France - August 29 - September 8

Doug and Kate at German gun site, Normandy

Leaving the comfort of English-speaking countries made it feel like we were taking our trip to a new level.   As Jenny's sister Carey said, moving into foreign speaking lands makes travel more entertaining.    Based on the last 10 days, we would agree, though "entertaining" may not be the best word for it.  

What the Germans wish they'd seen June 6, 1944. 
From a spotting bunker.

We crossed the English Channel on a brilliant Monday morning.  We could see the shores of France as we boarded the ferry beneath the white cliffs of Dover and felt exhilarated to be on our way.  We landed in Calais and navigated our first task in French: picking up the rental car.   Doug valiantly stepped up and succeeded in obtaining a little four-door Renault that whipped us all over Normandy.    

Wreckage in the water from the landings

Unfortunately, we had miscalculated the distance from Calais to Bayeux.   We were four hours by freeway instead of a couple hours by romantic back lanes.  The Normandy countryside was still beautiful.  Lots of rolling farm land, wind turbines and some ultramodern bridges.  Thankfully the French drive on the right side so we only had to figure out the road signs, most of which we couldn't decipher.  Our first toll-booth experience was humorous – we pulled over, Doug got out and watched a car pass through the gate and then heaved a sigh of relief – we were only supposed to take the ticket from the machine.  Simple tasks can become very stressful when you’re the equivalent of being illiterate. We decided our rule would be, "Honey, if the information on the sign were important, it would be in English!"

Normandy was beautiful.  We got settled in at the Hotel Rosarie between Bayeux and Arromonches.    We chose this area because it is home to the Bayeux Tapestry and is in the center of the area where the Omaha Beach portion of the June 6th, 1944, D-Day invasion of Normandy occurred.  It is as you would hope it would be.  Surprisingly un-ruined villages of stone and farmland, hedges, and haystacks stretch out in all directions.   When we saw villages with post-WWII homes next to very old structures, we knew we were seeing reminders of the War.

The next day we set out to see the sights.  The Bayeux Tapestry proved to be a remarkable experience.  It was embroidered in the late 1000's to recount the events leading up to and including the invasion of England by William the Conquerer in 1066.  It is thought that the tapestry was made to tell the story of the victory to a largely illiterate population.  At 210 feet long and about three feet wide, it’s much like a long cartoon strip.  The audio guide breathlessly described the action as we walked along the display.  We were impressed at how vibrant the blue, green, red, brown and orange natural dyes were.  The figures range from Kings on thrones, soldiers in battle, horses and ships to mythical creatures added along the margin to complement the story.  

William and Harold practice falconry in happier times.

Harold finally gets it - in the eye.  Game over.  

The tale begins with King Edward the Confessor of England sending his nephew Harold to France to tell William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, that King Edward had chosen William to succeed him.  Harold goes to France, delivers the message and swears allegiance to William.  William takes Harold on a military campaign against a very recognizable Mont Saint Michel, where William’s military prowess should have provided a warning to Harold. 

Harold the Dope heads back to England.   When King Edward dies, Harold decides he wants to be king and takes the throne for himself.  As one can imagine, William doesn't take too kindly to this.  He builds many ships in the Viking style of his Norse heritage, mounts an army and sails to England to claim the throne.  At Hastings the battle rages all day until Harold takes an arrow to the eye.  William is crowned King of England at Westminster, makes it clear that he’s now to be known as the Conqueror, not the Bastard, and goes on to lead England brilliantly for 22 years.   All the drama up through the Battle of Hastings unfolds remarkably in front of your eyes as you view the tapestry.  

Still trying for a comeback after the Conquest.

 We highly recommend going to Bayeux.  Amazingly, the town was spared any serious damage in 1944 from the conflagration going on around it.  It’s really beautiful.  We tucked into some seriously good lamb stew and French Onion soup while there.

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Beauty and the beach - Omaha Beach

From Bayeux we headed toward Omaha Beach, one of the major landing sites on D-Day.  We walked the miles-long beach and were struck by the contrast between then and now.   Then, the beach was site of immense human sacrifice and mechanical destruction. 

Rear of German gun with shrapnel holes, Normandy

Now it is a beautiful place reclaimed by people who sunbathe, fly kites, and play in the waves.  Dogs gallop back and forth, chasing sticks.  All this purification goes on below the famous cliffs where huge concrete German gun emplacements and bunkers still glower over the Channel.  Offshore, shapeless black forms of defensive barriers remain from those momentous days.   

The American cemetery overlooks Omaha Beach.  It is where more than 10,000 white crosses and Stars of David mark the graves of American soldiers who died in Normandy during WWII.   It is a peaceful and somber place that is open to the public to reflect and remember their sacrifice. 

American cemetery above Omaha Beach

While most of the present population of Normandy was not alive during the War, there are those who do remember the emotions of being freed from four horrific years of Nazi occupation.  It is a powerful place.  We were impressed and humbled by the gratitude and grace shown by the people in nearby communities. 

The next day we rose early to make our sheepish four-hour return drive to Calais to return our car and to catch the TGV to Paris.  We flew across the flat farmland of northern France on our whisper-quiet train.  Unfortunately, the huge amount of graffiti along the route warned us that there has been a decline in civil order since we’d last been here.   As soon as we got to Paris Nord we were approached by a gang of young men who tried to scam us by the ticket machines, within view of the blasé staff behind the ticket windows. 

Kate loves Paris!

We navigated the Metro without further incident to our apartment in the 7^th Arrondissement near the Eiffel Tower.  The apartment was small but quiet and perfect for our stay, as it had everything we needed and was located near the Metro and within walking distance of most major sights.  We were very happy there.

The next seven days in Paris were filled with lots of walking, oohing and aahhing over beautiful architecture, eating yummy food and munching on many baguettes.  Kate took a particular liking to the baguettes.   We also strolled to museums, cathedrals, palaces and even got deep below Paris into the catacombs.  Very cool!   Kate has decided that she likes Paris more than NYC and now wants to go to college there instead.  We love her enthusiasm!

Our man in Paris - Charlemagne!

Our first day in Paris we did "the walk".  We left our apartment and walked to the Eiffel Tower, across the Seine, up to the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs-Elysees, past the Obelisk that Napoleon III stole from Luxor to decorate the Place de la Concorde, site of the most notorious guillotine in the Terror, through the Tuilleries Gardens, Austerlitz memorial and the courtyard of the Louvre, down to and through Notre-Dame and across the Seine to the Latin Quarter.  After this 6-7 mile stroll we were well oriented but tired, so we took the Metro home.  In the following days we generally tackled one major activity per day, with one day during which we rested and didn’t leave the apartment except for some food.  

Time to mow the lawn and clean the pool, honey!

 

We were excited to show Versailles to Kate.  In the late 1600s, King Louis XIV decided that the Louvre Palace along the banks of the Seine in Paris was too crowded.  He needed a country estate to get away from all the hustle and bustle of Parisian life.  So he went about 20 miles southwest of Paris near the village of Versailles and built a palace where one of his favorite “hunting lodges” was located.   While he was at it, he redesigned the village of Versailles in one of the first examples of modern urban planning. 

Versailles is nothing short of astonishing.  The palace and gardens spread over 10,000 acres.  The main palace boasts over 201,000 square feet of living space and over 700 rooms.  Each room is filled with art and gilded ceilings. 

Louis XIV would buy just about anything.  Even the mob left this behind.

Most of the furniture was carried off during the French Revolution from 1789-1792, but some survived and is on display.  One can be forgiven for wanting to forget that building the palace is estimated to have consumed one half of France’s GDP, threw much of the populace into even greater poverty and helped precipitate the Revolution. 

Beyond the walls of the palace are ornate gardens as far as the eye can see, a one-mile long canal where imported gondoliers provided aristocrats with some Venetian entertainment, and a replica of a Roman ruin that Louis XIV wanted just because.  

Kate & Doug, Versailles

Later in Louis' reign he would build a much smaller palace on the grounds called the Grand Trianon.  This was his retreat from his retreat.  It is a much more understated palace of pink marble but still has plenty of art and gilded ceilings.  We liked this one much more as it seemed more realistic as a place one could actually live in.  Much simpler to clean.  Oh right - if we owned it someone else would clean it.      

Jenny and Kate at the Fountain of Apollo upon hearing that gelato was just around the corner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Louis XV was no Sun King, but he did make a few additions to the Palace complex.  Louis XVI was more retiring and bored by the excess of the Court.  He and his Queen, Marie Antoinette, added the Petite Trianon and a farm so Marie could tap into her fantasies of the simple peasant  life. There she dressed in peasant clothes, gardened and tended her sheep with some of her undoubtedly bewildered courtiers.   We are not sure how dirty her hands actually got but she enjoyed the peace and solitude away from the busy palace.  

Louis XIV had a gilt complex.

Ironically, the Revolution began during Louis XVI’s reign.  The king who most wanted to retire from the excess of the court was deposed and executed by those who had been starved by his predecessors. 

Over the following few days we toured the Louvre and Orsay museums.  The Louvre Museum is within the Louvre Palace.  The Louvre Palace is the largest palace in the world and the Museum is the largest in the western world.   It houses vast exhibits of art and artifacts up through the Renaissance period.  It’s overwhelming.  Some of the most famous artists represented are Da Vinci, Raphael, Botticelli, Paganini, Michelangelo, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Rueben, and so on, and on, and on.    Then add the Etruscan, Egyptian, Babylonian, Roman and Greek exhibits, and you still have only scratched the surface.   We did our duty as tourists and joined the herd around the Mona Lisa.  She’s still smiling.  Finally we were overcome with museum fatigue and had to go home.

The Orsay Museum houses the Impressionists.  It takes up where the Louvre leaves off.  The collection ranges from about the mid 1800’s to 1915.  It is a much smaller and doable museum but equally impressive.   We liked it more because the art was more appealing and diverse in subject and technique.   We wandered the exhibits and feasted our eyes on Degas, Renoir, Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Rousseau, Toulouse Lautrec, Gauguin and many more.  It was amazing to actually see the paintings that we have seen all our lives in books, magazines and advertisements.  To see them up close, to see the brush strokes and the actual sizes was profound.   Not to mention getting to see so many of them at one time.   Kate particularly liked the massive painting of a vampire attacking one of his victims while two demons look on approvingly.  She’s seen too many Twilight movies.

Visiting the two museums in two consecutive days made for great comparison and a better understanding of the progression of art through the Byzantine, Medieval, Renaissance, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist period.   The Church’s influence peaks and then wanes in the style of paintings, especially in Italy and France.   With the Northern European painters like the Dutch, you could see how the Church had less influence throughout, as the subject matter was more about daily life than about religious exaltation.  During the rise of the Impressionist period one can really see the active movement away from religious subjects.  Impressionism provided a medium to express social progress and the need for freedom of expression.  It was fascinating to see the process by which art become more modern.

Kate’s schooling is one of our main tasks on this journey.   We started the process in London but got going in earnest in Paris.  Jenny and Kate got a handle on an on-line math program, she chose the Tower of London as the subject of her semester paper, and she started to get an idea of how to communicate all she is learning in her travels.  She is keeping an educational journal where she writes about what she is experiencing on a daily basis.   She is to write it as if her social studies teachers were reading it.   We’re finding the balance between letting the educational process happen on its own and applying needed structure.  As long as Kate keeps up with her math and creates some disciplined writing samples, she will be ok.  We’re lucky to have such a bright and energetic kid to work with. 

In addition to sight-seeing, we had two wonderful social engagements in Paris.   Deborah, Fred and Sophia Ludtke hosted us for a lovely afternoon and evening.  Unfortunately, their older child Freddy was away for the week so we didn’t get to meet him.  The Ludtkes are friends of Jenny's stepmother Gray and have been living in Paris for the past four years. 

Kate and Olivia Boone, Paris

Fred Ludtke works for Alcatel-Lucent and is presently VP of Mergers and Acquisitions.  Their two children have loved living in Paris and attend the American School.   Deborah, who was a French major in college, has held down the fort and has had a dream come true getting to live in Paris.   We ate a delicious home-cooked meal, traded travel stories and really loved getting to know them.  A big thank-you to the whole family!

Our other visit was with Olivia Boone.  Olivia is 20 and is studying for a year in Paris through Skidmore College.  She is the daughter of some very good friends, Doug and Jenny Boone.   We’ve watched Olivia grow into an amazing young woman and it is really great to see her realizing her dreams.  It’s also great for Kate to see her example.  We had a delicious  dinner together and heard about her adventures and what is to come.  Bon chance, Olivia!

Jenny about to smack some sense into Doug.  Keep trying!

We finished off Paris with a tour through the Catacombs and climbed the Eiffel Tower.   Kate really wanted to go see the Catacombs so Jenny and she ventured off on the last morning of our stay.  Doug had been warned about the low clearance of the tunnels, so he decided to stay behind.   We viewed many piles of neatly and artistically arranged skulls and bones of tens of thousands of dead people, deep under the streets of Paris. 

Surprisingly, there was nothing creepy about it.   The Catacombs were created in the late 1700s after a wall of a huge burial center collapsed and the bones of thousands of dead people poured into the streets.  The solution was to move the dead down into the labyrinth of tunnels below the city.  These tunnels had been quarries for the stone used to build Paris.  There are miles and miles of tunnels and caves, perfect for storing bones.   Shortly after the Catacombs started being used for burials in the late 1700’s, tourists wanted to see them.  They’re worth a visit if you aren't squeamish about that sort of thing.  

Atop the Eiffel Tower on our last evening

 The Eiffel Tower was our last excursion.  We climbed to the second level and then got the elevator to the top.  The views of Paris and the surrounding area were exhilarating.  It was especially great to be up there after we had toured the city, as we knew the landmarks and could appreciate what we were looking at.

Next morning, we headed out early for the Metro ride to the Gare de Lyon for the TGV to Milan.  Wow was that train nice – and expensive.  We had spectacular views as we wound along lakes through the mountains of SE France and NW Italy.   The train skirted the Alps to Turn and Milan.  Au revoir France!  Buon giorno, Italia!