London Paris and Rome in Two Weeks - Part Three

The train was late leaving Paris which is puzzling because it had arrived from Rome that morning and was returning after 6 p.m. It was a Trentalia train, which is Italian, and although Italian services often go on strike for no apparent reason, we never found out why the train was more than an hour late departing. But we were soon on our way. We had booked 3 beds in a 4 bed couchette car. Couchettes are single beds that are made from the seats, kind of like bunkbeds. You never know who is going to be travelling with you although if a single female, you will be in with other females. Our companion was a gentleman who was heading to Rome to do some research for a book he is writing about an American citizen who was murdered by the Fascists before the Second World War began. He was very interesting to talk to and we did so in both French and English. He was also humorous in manner and stories. When we pulled out our wine to drink and offered him some, he had both a glass and a corkscrew in his backpack (no wine though). The trip by train took about 15 hours.

After we arrived, we got on the Rome subway and went up two stops to near the Spanish Steps where we had rented our apartment. We had to wait about an hour, most likely because we were late, before someone showed up to give us the keys. After we checked in, we set out to explore our neighbourhood. First up was Piazza del Popolo (Peoples' Square) about three streets north of our apartment. The square is at the north end of the Roman Wall built by Emperor Aurelius in 282 CE around the city. The Porta del Popolo was a ceremonial entrance gate to Rome for visitors who came from the north. Kerri and I went back to the square the following night and climbed up on the portico behind the statues to shoot some night pictures of the square and Rome itself. One can easily see the Vatican to the west and the Vitorrio Emanuele II (king who united Italy in 1861) monument to the south. And the next day, on our way to the Vatican, we stopped in at one of the two churches on the square, Santa Maria del Popolo, to see the paintings inside by Raphael. If Raphael lived today, he would also be an amazing photographer as well as an artist - this guy really understood and used light to draw his audience into his paintings.

Getting back to our first day in Rome, we walked back down the Via Babuino to the Spanish Steps, a meeting place where people congegrate since they were built over 200 years ago. The steps, called Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti in Italian after the church and plaza at the top, are reputed to be the longest and widest in Europe. They get their English name from the Plaza at the bottom, the Piazza di Spagna. The Bourbon Spanish Embassy was located at one time in the Plaza. At the bottom right is the house that Keats lived and died in and in the Piazza di Spagna is a fountain called the Old Boat that dates from 1629. The views from the top of the steps are similar to those from the top of Piazza del Popolo. The church at the top, which is associated with the Bourbon Kings of France, is rather plain yet very old, having been finished in 1585. A caution - don't eat your lunch on the steps themselves; this is against the law. Ice cream and snacks do not seem to be a problem however.

It was a beautiful warm, sunny afternoon so we decided to walk the couple of hundred metres towards the Piazza di Trevi and the fountain of the same name. The Trevi Fountain is the largest Baroque fountain in Rome. Finished in 1762, it lies at the end of the ancient Roman aqueduct Aqua Virgo or Virgin's Aqueduct. (Roman engineers built fountains at the end of acqueducts primarily to relieve the pressure of water running downhill into the city). The Trevi Fountain has some of Bernini's 1629 design elements built into it, although it was redesigned to a plan by Nicola Salvi. Unfortunately for us, a crew was repairing something in the fountain, and a large cherry picker blocked most of the view. However, that did not stop Kerri from following tradition and tossing a coin over her shoulder into the fountain, thus ensuring a return to Rome. (Don't laugh, it has worked twice already for Marie and me as we have both been to Rome three times). Kerri was not alone with her coin toss; approximately 3,000 Euros are thrown into the fountain each day and are used to help Rome's needy. We did manage to get back to the fountain a couple of days later and took some more photos without the modern cherry picker basket in the centre of the sculpture. Because the fountain faces south, whenever the sun is shining so does it to the point that sunglasses help to tone down the bright whiteness of the stone.
We continued our relaxed amble due west, crossing the Via del Corso, one of the best shopping streets in Rome. Our target was the Pantheon, probably the best preserved building still standing from Imperial Rome. On the way, we walked down a narrow alley and passed a gelato shop - sort of. I took one look at all the flavours and my suggestion to get some was quickly accepted. We had gelato several other times while in Rome and Pompei, but we all agreed this shop had the best and we went back another day for more. The Pantheon was made a church in the 7th century and that is what saved it from being demolished. Its current design dates from the rule of Hadian (125 CE) and was dedicated as a temple to all the Roman gods. It has an enormous dome; the inside is made from Roman concrete that was poured in moulds so that the ceiling would be light enough so that the brick walls would bear the weight. The occulus (hole in the roof) is the sole source of light. It is still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in existence. During the Rennaisance, the Pantheon became a tomb for the likes of Raphael and Corelli and later, Kings Vitorrio Emanuele II and Umberto I. Still used as a church, the interior walls are decorated with Catholic symbols, paintings and of course an altar. The interior floor is decorated with tourists. It is a very impressive building and as you walk around the outside, particularly at the back, you can see how much higher the ground is today compared to Roman times.
We headed back to our apartment by way of small alleys and streets. In one square, near the headquarters of the Carabiniere, the civil police force of Italy, we came upon a street artist who had created a large chalk drawing of the Birth of Venus by Botticelli. It was well done, but perhaps what was better was the answers he had written beside the drawing to questions he had been asked by tourists, such as "Where is the Pantheon?; Where is the Colosseum?; and Where is McDonalds?"; to which he had asked his own question about why you would eat there when you are in Rome! And speaking of eating in Rome, we found a Trattoria ('country style cooking' restaurant) two streets from our apartment for dinner our first night. The food was simple and very good.

The next day we went off to see the Pope. Well, not the Pope himself, but his home. We arrived before the huge crowds and immediately went to the Vatican museums. These are huge, so if you want to see as much as possible, prepare to spend most of the day touring them, but leave at least two hours to see St Peter's unless you have more days to spend at the Vatican. By the time we had toured the museum wing on early Roman history, the bus crowds were charging into the museums and pretty much taking up all the space as they jockeyed to take photos of everything they could see. As at Versailles, they pretty much go on a direct line and stick to the main corridors - from the entrance to the Sistine Chapel - so to get away from them, peel off to the side wings whenever you need some quiet time.

The Vatican Museums, for a religion based somewhat on a vow of poverty, are extremely opulent. I remember reading that the Vatican had been "sacked" 5 or 6 times by invading groups, yet after each time, more treasures are trotted out in a seemingly uninterrupted supply. Almost all the corridor and room ceilings and walls are covered with art whether paintings, tapestries or even a magnificent collection of rare and very old maps in one hall. The buildings themselves are 'museum' pieces in their own right, some dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries. We flowed along with the current of humanity once inside some of the narrower corridors, past the rooms painted by Raphael in the early 1500s, through various apartments of previous pontiffs all of which are highly decorated, to the Sistine Chapel which as everyone knows, contains Michelangelo's ceiling and altar wall paintings. The Sistine Chapel is the only place in the Vatican Museums where security guards keep telling (in very loud voices) the crowds to be quiet and to stop taking flash pictures. Their success rate is of course limited as everyone today is armed with a cell phone and a digital camera. Although we probably should not have taken any photos, we did so without using our flashes, holding our cameras at waist level and pointing them to the ceiling and end walls. Which made for a couple of interesting shots of nostrils as well as of the art on the walls and ceiling. The Sistine Chapel today is the room used for the conclave of Cardinals whenever a new Pope is needed.

After exiting the Sistine Chapel, there are still several more corridors to navigate and rooms branching off but we were getting hungry so we headed for the exit. On the way out, Marie and I both noticed a large painted glass screen that we had both remarked upon the last time we were at the Vatican in 1999. I do not recall who the artist was, but this is one of the few pieces of glass, stained or otherwise painted, in the museums. The photo does not do it justice, for when the sun shines through it, it almost comes alive. At the entrance/exit one has to walk down a long circular staircase and pass beside a large urn that has a flared top on it. And this is where we encountered a seemingly new and bizarre pastime for Italians. From the top of the staircase (4 stories up), several people were trying to toss coins into the flared top of the urn, as if they were at a coin toss at the carny games of a fall fair. Of course most missed the target, bouncing on the hard floor below. People were crossing that floor and were dodging the falling and bouncing coins as they exited the museum. We also had to run the gauntlet. This tossing of coins into urns/pots and in fact anything circular (they had to be at least 5 metres below the tosser) also was a pastime at Montecassino and Pompei. Perhaps the Italians have tired of throwing coins into wells or fountains. Maybe the current recession in Italy will slow this practice - one can only hope.

After leaving the Vatican proper (we went outside the walls) for lunch, we headed back into one of the world's smallest independent states to tour St Peter's Basillica. The security issues have certainly changed what one can see at St Peter's. No longer can one see the crypts where many Popes are buried. Nor can one climb up to see the dome, which is the largest in the world. And of course if you are female and try to visit St Peter's in a short dress, (I noticed this woman being rejected by security), shorts or with bare shoulders, you won't see anything at all. (Men in shorts above the knee are also not permitted entry). The Pope himself has been protected by the Papal Swiss Guard since 1506 - not the same Pope or soldiers, mind you, who are still soldiers for hire or mercenaries. And yes, they do come from Switzerland. Their uniforms, although designed in 1912, are patterned after those from the Rennaisance. Marie and Kerri had a good laugh at my expense as we were leaving St Peter's. I was trying to take a close up photo of a Swiss Guard in all his regalia, had focused the shot and was busy fiddling with my camera settings since the exposure was somewhat tricky, it having started to rain. Unknown to me, the Guard had stepped into his hut and emerged with a beige raincoat on. I raised my camera to take the shot and was startled by his transformation. Kerri and Marie had watched this whole episode without saying a word to me.

The inside of St Peter's is enormous. It is probably the largest church in existence, having an area of over 2.3 hectares and can hold upwards of 60,000 people. The day we were there, the church was almost empty with only about 1000 people wandering about within it. It is built on the traditional (and probable) site where Peter, one of Christ's disciples, was crucified by Nero in 64 CE and his tomb sits under the high altar. The current Basilica was built throughout the 16th century and contains tons of stone from the Colosseum. Several architects worked on the building, but Michelangelo's designs are the ones primarily seen today even though he did not want to work on the building and was forced to do so by Paul III. The dome, although smaller in circumference than that of the Pantheon, is taller, reaching a height from the floor to the cross on top of 136.5 metres. Although St Peter's ranks second in the Catholic Church's hierarchy of churches (St John Lateran also in Rome ranks first since it is the Pope's personal cathedral), it is used the most by the Pope for services and ceremonies. And it is decorated accordingly. The Basilica is huge, ostentatious as major western religious sites tend to be, on a scale that dwarfs the pilgrim or visitor. All major works of art are huge with one exception. It is perhaps one of the most famous, and to me the most beautiful sculptures I have ever seen (his David in Florence ranks a close second) is Michelangelo's 1499 Pieta (he did two others). It is located in a chapel behind bulletproof glass after some idiot, who thought he was Jesus Christ, tried to destroy it with a hammer thirty years ago just inside and to the right of the entrance doors. The colour and patina of the finely finished marble, the expression on a very youthful Mary's face, and the detail in the sculpture are simply amazing. Apparently, this is the only work that Michelangelo ever signed having overheard someone remark that another artist had sculpted it.

As we left St Peter's it started to rain. This was only the third day of rain on our whole trip so perhaps we were blessed having visited so many churches in London, Paris and now Rome. But we were getting wet, so Marie bought three umbrellas from a passing street entrepreneur who obviously had paid attention to the weather forecast. We walked through the Piazza di San Pietro (St Peter's Square with its Baroque columned porticos on each side) and then down the long street leading to the Vatican from the Tiber River. For most visitors who walk to the Vatican, this is the first view of the street, St Peter's Square and St Peter's one gets. We had entered the Vatican on the north side, however, so we stopped to get the 'approach' view as we left. At the Castel Sant'angelo, which was built by Emperor Hadrian as his mausoleum and also used for the same purpose by other emperors, and as a fortress and castle by the Popes when Rome was repeatedly sacked in the middle ages, we crossed the Tiber on the Pons Aelius, a pedestrian only bridge today that was also built by Hadrian. After we crossed the bridge back into the hustle and bustle of Rome proper, the rain stopped and the sun reappeared. We were not far from our apartment and since it was late in the afternoon, we walked along the Tiber past the mausoleum of Agustus Caesar (which was being excavated and therefore inaccessible) for a rest. That night, we ate at an outdoor restaurant on a cobbled street where taxis (the only cars permitted) and motorbikes passed by less than one metre from our elbows.

The next day, our third in Rome, was spent at the sites of Ancient Rome. In my previous visit, the original Roman Forum could be toured free whereas other areas (the Palatine Hill where emperors lived and the Colosseum) had an admission charge. This has now changed so that all three major areas are covered in one admission charge. I had never climbed up to the Palatine Hill before. With all three now included in the admission charge, it is well worth making the investment. However, renting an audioguide is not; after 2 hours the cost gets progressively higher and it takes more than 2 hours to tour the Forum area alone. Instead, take a tour book with you since very little of the ancient sites are well marked and when they are, it is only in Italian. Prepare to spend a whole day at the three sites and take water with you (even in late October it was quite hot). We entered the Forum part way down Via dei Fori Imperiali, a large avenue created by Mussolini which has on the one side the Forum of Trajan (closed because of archeological digs) and on the other, the Forum of pre-Emperor Rome (Forum Romanum) and of Augustus, the first real Emperor. It may seem difficult to imagine the splendor and glory of Rome that has been portrayed in movies and in writing from the ruins that exist today in the Forum. However, the Curia, where the Senate met, was rebuilt several times in the same location and the current building dates from 305 CE. One can almost see the Senators entering the building today. Incidently, this is not where Julius Caesar ignored his wife's plea (There is no historical evidence of the phrase 'Julie, don't go' that has been widely attributed to Wayne and Shuster) and kept his date with Brutus one mid March day; in fact Julius Caesar was assassinated at the Theatre of Pompey, the temporary Senate meeting place while Caesar was rebuilding the Curia. The remains of several Arches, Temples and other buildings are strewn throughout the Forum. I have walked in the Forum on three separate visits to Rome and each time I walk down the original stones of the Via Sacra, the main street of the Forum, I can easily envision what it was like on a typical day in Imperial Rome almost 2,000 years ago.

After wandering among the ruins of the Forum, we climbed up the Palatine Hill (the Beverly Hills of its day) where the ruins are more spectacular, given this is where Augustus built his palace in Republican Rome. Tiberius and Domitian also built their humble abodes on this hill and several other Emperors enlarged, enhanced and improved upon the real estate started by their forebearers. This is also the place where Rome started circa 750 BC; the cave where Romulus and Remus were supposedly raised by the she-wolf was on the hill and archeologists believe they discovered it in 2007, 16 metres deep and under the house where the future Augustus Caesar was born. There is a small, but interesting museum on the top of the hill that contains the history of the Bronze Age settlements (circa 1000 BC) to the founding of Rome around Republican Era. It also contains washrooms, the only ones we saw in the Forum or on the Palatine Hill. The Hill provides great views of the Forum, the Circus Maximus on the opposite side, the Baths of Caracula in the distance and the top of the Colosseum. The size and scope of the Emperors' palaces takes your breath away. Several stories tall (and these are just the remaining foundations), one of them even contains a small arena within it. Much of the stone from the buildings, the marble, as well as the stone from the Forum and Colosseum was seen as a quarry by people who lived in Rome; by the Church and by the wealthy, so throughout the city, many buildings contain bricks and stones originally erected by the Romans during the glory years of the Empire.

We descended from the Palatine Hill close to the Colosseum and the huge Arch of Constantine, but before we visited the Colosseum, we climbed up the hill on the other side of the Via dei Fori Imperiale and had lunch at a pizzeria. A short note about prices in the area surrounding the Forum and Colosseum. If you want to eat or drink where you have a view of these areas, or eat at the first restaurant you see, the prices are about 50% higher than if you go back a street or so.

After lunch, we went back down to the Colosseum and entered this spectacular building which was built by Emperor Vespasian and his son Emperor Titus, from whose family name Flavius came the original name of Amphitheatrum Flavium. The amphitheatre was constructed in about ten years in a former marshy area that had to be drained. It was built originally of brick and travertine stone, with much use of marble.
However, much of the original stone and marble from the interior and exterior walls was removed over the centuries and it was not until 1749 that Pope Benedict XIV consecrated the building as a Christian Martyr's shrine (althought it is debatable how many Christians died in the Colosseum at the hands of the Romans) and the stone robbing stopped. In any event, we spent about two hours wandering around the two levels of the Colosseum that are accessible to the public. I actually met one of my ancient ancestors there if the similarities in our hands are any indication. Since the last time Marie and I were there (1999), a small portion of the wooden floor has been recreated. The Latin word for sand, which covered the wooden floor to provide better traction and to soak up the blood from the games, is harena from which we derive the name arena. Another English word, vomit, comes from the Latin vomitoria, which was the name given to the 80 Colosseum entrances/exits - it meant that the 50,000-60,000 spectators could be seated or leave quickly in a rush. Of course the gladiators, the Emperor, and the Vestal Virgins could enter (and some could leave) at their own pace through dedicated tunnels. Under the floor of the Colosseum was a busy area of animal cages, workshops, props storage and ingenious elevators that could raise and lower objects through trap doors in the floor. Apparently the Colosseum could also be flooded for mock naval battles although this is debatable.
After spending almost the whole day in Ancient Rome, we wandered back to our apartment via the Trevi Fountain and the Piazza Navona, with a quick stop at the gelato shop near the Pantheon that we liked. The Piazza Navona is similar to the Place des Vosges in Paris in that it is a large enclosed rectangle. The Piazza Navona is located where Domitian had built his Circus Agonalis in the 1st century. It is a beautiful spot frequented by artists who sell their paintings, drawings and photographs on the square. Bernini's famous fountain, la Fontana dei Fiumi (Fountain of the Rivers) is located in the centre of the square, but was undergoing restoration when we were there. Two other fountains are located in each end of the square. A church is also a major feature of Piazza Navona, as are restaurants in the buildings that surround the open space. We were now dragging certain parts of our anatomy as it was very hot, so we called it a day and went back to the apartment. We needed to rest because in the morning, we were going to do something daring and risky. We were going to drive in Italy.

We packed up and were out the door early and caught the subway to the Termini station where we bought train tickets for the airport and the location of the car I had rented. We got to the airport at 9 a.m. and by 9:30, we were in the car (a Smart diesel) and heading out to the major highway that is the ringroad around Rome, looking for the Autostrade to Naples and Pompeii. Now, a note for those of you who are contemplating driving in Italy. First, car rental is pretty expensive (probably because of all the accidents - our car had more than 10 dings and dents in it), the major highways are toll roads and the tolls are expensive, signs are far and few between and can be wrong (and of course are in Italian), and in the small towns we went through (involuntarily - see mistake by Bob), traffic lights were all turned off and stop signs and yield signs meant 'ignore me'. Speeds on the Autostrade (417 like roads) are very fast; our car started to shake at 120 km/h but even at this speed it seemed like we were sitting still (people routinely drive at 170-190 km/h - by the way, the speed limit is 130 km/h. There is no such thing as a safe distance between cars; cars passing us (and everyone seemed to be doing so) would cut back in front of us with less than a metre separating our two cars. In any event, we were doing OK until I screwed up and missed our turn near Naples. We ended up heading for Salerno, but the rental company map we had (should have got a better one) suggested that the Autostrada we were now on would get us to Pompei. So when we saw a sign marked 'scavi di Pompei' (or Pompei excavations), I exited the Autostrade. This is the last sign we saw for Pompeii or the excavations until we were actually in the city. So about every 5 kilometers, I would stop and ask someone how to get to Pompeii. And I am sure the kind people whom I asked would tell me the correct route to get there. I know that sinistre means left and adestre means right, but after a person has said several sinistres and adestres in a row, combined with various hand and body gestures, we were not much further ahead. So we did not go very far in between asking for directions. And of course we had to try to find signs while playing chicken at every corner (except when we were parked in the slow moving traffic of Scafati, the sister city to Pompeii). We made a few wrong turns, but eventually Kerri spotted the Church in Pompei and the sign to our hotel. Our two hour drive to Pompeii had taken three hours plus.

We checked into a lovely hotel (Hotel Diana) and then headed to the excavations, about a 5 minute walk from our hotel.
Pompeii, a fairly wealthy city of probably 20,000, was completely buried by the August 79 CE Vesuvius eruption which, while killing thousands, ensured that it would be well preserved. Excavations started there in 1748 and are still continuing today. We entered by way of the Amphitheatre end of Roman Pompeii and walked past several ancient tombs before entering the ancient city by way of the Porta di Nocera. For the next five hours (in summer time, it would take a couple of full days to see most of the site) we wandered up and down the streets, slipped into and out of houses, bars, restaurants, workshops, a laundry, two villas located just outside the ancient walls (most people do not wander down this way, but if you go, make sure you see the Villas since they are well restored and the paintings on the walls are magnificent), the Forum, temples to various gods and Emperors, the baths, a garden, the large open air theatre, the Games Amphitheatre and gladiator training centre. Plaster casts (plaster was poured into the hollow spaces left in the volcanic rock after the bodies had decayed) can be seen of the people and animals that were caught in the eruption. Some show people resigned to their fate; others are of people and dogs that struggled to breathe before succumbing to the ash and pyroclastic flows that came down from Vesuvius (which is still active and overdue for another eruption). Most of the statuary, any surviving house furnishings (made of stone only), and other objects were removed from Pompeii long ago. If you want to see them, you have to go to the museum in Naples. Pompei is huge and it is only 70% excavated. The Italian government is finally investing several million euros into maintenance and restorations which is good in that some parts of the city have deteriorated over the past few years and the art on the walls, the Latin grafitti (some of it profane) on the face of buildings in the streets is in danger of being permanently lost. Speaking of the streets, Pompeii is laid out in a square grid pattern, many of them being one way in Roman times. Archaeoligists know this from the way stepping stones to get across the sunken streets are worn as cart wheels ran into them. On some of the small hills, the tracks that carts wore into the streets' paving stones speak to the 1000 years that Pompeii was occupied before being destroyed. Providing details about Pompeii would take another whole blog chapter, so suffice it to say that is well worth visiting. We did learn one thing after we had left the ruins that we wish we had known earlier. Several of the houses and buildings where wall paintings or other valuable artifacts are found were locked when we were there. We did not know that if you ask one of the wandering attendants (which we took for security guards), he will open any house that is not under actual restoration. We saw lots of houses, but there were two that our guidebook highly recommended and of course they were padlocked. I guess, Kerri, you will have to go back since your Mom and I saw one of them the last time we were there. There were not many people touring the excavations the day that we were there since it was getting to be off season. The absence of people made the ruins that much more evocative. We took lots of photos and since each one is worth a thousand words, I have included a few.

We had a great dinner that night in Pompei and afterwards joined the locals in the city square in front of a very beautiful church. The next day, our last in Italy, we were heading for Montecassino and then our hotel at the Rome airport. We were up early (very early, since the Italians had gone back to standard time the night previous, but we did not know this), had breakfast and arrived at the Montecassino Monastery well before the tour groups. This Monastery, which is very high up on a hill (perhaps the best part of the visit is driving up and then down the hill with narrow switchback turns), is famous because of World War II. The Allies, thinking the German army was occupying it (it was not) for its strategic and tactical position since one can see the for kilometers into the valleys around the mountain, bombed it flat. Only after it had been bombed did the Germans use it for defensive purposes. Canadians fought at Cassino (the town below) but it was a Polish Brigade that finally captured the hill and the Monastery ruins. The Polish war cemetery of the soldiers who died taking the hill is located on a sister hill, close to the Monastery and can easily be seen from the Monastery courtyard. After the war, the Monastery was completely rebuilt to the original plans, using some of the stone from the original.

After leaving the Monastery, we went in search of the Commonwealth War Cemetery in the town of Cassino in the valley below. (Marie and I never did find it the previous time we were there). Again, the lack of signs made it very hard to find even though we had directions from the Internet from someone who had been there before. But we persevered and eventually we saw a sign for the war cemetery that pointed further down into the valley. After a couple of more turns, we found it. Marie and I thought it very important that Kerri visit a war cemetery; all Canadians who make it to Europe should seek one out to pay their respects to the soldiers, sailors, aircrews, nurses and others who never came home from the two World Wars. This cemetery held the graves of Canadians, New Zealanders, British, Indians, South Africans and Gurkhas. There may have been other nationalities buried here since it is quite large and we spent most of our time among the rows of tombstones of the Canadians who died in the Campaign in the area.

Then it was back unto the Autostrada, and after another wrong turn because of poor signage, we made it to our hotel where we rested, had dinner and prepared for the trip home to Ottawa the next morning.

Thus ends the third and last part of this travel blog. We had a blast travelling together and I look forward to more trips with my kids and grandchildren. And to trips without my kids and grandchildren :-). To travel is to learn. It's a big world out there. Stay tuned.....

London, Paris and Rome in Two Weeks, Part Two

(Marie reminds me to remind you that you can click on the photos in this blog to see them in a larger format (may open another window in your browser). Also, I on the third day in Paris, I discovered that my principle camera lens was not working right and several of the photos I had taken in the two previous days were out of focus. So many of the photos in this part of the blog were taken by Kerri who has an eye for detail and an appreciation for light and form).

Paris - Is it Still "the City of Light"?

We settled into our seats on the Eurostar for the 2 hour and 20 minute ride to Paris. If you are thinking of taking the Eurostar (I highly recommend it for the speed from downtown London to downtown Paris - or the reverse), try to book it as far in advance as you can to take advantage of the discount fares. Otherwise, it is expensive. The train pulled out of St Pancras Station and immediately went underground. Marie asked if we were in the Chunnel already - she had been reading the newspaper and did not notice we were moving. However, we were just travelling underground to get out of London and soon we were in the English countryside. It took about 30 minutes to travel to the English Channel and then we did plunge underground into the Chunnel. Another 30 minutes passed in complete darkness as we travelled under the Channel. Once we emerged in France, the train started to really move, travelling at up to 300 kph. Cars along the four lane highway beside the tracks seemed to be standing still.

We pulled into Paris around 2 p.m. (the Continent is one hour behind London time), got a map of the city at the Gare du Nord station, found a taxi and headed out for our apartment which on the map looked to be about a 10 to 15 minute drive away. However, we immediately got stuck in traffic. I asked our driver if we had arrived at an early rush hour; he explained that since it had just rained and Paris drivers did not know how to drive in the rain, everything was slow. I replied that he is lucky it does not snow in Paris. The slow traffic, plus a couple of detours for construction combined with very narrow streets near our apartment meant the 10 minute ride turned into 45 minutes. The apartment (which I found on the web - all accommodations, train travel, car rental for this three city tour was done on the web) was ideally situated at the border of the 3rd and 4th Arrondisement (like Wards in Ottawa) in the Marais district on the Right Bank. The outside of the building did not look very inviting and indeed the people living in cardboard boxes across the street did not seem to auger well, but once inside we found a delightful one bedroom place complete with a small kitchen and living area that doubled as Kerri's bedroom. The beams in the ceiling were original wood timbers. Unfortunately, the aparment was on the 3rd floor (4th floor in Canada since the first floor is the 'Rez de Chaussee') and there was no elevator. Another reason to pack lightly, right ladies?

After recovering from hauling the suitcases up the flights of stairs, I completed the paperwork with the person who was there to greet us, paid for the apartment in cash - this seems to be the norm in Europe - grabbed our cameras and walked less than a kilometre down Rue du Temple to the Seine, Paris City Hall, and across the Pont Notre Dame to the Cathedral of the same name. Notre Dame Cathedral is located on the Isle de la Cité, the exact centre of Paris where the city started as a settlement of the Parisii tribe. A marker in the cobblestones immediately in front of Notre Dame marks the spot where all roads in France supposedly start.
Notre Dame itself is located where the Romans had a temple to Jupiter and where an earlier Christian church, St Etienne was constructed. The building of Notre Dame began in 1163 C.E. and was completed in 1345 C.E. (And we complain about construction projects that take a couple of years!). Notre Dame is the most visited site in Paris, even more than the Eiffel Tower, and upon entering the Cathedral one can see why. The soaring Gothic interior, amazing stained glass windows, gilt decorations, paintings, statues and other religious icons and paraphenalia make for a beautiful church. The church, unlike Westminster Abbey, is free to enter. Audioguides can be purchased, but may not be necessary if you have a tour book that explains what you are looking at. Or you can purchase a small guide to the Cathedral which we did and share it among your party. Expect to spend at least an hour inside the Cathedral. We went by Notre Dame several times over the next four days as it really is located at the centre of town. Twice Kerri and I stopped; once to take pictures of it at night and the second time so Kerri could climb up the 387 steps to the towers (having climbed a similar tower in Prague a couple of years ago, I decided to wait for her in the plaza in front. We will come back to these two visits later in this blog.

When we emerged from the Cathedral, we headed around the back to the pedestrian bridge that leads to Ile St. Louis, a small mostly residential island that has very narrow one way streets, little vehicle traffic, charming shops and boutiques, several restaurants, three ice cream parlours, a school, a couple of 'mansions' that are fairly unassuming from the exterior and of course, a church. The rents and property costs to live on the island are some of the highest in Paris. I imagine that during the summer months, the island is crawling with visitors, but when we were there in October, we had the place pretty much to ourselves, except for the locals. Ile St. Louis was built in the 17th century as a planned community, one of the first in France. It is well worth the time to take a stroll around the island and to do some window shopping.

We walked back across the Pont St. Louis to Ile de la Cite and since it was getting on to 6 p.m., headed back to the apartment along the Rue des Archives which parallels Rue du Temple to rest up before going out in search of dinner. Given that are apartment was only about three blocks from the Pompidou Centre which is surrounded with restaurants, small grocery and vegetable stores, this is where we headed. It is a very lively spot in the evenings, with many pedestrian only (motorbikes are the only vehicles permitted) streets and alleys. We ended up at a Brasserie and enjoyed our dinner, sitting outside on the square. A short note on eating in Paris. If you want to eat at a traditional restaurant, reservations are usually required. Traditional restaurants are the most expensive option in Paris for dinner; lunches are about half the price. Bistros also often require reservations in the evenings. Brasseries on the other hand, do not require reservations and are often open from early morning to late evening. If you are just popping in for a sandwich, or for a croissant and coffee in the morning, standing at the bar to eat costs half of the cost of sitting down. For example, a cafe au lait at a Brasserie is 2-3 euros if one stands or 5 euros if one sits at a table. We walked around the Pompidou Centre after dinner. It is a public library and Modern Art gallery and is itself an architecturally different building. Kerri was not overly impressed with its design; indeed it reminds one of an oil refinery with all the pipes and conduits on the outside of the building. However, the whimsical fountains on one side, and the activity around the Centre make up for this. We did not visit the Centre's art works, but the collection includes works by Picasso, Braque, Max Ernst, Magritte, Chagall, Matisse, Delaunay, Kandinsky and Klee among others.

This is also where we had our first but not last encounter with the terrible, and in my view worsening service and hospitality ethic of Parisian workers. We had stopped in a small grocery store to pick up some provisions for our apartment. As we approached the cash, the cashier was busily berating a Japanese woman who spoke very little French and was not sure how to use her debit card. Then it was my turn to be abused. I had not weighed the tomatoes I bought (I forgot that you have to do this yourself in the produce section) so as she started to complain, I set them aside rather than go back to weigh them. She was not happy with this and made rude comments about tourists to her co-cashier at the next cash. Then, when it came time to pay the 10.70 for the items we had, I gave her a 20 euro note and searched in my pockets for the 70 cents which I found and tried to give her. Of course she was already in the process of making change and my offer of the 70 cents was met with another bout of derisive language. She did not know that I understand and speak French, so I managed to get the last word in as we left (unlike her, I did not use abusive language) but I think she got the point that serving customers is what paid her salary - needless to say, we did not frequent that store again.

Day two in Paris and we had made plans the evening before to head out to see the Chateau de Versailles as we did not want to visit on the weekend. Visiting Versailles takes at least a morning or afternoon (better to arrive before 10 a.m. and thus avoid 'some' of the tour buses and if you want to see other parts of the grounds - I suggest you do - plan on being there for most of the day). Marie decided to take a day off from touring; she and I had been to Versailles before and she needed to catch up on some rest - she had gone on this vacation the day after arriving from Buenos Aires where she had put in long hours on her contract. So Kerri and I were up and out the door at 7:45 a.m. We hoofed it down to Place St Michel where one catches the RER train to Versailles.
A tip - buy your entrance ticket to Versailles at the St. Michel RER stop as it includes the return rail fare for the same price as an entrance ticket at Versailles proper. And you don't have to get into the ticket lines when you arrive at the Chateau. The train ride is about 45 minutes to the end of the line, the Versailles stop. A short walk from the station brings you to the huge cobbled forecourt of the Chateau de Versailles and its enormous frontage and golden gilded fences. The Chateau started as Louis XIII's hunting lodge, but it was Louis XIV, the Sun King, who had the hunting lodge expanded over several decades to become one of the largest, most opulent royal palaces in the world. If you arrive before 10 a.m., you should start your tour in the main apartments of the King(s). Make sure to pick up your audio device as it is included in the price. Unfortunately, Kerri and I had not gotten very far into the tour before the tour buses had disgorged their hordes of pushy and loud tourists. The best thing to do when these people arrive in by the gangload is to find a gap between two groups and try to stay in this space. Tour groups are whisked through only the main apartments, so they do pass by quickly and they do not go into other areas of the Chateau or out into the gardens and two other smaller palaces (Grand and Petit Trianons). Each room of the Royal Apartments is magnificent and grandiose, as are the chapel, the Hall of Mirrors and various music rooms, libraries and studies. Most of the furniture is from this period although not original because the Chateau was ransacked at the beginning of the French Revolution when peasants from Paris marched on it. Shortly afterwards, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (who presumably was eating cake at the time) were captured and the Chateau was declared part of the new state of France with most items that were left being sold. Over time, the Chateau and Grand Trianon were redecorated for State use (Napoleon and Marie-Louise lived here). The paintings and tapestries displayed on every wall are copies but still are amazing. What we did not like as we toured the Chateau proper was the inclusion of a piece of 'modern' art by some contemporary artist that was plunked in the centre of most rooms. Come on, Michael Jackson and his monkey do not belong in the same room as Louis XIII, XIV, XV and XVI, I don't care who would argue that it is artistic. Kerri and I both agreed that it was tacky.

We escaped from the Chateau itself to the grounds that lie behind the Chateau. The scale of the grounds, with their gardens, fountains, a lake, arboretums, two more palaces, houses, and statues is unbelievable. Particularly so when you find out that what is left as part of the Chateau comprises less than 20 percent of the original holdings. It takes 40 minutes to walk from the Chateau to Grand and/or Petit Trianon in the back right hand corner of the grounds. From the Chateau to the back of the grounds is almost five kilometres. There are various other ways to tour the grounds other than on foot. Bicycles can be rented near the lake, as can golf carts (expensive since it is impossible to get to Grand Trianon, see it and get back within the 2 hours allocated - extra hours are mucho dinero extra). Or one can take (as Marie and I did on our previous visit) a slow moving train type vehicle which makes several stops at key locations. Kerri and I chose to walk as it was a beautiful day. We toured Petit Trianon which is best known as the private residence of Marie Antoinette (Grand Trianon was lived in by Napoleon among others). To the back of Petit Trianon is Marie Antoinette's garden.
It is well worth visiting (better than her 'house'). And behind the garden is an area that I had not visited before, but probably was the most picturesque area of the Chateau de Versailles. This is a farm that Marie Antoinette had built for her use and to provide meat, eggs and vegetables for her personal retinue.
At any given time when the Kings of France lived at Versailles, there were between 14,000 and 20,000 nobles, servants, soldiers and other official residents of Versailles and its annexes. I imagine the King had quite a food bill.
We spent a lot of time walking around the farm which still has cattle, sheep and chickens in the fields and a small vineyard. We watched and listened to the swans hiss at us and the ducks that made a laughing sound kind of like a loon at us (they probably all knew the cashier at the grocery store) on the small stream and pond, and the large goldfish that swam under the stone bridge that we rested on. By then, it was getting on to 2 p.m. so we started the long walk back to the Chateau, past Marie Antoinette's garden that we had walked through earlier and where legend has it that she was captured by the peasants in a small cave (although probably not true) and up the hill to the back of the Palace. After trying to exit through a door marked exit (but was locked) we walked around the back of the Palace to a second exit and left the Chateau behind and headed back to get our train back to Paris. This is where we had our second encounter with a Parisian's indifference to service. One of our train tickets would not work in the automated turnstile, so we lined up behind a gentleman who spent the next 10 minutes complaining to the station agent about the signage in the station, the cost of the trains, the fact that the agent would not answer his questions(in his defence the agent did a lot of shoulder shrugging though) and the general state of the government, citizens and country of France. He complained for so long that we missed our train back to Paris and had to wait about 20 minutes for the next one. But so did the complainer - served him right. I only had to ask the agent twice for replacement tickets as he did not want to give me the two I needed on the first request - that would just be too efficient and courteous.

We got back to Paris, stopped at a different grocery store for some provisions and got back to the apartment around four p.m. Marie had also done some shopping for provisions so we had lots of beer and wine on hand now (and even some food). We went out to a restaurant for a late dinner and got back around 10p.m. Thus ended the second day in Paris.

I made breakfast at the apartment on the third morning which if you want something other than a croissant is what you have to do. Having an apartment facilitates this greatly and although we did not make other meals here, if one were staying longer in Paris, it would be advantageous to have a stocked kitchen. After breakfast, we down to Rue Rambuteau, one of the major east west shopping streets in the Marais and headed east towards Les Halles and the Louvre. We did not have coffee at the apartment, so we stopped at a cafe near the back of the Louvre and indulged in cafe-au-lait. Marie and I had visited the Louvre before on our last trip to Paris and Kerri had no inclination to go in, although she did comment on the book The Davinci Code and that it starts at the Louvre. "It was just after walking through the Louvre courtyard and while we were heading into Les Tuilleries gardens that we bumped into a scam artist. A woman heard us speaking English and she immediately made a bee-line towards us, bending over at the last moment to pick up an enormous 'gold' ring, exclaiming in English Look what I just found". Her next line was going to be to one of us, "Did you just drop this?", but I had read of this scam and I knew that after we said it was not ours, she would offer to sell it to us for a good price. Beware this scam; the ring costs 2 euros at a market.

We made a slight detour here to go to see the public gardens at the Palais Royale. The Palace is closed to the public but the gardens are not. Several Parisians were taking advantage of the warm weather to sit out with their kids away from the hustle and bustle of the traffic as it passed along the River Seine embankment a couple of streets over. Then it was back to Les Tuilleries and a slow walk through the gardens towards the Place de la Concorde and the Champs Élysées . The Place de la Concorde has had other names. First it was called Place Louis XV who commissioned it. Then it was renamed Revolution Square. This was Paris's site for public executions and where the Guillotine first made its appearance after the 1789 Revolution. Several people were separated from their heads at this spot, including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in 1793. In fact, in July 1794, over 1,300 people got a too close shave here including one of the father's of the Revolution, Robespierre. After checking that my head was still firmly attached to my shoulders,
we crossed the busy square and the traffic flowing around it and embarked onto one of the most famous avenues in the world, Avenue des Champs Élysées This six lane wide, two kilometre long avenue runs between Place de la Concorde and Place Charles de Gaulle. The sidewalks are some of the widest in Europe and the street is always full of strollers, shoppers and of course tourists. Several expensive and extremely expensive stores and even high end car dealerships line the avenue, as well as famous hotels (King George V from which Princess Diana left on her last trip). I suggested that Kerri stop in at some of the stores, but she and her Mom share the same shopping rules; if you can't afford the merchandise, there is no sense looking at it. If that were the case for men, hardly any of us would visit Futureshop or car shows. The Champs-Élysées runs slightly uphill from Place de la Concorde to Place Charles de Gaulle where the Arc de Triomphe is located. Since we weren't shopping, this became our destination.

The Arc de Triomphe is big; it stands almost 50 metres tall, 45 metres wide and 22 metres deep. But it is only the second largest triumphal arch in the world which is located in North Korea. Which begs the question, why is the Korean arch triumphal? But back to France.

The Arc de Triomphe features the grave of France's Unknown Soldier from World War I, as well as inscriptions and art to France's military triumphs from Napoleon (who commissioned the Arch) through to the end of the Second Word War. One can climb to the top of the Arch for a view of Paris and the twelve streets that radiate from it, thus the former name for this square, Place de l'Etoile. To get to the Arch, do not under any circumstance try to cross the circular street (or Paris race track) that surrounds the arch. Instead take the underground passage that can be found on the right side of Avenue Champs-Élysées. It is worth going over to the Arch to see the underside as well as the artwork of the nude French youth fighting off the bearded mail-clad Germanic warriors and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier which has the first eternal flame lit since one that stopped burning for the Vestal Virgins in Rome over 1700 years ago.

After visiting the Arc, we made our way west towards the Seine and the Eiffel Tower. We decided it was time for lunch as well,but unfortunately, the area around the Place du Trocadero is not populated with eating establishments (at least none we found) so we ended up buying crepes which were good, and filling, from a vendor in the square. The Place du Tocadero is the best place in Paris from which to see the whole Eiffel Tower. Trocadero also contains several museums in the Palais de Chaillot and in surrounding buildings. But the major draw is the view across the Seine of the Eiffel Tower from the raised balcony at the end of the square.
The Eiffel Tower is not supposed to be there. Gustave Eiffel originally wanted to build it for the World's Fair in Barcelona, Spain, but his design was rejected as too strange. Undaunted, he submitted his plans to Paris where it was accepted. Construction started on the Champs de Mars in 1887 and the 18,000 different iron parts were joined together with over 2.5 million rivets in time for the 1889 Paris World Fair. From the start, learned people complained about the structure. A letter to a Paris newspaper in 1887 signed by a multitude of people, stated: 'We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects, passionate lovers of the beauty, until now intact, of Paris, hereby protest with all our might, with all our indignation, in the name of French taste gone unrecognized, in the name of French art and history under threat, against the construction, in the very heart of our capital, of the useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower...'. Most guidebooks recommend going to the second level (the top level is small, crowded and perhaps too high to really see the sights) which we did. The views from here were spectacular. The Champs de Mars to the south side, the Seine to the west, the Place du Tocadero to the north and Montmartre (more on this later), Notre Dame and countless other buildings to the west and beyond. We also watched several parachutists float down to a park behind Les Invalides (where Napoleon is buried). The Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in Paris, yet despite the fact that every Hollywood movie about Paris shows it out the window of every café and hotel, it is difficult to see from most places in Paris because buildings are so close together. We spent over an hour on the second level of the tower and thought momentarily about walking down the stairs to the first level for additional views, but this thought was quickly put aside as we had already walked about ten kilometres and it was getting very late in the afternoon. We wanted to wait until dark to take pictures of the Tower's light shows, but we agreed that we were too tired and would come back the next night. So we took the elevator back down and walked the three hundred metres to the Eiffel Tower metro stop and headed back towards our apartment.
By the time we got to our neighbourhood, it was around 6:30 p.m. and dark and we were hungry. So we went in search of a restaurant. As we passed a group of policemen, I noted that several were wearing roller skates and I immediately thought they were going to join the weekly roller skate through Paris, but when we turned the corner we realized they were dressed this way for another reason. Apparently, we had walked right into a confrontation between the police and immigrants (Paris has racial riots - black immigrants from Africa have an official unemployment level of 45%). Actually, we were between the police and the agitated crowd and as more police dressed in riot gear arrived, our choice of restaurant was instantly made for us as we deked into a hamburger joint (not McDonald's, but the French equivalent) and bought hamburgers while waiting for the police and crowd to disperse. After about 45 minutes the excitement was pretty much over, although we heard police sirens and saw the blue lights of the police all around the area as we walked back to our apartment.

Our fourth day in Paris was a day to explore the Right Bank including the Marais where we were staying. It was a beautiful sunny day and we headed out towards Place des Vosges. But before we found it, we wandered down la Rue des Rosiers which is the centre of Jewish Paris. All around this area several elementary schools display plaques to indicate how many Jewish children were rounded up and sent to the concentration camps by the Vichy French government and the Nazis. The Jewish sector was much, much larger before World War II, yet this street still has several Jewish delis, shops and a synogogue located either on the street or close by. The smell of sweet pastries baking pulled us into one eastern Europe style deli where we each bought a pastry, hot out of the oven. Mine had fig filling and was delicious. Then it was on to Place des Vosges, the oldest square in Paris having been built in between 1605 and 1612 by Henri IV. The houses that surround the square are all identical, or at least built to the same design. Some famous former tennants of Place des Vosges include Cardinal Richileu and more recently, Victor Hugo. It is a beautiful, peaceful square, with several fountains and a statue of Louis XIII who inaugurated the square in 1612. From here, we wandered a bit further south and west towards La Place de la Bastille. The Bastille of course is famous as the fortress/jail that was stormed during the French Revolution in July 1749. The revolutionaries did such a good job that they totally destroyed the building and today there is nothing left but an outline of where the building stood that has been put into the cobbles of the road on the square. There is a column in the centre of the square, but this actually commemorates the Revolution of 1830 which also took place in the month of July. Apparently Paris in July can be a riot. The golden statue on the top of the column (called the July column for some reason) is called the Spirit of Freedom as evidenced by the fact that he is free of all clothing. On one side of the square, the relatively new Bastille Opera fills the sky. A guidebook I read at our apartment said that the many Parisians are contemplating another revolution because of the design of the Opera (incidently, designed by a Uruguayan who lives in Canada). Our host suggested that we visit the Bastille Market, and Kerri's keen eye spotted it across the square. We walked among the vendors of predominately produce, although cheeses, meats and some crafts are clothes are also sold here. Marie picked up a couple of necklaces for our girls while I tried to get picked up for taking photos of the vendors, their customers and the merchandise. All kidding aside, visiting at least one market in Paris is fun, educational and can be rewarding from a material point of view.
After visiting the market, we started to walk back down the Rue St. Antoine towards the new Jewish memorial to the Holocaust, called the Shoah in France. After going through the security gates, we immediately entered the courtyard of the memorial and into several walls full of names - 76,000 of them of which 11,000 were children, all sent to concentration camps by the Vichy government. Only about 2,500 French Jews survived, none of the survivors were children. The museum provides an excellent and detailed record of events leading up to World War II, many personal mementos (letters, postcards, photos) of the people deported, historical films and of course, because the Germans were such good record keepers, a card on every person arrested and transported to the camps. It is sombre, but a good reminder of why we can never forget what happened.

We stopped at a boulangerie which sold sandwiches and bought some for our lunch and took them back to our apartment since we were within four blocks of it. After lunch, Kerri said she wanted to climb the bell towers of Notre Dame - to look for Esmeralda or a man with a bad back I presume - so while Marie stayed behind to rest, Kerri and I walked down to Notre Dame where she got into the line to go up the tower. While we waited in line (remember that I said I was NOT going to climb up) a busker kept us entertained by putting on a hideous mask and sneaking up to walk alongside tourists passing by (he often took the hand of one of them). As they turned to talk to each other, their startled look at seeing his mask kept us laughing. He would do this for 10 minutes or so and then come by the front of the line to collect small change.

After Kerri went into the tower, I walked across the square in front and descended the steps down the embankment to the Seine. I watched several canal boats pass by, including one where the owner had his car parked on it. How we gets the car off and on must make for an interesting story. I took a couple of photos of Notre Dame from this location which is probably the best place to capture the full cathedral, then went back up to the front of the Cathedral and sat at the back of the square where we agreed we would meet once Kerri came down the tower. I guess the steps up must have taken her some time because after I sat down, I put my telephoto lens on my camera and scanned the top of the Cathedral and lo and behold, I found Kerri among the people at the top. She was very close to the most famous gargoyle (actually chimera since it does not serve as a drainpipe which a gargoyle does) of Notre Dame and she got a closeup shot of it. It sits, head in hands, looking out over Paris as if bored with what it sees (I guess I would be too if I stared at the millions of tourists who have frequented Place Notre Dame over the past for hundreds of years). She took several other photos of the other chimeras and real gargoyles as well as of the city from her vantage point, 387 steps up. She could certainly see the Eiffel Tower from this location, as evidenced in her photos from the top. She even said she could see me waiting in the square in front and took a picture of me as proof. If I had of known she was taking a picture, I would have done something other than just sit there, perhaps even waking up the chimera with his head in his hands.

On our way back to the apartment we stopped to pick up a few items since we had decided to make spaghetti for dinner as a change of pace before going out in the evening to take photos of the Eiffel Tower at night and to take a boat ride on the Seine.
The Eiffel Tower puts on quite a light show at night, for about ten minutes every hour on the hour. It is nothing like the fireworks that millions of us saw to mark the year 2000, but it is something I recommend you do. Unlike the Tocadero, the best place to watch the light show is in behind the Tower on the Champs de Mars. The last time Marie and I did this, we could sit on the grass but now the grass is fenced off and you have to pick one of the walkways that crosses the Champs de Mars as a vantage point. Go back far enough that you can see the whole tower, particularly if you want to photograph it. And take a tripod for the best and steadiest shots.
In between the ten minute show when thousands of lights sparkle and blink, the tower is lit with blueish purple lights. I have included a video clip Kerri took of the glittering lights so you can get an appreciation of what it is like - but it is much better to be there in person.


After the light show, we went down to the Seine and took the one hour boat ride that cruises down past Ile d'Orleans and back up to the Eiffel Tower (several different companies operate on the river, this was the one suggested by several tour books). Sitting on the left side of the boat provides the best views of Notre Dame once you reach it. Then it was back to the apartment for the night.
We wanted Kerri to see Montmartre (the church and the artists area behind the church) as well as Pigalle and she wanted to see Pere Lachaise cemetery, so we took the metro to a stop close to the bottom of the steps that lead up to Sacre Coeur basillica on the top of Montmartre hill, the tallest hill in Paris. Marie decided to test out the funicular (one metro ticket) to go to the top while Kerri and I hoofed it up the stairs. I stopped to take several pictures on the way up - or so I pretended. I actually stopped to catch my breath as it is quite a ways up and keeping up with Kerri was just not in the cards given that she had practiced on the steps of the Notre Dame towers the day before. Just before the last flight of stairs (which are covered with people admiring the view back towards Paris), we watched the buskers who use this location to raise money. I sure hope the harpist did not come up the stairs with his instrument. I would have paid to see that though. The best busker was a mime dressed all in white to mimic the white travertine stone of the Basillica. He resembled a statue and would stand completely still in some statuesque pose until someone put a coin in his basket at which time he came to life, showing delight that someone would deign to give him money. Good shtick that. The view from the balcony just below the last steps to the Basillica is usually very good. The last time Marie and I were there, the air was clear and the sun was in a different location. This time the air was a bit smoggy and Montparnasse tower was a fuzzy slab without definition. We climbed the last flight of steps and went into the Basillica which was started in the 1870s to commemorate the crimes of the short-lived Paris Commune, yet another uprising of Paris citizens that resulted a form of government by the people, but really only accomplished thousands of deaths in a mini-civil war between the communards and the National Assembly which followed the Commune. The Basillica, which was finally completed in 1912, is beautiful inside.
After exiting the Basillica, we wandered around to the back and side and walked into Montmartre itself. Montmartre was one of the last villages subsumed into Paris. Prior to becoming part of the City, Montmartre was known as the Party Place of Paris in that the citizens and establishments paid no taxes and it probably did not hurt that the local nuns made wine. Soon artists gravitated to the area; some of the most famous over the years were Picasso, van Gogh, Renoir, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. There are countless artists still painting in the Place du Tertre, all hoping to become the next famous one. Many others wander the picturesque streets, drawing paper and pencils in hand, all ready to do a portrait of you. We saw a whole table of coffee drinkers surrounded by 4 or 5 of these artists doing their thing. We wandered in the village streets for a while longer, then it was downhill toward another famous area of Montmartre, known for its red light entertainment, called Pigalle (or Pig Alley as named by American GIs during WWII). Pigalle today is full of sex shops and prostitutes who appear to practice their trade even during the day (or the lady I saw was just provocatively dressed to get her picture taken). But at the turn of the 19th century, it was an entertainment district. Many of the theatres and halls that were there are now gone, but one famous one remains. Although never a real mill, the Moulin Rouge has featured many artistes over the years, such as Edith Piaf to Elton John. It is also famous as the birthplace of the Can-Can which was described in hte 1898 Paris Guide to Nightlife as: an army of young girls in Paris who dance this divine hullabaloo the way its fame demands it... with such an elasticity when they launch their legs upwards that we are allowed to presume that they are at least as flexible with morals. Presumably they are still throwing their legs in the air. To attend a show with dinner, be prepared to throw up to 175 Euros ($250) into the air. While Kerri was taking the photo of Marie and I in front of the Moulin Rouge, we encountered another example of Parisian courtesy. A passerby stuck his hand in front of the lens just as Kerris was pushing the shutter button. He muttered something incomprehensible and when we looked at him in exasperation, he gestured something comprehensible.

After we told him to drop dead, we decided that it was time to go visit the dead. So we descended into the Pigalle metro station and rode over to Pere Lachaise cemetery. If you visit, go to the Gambetta stop because visiting the cemetery from this point means walking downhill to the Pere Lachaise stop proper. Once located outside the then Paris city limits, the cemetery actually had to resort to marketing to get people to bury their dead here. In 1804, Moliere and his friend La Fontaine were moved here, followed in 1817 by Pierre Abelard and Heloise, famous lovers from the 11th century. Soon other rich and famous people were dying to get in; today there are about 70,000 permanent residents. We followed the tour from Rick Steve's book on Paris as it covers many of the most famous (and best known to people from North America) graves in the cemetery and helps one from getting lost in this huge cemetery full of named streets, avenues and paths. First up after we passed by several memorials to various wars and the working crematorium is the tomb of Oscar Wilde. As one of the first declared (he did not declare it, but a court did) homosexuals, this grave is obviously visited by people dedicated to Oscar's sexual orientation. The red lipstick kisses left behind, on the statue's behind and other parts(some of the kissers must be really tall!), testifies to this. We passed by the wall where 170 communards made their last stand against the National Assembly and were summarily executed when overun, past the graves of Sarah Bernhardt, Gertrude Stein, Edith Piaf to Frederic Chopin (minus his heart which he left in Poland) and the flowers that are brought each day by admirers. There are so many famous people that if all notables were to be visited, we would have to spend a couple of days to get them all in. One grave which is still heavily visited is Jim Morrison's. Unfortunately, the original bust of Jim was stolen some time ago and his grave is now kind of plain. He almost was not buried in Pere Lachaise. After he died of a "heart attack" in a Paris bathtub, his friends asked the Cemetery Custodian if he could be buried there. The custodian refused. When Jim's friends then mentioned that he was a writer, the Custodian found a place for him. His tombstone is inscribed in Greek, the translation being open to opinion - about the divine spirit within him - or the demon within him. Both are probably apt.



We left the dead to sleep and got the metro back to the apartment where we had a simple supper. Afterwards, Kerri and I wandered down to the Seine to take a couple of photos of the illuminated buildings. I travel with a small tripod to take these kinds of photos, or photos inside churches and other dark interiors. These small tripods fit in a pocket and can be set up on a post, a wall or other support. I said before that we passed by Notre Dame several times. The other building in the photo taken at night is the Conciergerie, the fortress/prison where Marie Antoinette among others were imprisoned before heading over to Place de la Concorde to have a little taken off the top.

The next morning, not having enough of dead people, Kerri and I took the metro over to the Paris Catacombs. It was pouring rain although once inside the catacombs this no longer mattered. The Catacombs are former limestone quarries and caves that used to be outside the city walls. Some of the over 300 kilometres of tunnels are filled with the bones of over 7 million former Parisians which were exhumed from Paris's city cemeteries in the late 1700s due to health reasons and severe overcrowding. The bones were transported at night to the tunnels and stacked from floor to ceiling and sometimes up to 30 metres deep. It has been a tourist attraction since the mid 1800s and although gruesome, is at the same time enthralling. And it was out of the rain. The over 200 steps down are followed by about 1.5 kilometres of tunnel of which over a kilometre is filled with bones on both sides of the path. Just before entering the actual ossuary which is consecrated, a sign overhead reminds one that you are entering the Empire of the Dead. the black line on the ceiling was to mark the path before the advent of electic lights. At the end of the tour, 80 odd steps lead back up to the surface. When we came out, we walked to the nearest metro station and headed back to the apartment where we checked out at 2 p.m. and headed for a taxi stand to go to the Bercy station for our overnight train to Rome.

But Paris was not yet done reminding us the city can be a challenge. We waited in the rain at the taxi stand (there was one parked there) since successfully flaging a taxi on the street is as rare as a Parisian being nominated Service Person of the Year before finally a kind soul told us that the cabbies used this stand as a rest place and we would not get one. You would think that the city would have erected a sign that said Taxi Rest Stand instead of the Taxi Stand sign that we were waiting under. So we had to resort to the metro. We dragged our suitcases down the stairs and tried to figure out how to get them through the locked door for luggage beside the ticket machines. I asked the station attendant how we could open the doors (Marie was already on the other side wating) who studiously ignored me while she talked on her cell phone (my French is not that bad). Finally another kind soul screamed at her to open the damn door, which she reluctantly did. We finally got on the train and stood near the doors. An immaculately dressed man in a pinstripe suit stood beside us. As we neared the next to last stop, he brushed by Marie who immediately noticed that her purse had been opened. She grabbed him by his lapel and asked if he had taken her wallet. He pretended he did not, holding up his hands with one covered by his overcoat. Marie did not give up and knocked his overcoat aside, and there was her wallet. She grapped it back. By this time I had grabbed his other lapel. A small woman, probably his accomplice, squeezed by us, her face astonished that the thief would get caught. We alerted everyone in the station that the man was a thief, but there is not a lot one can do (I am sure the police, if called, would be busy on their cell phones). So we continued on our way to Bercy Station. I picked up some wine, sandwiches, cheese and other train provisions and we headed out to Rome.

Paris is a beautiful city. But in the five years since I have been there, I think the city has lost some of its light. Its citizens have become even colder and surlier than before which is self defeating considering the billion or so dollars tourists spend in the city each year. Thus ends part Two of this blog. Part three will pick up on the train ride to Rome