces.  It is the center of the ‘star’ of twelve radiating avenues, the most famous of which, the Avenue Champs-Elysees was our direction home.  This avenue is loaded with world famous shops, restaurants, and boutiques. On our pleasant 2 mile walk down the Champs-Elysees I noticed a street named Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt, one of many references to US support during WWII.  We had heard the French could be aloof or even rude to foreigners, but we did not experience this.  All our dealings with the locals were perfectly pleasant.

We had considered passing through Tuileries Gardens on the way back to our hotel, but I estimated we were over 10 miles of walking by now and we were tired.  We crossed back across the Seine to the south bank (the ‘left’ bank in much literature) to get to our hotel, and by dumb luck, we crossed at the Pont des Arts bridge, home of many thousands of love locks.  These locks are put in place by lovers, then the key is thrown into the Seine as a demonstration of commitment.  These locks now literally weigh tons and are causing structural problems, prompting a recent mayor to encourage people to take selfies instead in a ‘love without locks’ campaign.  Traditions die hard though.  Dinner that night was a simple, satisfying mushroom, ham, and olive pizza with a glass of wine and grappa ‘digestive juice’ (I love that term. I didn’t know it before moving here).

The Palace at Versailles was to be the centerpiece of our next day. This was the only Paris attraction where we paid for transportation, 14.60€ round trip for both of us for about a 15-minute train ride.  There are several train stations around Paris that service different areas, both around town and to other areas of France, and Lynn’s preparation in knowing where we needed to go each day was a big-time saver.  It was a clear, cool Sunday, out of peak tourist season, and we had no reason to believe we would have to wait in line too long, but we had what I believe is the longest wait in line I have ever had to endure for entrance – over three hours.  There was an event in the gardens that day, still, this was very long.  This was a time when going with a tour group may have made sense to get the express lane. The palace itself defines opulence – an immense, extravagant mansion with a floor area of over 720,000 ft² and over 700 rooms, full of the absolute finest accoutrements available in the age.  For example, the Hall of Mirrors is a 230-foot-long hall full of 17 huge mirrors designed to match and reflect the windows to the gardens on the opposite side.  Built in 1689 when mirrors were a rare and expensive commodity, this display was intended to showcase French wealth and power.

We had dinner that night at ‘Fish La Boissonnerie’, with an appetizer of an oyster in foam potato with English walnuts followed by rabbit in a mustard sauce for me and a pork belly dish for Lynn. This was another fine meal in a small charming restaurant but compared to our other meals this was our least favorite, and our most expensive at 123€.  Careful when you let the house pick the wine.

The Louvre was the starting point for our next day.  After a fine breakfast at the hotel, we headed out into the cool morning for a lovely walk along the Seine to our destination.  To many, this is the crown jewel of Paris attractions.  With over 10 million annual visitors, it is the most popular.  After suffering in line at Versailles, entrance here was virtually instant – less than 20 minutes.  There is no way to see everything in a day, but Lynn had a target list that represented an excellent sample of a wide variety of classics – Winged Victory, Michelangelo’s Dying Slave, Venus de Milo, Liberty Leading the People, Mona Lisa, Hammurabi’s Code.  I was familiar with all these, but I did not know the Louvre itself was originally constructed as a fortress to defend the capital city. A basement level display of the original foundations was interesting. We spent the morning here, then checked another box on our list – enjoying a cappuccino at a sidewalk café.  We watched the tourists snap selfies of themselves with the museum in the background. We left the grounds by way of the Tuileries Gardens, enjoying the fresh morning air and the blooming flowers aided by the row of bee hives on the property.  In 2018, France banned all five pesticides called neonicotinoids believed to contribute to ‘colony collapse disorder” that has caused bee populations to plummet 90% in some areas.  I’ll be watching to see how this plays out.

Lynn had later afternoon tickets for us to climb the famous Bell Towers at the Notre Dame Cathedral.  The gatekeeper granted us an early entrance and we enjoyed a memorable trip to share a spot next to the gargoyles looking down on the city of Paris below.  We admired the massive 13-ton bells – they must surely have timed the tour groups away from the chiming of the bells – and the impressive lattice work of supporting wood beams.  The trip took some time, and we feared we might lose our opportunity to enter the cathedral, but we made it in about 5:15, just before closing.  The afternoon sun made a brilliant display through the stained-glass windows.  We soaked in the beauty, culture, and history for a time before bidding our farewell.

We had enjoyed our first dinner at Chez Fernand so much that we opted for a return visit.  I had the French Onion soup again, and Lynn had a very distinctive roasted bone marrow appetizer with toasted bread soldiers – very rich and very tasty.  I’ve used bone marrow for soup stock, but this was new.  We enjoyed some wine and some fabulous pork chops before heading back to the hotel.  We did not know we were on our way to witness history.  As we made our way up the Rue Dauphine toward the Grand Augustine, I noticed traffic to the Pont Neuf bridge was closed with a lot of pedestrian traffic.  We hadn’t recalled any advertisements about late night street festivals – what is this?  As we turned down the street, it was apparent.  The Cathedral at Notre Dame was in flames.  We stepped into our hotel lobby for a few minutes to a small group of tourists watching in stunned silence as the lobby TV showed firefighters pumping water into the flaming chapel.  We walked back into the street in the direction of the church just a few hundred yards away and watched for a few minutes before retiring to our room and watching local news for several hours.  It didn’t seem possible to burn too long with the volume of water being pumped up from the river, but the fire raged on.  We went to sleep with the smell of the burning icon drifting in our window.

We woke the next morning and immediately checked the news. Reports were the worst had been avoided – the structure was still sound, the Bell Towers had been spared, and many of the most significant treasures had been spared.  We walked down the street to take a look.  The grey misty morning following the beautiful afternoon before seemed an appropriate postscript to the fire.

Our time in Paris was over.  We checked out of the hotel and Lynn navigated us to the Chatelet Metro Station and from there to the SNCF Rail terminal at St. Lazare. This was a bustling station, with early morning commuters urgently pressing to their destination. I have never had employment where that sort of scramble was a daily affair, and I’m glad for that.  I have enjoyed all our many European train rides, and our trip to Bayeux was no different.  I snooze, I read, I observe the other passengers and wonder what their story is.  I observe the landscape, taking inventory of the bright yellow rapeseed fields, dairy farms, lumber yards, and grain silos.  This part of France is known for apple orchards rather than the vineyards. I see townspeople and farmers doing what they do to make it to the next day.  Same stage, different actors – this time it is France.

We arrived in Bayeux in a little over two hours. This is a charming medieval town of about 13,000 people with a towering cathedral.  We had lunch at a local restaurant, then checked in to our bed and breakfast style cottage, home for the next two nights. We spent our afternoon here touring one of the local highlights, the Tapestry of Bayeux.  This 233-foot-long, 20-inch-high tapestry dates back to 1070 and celebrates the victory of William the Conqueror in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings.  We stopped by a local grocery store afterwards and picked up some snacks and small bottles of wine and a local beer for dinner in our room.

We had breakfast of pastries, yogurt, cheese with some of our fellow travelers in the dining room before heading out for a full day Normandy American D-Day Beaches tour, one of several offered by Bayeux Shuttle.  This was a great selection, with a very knowledgeable Dutch driver and a small comfortable van with 15 passengers. We stopped at several memorable names from the liberation campaign – Sainte Marie Du-Mont, Sainte-Mere-Eglise, Utah Beach, Pointe Du Hoc, Omaha Beach, and the American Cemetery.  I was familiar with most of the names, but there were many interesting tidbits I did not remember.  For example, as the only general to personally hit the beach alongside his troops on D-Day, Teddy Roosevelt Jr led the charge at Utah, and made key battlefield decisions when the plan went astray that made the difference.  I was also aware of the role of the Navaho ‘Code Talkers’ in the Pacific campaign but had no idea Comanche ‘Code Talkers’ played a similar role in Europe, credited with saving thousands of lives. It is a discredit to their service that they received no formal recognition until the French government bestowed the ‘Knight of the Order of National Merit’ to the three surviving members in 1989.

The American Cemetery was our last visit for the day. Over 9000 Americans are buried here, including over 1500 that are not identified.  Efforts to identify the unknown continue, and new identifications still occur almost 75 years later.  The cemetery is steeped in symbolism – all the headstones face west towards the US; trees lining the reflecting pool are cut at half-height, symbolizing life cut short; equality of all in death is reflected in the headstones all being the same, with the dead buried with no regard to rank; pebbles from the beach where many perished are inlaid on deck surface of the memorial; brothers were always laid to rest side by side.  The unknown headstones say simply “Here Rests in Honored Glory A Comrade in Arms Known but to God”.  As we listened to ‘Taps’ playing while they lowered the flag at the end of the day, I reflected on the unknown deaths – in the US, a mother grieved a lost child, she knew not where; in France, a body was buried, they knew not who.  I looked up and saw new shoots of growth on the sturdy oaks, and heard the birds chirping. Life is for the living. We remember our dead, then move on.

That was a solemn end to our tour.  As we headed back to Bayeux, we drove by some apple orchards.  Our driver, Mike, told us the region was famous for apples, often made into ciders of various strength, and a local apple brandy, Calvados. I endeavored to make this a part of our dinner.  On the recommendation of fellow travelers, we headed out for dinner to a local establishment ‘La Maison Blanche’, known for making only Normandy specialties.  We each had a delicious seafood bisque for an appetizer along with a bottle of local wine. Lynn followed that with a veal entrecote. I decided to go with a seafood specialty, Bouillabaisse. I don’t know if I had ever had it, certainly never had it in France, and I was supremely pleased with my choice (I was especially impressed with the length of the snails I pulled out of the small spiral shells).  For my digestive juice, I asked for the apple brandy. I was brought the entire bottle with a glass and left to enjoy to my heart’s content, along with a generous apple tart for dessert. To top it off, the brandy was complimentary as a local treat.  I was humored watching the young waitress periodically select the next You-Tube video from behind the counter for the restaurant music selection.  At 73€, I felt this meal was a real value, and an authentic French dining experience.

We had another fine breakfast with fellow travelers after our last night at Chambres Le Castel, then checked out before heading out to the destination for the day, Mont Saint-Michel. We arranged to leave our packs for later pickup, lightening our load for the day. Our trip today was also through Bayeux Shuttle. The ride was comfortable and fully adequate but much less informational than the D-Day tour.  After about a two-hour ride, we were left on our own to tour the grounds for a few hours.  Perched on a rocky islet in the midst of a vast sandy shoreline, this Benedictine abbey was built beginning in the 8^th century and continuing for hundreds of years.  The tidal swing is an impressive 46 feet, resulting in an island at high tide and a shore line 11 miles out at low tide.  The island has served many purposes to many owners over the years, including a period as a prison in the early 1800’s.  About 50 permanent residents inhabit the island, including monks and nuns, who reside only as tenants. The monument is managed by the National Monuments Centre.

On our return to Bayeux, we picked up our bags from Chambres Le Castel, and took the short walk to the train station.  The train ride back to Paris was pleasant and uneventful.  We checked into the Holiday Inn Express at Charles de Gaulle airport and finished off the last of our snacks in our room. Our flight home the next morning completed another great vacation.  Total cost for this trip (everything all the way down to refrigerator magnet souvenirs and the cab ride at Abu Dhabi airport) was $5539.