Monday, August 4, 2014

Memories of myth and magic





Before I close this blog, I have a few more additions, because this is a record for Kevin and me, as well as a communication between friends.

Although I have written of exploring the prehistoric caves in the Dordogne, it strikes me that the description makes it sound as though it were just one more experience on our trip. It was really much more than that.  I have seldom been so profoundly affected by a site than I was by the caves at Font de Gaume and Pech Merle. I am now doing further reading on these caves, the Chauvet Cave (elsewhere in France), and the cave painters. I am intrigued by their mysteries and wonder if we will ever know why they made the paintings and the symbols, for intriguingly, there are symbols as well as the artwork. When you consider that the style of painting seems to have changed very little from the time of Chauvet (about 30,000 years ago) to Lascaux (about 14,000 to 16,000 years ago), the implications are enormous, for they had to have had a language and culture to pass down those thousands and thousands of years.  We have tended to see these people as primitives, but, in fact, they must have been very much like us. I was particularly affected by seeing the handprints in the caves--I nearly had chills running down my spine--and when I later found out that those hands were female (as are 75 percent of the hand images in all the prehistoric caves), I was captivated. I want to know more.

***





Yet another magical moment was a classical concert we attended at Sainte-Chapelle, the 13th Century royal chapel that has probably the most extant medieval stained glass. The chapel is lovely in itself, but to sit there, as we did, as the late evening sun filtered through the glass, listening to a violin quartet play Pachelbel, Mozart, and others was such an intense pleasure.  The highlight was hearing a soprano sing both the Schubert and Gounod versions of Ave Maria. (I sadly have lost my program and have forgotten her name.) While I thought I preferred the Gounod version, hearing her sing the Schubert with such incredible control and delivery brought tears streaming down my face. I don't think Kevin will mind if I tell you that he also had tears in his eyes.



There are many highlights of our trip, which I have shared, and nothing means more than our visits with family and friends, but the most moving experiences for me in France were the visits to the prehistoric caves and the concert at Sainte-Chapelle.  I hope to remember them always.


***
Final note: I haven't recorded every thing we did on our trip, but I've tried to touch on the people, events, and experiences that meant the most to me. There will always be things that I could add, but now it's time to bring this blog to a close.  I leave you with some final images of a place we discovered quite late in our trip, the Quai Branley Museum.  Its administrative offices feature a living wall of greenery.  The museum itself features art and artifacts from African, Asian, Oceanic, and American cultures, and it is one of the finest museums I have ever visited.  It also has a cafe on the ground floor with a fabulous view of the Eiffel Tower.  I wish we had discovered it sooner.

So thanks for following along.  And thank you for your many kind comments.  It's been a wonderful experience that we will treasure always.











Au revoir!


Friday, July 18, 2014

Saying au revoir

Today, our last day in Paris, I am feeling a little sad saying goodbye to the neighborhood and the city.

I am saying goodbye to the kind lady at the bakery. (I am not posting her photo online, because there was no way to ask permission to put it on the blog.)  We never exchanged more than a few words, asking each other how we were, and she inquired about our vacation. But the language barrier and the busyness of the bakery prevented much more than that.  I wrote her a note to thank her for her kindness, and it brought tears to her eyes--and that brought tears to my own eyes. 

So au revoir to the bakery where I went nearly every day for our baguette ("La tradition, s'il vous plaît.") "The tradition" is a baguette that contains only wheat flour, water, yeast, and salt, and by law it has to be made on premises.





It's also au revoir to the Monoprix supermarket, just down the street. They offered just about everything, including umbrellas and underwear. (But despite the name, everything was not just one price.)



It's au revoir to Picard, and the friendly young woman there. The entire store offers only frozen food, but it's good frozen food, and not too expensive.  It's said to be the French cook's secret, but it can't be that much of a secret, because I think there are as many Picards in Paris as there are Starbucks in Seattle--one on almost every block.




Do you detect a theme here?  Yes, it's all about food!

Except Kevin went to say goodbye to the hardware man, too, who has helped us out with everything from a replacement door handle to bubble wrap.  His tiny store stocks any household item you need.  When Kevin lacked enough change to buy something he wanted, the hardware man just told him to come by when he had the money, and let him take it anyway. That's our neighborhood!

So goodbye, Rue Ordener.  We hope to see you again one day.  In the meantime, here's a list of what else I will--and will not--miss.

What I'll miss when we leave Paris:
  1. Shopping at my favorite stores and the street market.
  2. Eating great food and drinking good cheap wine.
  3. Watching the Eiffel Tower light show. 
  4. Hearing music--from buskers in the metro to concerts (some free), and the  La Fete de la Musique, to people humming and whistling in the street.
  5. Waking to pigeons cooing.
  6. Walking in Montmartre and along the Seine.
  7. Exploring the wonderful museums, churches, and cemeteries.
  8. Living in a city with historical sites around every corner, which is both rewarding and sobering.
  9. Relaxing in the cool, green parks.
  10. Experiencing the kindness of strangers.
What I will not miss when we leave Paris:
  1. Being accosted by pickpockets and scammers.
  2. Seeing dog poop and litter in the streets. (Paris spends more per capita than any large city on street-cleaning. It needs to.  Why do people with such good taste in most things not see how gross it is to let your dog poop where people walk?
  3. Smelling urine in alcoves and stairways in some parts of the city. (There are perfectly good free self-cleaning toilets, but some men haven't changed their habits.)
  4. Riding in an overpacked metro. Now that summer and tourists are here,  the metro is more packed than ever.
  5. Struggling to be understood with no one to ask, especially when making telephone calls.
Still, there is no other city in the world quite like Paris. We feel privileged to have been able to live here if only for a short time. There are more things to like than to dislike, and they make all the rest seem irrelevant.

So au revoir, Paris. You will always have a place in my heart.




Our relatives the Neanderthals



The Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies-de-Tayac not only includes many fascinating artifacts of the discoveries made in the area (including the first identified Cro-Magnon man), but it also includes a few reconstructions of animals and man.

One of those reconstructions helped me understand something I have puzzled about for some time. The depictions of Neanderthals that were presented while I was growing up always showed them rather hulking and brutish. But with newer technology, scientists revised that view and said that a Neanderthal dressed in modern clothes could pass quite un-noticed on the street. I had trouble squaring that with the heavy brow and other characteristics they were supposed to exhibit.  But based on the reconstruction of the Neanderthal man in the museum at Les Eyzies, made that quite apparent.


I know the photo is not good (taken through glass), but he doesn't look that different does he?  That's good, because scientists have also recently discovered that those of us who are of European ancestry share three percent of our genes with Neanderthals.  (And that strange uncle of yours probably has even more, right?)

Les Eyzies is a pretty town, too.


Thursday, July 17, 2014

Exploring the land of castles and caves

 


The Dordogne region of France, "The Land of 1001 Castles," has become one of my new favorite places. The green, rolling hills with a castle on nearly every outcropping, thanks in part to the Hundred Years War between France and England, makes this almost a fairy-tale landscape.

We stayed in the Beynac part of Beynac-et-Cazenac, a tiny town of the local yellow stone nestled beneath a cliff and topped with a 12th-century castle, where Richard I of England supposedly once stayed. The town and the castle almost made us feel as though we were living in another era.


















I can't include photos of the highlight of our trip--visiting the caves with prehistoric paintings. We were fortunate to visit the cave of Font de Gaume. It is one of only three caves in the world that features polychrome figures (animals painted in more than one color), which is still open to the public. 

Font de Gaume does not take reservations. We got up early and waiting in line for two hours to make sure we got in, because only about 50 people a day are admitted, and this cave does not take online reservations. Visitors are limited to protect the cave from bacteria and deterioration by the carbon dioxide exhaled in our breath.

We were guided into the cave through very narrow passages and allowed to stay only 30 minutes. The guide illuminated the paintings briefly, and used a lighted pointer to trace the outlines of the figures. 

 

To think these paintings were created an estimated 14,000 to 17,000 years ago sent shivers down my spine. But the time period is only an estimate. There are many mysteries to the caves. We do not know why they were painted, we can only guess. No one lived in the painted caves or used them for burials, so it is thought they were used for religious or ceremonial purposes.

At Font de Gaume, because only one of the paintings used charcoal, only that painting could be accurately dated. The supposition is that the fat lamps and other artifacts found in the caves date from the period that the paintings were created. But to me, that is like some future archeologist finding an iPhone in the Sistine Chapel and thus dating the chapel to the 21st century! 

It's a small world, though. While we were waiting in line to visit Font de Gaume, we chatted with a French man who lives in LA now. Guess what? He used to work at Gerard's Relais de Lyon in Bothell, about three miles from where we live! Not only that, but another woman who was waiting there had graduated from Bothell High School, Kevin's alma mater (though much later than he).  She now lives in New Zealand. Doesn't that make you wonder how many people you encounter who have a connection to the place you live, but you never find out? Talk about six degrees of separation!

We also visited Pech Merle, a little further south in the Lot region. Sadly, because Pech Merle is privately managed, the owners are not as careful about preserving the paintings, and allow many people in (about 700 a day, as opposed to 50 at Font de Gaume).  The cave itself was spectacular, with highlights of geological formations and the  paintings, images of potted horses, surrounded by six handprints. (Research has shown that most of the hands in the prehistoric caves are female.)

Finally, we visited Lascaux II, a recreation of the Lascaux cave that was closed to preserve the paintings for posterity. I had not expected to be moved by that reproduction, but it was amazing! It has been painstakingly re-created. Five years were spent forming the cave with materials and sculpting it so that the forms are accurate to within one centimeter of the actual cave.  Then another six years were spent finishing the paintings, also reproduced exactly as they were, using the same techniques that researchers had determined were used by the original cave artists. When we walked into the cave, I was almost overcome.  

Long ago, one Christmas, Kevin had given me a large book of the final photographs that were taken at Lascaux before the cave was sealed. Even having viewed the photos in the book, seeing the cave was an emotional experience.  Seeing all the caves was an emotional experience.


In one way, nothing can replace seeing the real paintings, as we did at Font de Gaume and Pech Merle. But taken all together, we were very pleased to have experienced every one, and Lascaux II simply added another dimension. I'd love to go back to the land of castles and caves.

 


Wednesday, July 16, 2014

How we narrowly escaped jail in Sarlat


One afternoon in the Dordogne-Lot area, on our way back to the village where we were staying, we decided to stop off in the town of Sarlat. It's considered a must-see of the area, and its charming medieval quarter is pedestrian-only.

Got that? It's pedestrian only.

It has so many beautiful old buildings and narrow passages.







The squares in Sarlat are often filled with performers, who often draw a crowd.  I took a shot of one crowd watching an acrobat. This was early in his performance, so if you check the photo opposite you'll see him. He's the figure in red in front of the buildings on the left.

Now imagine about twice as many people in the square 20 minutes later, as his performance continued.

Now imagine you are stuck in a car on the other side of the crowd, unable to move.




Yes, our GPS unit (named "Dena," which we brought from home) steered us directly into the pedestrian area, when we thought we were going out of town.  Of course, we know Dena is finicky, since both in France and the US, she has tried to steer us down tracks that do not qualify as roads, so partly this was a matter of our inattention. ("Inattention" sounds better than "stupidity," doesn't it?)

When we first entered the pedestrian zone, a friendly bar owner helped us turn around and told us to take the second right beyond the square. But when we got to the square, we encountered the crowd around the acrobat. 

He was quite good.  We should know.  We sat there in the car, ignition off, watching for at least 10 minutes (that felt like an hour), as we waited for the people to disperse.

What to do? Both Kevin and I were flummoxed.  Our hearts were pounding, as we struggled to stay calm.  At that point (as we later confirmed with each other), we just wanted to get out of there! We didn't care if the gendarmes showed up, reprimanded us, and gave us an expensive ticket, as long as they could get us out of the square without harm to anyone.

But no one--gendarme or friendly bystander--showed up to help.

Finally, as the acrobat took a very short break, some of the people began to leave.  I leaped out of the car, as Kevin turned on the ignition.

"Désolé!," I shouted. ("Sorry.") With my right hand, I pointed back at Kevin; with my left hand, I made a sweeping motion to my right, trying to herd the people away from the car.

"
Désolé! Sur le droit!" ("Sorry. On the right.") Then I realized, my right was their left.

"Désolé! Sur le gauche!" ("Sorry. On the left.")

Amazingly, they obeyed.

We continued like that, Kevin inching the car forward, while I directed the crowd. If I hadn't been so scared, I think I might have enjoyed the sensation of actually having people follow my command.

The exit street was only about 200 yards away, but it felt like a mile!  But the strategy worked. Kevin turned onto the street, and I jumped in the car.

As we drove away, I saw a man on the side of the road with his young daughter on his shoulders. He was smiling, probably amazed at those dumb tourists. "Désolé! ," I called out through the open window.

We were soon on the highway, laughing hysterically. We hadn't run over a single person. We had avoided being clapped in chains or slapped with a huge fine. Life was good again!

Sunday, July 13, 2014

On Sisley and silverbeet





When Lynda asked about visiting a nearby town, we hit upon a plan to visit Moret-sur-Loing, an easy trip into the countryside by train.  A medieval village with fortifications and buildings dating from the 12th century, Moret has plenty of charm, but what I really like is that it's still a living town, where tourism is almost an afterthought.  

We had not realized that most of the tourists spots, like the sugar museum, are only open on weekends.  But we enjoyed wandering the narrow streets unencumbered by the throngs of Paris.


Walking along the ancient walls.


Flowers abound in Moret.

Picnicking along the Loing River.

Water power once ran the local sugar mill.


Kevin and I in Sisley's home town.

A lovely spot on our walk.
The scene almost looks like an Impressionist painting.

One of the medieval buildings still in use.

Henry IV installed his mistress in the town and made her the Countess of Moret in 1604.  She contributed t0 the town, setting up a hospital and school, and helping to found a Benedictine Abbey, where the nuns began to make candy from barley sugar in 1638. The abbey is gone, but the candy is still made today from the same recipe. (I sampled it, and it was good!)

A young man at the Tourist Information Office told us that when the Nazis occupied the area, they seized one of the nuns, detecting an accent in her speech. She was Irish, and they imprisoned her.  The next week when the soldiers came to get the candy for their commandant, the nuns told them they could not make the candy, because the sister the Nazis had seized was the only one with the recipe.  It was almost certainly a lie, but the ruse worked: the Irish nun was freed, and the abbey once again made the sweet.

Moret-sur-Loing was a favorite of the Impressionists, and Renoir, Van Gogh, and Sisley painted there. Sisley actually lived--and died--there, and his house still stands. Sadly, like Van Gogh, his work was not really recognized until after his death.

We would have liked to linger longer in Moret, and buy some barley-sugar candy. But we had a train to catch.  Before we set off for the station, nearly a mile away, we caught up with Lynda and John, who were sitting across from a planter box near the Tourist Office.

Do you like silverbeet?," Lynda asked.

I had no idea what she meant, though I later found out later, it is what we call chard. She walked over to the planter, displayed a leaf and almost shrieked in her enthusiasm, "This is Silverbeet, growing right here!  It's really good for you!"

Immediately, we were accosted by a skinny young man in black who asked us to keep our voices down.  He pointed across the street, where a restaurant was sheathed in heavy black drapes, and a few other men stood nervously by.  "We're filming," he explained. (The camera must have been behind the drapes.)

We promised to be quiet (though we giggled as we made our way out of the town, vowing to look for the film, "Belle Famille" ("Beautiful Family") should it appear one day on at our local movie theater. We have no idea who is in it, but we'd love it if we heard "This is silverbeet!" on the audio track.

Kings and mistresses. Artists. Nuns and Nazis. Barley-sugar candy, silverbeet, and movies.  It was quite a day!





A Paris reunion

One of the most delightful aspects of our stay in Paris has been sharing it with friends and family.  Not too many months before we came, we found out that our friend Lynda, from New Zealand, had planned a trip to Paris that overlapped with ours. We had not yet met her husband, John, so we made plans to get together. (The verdict? He's a really nice guy, but knowing Lynda, we're not surprised.)

Lynda and John were only in Paris for a few days, so we made the most of our time with them. (One thing we have appreciated is that our guests all have had different interests, so while we have visited a few of the more well-known monuments more than once, each visit has also led us in new directions.)  Of course, we went to our favorite haunts in Montmartre and downtown Paris.


An evening stroll in Montmartre.

On one of the bridges weighted down by lovelocks.


A practical suggestion, given that one of the railings on another bridge collapsed recently from the weight of lovelocks.

Taking a break from sightseeing.

Notre Dame in the rain.


These pigeons have it made!
A picnic under the arches of the Louvre. Out of the rain!


At the Arc de Triomphe, we triumphed (briefly) over the rain.



We ended our day late, at the Eiffel Tower, ready for our adventure the following day.  

And do you know what's really sweet?  Lynda and John made their European trip thanks to their side business of bee-keeping. The sale of their delicious New Zealand honey, made from the nectar of the manuka tree, paid for their trip. We were the beneficiaries of both their company and some of the world's best honey!





Saturday, July 5, 2014

The phantom bookseller



Twice when Kevin and I have run low on reading material, we've made our way to the San Francisco Book Company. The first time, we were thumbing through the titles in the shelves outside when a man poked his head outside and asked if we would do him a favor.  He was about our age and had the distinguished but slightly rumpled look of an English lecturer. If I recall correctly, reading glasses hung around his neck.

"What's that?," Kevin asked.

"Will you go tell that gentleman over there to stop that racket? He's been talking loudly on his mobile for an interminable age," he said in his BBC English.

"Sure," Kevin said. "I'm from Texas, I'll take care of him!"

I then had to interject that Kevin wasn't from Texas, that he was generally a peaceful sort, but that he had recently pushed a pickpocket into a rubbish bin.

And that was how we met Michael, the bookseller.

We asked whether he had the book The Luncheon of the Boating Party, which had been recommended to us by our friend, Marie.  She thought that while we were in France, we would enjoy reading about Renoir and his friends and the story behind the painting, because although the book is fiction, it is well researched.  Unfortunately, the the bookstore only had a hard copy, which cost 17 euros.  (We decided to download the book from the King County Library, which we did from our apartment, and we have been enjoying it.)  

However, Michael also presented us with The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, saying "If you're not hooked on this book after page 8, then there is something wrong with you."  We bought the book, which is an account of de Waal's Jewish family and the acquisition of 264 miniature Japanese sculptures known as netsuke (pronounced net-skay or net-skee). De Waal inherited the netsuke, and his book, although nonfiction, reads like fiction, as his tale takes the reader on a remarkable journey from Paris to Vienna and eventually Japan. It recounts his family's rise and hard-won success, and its later victimization by the Nazis and others. 

We liked the book immensely and felt it provided us with new insights, so when we returned to the bookshop to thank him, we were disappointed that Michael wasn't there. His American colleague said that Michael wasn't working that day. We remarked at how he had located just the right book for us.

"He's uncanny that way," said his colleague. "He can ask you three questions and hone right in on exactly the right thing."

I offered my theory. "I don't think Michael exists," I said. "I think he's a phantom, and he only appears when people need a book to change their lives." 

Of course, that was a wee bit of a stretch, because while the book is leading us in new directions, we know that Michael recommended it because one of de Waal's ancestors was a patron and friend of Renoir, so it had to be our initial request that led him to choose it. 

If we get a chance to return to the San Francisco Book Company*, we may get a chance to find out if Michael is a real person.  His colleague maintains he is, because "he has only a limited repertoire of jokes, and I have heard them over and over again." I must say though, I think he likes Michael. There was something in his tone that told me his exasperation wasn't that intense.

Real or imagined, Michael and his friend have given us some pleasurable Paris memories. After our first purchases, we went to the Luxembourg Gardens to read in the summer shade.  On the second visit, when it was considerably hotter, we walked to a nearby cafe, ordered two beers, and sat under an awning reading, while the afternoon slipped away. It was time well spent.

*I prefer to go to a lesser-known English bookstore than Shakespeare & Company. After all, Sylvia Beach is no longer there, and the location has changed!

Friday, July 4, 2014

The lady who lives on a bench

She was pretty once. You can tell. She has high cheekbones and clear blue eyes a lover might have once been lost  in. Her movements are graceful and feminine, when you can see her figure, though it is mostly covered by old sleeping bags and blankets. Once, when her foot protruded from her multiple wraps, I saw her toenails, which were long and needed trimming, but still retained the vestiges of pale green polish.
She is the lady who lives on a bench.

Her bench is in front of a tabac (small bar that is licensed to sell tobacco and other items) about a block away from us. When I first saw her, I was surprised, because I know France has a strong social safety net, and this is not a bad neighborhood. But I suppose, as in the U.S., if someone is mentally ill and deemed not to be a danger to others, they may be left to go their own way.  I have mixed feelings about that policy.

I have never lived near a homeless person before.  Of course, I have encountered beggars at home and abroad, but I never lived in close proximity to anyone who actually made a home of a bench. 

I saw her with a book one day, and I thought, "Well, at least she has something to take her out of herself," but Kevin said, "Oh, I don't think she read the books.  She just sits with them and slowly tears the pages into tiny pieces."  I observed her then, and saw it was true.

In other countries I have adopted stray cats or dogs while I was there.  (I know, there are people who disapprove, who think you will only set them up to starve later and to make the problem worse when they reproduce. But I hold with those who say that they survived until you arrived, and when you leave there may be others who will help them get through one more day.) And I do contribute to charities for people and animals, but when there is a lost soul in front of you, organized charity just seems too abstract.

I don't know what to do about the lady on the bench.  Kevin, like others, gives her the occasional euro, and I suspect the tabac somewhat looks out for her.  She doesn't seem to drink alcohol, but she does smoke cigarettes.  I think perhaps I should get her a quiche from the bakery, because then she would at least get something healthy. But with my limited French, I can't speak to her in any depth, and I've noticed loaves of bread and other food abandoned beneath her bench, while pigeons peck at the leavings. (I think one little one-legged pigeon may eat there.  They are two of a kind, she and the little lame pigeon.)

I have seen her with an umbrella when it rains. I don't know what she'll do when winter comes. So I struggle, a stranger here, not knowing what to do. Not quite knowing how I can help her make it through one more day.





Thursday, July 3, 2014

An afternoon at Père Lachaise



No, we're not obsessed with death, as you might think, with so many visits to mausoleums and cemeteries. But after viewing the cemeteries of Montmartre, Passy, and St. Vincent, our visit would not be complete without paying our respects at Père La Chaise.

Père La Chaise is the largest cemetery in Paris. It stretches across 110 acres, according to Wikipedia. There are more than a million people buried there. It is not a flat cemetery, either--it has many hills and steps. Among the famous people interred there (too many to list them all) include the lovers Héloïse and Abelard, along with Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, and Jim Morrison.

We were there on a warm summer day with a soft breeze blowing through the trees. We had a picnic on a bench overlooking Paris in the distance. The Pantheon and the Montparnasse Tower were barely visible through the trees. Because Père La Chaise is so large and the metro station was at the far end of the cemetery, we did not visit as many graves as we expected to, but we did get a sense of the place.

I took a photoi of Jim Morrison's grave, as promised to my sister-in-law. It has several photos of him and offerings of flowers an candles from fans atop it. The inscription, in Greek, KATA TON DAIMONA EAYTOY, translates as "Faithful to his own spirit."

Next to the grave is this other "memorial," similar to Seattle's gum wall, where fans have left their own salivary monument on a bamboo sheath that wraps around a tree. (Presumably the authorities have provided the sheath to protect the tree?)






The grave of Edith Piaf includes a line from the song  L'hymne à L'amour, "Dieu réunit ceux qui s'aiment. " ("God reunites those who love each other.")

To be buried in Père La Chaise, you need to be a Parisian citizen or someone who dies in Paris.  Then your family needs to either pay a rental fee for 10 years or more, or buy a spot in perpetuity.  Jim Morrison's grave is one that was bought in perpetuity, but if a family gets a rental and fails to renew the rental fee, the remains will be disinterred.  What happens to them after that, I'm not sure.

Père La Chaise is a peaceful place to visit.  But I confess I like "our" cemetery in Montmartre more.  It's smaller and more approachable, but anyone who visits Paris should go to one of these beautiful old cemeteries if only to pause and ponder.