Monet to Morocco

A week on our own in Paris followed by the Western Mediterranean and Morocco. Meer informatie

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Het begin van de reis
10 november 2024
Monet to Morocco
CLT
10 november 2024, Verenigde Staten ⋅ ☁️ 61 °F
As I came through TSA in Charlotte the gate attendant asked for my passport. I reached into my jacket, and she said, “Wow! What kind of a jacket is that?” I told her. “It’s a Scott-E-Jacket, with about 25 pockets, each designated to hold a particular item. I always wear it when I travel. When you’re on a trip you never lose things, since you never take them out of their assigned pocket.” She had never seen one and was really impressed. “I gotta get me one of those things,” she said. It was a great way to begin an effortless pass through TSA.

The similarity between the airports of the world is really remarkable. They all look alike, feel alike, sound alike and smell alike. We started today in Charlotte, my hometown. Whenever your airplane takes off from runway 36L, its wheels leave ground that was my great grandfather’s farm. I grew up less than a mile from here, and if you know where to look, you can see my high school from the end of D Concourse. But the airport hardly feels like the place in which I grew up. I was mindlessly walking to our gate, noticing that this place feels like every other airport in the world, with the same kind of trendy pretentiousness and local civic promotion. Then I had a pleasant surprise. The Charlotte airport is trying to do a few things to remind people that this ain’t New York. For example, we waited for a couple hours for our flight, but instead of going to the gate, we availed ourselves of a couple of rocking chairs. They are placed in a long row lining the windows along the hallway so that you can see out onto the airport. They are not crowded so we will just stay here and rock leisurely as though we were on great grandma‘s front porch until the airplane boards. Great grandpa would be pleased.Meer informatie
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On to Paris
10 november 2024, Verenigde Staten ⋅ 🌙 54 °F
We are in two center seats in a Boeing 777 with no windows nearby so we have no idea what’s going on outside. We just stepped into this palace, and when we step out again we will be in Paris.

It was interesting that as we boarded the airplane, we never had to show a boarding pass. They use a photometric process. As a passenger steps through the door they photograph his face. That’s it. They made an announcement beforehand saying that if anyone did not want to be photographed, let them know and they would set up an interview, but apparently the airlines have photographs of all of our faces on file. Brave new world.Meer informatie
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The Parade That Wasn’t
11 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 55 °F
Chuck’s version of our first day in Paris

We arrived at the Hotel du Continent at around 9 am and the legendary Annie, a short, dark-haired young woman from India, checked us in and locked our luggage in a secure room. She said our room would not be ready for an hour. Of course, I was not disappointed, because we knew that the normal check-in time is 4:00 pm.

I had thought we would take the 40 minute walk up the Champs Élysée to the Arc de Triomph for the Armistice Day ceremonies. I knew one must be a dignitary to be admitted inside the building, but afterward there was to be a parade down the Champs Élysée I wanted to see.

When we got to the foot of the avenue we found that it was closed not just to vehicles, but also to pedestrians. We had to detour and take the path along the Seine, before cutting a path northwest back toward the monument. That deviation was not a total loss, however. The place where we turned was also the entrance to the underpass where Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed met their death in a tragic automobile accident. Including this detour, what should have been a 2 mile walk had doubled in length.

At the Champs Élysée barriers kept us off the famous street and a quarter mile away from the Arc de Triomph, where we heard military music in the distance. Starting at about 10 am we began waiting. The temperature was in the high 40’s (F). I had heard that a parade would follow the speechifying up at the Arc de Triomph so we continued waiting even when light rain started. I had asked several policemen lining the route about when the parade would begin. Several didn’t know, but one said vaguely, “Sometime after 10:00 am, maybe in an hour or so. I knew that the Armistice ending World War I had been signed at 11 am on November 11 (11-11-11), so I suspected that something would happen at 11 o’clock. As time passed, however, the rain got heavier and we both needed to find a toilet.

As we walked to find a shop where we could buy a cup of coffee that would get us access to a bathroom, most were blocked by the police barriers or closed for the holiday. We finally found a little restaurant called Le Deauville. As we finished a hot bowl of onion soup and a cup of coffee that warmed our souls as well as our bodies, two horse troops came prancing by to the sound of a military drum and bugle corps. The Presidential limousine rolled between the two. That was it. That was the parade. But still we got to spend a wonderful morning seeing a big part of this magical city up close and on foot.

Glenda’s version of our first day in Paris:

We arrived at our hotel and had to check our luggage. Chuck said “ let’s take a little walk to see the parade. It shouldn’t be long and then we’ll come back and check into the hotel. It will be fun, I promise.” So off we go, with me wearing my slip-on airport shoes, my very lightweight, travel jacket, and no umbrella. It was cold and windy, but walking helped keep me a little warm. It started to mist, and then it started to rain and it didn’t stop raining for about an hour. We waited and waited and waited for the parade, but it seemed as though nothing was going to happen. At that point, we both needed to use the restroom so we started trying to find a restaurant. It seemed as though most of the restaurants were on the opposite side of the street, but there were barricades so we could not cross the street. Finally, we found a restaurant where we ordered some French onion soup and coffee. We then headed back toward the hotel. We arrived at the hotel five hours and 8.4 miles after we left . But guess what …….Chuck was right; it was fun and we have lots of memories of our first rainy day in Paris. Adventure is out there even if it is different from what you expect.Meer informatie
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ReizigerPerhaps everyone was paraded out from the Olympics.
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Reiziger It looks like a very cool hotel. Glad you found it.
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The Old Girl Is Back
12 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 50 °F
It was 2018 when we first visited Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Some of the woodwork was remarkable. In addition to the indescribable stonework, there were wood carvings of Jesus and the apostles that were almost lifelike, though the style showed that they had been done almost 1000 years ago.

And then tragedy struck. We all saw the television pictures of Notre Dame Cathedral, burning, with hot lead from the roof melting and pouring into the nave below. When I saw those pictures on television, my heart sank. Of course, burned stone can be cleaned and re-used. How I hoped that all of those wood carvings survived! I am sure they could never be replaced.

We went to see the old girl again today, and she is coming back, though she's not quite there yet. I understand that some people are being allowed into the nave to see the restored cathedral. Today, however, workers were still hard at work, the first floor was closed, and the bells were being installed in the belfry. Construction vehicles are all around the church, and no one could go inside. Plans are in the works for a carillon concert on Friday. Several of the old bells that were destroyed by the fire have been recast. All of the old bells that survived the fire are in place again. Three new bells, including one made, especially for the Paris Olympics, have been installed. And all of them will be sounding off Friday.

I just hope we'll be able to come back and see the inside sometime soon. The last time we saw it, it was spectacular. How wonderful it will be to see a medieval cathedral all cleaned up and shiny. It will be magnificent!Meer informatie
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Shakespeare and Company
12–17 nov. 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 50 °F
Sometimes the most unpretentious among us are the people who change the world. In Paris there is a bookstore called Shakespeare & Company. Its owner changed the world. We visited it today, but I have to back up.

Sylvia Beach was the quiet daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman in Baltimore. He took advantage of an interdenominational, international exchange program to become the assistant pastor of the American congregation in Paris about the time of World War I. His bookish daughter began to do research in Paris, and made the acquaintance of Adrienne Monnier, who had followed the unusual path of becoming one of the few women proprietors of a bookstore.

Upon returning to America, Sylvia Beach opened her own bookstore, but as the Great War ended, she realized that rents were much cheaper in postwar Paris. With Monnier’s blessing, Sylvia opened her own bookstore in Paris at 8 Rue Depuyten (we saw the site today) and called it Shakespeare & Company. Her business flourished, and a few years later she moved. Then she moved again to a place that became a haven for the writers of the Lost Generation—Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Edna St. Vincent Millay, James Thurber, Thomas Wolfe, and the list goes on. When starving writers could not pay the rent, she let them flop in the bookstore in exchange for their unpacking, shelving and clerking in the bookstore. When no publisher would touch James Joyce’s Ulysses, Sylvia published it at her own expense.

Shakespeare & Company had a reading room where anyone who wished to read a book could sit and do so for as long as they liked.
There is still a reading room with the same rules at Shakespeare & Company. Although it is located in a different building now, the owner tries to follow the same gentle, humane rules that Sylvia Beach began. The current business has no direct connection with Sylvia’s enterprise, except for the name. The owner, however, like Sylvia Beach is an avid reader and a more avid dreamer. He admires Sylvia Beach and attempts to run the bookstore as she would have done were she still alive.

Unfortunately, the company does not allow photographs inside the bookstore, but I can tell my colleagues who graduated from the Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest exactly how it looks and smells. When I went to seminary in 1975 Dick Stevens had a bookstore at the corner of North Main Street and Stadium Drive. There were about four rooms crowded, indeed packed with books from floor to ceiling. God is the only one who understood Dick’s method of filing books, but if you asked him for a book, even one out of print, Dick could take you right to it. He would let you sit and read for hours, even if you never bought the book. Thank God for the gentle spirits who open bookstores.

We felt at home inside Shakespeare & Company today. If you feel at home inside a good book, you would like this place too. If you would like more information about this remarkable woman you can find it at the following link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_BeachMeer informatie
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A Salute to My Hero
12 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 50 °F
We have been to Padua, Salamanca and Paris. Each of these towns claims to have the oldest university in the western world. Each has a claim to that title.

While students gathered first and hired their own professors in Padua, they had to rent rooms and lecture halls. Students in Salamanca had an informal arrangement with Jews and Muslims, returning from the Crusades. They paid the foreigners to teach them Hebrew, medicine and philosophy. The University of Paris claims to be the oldest because it was the first institution of higher learning to have a proper campus, that is, not only did the students pay the salaries for the teachers, they also bought property in which to hold classes.

The campus of the University of Paris hardly looks like UNC at Chapel Hill. It is downtown with major streets with heavy traffic running through it. It looks more like NC State. Nevertheless, one can still find a few green spaces, some fountains and many statues and monuments to its graduates who changed the world.

The person who drew me to the university today was Peter Abelard (1079-1142), one of my favorite scholars. At a time when the church dominated society, Abelard had the courage, if not to flout the church’s authority, certainly to question it. The title of his book, “Sic et Non,” translates to “Yes and No.” In it he considers such Biblical themes as the seven-day creation of the world and the account of the great fish swallowing Jonah. Without directly refuting these stories, Abelard essentially says, “Yes the Bible says it, so we must not reject it. However, here are some problems with the stories that one may want to consider.” His position was radical when he wrote, but just short of heresy.

As a philosopher he provided a resolution to the conflict between nominalism and universalism, and did much to foster the idea of human individuality. This work eventually developed into the notion of individual rights and responsibilities, which later formed the basis for Western law.

He is also noted for the beautiful love letters and poetry exchanged between him and his lover, the brilliant Heloise of Argenteuil. When both were young adults they were secretly married. To punish Peter Abelard, Heloise’s uncle and guardian sent thugs to give Peter a severe beating and to castrate him, thus rendering him ineligible for ordination. Without being formally consecrated, Heloise lived the rest of her life as a nun. Yet they continued to share their forbidden love for the remainder of their lives in letters and poetry that survive to this day. Ultimately their bodies were exhumed and their remains were interred together in the same coffin in Pere Lachaise Cemetery on the east side of Paris.

So I got the opportunity to salute my hero today on the campus of the university he helped to make one of the leading colleges in the world. I have often wanted to go to the cemetery to see his grave, but somehow being where he taught, wrote and lectured while still living seems a better tribute.Meer informatie
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The Cluny Miracle
12 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 50 °F
I know my own tastes may be a wee bit idiosyncratic. One of the things we wanted to do on this trip to Paris was to be completely on our own. The major reason we wanted to do this was so that we could follow our own schedule, see the places we love, and spend as much time doing the things we want to do as we like.

Since reading Beowulf in high school, I have been interested in medieval history. There is a wonderful museum here off the beaten path on the edge of the campus of the university of Paris. No organized tour group would ever take tourists to such place. I have been to museums here and there that may have an artifact or two from the Middle Ages, but today at the Cluny Museum I hit the jackpot.

Georges-Eugene Haussmann was the civil engineer who rebuilt Paris between 1853 and 1870. To impose his “rational design” for the city, unfortunately many old buildings going back to the medieval period had to be demolished. Even so, their destruction unearthed a treasure trove of artifacts that told more about the history of this place than had previously been known. From Roman records scholars knew that on the Ile de la Cité, where Notre Dame now presides, stood a pre-Christian shrine. We knew that on this island the Romans found a primitive tribe known as the Parisi. We did not know, though, that on the same site archaeologists would find artifacts going back thousands of years.

Some of these found their way into other museums in the city specializing in those pre-Christian periods. The artifacts from the medieval period that were unearthed, as well as many that came from the destruction of churches in the French Revolution and in Haussmann’s urban renewal, made their way to the Cluny Museum.

This museum is also of interest because it occupies a site that held a monastery in the late classical period that was instrumental in reforming the Catholic Church. From 950 to 1130 A.D. the monastery at Cluny was one of the most important institutions in the whole of Christendom. Few protestants today know, or even care, that the Church had a reformation before the Reformation. It started here.

Almost all of the pieces we saw on display today were examples of ecclesiastical art. Altar pieces, reliquaries, croziers, episcopal rings, statues, columns and other items all speak of the church. They do more than this, however. They show the transition from the classical art as perfected by the Greeks and Romans into the art forms that became known as Gothic. The church art of the eleventh and twelfth century absorbed not only the so-called Romanesque forms, the also borrowed from Celtic, Germanic, Frankish, and even Byzantine traditions.

What became known as Gothic was not primitive art. It was, rather, an advanced art form that deliberately synthesized several different antecedents. Their art works were so expressive that Gothic art and architecture continue to be used in ecclesiastical and civic buildings up to the present day.

And, oh yes, they invented stained glass. The earliest reference we have to the stuff is a report that in 675 A. D. English bishop Benedict Biscop imported a gang of French workers to install some stained glass in the monastery of St. Peter, which he was building in Monkswearmouth. The first church to be completely glazed in stained glass is over on the north side of town in the church of St. Denis.

The photos here barely scratch the surface of all that we saw here today. If you come to Paris I hope you can visit this wonderful museum. No doubt it will enrich your understanding of art, and it may even enrich your faith.Meer informatie
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An Invented Religion
12 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 52 °F
I have always wanted to visit the Pantheon. It is a large beautiful building in which the nation of France honors its fallen war heroes. Monuments inside remember all of those who have fallen in battle for the country, and other notable Frenchman, such as Voltaire and Rousseau, are entombed here.

As we walked into the magnificent rotunda, choral music much like one would hear in a church echoed off gilded marble walls. The building is laid out like a church, but up at the front instead of an altar stands a statue commemorating the French Revolution. What I took away from this opulent beauty is the observation that if one nation abolishes a church, they will soon have to invent something very much like a church to fill its place.

The French revolutionaries prided themselves on their rationalism. They did away with God, the church and priests. Yet in this building, they have made a cathedral as opulent as any I have ever seen. The ideas here are transcendent, though they may not deal with subjects generally considered religious. I do not want to take away from the glory of the fallen, nor the unutterable beauty of this building, but the message that it shouts to me is that when one does away with God, one must replace him with some sort of substitute.Meer informatie
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Bon appétit
12 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 52 °F
As we left the University of Paris we passed a large apartment building with a historical marker embedded in the wall telling us that this was the home of composer Camille Saint-Saens. Then we crossed a street called the Rue de l’Université that ends at the University of Paris. I mentioned to Glenda that we were on the street where Julia Child lived. She got excited. I explained that while he was in the U. S. diplomatic service after World War 2, Paul Child and his wife Julia were stationed in Paris. Not knowing what to do with her life, Julia enrolled at a cooking school, and, as they say, the rest is history. Glenda wanted to see the house they rented, and I led her to a comfortable mansion at 81 Rue de l’Université where we snapped a photo.

Although we had already eaten lunch, I said, “All this talk about Julia Child makes me hungry. Let’s stop at the next coffee shop and get coffee and a croissant.” She agreed, but the next place we passed that looked as though it might have coffee was the Maison Thevinin, a noted patisserie that has won the Paris prize for being the best pastry shop in Paris for several of the last ten years. We ordered coffee and Glenda got a rocher that we split. I thought that I had died and gone to heaven. I take my espresso straight, but the sweetness of the dessert and the hot coffee while sitting outside at a sidewalk table in 42° chill was something I will never forget.Meer informatie
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The Music Man
12 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ⛅ 52 °F
When I was about 12 years old, I happened to be watching one of the young people‘s concerts which Leonard Bernstein hosted with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. The piece they played was the symphony in D minor by the French composer César Franck. I listened to all three movements of this piece and I was electrified. That piece captivated me as a young teenager and it still grabs my heart every time I hear it. Later in life I discovered his tone poem, “Les Eolides (The Breezes),” one of the most beautiful orchestral pieces I’ve ever heard.

Cesar Frank was the professor of composition and harmony at the Conservatoire Nacional a few blocks northeast of where I sit. All of his students appreciated his fatherly kindness, which, according to students, many of Franck’s colleagues lacked. Not only was he a teacher, he was also a church organist, and he wrote some of the most expressive organ pieces ever composed. He played the organ every Sunday at the church I have entered, the Basilica of Ste. Clothilde.

We walked here from the University, and I was transfixed when I pushed against an ancient oak door and found that it gave way to allow me to enter the sanctum. We crept in and found one woman sitting and praying. We entered silently and took our seats halfway down the nave. We waited until the woman left, and then I turned around to photograph the organ. It is essentially the same instrument that Franck played, although it has been refurbished and enlarged twice since he died in 1890. We left this beautiful basilica feeling as though we had been in a holy place. I know it was for me.Meer informatie
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L’Ardoise and Vendome
12 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 48 °F
Neither one of us felt very hungry when we came back to the hotel late on yesterday afternoon. By 9 pm, however, we were both getting a little bit peckish. We talked to the desk clerk to see if we could make reservations at a soufflé restaurant a few doors down from the hotel, but they were full. So we decided to go up the street a little way to a restaurant called L’Ardoise. We had not been hungry until——

Glenda got scallops in a carrot, ginger, passionfruit sauce. I got a steak that was in the most delicious gravy I have ever tasted. Although salad and dessert was also a possibility, we decided that we had had enough. It was delicious, we were satisfied and almost ready for bed. I suggested, however, that we take a little walk. It’s only two blocks up to the Place Vendome, an area that was the most exclusive neighborhood in Paris at the time of their Revolution. Although its Plaza is populated with expensive upscale shops, such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton now, back then those same buildings held apartments. In fact, it was in one of those apartments where the famous pianist Frederick Chopin died. The Place Vendome was beautiful all lit up at night. We took a few photographs and then came back home for bed. What a perfect day!Meer informatie
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ReizigerYou and Glenda are making the most of every minute and every day! So glad you are “ on your own” and doing what you want to do!❤️
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A Dream Come True
13 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 46 °F
In 1952 I was the child of two teenagers who had to get married. We were a poor family who lived a simple life. On Sunday we went to church and on Friday nights we went to the fish camp. A few Saturdays a month we went to the Belks in downtown Charlotte. The highlight of my week was getting a new Nancy Drew novel. I had never heard classical music and I had never seen any pieces of art. The only art I remember was a painting in my meemaw’s house that pictured two young children walking over a very rickety bridge with an angel hovering above them. In high school, my guidance counselors would not let me take honors classes, and I was told to just graduate from high school, get married and work at one of the local mills. I asked for help in applying to college and they told me I shouldn’t go to college. When I was in high school I met Chuck Cook and he literally opened my world. I wanted more, so I figured out how to apply to college and I went. Chuck and I were married when I was 20 and when we were living in D. C., we visited the National Museum of Art. I will never forget the day that I walked into a room and I saw my first Monet painting. I stopped dead in my tracks and stood transfixed by that painting of the Rouen cathedral. I think I stood there not moving for about 20 minutes as tears streamed from my eyes. I had never seen anything more beautiful in my life. That painting spoke to a part of my soul that I did not know existed. We found several other paintings by Monet and my love for his art was confirmed. Today Chuck and I visited the Musee d’ Orsay and when I walked in the room with the first of Monet‘s paintings, I started crying. Today was a dream come true for this Monet lover. The artist’s paintings seem to glow, and once again those paintings touched a part of my soul that no other paintings can. Thank you Chuck Cook. You really do make all of my dreams come true. Meer informatie
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ReizigerBeautiful ❤️
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Reiziger Love this Monet!!!
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Reiziger Notre Dame Cathedral at Rouen. Worship at there on Easter Vigil.
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Feast after Feast
13 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 48 °F
Today after our Monet feast at the Musee d’ Orsay, we walked two miles to find a restaurant that Bob and Ellen Bergland had recommended to us. The restaurant specializes in steak and fries. That’s all they serve. And that’s all they need to serve. You don’t need to see a menu. You simply go in and tell them how you want your steak cooked. First they bring out a simple salad with a Dijon vinaigrette and walnuts. And then the steak and fries arrive. The sauce is heavenly, and when you finish the first plate of steak and fries, they come back to fill your plate again. I will agree with Ellen Bergland and say that it is one of the best steaks I’ve ever had. After a lovely meal with a very attentive staff, we headed back toward our hotel. Walking back to the hotel was a perfect way to digest that meal. Meer informatie
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On Top of the World
13 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ⛅ 46 °F
Glenda got a wish granted tonight when we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower. She wanted to go at night so that we could see whether Paris really is the “City of Lights.” Boy, is she ever! On a clear, cold night at the top of the tower we felt as though we could touch that big moon over us. The city down below us was spectacular. We saw the Place de Concord two blocks from our hotel. The dome of the Army Hospital exuded a soft glow beneath us. We met some neat people from Arizona, New York, Ohio and the Netherlands. I gave Glenda a big kiss at the tippy top of the tower and asked, “How many guys have ever kissed you at the top of the Eiffel Tower?” She held up one finger and then she kissed me. It was a great night, and we’re looking forward to more fun tomorrow.Meer informatie
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Monet Mother-lode
14 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 48 °F
I thought yesterday at the Musee ‘d Orsay was the dream come true but today at the Marmottan Monet Museum we found ground zero for Monet’s works. Monet’s son established this museum for his father’s works and it has the largest single collection of Monet’s paintings anywhere on planet Earth. We walked through the top floor and saw a few of Monet‘s paintings, but not as many as I was expecting. I approached one of the attendants and ask if there were any more paintings. She smiled and said go down those steps over there. We entered a huge room of nothing but Monet’s paintings. Again, the tears started to stream from my eyes as I saw the family’s private collection of his works. There are water lilies, beach scenes, landscapes, flowers, trains and portraits of his children. The museum has thoughtfully arranged benches so that you can just sit and enjoy a painting for as long as you want. Because the museum is off the beaten path, we almost had the museum to ourselves. After the visit, we strolled through a lovely park on the way to the subway and our next adventure. It was a beautiful way to start our day.Meer informatie
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Oh @$*&# subway moment
14 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 52 °F
Chuck and I were very proud of ourselves for figuring out the subway and getting all the way to the museum this morning without one glitch. After the museum, we decided we would take the subway to an area of town that Chuck wanted to visit. We get down into the subway area and we’re waiting for the number nine train. Chuck told me that we would be getting off at the Bella Novelle station and thank goodness I was paying attention. Usually if it has to do with directions, I simply follow Chuck because my sense of direction is horrible on a good day. We’re standing on the platform and I hear Chuck say “ This is the train” so when the doors opened, I stepped onto the train and then the doors closed. I turned around to ask Chuck a question and he is nowhere to be found. What Chuck had said was “ is this the train?” as he as looking at the subway app on his phone. Oh what a difference two words can make. He looks up and I am nowhere to be found. He thought I’d gone to the restroom or I had wandered off, but he could not find me anywhere. He panicked. Of course, he couldn’t find me because I was on a train that had just left the station.

Meanwhile, back on the train, I panic for about 10 seconds because I am on a subway train in Paris with 10,000 people who do not speak English and I don’t speak French and I can’t find Chuck. Then I thought “ OK let’s regroup and figure this out.” I turned on my phone with its data package and sent Chuck a text. I asked him where he was and he said he was on the train behind me because he didn’t get on the train I was on because he couldn’t find me. I told him I would meet him at the stop that we were going to disembark and he said OK but for 10 minutes all I wanted was to see was his beautiful face. The train stopped at our destination and I got off with hundreds of other folks. Very quickly, the subway platform area cleared, and I was all alone in the bowels of Paris in an empty station. Six minutes later a train pulls up, and I am anxiously looking at all of the people flowing from the cars. When I saw his face, I was so grateful.

Lessons learned:

Confirm any the action before taking action

The cell phone is a gift from God in emergency situations

When you’re in the middle of a mess, regroup, and figure it out because really you have no other choice. Meer informatie
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Cradle of Composers
14 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 52 °F
When Manuel-Achille Debussy got out of the army, he had a hard time finding a job. Through family connections he worked first at a small shop in a town just west of Paris selling china. There he and his wife had a son, Claude-Achille in August of 1862. The china shop had to close, so Manuel-Achille took his family to Clichy to live with his maternal grandmother.

For the next few years employment for Manuel-Achille was catch-as-catch can, and they moved to an apartment in Paris within walking distance of our hotel. We passed it today. The ground floor of the building is now occupied by a barber shop, hairdresser and beauty school. Because Debussy’s wife Victorine could not afford to send her children to school, she sought to educate them herself. Hard times forced Victorine to move the children away again, and while staying with Manuel-Achille’s sister in Cannes, they discovered young Claude’s musical aptitude.

Manuel’s Marxist tendencies led him to participate in the Commune Insurrection of 1870 and earned him a four-year prison sentence. The sentence was commuted to one year in prison with three years of public service.

Returning to Paris the Debussy family moved again and on October 22, 1872 young Claude, age ten years, was admitted to the National Conservatory of Music. There, for a decade, he studied under the likes of César Franck, Antoine Marmontel, and Albert Lavignac to hone his musical skills in keyboard studies, music theory, composition, harmony and counterpoint. Though his teachers recognized that he was an extraordinary musician, he was a troublesome student, often arriving late, missing classes or showing disrespect to teachers. Like his father, Claude had an independent streak. The rebellious spirit angered some of his professors, and ultimately forced him away from the Conservatory, but eventually it led him into areas of harmonic richness that forever changed the character of Western music.

Today we visited the building in which Debussy studied, the old National Conservatory of Music. It is still a national conservatory, but now it houses the students studying for the dramatic arts. The music academy has moved to a lovely modern campus in the northeast part of Paris. Yet I regard this building as sacred ground. Not only did Debussy study here, but so did every other French composer you can name. Parisians first heard the works of Beethoven here. Hector Berlioz first performed his Symphony Fantastique here. César Franck, a member of the faculty, composed his remarkable Symphony in D minor here, and gave its first public presentation in the conservatory’s concert hall. The school’s students include Adolph Adam, George Bizet, Nadia Boulanger, Pierre Boulez, Alfred Cortot, Paul Dukas, Marcel Dupré, Maurice Duruflé, Maurice Ravel and Camille Saint-Saens,

I regret we were not able to get inside the building today. One must know the combination on a keypad to get through the doors, and, judging from the neighborhood around the building, I can certainly understand why such security measures are needed. What was formerly the main entrance, a door through which Chopin regularly passed, is now a place for a homeless man to pitch his sleeping mat. Nevertheless, we stood at a door through which the greatest composers and musicians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries passed—the people who made the harmonies and melodies we were taught as children to call “music.” And for me, just being here is wonderful.Meer informatie
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Cook's Heaven
14 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 54 °F
Glenda is a seriously good cook. I’m a wannabe cook, but I love to experiment in the kitchen. I’m the one who tries all the weird French stuff by Paul Bocuse, Mère Brazier and her disciples. I have long known that French cuisine is some of the best in the world, and while we are in Paris, one of the things we wanted to be careful not to miss is the cooking. The source for all sorts of cookware used by the best French chefs is the establishment of E. Dehillerin. This store is an Old Curiosity Shoppe of cooking utensils that has been around since the days of Escoffier. It is loaded with pots, pans, skillets, whisks, spoons, knives, tart pans, cake decorators, de-boners, meat cleavers and anything else one can imagine that might be used in a kitchen. We walked into the store and Glenda’s eyes turned upward toward a myriad of shiny, chrome cake pans dangling from the ceiling. We really did want to take home something from this store, but, alas, most of the items we needed were too big to cram into our already packed suitcases. There was a semicircular rocking knife that Glenda really wanted, but since we never check luggage, we’re not allowed to carry knives of any kind in our carry-on baggage. Glenda asked the store clerk about a good place to eat, and he personally took us two doors down to a Middle Eastern restaurant with the very un-Middle Eastern name of “Nelson’s.” As we left the cookware store I wiped the tears from my eyes as I said good-bye to a set of shiny, round-bottomed copper pots and pans mounted on the wall.

At Nelson’s the special for Thursday lunch is a couscous containing a chicken leg, two kinds of sausage, a veal chop, carrots, eggplant and potato. Over all of this one pours as much savory sauce and chickpeas as one wants. Then for the courageous there is a pepper paste that would make a Mexican cry. It was fabulous! What I have learned about French cooking is this: Steak is steak. And anyone can grill a steak. What is amazing about the French food we have enjoyed is the sauces and gravies they put on the steak. Yesterday we had what we would call beef tips at Relais de l’Entrecôte, and the sauce they put on it was delicate, complex—amazing. But even better was the steak we had the night before at the little restaurant next-door to our hotel. It is called L’Ardoise, and the gravy they put over my ribeye is something I will dream about.

Again, walking back to our hotel, we found a wonderful little boulangerie serving dessert and coffee, but since there were no more tables available in the tiny shop, Glenda decided to pass. We got back to the hotel in plenty of time to relax before our 9 pm reservation at Le Soufflé, also a few doors down from our hotel. Their specialty is—you guessed it—souflés. We will let you know how it turns out.Meer informatie
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Soufflé
14 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 50 °F
We had dinner tonight at a restaurant, a few doors down from our hotel. The restaurant has the simple name of Soufflé because that’s what they make. We decided to skip the salad and the escargot and go for the main event. The soufflé we both ordered was called King Henry IV, a wonderful cheese soufflé accompanied by a gravy made of chicken and mushrooms, which they spooned generously over the soufflé. They even brought us a second gravy boat full of the wonderful gravy so that we could soak our soufflés in it. For dessert was a delicious chocolate soufflé. The meal was delicious and remarkably light. We returned to the hooch happy and contented after another wonderful day in Paris.Meer informatie
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ReizigerThose look amazing!
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The Stained-Glass Blues
15 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ⛅ 46 °F
After yesterday’s mishap on the Metro, Glenda was somewhat reluctant to take another train ride, much less an hour-long trek down to Chartres Cathedral. It was important for me to go. I remember an old Encyclopedia Brittanica educational film in fourth grade about the Chartres Cathedral. Since then I have read many times about the unusual blue color of the stained glass windows. With the help of a very friendly ticket agent at the Montparnasse Train Station, and an unbelievably helpful docent named Annie at the cathedral, we enjoyed an incredibly enriching visit to Our Lady of Chartres.

Annie pointed out many special characteristics of this church. For example, she said the in the 700’s a previous Romanesque church was on this site. It burned and another replaced it. When that later church burned sometime around the year 1194, it was replaced by a larger Romanesque church. She pointed out something I had failed to notice when entering the church. Right by the front doors the arches are not pointed, they are round—Romanesque. This is the oldest part of the church. She also showed us Window #10. The Virgin holding the Christ child on her lap is wearing a cloak made of lovely sky-blue.

Right. Carolina blue.

Every other patch of blue in stained glass is darker blue. Duke Blue.

Annie explained that this image of the Virgin and child was found intact in the rubble of the fire that had destroyed the old Romanesque church. Some say it was a miracle that it was not broken. Whether or not it was miraculous, designers of the new Gothic church decided to use it in the new Gothic church they were about to build. They mounted it in a panel of Window #10 and noticed that this color blue was lighter and purer than any blue glass they could find in the twelfth century, and again, some thought it miraculous. Whatever the cause, that light sky blue stained glass became known as Chartres blue, and so it is known today. Modern chemistry has revealed that most of the darker blue glass found in stained glass windows is caused by manganese heated when the sand forming the glass melts. The lighter blue is caused by melting cobalt in the sand. By the time of the twelfth century cobalt was no longer available to the builders here. This window clearly shows the difference. We bid adieu to Annie, went for a delicious goat cheese galette at a nearby crêperie, and finished with dessert at a patisserie. Then we returned to the cathedral to say good by to all the saints and took the train back to Paris.Meer informatie
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Random reflections on France
16 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 41 °F
Chickens are sold with the head on and the feathers attached from the neck up. This is now a requirement in Paris because people were selling birds other than chickens as chicken. It’s rather bizarre to see the chickens laid out in the meat market.

The metro and the trains run efficiently and exactly on time. Because of this efficiency, a newbie can easily get confused. There’s not a lot of time to process what you need to do. 99.9% of the people on the subways and the trains do this every day and almost all go through the procedure unconsciously. But which slot in the gate machine to put a ticket in, where to take it out, which platform to go to all require some processing for someone who is new at this. By the end of the week we had it down pat, but there was a learning curve.

Children and the elderly are both very self-sufficient in Paris. We saw a 90 year old women pulling a suitcase boarding the train and then the subway. Children as young as third or fourth graders walk the streets of Paris with their backpacks. They go down into the subway to ride the metro to their school, get off and go to school. There’s no adult with them.

People in Paris and France are very polite if you greet them properly and are polite to begin with. One should never walk up to someone and just start talking. You must say “Bonjour,” and then begin to ask your question. You find many people very eager to help once you show common courtesy. Failure to greet is one reason the French consider American tourists rude. Greeting someone with “Bonjour,” or “Bon soir,” is a really big deal here, preferably in French. Then they are happy to continue, in English if they know how. And English is spoken very widely in Paris. The French know that English is an international language, and many look forward to the opportunity to practice their English with you. Outside of Paris, especially in small towns, you had better brush up your French.

Pastry shops are everywhere and they all have lovely delectable treats. I love the pastries in Europe because they are not nearly as sweet as our pastries in the United States. Also, European bread is made with a hard wheat flour, whereas in the US we make our breads with a soft white wheat. In the US, I often sneeze after I eat bread, but I never sneeze after eating bread in Europe .

The Parisians and the French in general dress very well. The children have beautifully coordinated little outfits, the older people are dressed like they’re going to church even when they’re on the subway. Older women will be wearing nice leather lace up flats but they are stylish and they always have a scarf on, and their makeup and jewelry are perfectly chosen . The men also have coordinated outfits and they surely do know how to wear a scarf and a hat—perhaps a tweed cap in an informal setting, but never a baseball cap.

French cooking is wonderful, and it is the sauces make the food here. They can take a plain piece of chicken or beef and make it taste fabulous because of the sauce or gravy. Presentation of food is also very important in France. The pastry, the plate, even the drinks all have an artistic flare to them .

The Catholic Church is very strong here. So is secularism. Many philosophical, theological and political opinions coexist. The French seem to be able to get along with one another. Yet, even committed Catholics have a certain kind of pragmatism about them. For example, after the French revolution, Chartres cathedral was declared by the bishop not to be a church, but simply to be a “house of the people of France.” Because of this, its statues and religious objects were not destroyed by the revolutionaries. As a result, many of the artistic and religious treasures of the cathedral predate the French revolution. Few churches have undamaged pre-revolutionary artifacts.

A large number of adults smoke in France. There’s no smoking allowed in the metro, the train stations or inside restaurants, but Parisians will choose to eat outside at a table in the cold because there they can smoke. We did not see e-cigarettes, but we saw regular cigarettes and vaping by teens and all ages above.

Nothing is handicapped accessible in France. Every bathroom in every public building and every restaurant is downstairs, and usually those stairs are steep and winding. Travelers with mobility issues must find European cities more difficult to navigate because of this. But some of these buildings are centuries old, built when wheelchairs were not even an idea. Nevertheless, every stairway, elevator, restroom, and airport has signs advising handicap persons to contact an agent if they need help. I am not quite sure what form that assistance takes. I did not see one handicapped person on the metro or on the train and I saw very few on the streets. I was most impressed by the way the elderly people navigate and handle stairs.Meer informatie
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Setting Sail on the Viking Saturn
16 november 2024, Spanje ⋅ ⛅ 66 °F
It’s great to be back in Barcelona again, where the sun is shining and the weather is warm. There were times in the last week when we wondered whether we would actually make it on board the Viking Saturn. When you think about the hundreds of connections that must be made, the plans that must be executed, the communication that must take place around the world, the number of people involved in making decisions and printing paperwork and electronic images that had to be produced and sent to the right people at the right time, it is remarkable that we could simply walk onto this lovely ship from half a world away. But we’re here now ready to continue our wonderful experiences in Europe and to share them with all of you.Meer informatie
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Our French Connection
17 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☁️ 54 °F
One of the reasons the city of Marseille made it into the movies was because it is such a busy port. People come here from all over Europe, the Middle East, and Africa to do business of all sorts. When we docked this morning, there were no less than four ships arriving about the same time. We are here in the French province of Provence, where the Romans first settled and where we first discovered the beautiful southern part of France. Our favorite town of Aix-en-Provence awaits, and we will enjoy her company again later this morning.Meer informatie
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Home Again in Aix-en-Provence
17 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☀️ 52 °F
When one visits a special place numerous times it begins to feel like home. So it is with this place. We are in Aix-en-Provence. Ancient Greeks claimed this place as their colony. As the Greek culture slowly gave way to that of the Romans, the reigon slowly morphed into the first Roman province in Gaul. After Rome collapsed the residents here wanted the hairy, dirty barbarians hereabouts to know that this was an area of culture, learning and sophistication. They called this place THE province, or, in French, Provence. This town is charming. Life here is cultured, unhurried, unrushed. Surrounded by one of the most productive agricultural areas in Europe, the town's open-air markets provide cooks an abundance of the freshest meats and vegetables. It is easy to understand why French cuisine was born here.

Culinary arts are not the only arts to flourish here. Cezanne, Van Gogh and Picasso all lived and died here. All three artists are buried within a five-mile radius. Two excellent universities call Aix home. If it were not for my unapologetic prejudice for North Carolina, I might judge Aix-en-Provence to be one of the most perfect places on earth.Meer informatie
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Marseille and Its Cathedral
17 november 2024, Frankrijk ⋅ ☀️ 61 °F
The experience of the city of Marseille and that of Detroit are similar. Both were cities based on heavy industry, and in the last quarter of the twentieth century, both cities collapsed industrially and culturally. Both cities were riddled with crime and corruption. Now both cities are trying hard to come back. This city has experienced a successful transition from a an industrial economy to a service economy and it’s growing again. A major employer here is an aerospace company that manufactures light helicopters called the A-Star, now being bought by the hundreds by police departments and military organizations around the world. NYPD just bought 150, San Francisco has ordered 125, and the U. S. Border Patrol has ordered 150. The cargo port here and at neighboring Toulon receive a huge percentage of all of the goods imported into Europe.

We walked into Marseille’s lovely basilica today and noticed a difference between it and the high Gothic churches around Paris. Here on the southern coast of France, the influx of Muslims is no recent event. Muslims have been here since medieval times. It is not surprising, then, that the striped Mozarabic exterior of the church is characteristic of Moorish architecture. The basilica also shows traces of Greek Orthodox Christianity, since a considerable number of immigrants in ancient times came to this place from the eastern Mediterranean. Interestingly, one community of Franks who had settled in Asia Minor came here when defeated by Muslim hordes in the eighth century. This place is like Disney World for one interested in history. It is a rich and vibrant community that is working hard for a prosperous future. From everything we saw they are already entering the best of times.Meer informatie
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