Paris in three days

Leaving Chartres, I took the train to Paris, arriving at my hotel on the Left Bank in the early

afternoon.  I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to get to Paris, so I had not scheduled

anything until a visit to Sainte Chapelle at 4.  So I had time to make a quick visit to one of

my favorite museums.  Musee D’Orsai or Musee Rodin?  Which one if you only have time

for one?  The question answered itself:  museums are all closed on Mondays!  So I went

for a long walk around the highlights of Paris.  First the Eiffel Tower which you can see from

the street in front of my hotel.  Then across the Seine to the Arc de Triomphe, down the

Champs Elysee, past the Tuilleries and the Louvre (waving to the Musee D’Orsai across

the Seine), and finally to the Ile de La Cite to visit Sainte Chapelle and Notre Dame.  The

highlights of Paris in three hours.

The Eiffel Tower hasn't changed since the last time I was here.

Sainte Chapelle has become much more popular and crowded since I last visited it.  It used to be a hidden gem around the corner from Notre Dame, but while it is still a gem, it is no longer hidden.  It had always impressed me as having the most beautiful stained glass windows, but now that I have been awed at the Chartres Cathedral, I’m not so sure.  Then again, original windows from the twelfth and thirteenth century … that’s pretty incredible.  I did not remember that Sainte Chapelle has more than beautiful windows; it was built to house relics that were brought here in the Thirteenth Century:  pieces from the True Cross and the Crown of Thorns.  Of course.

I was hoping that I could at least walk into Notre Dame to see the damage, but it is

completely closed during renovations, and will not reopen until last next year.  Much

of Paris is under construction in preparation for the Olympics next year.

I had scheduled two walking tours each on Tuesday and Wednesday with very mixed

results.  On Tuesday morning the World War II and Nazi Occupation tour was

disappointing as I knew more about the topic than the guide did, and I had a lot of

questions which she could not answer.  But the afternoon tour (with the same company)

on the French Revolution was great.  The guide knew everything, and answered all of my questions and then some.  He turned a three hour walking tour into a four hour lecture with a little walking every so often.  My kind of tour.

On Wednesday morning I got lucky again as my walking tour of Le Marais neighborhood

had an excellent guide and no other participants.  My kind of tour again.  Le Marais is

known as the Jewish neighborhood but it has become very expensive and upscale

because of its location close to the center.  It was kind of like visiting the Lower East Side

in New York which was also a Jewish neighborhood - a hundred years ago.  There was

Hebrew writing on a few buildings, one Jewish bookstore, two bakeries that carried challah,

and several falafel restaurants.  The guide pointed out one which she told me had the best

falafel in the world, and always has long lines.  I refrained from saying that I have eaten

falafel in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and think I have had the best falafel in the world.  It was

morning when we walked by the restaurant and it was not yet open.  When I returned a

couple of hours later, there was a line outside of over a hundred people.  Who knew that

Parisians and tourists are willing to wait for an hour for the best falafel in the world?

I guess I got lucky again on Wednesday afternoon although it did not seem like it at first.  My already booked afternoon walking tour of Literary Paris (does that tour have my name on it?) was canceled.  I was looking forward to communing with Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Hugo, and Dumas.  The previous day we had passed the cafe where the American Lost Generation hung out.  It is called Les Deux Magots which, it turns out, has nothing to do with insects or larvae.  The guide said a magot in French is a kind of bird but the internet says the deux magots are two statues or columns.  Ya got me.

With the literary tour

canceled, I decided to

take a tour of the Palais

Garnier, the Opera House. 

I was there so many

years ago that I did not

remember it well.  I

thought I was going there

to visit the Chagall ceiling,

which is still worth seeing

again, but the rest of the

building is over-the-top

amazing.  The guide called

the style eclecticism.  Why

design in Gothic or Romanesque or baroque or Renaissance style when you can combine

them all?  And somehow it works and impresses.

And I still had time in the late afternoon to finally visit Rodin.  I do like stopping in on him.  One of the first bronze nudes that he cast was so perfect, showing every muscle and detail, that he was accused of simply making a cast of the model.  His sculpture is truly alive.

And that is (almost) three days in Paris.  Tomorrow I fly to Greenland to begin Part Deux of this trip.

I spent my last evening

and morning in Brittany

in Rennes, the capital

city of Brittany. It does

have more Medieval

half timber houses than

any other place in Brittany.

Unlike Tours and other

towns that I have visited,

however, the houses have

not been converted into

tourist shops and

restaurants. The houses,

like much of Rennes, are

a little worn looking.

I stopped in at the Rennes Cathedral before driving to Chartres to see its famous cathedral.  In 2007 Steve and I arrived at the Chartres Cathedral along with thousands of people who had just completed a five day (walking) pilgrimage from Paris.  The inside and outside of the Cathedral were packed and we were unable to really look around.  The guidebook said not to miss the choir screen (behind the altar) but we could not make our way there and did miss it.

So finally, sixteen years later, I made it back and it was well worth it.  I have been in half a dozen cathedrals in the last couple of weeks, and this is far and away the most incredible.  It was built during a fairly short time in the twelfth (!!!) century and completed in the thirteenth.  Most of it, including the dozens of stained glass windows, are original.  The vault is the tallest I have seen, with three levels of windows.  Apparently, this was one of the first Gothic cathedrals, and innovated the use of flying buttresses.

Beautiful rose windows, a maze on the floor, and that choir screen … amazing.  Carvings of 20 biblical scenes.  It is rather new, however, dating only to the sixteenth century.  One of the most famous windows is the Blue Virgin.  And, of course, there is an important relic:  the Sancta Camisia, a piece of Mary’s clothing that has been in Chartres since the 9th Century.

Ironically, my long visit to the cathedral was interrupted by the arrival of … a pilgrimage, but a much shorter one.  Men in uniform, people (mostly old) carrying flags, and various other people.  It turned out to be the ceremony to mark the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Brittany in August, 1944.  The ceremony began in the town center and then there was a processional to the cathedral for a service.

To top off the day, they do an incredible light show on the cathedral after dark. I cannot begin to describe how amazing it was. I'd say that this is the most impressive cathedral but ... I am going to Notre Dame tomorrow. Maybe I'll change my mind.

Another day, another walled city ... and prehistory

On Friday I went to Concarneau for the Friday morning market and to visit its Ville Close - a medieval walled city on an island. Sound familiar? The Bretons fighting the French who are fighting the British. It is all sounding very familiar to me. They fought wars all over Brittany for a period of centuries. The Ville Close is a very small, easily walkable island with a lot of its original walls and towers. 

Back to Fort La Latte yesterday … La Latte has not one, not two, but three drawbridges. In between the first and second is a courtyard which they called a “barbican.” If invaders got past the first gate, they were sitting ducks in the barbican from the defenders on the walls around them. The third drawbridge was to the castle where the lord and his family lived.

The Ville Close in Concarneau also has an area between the first and second gates, but here they called it a “ravelin.”  I don’t speak French, but the English translations are no help to me.

In the afternoon, I visited Carnac, home to the largest collection of neolithic stone monuments in the world.  At the main site in Carnac, there are 3,000 stones placed upright in long parallel lines.  Why?  No one knows, but they date from 5,000 to 3,000 BCE.  Stones placed upright like this are called menhirs, and if they have another stone across the top, they are called dolmens.  I am learning so many new English words in France.

These sections of menhirs are called alignments, and while there are 3,000 in the three sections in Carnac, there are over 10,000 in Normandy.  There are a lot in Great Britain and some in most of the countries of Europe.  Who knew?

They know what the menhirs are not.  This is not a burial ground, and the lines in different sections are at different angles, so not likely to be related to astronomy or solstices.  Religious?  Unlikely since they are so spread out and in so many widely disparate locations.  Dropped and placed by ET’s?  These rocks are granite.  They are heavy.  So why, over a 2,000 year period, did Neolithic people place them so carefully in rows?  This is one of the mysteries of life that is unlikely to ever be solved since the timing predates writing.

Carnac also has a small, but interesting Museum of Prehistory. Neolithic man nay not have been able to write, but he made and used stone tools as well as decorative items such as jewelry. Another mystery of life: in one of the burial cairns they found gemstones from northern Italy and southern Spain. How did they get to Brittany? Did neolithic man travel that far? Engage in primitive trade? Did the leaders receive tribute? It is surprising how interesting these rocks turned out to be.

I have stayed the last two nights on the outskirts of Quimper, and finally made it into the city on my way out. Good timing, too, as Saturday turns out to be market day in Quimper, and this market was even bigger than the huge one yesterday in Concarneau. This market was also clearly for the locals. Besides large sections of produce and food, they sell a lot of clothes and even beds. I could tell the Quimper market was for locals because no one carried the "traditional Breton shirts that every tourist shop has. They sell clothes that people wear.

Quimper has a small museum of Breton history and another small museum of faience - the local style of ceramics. Three companies coexisted in Quimper for centuries, creating a distinctive style of not just plates and vases, but ceramic sculptures as well. They are truly works of art.

I visited one last chateau on my way to Rennes:  the Josselin Chateau.  Like the Loire Valley chateaus, it was built in the fourteenth century, but unlike most of the other chateaus, Josselin was owned, lived in, and renovated by a single family, except for a period of confiscation during the Revolution.

Mont St. Michel and Brittany

Margie and I parted at the train station in Tours as she was going on to Paris and then home.  I continued to Mont St. Michel, where I had a tour scheduled for 4:45, but I decided I had time to stop at the Chateau in Fougeres.  Good choice.  More a fortress than a palace, the Fougeres Chateau figured heavily in the fighting between France and England.  Bretagne (Brittany in English) is a peninsula in the farthest west portion of France, has its own language, and is closer to England than to Paris.  That was especially so in the Middle Ages when travel by sea was much faster than overland travel.  The early kingdoms of England included Brittany (hence, the name) as well as portions of Normandy and the Loire Valley at times.  In fact, a third of William the Conqueror’s troops at Hastings in 1066 were Bretons.  During the Hundred Year War (which lasted longer than 100 years), the French and British fought periodically over land and the succession to the French crown.  Brittany fought on the side of the British, and eventually achieved independence, although it was later conquered by the French after the British were finally defeated.  Very confusing.  In the Fougeres Chateau with its moat and many towers, you could practically see the medieval battles that took place there.

Then I continued to Mont St. Michel which is as dramatic as I expected.  It is an abbey (I would say a cathedral but there is some technical distinction between the two) on top of a mountain on a small island in a bay between Normandy and Brittany.  In the past, the island was only reachable at low tide, but there is now a short causeway.  Cars are not allowed on the island, so you have to park a couple of miles away and take a bus.

Mont St. Michel is the second or third most visited place in France and is crowded.  The guidebooks recommend arriving early, but I opted for the opposite approach.  There are a few hotels on the island, and I had booked one.  So I arrived at 3:00 and stayed overnight.  There is just one very crowded street that winds around the mountain to the abbey on top.  Unlike St. Malo where I am going next, Mont St. Michel was not bombed in WWII, so the abbey is intact except for structural damage over the years.  How do you build a church on a steep, pointing mountain?  Only the middle is on the mountain top, and the rest is supported by massive columns in the crypts that sit on the sides of the mountain.

In later years, the abbey housed a prison.  How do you get food and other supplies to the top of the mountain?  Men (prisoners) walked in a giant hamster wheel that turned a winch that pulled a sledge up the steep slope of the mountain.

The area around Mont St. Michel is full of salt flats.  The traditional dish they serve here is pre-salted lamb, since the sheep take in salt when they eat.  Also, the hotel I stayed in, La Mere Poulard, developed another specialty to attract people to eat there.  They make incredibly fluffy omelettes in cast iron pans over an open fire.  I’m not sure what they put in with the eggs, but they taste more like souffles than omelettes.

I got to enjoy the island in the evening as the sun went down and most of the tourists left.  When I left late the next morning, there were long lines for the buses to the island.  I left Mont St. Michel and headed for Dinan, a walled medieval city, but stopped first at Cancale, the oyster capital of the world.

Booths along the harbor sell plates of oysters, and people sit on the steps overlooking the oyster farm eating them.  Then they throw the shell onto the beach.  I had mine sitting down in a restaurant.

I stayed in Dinan, the medieval walled city, for two nights but the real destination was St. Malo and Dinard.  The former has become a bit famous as the setting for All the Light We Cannot See, but was already popular with the French.  Across the bay from St. Malo is Dinard, a beach resort with a casino.  I went to Dinard first and walked along the shore.  Cliffs rise straight up with fabulous mansions all along them.  Unlike the mansions of the Gilded Age in Newport, Rhode Island, these houses are on normal sized lots.  But they are definitely mansions.

Then I took a quick boat ride across the bay to St. Malo, and joined the throngs of tourists walking through the city and on the ramparts.  Unfortunately, St. Malo was pretty much destroyed by the Allies during the Normandy invasion, but the town was rebuilt in the original style.  It felt like an old walled city, even though I knew it wasn’t quite so.

Finally, on Thursday I headed into the heart of Brittany.  It is known for its rugged coastline and I pictured Big Sur with a coastal highway overlooking spectacular views.  Not so.  The rugged coastline is also ragged with many mini-peninsulas and “fingers.”  The road is inland with smaller roads going to each point.  So you really cannot go along the coast.  I chose to make only two forays to the coast.

First I went to Fort La Latte, another medieval castle on one of the promontories.  It commands a view in all directions and was an important site when the enemy came by sea.  It was used as late as the Napoleonic wars, but became unnecessary when the enemies came from the east by land.

A real battering ram with a ram's head

Then I stopped at Ploumanac’h to see (finally) the rugged coastline with its red granite boulders that look like they were dropped there by a giant.

More Chateaus

After picking up our car in Tours, Margie and I returned to Amboise to visit the Amboise Chateau.  We had already been here earlier with Backroads but only visited Clos de Luce, Michelangelo’s chateau.  And then on to Arpentis Chateau which has been converted into a hotel.  I think this must have been one of the hunting lodges, as the halls are decorated with stuffed birds and animals, a large tortoise shell, and a collection of rifles.

After picking up our car in Tours, Margie and I returned to Amboise to visit the Amboise Chateau.  We had been to Amboise earlier with Backroads but only visited Clos de Luce, Michelangelo’s chateau. The Amboise Chateau dominates the skyline of the city.

 And then on to Arpentis Chateau which has been converted into a hotel and where we stayed for three nights.  I think this must have been one of the hunting lodges, as the halls are decorated with stuffed birds and animals, a large tortoise shell, and a collection of rifles. There appear to be as many boar as deer, and a couple of bears on the stairs as well.

In our quest to visit every chateau in the Loire Valley, the next day we went to Cheverny which was definitely a hunting lodge.  The family that owns it still lives in it and maintains a pack of about one hundred dogs.  Chambord was immense, and some of the chateaus were originally defensive, so rather cold inside.  Cheverny is definitely a palace.  I could see myself living here.  Cheverny moved up to one of our top three chateaus.

In the afternoon we visited Chaumont, another chateau that was frequented by the French royalty.  The furniture, however, was from a later period - the nineteenth century.  Most of these chateaus have a similar history - built in the fourteenth to sixteenth century, abandoned or fell into disrepair in the seventeenth or eighteenth century (or looted during the French revolutionary period), and then bought by someone who restored it in the nineteenth or twentieth century.  The French government now owns and operates the chateaus, and gives each one furnishings to show what it might have looked like.  Chaumont was first built in the tenth century, destroyed by a king who was displeased with its owner, and rebuilt in the fourteenth century.  You needed to stay on the good side of the kings back then.

In the afternoon we visited Chaumont, another chateau that was frequented by the French royalty.  The furniture, however, was from a later period - the nineteenth century.  Most of these chateaus have a similar history - built in the fourteenth to sixteenth century, abandoned or fell into disrepair in the seventeenth or eighteenth century (or looted during the French revolutionary period), and then bought by someone who restored it in the nineteenth or twentieth century.  The French government now owns and operates the chateaus, and gives each one furnishings to show what it might have looked like.  Chaumont was first built in the tenth century, destroyed by a king who was displeased with its owner, and rebuilt in the fourteenth century.  You needed to stay on the good side of the kings back then.

For dinner we returned to La Croix Blanch, a lovely backyard hotel that Backroads had taken us to.  They have an incredible cognac flambe souffle for dessert.  Oh, the meal was good, too.

Finally, on our last day in the Loire Valley, we went to Azay le Rideau which is beautiful.  It quickly moved into our top three list which is a problem because the top three now have four contenders.  Azay le Rideau was essentially owned by just two families - one in the sixteenth century and one that bought and restored it in the eighteenth century.  It was furnished in the latter style and, like Cheverny, I could see myself living here.  This is another palace.  It is also built on an island in the river, and has a perfect reflecting pond in the back.  The symmetrical exterior makes it beautiful to look at.

We finished with Chinon which is older and more of a fort than a chateau.  We wished we had visited it earlier as it filled in the background of the history of the later chateaus.

Scorecard:  the Loire Valley has over 1,000 chateaus; Margie and I saw ten.  Uncle. But I think we did see the best of the best. Almost all of the chateaus had beautiful gardens with a wide variety of flowers and vegetables. Everything was green and blooming, but ... in our ten days it barely rained. In fact, the only semi-serious rain was on our first day in the car. The bike riding - perfect weather on lovely, scarcely traveled roads and bike paths. Great food, great company. Sometimes everything does go right.

Chateaus

The advantage of Margie and me being our own group:  we not only go at our own pace (slow) but we can (re)set the itinerary.  On Thursday we were scheduled to ride to Blois for a half hour visit, ride on to a long lunch, and then ride to our hotel, arriving in the early afternoon so we would have time to go to the spa.  We told Leon that we wanted to visit the chateau in Blois, so we skipped the big lunch and grabbed a sandwich.  Then Leon chilled while we walked around  Blois, first visiting its very impressive cathedral, and then on to the chateau which was well worth the visit.  It is a square with a courtyard interior, and each of the four sides was built at a different time in the architecture of its time.  There is a small remaining Gothic section; the other three sides are Renaissance, Classic French, and Flamboyant, which I had never heard of as a style of architecture.  After the (semi)agreed upon two hours, we texted Leon that we were still in the chateau and would be another hour.

 After a great afternoon in Blois, we rode on to Chambord, the biggest and one of the most spectacular chateaus.  The approach is also spectacular, and our hotel was right next to it with a great view from our rooms.  So on Thursday we had seen the inside of a cathedral, another church, and a chateau, but not the spa.  A good rerouting of the Backroads itinerary.

 

And then … Chambord in the morning after one last short ride. Chambord is HUGE. Something like fifty apartments and hundreds of rooms. Apparently, the king moved around a lot, staying at different castles or hunting lodges for weeks or months at a time. But a king does not travel alone. He brings along an entourage of 2,000 people, and the more important ones get assigned an apartment in the chateau for their whole family who also travel with them.. Also, the chateau is empty. The entire company moves with the clothes in trunks and all of their furniture. What a way to live. You have to have a lot of servants. 

The most unusual feature of Chambord is a double helix staircase designed not by Michelangelo but inspired by one of his other designs. There was also a fascinating exhibit about the French “rescue” of artwork from Paris during World War II. By the early 1930’s, the government expected war with Germany and developed a plan to “evacuate” the Louvre and other important museums. The plan was implemented in 1938 after the Anschluss, and went into high gear after the German-Soviet Non-Aggresion Pact of 1939. Since Chambord is so large, the artwork was shipped to Chambord and then moved on further south to various locations. Eventually Chambord was occupied by the Germans, but by then all of the artwork had been moved. So for a short while, Chambord was home to the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. 

 After lunch, Leon drove us back to Tours to pick up our rental car and Margie and I began part deux of our Loire Valley adventure.