We decided to do our trip to France from 26th May
to 14th June. 3:00 pm. on the 26th of May found us at
Ottawa International Airport waiting for our flight to Toronto and then Paris.
There is not a direct flight from Ottawa to Paris via Air Canada. We spent a
little while beforehand practising French and in particular Ed had been very
dedicated practising every day and it showed when we were in France. We had
decided to try to be minimalistic in our packing for carryon and I managed with
a large travel purse type bag which carried my tablet, charger, camera and
anything else I might need in the short run to Toronto and then Paris. We were
taking our netbook (rather ancient now as it runs Windows XP), Ed's camera and
his Ipod. It is the leanest we have ever traveled to Europe in terms of
electronic gadgets. But this was to be primarily a vacation; limited genealogy.
I took some images for transcription but did not do any genealogy on the trip
as it turned out. I have decided that from now on for every three weeks that I
put into transcription I will take one week off of transcription. That will let
me fulfill my new challenges with respect to my research. I will always have
one week in four which will let me do analysis and reconstruction.
There we were in Ottawa airport awaiting our airplane and we
were quite early but prefer that so we are quite settled in and ready to board.
The tablet worked very well in the airport and the longer I have the tablet the
better I like it. I can easily multitask going between internet, email and
skype at a flick of the finger. I can type small notes to myself if I am so
inclined. With membership in My Heritage my entire tree is at my fingertips
whenever that crosses my mind. I could also do that with Find My Past or
Ancestry but I rather like the layout with My Heritage. The 4:00 plane to
Toronto was just loading when we finished with security and we watched as that
was completed and then they departed nicely on time. We were a little nervous
at our only 1 hour and 25 minutes between our landing in Toronto and leaving on
the Paris flight. But we were in the same terminal at Toronto for both landing
and departing. We boarded at 4:35 pm and liked our seats. It was quite clouded
in so settled in to just do a little reading until we landed in Toronto. We
quickly moved over to our gate for Paris and the lineup was already in place so
we joined that. We knew they were feeding us on the plane so did not even
bother getting anything to drink but just waited about one hour before we boarded.
It passed quickly actually and surprisingly.
Soon we were aboard and everything settled in and had our
dinner. I like the dinners on Air Canada and whilst we had been waiting for
that I started a movie and between the two the first two hours of the seven
hour flight passed by. I was actually rather sleepy and ended up falling asleep
just before Newfoundland on the map and slept until the middle of the ocean.
Then I dozed almost until we were south of the furtherest west point of
Ireland. Dawn was breaking and I watched to see if I could see Ireland, Lands
End or Jersey or Guernesy. The cloud cover was too heavy and so we flew on
towards Paris arriving about 20 minutes early and we had the shock of being
told that there wasn't a gate for us to land at and we would land out in the
field and be transferred by bus to the terminal. It ended up not being a big
deal but we had to move to our travel agent's transfer point and it was to be the
terminal right next to where we were landing. However, the bus brought us to
the correct terminal and we quickly moved through Immigration and on to find
our Tour agent. She greeted us by name which was rather refreshing and we settled in
to wait for the van which was picking us up to take us into Paris. I wondered
why she would know our name so readily and discovered that our trip was just 20
people for the French Elegance Tour. That was a shock but they apparently run
them at 20 and try to stay around 30 so as to give lots of room on the bus.
We met a number of the people on the trip with us as we
waited for our transfer to Paris. We tend to find that most of the people are
Australian, American or Canadian on our trips and this was also true this time.
We did our usual rest as soon as we arrived at our hotel and
we were at Day two. Two hours later we were out walking in an area with which
we were familiar from our earlier trip to Paris. We had planned to see a couple
of items that involved just going and having a look. Heading straight out from
the St James and Albany Hotel which is opposite Le Jardin des Tuileries we
decided to do a walking tour around the blocks and it worked out very well for
us. We were able to visit Place Vendome, Place de la Concorde and the Eglise de la Medeleine. We knew we had a Welcome Dinner at 7:00 pm so paced ourselves accordingly.
Our dinner was at Chez Clement on the Avenue des Champs-Elysees and we enjoyed the local cuisine and wine that
accompanied our meal. The onion soup really stood out at this dinner. Paris is on Central European Time so that it is quite
light until after 10 oclock pm. On our return to the hotel we walked up the
street from our hotel to have a look at the golden statue of Jeanne d'Arc in
Place des Pyramides. Our day in Paris was done and the next day we needed to be
up at 6:30 am, luggage out at 7:30 am and breakfast at 7:00 am with a bus leave
time of 8:30 am.
Day three of our trip saw us headed for Rouen and World War
II beaches in Normandy.
We spent lunch time in Rouen and we walked all the way down the old street in
Rouen past the astronomical clock and as far as Rouen Cathedral which we
toured. We purchased a light lunch and sat and looked at the Cathedral. Rouen
Cathedral was quite interesting and I let my mind race back through the
centuries thinking about Richard le Blak a merchant at Rouen asking to come to
market in England in 1174. He would have walked those floors I am sure. No
sense of belonging on my part because I do not think I descend from this
Richard but it was certainly interesting thinking about a person who quite
likely attended that church. It was badly damaged in WWII and is undergoing
more repairs since the original rebuilding was done following the wars. The
Churches in France in a number of cases belong to the Government of France and
are rented back to the Church for 1 Euro per year. In France, we understood,
only selected buildings are maintained by the government. Rouen is where Jeanne D'Arc was burned at the stake. There is church on the site to her memory.
After lunch we headed
for the Normandy Beaches. The tour guide decided to stop at Juno Beach where the
Canadian Army took responsibility for landing in 1944. He said he had some time and about a third of the people on the coach were Canadian. I didn't know we were
going to do that before we came and I felt a shock run through me. I have
watched the Canadians storming the beaches so many times in film that I felt I
almost knew the beach by heart. We stopped the bus and I quickly headed for the
beach. I raced out on the pier to get a view of the beach from as far out as I
could go. I did not really know what I would see or feel. No one I knew died on
that beach or even landed on it but Canadians landed there and I feel akin to
all those people who lived and died on the beach that day. It was pouring with
rain just like D Day but I was greeted with a huge expanse of sand in front of
my eyes all the way back to the edge of the beach. I was used to seeing all the
blockades that had been put in place to prevent the landing on the beach and
all that is gone. The sandy beach looks so welcoming and it had been so harsh
on our Canadian soldiers who did so well that day achieving their objectives
and moving inland. The price they paid gave back to France that beautiful
expanse of beach. I finally reconciled that in my mind. Their sacrifice had
given normalcy back to the French; had given life back to the French and as I
looked around me I saw Canadian flags everywhere. The French have not forgotten
those young men of Canada who died on those beaches. I said a prayer for those
brave Canadians who died on those beaches 70 years ago (this was May 28 and
already the grounds were being readied for the 70th anniversary of D
Day on 6 Jun 2014). We walk freely on those beaches because they died and we
must never forget that or let our children and grandchildren forget that.
The
other item we were going to look at this day was the Bayeux Tapestry. I have
heard of the Bayeux Tapestry since I was a child and this was one of my dream
items to do on this trip. Its size is amazing, I guess I knew that it was very
long, but seeing the actual length amazed me. The colours still so beautiful
and the images so perfect. We had an audio guide and moved along in a group
looking at all the images and listening to the guide. The time passed too
quickly but there were so many people both ahead of us and behind us looking
the Tapestry. We found a booklet that includes all of the images on the
tapestry with a short writeup for us to look at when we return home again. On
to the Novotel where we were staying the night at Bayeux. We had dinner at the
Novotel.
In the morning we had an excellent buffet breakfast once
again and on our way at 8:30 am and the forecast was for rain and it did rain.
We were on Day Four. We were headed to the American beach at Omaha and the
large American graveyard (only 50% of the people who died on the American
fields of war in WWII are buried there; about 50% were repatriated back to the
United States to be buried by their loving families). I said a prayer for those
brave young men lying beneath their white crosses. The rows are so straight and
they go on and on way out into the distance. We were all pretty wet by the end
of our visit to the beach and the graveyard. We also visited Pointe du Hoc where many US Rangers lost their lives. They have left the grounds here as they were with bomb craters and pillboxes. The cliffs here are quite steep and high. We also visited Arromanches where the portable habours were set up about a week after D-Day. We then headed for St Malo and the
rain was stopping. When we arrived the rain was gone and we walked through the
streets of the old city stopping to eat a little lunch on the way. We tried two local desserts, Far aux pommes and Kurig naturelle. St Malo was
about 90% destroyed by bombing but the recreation is absolutely perfect. I can
never quite decide later whether I prefer the ruins in Italy or the
reconstructions in the UK and France. Each had their own quality and if it was
me I would rather rebuild like it was so that I can continue to enjoy the life
that I had and so I think it is wonderful to have the reconstructions. It sort
of puts defiance in the face of the enemy because you can recover from what
they did. Perhaps not exactly the same but you make a new life in spite of the
dreadful happenings inflicted on you by the enemy. We wandered around St Malo
and walked up on the top of the walls until it was time to head for our hotel which was 5 star (Le Nouveau Monde Hotel). The old city is a walled city. Everyone thought
a two night stay at this hotel would be awesome. We had dinner at a marvelous
little restaurant on the beach looking out over the water. We had gone there at
6:30 pm but they did not open until 7:00 so we were back there right on time. I
had fresh scallops and they were quite delicious – the best I have ever eaten I
think. I had started off with onion soup. We had a brief walk on the beach at low tide. We could see the seaside from our hotel room and also hear the waves when the window was open.
On day Five the sun returned. We headed for Mt St Michel and this was a very
special place. We had a guide familiar with Mt St Michel to lead us and she did
an excellent job. We quickly climbed to the very top (probably 1000 to 2000
steps upwards) and the views were quite spectacular. The weather had cleared
nicely and we could see for miles. This is a working area still with many many
shops and places to live inside the walls of Mt St Michel. The Church is
enormous and has a lot of interesting artifacts. In the shop, I found a bowl with our
grandsons name and it was the first time that I had ever found anything so
purchased that. Ed found a large cup and saucer and both were made in France. We
did discover as we moved around France that they do have a lot of items for
tourists which are made in France. We slowly made our way back down a different
route looking at all the different shops as we moved towards the exit. This is
a very busy tour area plus we were there for Ascension and it is a four day
French holiday. The lineups were enormous as the weather had finally cleared
and everyone was taking advantage of it. They have painted cow statues at the village and we bought a couple of miniatures to take home. We left the Channel coast and headed
back across country to Cour-Cheverney which was nearly a five hour drive to our
next resting spot. This was a renovated Chateau and we had a very pleasant
dinner there. We had time before dinner to take a stroll through the town and
enjoy a French village. We spent two nights at our hotel (Relais des trois Chateaux Hotel). The breakfasts were
buffet both times with lots of cheese and fruit – my favourite.
Day Six was again sunny and saw us touring Chateau Chenonceu. This is a
fascinating and famous chateau which is built across and in the Cher River quite literally. There
had been a mill on the site and the footings from the mill were retained and a
Chateau built across the river. It had been a Royal Chateau for some of its
existence but was relatively small having just 20 rooms so did not remain a
royal residence very long. The rooms were well appointed with period furniture
and our guide was most knowledgeable on both the history of the Chateau and the
families who lived in it. The grounds were quite extensive and we spent a very
interesting morning there. We moved on to have lunch at Amboise where the weather was improved and getting warmer. Here we were to
visit Clos Luce which had been the home of Leonardo da Vinci during the last
three years of his life and he is buried in the Church there. We toured his house and saw some models built by IBM from his drawings. This evening we
had the first of our optional events and this was a dinner out at the Restaurant de la Tour with authentic
local cuisine and it was an excellent meal.
Day Seven and we were in motion once again, packing up and
moving on towards the Atlantic coast this time. The sunny weather continued. Our first stop was Fontevraud
Abbey which is in the process of reconstruction which includes a hotel attached
to the Abbey. This is a large Abbey with many many buildings either attached or
detached from it. We spent the morning there and took pictures of the tombs of Henry II, his
wife Eleanor of Aquitaine and son Richard the Lion Heart (and his wife
Isabella). These four effigies had been repaired and were quite awesome looking
especially as they were the only items in the huge nave and we moved on to some
of the other parts of the building which were extensive. I especially found the
kitchens to be most interesting. An ancient building with a number of internal
fireplaces and the cook would choose the fireplace to light based on the wind
direction. Once again a huge building with huge fireplaces. We stopped for lunch at Parthenay. Because of the holiday only one restaurant was open to serve food. Time was precious
to us that day as we were headed towards La Rochelle and Ile de Re. Perhaps one
of the most important parts of our trip was to go to Ile de Re and St Martin de
Re as this was the home of Ed's Huguenot ancestors. There were stories of
enormous traffic jams and it was a mystery as to whether or not we could even
get on the island until we actually arrived. Fortunately the traffic jam never
materialized on our way onto the island but the weight of the bus forced us to
take the long way to St Martin de Re. Here we were greeted with an ancient
fishing village and we wandered the streets for about an hour and finally had a
waffle with whipping cream (a specialty on the island) before we headed back to
La Rochelle. Fortunately we had taken the time to stop at our hotel so just had
to head back and have our dinner which worked out quite well. La Rochelle was
also the home of our grandson's 15x great grandfather Isaac before he and his
son came to Quebec in the mid 1600s.
Day eight and we headed away from La Rochelle towards St
Emilion bypassing Bordeaux where we
would spend the next two nights and would be returning after our wine tour.
At Chateau Franc Mayne we had a tour of
the winery and then a wine tasting. A most interesting morning. We then moved
on to St Emilion and lunch which we enjoyed at Le Trouher Creperie Bretonne and followed that
with a tour of the old part of the village. In our wandering we found the
ancient Church and spent a little time looking at it. St Emilion was also once a walled town. Then on to Bordeaux and a
tour of the old City. The walking tour of Bordeaux with a walk-on Guide was
quite interesting and we walked the “triangle” around the old square. The Guide
was the most interesting part of this tour as she kept up a running history of
the City of Bordeaux. We then had a driving tour of Bordeaux and again the old
City and we ended our tour at the Cathedral Church which has its roots in a
1000 year old roman church Romanesque style with equal arms and you could
seeing the footings of the early romanesque church. Then a huge latin cross
structure was added in the 15th 16th century. Perhaps
most striking for me was the similarity between the doors into this church and
the doors into Notre Dame in Paris. Indeed, the doors of Notre Dame in Paris
are a copy of the doors of this Cathedral Church of St Andre in Bordeau. By the end of the day the temperature was up to 27 C. We were in for warmer weather later. Hotel Pullman Bordeaux Aquitania.
Just a note to say that we stopped in several villages and towns that are on the pilgrim path to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.
Day nine and we didn't pack our bags which was very nice. Instead
we were on the bus at 8:30 a.m. And on our way to the Dune of Pyla (Pilat) on the
Arcachon Peninsula. This immense dune is the highest and largest of its kind in Europe
and was a little different for us as it is entirely of sand with no green
vegetation (several km in length). There is a flight of stairs up to the top of the dune (about 200
steps) but you could also just head up the side doing a crisscross pattern and
get to the top. Once at the top the view was terrific and as I looked along the
dune I noticed it was higher further on so headed that way; once reached the
next point was also higher but decided not to do that as I have a feeling that
it just always looks higher! Headed back down and our next stop near Arcachon was part of an
optional tour and we stopped for a taste of oysters (or shrimp which Ed and I
ate) . We watched people eat oysters. The shrimp were excellent and I managed to
break off the head with eyes and descale my shrimps and then eat them. They
were delicious – freshest shrimp I have ever had I think. The young lady gave
us a short talk on Oyster fishing which was very very interesting. We then
moved on to Arcachon where we wandered for a couple of hours and could have
lunch. We settled for a nice walk along the beach and the promenade and then gelato ice cream which was very good. We then headed back to
Bordeau and dinner.
Day ten and packed bags out at 7:30 and then breakfast.
Excellent breakfasts with cereal and yoghurt to begin and then on to cheeses
and fruits and toast. Our next stop was Brive-la-Gaillarde, Dordogne valley and we
stayed at Hotel Le Quercy Brive la Gaillarde. This was a nice hotel and fairly modern (i.e. lots
of plugs). But we had a busy day along the way as this was our time to stop and
see the ancient cave drawings. There was a change in our itinerary as we
couldn't go to the Rouffignac Caves and had to go to Lascaux II which is a copy
of the original cave drawings of Lascaux I which were found by a group of
schoolboys in 1940. In just 23 years the cave was infected by human environment
and had to be closed but this exact duplicate was made and it was quite
fascinating. I think what I most noticed was that the animals that had been
drawn looked so real and had a feeling of being in motion. Seeing the original
would be nice but I will believe from pictures of the original that this copy
was exact (supposed to be 99% accurate). From there we went on to Sarlat-la-caneda
which is a 9th century limestone village. We spent our lunch time
there wandering around and Ed had a Croque Monsieur and I had ice cream. The
church was quite interesting again and in behind was a quite ancient mortuary
and grave yard. We were then back on the bus and arrived at Brive-la-Gaillarde
at 4:15 pm. That evening we took an optional tour to Collonge la Rouge and all of
the houses in this village were built of red limestone. This village is a stop
on the El Camino de Santiago or the Way of St James which is a major Christian pilgrimage route and there was one large symbol
denoting that. We wandered about looking at all the red stone buildings and
then Ed had a local beer and I had ice cream once again.
Day 11 and it was June 5 (the day before D-Day). Breakfast
(no cereal but good cheeses and fruit cake) and then no bags out as this was a
two night stay. We boarded the bus to go to La Roque-Gageac where the houses
are built into the stone face of the mountains which tower above this stop. We
had ice cream here – I had walnut ice cream which was excellent. Then on to
Domme which is a walled City and we were to have our lunch there and enjoy the
market. Here I bought a leather red arm band
for me made by a local artisan ( I collected her card). As if that wasn't enough in
our day we went on to the Chateau de Beynac (built before the 100 Years War) and
was the property of Eleanor of Aquitaine and used principally by her son
Richard the Lion Heart. This is a really ancient castle that is being
refurbished by the owners. We went all through it and the views from the top of
the walls were fascinating. Most of the castle is empty but the size of the
rooms, the thickness of the walls are all worth seeing now hundreds of years
later. Back to Le Quercy and dinner at La Truffe Noir where we had duck,
whipped potatoes and stuffed tomatoes. I actually ate the thigh of the duck and
it was very well cooked but I do not really like duck. But all in the name of
local cuisine. By this day the weather was heating up, 28 C.
Day 12 and June 6 – imagine D Day in France 70th
anniversary. We had visited the Normandy Battlefields earlier and seen some of
the preparations. We were off on the bus to Vichy today. But first on to the
Massif Centrale and the dormant volcano of Puy de dome where we would have
lunch. I had noted that there were Roman ruins (Mercury Temple) at this stop but had it in my
mind that they were at the bottom of the hill. Actually they were at the top
beyond the top of the funincular train station which brought us up the face of
the mountain. We climbed up to this spot where there had been a temple to
Mercury and there was also a museum there which we spent a little time in. I
thought I would walk over to St Barbary's temple but got on the wrong road so
could see it but not reach it readily. Headed back and we went back down the
rather steep slope to the building for the Funicular Railway and had a rather
good lunch. I had a salad mixture of potato salad, string carrots and a crab
salad with a roll and chocolate cake and Ed had a salmon pastry and a cherry
torte. A most enjoyable lunch which we partially shared. Then on to Vichy and
the Vichy Spa Hotel Les Celestins. I was immediately attracted to the D Day ceremonies on
the TV and sat there for a number of hours watching the main event at Ouistreham
on the British Beachhead (Sword) and it was extremely well done. The French
President gave a rousing talk which was followed by a creative dance depicting
the war years. Then everyone dispersed to the various battle fields for the
national memorials. Following that we went for a long walk which included a
walk down the Napoleon Gallery which is a well known shopping area in Vichy. We
were hungry so went and had our dinner along the Allier River at the Brasserie d'Alligator. Ed had a mixed
grill and I had a pizza. Both were excellent. Temperature 30 C.
Day 13 and breakfast at this hotel was amazing. At least a
dozen different kinds of cheese and so many cakes – pound cake (lemon, plain
and chocolate), fruit cake and a walnut cake (all of which I sampled). Finally
cereal again with yoghurt. Then a bowl of fresh fruits to go with the cheeses.
There were also trays and trays of cold meat and hot meats which I walked by.
Nice to look at but not my favourite! Then back on the bus for 8:30 am and on our
way to Dijon. The landscape is rather interesting as there are hedge rows which
we haven't really seen too much of here in Southern France. Very hilly and the
farms look amazing. All the land appears to be tilled and France is the second
largest exporter in the world after the United States of foodstuff. Row upon
row of vineyards as this testifies to one of the larger wine areas in France.
We arrived at Dijon around lunch time and had three hours to walk around the
old market area of Dijon. Found a nice shirt for Edward. We toured the Museum
of Fine Arts housed in the Palace of the Dukes of Burgundy – namely Charles the
Bold and Philip the Good which included the marble effigies from their graves
in Notre Dame Church. The paintings were many that I had not seen before
including one amazing one of David holding the head of Goliath. We went off to
our hotel at 3 pm and it was a lovely hotel (Mercure Dijon Clemenceau) and again just a short stay. We had
an optional tour in the evening to the vineyard of Phillippe Bernard at Fixin, Clos St. Louis. He has a
large series of vineyards and gave us tastes from four different bottles of his
various vineyards. Later we shared a club sandwich and salad for a light
supper. Decided it would be nice to do a wine and cheese for Christmas Eve this
year. Off to bed early; very tired but a long and interesting day. Temperature 31 C.
Day 14 and we are headed for Strasbourg via Colmar. The
countryside has changed as it is more treed and the fields tend to be cash
crops. It is a long drive to Strasbourg and we make our lunch stop at Colmar a
rather interesting village in Alsace. We
bought two interesting desserts for lunch along with a coke – a strawberry
cream cake and a chocolate layer cream cake. We wandered about the market area
and found a stork on top of the church steeple of St. Martin. It was my first stork and I was
quite captivated by the bird. Eventually as we moved about we discovered that
there were two adult birds on the nest and probably some young although we
could not clearly see them. We spent quite a bit of our spare time looking at
them. We then moved on to the Dominican Priory which holds a couple of national
treasures – namely the folding altarpiece and the painting of the Madonna with
roses. There were a number of other national treasures also housed in this
Dominican priory which we toured and that used up all of our time. I managed to
purchase a copy of the folding altarpiece (an interesting paper construction).
We then moved on to Strasbourg and our hotel right on the island in the centre
of the city – Regent Petite Hotel France. Our hotel was marvelous. It was an old mill
that had been converted to a hotel with all the rooms facing the canal and
retaining much of the exterior look of the mill with the water still running
underneath and all the machinery of the mill still visible. We found some time
before dinner to walk to the Strasbourg Cathedral and it is even more
impressive in reality than its pictures. Write-ups do not totally do it justice.
Dinner was at the hotel restaurant and was an epicurean delight. We headed
upstairs as we were both really tired and our three days in Strasbourg promised
to be very very busy ones. Temperature 36 C.
Day 15 (breakfast on the patio) and this was a holiday but a walking tour of the old town of
Strasbourg had been organized for us which ended at the Cathedral. The tour
included the astronomical clock and we were then in time to see the hour change
and all the interesting fixtures make their motions. I am sure if you lived
there at some point in your life you would want to watch all of the various
times occurring on the clock. Lunch for us was a light affair and we took a
ride on the double decker Carousel. Then we were off to Colmar for our Alscae
wine tour which involved going towards Colmar and then working our way back
seeing the various wine fields, seeing more storks at Riquewihr and stopping in Ribeauville for shopping and then
to a Reisling wine tasting. We then had dinner at Scherwiller which was a rather
interesting meal given that we had already had several glasses of wine without
any bread. Finished our dinner and home just after 10 pm. To bed early as tomorrow
was going to be another busy day. This was our hottest day thus far temperature 38 C.
Day 16 and this was our tour of Baden-Baden in Germany and a
tour of the Strasbourg canals by boat. Baden-Baden was interesting because it is
part of the Palatinate (earlier name for the area) from which Ed’s ancestors
came down the Rhine. We had the joy of seeing our flag flying in Baden-Baden
and this was perhaps as a member of NATO. We walked about here and found a
really interesting Roman Ruins site although we did not investigate that any
further than looking into the windows which was quite a good view anyway. There
really wasn’t time to do more than that. We had a light lunch and then made our
way back to the bus as we had our canal tour to do in the afternoon in
Strasbourg. The heat was still intense (33 C) and the
prospect of a boat tour was somewhat daunting although we knew the boats were
air conditioned. But it was a very warm trip around the canals of Strasbourgh
but I did get to see the European Parliament buildings located there. They meet
in this area just once a month as the regular meetings are held in Brussels
where we did see those buildings on our last European trip. We finished the
tour at the Cathedral and looked around this area for a while and had a light
dinner which, given the amount of food which we had eaten on this trip, was a
good idea!
Day 17 (breakfast on the patio) and we were on our way to Verdun to see the Ossuary
and memorial tower to the French soldiers there. First we had a stop at the
remains of Fort de Douaumont where you can still see the trenches and
underground fortifications. There wasn’t time to tour this rather large
underground structure but it would have been interesting. We were soon on our
way once again to Verdun. This was the place of the heroic French stand in
World War I to break the advance of the German forces and basically the line
scarcely changed in the four years and at a cost of 500,000 French soldiers and
500,000 German soldiers. So much death of youth and the visit to the European
Parliament buildings came together in my mind as the future of Europe is just
so much better with this historical community of nations working together. We
walked through the grave stones reading names and spent most of our visit time
doing that. I found the idea of visiting this Ossuary Memorial and then the
Mercier Champagne tour to be direct opposites on the same day but much was to
be learned about French Resistance and how the many peoples of France did their utmost to work against their oppressors during WWII and that included these
great chasms in the earth which could help to hide the secrets of the
Resistance. We enjoyed our tour and the drink of Champagne (Mercier) and as I drank I
thought of it as a tribute to those brave young men at Verdun. The Cellars of Mercier are one of the oldest and were hollowed out by hand in the late 1800s. They and other Champagne producers in the area have millions of bottles of Champagne stored underground in various stages of production. Our hotel this
evening was the Hostellerie La Briqueterie Vinay at Epernay and it was a perfect country spot. We had a
lovely patio outside our room and we really enjoyed our stay there. Dinner was
at the hotel and it was a superb group meal. When we are on such a tour I like
to just be part of a large group personally and not break up into small tables.
It is just fun to listen to the conversation around the table.Temperature 26 C.
Day 18 and our bus was headed for Reims Cathedral – the early
French Kings were crowned there and Joan of Arc had lead the French armies to
victory so that the young Dauphin could be crowned there. Her tragic death at
the hands of the English army (burnt at the stake as a witch) is well known to
school children here in Canada. We had visited the site where the burning took
place earlier. There is a statue of her in the courtyard of Reims Cathedral
where she is looking lovingly towards God and it is He that has told her to do
what she did according to history. We spent an hour at Reims and then we were
on our way to Paris – the City of Light and I do find Paris to be a beautiful
City. Row upon row of perfect housing flowing out from the Eiffel Tower. We were
there after a rather long drive because of heavy traffic and then taken on a
"long" bus tour of the City of Paris. The Tour of two hours was perhaps too long
although in retrospect I am glad that we did do the tour as we once again saw
the sights that we had seen on our last tour of Paris in 2010. The refresher
was nice but the tour was long and I just wanted to get off the bus! We walked
up to the Arc de Triomphe from our hotel which was about 5 kilometres round
trip. We had hoped to be there in time for the lighting of the eternal flame to
the unknown soldier buried there. We did make it in time and it was a beautiful
ceremony with a number of different military tunes played by the band and then
ended with La Marseilles (French National Anthem) which we learned as school
children in our French classes. We then took the elevator up to the top of the
Arc and I have to say that this view is just as good as the view from the
first level of the Eiffel Tour. As it turned out this was a crispy clear day in Paris and we could
see for miles. We spent about an hour at the top of the tower and then had our
dinner at the George V Café on the way back to our hotel (Saint James and Albany Hotel Spa). Temperature 28 C.
Day 19 and there were several optional tours planned but we
had decided not to do these and instead made our way to the Louvre first thing
in the morning. The lines were very short at this time and we, of course, made
our way to the Mona Lisa once again. Last time we were on the outskirts of a
large group surrounding this famous painting. This time we were right at the
tape which held the people back but we were so very close. We spent a little
time there looking at this world famous painting and then moved on to various other
sections but principally the Italian, French and English paintings and of course the statue of Venus de Milo. We then
found the area set aside for displays of the French Kings and by then the three
hours had passed and we were hungry for lunch which we enjoyed at Pauls Cafe in
the Louvre. Our afternoon was to be a walk to Notre Dame Cathedral where there
was a huge lineup but we noticed that it was moving quickly so we joined it and
soon we were in the Cathedral. This building was heavily damaged during the
Revolution on the main level but the upper windows were still intact and quite
beautiful. We spent a good hour touring the Cathedral and then decided on a
bicycle taxi back to our hotel. This is an interesting way to see Paris. We
moved quite a bit slower through the streets and had good views of various
items which we fortunately remembered from our two tours of the city. Dinner
this evening was to be a Closing Dinner at a local restaurant the Flora Danica on the Champs Elysee. It was well
chosen and the meal was excellent. I will always think of the meal at Epernay
as our Closing Dinner because I enjoyed the collegial seating all at the same
table.
Day 20 and the day consisted of an early breakfast and then
onto the airport and our flight back. This was to be a 30 hour day as we moved
back in time. Our flight was on time at Charles de Gaulle airport and our seats
were excellent as we could see once we left the clouds over Paris the coastline
beneath us and the islands of Guernsey and Jersey, then we were delighted to see
the southern most coast of England, Lands End which we had not seen before from the air. We watched two movies and by
then we could see the coast of Newfoundland and icebergs glistening beneath us
in the distance. Good views of Newfoundland as it was clear in the skies above
that province but starting to cloud in as we reached the Gros Morne National
Park area. Then cloud all the rest of the way to Montreal where we landed a few
minutes early. We had just 2 hours to make our flight to Ottawa and we needed
all of that time as we worked our way through customs and then waited for our
luggage and then back through security and walking to the very end of the
terminal to our small plane to take us to Ottawa. Airborne right on time and
home a few minutes early to Ottawa airport. Home by 6:00 pm.
Next tour will be a boat ride on the Rhine coming downriver
from Switzerland to Amsterdam and perhaps next year.
