New landmark for my blog and photos of a real landmark in Paris

This humble blog has now surpassed 100,000 hits. Huzzah!

To celebrate this landmark I would like share a real landmark of France. There is an old saying that "all roads lead to Rome." In France, all distances are measured from a marker in front of

-->Nôtre Dame Cathédrale.

Here is a photo with my son standing in front of the disc helping to point out its location in front of Nôtre Dame.

And here is a close up of the marker itself.

 

Thank you for visiting my blog and I hope you will return again to enjoy my musings and pictures from my travels. 

http://lcmccabe.blogspot.com/2013/07/new-landmark-for-my-blog-and-photos-of.html

Charlemagne died January 28th 814

A reliquary of Charlemagne containing his head. This is found in the cathedral treasury in Aachen, Germany.

In honor of the 1199th anniversary of Charlemagne's death, and in anticipation of the major anniversary to be celebrated next year, I wanted to write a post in honor of that historic leader who changed Europe.

His date of birth is reported as April 2nd, but the year is in some dispute. Encyclopedia Britannica has it listed as 747? while his official biographer Einhardt suggests he died at age 72 making his birth year as 742.  There is not any dispute as to when he died. 

I have snapped pictures associated with Charlemagne ever since beaming a devotee of Carolingian legends.

I wanted to share some of them with my blog readers.

Staring in Paris, there is a statue of him in front of Notre Dame Cathedral.

Then on the Right Bank is Rue Charlemagne.

I was delighted to find that his street intersected with one named after his biographer, Rue Eginhard.

There was also a bookstore named after him a few blocks away.

Not far from the Musée Carnavalet is a street named after the famous poem Les Quatre Fils Aymon.

Then in Chantilly, a chateau north of Paris I found a painting depicting those four sons of Aymon riding on the back of Renaud de Montauban's coveted destrier Bayard.

Too bad the artist did not have Renaud sporting Mambino's golden helmet. Then we would know for certain which of the four brothers was Renaud.

In the Louvre you can find not only a reliquary containing one of Charlemagne's arms,

but a replica of his famous sword Joyeuse.

While in Amboise, I noticed Rue Joyeuse.

In Reims, the treasury for the cathedral had a statue of Charlemagne that had been taken down because it has deteriorated and needs a replacement.

Here is a closer look.

Here I am providing perspective as to its size. Plus, I wanted a picture taken of me with Charlemagne.

Here is where I believe it had been placed on the cathedral. You can see the empty pedestal.

It is not so obvious when you look at the cathedral as a whole.

Speaking of cathedrals, there is an entire stained glass window devoted to the legends of Charlemagne at the cathedral in Chartres.

If you are wondering how someone can tell that this window is about Charlemagne and not just any king, you can see if you look closely the word Carolus used in many of these insets.

During a trip to Italy in 2011, I arranged a tour of St. Peter's Basilica because I wanted to see where Charlemagne had been crowned as emperor of the Western Roman Empire on Christmas Day in the year 800.

Outside the entrance to St. Peter's stands a large statue of Charlemagne.

There is a companion statue of Constantine facing Charlemagne, but I never even looked his way. So I do not have a picture of that to share.

Inside the basilica, my tour guide showed me the very spot Charlemagne was crowned. It was upon a disk of red porphyry.

My guide stressed that red porphyry was expensive and had been mined from a single mine in Egypt, but had been long since been exhausted. This made the existing porphyry all the more valuable.

I then started taking pictures of red porphyry where ever I saw it.

Here is one in the Roman Pantheon.

And a close up of that disk.

Then in August 2011, I visited Aachen. The capital of Charlemagne's empire.

This time when I saw a disk of red porphyry inside his cathedral, I made sure to have my picture taken standing on it.

Here is his throne which was on the second floor in the cathedral. There are steps leading up to the throne and pilgrims used to crawl under it.

Here is a replica of his crown that is in the Rathause, a building where the current Aachen City Council meets and where Charlemagne's palace once stood.

He was originally buried in this sarcophagus that is now housed in the cathedral treasury.

However, when he was canonized, they removed his remains and placed several portions in small reliquaries (like the golden head at the top of this page and the arm held in the Louvre) and the bulk of his bones inside a golden reliquary inside his cathedral.

In Aachen, Charlemagne's influence can be found everywhere. Including his monogram found on the streets.

I hope to make it back to visit Aachen next year and see some of the festivities planned for such a significant anniversary of the death of an important leader in history. Perhaps I will be lucky to be asked to participate as an author whose work's purpose is to inspire a new generation to discover and enjoy the legends of Charlemagne.

A new blog on Paris and website update on the Ozark Medieval Fortress

I have been extremely busy this last month and have not had much time for blogging.

I hope to remedy that soon by continuing my long drawn out travelogue series on my trip to France.

In the meantime, I wanted to share with my readers a blog by my friend Molly Dwyer who is doing research for her second historical novel and is living in Paris for three months.

She has far more energy than I did when I was in Paris for a week, because she has blogged every day. Molly gives her insights about the historical places she has visited as well as what it is like to be An American in Paris.

Check it out, I think you will be delighted.

I also wanted to let my readers know that the website for the Ozark Medieval Fortress has recently been updated. It looks wonderful. I am looking forward to when I can visit the site in person.

Review of Disney Earth

Last night we saw Disney's Earth.

It was a feast for the senses.

The movie showed the Arctic, the Antarctic, forests, rain forests, mountains, deserts, savannahs rivers, waterfalls, and the ocean.

There were gorgeous shots that panned over vast expanses of land.

James Earl Jones provided the narration. He has such a wonderful voice and the narrative lines were at times very light and humorous. Other times the reality of the effects of climate change on the lives of animals caused a more serious tone to be adopted.

It was beautiful. Well worth the cost of admission to see areas of our world that unless you had aerial transportation and an unlimited personal budget you might not otherwise ever see.

One of my favorite parts was seeing various exotic birds of paradise in the equatorial rain forest and their mating dances.

It was spectacular to see slow motion photography of a great white shark jumping out of the ocean water and consuming a seal in one snap of his jaws.

There is also a slow motion chase by a cheetah and a night vision scene where a pride of lions goes up against a herd of elephants. I did not realize that lions working together could take down a full grown elephant.

Yikes. It serves as a reminder of just how powerful the Queen of the Jungle can be. (I say this because lionesses are the ones who actually do the killing. Ye Olde King of the Jungle is waiting until the food is brought to him and then he eats first.)

One more thing, be sure to stay and watch the credits. You will be rewarded by seeing some of the camera crews getting various shots. Some are in the Arctic, others in the ocean and one has a close encounter with his helium balloon and a baobab tree.


The movie is suitable for all ages. Even little ones.

And a quick announcement before I end this post. I am guest blogging on my friend Lee Lofland's blog again. Today's topic is gardens and art in Paris. Please feel free to stop by there, take a look at some beautiful travel photos and say hi!

Orlando Furioso, the Louvre, Pope Joan, memoirs, literacy and

I discovered through the virtues of Google alerts that the Louvre has a special exhibit running now through May 19th called The Imaginative World of Ariosto.

There are lectures, showing of operas based on the epic poem Orlando Furioso, woodcuts from Gustave Doré, sculptures and paintings.


One of the most famous paintings inspired by Ariosto's masterpiece is Roger délivrant Angélique, 1819 by Montauban's native son Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres housed in the Louvre.




A copy is in the Ingres Museum in Montauban.


It is a beautiful painting reflecting a famous scene from the epic poem, but the Ruggiero/Angelica pairing however brief does not capture my imagination like it has artists over the years.


I much prefer Ruggiero/Bradamante.

Here is a link to a PDF file from the Louvre explaining the exhibition in detail. It would be nice to travel to Paris and see the exhibition before it closes, but alas I do not see that in the cards or in my budget. Not between now and May 18th.

I am pleased to know that there is a resurgence in interest in the Matters of France. Hopefully that will be beneficial to me in the future.

Onto some of the other topics in my title. I received an update on Donna Woolfolk Cross' novel Pope Joan. I knew that the movie based on her novel was due out this fall, but I did not know that a different version of her book was also coming out. From her update:

Hurray! A brand-new edition of the Pope Joan book by Three Rivers Press will be released in June. This is not just a re-print; I've made corrections and additions to the text and also written a new "Author's Note" to explain/expand upon these changes. I've also included a list of "Best-Ever Reading Group Questions", gleaned from my many years of chatting by speakerphone with reading and school groups all over the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

Speaking of which, I'd like to ask book group members a big favor: could you fill out this survey? (If this link doesn't work for you, then go to readinggroupchoices.com and click on "survey".) It will take only a couple of minutes. Surveys must be completed by March 27th.

Of course I'm hoping that you'll vote for Pope Joan as one of your favorite book group reads! (doesn't strictly have to be a book you discussed in 2008; what the survey is mostly looking for are good recommendations for other reading groups). If Pope Joan makes the list of top ten book group favorites of 2008, , it would be wonderful and much-needed publicity for the new edition by Three Rivers Press.

The advantage to book group members: the survey enters you in a lottery to win $75 toward your next book group meeting. Also, you get access to the list of Reading Group Choices (RGC) authors who, like me, are willing to chat by speakerphone with book groups.

I was also alerted by my friend Matilda Butler that she and Kendra Bonnett will be holding an online memoir writing class entitled "The Craft of Memoir Writing: Using the Five Senses to Bring Your Story to Life." It runs from April 13th to June 8th and is at a reasonable cost.

Onto the topic of literacy which is my father's raison d’être. He founded the non-profit AVKO Educational Research Foundation which has an updated website, a new blog, a Facebook Page and even a Twitter account.

If you are interested in homeschooling, dyslexia or just plain old literacy, please check it out.

You can even see in online videos how in using "word families" my dad is able to get a young man, who thought he could never learn to read or spell, to correctly read the word malicious.


I am woefully behind in finishing up my travelogue of France, but know that I have not given up on doing it. My next post in that series will be about the city of Montauban, home of Ingres and my heroine Bradamante.

From Paris to the Midi-Pyrenees

With the idea that the third time is the charm, I shall once again try picking up where I left off on my travelogue posts regarding my trip to France last September.

This post is dedicated to covering some of the nuts and bolts of traveling as well as relating our trip from France to the Midi-Pyrenees where my husband and I stayed for two weeks.

In preparing for our trip we thought long and hard of what we needed to bring with us. At every turn we were exhorted to pack light and so we took that advice to heart. We chose clothes that for the most part we could wash in a sink (blue jeans were the notable exception to that ideal.) We knew we would be in Paris for a week, a few days in Provence and during those times we would not have any access to a Laundromat, nor did we want to. With that in mind, we packed several packets of detergent and before we set out in the morning for sight seeing, we washed our underwear, shirts, et cetera in the sink and hung them to dry on the line over the bathtub.

We took two suitcases with us and two carry on bags. We considered the possibility of one of our suitcases getting lost in transit, we divvied up our clothes with the shorts and short sleeved clothes for the south of France going into the checked bag and the cooler clothes for Paris in the carry on suitcase. The checked bag had our various liquids that are now contraband on board airlines such as shampoo, shaving gel, tooth paste, and laundry detergent. Thankfully, we had no problem with our luggage and our precautionary packing of warm versus cool climate clothes did not prove necessary.

One of our carry on bags was filled with books. Included were guide books, a large Michelin spiral bound map of France, my working manuscript, and a Tess Gerritsen novel. That bag was heavy. Very heavy. Since I was the one who insisted on bringing all those books, I wound up being the one to schlep it around on top of my rollered suitcase while Scott carried the lighter bag with an old and rather clunky laptop. We had the high hopes that we would be able to keep up on our emails and I thought I might be able to blog during the trip similar to other friends of mine.

The hotel we stayed at in Paris, Hotel Dieu (I blogged on that neat historical working hospital/hotel in a previous post) had a wi-fi connection, but we were so exhausted by the time we returned to our room that the most we were able to do was check our email and download pictures off our digital camera. Composing a thoughtful blog post was out of the question. Even posting a small “we are here” post with a picture seemed as if it would be a Labor of Hercules to achieve.

Saturday morning marked a major change in our itinerary. We were leaving Paris, picking up a lease vehicle, stopping at Guédelon in the Burgundy region, driving south to Montauban, going grocery shopping before the stores closed, then check into the villa we were going to stay at for two weeks in Monclar-de-Quercy. We knew it was going to be a full day and that is why we had to start our day at an insane time of the morning. We had a shuttle van scheduled to pick us up in front of the hotel at 06:00 in order to take us to the Paris Orly Airport where we were to pick up our lease vehicle from Renault.

That meant that we had to wake up, take our showers, pack the last items into our suitcases and be outside at insane o’clock all the while without any benefit of any caffeinated beverages. It was brutal, but we survived. My husband and I have gotten so accustomed to our routine of achieving our therapeutic level of caffeine at a slow pace by periodically slurping coffee from a mug near our bed that having to get up without benefit of coffee is brutal and almost torturous. We knew that the hospital cafeteria would not be open at five in the morning, nor was it likely that any of the various cafés nearby would be open at that time on a Saturday morning. So we suffered while stumbling around our hotel room with our eyes barely open.

Our driver arrived shortly after 6 a.m. and it was our first real exchange with a French speaking native that was not fluent in English, and it foreshadowed what was to come for us. He spoke a little English and we spoke a little French. Together, the three of us were able to piece together a conversation. The discussion at first was focused on making sure he understood which gate at the airport we needed to be dropped off. Once he understood we were picking up a car, he asked if we were going to drive around Paris. We laughed, and said no -- that was dangerous. He then laughed and agreed with us. We told him we were on our way to visit the south of his country near Toulouse.

Then, he did something I thought was very kind of him. He wanted us to be aware of the monitors on the auto routes which would issue citations if you drove faster than the posted speed limit. He pointed out the signs and also the cameras in boxes by the side of the road.

Later when he heard that we were from California, he expressed his love for our state because of its beauty. We thought he had visited our state, but he had not. He said he knew it from pictures and he would like to visit one day.

We had other conversations with French people during our trip which had similar results. Using as much French vocabulary to the best of our ability allowed us to have a pleasant if not sophisticated conversation. We felt as if we made positive connections with people from another country, another culture, and another language.

After being dropped off at Orly Airport the first item on our agenda was to find coffee and something to eat. Then we also drew more money out of an automated teller machine (ATM). For those from the United States who have not traveled overseas before, forget any thought you may have of formally exchanging money or using travelers’ checks. ATMs are the way to go because you get Euros at the current exchange rate and depending upon your bank you may or may not have any withdrawal fees associated with the transaction. The only sticking point is that there is generally a maximum amount of money you can withdraw on any day.

Another financial aspect to consider before traveling is to contact your credit card company and alert them to the fact you will be on vacation and will be making quite a bit of charges. This is to avoid them thinking that your card was stolen and freezing your account for fear that there are unauthorized charges being made. Tell them of the dates of your trip and where you are going ahead of time and you should not have to worry about frozen accounts.

European countries also have a security chip embedded in their credit cards which are not in American credit cards. This will sometimes render your credit card transactions as invalid, so you should be aware of this potential. It seemed more likely to be troublesome at petrol stations and having a backup of Euros on hand was important.

In obtaining cars for driving overseas, there are several companies who have lease programs. You actually purchase a brand new vehicle and will sell it back to the company at a guaranteed price at the end of the lease period. The minimum is seventeen days possession of the car, but Renault had a minimum charge of twenty-one days.

My husband worked on these details and had the contract drawn up months in advance with Renault USA for the date, time and place for us to pick up the vehicle. He chose the Renault Megane.

Another driver picked us up from the airport and took us to the Renault facility. Our car was waiting for us. We signed some papers and were given “smart keys” which are about the same size as a credit card but are thick and padded. They have embedded computer chips which activate the car, even if it is not inserted into the ignition slot. To start the car you simply press the “start” button. Those keys also unlock the car whenever you are even near the car which makes it difficult if you are like me and want to just check to see if the trunk is locked. It will not be if you are standing near the car with that smart key in your pocket no matter how many times you punch the lock icon.

Our next goal was to find a station and fill up the car with gazoil, a diesel fuel. Once that was accomplished we set dusted off our Garmin Nuvi GPS and started it up. We had purchased a package for France and was about to discover how it differed from using that electronic toy in the United States.

One thing that we noticed as soon as we left the autoroute was that the accent of the voice in the Garmin garbles the pronunciations of roads and towns in French. It butchered the language – to the point where we would turn and stare at it and say “Wha ?”

At one point we switched the voice’s language to French, but that did not help because then every word was said in an incomprehensible thick accent. We wound up reverting to the familiar American sounding female voice and read the street names whenever a turn was announced.

We also had to play around with the settings to convert to kilometers as well as the time zone we were in rather than our Pacific time zone.

The GPS unit did get us to Guédelon without any trouble and we had a lovely time there. I shall blog about Guédelon another day since it is well worth a post all on its own.

In the meantime, here is a picture from that site to serve as a teaser. Yes, they are building a castle using thirteenth century technology!

We left Guédelon and relied upon the GPS to find the best route to Montauban. The thing is, since we were in a rural area, it did not take us directly back to the autoroute. It took us on a convoluted path going from one rural road to even lesser traveled rural roads that made us start doubting the reliability of the unit. We also were in need of lunch and beginning to get cranky.

We had considered eating lunch at Guédelon for they have a cafeteria there, but alas it had not opened for the day by the time we left even though the stated hours made it appear that it should have been. There were towels draped over the areas where food was supposed to be, so we knew that even if someone stepped up and began puttering around in that kitchen that it would probably still take some time before we had food in hand. So we left Guédelon without eating.

We considered and rejected the idea of stopping at a village for a meal. Many of the small villages in France are economically depressed and if we stopped at a village restaurant for lunch, they would probably want to make sure that we enjoyed our stay. That would likely translate into the two hour lunch as is customary in France. We just did not have that kind of time that day, and did not want to insult anyone -- so we set our sights on the promised fast food restaurants that line the autoroute. Then rural road after rural road, our morning croissants became a distant memory. I then did something desperate and searched for food on the Garmin GPS menu and found a McDonald’s restaurant that was not too far out of our way.

Eating at a McDo’s in France was out of desperation and necessity. It actually was not as bad as I had feared. We had reasonable fast food, and in around twenty minutes we were back on the road again.

We eventually made our way to the autoroute and once on those really smooth roads we seemed to fly through the gorgeous countryside.

Our next big goal for the day was to go grocery shopping. The reason we needed to do that on a Saturday night is that many stores are closed on Sunday in France. If we had not made it to the large E. LeClerc supermarket on Saturday night before they closed, then we would have been dependent upon the small grocery store named 8 à Huit (pronounced wheat-ah-wheat) in Monclar-de-Quercy which is only open for a few hours on Sunday. And never is the store open from eight to eight as the name implies.

There were some things we needed such as toilet paper and laundry detergent that we did not want to pack in our suitcases nor would be readily available at farmers markets.

I had corresponded with Sarah Rule for months prior to our arrival and she was kind enough to alert me to certain things that would otherwise have taken me by surprise. First was that the shopping carts require a Euro coin deposit to release them from a locking mechanism in the parking lot. We made sure that we kept at least one Euro coin at all times. Second was that grocery stores no longer provided shopping bags for your purchases. You are not asked paper or plastic, you are expected to bring your own.

So we packed some cheap flimsy plastic grocery bags from our local store and had them on hand for our shopping trip.

Each step in our journey in France seemed to be passing some kind of milestone that was worthy of celebration.

1. We made it to Paris. Check.
   
2. We made it through Customs without any hassle. Check.
   
3. We retrieved our checked bag. Check.
   
4. We found our shuttle bus to take us to our hotel. Check.
   
5. We enjoyed our week in Paris. Check.
   
6. We got our shuttle van to Orly Airport. Check.
   
7. Picked up our car. Check. Got petrol. Check.
   
8. Found our way to Guédelon. Check.
   
9. Found the grocery store in Montauban. Check.
   
10. Got our shopping cart and bags. Check.

We were giddy and getting pretty silly at this point in the day, but we felt as if we had accomplished something amazing just by finding our way in a foreign country without having to depend upon tour guides shuttling us from one over touristed spot to another.

Entering the large supermarket was another new adventure. One of the first aisles we went to was the wine aisle. There we became like kids in a candy store and just piled bottle after bottle into the basket. Their selection was almost exclusively French wines and we did not recognize any of the labels since we normally support our local economy and to us that means drinking Sonoma County wines. We rarely drink anything “over the hill” from Napa and treat that as being an import, so we really did not know which wines to choose and wound up picking what looked good. I did insist that we buy at least one bottle of champagne to celebrate our successes thus far. Most of the wine we purchased was a bargain at only about two to three Euros per bottle, but the champagne cost at least twenty Euros. I picked a bottle of Canard-Duchenne because I liked the name.

It was very tasty, and I have seen that label since returning to the States.

We then came upon the produce section and by watching other people realized that you need to hand your bags of fruit and vegetables to a clerk who will weigh it and create a price tag to be slapped on the side. I did not quite understand the subtleties of when it was and was not needed at first. I handed a head of lettuce to her, but she shook her head since it was priced by the unit and not by weight. A couple of other such examples happened until we understood how that system worked.

We felt good that we discovered this on our own and not after being embarrassed by a check out clerk telling us that we had neglected to follow that little step. I am also not so sure if we would have understood that verbal reprobation if it we heard it in rapid fire French and had people standing in our line glaring at us for slowing things down.

It was interesting to see in the meat section some animal products that are not available in the States, namely cheval and pigeon. The cheese aisles were filled with a wide variety of cheeses, but there was no cheddar to be found. That is a British cheese and therefore is not readily found in France. Neither could we find shredded Parmesan, although it was available in the familiar grated form that reminds me of fine sawdust.

We were unfamiliar with the brand names of the various products such as laundry detergent and dish detergent, so we went with the old “this looks good” method of shopping. Scott was determined to cook as many dinners as possible and so we stocked up on a variety of foodstuffs to last us about a week with the idea we would supplement as needed.

I mentioned this before, but it warrants repeat attention: the covers of the tabloid magazines at the checkout stands featured both Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. I felt ill at the sight. I cannot imagine that France does not have its own starlets that are worthy of public attention. Of all the possible American cultural exports the people of France could choose from, why would they want to fixate on those two air headed bimbos?

Once we bagged our groceries and left the store, we packed our trunk, returned the shopping cart in order to retrieve our Euro coin, and headed for Daramousque at Monclar-de-Quercy.

Sarah gave us fabulous directions to find their place and we arrived at around the time that Scott had planned: around 8 o’clock at night. It was a good thing we arrived before it was dark otherwise it would have been difficult to find their driveway.

As it was, we were welcomed by our hosts and shown to the cottage where we would be staying for two weeks. Scott then set out to make dinner. I thought he was planning on spaghetti, salad, and a baguette. Something simple, tasty and quick, but no -- he was in the mood for wild mushroom risotto. As he was knocking around in the kitchen, I unpacked our groceries and suitcases.

Here is the view from the patio of the cottage.

After a year’s worth of planning, we had finally arrived. We would soon be seeing and exploring places that were settings in my novel.

Nightlife in Paris

Sometimes Life seems so absurd and then rays of hope shine through the darkened skies.

Yesterday my faith in humanity was restored when I heard the news that the opening weekend box office gross for Paris Hilton's new movie was a whopping $28,000.

Another good sign was that there were only 111 screens who chose to show this tripe. Believe me, the word tripe seems appropriate to describe the infantile plot line of The Hottie and the Nottie. Here's a link to the trailer for that movie should anyone wish to waste a few minutes of their life watching a promotion for a movie that I think has the inside track to next year's Razzie awards.

To think that Paris Hilton actually went to the Sundance Film Festival to try and drum up interest for that waste of time and celluloid.

I hope this signals the end to Paris Hilton's film career and possibly the end of the media's obsession with her and whatever she does.

I was appalled when I was at a supermarket in France last September and saw a magazine at the checkout stand bearing Paris Hilton and Britney Spears on the cover.

I was horrified. It is bad enough that I am constantly assaulted by their imagery in the United States, I could not understand why the French would be interested in those intellectually challenged floozies. Does France not have their own celebrities with love lives they can follow?

Speaking of France, I shall now take this time to finish detailing my last full day in Paris. It was Friday, September 7th and we left the chateau at Chantilly in time to make our train back to Gare du Nord. We stood outside on the platform waiting for our train to come and had to stand far away from the tracks when the high speed trains passed the station by without stopping. The force of the wind current was powerful and would have knocked small children over by its blast.

Once arriving back at Gare du Nord it had a carnival atmosphere. There was a live band playing and people gathered around to enjoy the music. That night marked the opening match of the Rugby World Cup being hosted by the country of France and at Stade de France in Saint Denis and France would be playing against Argentina.

You could feel the excitement of the crowd in anticipation of the sporting event due to commence in a few hours time.

After taking another train we made it our hotel and rested a bit before changing for dinner.

We had such a wonderful lunch that we did not need a fine gourmet dinner. Instead Scott decided once again to try and find an Italian restaurant in Paris. I think he really just wanted to prove that our friend Jacques was wrong.

There was one Italian restaurant on the left bank whose marquis we could read clearly across the Seine. I thought we could at least walk there and check out their menu before deciding whether or not to eat there.

A funny thing happened on our way there. Scott noticed a narrow alleyway and wanted to "check it out."

Two days earlier on our walking tour of Paris, Yita Hillyard had shown us streets with narrow alleyways such as this one.



The alleyway that we walked down was not guarded by a door, but it was quite narrow. We found ourselves in a hidden community just one block off from the banks of the Seine river and rows of bars and restaurants.

Several restaurant owners were at the front of their stores and barking for customers. One woman accosted us in French and then quickly changed to English. She showed her shish-ka-bobs and made an offer to buy our wine if we ate dinner there. It was a tempting offer, but we were not in the mood for Greek food.

Many of the restaurants had large portable signs displaying their menus for people strolling by to read their specials. It was ethnic food heaven for there were restaurants representing food from every continent. We even saw a Mexican restaurant, but I could not bring myself to even consider going there. Possibly if I lived in Europe for months on end and longed for something reminding me of home, I might eat at a Mexican restaurant in Paris. However, I can eat Mexican food anytime I want to in California and I simply saw no need to torture myself with trying something that might be a Frenchified version of Mexican food. So we walked on past that store without even looking at their menu.

We settled on an Italian restaurant with outdoor seating. It was a beautiful warm summer evening and the nightlife was just starting to gather.

The restaurant owner directed customers to the tables he wanted them seated at. I think there was an attempt at window dressing for I saw him shoo four people away from some tables near the street and seat them instead further inside the restaurant.

After seeing that happen, I felt honored that he had seated us right next to the sidewalk near the menu. It made me feel like we were his chosen marquee couple.

Here is a picture I took from my vantage point. You can see the roaming flower vendor as well as a rugby bar that was across the way.

"Le Bourbon" was the restaurant directly across from us. Since my husband and I have allergies to a great number of shellfish, we avoided restaurants specializing in seafood. Look at the building behind the restaurant and you can see faces over the center of the windows. I loved seeing decorative artistic touches at every turn in France.


Scott took this picture looking further down the street from where we were sitting. You can see that there was a Tunisian restaurant.

The food at our restaurant was unremarkable, but the evening was fun. We enjoyed the nonstop people-watching and we knew when France made their first goal by the blowing of horns by rugby fans out their window above the bar. Later when we did not hear any subsequent celebrating from the above-the-bar denizens, we assumed that things might not be going well for the French national team.

After we finished our dinner we joined the crowds milling about the area and turned a corner and saw this:


At first I was a bit disoriented and thought "Notre Dame?" Then I realized that it was Saint Severin, a church we had seen on our walking tour from the outside. Here is that same church in the light of day.


Here's a view of one of its gargoyles up close.


It was amazing that a street that can look this placid and serene by day...


can have such a different feel by night.



Those might not be the same exact buildings or streets, but it is in the same neighborhood. As we started venturing back to the Isle de la Cité we passed a restaurant right on the main drag that had tables on the sidewalk. There were so many people it was difficult to move. I remember bumping into someone and feeling terrible because they were trying to enjoy having a nice peaceful dinner like I had just had, except they did not discover that only one or two blocks away was the vibrant oasis they had been looking for. Instead they were sitting outside as passersby wound up stepping on their feet unwittingly due to the crowded conditions.

We then walked to Ile Saint Louis in order to try the famous ice cream by Berthillon. Fortunately there was not a long line of customers. The flavors were different than I expected and tried something I knew that I would probably never see as a Ben and Jerry's flavor. I tried the rose flavored glace. It tasted like a sorbet to me and it had a nice, light, fragrant flavor. I think Scott chose caramel.

Afterwards we went back to our hotel room to start packing for the next morning when we would leave to pick up our lease vehicle and start a new adventure.

We turned on the television set and caught the last part of the rugby game. My suspicions were confirmed as we found that Argentina was in the lead. It is interesting to watch a game in which you do not understand the rules and have it be in a language you barely know.

However, rugby is fun to watch even if you do not understand what is transpiring. It is a brutal, full contact sport with no real time outs and no padding.

I had such a nice time that evening, being in the heart of Paris and one that I shall remember for years to come.

Linda

Chantilly, France: Two palaces - one for people and one for horses

Once again I am continuing my travelogue about my trip to France from last September. The last full day we were in Paris, I wanted to visit a palace. Most Americans I know would have suggested visiting Versailles for that purpose, but I chose Chantilly instead.

Chantilly is an hour north of Paris and to get there without a car, you must use the train system. That meant we had to plan our day carefully by studying the various schedules. We took the RER and traveled to Gare du Nord, there we had to find the Grande Ligne level (upstairs) and purchase tickets to the RER Line D to Chantilly/Gouvieux station.

After wandering aimlessly around the station for a little bit, we found where we needed to be in time to make our connection without having to wait too long. Once we arrived in the train station in Gouvieux we walked to the grounds at Chantilly. It took us about half an hour to get to the park, but we timed ourselves to know how much time we should allot for our return walk to the train station later that day.

One of the reasons I chose Chantilly over Versailles, was not only the idea of not having to fight enormous crowds of tourists, but this palace is also a premier tourist attraction for equestrians.

There are horses throughout my story, so I liked the idea of visiting the Musée Vivant du Cheval.




According to Chantilly's website:

The architect Jean Aubert was commissioned by Louis-Henri de Bourbon, 7th Prince of Condé, to build the grand stables. Legend has it that the prince thought he would be reincarnated as a horse, so he wanted stables that would reflect the majesty of his rank. Thanks to him, France boasts an architectural masterpiece of the 18th century.

That means there was also palace built for horses, and it is impressive. Here you can see the distance between the two palaces, separated by a dense clump of trees and a pond. It may have been constructed that way to avoid the smell of hundreds of horses nearby (and the accompanying amount of manure.)



Here is the horse "barn" itself. The picture was taken from a distance in order for its magnitude to be comprehended. To the left you can see the white plumes of tents where a riding competition was taking place that day.



To see the layout of the horse museum, you can find that here.

The courtyard rivaled the one we saw at the Louvre.


Inside is a staging area where the horses are brought out and shown to the public. Our timing was bad that day and we did not catch one of the demonstrations, but it still was incredible to see where they performed.



Overlooking the round, you can see the grand dedication to the man who had this edifice created, Louis Henri de Bourbon, the seventh prince of Condé.


Given the amount of material wealth concentrated not only in the palatial estate, but the horse compound, it is understandable why this was attacked by the peasants during the French Revolution. If I had been struggling to survive, I would feel offended by the opulence displayed at the Chateau de Chantilly.

In the horse museum you not only see stalls filled with beautiful animals, but art exhibits dedicated to all things related to horses. There are rooms filled with horses from carousels, saddles and spurs, as well as paintings and drawings of horses.

I even found examples of Bayardo, the legendary horse in the Matters of France owned by Rinaldo.

These paintings are by Robert Ladou. Here you can see a bay colored horse nudging four warriors. That in and of itself does not conclusively say that it must be Bayardo, but ...



This painting shows all four brothers on the horse's back. That is part of the mythology of Bayardo in the story Quarte Fils d'Aymon (the Four Sons of Aymon.)



Bayardo would magically expand in order to accommodate all four brothers: Rinaldo, Alardo, Guicciardo and Ricciardo (AKA Ricciardetto).

I was thrilled to find this painting and it happened to be the one of the few representations I found during my trip to France depicting showing the legends of Charlemagne. I saw books on the legends of Arthur, but precious little about the legends of Charlemagne. I found that curious and disappointing.

The museum also had some models of warriors on horseback. Here is their Charlemagne.


And here is Clovis. (I apologize for the fuzziness, but the lighting was not as optimal as I would have liked.)


In the same room was a drawing of Joan of Arc. (One again, I apologize for the light but this was the best I could capture.)


After we finished our tour of the , we were famished. There are a few restaurants to choose from at Chantilly and after looking at the various menus, we settled on La Table des Lions which is a bit of a walk outside the park proper.

The food was wonderful. The best meal we had in Paris, even though technically we were not in Paris.

Scott remembers having French onion soup and trout. I had beef with a wine reduction sauce.

Then I remember splurging on dessert. Knowing my preferences, it was probably something chocolate. It was also the first time that I succumbed to temptation and had wine with lunch, even though my husband had done that since the first day we arrived in France. This food deserved having the accompaniment of wine for its flavors to be fully appreciated.

After a grand lunch, we set out to see the chateau itself.

The day was cool and overcast, which is something we had become accustomed to in Paris. I was glad I had worn a sweater and brought my jacket for we were walking outdoors for most of the day. Here you can an equestrian statue prominently displayed between the chateau and its extensive gardens.



Here is another view of the chateau.



Here are the manicured gardens behind the chateau.


Inside the chateau is an art gallery which has an extensive collection including three paintings by Raphael.



After touring the parts of the chateau that were open to the public, we were soon checking our watches to determine when should head back to town and catch our train. It had been a long wonderful day.

Here I am next to a sphinx, feeling a bit tired, and squinting into the hazy sunlight. That leg of our journey was almost over and the next day we would be headed towards the sunny south of France.