Returning Home

Our tour schedule for this morning:

For now it's time to bid a fond au revoir to the Best of France and your fellow travelers at the end of a magical and memorable holiday.

Trafalgar provided a shuttle to the airport, and we left the hotel mid-morning with eight or ten others who were flying home.  Martha asked some of them what the most memorable part of the tour had been for them.  Some said Omaha Beach, some said Nice.  We were sorry that we had missed the former but glad that we had had plenty of time to explore Nice.

Travel is always interesting, and sometimes difficult.  The flight from Charlotte to London over two weeks ago had been uneventful.  We had sipped a glass of wine, eaten some of the surprisingly edible airplane food, and watched a movie.  But the lingering effects of Covid meant, without going into any detail, that I had taken some Imodium this  morning, which I learned should not be taken with Dramamine.  That in return made the nine-hour flight to Philadelphia very unpleasant.  I never knew that I was so prone to motion sickness on an airplane, and realized I had never flown before now without the benefits of Dramamine.  I had no desire for wine, or food, or a movie, and there was a small child directly behind me who spent the latter half of the flight crying miserably, which echoed my own feelings although I remained stoically silent, hunched over between an understanding woman on the aisle and my sympathetic wife at the window, who somehow produced a welcome pair of earplugs.

There were long lines at Philadelphia International Airport, and it was raining outside when we landed, the first rain we had seen in three weeks.  Because we were returning from overseas, we had to pass through a few more steps – maybe “run the gauntlet” describes it more accurately – before being admitted to the land of the free and the home of the brave.  We could have spent a very long time at the incomprehensible kiosk which appeared at the end of a switch-backing line but for a helpful employee, in an airport that was woefully understaffed, who walked us through it.  The touch screen asked us if we had all manner of things to declare, including chickens.  “I left my chickens in the parking lot in Paris,” I told her.  She looked like she had a sense of humor and she did; otherwise, a joke like that might have led to my being strip-searched by the TSA.

Martha seemed to have little trouble passing the next hurdle, but I was inexplicably required to remove my shoes and was carefully searched as I passed through the screening portal.

“What’s this in your pocket?” I was asked gruffly.  We had already emptied our pockets, placed our liquids in a clear baggie, and deposited wallet, phone, and carry-on on the conveyor belt.  It was the earplugs, I discovered, dropped into my shirt pocket and forgotten.  “Crying child behind me on a nine-hour flight,” I explained, and he seemed to sympathize with me.

Although we had left Paris mid-afternoon, we had passed through six time zones, so we arrived around 5:00 p.m.  As we retrieved our baggage and checked it again for the transfer to Charlotte, we realized that we were in an increasingly narrowing window between the two flights, especially when we found ourselves in another line for a very long time.  Many travelers in line with us had already missed their flights.  One man was very philosophical about it.  He told a very agitated man in line behind us, “Oh, we missed ours too; it’s already in the air!”  He was almost cheerfully.  What would we do if we missed the flight to Charlotte? we wondered.  Our baggage would be there, unloaded onto a conveyor belt, and we would be here in Philadelphia 500 miles away, presumably trying to find a hotel for the night.

As luck would have it, our flight was delayed a couple of hours, and we eventually found ourselves in a comfortable lounge area at the loading gate, waiting once again.  But the flight to Charlotte was only an hour or two long, and it was a good one.  The airplane had plenty of leg room and was not crowded, and when they dimmed the lights we both took little catnaps.  What a relief to finally see the lights of Charlotte below us!

Our suitcases were miraculously among the first to appear on the conveyor belt, and Martha called the number for the shuttle to our hotel.  By this time we were beyond exhaustion, operating entirely on nervous energy.  The Holiday Inn shuttle finally appeared, and we climbed in gratefully.  It was driven by an African American woman who was friendly and had a good sense of humor.  She asked us where we had been and she said, “It’s always good to get home, isn’t it?  You want to get gone so bad, and then you want to get home!”  I told her I was not looking forward to mowing our knee-high lawn, but maybe I could use jet lag as an excuse.  She laughed merrily at that, “Oh yeah, honey, jet lag!  You can milk that for a long time!”  It was nice to be greeted by such a down-to-earth woman after being in the air for so long.

Our hotel at last!  We slept like babies.  And not the kind who cry.

The next day we had a nice breakfast at the hotel and started on our three-hour drive to Highlands.  And our Honda CRV started without hesitation!  It was warm and humid, and it rained off and on.  We were back home, late July in North Carolina, thundershowers every afternoon.  It was indeed good to get home.

A few days later, I wrote this on our little blackboard in the kitchen:

Au Revoir Paris

Today was our final full day in Paris, and we decided to set out on foot to find and explore an area we had not yet visited, the Montmartre quarter in the 18^th Arrondissement.  Montmartre is an elevated area in Paris, and at its summit is a beautiful Roman Catholic church called the Basilica of Sacré Coeur de Montmartre as well as the famous Artist’s Square on the Place du Tertre.  It had been an optional experience on our tour and some of the tour group had visited it yesterday.

Join us for a stroll with our Local Specialist through Montmartre – an artists’ village once home to Picasso and Toulouse Lautrec, tucked away from the modern city. The paint will still be wet on the canvasses, as we watch apprentices work before our eyes in the famous Artist’s Square.  Mingle, barter, and stand in awe of Sacré Coeur Basilica in this historic, bohemian neighbourhood.

It was a little over two miles on foot, but it was cooler than it had been in Nice and I had recovered from most of the effects of Covid.  Navigating there was a little tricky.  There was no direct route, but using a combination of Google Maps (which provided streets and landmarks but no directions) and a compass, we managed to zigzag across an unfamiliar part of Paris until we could see the rounded dome of the Basilica ahead of us.  We were on some narrow streets unlike the wide boulevards in the 17^th Arrondissement, but as I have noted before we felt completely safe.

On the way, we descended off the main street into a large area called the Cimetière de Montmartre, dating back to 1825 and 27 acres in area.  Readers of this blog may know that I especially enjoy cemeteries, Highlands Memorial Park and the Old Burying Ground in Beaufort being two of my favorites.  This was truly a beautiful place, though, unlike any cemetery I had ever seen before.  We wandered up and down cobbled streets marveling at the crypts and the gravestones, some of them 200 years old but some of them quite recent.

We finally found ourselves on a wide boulevard, divided in the middle by a tree-shaded sidewalk and bicycle path, the Boulevarde de Clichy.  It was very pleasant walking there, away from the traffic, and on the way we passed the famous Moulin Rouge cabaret which some of our tour group had visited the previous evening.

The area just past the Moulin Rouge was what I can only describe as seedy, although nothing like similar areas in cities in the US, with  private clubs, cafes, and gift shops.  We lost sight of the Basilica, but found it again at the summit of a steep street, the Rue des Martyrs.  There was a lot of pedestrian traffic up the street, a mix of obvious tourists and young people who looked like artists and students.  We stopped for lunch at a little café on the corner called La Fourmi, located in what looked like a very old building, and struggled a little with the menu and the language barrier, which is always a little exciting.  We both ordered the croque-monsieur végé (zucchini, and comme-ci comme ça) and an amber-colored IPA (délicieux).

After lunch, we started up the Rue des Martyrs, zigzagged through an interesting little area filled with more cafes, and then began climbing what turned out to be many, many steps.  I was still a little fatigued from Covid and have to admit I was a little winded at the top.  But the views up there were spectacular - we could see the Eiffel Tower in the background - and the landmark which we had been approaching all day was well worth the climb.

Just around the corner was the Place du Tertre, a large shady square with cafes all around, packed with artists at work displaying their art and sketching portraits of tourists.

We stopped for a basket of bread and a glass of cold Côtes de Provence rosé at a little brasserie called La Mère Catherine, which I later learned was one of the oldest restaurants on the square.  We were packed in very tightly, shoulder to shoulder with what seemed to be mostly tourists.  We noticed that a woman next to us had ordered something we had not yet tried (and would not try) – beef tartare, which seemed to be served everywhere in France this time of year.  We had seen it on menus all over Paris as well as in Lyons and Nice.  Apparently it is safe to eat this dish, which consists of a cylinder, perhaps the size of a stack of a half dozen pancakes, of raw ground beef.  The woman consumed the bloody dish completely.

We took a taxi back to the hotel, driven by another interesting driver.  He had been all over the world, including many places in our country (Niagara Falls, Las Vegas, Florida), and he seemed to have enjoyed it all equally, a modern-day Ulysses in a taxicab.

We had been looking forward to a final dinner at Que Pour les Gourmondes, the little sidewalk café across the street from the Hotel Mercure where we had eaten our first dinner in Paris when we had arrived more than two weeks ago (see post of July 13).  We learned that they did not open until 7:30 p.m., which is a little late for us but the time most Parisians enjoy a leisurely dinner.  We waited for them to open and were glad we did.  The same jolly young waiter helped us, and we learned that the chef was his mother, who made an appearance at one time to chat with a friend who had dropped by.  The Salade Gourmande du moment this time was fresh fruit, mostly melon, with feta cheese and some of the best lean Serrano ham I have ever had.  The entrée was salmon with a spectacular sauce of some kind.  And we could not resist the dessert as well!

This was our last evening in Paris, and it made me think of Humphrey Bogart telling Ingrid Bergman (although in a slightly different context), “We’ll always have Paris!”  We had a toast with the usual Côtes de Provence rosé and watched the sun set over the skyline of Paris.

It had been a beautiful day, and despite the interruption of our tour by Covid, it had been a beautiful adventure in France.

Au Revoir Nice

Our taxi arrived right on time.  The driver, like most that we have met, was friendly and talkative.  He said he was from Corsica and asked if we knew where that was.  I told him yes, that was where Napoleon Bonaparte had been born, and he seemed pleased that I knew that.  “You can see the Bonaparte house today,” he said.  The ride to the airport was not far, and as we drove down the palm-tree-lined Boulevarde des Anglais he told us that the rich fly in to Nice on private jets, and then take helicopters from the airport to Monte Carlo, Cannes, and St. Tropez.

Nice Côte d'Azur Airport was the smallest we had been in, and the Air France Airbus A318 was the smallest plane in which we had flown.  It eased up to our gate like a bus would to a bus stop.  I estimated it could hold no more than 125 passengers, a little more than twice the size of our Trafalgar coach.

The first class seats were in front but looked just like ours.  Still, once we were in the air the flight attendants pulled a curtain between them and us.  “Would you like something to drink?” I was asked.  “Champagne?”  That got a laugh; I settled for Perrier. 

Since we were flying between two cities in France, we bypassed customs and security, and in no time we were in a taxi on the way from Charles de Gaulle Airport to the Hotel Mercure.  Coincidentally, we pulled in directly behind the Trafalgar coach just as our fellow-passengers were exiting.  We had not seen them in a week, and several of them came over and talked to us.  We learned that they had not been told that we had Covid, although surely they must have deduced it.  Why else would we have dropped out of the tour?  We met with Bruno later and I asked him if any of the other passengers had gotten Covid.  He indicated that some of them might have, but had kept quiet about it.  “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” he said.  I think he appreciated that we had been honest and not tried to conceal my symptoms so that we could complete the tour.

Most of our tour group were going to a lengthy dinner and show at the Moulin Rouge cabaret, but we had already been to the Crazy Horse and wanted to enjoy some time by ourselves.  We went down the street to a small brasserie on the corner called Le Tocqueville, where the menu was entirely in French and the young man serving us did not speak very good English.  But he was friendly and patient, and the food was delicious.  

Old Town

I had an interesting conversation with the proprietor of a cave, a wine shop, just around the corner from our hotel.  It was well-stocked with Côtes de Provence rosé, and it was not very expensive at all.  I choose a bottle for only €6.00, and a second bottle for €11.00, and they were both excellent.

“Where are you from?” he asked me in English, and I replied, “Les Etats Unis (the United States).”  He had a twinkle in his eye.  “And where is that?” he asked me innocently.  I thought a moment, and said, “It is a very, very long way from here!”  He laughed and we carried on a little conversation.  He had lived all over France but now enjoyed being in Nice.  “You have a very beautiful country,” I told him.  “And it seems so safe here.  In our country we have . . .”  (I struggled with the word for guns and gestured as if I was holding one.)  “Ah, les armes!  No, but we have our problems too.”  I laughed.  “You mean, your mustard shortage (I had been reading about that)?”  He looked puzzled.  “Dijon,” I said.  “Ah, you know about that!  Yes, in our country we like to eat and drink.  And we like la paix.”  Yes, la paix.  Peace.  I realized talking to this man that I was a little ashamed of our country, where there is a mass shooting nearly every weekend these days.  Although there have indeed been terrorist attacks over the years in France, here it is the police who have the assault rifles.

On every street in our neighborhood we also saw places called immobiliers, which I had  to look up.  Mobile phone stores?  No, they were real estate offices (“Estate Agents” in the UK).  Almost as many as there are in Highlands.

We were ready by then to begin the long journey home, and Martha had arranged with our travel agent for a flight from Nice to Paris tomorrow morning on Air France.  So on our last day in the city, we wanted to explore an area calls Vieux Nice (Old Town), a part of Nice Martha had not yet explored on her own in those days before I could join her.  We learned that it was just east of the Plage de Carras where we had been yesterday, and several days ago we had both been on its outskirts.  We walked along the beach and then through a gate into the area, immediately entering the daily market we had read about on a pedestrian street called Cours Saleya, with stalls selling soaps, flowers, herbs and teas, fresh fruit and vegetables, and open bins of olives.

 

 

 
North of the market area, there was a maze of very narrow cobblestone streets and historic, pastel-colored buildings.

We could hear church bells ringing from the tower of the 17^th-century Cathédrale Sainte-Réparate de Nice.  We stopped just down the street from the cathedral – an alley, really, a ruelle – at a tiny outdoor café called Hobo Coffee, which in addition to coffee sold bière, vin, and sandwiches.  Our server was a young, friendly blond woman who asked us what we would like.  “You speak very good English,” I told her.  “That’s because it is my native language,” she replied, and it turned out she was from Galway, Ireland (I thought I had detected a faint brogue).  It was a busy time of day, and I wish we could have had more time to talk to her and learn what long and winding road had taken her from her rainy Irish home to warm and sunny Nice.

Released from Quarantine

On Monday, I read on our schedule that our tour group would be driving to the Pyrenees on their way to Lourdes.

You will have an opportunity to see the Basilica, perched atop St. Bernadette's Grotto, where the young girl, turned saint, is said to have seen visions of the Virgin Mary. Then, travel west to the Basque Coast, where we spend the night.

The next day we would have been going to Bordeaux, and then to the Dordogne.  Then onward to a Château in the Loire Valley, Mont-Saint-Michel and the Normandy Beaches, and finally back to Paris.  I finally stopped reading the daily agenda.  We were making the best of things quarantined in Nice, but it was a little sad to read about the rest of the adventures that we were missing.

Today was the day when, finally, I was released from quarantine, and could enjoy walking the streets of Nice as Martha had been doing for the past week.  It was very warm outside, but wonderful to be out and about!  Diagonally across the street from us was a restaurant called Aux 2 Palmieres, and it was here that we first sampled a Salade Niçoise for which the city is known.  The ingredients of the salad vary from restaurant to restaurant, but it usually has ingredients seldom seen in salads here:  potatoes, green beans, and anchovies, as well as tuna (thon in French), which in this case was fresh and quite delicious, especially accompanied by Côtes de Provence rosé.

What a beautiful place this was to walk!  There were wide pedestrian walkways everywhere, sidewalk cafes under tall shade trees, broad plazas, and fountains.  Everywhere – at all times of the day, it seemed – there were people sitting outside laughing, relaxing, enjoying either a brunch-time cappuccino, a light lunch, a glass of wine, or an early dinner.

We walked to the nearest beach,  the Plage de Carras, with the special features for the disabled (Handiplage) that Martha had told me about.  It was there where I first actually touched the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea – in truth, I had trouble negotiating the steep, pebbly beach, and almost fell on my butt, which would have been entertaining for nearby bathers.  There were also several topless women bathing in the sea and the sun, which Martha had told me about.  It was all very casual and natural. 

 

We were surprised to see, as we had in Paris, a group of three police officers dressed in tactical gear, walking slowly down the wide, beach-front pedestrian walkway, armed with assault rifles.  This is a sight that would have been very frightening in a place like Myrtle Beach but did not seem to arouse any curiosity here. 

Another sight I did not to expect to see, right on the Promenade des Anglais – the wide boulevard lined with Palm Trees that is adjacent to the pedestrian walkway – was this familiar little restaurant, almost inconspicuous with its tiny sign.  It was tucked into the same building as the Casino Barrière,  rubbing shoulders with the sophisticated shops and cafes in the vicinity like Hermes, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton.  I was tempted to go inside to see if the same fare was available on the French Riviera as in this country, and whether it was wrapped in paper.  Would I have been asked, “Voulez-vous des frites?” (Would you like fries with that?)

Rear Window

I felt much better today.  My cough was nearly gone, but I was envious of Martha and her daily perambulations on the shady, attractive streets of Nice.  I spent some of the time sitting at the window, looking down three floors to the street below or across the street at the Hôtel La Villa, where the occasional guest would appear in a window.  I remembered that Academy-Award-winning Alfred Hitchcock film, Rear Window, in which James Stewart, recuperating from an accident, watches the inhabitants of the building opposite his and witnesses Raymond Burr murdering someone.  Refreshing my memory of the film on my iphone, I found that Stewart’s girlfriend was coincidentally played by Grace Kelly, looking very much like a future Princess.

Today, our tour group was departing Nice and heading west to Carcassonne: 

Visit Arles with its honey-coloured façades, Roman ruins and Camargue culture, and enjoy some time at leisure to explore this beautiful city.  Alternatively, choose an Optional Experience to gain a deeper understanding of Vincent van Gogh and local history with our resident expert before winding your way to the fortified city of Carcassonne.

I rarely watch television, but French TV proved interesting after I had grown tired of looking out my Rear Window.  I could understand perhaps half of what was being said on some of the news programs, which were very much like they are here, with commentators pondering the issues of the day over “Breaking News”-type headlines:  “Prix du Carburante – Quelle Solutions?”  (Price of gasoline – what is the answer?)  Surfing the other channels, I found French rap music, a courtroom drama, cartoons, a weather channel, a French version of “American Idol,” and various music videos.  I also stumbled on La Petite Maison dans la Prairie, (Little House on the Prairie, from the mid-70s, and looking very dated) dubbed in French.

Finally, I found something more interesting:  the Tour de France, with French commentators who were speaking so rapidly that I could only follow some of what they were saying.  But I had watched the first few stages of the bicycle race before we left and it did not take me long to figure out who the new leaders were at the end of Stage 18.  I learned that Chris Froome, one of my favorite riders, was out of the Tour due to Covid, perhaps watching it on TV as I was.

And what a surprise!  French President Emmanuel Macron made an appearance, riding in a little red car with Race Director Christian Prudhomme, waving from an open window to the cyclists he passed and to the spectators lining the road.  Under any circumstances would an American President be permitted to appear other than in a big black Secret Service limousine behind bullet-proof glass?

 

Quarantine on the Côte d'Azur

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had been experiencing a scratchy throat and a dry cough, which I attributed to the air conditioning and dry air in the coach combined with the abundant cigarette smoke everywhere.  Although I did not have a headache or fever, I felt a little “achy,” so I decided this morning I should use one of the rapid antigen Covid tests we had brought with us.  It revealed the dreaded "T" line:

 
We contacted Bruno and our Wellness Director, Adrian, immediately, and Bruno said we should go across the street to a pharmacie for an official test.  It confirmed that I was positive for Covid, although Martha tested negative, so for us, the tour was over per Trafalgar policy.  And per French law, I was also required to quarantine for seven days, although Martha did not have to.  Bruno met with us and put a positive spin on things.  “You could not be in a better place,” he said.  “There are cafes, brasseries, all kinds of places around here.  In some places on the tour you are in the middle of nowhere.”  And fortunately, we had paid for an insurance policy that covered Covid.  Indeed, some of our friends on Facebook who had been following our trip, while sorry that I had contracted Covid, said that the French Riviera was not a bad place to spend a week. 

We were disappointed, of course, but decided to make the best of things.  I couldn’t help but check the schedule each day, though, and I remembered that the tour group would be staying in Nice for the day:

The sun-kissed shores of the French Riviera are yours to explore today. Consider relaxing on the beach with your fellow sun-worshippers or an Optional Experience could see you visit the hilltop town of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, a popular haunt for actors seeking a relaxing retreat. In your free time, soak up the fresh sea air and perhaps indulge in a delicious Salade Niçoise.

We had also signed up for an optional drive to the medieval hilltop town of St. Paul, an artists’ paradise, a perfumery, and a drive along the coast to a restaurant for lunch.

Our room was one of the nicest we had stayed in, though, facing the beautiful Hôtel La Villa, built in 1920 in the Belle Epoque style with rounded towers.

On the corner was a beautiful church, Eglise Protestante Unie de Nice, ca. 1886, with a shady little park out back. The park and the street below, Boulevard Victor Hugo, were lined with tall plane trees, which were imported to the south of France in the 19th century and planted extensively.  I had never seen a plane tree before visiting Provence.

The room had another rare feature in the hotels where we had stayed thus far:  two chairs.  Martha found an ironing board in the closet, and we set it up at the perfect height to serve as a kind of “bistro-ironing-board table,” and while I stayed in the room reading, taking naps, and watching French television, she went out into the city and returned with dinner, such as goat cheese salad and paella from a place down the street, and delicious quiche she found just around the corner.  And, of course, the doctor had prescribed ice cold Côtes de Provence rosé as well!  My symptoms were mild; I had not lost my sense of taste or smell, and I had a good appetite.

So every day I would wait for Martha to return, eager to see what delicious food she had foraged from the plentiful patisseries and brasseries all around us – or the hotel itself, which also offered some good choices – and tell me about her adventures.  On this first day, she walked all the way to the beach, the Plage de Carras, about a half-mile away, and told me about a new feature the City of Nice was providing for the first time this summer for people with disabilities, called Handiplages.  I read about it later:  “It is not necessary to present a certificate of disability or a reservation notice – just to go there and relax. It follows then that anyone with specific needs can be welcomed and accompanied for a safe swim (people with disabilities but also the elderly who may have difficulty moving).”  There were special lifeguards on duty to assist, and Martha described how she had watched an elderly woman being gently helped down a sort of carpeted ramp to the soothing waters of the Mediterranean. How wonderful to provide such a service!

After having explored the area all afternoon, my faithful forager told me that she had decided to take a conveyance called a velo taxi from a company called O'Bicycle.  She had asked a driver how much it would cost to take her to the hotel.  “Fifteen Euros,” he said.  “Too much,” she replied.  “I walk,” and started to walk away.  He quickly said, “For you, Madam, Ten Euros!”  Despite the language barrier, my frugal, faithful wife knew when she was being taken advantage of!

Avignon, Monaco, and Nice

This morning we were asked to have our luggage ready at 6:30 a.m. for a 7:30 a.m. departure, even earlier than yesterday.  We had a long way to go today.  We began driving south through the Provence region of France, known for among other things its lavender, nougat, and Côtes de Provence rosé wine.  We stopped at a rest area, and Bruno returned to the coach with a bag of nougat he had purchased, which he passed around the coach.  I don’t believe I had tasted that particular confection for many, many years, and it was surprisingly delicious.  The Côtes de Provence rosé wine was something we would be sampling over the next few days.  “It is against the law to drink anything else in this part of France in the summer!” he told us, and we tried to heed his advice at every opportunity.

We could see mountains off to the east, now, the beginning of the Alps.  Bruno told us that one reason why Nice and Monaco (our destinations at the end of the day) were so popular was that you could drive for an hour and be skiing in the Alps. 

Our next stop was Avignon, a city set on the Rhône River, which in the 14^th century was the seat of several Catholic popes.  It remained under papal rule until 1791 when it finally became part of France, and that legacy could be seen in the Palais des Papes (Popes' Palace) in the city center, which was surrounded by medieval stone ramparts.  But the first thing we saw in Avignon was the famous Pont d'Avignon, which is the subject of a French nursery rhyme dating back to the 15^th century and which is for some reason embedded deeply in my mind.  Perhaps Miss Satterlee (see post of July 11), who taught her students many Christmas carols in French that I recall to this day, also taught us this song:

Sur le Pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse, l'on y danse
Sur le Pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse tous en rond.

(On the bridge of Avignon
We're all dancing, we're all dancing
On the bridge of Avignon
We all dance in circles.)

It is a bit of a mystery exactly why anyone may have danced on this bridge across the Rhône River, which was washed away in the late 1600s.  Only part of the medieval structure remains, and we could see its ruins as soon as we left our coach to visit this charming little city.

The Palais des Papes was very impressive, and we were left as we had been on the previous day on our own for several hours to explore the area, which was filled with little shops and cafés.

It was here that Martha bought, among other things, some lavender to bring back home.  Bruno had told us, “Your dirty clothes, they might start to not smell so good at some point, so put a little bag of lavender in with them and they will be just fine!”  We had lunch at a little café in a cobbled pedestrian courtyard, accompanied with a glass of the Côtes de Provence rosé recommended to us. 

In addition to lavender and good wine, Provence was known for the Côte d'Azur, what  we call the French Riviera, and for Monaco and the city of Nice, the jewels on that beautiful coast and our destinations for the night.  We drove to Monaco first and caught out first glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea, gleaming that special azure, a color I have not seen anywhere else.  

We went through several tunnels cut into the stone.  Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a sovereign city-state bordered by France to the north, east, and west.  It also happens to be the place where perfume was invented, and was much appreciated I am sure by the people at the time, who generally bathed only twice a year (if they needed to).  It was believed at the time that bathing was an unhealthy thing to do.  Property here is worth €60,000 per square meter.  Bruno provided a hilarious account of the inner political intrigues and scandals of Monaco and its monarchs over the years as our coach driver maneuvered around the narrow streets of Monaco and finally parked in a huge parking area located under the city.  Why waste precious land for parking above ground?

We disembarked and went up a series of escalators and elevators to the Saint Nicholas Cathedral, or Monaco Cathedral, where Prince Rainier and Princess Grace (the American actress Grace Kelly) were married.  Inside the cathedral, among other royalty, were the modest graves of the Princess and her husband.  It was a beautiful place, surrounded by tropical palm trees and flowers.

 
During the course of the day, I had developed a scratchy throat and a dry cough, which I attributed to the air conditioning in the coach.  We left Monaco and drove back to Nice, and I felt just fine when we got off the coach and walked to an outdoor café for dinner.  We sat with some new friends, Brenda and Susanna, and thoroughly enjoyed an al fresco dinner paired with cold Côtes de Provence rosé, which seemed to be the only sensible thing to drink in what were becoming increasingly warm temperatures.

We arrived finally at our hotel in Nice, the Holiday Inn, which was more spacious than some of our other accommodations, and with which we would become closely acquainted over the course of the next few days.

Beaune and Lyon

This was the official first day of our Trafalgar tour, the coach leaving right on time at 7:45 a.m.  The traffic leaving Paris was heavy, so it was clear why Bruno had wanted to leave the hotel so early; in one hour’s time, we had only gone 14 miles.  I was struck again by the beautiful, modern architecture on the way out of Paris.  We passed the building that houses Microsoft France and Microsoft Europe and it is a good example:

As I noted in an earlier post, most of the cars on the road were sub-compact.  I never saw a pickup truck the entire time we were in France.  Many of the vehicles were electric, too; we saw an EV Mini Cooper, as well as a full-size city bus.  Cars were lined up at charging stations at the rest areas, which as in the UK are directly on the highways in service areas so that you do not have to exit for a fuel or comfort stop as you do in the US (with the exception of Florida’s Turnpike).

The trucks, interestingly enough, also looked completely different.  They consisted entirely of “cab-over” trucks with flat fronts, the cab located over the engine, rather than in the US where cabs are behind.  I learned that these trucks are lighter and have shorter wheelbases, making them more compact, maneuverable, and easier to handle in urban areas.

As we left Paris, the countryside was quite beautiful, rolling hills, hay waiting to be baled (there was no rain the entire time we were there), and fields of sunflowers.  As in the UK, there were no billboards, junk cars, or dilapidated buildings.  We passed a beautiful chateau on a little knoll, the kind of place I could gladly have explored all morning.  

Bruno told us that we were in the Burgundy region, which is known for its fine food and wine – escargot (which is eaten only on special occasions like Christmas), fondu, beef bourguignon, and Chablis, the well-known white wine named after the town by the same name we passed along the way.  It is also known for “Kir,” a drink made from dry white wine and crème de cassis (a sweet, dark red liqueur made from blackcurrants).  With the addition of champagne, the drink is called “Kir Royale.”

He also told us a little more about the French way of life.  France is the world's largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, relying mostly on nuclear power.  It has the fifth largest GDP in the world, and its citizens enjoy the benefits of a modern welfare state.  Health care and university education are both free, and most workers enjoyed five to seven weeks of vacation each year.  If you lose your job, Bruno said, the government will help you find a new one, and will pay you 80% of your salary as unemployment in the meantime for up to four years.  I wondered how most American workers, fearful of “Socialism,” would feel about benefits like these.

Our first stop was Beaune, a walled town in the center of the Burgundy region.  Surrounded by the Côte d'Or vineyards, the town is known for its cobbled streets and the Hôtel-Dieu (Hospices de Beaune), a 15^th-century former hospital which is now a museum, recognized for its colorful, geometric-patterned tile roof.

We toured the hospital – there was an optional audio tour you could take on your own – and then walked down the cobbled streets for awhile.  One thing we like about Trafalgar tours is that there is ample time to stop and explore on one’s own.  We found a little sidewalk café that offered take-out – healthy food, which we ate at a little bistro table on the pedestrian street outside.  It was a pretty little Town, a good place to spend a longer time than an afternoon - perhaps . .  an entire summer?

We boarded the coach again and arrived in Lyon, the third largest city in France at the junction of the Rhône and Saône rivers.  Its history goes back 2,000 years to the time of the Romans, and there is still a Roman amphitheater there (the Amphithéâtre des Trois Gaules).  We then took an optional tour of the city with an informative guide, Sylvie, who took us through the old part of the city known for its traboules, secret covered passageways between buildings that she said were often used by French Resistance fighters escaping Nazis during World War II.  We passed through gates into dark, twisted passageways and emerged into new streets, and could easily imagine how you could elude a pursuer here.

 

Lyon is also known for its painted walls, and Sylvie took us to some of them, explaining who the famous characters were who were depicted.  

It is a vibrant and beautiful city, filled with history.  At the end of our guided tour, we stopped at L’Espace Carnot and enjoyed some regional food – salade Lyonnaise, risotto, and sorbet for dessert.  The dinner began with (what else?) a glass of Kir.  

Now where can I find crème de cassis in our area?

The Eiffel Tower

The longer we are in Paris, the more we have come to appreciate its charm and beauty.  It is not difficult to see why so many people emigrate to the City of Light, and end up staying a lifetime.  As one woman in Woody Allen’s film Midnight in Paris says, “That Paris exists and anyone could choose to live anywhere else in the world will always be a mystery to me.”

Surely the Eiffel Tower is the most famous landmark of that city, visited by seven million people every year.  We had originally signed up for a “skip-the-lines” tour for July 14, but somebody must have forgotten that was Bastille Day so it was cancelled.  We rescheduled for this morning, and there were already people lining up early on a Sunday morning as there had been at the Louvre.  Our tour guide, also named Natalie, had come from Ukraine and had been here only four months; she had been an English teacher there and probably spoke it better than French.  But while we felt sorry for her plight – who knows what tragic circumstances had forced her to leave her country when the war started? – it soon became clear that she did not know as much about the Eiffel Tour as she should have (and as I had learned from Rick Steves's Pocket Paris, which I had been reading since Martha gave me a copy).  And despite the “skip-the-lines” tickets, we still had to wait in very long lines for admission.

We did learn from her, however, that the tower had been designed by Gustave Eiffel (who also designed the Statue of Liberty), with construction completed in 1889 as the centerpiece of the World’s Fair, celebrating the centennial of the French Revolution, and was originally bright yellow.  There were many in Paris at the time who considered it a monstrosity.  A group of painters, poets, writers, and artists who called themselves the Committee of Three Hundred opposed its construction from the very beginning.  One of them was the French writer Guy de Maupassant.  Defeated by the tower and annoyed by its immense popularity, de Maupassant couldn’t stand the sight of his “iron arch nemesis,” which seemed to follow him whenever he wanted to stroll around the center of Paris.  At last de Maupassant thought of a safe place where he could avoid the tower that he obviously despised so much: underneath the Eiffel tower itself.  Every day, he had lunch at the tower’s base restaurant, just because “inside the restaurant was one of the few places where I could sit and not actually see the Tower!”

We had no such aversion!  It is an engineering marvel, impressive from a distance but even more so as one approaches and stands in its shadow gazing upward.

We patiently waited for admission, then began the climb – 674 steps:  327 to the first floor, 347 steps to the second.  You used to be able to climb a narrow spiral staircase all the way to the top, but today you must ride an elevator from the second floor to the summit.  From time to time, they stop running the elevator when crowds become too dense, so we felt lucky to be able to squeeze in for the ride to the final third level. The lines and the passengers riding in the final elevator were very crowded!  Almost nobody was wearing a face mask.  This was not the first time (standing in long, closely-packed lines at Heathrow had been another) when we had worried about contracting Covid on this trip.  We knew it was a risk, but we are both vaccinated and had received the second booster as late as May, so we thought it was an unacceptable one.    

The views from the top – 906 feet at this level – were every bit as spectacular as we had been told.  Below us we could see the City of Light spread out in dazzling clear morning light, the Seine river curving dark blue, the parks and the boulevards of the city.  It seemed even taller from up here!  We stood in a short line to order two glasses of champagne, a tradition for those who make it to the top.

We had lunch around the corner at Le Café Castel, and then made our way back to the hotel.  This was the official first day of the Trafalgar Tour, and we were to meet our Tour Director and fellow travelers (46 of us) in the courtyard in the afternoon.  Over the next 12 days we would come to know some of them very well.

We met our Tour Director, Bruno Courtois, who had already sent us several welcoming e-mails.  He was a slim man in his 50s, very professional in his manner, and he spoke English very well, although with a French accent that was sometimes a little difficult for some of the group to understand.  Over the next few days we would find that he had an easy-going French sense of humor, often very subtle.  He warned us, for example, that the French who visited the Côte d’Azur (the French Riviera) often participated in a “very dangerous” activity, bathing in the sea.  We also met Adrian, a young man who was the Wellness Director, a new Trafalgar feature since the pandemic.  Adrian stood at the door to the coach each day dispensing hand sanitizer and good-quality face masks to all who wanted them.  Wearing masks was optional at this point, but most of us did so in the close confines of the coach.  Bruno told us that on his last tour, ten in the group (including himself – presumably at the end of the tour) had tested positive for Covid, thus ending the tour for them per Trafalgar policy and making mask-wearing mandatory for the rest of the tour.  We were surprised at that high number – 25 percent!

We also met some of the others and learned where they were from:  Rod and Doty from Nebraska, Rich and Karen from Durham, Steve and Rosy from Canada, and several of the others.  We had not really known what to expect.  On our last tour to Britain and Ireland three years ago, most of the travelers had been Australian, and by the end of the tour we had come very close to saying “Good dye ta ya, Myte” in the morning on the coach.

By this time we had seen many of the sights of Paris on our own, so we felt like seasoned Parisians!  “Oh yes, the Louvre was wonderful!”  And, “We had champagne on the summit of the Eiffel Tower just this morning!”  We even knew how to take a taxi!  And many of the others spoke little or no French. After the meeting at the hotel, we all took a coach to an introductory dinner at the Bistro des Champs on the Champs Elysees and got to know one another better over dinner and wine, Bruno circulating among all the tables for a toast.  Afterward, we went on an orientation tour, disembarking to look at the Eiffel Tower from another angle and getting some close-up views of the Arc de Triomphe.

Bruno kept up an interesting narrative as we drove through Paris.  “We are on the Right Bank here,” he told us.  “We have a saying:  on the Left Bank, we think; on the Right Bank, we spend!”  The Left Bank is the intellectual part of the City, containing the Latin Quarter and the Sorbonne. The 17^th Arrondissement is an expensive part of Paris, he said, with flats (pied-à-terres) selling for €10,000 . . . per square meter.  Rooms are much smaller than we are accustomed to in this country (I was glad we had a balcony).  When we returned to Charlotte at the end of our tour, we were surprised at the lavish size of our hotel room, which included a desk, a chair, two queen beds, and a full-size sofa.   

We would be covering a lot of ground on the first two days of our trip, Bruno told us, so we would be getting up earlier in the morning than usual.  “Luggage in the corridor at 6:45 a.m., coach departs at 7:45 a.m.”  We were accustomed to this type of schedule from our tour three years ago, though, and we had recovered from jet lag by now, so I would be out on the deck in the morning practicing my Tai Chi while the sun was just beginning to paint the upper stories of the nearby buildings pink and lavender.