Vive la France - A Travelogue with Lots of Photos

At a restaurant in Paris.

29 & 30 May 2023 -- Traveling, Canada, Paris, and Alsace

Despite the excitement of traveling to visit new places, it is always difficult for me to leave home. The morning of our departure for France, I took a long walk around the property. I walked through the orchard, the flower gardens, the big garden and wondered what it would it would all look like when I returned. I saw a hundred things I needed to do that would have to wait for at least ten days.

We left the house at 10:00 a.m. and drove to Toronto. When we arrived at the airport, we had trouble finding our reserved parking area. When we finally found the right spot, we went into the airport. We arrived there at 3:30 p.m. We met up with Josiah and Vanessa there. They flew in from Salt Lake City. Our flight was supposed to leave at 7:30, but there were delays and after boarding the plane, we sat at the gate for two hours. We finally took off at 9:30. I don’t know who designed the seats on a Boeing 777, but they were not designed to fit the posterior of a normal adult human. Our flight was eight and a half hours of torture. I dozed fitfully off and on, but only really slept for about fifteen minutes.

Crossing into Canada.

At the Toronto Airport.

Toronto in the distance.

When we landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport, because we were two hours late, the rental car we’d reserved was at the wrong terminal and we sat in the airport for another two hours before they got it all straightened out. We were supposed to meet the rest of our group, my nephew Aaron and his wife Mandi and their daughters Chloe and Gwen, but because we were so late, they’d already gone on ahead. We packed our things in our rented van and then drove four and half hours to Alsace where we met up with Aaron’s group and our guide Joni (pronounce Johnny) at our restaurant reservation in the town of Knoeringe. There we were treated to a local specialty, fried carp and potatoes. The carp was not filleted, but cut crossways through the fish and it was full of tiny bones. What I managed to eat was delicious, but I think the pile of bones was larger than what I actually ate.

Driving from Paris to Alsace.

On our way across France.

The restaurant in Knoeringen where we had dinner.

Waiting for dinner.

Fried carp and potatoes.

After dinner, we drove to the towns where the Shillig family came from – Traubach-le-Haute and Guevenatten. We visited the church there and looked at its cemetery. The graves are all more recent, the old ones having been moved somewhere else. We never saw anything directly related to the Shilligs, but we assume the church was the one they would have gone to.

The church where the ancient Shilligs attended.

After that we went to the little hotel where we were staying and collapsed after two days of traveling and very little sleep. My first impressions of France was that the city, at least the part I saw, was not very impressive, but the countryside away from the city is beautiful.

31 May 2023 -- Alsace: Colmar, Eguisheim, and then on to Montgeron

I was up before anyone else – 6:00 a.m., which was the middle of the night back home, but I wanted to force myself to adjust to the time difference. I showered, dressed, and went down to breakfast. The hotel we stayed at was very compact and tidy. I had some yogurt, fruit, and pain au chocolat for breakfast. After everyone else was awake and had breakfasted, our guide Joni arrived and we set out on our day’s adventure. Joni first took us to the city of Colmar where we walked around the very old and quaint central city. We stopped at shops and visited the church there, the Église Saint-Martin – built from 1234 to 1365.

The first of several candy stores we invaded.

On the streets of Colmar.

The canal in Colmar.

Storks nesting on the rooftops of Colmar.

From there we drove to the lovely town of Eguisheim, which was very old and picturesque. Alsace looks very German and was in fact part of Germany off and on over the centuries. Most of the town and street names are Germanic sounding and the buildings and food are too. We had lunch there, a delicious plate of sauerkraut, sausage, ham, pork belly, and potatoes. After that Joni left us and we drove west toward Paris. The airbnb we stayed at was a great old house, the Villa Les Coteaux, in the suburb of Montgeron, about eleven miles from Paris. We had the whole house with five bedrooms, several parlors, a large dining room, and a veranda. Montgeron is full of nice houses, each them walled in with a small yard and garden. The streets are very narrow. After we’d settled in, we went out to find someplace to eat. By then it was after 9:00 p.m. and the first place we tried, a crepe shop, wouldn’t serve us. We walked on and found another place, the Côte Café, and even though they were about to close their kitchen, they served us a delicious dinner and dessert. Then we walked back to our villa and tried to figure out how to ride the train into Paris for our next day’s adventure. By then it was very late and we went to bed.

In Eguisheim.

Where we had lunch in Eguisheim.

Waiting for lunch.

Our lunch.

After the main course, cheese and fruit.

Rhubarb pie for dessert.

Our villa in Montgeron.

At the villa in Montgeron.

1 June 2023 -- Paris, Day One

This morning I was awake first again. When Stacey woke up, we walked up the hill and bought pastries at a very nice boulongerie and patisserie. The shop had so many beautiful things for sale, different breads and enticing pastries. We had some difficulty making the shopkeeper understand us. Stacey did all the talking and she doesn’t speak French and tends to mix Spanish and Italian together in her attempts to communicate. When I try to come up with things to say, my brain rattles German and Japanese together into an unintelligible mishmash. With lots of pointing and saying oui (and sometimes si), we made our purchases and took our treasures back to the villa. Later, when everyone was up and had breakfasted, we walked down the hill to the Montgeron train station. We bought the wrong tickets at first, but with the help of a station attendant, we got it corrected. We rode the train into Paris and then changed to the Metro at Châtelet des Halles and got off near the Louvre. From there we made our way to where the off and on bus began and rode the bus around the city. We got off at one point near the Eiffel Tower to take some pictures, and then got back on the bus and went around and got off at the Louvre. We had a reserved time for 1:00 and were late, but it didn't matter.

Selecting breakfast.

On the off and on bus, the Arch de Triumphe.

Riding the off and on bus around Paris.

Overlooking the Eiffel Tower.

The Louvre.

The Louvre is a huge museum and it was packed with people. Either they didn’t have air conditioning or it was not working because it was very warm in there. We walked through the museum and I got to see works of art in person that I’ve always dreamed of seeing – the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, other statues, and paintings by so many artists I’ve studied – some Monets and Renoirs and Van Goghs. As with almost every place we went on this trip, I found myself wishing there were not so many people everywhere.

Some paintings by Monet at the Louvre.

The Winged Nike of Samothrace.

As near as I got to the Mona Lisa.

Just two happy art lovers.

After the Louvre, we walked to a restaurant that Aaron wanted us to go to that specialized in dishes made from duck and duck foie gras. We sat at tables on the sidewalk. I had a delicious roast duck breast in a balsamic sauce with mashed potatoes. After dinner, we rode the train back to Montgeron. Aaron and his group went out and bought ice cream and brought it back for a late treat. Some people stayed up and played games a while, but I went to bed.

Waiting for our dinner.

2 June 2023 -- Paris Day Two

Today our group split up and went in different directions. Aaron and Mandi drove to the airport and picked up their son Brandon and his wife Stephanie and their baby Atlas. Miriam stayed at the villa with Chloe and Gwen. Stacey, Roxann, Hannah, Josiah, Vanessa, and I rode the train into the city. We first went to the Colonnade at the Palais Royal where the scene from the movie Charade was filmed. We went to the quai on the Seine where Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron danced. Josiah and Vanessa went off on their own to do some shopping. Stacey, Roxann, Hannah, and I went to Sainte-Chapelle. Sainte-Chapelle, which was finished in 1248, is on the Île de la Cité in the River Seine inside the medieval Palais de la Cité, the residence of the Kings of France until the 14th century. Entering on the ground floor, it seems a nice enough little Gothic church, but when you climb the ancient, twisting, narrow stairs up into the chapel proper, you walk into a fantastic room flooded with colored light from tall stained glass windows. The windows depict stories from the Bible, with scenes from the Book of Genesis, Exodus, Joseph, Numbers, Leviticus, Joshua, Deuteronomy, Judges, Jeremiah, Tobias, Judith, Job, Esther, David and the Book of Kings, and a series of scenes showing the rediscovery of Christ's relics, the miracles they performed, and their relocation to Paris by King Louis IX. It was fun to stand there and look for details of the different stories in the glass. It was an amazing place, one of my favorite places on the whole trip.

Riding the train into Paris.

At the Colonnade. Is that Audrey Hepburn?

On the quai. We didn't dance.

Sainte-Chapelle.

Some of the windows in Sainte-Chapelle.

Looking at the windows in Sainte-Chapelle.

A distorted panorama of the windows.

After that, we walked around the city. We stopped in front of the Shakespeare & Company Book Store, which I was surprised to find out later was not the original bookstore founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919 where renowned writers and poets such as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Ford Madox Ford hung out in the 1920s (it closed in 1941), but rather a store opened in 1951 by American George Whitman, originally called "Le Mistral", and then renamed  "Shakespeare and Company" in 1964 in tribute to Sylvia Beach's store. Oh well. I saw it anyway.

After that we went to the d’Orsay Museum, which I liked even more than the Louvre. For one thing, they had air conditioning. And there weren’t huge crowds of people. And they had so many Impressionist paintings. It was thrilling to stand and look at paintings I’d examined so carefully in books.

In the d'Orsay Museum

Monet at the d'Orsay.

More Monet.

Seeing these paintings in person was amazing.

We stopped and ate chocolate crepes and then rode the Metro to the Abbesses station and then walked up what seemed like 10,000 steps up Montmartre to the Basilica of Sacré Coeur. We were pretty beat by then, but the day was not over. We walked back down the hill to the Metro, rode to where we caught the bus, and met up with the rest of the group where we rode to the Eiffel Tower and took a boat ride on the Seine.

He was so happy to make crepes for us.

Chocolate and chantilly crepe.

Climbing to Montmartre.

Sacré Coeur.

The view of Paris from Sacré Coeur.

Boat ride on the Seine.

The Pont Alexandre III on the Seine.

The Eiffel Tower.

After that, we rode the Metro to the trains and back to our villa in Montgeron. I was exhausted from all the walking and stair climbing and went straight to bed when we got there.

3 June 2023 -- Paris Day Three

Today we went to Versailles. We didn’t take the train there, we drove. Driving in Paris is tricky. Aaron drove his group in a rented van and Roxann drove our group in another. I would never dare to drive in Paris, or in France, but Aaron and Roxann did great. I don’t know what we would have done without our GPS to guide us. Versailles was over the top extravagant. It seemed that everything was gilded and made of marble and other costly materials. There were paintings and sculptures and beautiful furnishings. There were so many people packed in all of the rooms that it made me claustrophobic. The gardens were immense, but their plantings were not impressive to me. The flowerbeds should have been in their full June glory, but the plants were spindly and looked like they needed to be watered. After seeing Versailles, I understand a little better why the peasants of France revolted against such an extravagant aristocracy. How do you justify your 2,300 room house with gilded roofs and silk covered walls when your people are starving?

Versailles.

Opulent furnishings at Versailles.

The Hall of Mirrors.

In the Hall of Mirrors.

Some of the gardens at Versailles.

At Versailles.

After Versailles, we drove to the Paris Temple, which was nearby. It’s an odd little temple, but very pretty. Its gardens were better kept than anything I saw a Versailles. When we returned to Montgeron, we went to dinner at the Côte Café again and had another excellent meal. I got to try escargot and was not impressed, but I think I could eat crème brûlée everyday forever and be happy.

At the Paris Temple.

At the Paris Temple.

4 June 2023 -- Traveling West to Normandy

This morning we left Montgeron and drove to Evry, where we attended church. It was nice to be in a meeting where everything seemed so familiar, the hymns, the sacrament, and yet not understand a word anyone was singing or saying. From there we drove west on our way to Normandy. We stopped to see the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres. I had originally wanted to see the cathedral at Amiens, but it was too far out of our way, so I settled for Chartres instead and was not disappointed. The cathedral was constructed between 1194 and 1220 and is one of the best examples of High Gothic and Classic Gothic architecture. They are in the midst of an extensive renovation there, which hid some of its features, but what I did see was remarkable.

At Chartres Cathedral.

After stopping in Chartres, we continued west across the most beautiful farmland I have ever seen --  fields of ripening grain, apple orchards, lush pastures with herds of lovely cattle. Our next destination was Mont-Saint-Michel on the Norman coast. I have looked at photographs of Mont-Saint-Michel dozens and dozens of times, but nothing prepared me for what I saw – a glorious Gothic structure rising out of the sea. It was low tide when we got there. We parked and rode a shuttle across the causeway to the island. We walked and climbed the narrow roads and stairs and pathways, awed by the beauty of it. The abbey there, completed in 1523 is five hundred years old, but the first church and monastery date back to A.D. 708. By the time we were ready to leave, the tide had come in and surrounded the island. Before the modern causeway was built, you could only reach the island on foot at low tide. Mont-Saint-Michel rates as one of the best things we saw on this trip.

At Mont-Saint-Michel

From there we drove west across Normandy to the town of Souleuvre-en-Bocage to the Chateau de Montbosq where we stayed for the remainder of our trip. The chateau was a ruin, but an English woman, Marie, and her husband, bought it in 2004 and began to renovate it. They converted the cow barn and the pig sty into living quarters. Marie commuted for many years between England and her chateau, but then her husband suffered a heart attack and eventually died and work on the chateau ceased. We stayed in the converted cow shed. Marie lives in the converted pig sty. The chateau itself is still a ruin. Our accommodations were a bit run down. It is hard for Marie to maintain it and she told us she intends to sell it. It was fun staying there. It was rustic, but with a certain charm, and Marie was very kind and accommodating. The countryside surrounding the chateau is very beautiful.

The Chateau de Montbosq, our final accommodations.

The ruined back half of the chateau.

5 June 2023 -- Normandy

I was up early and took a long walk. Normandy, being near the ocean, has a maritime climate. Every evening we were there, a misty fog rolled in and the mornings were cool and foggy until the sun burned the mist away. Our big adventure this day was to drive to Pointe du Hoc to attend a memorial service. Pointe du Hoc is a promontory with a 110 foot cliff overlooking the English Channel. In World War II, it was the location of a series of German bunkers and machine gun posts. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, U.S. 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalions were given the task of assaulting the Pointe. Using rope ladders and then daggers, the Rangers scaled the cliffs under fire from the Germans above. Of the 500 Rangers who went ashore, only 90 were left by the end of the assault. Our nephew Aaron is a Ranger and he had an invitation to attend the memorial service and invited us to go along. It was an impressive service. There were over twenty US World War II veterans there, lined in wheelchairs right in front of where we stood. Some of them were approaching a hundred years old. There was a military band that played. There were speeches by French and US dignitaries and a three star general. There were flyovers by vintage World War II aircraft. After the ceremony, we walked out to the Pointe. The ground all around there is still pocked with incredible deep craters from the artillery shells fired as cover by our naval ships in the channel. The ruins of many of the German bunkers and gun emplacements are still there. I’ve studied World War II, read books, watched movies, but never imagined the true magnitude of what took place on the beaches of Normandy that day. It was sobering and awe-inspiring to think of the courage of the men who fought and died there that day. I felt honored to be allowed to be there.

On my misty morning walk.

The ceremony at Pointe du Hoc.

At Pointe du Hoc.

Artillery craters at Pointe du Hoc (not my photo).

The cliff front at Pointe du Hoc.

The Normandy coast.

Ruins of a German gun emplacement.

At Pointe du Hoc.

A German gun emplacement.

One of hundreds of deep craters from the shelling.

From Pointe du Hoc, we drove down to Omaha Beach. We walked on the beach and had lunch at a café there. Driving back to our chateau, the GPS took us on back roads for some reason, but it was wonderful. We drove through gorgeous farmland with old stone farmhouses and barns and beautiful cultivated fields and orchards and pastures with cattle grazing. Normandy is famous for its apples and as we drove I was surprised to see some trees still in bloom. Normandy is a very beautiful place.

Memorial on Omaha Beach.

Omaha Beach.

Omaha Beach.

Out on Omaha Beach.

6 June 2023 -- Normandy

Today was a free day to explore Normandy. In the morning, Stacey, Aaron, and I drove into the little town of Saint-Martin-des-Besaces to shop for breakfast. We went to the local boulongerie-patisserie for bread and pastries and to the little grocery store there for other items. When we got back, we all had breakfast and then our groups split up for the day. Aaron’s group went back to the battle beaches. Our group drove to Caen. Caen is the second largest city in Normandy. It was heavily bombed during World War II and 70% of the city was destroyed and had to be rebuilt, so it is a lot more modern than other places. We went to the Abbaye aux Hommes, founded in 1063, and saw the tomb of William the Conqueror, King of England and Duke of Normandy. We stopped at some shops and then drove to Bayeux. Bayeux was not heavily bombed during the war. It is a lovely old city with narrow streets and ancient buildings. Our reason for going there was to see the Bayeux Tapestry, an embroidered cloth nearly 230 feet long and 20 inches tall that depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, culminating in the Battle of Hastings. It is thought to date to the 11th century, within a few years after the battle. In the museum that houses the tapestry, we were each given a listening device. We then walked along the tapestry which was illuminated in a long, dimly lit room and listened to descriptions of 58 tableaux. Again, I have looked at photos of that tapestry many times in books and online, but I was amazed at seeing it in person. That visit also ranks near the top of the things we did France. After that we walked along the streets of Bayeux, stopped at some shops, ate a dinner of sandwiches from a boulongerie. Then we drove back across lovely Normandy to our chateau.

Caen.

The Abbaye aux Hommes.

The tomb of William the Conqueror.

The cathedral at Bayeux.

The canal at Bayeux.

One side of the Bayeux Tapestry.

A detail from the tapestry.

This is our last night in France. The days are long now. At this latitude, the same as Nova Scotia, the sun doesn’t set until 10:00 p.m. and dusk lingers until almost 11:00. I feel sad that our adventure is drawing to its close, but also anxious to get home again. There are so many things waiting for me there – my gardens, my flock, the new chicks – all need my immediate attention. So many responsibilities. Things at church that need to be done. The solstice is almost here and summer is upon us and I’m sad to see it come because I know it will pass too quickly. It always does.

7 June 2023 -- Heading Home Again

This morning as we were preparing to depart for home, we received news from Julie at home. Due to fires raging in Canada, the sky is full of smoke and ash at home. The smoke has blocked the sun and the weather has turned colder. She said they’d only had a tiny bit of rain and everything was still very dry. She said there was frost last night. The neighbor’s sheep broke through their fence and got into the big garden and did a lot of damage. And then we found out our flight from Paris to Toronto is delayed. All of this sits on my heart with a weight. I feel like I’m returning home to a disaster. But that also might be my anxiety over traveling, airports, airplanes, and long drives.

8 June 2023 -- Traveling and Arriving Home

Despite our flight being delayed, Josiah and Vanessa and Roxann were able to make their connecting flights. We said good-bye to Josiah and Vanessa in the Toronto airport and they flew on to Salt Lake City and then drove from there to Idaho. We drove Roxann to the Buffalo airport and she caught her flight to Phoenix. We drove on home and arrived here at 10:00 p.m. which my travel-addled brain was telling me was the wee hours of the morning in France. Kurt was out in the garden when we got here, covering plants in the dark. It was cold and he thought there would be frost again. I walked the garden with him in the dark and tried to see what condition it was in. We didn’t bother to unpack that night. We’d been awake too long. We went to bed.

Flying over smoky Canada.

This morning I made myself wake up at my usual home time. I know I’ll need a nap this afternoon. I went on a walk at dawn. The morning was cold, 35 degrees and lightly misty. The lawn is brown from lack of rain. I checked the orchard. It looks like we've had five frosts too many and there will be no apples this year. Kurt and Julie did a great job of caring for everything while we were gone. I’ve taken the time to write this travelogue, but now I need to get busy. The chicks need to be moved from the back porch down to the coop. If it doesn’t rain (the forecast says there’s a 60% chance), I’ll mow the pitiful lawn. There are weeds to pull. Already France seems like something I dreamed. I’m glad I have photographs to remind me I was really there.

P.S. An observation about France. I found that, just like Rome, I'm glad that I went to Paris. And like Rome, I'll probably never go there again. I saw what I wanted to see in both of those big cities. I prefer the other places, Florence and the Tuscan countryside in Italy, the lovely towns and countryside of Alsace and Normandy. And now I wonder what and when our next adventure will be.