Probably the last post from France

Today is our last full day in Lyon.  Tomorrow morning we head back to Paris (a five plus hour drive) and leave for home Tuesday morning, arriving home early evening.

Bob, Mel, and I started the day at the local Sunday morning outdoor market.  It was a bit like a farmer's market and flea market combined.  There are the traditional food items you might expect, but then you can also buy shoes, a new mattress, fabric, kitchen items, and a host of other things.

Today is Bastille Day.  Via TV, we watched part of the parade held in Paris.  We had seen the grand stands being set up when we were there last week.

Next we visited the Notre Dame of Lyon.  They were part way through mass when we walked in.  The interior is much different than any of the other churches we have been in on this trip--lots of decorations, gold mosaics, and brightness.

Lunch was in Vieux (old) Lyon, narrow streets and good food.  We came across the following display, had someone take our picture, which we sent to have uploaded on the Old Lyon website.

We visited ruins of two Roman amphitheaters that are side-by-side.  They are now used for music performances.  

Tonight we will join Glen's host family for a Bastille Day celebration at a park.  There will be fireworks and food.

We were commenting at lunch about all the foods we haven't tried yet.  In no place have we felt like we have seen it all.  Bob and I would like to spend at least a week in the Provence area again.  World War II has impacted us all in many new ways.  I ordered a book about it and am hoping it is waiting for me when we get home, along with the "Cooking in Provence" one.

Being able to travel has been a gift I have been incredibly thankful for throughout my life.  It always changes my perspective and gives me new things to think about.  God is amazing, and I am blessed to see Him and be challenged by Him no matter where I go.

Lyon

We were sad to leave Provence yesterday, and Cheryl and Matthieu, and their wonderful hospitality.  They provided with a great place to stay.  

Before heading to Lyon, we stopped at the Pont du Gard.  It was built in 19 b.c.  It is amazing to think this ancient aqueduct moved 9 million gallons of water per day.

Last night we met and had dinner with Glen's host family.  They we're wonderfully gracious to us, serving us a nine course dinner.  Needless to say, it was fabulous.  We began eating about 7:30, and finished around 11:00!  Lots of good conversation, most of which was in English.  :) 

We wondered around Lyon today, with Glen showing us the sites.  Lyon has several plazas scattered throughout the old town and downtown area--lots of outdoor space to enjoy.

Our interest in the French Resistance was piqued while we were in Normandy.  Lyon has a well done museum about the French Resistance movement and we spent about three hours there this afternoon.

But really the highlight of the day, especially for Dale and Glen, was watching the Tour de France arrive here this afternoon.  They both took pictures and I opted to leave the camera in the bag. 

Tomorrow we will visit this church building.

And purely for fun . . . We went to make dinner reservations for this evening, I glanced inside a restaurant and saw this row of white aprons and menu board and thought it deserved a snap of the shutter.

Palace of the Popes

There is a large theater arts festival happening in Avignon during most of July.  Consequently, there are more people in town than there would be otherwise.  But for us, comparing it with Paris, it still didn't seem bad.  

Groups of twenty or so performers wonder through town, apparently to stir up interest (or they need something to do while waiting for their next performance).  A jazz combo was playing in one of the town squares, while nearby, another trio was performing using empty gas cans that had been painted white.

We visited the famous half bridge.  It was first built in the 1300s, but kept getting washed away after each rebuild.  The people finally gave up rebuilding it.  This is how it has looked for a very long time.

It is a bit eerie to stand at the end of it in the middle of the Rhone River and look down.

The Pope's Palace was interesting.  Several centuries ago, one of the popes got his knickers in a twist and decided to move the whole lot to Avignon, where they stayed for the next 100 years, and ten popes.  The first one started the palace, and it was completed in 20 years.  But every pope after added their own touch, expanding it to quite a large place.  

In the afternoon, the cicadas are singing their song.  We found the shell of a couple of them in Cheryl's yard.

On the trip to St. Remy, we came across fields of sunflowers.

Provence is beautiful

We arrived in Provence Monday evening.  But we drove through a crazy thunderstorm to get here--lots of lightning and rain, slowing us down to about 70 kph (kilometers per hour), and we arrived after dark.

Our first night was spent at a vineyard bed and breakfast, a building from the middle ages.  The stairs up to our rooms had deep groves from all the feet that trod over them through the centuries.  We met Vera, a high school girl that grew up in LA, her family moved to Austria so she could go to school for hotel and vacation training.  Her parents are both Austrian, so she knows German and is now working on French.  She  arrived here one week ago and was fun to visit with.

Yes, the lavender fields really do exist.  And we could smell them the night before, even when we could not see them.

Yesterday we arrived in Avignon and are now officially part of Lavelle Stanley's family, having met her niece, Cheryl.  We are staying in her B and B.  It is absolutely beautiful, overlooks the city of Avignon, the Pope's Palace, and an ancient Fort.  All of the Winter's family have tried the pool.  The Greenlee's will this evening.

Dale and Glen are staying here today.  Bob, Mel, and I are going to the market in St. Remy this morning.

Before we left Paris, we came across this statue.  We could just imagine him saying:  "I never know how to respond when they ask boxers or briefs!"

THe view from the . . . Ground!

GWe began the day visiting the Eiffel Tower.  Rick Steve's said the lines were long and he was right.  We opted to not wait a couple of hours in line to take the elevator up.  But we got some fun pictures from the ground.

You can probably figure out what they are trying to do.

This one didn't work either, but the expressions are great.

The "old" folks are wearing the youngster out.

This is happening more and more . . . .

After our fun photo shoot, we hopped over to the Arc d'Triumph for a look at Napoleon's arch.  The view from the top gets you great city views, while still honoring those who fought in past wars.  Napoleon had it built for his returning troops to pass through at the end of the war.  He also used it for the ceremonial arch for Josephine to pass through for their wedding.

Dale and Glen headed back to climb the steps to the second level of the Eiffel Tower (the line is much shorter).  Bob, Mel, and I went to see Monet's water lilies at the Musee de l'Orangerie.  There are two rooms that are probably 40 feet long, oval shaped, with the gardens lining the walls.  He painted and donated them to Parisians to come and relax after a busy day of work.  And after WW1.  They were worth the time spent.  This museum also has several Picasso, Modligiani, and Renoir paintings, which we enjoyed.

Tomorrow we head south to Provence!

Pictures

This guy and his friend were carrying their bikes up Mont St. Michele!

Near the Louvre.

The gardens of Versailles.

More pictures

If I include more than three photos in a post, it takes a long time to load.  Here a few.

Paris!

Paris is huge!  Ok, we all know that, but being in the midst of it really brings it home.  We are all enjoying the sites, but a bit overwhelmed with the sheer number of people and cars.  The Metro (subway) system makes it possible to eliminate the car.  But we have still done a fair amount of walking.  Mel suggested pedometers to track our distance.

A couple of days ago, we visited the Musee d'Orsay. (No pictures allowed.)  The interior space is quite the contrast to the Louvre.  It is bright and full of light.  The top floor is all Impressionist paintings.  Lots of Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec.  A feast for the eyes.  Some are so beautiful they make you want to weep, others made me laugh.  We had a difficult time leaving and may go back today because we missed the van Gogh's.

Glen and Bob found an invention museum for us to visit.  We all really enjoyed it.  The technology exhibit showed the evolution of computers, with a cell phone from 2000 that looks out of date!  It was very well done, and not the least crowded.  We have not seen everything in any museum yet.  Some, like the Louvre, you could spend every day for a month and not see it all.  We could have easily spent two days in the invention museum.

This photo of King Louis XIV crown jewels housed in the Louvre.

We stopped at the Deportation Memorial directly behind Notre Dame.  It honors the 200,000 that were killed in Nazi concentration camps in France and included French resistance, Jews, homosexuals, men, women, and children.  Earth from the concentration camps was placed in the memorial.  The following picture shows a light for each person that died in the camps in France.

We are staying in the Latin Quarter and really like our neighborhood.  Across the street is a college of agriculture.  Behind it is our local shopping street.  Each little place specializes:  a frommagerie (for cheese), bakeries for bread or desserts, fruit markets, meats, seafood, wine, and of course a plethora of restaurants.  It is fun to shop like the locals.

One of the Metro stations we frequently use takes us past the following gas station.  Note the details, and it is right on the street.  :)

Food Photos

Dale has done a good job of taking pictures of some of the food we've eaten.  Here are some views to whet your appetite.

And a sidewalk menu.

Food and bathrooms

Rather than the mostly serious topics that I've written about so far, I decided on a lighter topic for today.

Ah, food.  When one thinks about France, a few topics will immediately come to mind:  haute couture, Provence, wine, and of course Julia Child--the French Chef.  We have not had a bad meal yet.  In fact, we've eaten so well that I am already planning my workout routine after our return for fear I will have gained several pounds.

Salmon has figured into several meals.  It has always been served with a light cream sauce, not the heavy cream sauce we make in the states.  I want the recipe.  Dale had steak tartar one night.  While in Honfleur, a coastal town, Bob and Glen had mussels as the main course.  To eat these, you take the first one out with a fork, but then you use that mussel shell to eat and remove the remaining mussels.  They were tasty, and are always served with pommes frites (French fries--I am pretty sure the French can't mess those up!)

Outside of Paris, most meals are served as a two or three course meal.  Start with an entree, followed by a main course, then dessert.  Even the main course generally includes some sort of potato and vegetables.  And of course, we usually share a bottle of wine.  Coffee is after dinner and an espresso, served in a tiny cup, which is a bit difficult to pick up.  I've ordered it with milk, which comes steamed and is about 4 or 5 times the amount of coffee.  A yummy after dinner treat.

Traveling in Europe brings out my desire to make those same dishes at home.  Feel free to call when we get home and invite yourself for dinner.  Panna cotta is on the list.

We are now in Paris and staying in an apartment.  This morning, Bob and I walked down the street a couple blocks to find bread and fruit for breakfast.  Within two blocks, there are at least three nice bakeries.  My French is pathetic, but I can smile, and show the count on my fingers to show what I would like.  And of course, it helps to have Bob along to actually ask them in French. (Note from Bob: Connie's smile is much more effective than my French.)

Now on to bathrooms.  Yes, an odd topic to post about.  When I lived in Germany, we bantered about the possibility of writing a book about all the various toilets in Europe.  That never came about, but every time I travel to Europe I think about it again, and this trip is no exception.

So far, we have walked into more than one where things were just plain weird.  At the airport, the water started pouring out of an automatic faucet that seemed about to soak the front of me.  Then the soap dispenser was so hard to push, I wasn't really sure what it was.  The paper towels are few and far between, with hand dryers that must take about five minutes to actually dry your hands.

Melanie and I encountered a bathroom on the auto route (freeway) yesterday that left us shaking our heads.  Thankfully, we were on the women's side, but I did see a man come out of it!  When we walked in the stall, it was tiled, with a hole in the floor.  The tp was on the back wall.  After using it, water automatically started pouring out of places on three sides, at about ankle level.  It was lucky that we got out of the way before our feet became soaked!

And these are just two examples of navigating bathrooms in France. Aren't you glad I don't have pictures?!

Wednesday Morning

We began yesterday with a visit to the Caen Memorial Museum, another well done WW2 museum.  This museum began with a very brief overview of WW1 and Hitler's rise to power.  Then you literally spiral downward while reading a timeline if events, viewing small videos, and seeing historical documents from the war.  

All "readings" are in French, German, and English.  One of the displays gave the numbers of military and civilian losses for each country.  Russia had by far the most with over 23 million total losses.

Throughout all the places that we have seen related to WW2, there has been bits and pieces about the French resistance movement.  Reading more about that is now on my summer reading list.  France capitulated within 6 weeks of the German invasion and essentially divided the country into the north, occupied by the Germans, and the south "free" with the Vichey government in control.  

This is taken into the window of the museum.

Rick Steve's recommended about two and a half hours for a visit here.  We spent about six hours and did not see all of it.  We are thorough readers!  It did get overwhelming, though, with the horror of the concentration camps.

We left Caen and drove down to Mont St. Michele to see the abbey.  We arrived early evening to learn that the local workers are on strike and did not get into the abbey, as it closed at 5:30 instead of 11:00.  We are staying longer this morning in order to go back and see it.  Again, this has been a nice change of pace from WW2 sadness.  After this, we will head to Paris and be there for 5 nights.

 

American Cemetery and museum

Yesterday, we started the day at the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach.  The visitor center has a very nice museum (all museums seem to be well done here) with some of the history of WW2.  There is a nice timeline of major events along one wall, beginning with Hitler's rise to power.  

Shortly before school was out, one of my students asked when the US entered the war with Germany, and I did not know the answer.  But now I do--Germany and Italy declared war on us 4 days after Pearl Harbor.  This was much sooner than I thought.

Outside the visitor's center is an infinity pool that faces the ocean.  Hopefully you will have a sense of it from this picture.

The front is a map of the D-Day invasion.

After the visitor center, we went out to the cemetery.  This is just one of many cemeteries from WW2, and there are 9400 graves of just American soldiers.

This was a hard place to visit.  One of the conversations we had was why have there been wars?  Ideals or land?  

As I walked through the cemetery, I kept thinking about the mothers of all those men, the loss of boys, and I say boys because most were around 20.  I know my son wouldn't agree, but I am very thankful he has not experienced war on a long-term basis.  I don't know how you could visit this place and not weep over so many aspects of war.

After visiting the cemetery, we went to a brand new museum, The Overlord Museum.  It had over 10,000 artifacts, including jeeps, tanks, a V1 rocket, thr pre-cursor to the VW The Thing, and a horse-drawn cart that the German's used for pulling guns.

After a full day of WW2, we decided to do something on the lighter side and visited the Drakker chocolate factory here in Bayeux.

We continue to eat really well.  And to let you know that we are having a good time together, we continue to laugh a lot.  And yesterday at breakfast, Bob said something funny enough for Dale to just about snort cheese.  :)

We've spent the last two nights in Bayeux--a town with a church built in 1100, and the same size as Notre Dame in Paris.  It is beautiful.  This is a bit of a glimpse of it.  I love the grandeur of these buildings reaching up to heaven.