The French Connection

Seine at dusk

For the summer of 2011 we had hoped to visit Egypt, then the Arab Spring hit the headlines. OK we thought, so maybe Japan? Then the tsunami hit. Our third choice was Iceland—and of course—the volcano erupted. I am not exaggerating. We finally settled for a nice, safe trip to England that summer. Similarly, a couple of summers ago our top travel choice was Istanbul. But again, we waylaid our plans after occasional bombings were reported and the Turkish border towns grew increasingly dangerous. So by last November we thought we’d just pick another traditional European standard for our vacation, just to be on the safe side.    

Because 2015 had been a busy and stressful year for me, for the first time in perhaps seventeen years I hadn’t traveled out of the country in the summer for my much needed annual reboot. That year the care situation for my elderly father demanded all my attention. But by fall, being overdue for a change of scenery and feeling more secure that my father’s care was in good hands, when my usual traveling companion suggested that we spend Christmas in Paris I was quick to jump at it. We started planning immediately, then briefly reconsidered when my father passed away in October. However, by November we’d decided that we needed that get-away rather badly—we purchased our tickets and booked a flat near the Pompidou Center. Four days later, all hell broke loose in Paris. So we weren’t really too shocked that we’d actually booked our vacation to a country in the midst of crisis – somehow it seemed ‘the will of the Gods’.  

Police headquarters

Soldiers in the Tuileries

I’d only traveled to Europe once before in the winter (if you don’t count snow in London in April). And although I’d been to Paris several times previously, it was only for brief summer visits. This was a chance to see the city ‘off season’—if there is such a thing—and to dig in bit. Given the circumstances, it was now also a chance to see Paris with groups of militia strolling the Tuileries and down the Champs-Élysées.

Statue in Tuileries

Pond at Versailles

By the time we arrived it appeared that the horror of the terrorist attack had abated, or was at least being willfully forgotten. Parisians were living their lives in the usual fashion—literally—chic scarves swirled around their necks and baguettes tucked under their arms as they scurried down the rain-slicked streets.

Near St. Michael

Carousel in square adjacent to the Hôtel de Ville

Christmas market near Eiffel Tower

All over the city public squares hosted carousals filled with squealing children, while onlookers contentedly nibbled their hot chestnuts from paper cones and sipped their mulled wine. Mulled wine was sold everywhere. It was hot, spiked, and festive, and it made the cold walk home after dark positively pleasurable.

Winter light in Paris

View from the Sacre Coeur

The light quality in winter in Europe's northern countries is hauntingly delicate—the sun never reaches the top of the sky—just skims along the horizon casting long shadows and shards of light that flicker through the branches lining the city streets. I hadn’t yet read A Movable Feast when I visited Paris last December, but later when I did, I understood Hemmingway’s descriptions of the city on a much more visceral level.

Notre Dame

Pont Alexandre III

Holiday decorations in front of Hôtel de Ville

Fleetingly, we felt Parisian—because of our flat, our forays round the corner to the market for supplies, our home-cooked meals with a baguette and a bottle of Beaujolais, our miserable French colds, and because through it all we saw the city’s vulnerable post-crisis underbelly. Even though it was just ten days, we got at least a glimpse of life as a resident—and that was a memorable vantage point.

Christmas dinner

Champs-Elysées

Cartier on the Champs-Elysées

Yet the Fates weren’t finished with me. I was invited to take a French wine scholar program across the winter after our trip. It was an intensive program, but try as they might, they couldn’t make me absorb all the minutia I should have (nor did I do back-flips or triple pirouettes on the exam—in fact, I failed, but I excelled at the wine tastings that accompanied the study sessions!) Sadly, my companion’s father had also passed away by the time June rolled around. So when it was suggested that we take our battered psyches, the tidbits of newfound knowledge and our excited taste buds and head back to France for the summer, we were on-board. We took the non-stop to Paris…again (the only way to fly)! But we traveled around France as a foursome this time, in pursuit of regional French wines and cuisine, a deeper understanding of French history, and some mental solace. And one of the perks of traveling with a foursome was splitting the costs of some upscale, comfortable and well situated flats, while still paying a reasonable price per person. Our flat in Paris, though petit, was very well appointed and in the heart of Hemmingway’s haunt—St. Germain.

Paris in the summer is its own animal, even without extra complications. Our complication was arrival on the day the World Soccer championships were to open in Paris—to peak security—yet again (not to even mention the garbage and pilot strikes, the state worker protests and the waning flooding of the Seine). Ah Paris! It looked at times a bit like a war zone.

Seine, after the flood

Eiffel Tower with soccer ball

But we ran madly around the city; circumnavigating the fences surrounding the Eiffel Tower, locating the ever-elusive Bastille, being enraptured by stained glass of the Sainte-Chapelle, sampling the best gelato in Paris, and crossing through a protest march that had just been subdued with water cannons and tear gas.   

Sainte-Chapelle

 
Getting from Paris to Alsace wasn’t difficult, but navigating our escape from Strasbourg after arrival was a challenge. It really shouldn’t have been. We did have Siri along with the four adults in the car. However, about ten kilometers outside the city, we realized we were heading back toward Paris. Siri helped us correct by turning us around in circles several times until it occurred to us that the same landmarks were going by repeatedly. We finally just shut her up and pulled out the damned map. At this point it began to rain and by the time we’d passed Strasbourg going the other direction, a cacophony of giant hailstones pelted the car, leaving us almost blind on the road. But within an hour we’d found our way into the quaint medieval Germano-French burg of Ribeauvillé, where we’d booked a lovely flat in a renovated farmhouse with a private courtyard, smack in the center of town.

Main drag in Ribeauvillé

The Cheval Blanc restaurant in Ribeauvillé

Church tower in Ribeauvillé

Because Alsace has been straddled between German aggression and French interests for the last thousand or so years, it feels more Bavarian than French. Tidy medieval villages are nestled below stone remnants of the old feudal system that are perched on the peaks of the Vosges range overlooking the valley.

Castle ruins above Ribeauvillé

View of Ribeauvillé from the vineyards

Old well in Riquewhir

Vineyards are spread across every available plot of land, and wine production is perhaps the most lucrative industry of the region. The whole valley is romantically green and the Alsacian white wines are simply like nectar.

Vineyards

Carved sign in Ribeauvillé

Castle ruins

Hugel tasting room in Riquewhir

Leaving Alsace was almost as stressful as coming. After a quick scoot around Strasbourg, we headed back to the train station only to realize that we’d looked at the wrong information for our train departure.

Canal view in the old city in Strasbourg

Strasbourg cathedral

We had nine minutes from the time we’d entered the station to drop off the car keys and get onto the train. Miraculously—like superheroes—we did it, but not without raising our blood pressure a bit.

Lyon was the next stop, and was another city hosting the World Cup soccer games. Because of the riots in Marseilles, security was out in force. Bars were filled with drunken rowdies and crowds watched giant monitors—whooping and hollering in squares all over Lyon. And to top it off, Lyon’s annual music festival was taking place during our stay. Amid all this and a parade in support of refugees, it was party central.

But at day's end we kicked up our heels with a bit of wine in our rather grand flat.

Isabelle's flat in Lyon

The city is full of quirky and interesting museums. Guignol—roughly the ‘Punch’ of the French puppet theater—has his own museum there. The Musée Miniature et Cinéma not only houses impressive film set miniatures, but many other film artifacts.

Stained glass of Guignol in action

Miniature set of the Café des Fédérations

Eating at the actual Café des Fédérations

Lyon’s printing museum was on our list, but was unfortunately closed on the days we had free. But museums—entertaining as they are—are not the only thing worth seeing in Lyon.

Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière

View from the basilica

However, the highlight of our Lyon visit was perhaps a day of wine tasting with another redheaded French Vincent—a remarkably knowledgeable vintner who founded LyonWinetours and conducted an insightful and varied tour through Côte Rôtie and Condrieu. 

Côte Rôtie vineyards

Old wine bottles of the Côte Rôtie and Condrieu region

Vincent picked us up at our door and drove our group of six in a minivan from Lyon proper, to the Côte Rôtie valley. We visited vineyards, observed him pruning vines, saw first-hand the difference between organic and standard vineyard practices, (were eaten by blood sucking beetles while observing), visited three vineyard tasting rooms, tasted enough wine to make us silly, toured a small owner-operated wine production facility, saw cellared casks, the bottling process, and best of all, were served the most authentic and luscious French cuisine of our trip for lunch in a small local café in Condrieu.

Côte Rôtie vineyard

Wine production facility

Wine kegs in the cellar

Our next stop was Avignon and although I’d spent a day there on a previous trip touring the Palais de Pape and roaming the city streets, I was unprepared for the accommodation we’d blundered into. It was directly across the courtyard from the pope’s palace—with an unimpeded view of the palace from its front windows. It was elegant, enormous, and air-conditioned!

Our afternoon repast

By mid-afternoon Avignon was blazingly hot, but we quickly discovered the glories of a spot of air-conditioning, French cheese, and rosé in our fabulous flat, and repeated this ritual daily until we left southern France.

Locals on horseback in traditional dress at the Palais des Papes

Old canal waterwheel in Avignon

Saint Bénezet Bridge

Eco suggestion

From our digs in Avignon we also took two memorable day trips; to Arles (residence of that other French Vincent); and the Pont du Gard.

Front steps of the Roman arena in Arles

Roman ruins on Arles street

Raking the arena in Arles

Arles locals in traditional dress

Pont du Gard

We then headed to Collioure, a charming, former fishing village, on the Mediterranean near the Spanish border.

How we found ourselves in the perfect beachfront flat in the most scenic spot on the bay is beyond me. We were flabbergasted. We had two lovely balconies over the beach and two floors of a charming property.

Balcony view from our lovely flat

The flat’s only drawback was a lack of air-conditioning. But the breeze kicked up regularly mornings and evenings, and with doors and windows open it was delightful. Besides, when the heat of the day reached its zenith, we just stripped down to swimsuits and walked a few feet from our door into the water. And for our amusement, from our balconies we had a birds-eye view of the French Navy Seals (or something on that order)—in training—storming the beach of Collioure, where at this time of the morning only a few stalwart elderly locals lolled about after their laps in the bay.

Storming the beach

Morning drill

They all co-mingled quite peacefully though, and provided great morning-coffee entertainment. By the second day we'd joined lap-swimmers before breakfast, headed back to the water at mid-day, and again before dinner—just ahead of feasting on local seafood.

Historic fishing boats and town fortress in Collioure

Collioure charm

View of the bay in Collioure

Cobbled streets of Collioure

Seafood extravaganza

Harbor in Collioure

Does life get much better than that?

Our foursome split up after Collioure, two heading back to Paris for departure, myself and my companion on to Carcassonne—the authentically medieval Disneyland of southern France. Carcassonne’s castle is the lure, and although the castle and cathedral themselves deliver in spades, the castle is also filled to the breaking point with commercialized shops, restaurants and tourists.

Carcassonne castle and bridge

The ramparts from below

Basilica of Saints Nazarius and Celsus

Drawgate

View from the ramparts

Carcassonne castle at dusk

Its hard not to be impressed by the castle, huge as it is up on the mount overlooking the city. But the crush of commercialism it houses overwhelms you rather quickly. Fortunately, the city below offers some respite, but three nights and two days in Carcassonne was plenty.

Pont Vieux

Medieval street below castle in Carcassonne

Carcassone below the castle at sunset

My afterthought was that the castle would be improved by making it a ‘living museum’ with shop space housing medieval crafts and workers in period costume—on the order of Nova Scotia’s Fortress of Louisbourg. It would be no less popular, I dare say, and much more intriguing.

Finally, we were off again for Paris to bid our adieu to France. We dug our umbrellas out of the bottom of our now overstuffed suitcases, donned jackets against the chilly drizzle and finally managed to visit the gargoyles on the roof of the Notre Dame and the Archeological Crypt Museum in the square below.

Gargoyles keeping watch over Paris

View from the top of Notre Dame

Roman and medieval ruins below the Notre Dame square

We skirted the bars—still overflowing with obnoxious drunken soccer fans, ate at a cozy street café in the rain, sampled more tasty gelato, and watched the Paris sun set in our eyes again  (thanks Judy, I think you’re one of the reasons I came).

Notre Dame cathedral at sunset

Ten days after our departure the brutal attack in Nice took place. Although I hadn’t really intended to boost the French economy in the midst of their national crises (or come home seven pounds fatter), that’s just the way it fell out—but nonetheless I'm pleased to have supported France in any small way possible during perhaps its most trying year of recent times. It helped me heal, and I'm more than happy to help it heal.

Paris and the rest of France still charms, which is surely due to the French zeal for liberty, food, wine, their stubborn resistance to intimidation, and their highly developed artistic aesthetic. Even though our two trips were bookended by tragic terrorist events, we still felt we’d found a little bit of heaven in France.