REFLECTIONS VI - On the Road Spring, 2007
by Sandra Price
I should have prepared this edition a month ago but somehow I got caught up in the rest of my life. Now I have three trips to report on as well as observations about life around here. I think I’ll send out two editions – one on our trips and one of commentary. So let’s start with the trips.
As an organizing principle, I decided to see how many departments of France I can visit in my lifetime. (If France were a US state, the departments would be counties.) Reconstructing past visits has been a bit problematic (How did we get from Paris to Normandy in 1980?) but even leaving out questionable departments, after our most recent trips in twelve departments I have about 30 out of 93 left to visit. Note that I’m not counting the departments in Corsica or those overseas like Reunion, only those in “continental” France. So where did we go and what did we learn?
Overall, I’m happy to report that, unless there’s a major drought, there will be enough seeds for plenty of canola oil. The flowers of the colza or rape seed plants were in bloom, creating patches of a brilliant yellow green all over the landscape, at least in northern France. I’m sad to say that there is also a global hazing effect in place. Almost everywhere we went there was smog or at least a dirty layer of air over the landscape. A recent International Herald Tribune had a cover story about the unseasonable weather and the health effects of the smog. Since we were in Italy the last scorcher of a summer in 2003, we know what to expect although we hope things will cool off and we’ll get some rain. (When we go to wineries, the 2003’s are always “different.”)
Trip 1 – Cote d’Azur (worth four departments) Over the four day Easter holiday, Larry and I drove (in my old car since his had transmission problems) to the south of France, spending a night in Grenoble, driving through the French “Grand Canyon” along the Verdon River, spending two nights in Grasse, lunching in Cannes and seeing Vauban’s fort at Antibes, stopping by the Fondation Maeght on the way to Easter dinner in Menton, and then driving through mountainous country to the Po River valley and Turin. We were guided by the Tom-Tom GSM system that was my gift to him for Christmas. We can’t seem to get the French voice to work and the American woman pronounces French place names abominably but, as long as one person can read and translate the street names, the system can be a godsend although one does want a map in the car. We also found that the system can get confused in mountains. We engaged in conversation outside the Mt. Blanc tunnel with another driver whose system also said turn around when the signs clearly pointed straight ahead. And we noticed another car that also had a perplexed driver. Now for more details:
Grenoble, like Paris, is tribute to the skill and creativity of ironmongers who created the wrought-iron balconies. Although we were mostly passing through, we did meet an American grandfather and grandson team who were visiting a granddaughter studying there. They later came for a tour of Larry’s experiment before flying out of Geneva. South of Grenoble, we were delighted with the Buech Valley, a landscape dotted with net-covered orchards.
The Grand Canyon is grand but the southern road that we took was not constructed with lots of places to look down. We finally just stuck the car in a niche and walked along the top of the canyon to get better views. Fortunately there was not much traffic. I’m not sure the northern route is better.
Grasse is a vertical city with “S” curves on the main thoroughfares that used to be a center of glove manufacturing. When Louis XIV started a craze for perfumed gloves, the manufacturers took advantage of nearby flower crops to develop perfumes. The gloves are gone but the fragrances linger on in what claims to be the world capital of perfume. We took a tour of the Fragonard facility (named after the artist, a native son of Grasse), and even bought some perfume. Then it was off to see the market in Cannes.
Despite the glowing report in the guide book, the market was not remarkable but the traffic was. Weeks before the film festival, there were too many people and too much traffic. Whatever charm Cannes ever had has been swallowed up by development. Antibes’ waterfront was also a parking nightmare but it was interesting to see the yachts (“New Toy” out of London is for sale if you’re interested) and to walk around the real fortress whose model is in the museum at the Invalides in Paris. I recommend visits to the region only in high off season.
On Easter Sunday, we took the high road east, stopping in St. Paul to see the modern (20th C) art at the Fondation Maeght. The building is by Sert, a Catalan architect, and it and the grounds suit the art. But we didn’t have much time so went to the highway along the coast to whiz past Nice and Monaco to Menton. Up in the hills above the city, we had a fine dinner with mostly French people at Pierrot, Pierrette. We had reservations at the Grand Moghul Best Western in Turin for the night so drove through a fascinating valley with pleasant towns and rock formations that looked like they’d been stirred and left to set at some point. We reached Turin in time to walk past the Luigi Lagrange (there must be a story to that name) Square and along the shopping arcade with the after-Easter- Sunday-dinner strollers. Larry suggested to the hotel manager that Lagrange’s name might have been Louis, but that only produced a puzzled frown. Much to our surprise, it turns out the Luigi was born in Turin, in spite of the French name, and became a famous mathematician. So maybe he was Luigi! It was delightful to window shop and finally reach a huge square and then have dinner in a long established restaurant on the square.
The next morning we stopped at the Egyptian Museum. Two centuries of collections purchased by the state were completed by an Italian archaeologist Schiaparelli who added enough artifacts to have this collection rank second to Cairo. In one gallery imposing statues were artfully arranged and enhanced by mirrors. It’s a place worth visiting again. Then we went upstairs to the collection of the House of Savoy. The House of Savoy once ruled our area and southeastern France before moving to Turin and placing its fortune with the Italians. The collection was well worth seeing with occasional treasures. Trying to beat the crowd to the Mont Blanc tunnel, we did not linger and indeed got home easily, if expensively. They were handing out bottled water at the entrance of the Tunnel but that turned out to be a promotion rather than a warning.
Trip 2 – Paris by TGV (no new departments)The next Friday I went to Paris by train to meet my sister who was arriving early Saturday. I spent the afternoon with a large number of people at the Louvre and found that there were no ticket lines because there are kiosks for buying them. The ticket I’d bought on-line to avoid lines was not necessary. Sunday morning Judy arrived an hour late and there was only one seat on the bus into Paris so that made us even later, but we went to the hotel to meet Larry who’d flown up that morning on easyJet. Judy wanted to see the Eiffel Tower which had been closed on her last visit some thirty years ago. Following a suggestion in an NY Times article on inexpensive ways to do Paris, we took the # 69 bus which runs from Pere Lachaise Cemetery through Place de la Bastille near our hotel past the Louvre and through the 6th arrondissement and on to the Champs de Mars by the Tower. The Tower had all the people who’d been at the Louvre on Friday, this time in long lines so there was no point in trying to climb it. We walked up to the Trocadero for great views and then had lunch at an outdoor café.
Having read a biography of Paris, Larry wanted to see Montmartre where much had happened although we’d been warned it was a tourist-trap. What a scene! The weather was unseasonably warm so the streets and the slopes below Sacre Cour were filled with people. The church, built in the late 19th century, saw us join a slow moving line that circled through the sanctuary, all of us being quite quiet because a large guard at the entrance had said “Silence” as we entered. Once we abandoned the church and the crowds, we were delighted to find the original neighborhood church with old bowed columns, a small community vineyard, the cabaret Lapin Agile (originally a sign with a rabbit painted by Gill as in “lapin a Gill:” see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapin_Agile), and windmills high on hills featured in paintings by artists who lived in the area.
For dinner we met up with the Fergusons, Tom and Carol, who were in Paris on a tour with St. Olaf College. Tom was History Division Head for part of my career at Oak Park. They’d had a fine day at Chartres so we met and ate at the Restaurant Petit Pontoise in the 5th. It was another fine dinner and a great time.
I left early on Sunday but Larry and Judy went to Sainte Chapelle and the Musee Carnevalet. Judy now agrees with me that Ste. Chapelle is the one place you have to visit in Paris. The Carnevalet, which is the museum of the city of Paris, is a place I want to see based on their reports. They also saw mobs of runners in the Paris Marathon.
Trip 3 – the Northeast (worth eight departments) The next week-end, having bought a new used car and negotiating in French during the week, Larry, Judy, my friend Ellen Taylor and I headed off for Paris. Ellen had mapped the trip to go through the maximum number of departments so we stopped in Landres (walled city with walks along the top of the wall) and then Troyes (many half-timbered building but with brick rather than stucco between the timbers.) Judy and Larry took off for the US in the morning and Ellen and I set out to “do” the northeast. From a British neighbor she’d learned a great deal about military cemeteries so we drove to the Aisne Marne American Cemetery which is at the foot of Belleau Wood, passing a sign for the town of Armentieres. That occasioned a round of the song “Madamoiselle of Armentieres,” or at least what we could remember of it. . (Cedric, Ellen’s expert tells us that the song referred to a town of the same name where the British were farther north. I just looked up the lyrics – raunchy – which is why we remembered only the chorus.) See (http://www.firstworldwar.com/audio/mademoisellefromarmentieres.htm)
At the cemetery we found that there are 2,289 marked graves which are arranged in a slightly convex pattern at the base of a hill with 251 of the graves for Unknowns. The graves are marked with Latin crosses or Stars of David. (It is interesting to note that there are now more that 25 different religious designations for military graves, including the pentacle for Wiccans.) Nearby overlooking the city of Chateau Thierry is a memorial to the war dead (Time will not dim the glory of their deeds.) and the friendship of France and the US, symbolized by two women holding hands. There were several families there with children enjoying the open space. Ellen and I realized that we had no clear understanding of the military hierarchy in terms of the size of divisions vs battalions. (Subsequent research has taught me that armies and other military branches organize themselves differently but use the same words.) The website is www.abmc.gov for all US cemeteries/memorials and including a search engine to find names and http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/am.php for Aisne Marne and http://www.abmc.gov/memorials/memorials/ct.php for Chateau Thierry.
After seeing the magnificent Reims Cathedral (Reims is pronounced “rinse” at the back of the throat), we drove north to dip into Nord department passing through La Capelle-Thierache. Spotting a sign for a war memorial, we upset the Tom-Tom GPS system by going off route but found a memorial that marked the place where, on November 8th of 1918, German officers met with the avant-garde of the French army to arrange an armistice. Right there. I’d never known how that process happened. Of course, the armistice was signed on the 11th at the 11th hour in that famous railway car in Paris but there was a face-to-face meeting in La Capelle-Thierache.
Since it was election day, we also observed people gathered by the entrance to the La Capelle mairie to chat after voting. Why don’t we vote on Sundays since we do everything else on what used to be the Lord’s Day? 82 % of the French voted. In a town near us in Thoiry 90% of the people voted. And one of the candidates, Bayrou, keeps talking about the fragility of French democracy. The US must be a basket case if voter participation is an indicator.
By the way as a travel tip, a village’s free toilets, which are typically the hole in the ground variety, are usually near the mairie.
We spent the night in Charlesville-Mezieres, a monument to Charles, Duke of Mantua who had the good fortune to marry Henrietta of Cleves whose dowry included the area. I’ve just spent fifteen minutes trying to learn more about Henrietta to see how she was related to Anne of Cleves, one of Henry VIII’s wives, to no avail. There is a statue of an arrogant Charles in the center of town and the town also boasts a wonderful Square Ducale surrounded by three or four story buildings with tall peaked roofs. A quiet nearby square named for Churchill is the site of the international organization of marionettes.
We meandered down to the region of the Argonne Forest and Verdun. Since we brake for Gallo-Roman ruins, we spent some time viewing the foundations of a series of temples built during that period not far from Charlesville. We finally reached the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, with the more usual rectangular pattern of graves. There are 14,246 graves of men, most of whom died between September 26 and November 11, 1918. 486 are Unknowns and there are also the remains of soldiers who died at Archangel in Russia. (Most Americans do not know we sent soldiers to Russia during the Revolution to keep the port and its military supplies from the Germans and Bolsheviks but the Russians remember.) The monumental chapel also lists 954 names of men who died but whose remains were not recovered or identified. Inside the information center were pictures which gave a real sense of the problems soldiers faced. One picture showed the Buffalo Soldiers, black men who fought as a unit. We climbed the tower (18 steps, 13 flights) to see the countryside and get a better sense of the terrain of the battles.
Metz boasts a fine cathedral with a history of stained glass in its windows. The windows of the nave fill the entire space of the arch so the space is bathed in colored light. There are early windows and then some by Chagall and a procession of saints from more recent times. We took the time to go to the crypt but did not see the Merovingian chair from the 7th century mentioned in our guide book.
On to Nancy and Stanislas Square. Stanislas was the father-in-law of Louis XV who was kept busy creating the Square. A huge open space, it is surrounded by four story buildings and wrought iron gates and gold ornamentation. It was refurbished in 2005 so it is in excellent shape. Interestingly, the bus line is called Stan. Since all the museums were closed by the time we arrived and were also to be closed the next day, we stayed south of Nancy in a Premiere Classe Motel, a French version of Motel 6 (although the doors close at 9) to be closer to home the next morning.
The trip home the next day passed through a town called Epinal, once a major printing center. There is a museum there celebrating the Pellerin Company, founded in 1796 and owned for 200 years by the family. The new owners are continuing the traditional ways of printing posters. If you remember the Puss in Boots pictures with Puss as an elegant cavalier, you’ve see the work of the company. We took the tour of the factory, given in French, and understood some of what the guide said. The technique involves taking a line drawing, cutting metal stencils for each color used, using a big round brush dipped in water color to color the designated areas for each color needed for the line drawing, letting the paper dry, doing the next color, etc., a process that takes six hours per poster. The company did learn how to mechanize the process, again using water colors and big brushes, and also did lithographs. Since at one point they kept the company alive doing reprints for collectors, their posters show attitudes and values over time. I was amazed when I looked closely at their “Search and Find” perception games on the back of their PR poster. One showed a boy fishing who hears a frog which you can find in his wig. No problem. But another shows a stereotyped desert Muslim with a turban and scimitar looking for “infidel dogs” and the hidden “dogs” were the faces of two white men. Hello! Examining a soccer poster, I realized all the players in the new artfully done poster looked white, not like the players I’d seen playing the World Cup. I’ll never know if such work is simply insensitive or deliberate. We also whizzed through the adjoining museum, Ellen making use of the English audiotour. The woman at the desk came up to join us and chat in English. She was amazed that we were Americans since, we gathered, Americans rarely visit Epinal. Ellen explained that we get two week vacations and head for Paris.
Skipping Luxeiul, a lace-making center, because it was after 12 and shops would be closed anyway, we zipped on toward Geneva. But then there were signs to the Saline Royale, a place I’d been planning to visit, so we followed them, ending up in Arc et Senans in the middle of the Chaux forest where the magnificent Royal Saltworks, now a Unesco World Site, dominate the area. Check http://www.salineroyale.com/ for an overview. It was built by the architect Le Doux who wanted to create a hierarchical workplace but one with a city to support the workers, an early model industrial city. Started in 1775, in part to increase tax income from the despised gabelle or salt tax, it was never finished. It did produce salt, however, piping salt water from Salin les Bains to Arc et Senans and then cutting down the forest for fires to evaporate the water, an early contribution to global warming. There were models of LeDoux’s plans as well as buildings he designed for the court, exhibitions of other planned cities, and a museum to the making of salt. Ellen and I agreed that this was a place to return to with husbands.
On the way home we did also see a fouine cross the road but it was too fast for us. (Ellen’s car has been repeatedly attacked by fouines who chew on cables and hoses.) Then we passed an escargot farm but too quickly to figure out how one raises escargots. Soon we were going down the other side of the Jura Mountains and reached home in Thoiry around six. What an adventure.