Read their Letters Home!
Chapter 6
October 1, 2000
Two weeks of daily, all-day walking, museuming, and sight-seeing has taken its toll on our 50+ year old bodies. We are worn out. It's time to leave Paris before we kill ourselves. I don't know what it would take to lose the magic of Paris; perhaps working everyday, falling into the humdrum of a daily routine would take the beauty away; we don't want that to ever happen to us. Paris remains an elusive essence of beauty that cannot be captured in two visits by two Californians and we are delighted that it is so. Travel Experts seem to be united in the opinion that if time is limited for a European visit, or extra time is left, spend it in Paris; we are in complete accord with that opinion. I believe I could come to Paris every year and leave anticipating my next visit. We spent our last days in Paris revisiting the Louvre, making our first visit to the Opera Quarter with it's magnificent Opera House where every artist of great caliber from ballet to opera, has performed, we visited the Montparnassus district looking for a used bookstore. Friday night Michael & Cheryl and their cousins, Laura and Holly came to dinner at our house and met Queenie, presenting her with a pendant with her name on it, a memento we will treasure long after our trip is through. We got to show them how we have lived for the past 5 months. The evening was too short, but bus schedules are limited and they wanted to make sure they got home. Saturday our task was to find a used bookstore in Montparnassus. We have finished books and are carting them around basically as dead weight and wished to trade. Tea and Tattered pages (clever name, eh?) is owned by a Californian from Stockton, her siblings all went to Chico State (!) who married and divorced a "Frog" and remained in Paris to raise her "Tadpoles." Unfortunately, her offer to buy our books, at 5FF each (about 60 cents) was WAY too low for us; several of our books cost $25-30 US and were only read once. We decided we would give the books away before we took her exchange. She did have a large selection of used books though, in case you are ever in Paris and need an English language book to read. Outside the US and UK, English language books are more expensive (I saw Michael Creighton's new paperback for $10 US in a bookstore chain that catered to the English language!! - I will wait to find it in a used bookstore), so barter and trade become important. After completion of that task, we went to Michael and Cheryl's apt to take photos of them and us, we had forgotten to the previous night, and to wish them Bon Voyage as they were leaving Sunday to drive to Dijon (I think) to pick up their barge on Monday for a week's cruise on a river in SE France. Sunday we packed up Queenie in preparation to leave on Monday. Then Bruce and Gerard walked to the Bois de Bologne hippodrome (horse racetrack) to watch what appeared to be the Ascot of French horseracing. The attendees were dressed to the "nines," the women in fancy hats and men in bowlers, (Bruce and Gerard where in shorts and jogging suit, respectively), drinking champagne and betting on a $5,000 000 race. My guys somehow snuck in (can you imagine?) and watched the race trackside right with the 1st class ticket holders. They had a great time although Bruce's horse came in last, fortunately he didn't bet real money, and that night we had dinner with Gerard at his house. Spanish Omelets (did you know "tortilla "is omelet in Espana?), salad and Sangria was on the menu. We joked, took photos to send to Gerard's wife Cecilia in the Canary Islands, and had a great last night in Paris. That night it rained and Monday morning, Fall had lifted its cool head. The skies wept at our departure from Paris!!
Monday, 10/2/00
Well, this is a day we could have done without. We left Paris around 9 am heading toward Chartres, 88km SW. Fighting our way out of Paris was challenging, but we eventually succeeded and reached Chartres by 11am or so. Chartres interests me because I am interested in pre-Christian civilizations, Christianity has so pervaded our western civilization that it is almost impossible to think it was not always in place and that the 2000 years of it's existence in the history of modern man is not very long. There is a larger scale of living and history that is far more ancient than Christian dogma and it fascinates me. Chartres was considered a sacred place long before the construction of the beautiful cathedral that resides there now. An oak grove sacred to the Druidic religion is believed to have once been there. Burned by the Romans, it was replaced with monuments to their gods and eventually supplanted and absorbed by Christianity. Today a cathedral stands on the top of the hill overlooking the Eure River. It makes an unforgettable statement; one can see this beautiful building from miles away - in fact, the cathedral is all you see of the city of Chartres until you are almost within the city limits. Besides it's ancient history, this cathedral is known for its stunning stained glass windows. Over 150 windows dating from the 12 & 13 centuries, this church is the most intact, surviving from its original formation. The windows tell stories from the books of the Bible. I am a product of a secular and empirical society and it is almost incomprehensible to me that daily life for most of the last 2000 years, revolved around the church and religion. Churchmen were the only ones who could read, and they dispensed their knowledge to everyone else in the form of sermons and the stories from the Bible. Craftsmen's donated beautiful windows to the cathedral depicting stories of the saints and lives of biblical figures, and parents taught their children the stories through the pictures in the windows. Today, the windows having survived insurrection, wars and time itself, are
both beautiful and a study of how life was viewed in the medieval ages. The church building is a wondrous piece of architecture and was built in 25 years, a short piece of time compared to say, Notre Dame of Paris which took a couple of 100 years to complete. OK, we left Chartres to continue our next leg of our journey, into Normandy of WWII fame and Rouen, the capital of the region and where Joan of Arc was burned. I was there on my trip of 30 years ago and did not know this fact, so we are going to see what I missed then. Because Rouen is in the opposite direction of Chartres, we were taking fairly large roads and the more direct route they allowed us. Driving along, a mere 14 km north of Chartres, we got a flat tire. THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP -- and no place to get off! Finally we just pulled onto the damp shoulder and stopped. A young man witnessing our dilemma pulled over with us and told us 5km ahead was a tire shop where we could get fixed. Thanking him, we had waved the young man on, thinking there was not much he could do. Ok, we start Queenie up again, get back on the road and THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP, off we go again, but THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP, this is too tough and we (fortunately) reach an exit to get off freeway. We had gone perhaps 1 km. At last we have a place to safely change our tire! Where is the jack? Is it in the engine compartment? We pull all our stuff out (under the bed and above the engine compartment is a large area we use for storage and it is packed), no jack. We pack the stuff back, because we have no alternative, and think, where is the jack? Is it under the seat? We pull all our books and shoes and electronic stuff out, no jack. Is it in the bottom of the closets? We pull out that stuff, too, no jack. WHERE IN THE HELL IS THAT #@%$^ JACK?? (Two days later, we still don't know where the jack is). Next recourse is to stop someone and use theirs. Fortunately, the first person to come by after we reached this decision helped us. ALL RIGHT, now we can go to the tire store and get new tires. On our list of things needing to get done has been to buy a new set of tires, but as some members of our family can testify, we wear our tires till they are bald, the tire stores get no trade from us when we walk through their doors! Obviously the time had arrived for Queenie to get new shoes. 1-1/2 hours later, and $400 poorer we are proud owners of four lovely, 8-ply warranted tires. But we are still only 20 km from Chartres. Rouen is 108 km away, it is 3pm and thank goodness we have no schedule to keep. Back on the road, smarting over our lighter wallets, (makes no difference we knew it had to be done), we make good time arriving at Pont de Arches, a suburb of Rouen around 5:30. Commuter traffic is in full swing and we move at a crawl. Queenie overheats so we pull into a supermarket parking lot and window shop waiting for her to cool down. When we came back out, Bruce added water to Queenie's reservoir, and commented on how she needed it, even though he had checked her this morning and she was fine. Ten minutes back on the road, Queenie has overheated again big-time, steam is blowing out the back and we can't pull over! Finally, after the longest few minutes we found a bus stop to pull into and turned her off. We checked the water again and it was cold! (Jim M. is this ringing any bells to you?) And this time Queenie wouldn't start. SHIT! We are on a road in between towns in France, no businesses or phones on the road, cars flying by, it's getting quite dark, now what should we do? Amazingly enough a man pulled in behind us to work on something in his trunk. We got out and asked if he might have a phone, yes, would he call a garage for us? better yet he will drive Bruce to one. Let no one say the French won't abide English speakers! This man drove Bruce to 3 different garages, all closed, plus dialed up the ANWB (stateside AAA) for a tow truck and did all he could to help us. He dropped Bruce back off at Queenie and 30 minutes later, the tow truck came by, checked our problem, determined we had a broken water hose - our suspicions (remember we aren't mechanics!!) and possibly a blown head gasket (Yikes - we thought) and towed us to his garage. It is 9:00 pm by this time, he says we can sleep in Queenie at the garage yard, so we proceeded to cook dinner, play a game of cribbage (Bruce won), and go to bed. Tuesday AM the head mechanic took a look at Queenie. He replaced the broken hose, refilled the cooling system with water only to discover a major leak due to warped aluminum heads. And we thought yesterday was a bad day!! Discussions were had on best alternatives; replace the heads or replace the engine. We called Donna in Holland to see what she thought, she could find and ship down a used engine, no guarantees, the French mechanic found a new, warranted engine locally for about $400 more than Donna's so we opted for the new engine option. The upshot is, our holiday, no matter how long it was going to be, is now about 6 weeks shorter unless we can make up the loss in the cheaper countries of Europe. Queenie gets a new heart on Thursday, if all goes well we should be back on the road by Saturday, but we expect complications and hope to leave by Monday. In the meantime we are camping in the garage yard. We play stick with the yard dogs, sweep up the office floors and offer to clean windows (to keep Bruce busy), take naps and read. We are eating up some of our overstock of soups, spaghettis & chilies. Late Tuesday, the ANWB sent a taxi to the yard to take us to a National Car Rental and got a car for us to use FREE until Sat. so now we have transportation (does Triple A even do this anymore?). The garage yard has a toilet/sink we can use and we found shower at the TOTAL gas station/truck stop 7 km away. Ya know it was getting awfully easy, we needed something to remind us we were on an adventure! The advantage of this has been that we are driving around the countryside just looking at France in much the manner we did England and Ireland, following tiny roads and seeing precious villages with churches 800+ years old so you know the villages are that old too! Thatched roofed villages abound this area of the Seine and we found the quaint France we imagined from movies and books. We haven't taken the time to explore countryside's in this manner since England and it feels good to do so. Thursday morning we left Queenie to her operation and found a hotel in Rouen ($37/night) to stay in for the night. It will be the first real bed we have slept in since April 30 at the Carl V in Utrecht. Funny enough we already are missing Queenie greatly and want to return to her NOW but don't think the mechanics would appreciate us living in her as she is suspended on the hydraulic hoist! Instead we will explore Rouen's cathedral, Joan of Arc museum and wander the streets of this ancient city.
Friday, 10/6/00
Lets see now... Thursday we left Queenie in the capable (we hoped) hands of the master mechanic in the little town whose name we couldn't pronounce, outside of Rouen, and drove the rental car into Rouen where we found our hotel room (from a Lonely Planet tip), packed our stuff into the room and went out to explore the town. Now Rouen is an old town, in fact, William the Conqueror was its ruler 900 years ago and it's history goes back to Roman times. Thirty years ago, the cathedral was one of the first I, in my youth, was ever exposed to but I had no memory of the city itself. The city sits at a bend in the Seine in an area that could be crossed and its location made it importanct. Well, this city has 800 half-timbered buildings dating from the 15th to the 18th centuries and they are awesome. You REALLY feel you have gone back in time walking the pedestrian-only streets and alleyways of this ancient city. We stood in the square where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. It is marked with a huge cross, and a new church dedicated to her replaces the old church mentioned in the transcripts of her trial, which was destroyed during WWII. Once again, history overtakes you standing in a place like this. The cathedral, built in the 1200's, is the 3rd cathedral to be at that location, the first is believed to have been constructed in 396AD, during Roman occupation. We're talking some old stuff here, guys! This cathedral is the resting place of Richard the Lion heart (of Robin Hood fame) and his brother Henry the Younger, both sons of Henry II, king of England and Eleanor of Aquaitane. WWII seriously damaged the cathedral when bombs made direct hits, the citizens of Rouen banded together to begin a 12-year rebuilding project, recreating the original craftsmanship. In 1956, the cathedral was rededicated. Remember how we have complained of the filth on the church exteriors due to car exhaust? Well, now we have a time span for the damage. It has taken less than 50 years for the cars and environment to blacken Rouen cathedral - they are actually in the midst of a cleaning project now! Something really has to be done or all of these historical monuments are going to be lost. We returned to our hotel room to sleep in our first bed in 5 months and had an epiphany; we can no longer sleep well in anything over 60sq. ft. of living space!!! Queenie's bed is like returning to the womb and it's really cozy and comforting!! We don't know what we are going to do when we unpack the old king-size bed back home. Friday, we wandered around Rouen, visiting the Joan of Arc museum, a very well done history of her life and death, in a storefront across the square where she died. We both got haircuts (Tad...) my first real one since we left, and they were a little frou-frou, Bruce's haircutter was trimming another customer's eyebrows trimmed (!!!) and we both were given little gowns to cover our clothes (not the giant bibs like at home), I got a Joan of Arc blunt cut, finally my hair is one length, but a little short. Just don't ask me if I have a light! Finally around 2 pm we returned to Queenie, nervously awaiting results. They were finishing her up and told us to return at 5pm, which we promptly did. She passed inspection, sounded beautiful and runs like a newborn. Phew! What an incredible relief! Let's see now, new shoes and a new heart, all in one week - we should be ready for the rest of our trip. We paid up and packed up, said goodbye to the yard dogs, thanked everyone and drove off to return the rental car and find our campground for the night so we could repack a horribly disorganized Queenie. At the campground reaction to the whole event finally set in, and we took it out on each other a little but finally settled down with great relief as we reentered our womb! Saturday morning we left the Rouen campground getting to camp for free since no one was around to take our money - that makes the engine a little cheaper! Our destination was the Normandy beaches and D-Day. Wow. We, like most everyone we know, saw the movie Saving Private Ryan, and to see the actual towns and beaches where the events took place was astonishing! We had one hell of a history lesson Saturday. Arromanches, the major supply point for Operation Overlord has an incredible museum dedicated to the effort by all the forces involved in that monumental task. Did you know that Operation Overlord was the largest amphibious assault in the history of warfare? This museum documents the effort very well and is recommended as a starting point for your D-Day experience. We traveled the route from East to West, starting with the English at Sword Beach and the Pegasus Bridge operation, on to the Canadians at Juno Beach and where DeGaulle landed back in France for the first time in 4 years. Then it was on to Gold Beach with the English creation of Port Winston at Arromanches, an artificial harbor built in England, towed across the English Channel and assembled there to establish supply lines for the troops, all in 12 days! That was an incredible feat! We camped at an excellent campground in Bayeux, a city untouched by the war, largely due to the efforts of the Allies.
Sunday 10/8/00
This was a day for our record books! We began the day at the Bayeux Tapestry Museum- that 900 year old 70 meter long by 2 ft wide embroidery that depicts the Battle of 1066, when William the Conqueror defeated the Saxon king Harold to become the king of England. This was a major event for us, we learned about the tapestry and how it depicts Haley's Comet and the whole story in grade school. While we were in England we walked the battlefield of 1066, we camped on the beach at Hastings, we visited Pevensy the site where William first landed on English soil; this was the final chapter of the story we had followed. The museum was so well done, explaining the events that led up to the battle with a mock tapestry the same length as the original, a film also helping to explain the event and finally the tapestry itself. No photographs can capture the real thing. To see the actual stitching and all 58 scenes of the story was fantastic. The work involved in the creation of the tapestry was monumental. We are still in awe over the morning and our day was not over yet! Next on the itinerary was Omaha Beach and the American effort on D-Day. It was at this sight that the Private Ryan movie hit home. To stand on the cliffs overlooking the beaches and imagine the carnage that took place and how it happened was very moving. We stood at the German gun line and could see how the Americans become targets like fish in a barrel. We were humbled at their effort. 500 yards from that site was the American cemetery, 172 acres of land overlooking the battleground, containing 9,387 graves of America's fallen. I would bet that 90% of those were boys younger than 25. 2,000 of them lost their lives in that first day of combat. The cross and Star of David grave markers are made of Lasa marble from Italy and are silent sentinels to the devastation of war. Of the 38 pairs of brothers buried in the cemetery, the most famous are Theodore and Quentin Roosevelt, sons of President Teddy Roosevelt. Theodore was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his effort in the war. The toll that war takes is rubbed in your face all along these beaches - monuments are everywhere. We left the Normandy Beaches and headed southwest for Mont St. Michel. Remember that island off the Cornwall coast that thought it was in France? (It's on the webpage that you can't access). Well, this is the island that one thinks it is. We camped in it's shadow, 2km away.
Monday, Oct. 09`00 - Mt. San Michel
Sleeping in, Bruce woke up around 10 am, I, being an earlier riser as a general rule, was up by 7 am and spent my time typing replies to email letters we had received while in Rouen and working with photos off the camera. Within an hour we were dressed, breakfasted and ready to walk the two kilometer causeway to Mt. St. Michel. Bruce had received a weather report from the staff at the campgrounds; sunny day. It was still cloudy however, so he took his sunglasses, ever the optimist, and I took the umbrella. You may have seen travelogues s on Mont St. Michel, it is the island in the shallow Bay of St. Michel, on the coastal border between Normandy and Britanny. It reaches 260 ft above sea level and has a Benedictine Abbey dedicated to the archangel Michael at it's peak, below lies a village. The whole island, which is small, is encircled by a wall with one gate allowing entry. In centuries past it was a place of pilgrimage, with pilgrims coming to pay homage to St. Michael. Until the causeway was built, the only access to the island was to walk across the sands at low tide, twice a day. The tidal level is dramatic, it can reach 39 feet and until tide tables were established it could be very dangerous to cross. The island's history a bounds with tales of people drowning or sinking in quicksand as they attempted to reach the Abbey. People from all over Europe would come on pilgrimage to St. Michel. It can be seen from quite a distance, the coastal area is pretty flat, and it is a beautiful sight! The abbey's spire reaches some 500 feet above the plain with a golden statue of St. Michel at the top. The abbey and the village are built on a steep slope, from the entry gate you are steadily walking uphill. I suppose the effect for the pilgrims was akin to walking up to heaven. The concept and reality are beautiful but it is marred by all of the souvenir shops that line the street up to the Abbey. EVERY SINGLE SHOP IS DEDICATED TO GETTING THE TOURIST'S MONEY. If they are not selling St. Michel on a pencil top, they are selling plates with St. Michel painted on them, or magnets or pins (which we are collecting so they got some of our money!), or religious medals or if that doesn't work, they will try to feed you. It certainly takes away from any possible mystical experience. But the view of the island is glorious. We toured the Abbey, in itself a feat of building worthwhile - some devout people went to a lot of trouble to praise St. Michel. It begins at the peak of the island and continues another 260 feet into the air, the exact hight of the island. There was a lot of symbolism built into the abbey, it is the same size as Noah's Ark as described in the Bible - it uses the numbers 3 (Holy Trinity), 4 (earthly matters), and 7 (combining heaven and earth) in its architecture (I read this, it ain't something I knew). All of this is very interesting, but the view of the island is glorious!! While walking the island it began to rain. And rain. And rain. By the time we were ready to walk home the rain was coming down at a 45o slant with the wind blowing like there was no tomorrow! The wind even blew our windproof umbrella inside out! We were drenched and chilled by the time we got home. But the view of the island was glorious!! We got out of our clothes and Bruce dashed to the laundry room to dry them out. So much for campground weather forecasters! Finally warmed up, we had dinner of salmon wrapped in spinach and pastry, zuchini and a killer salad, then fled to our bed to keep warm. All night the wind blew and rain fell. Sometime after midnight lightening and thunder started up and a tree above Queenie continuously dropped acorns (or something) on Queenie's skylight, sounding like rifle shots. It was a very restful night!
Tuesday, 10/10/00
We got up early this morning - ready to beat feet outa there! It was still raining but not so steadily and by ten am we could see clear blue skies to the south (our direction) but one last look at that glorious view of Mont. St. Michel showed dark gray clouds behind a sunlit island. Naturally we took the photo op. We were going to go to Britanny and see Merlin's Forest and the megalithic stones at Carnac, but we are afraid we have pressed our luck with the weather long enough and have decided to make an indirect beeline to Southern France and then Spain. We lost one of our really good books on France in the heart transplant fiasco (It will probably turn up when we leave France for good - but we did find the jack!!!) so we are a little blind on what to see from now on. We decided our first stop would be Algers, a city on the River Loire with a first rate Chateau and a tapestry that is also a must-see. Most of the day was spent driving through detours and getting to see a good bit of that area of France between the coast and Angers. When we found our campground, we discovered we had lost something else in the disorganization of Queenie. An adaptor for electrical plug-ins sometimes needed to hook yourself into some campground's electrical units. Now this is really important and we will have to get another, since we can't use our electrical in those instances. We were worn out and stressed - not sure why, we just where - so we settled down and had a drink and a little kitty came to visit. He stuck around so we fed him sardines, now as I type this (on battery supply) he is lying in bed with Bruce purring up a storm!! Oh yea, it is raining again, maybe that's why he isn't anxious to leave?
Friday, 10/13/00 Royan, coastal France
Wednesday morning we packed up, and drove into Angers, parking across from the 11th century chateau we had come to see. Angers lies on the Maine River, which forms where the Loire and 2-3 other rivers merge, it then goes to the Atlantic. Whenever we see forts on rivers we know they were lookouts or defensive structures and this one was a beauty. It has 17 round towers connected by walls and is built of alternating dark shale and white limestone. It sits above the river on a rock base and has a governor's palace and a church inside the grounds as well as an ornamental garden in the moat area. It is pretty cool. Within the chateau grounds is the Musee de la Tapestry Apocalypse, the largest tapestry in the world. We thought the Bayeux Tapestry was large - well this one wins the prize. It is 103 meters long (Bayeux was 70 meters) and 4 1/2 meters high, has 70 scenes, all depicting the last book of the Bible. It is a real tapestry, finely woven with rich colors and was completed in - get this - 1382 (!!) Once again my ignorance of Biblical stories showed up, evidently the Book of the Apocalypse is a very difficult book to comprehend for experts, for me it is impossible. And the titles of each scene were in French so I really didn't know what was going on, but even an ignoramus can enjoy the artistry of the piece. They had just finished a new building to house the tapestry, it is set at a particular temperature, the lighting is very low, the air filtered and the tapestry is hung on a blue-backed wall. They suggest you wait 10-15 minutes to let your eyes adjust to the lighting in order to fully appreciate the colors. After our tour we walked the town of Angers, found a fromage sandwich for lunch, Bruce's favorite at the moment, then tracked down an Internet place where we posted diary and checked mail. It rained the whole time we interneted but when we finished so had it, and we hurried back to Queenie before it could start again. The weather is definitely changing; we seem to be running out of our time in northern Europe. Made our way along the river towards Nantes outside of which we spent the night. Consulting our travel books and the weather, we agreed to bypass Nantes and continue south to La Rochelle, on the coast of France. Thursday was a travel day. We drove along the coast as much as possible in an area of marshland mostly used for grazing livestock. Our only excitement was having so much trouble finding the open campgrounds north of La Rochelle that we had to continue to La Rochelle where we still had trouble finding the campground. Most of the campgrounds in Europe are open from late March or April to the end of September or mid-October but there are always one or two in an area that are open year round. We have a couple of books cataloging the campgrounds, so we can find them and usually the directions given to get to the campgrounds are excellent. Well, the campgrounds we needed in this area had lousy directions or incorrect info, we were pretty annoyed by the time we found it. We are finding the campgrounds mostly deserted by now too, only a couple of hardcore campers are still around per campground or temporary workers living in the bungalows. For dinner we these really tasty cheese stuffed pastries (from my 2nd favorite store, Lidl), baked in our little oven, with chili (our last can of Stagg's Chili from my favorite store, Costco) over the top. Sliced tomatoes accompanied the meal. Dinner cost about $3 US and was very good.
Today, Friday, 10/13/00 La Rochelle
La Rochelle is a fishing port and has been forever! Eleanor of Aquitaine, the wife of Henry II of England, and a formidable woman in her own right, designed the port for La Rochelle back in 1100 something. I think I have found a woman to admire, I want to find a biography of her to read. She not only had 4 sons with Henry, but she was first married to the king of France, they battled so badly for 15 years that their marriage was finally annulled. Her court was the origin of the troubadours and chivalry and I think there is a lot more about her I don't know and wish to. Eleanor's Vieux Port (old port) is protected by two towers, built by the English in the 14th century and makes an impressive statement. La Rochelle has a pretty interesting history, but you'll have to come to learn about it. Anyhow, we spend the day walking to streets of the old town and coming across a food market we went into the enclosed Market Hall to discover gastronomical delights the likes you don't see in Oroville!! The meats were varied, with heads still attached to the pheasants and rabbits, pig heads for sale, brains, stuffed tongues as well as cuts of meat we would recognize. Cheeses of all varieties, and the seafood, a local specialty, was incredible! Oysters, at $3 a dozen(!!), crabs, lobsters, scallops big as a silver dollar, fresh fish of varieties known and unknown to us! We drooled through the whole market and later wished we had bought the oysters. Getting back on the road around 1:30 PM we started our trek toward Bordeaux. We stopped at a beach for lunch, brought out our chairs and table, had canned mackerel in pepper sauce with Ritz crackers and Gouda cheese, a Pepsi and watched people digging in the low tide for something we interpreted to be clams or mussels. Taking the scenic route we arrived at Royan, at the head of the Gironde Bay, around 5 PM, and fought our way once again looking for a campground. Déjà vu from yesterday. If the instructions for campgrounds don't get easier sooner, I may get my wish to freecamp more often!!! Dinner once again was salmon/spinach stuffed pastries, asparagus, salad and the required French baguette. We are heading to Bordeaux and then east for a couple of days to dwell in the pre-historic caves of the Dordognes valley with the Lascaux Caves of cave-painting fame. You poor folks out there are REALLY gonna get inundated
with caveman information next time or two!!!!
Monday, 10/16/00
Bordeaux was a disappointment. Eleanor, for whom Bordeaux was a part of her dowry, would have been saddened. Another larger city, it was covered in soot and graffiti. Sixty-one miles from the Atlantic coast, it is still an important port, situated at the mouth of the Gironde River where it opens up into a bay/estuary that eventually flows northward into the Atlantic. Knowing it had Internet access, we originally planned to use that and then explore the city, but we were so put off by the filth, once finished interneting we bailed. A much-needed restoration project of the buildings around the quays was in the process and once completed will at least give a presentable façade to visitors. As we walked through a pedestrian-only street on our way to Queenie, we found the most concentration of people since we left the Champs Elysee, and looking up the street once again we were confronted with a sea of black. I am sure that black is the French national color, you see a group of ten French - eight will be wearing black, ranging from the whole ensemble to a minimum of a black jacket, even in warm weather! In fact that is how wepick out foreigners in France, by how colorful they are!!! What Bordeaux does have is the largest wine region in France. All along the Gironde Bay/Estuary was vineyard after vineyard of both red and white wine grapes. We have seen a lot of wine regions by now, but we are still most impressed with the Mosel River Valley. I find amusing how our life goes: In California in the late 70's we moved to a ski resort. Of our group of friends, we were the only ones who didn't ski, and we lived in such a region: Later on we moved to Oroville. Of our group of friends, we were the only ones to enjoy such close proximity to a lake, yet we had no boat. Now, we are in the most famous wine regions of the WORLD and it makes no dent on our consciousness!!!! We have beloved friends who would jump at the chance to come here and wine-taste and we look, think "how nice," and drive on. Well, we drove on . . . One of my interests for a very long time has been the development of pre-historic man. I love National Geographic issues that focus on early man and I perk up at any news reported on that front. Right now, as I sit in Queenie typing this, I am in the midst of a region inhabited by man for some 100,000 years! We have taken a giant step backward in time. Bruce and I are impressed with the 5-7000 year old evidence of man's history but this is a whole new game. We are in the Perigord region of France, east of Bordeaux by some 80 kilometers, specifically in the town of Les Eyzies, in an area of foothills where geologically speaking, at least three rivers have been cutting out valleys for the last few million years. What the rivers have left behind are multiple caves and rock abris (overhanging shelters) where man has lived from Neanderthal days to the present. Les Eyzies is known as the prehistoric capital of the world and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was in the Les Eyzies area that the term Cro-Magnon was coined due to the discovery of five prehistoric skeletons. The area is beautiful...Beautiful...with a forest-like selection of deciduous and evergreen trees, meandering rivers, and the ever-present rock cliffs in which caves and shelters have formed.
Little villages dot the way reminding you of the continuing presence of man. It is magnificent! This is the area that contains Lascaux, that cave full of 17,000 year old paintings, which first introduced the world to cave paintings and early man's artistic sophistication. Lascaux is the most well known cave but there are literally thousands of caves with evidence of human habitation in this area!! This, as the saying goes, Blows My Dress Up!!! We have seen caves with etchings of animals and humans - we have seen caves with painted figures, from bison to horses to wooly mammoths to deer, using different minerals for the different colors. We have learned that the caves, while used over long periods of time, were used by different groups for different things. It is believed that a cave with art in it was probably used for religious purposes only, yet parts of that same cave at a later or earlier date, may have been used by another group for a living area. We have gone to museums and seen samples of the literally millions of human artifacts found in the area, ranging from primitive tools of 100,000 years ago to sophisticated art objects as recent as 8,000 years ago. The display of art objects shows how mankind had progressed from struggling to survive, to a sophisticated culture enabling them to develop art and decorate every area of their lives with it. It has been fascinating! Because of the fragile nature of the caves, tours of limited numbers of people only are allowed entrance. A hard lesson was learned at Lascaux, where after a mere 15 years the cave had to be closed to the public due to damage to the art. Green algae and a white calcification began to cover the cave walls, caused by the change in temperature all the body heat of visitors generated. Once closed to the public the original Lascaux recovered, and is now open to 5 visitors a day, 2 days a week and the waiting line exceeds two years! Now a facsimile of the cave, Lascaux II is open to the public, recreating the original exactly. We visited Lascaux II and were overwhelmed by the volume and beauty of the paintings. It begins at the Hall of the Bulls with 4 giant bulls painted on the cave walls along with horses, mountain goats, a bear and what is believed to be a make-believe animal dubbed the "unicorn." They are painted on the walls using red, black and yellow colors. Primitive man used animal fat lamps for lighting, some 100 remnants have been found, and in flickering lamp light the paintings look to be in motion. The re-creation of Lascaux took 10 years to complete and it said to be an exact replica of the original. It is fabulous! I don't know if I can convey to you the awesome feeling I have staying in a valley where so many discoveries have taken place. I am sure it was the discoveries in this valley that the author of "Clan of the Cave Bear" based her books on. When we arrived I had no idea that so much of what I know about prehistoric man was found here. Famous pieces of art - some of the primitive female statues and the Bison-licking -it's-haunch spear thrower are a couple of pieces I am familiar with, but to be where they were found is just too much! We are staying on a private French farm in a hamlet called Le Queylou. A hamlet is a small grouping of houses usually owned by members of an extended family. We are the only campers and have the hospitality of the owner, Harry, from Holland (the Dutch are EVERYWHERE!!!!), who married a local girl and gained entrance into the hamlet. He is presently restoring his home and gave us a tour of it. These old, old houses are very different from American houses. The walls seem to be filled with rock rubble, stacked and mudded in with a wattle-type covering. It is an ancient building method used right up to, probably, the last 75 years. The house has a kitchen, bedroom and bath on the main floor and attic (storage) upstairs. The kitchen, which is very large, with a fireplace, doubles as the living room. The bathroom is recent, regarding the age of the house. Harry says traditionally, the kitchen was the only room in the house to be heated since everyone congregated there. We learned how to wire an old, pre-electrical home and how to hide the wires. Can you imagine a home built with no electrical?? It is almost impossible to take in, huh?
Tuesday, October 17, 2000 - Travel day
Queenie is running great so far, we have no concerns traveling. Leaving the Vezere River valley and Les Eyzies we headed south towards Lourdes, our next destination. Our week delay in Rouen has offered us the opportunity to witness the changing of the seasons and although the weather is wet, we are continuously treated to the display of fall colors as the trees change from green to golds, reds and browns. This is something Californians are rarely allowed to see and we are constantly pointing out exceptionally colored foliage to one another. Because it is a travel day and we are heading to Spain, we have time to reflect on the France portion of our visit and we are very pleased. We have found the archetypical Frenchman, dressed in a dark sportcoat and beret, riding a bike with that ever present baguette, to be alive and well. The French women are smart looking and throughout the country the people have a Mediterranean look that surprises me since I do not think of France as a Mediterranean country. It would be hard to tell a Frenchman from a Spaniard or Italian, yet their northern neighbors, Germany, Belgium, Holland, are Nordic looking. Whereas the French may not speak English, and many do, they are friendly and helpful. We have used our extremely limited French to great success when no English is spoken, and have only warm and fuzzy memories of our experiences with them. The countryside is beautiful, the government has done a fantastic job of sign-posting historical sites and they are plentiful. Ancient churches, chateaus or great mansions overlook beautiful little villages hugging rivers or guarding great tracks of farmland; this is a gorgeous country. I already have fantasies of what I want to see on my next trip to France, in, oh say, a year or two(!!!) We spent the night in a campground in Auchs, the home of the real d'Artagnan of Musketeers fame.
10/19
Can you believe that we have been gone for almost six months now? That is half a year! What a different lifestyle it has been - a nomadic, albeit comfortable, wandering across the European continent. Who'd a thunk it? Since we are still in a traveling mode - between France and Spain - and not a lot happens when you are moving (except for some lovely scenery and flat tires or blown engines!!) we thought we would share some of the day-to-day details we have lived with. Shopping for food is an entertainment! Since my last visit 30 years ago, the continent has been introduced to supermarkets. After centuries and centuries of open-air markets where food was purchased, almost on a daily basis, the Europeans have discovered supermarkets. These are a serious break in tradition and are wreaking economic havoc on the small specialty food shops (bread/pastry shops, butcher shops, green grocers, etc). I don't know what the local politics think of this, but for me it is a blessing. I am used to the format and just LOVE finding each country or region's specialty. Figuring out the basics is a challenge too; what is the best brand for: clothes soap, butter/margarine, fresh milk is challenging since they don't do much low/no-fat and they have a product called long-life milk which seems to be real popular (yyyeeeccchhhh!). Dried spices have been a real challenge, not only do they use different ones than we are used to, but the names are different in each country; we use a lot of garlic which in France is ail (like we knew that!!!) and took us forever to figure out. Vegetables have different names: zucchini is courgette (!), eggplant is auberge, leeks vary in name, often starting with a P. Products change from country to country so every new country is a new adventure! Meats are very interesting; we haven't seen a good steak since we left the States; beef appears to be fairly unimportant as a foodstuff in Europe. Pork is a biggie, in fact, a hugey, and we can't remember American pork being as tasty. Cured meats are popular (in stores at any rate), sausages (again pork!!), salamis and hams. The coast has lots and lots of fish and shellfish, as would be expected. Poultry is around, but not real high on the list. Rabbit is popular in France (sorry, Summer!) at least in the displays. Cheese is very important, very cheap, and may be a main source of protein rather than meats, it is hard to say since we don't eat in private homes and see what is eaten on a daily basis. CHOCOLATE, in France anyway, is dirt-cheap, we bought about a 1/2 of a pound of dark chocolate for $1.45 (Bruce has become a chocoholic, and cheap chocolate is becoming disastrous to the (my) waistline!!). Gasoline is more costly, but the continent is much cheaper than England's $5.50-$6.00/gal. Right now we are paying about $3.50/gal - not THAT much more than you guys at home. At home gas stations are on almost every corner in towns, here we have to search for them. That doesn't mean they are scarce here, just that the States tend to overdo. Laundromats are another adventure. Of course the directions are in a completely foreign (to us) language and even once we have the gist of each country's instructions, occasionally they will throw in a whole different way of washing. This can make washing a challenge, (although we finally stopped turning whites into grays) and we are always happy when finished to discover we haven't ruined our clothes!! We did burn up a pair of synthetic zip-off pants of mine in Luxembourg due to too hot a dryer, but that was our last disaster (so far). Ladies, watch for lots of leather and very square-toed shoes in the fashion department. Leather pants and skirts are big over here and square-toed shoes are definitely what’s happening. At first I thought them ugly, but being inundated by them has softened my view. Purples seem to be making the stand in France (along with the standard black) as a fall color. As we have driven all through the continent, we have seen these big (usually) concrete towers shaped like a thick Y. They, or a recognizable variant are all over, often you can 2 on an 180o horizon, they are so common. We don't know if they are water towers, silos, communication towers or what. (I will try to post a photo on the web page). I tend to lean towards water tower, mostly because they put me in mind of the water towers that used to be in 1950's towns in the States. Remember the gigantic metal barrels with the stilt-like legs and a single metal ladder going up one leg? Well, the ones here don't look like that but I chose to believe the function is the same. Speaking of driving - you should see how the Europeans park!!!! This is hilarious when not downright irritating. They park on sidewalks, they double park, and they'll park in a single lane of a two-lane road, backing traffic up, as cars must maneuver around them. And this is in every country we have visited. At home the meter maids would be orgasmic over the tickets they could write! I never realized how law-abiding the American driver is until I got over here. Motorcycles are common, actually Vespa-type cycles and rally-type road bikes. They are like little gnats flittering in and out of lanes and between cars, noisy and irresponsible. Sometimes we would like to snatch a driver and smack him for his inconsiderateness. It irritates poor Queenie when they buzz around her like flies!!! The telephone/electrical poles over here are made of concrete, not wood. We can count on one hand the wood poles we have found. The concrete makes sense - they last longer and drivers give them more respect! I would like to see the molds used to make them. Well, that about does it for this chapter, we will try to check in in San Sebastian, Spain early next week.
10/19/00 – Lourdes
We camped at Camping de Foret, a campground on the slopes of a foothill to the east of the city. Lourdes in situated in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains, a majestic snow capped range, which divides France from Spain. Our initial drive through astounded us with the activity of the city. We did not expect the traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, that we found here. Lourdes is not a tourist town, busy in the clement weather months, but rather a place of pilgrimage that may well be busy year round.People from all over the world come here; we heard French, German, Irish, Indian, English, Spanish and more languages as we strolled the city streets.Now, I am going to assume you know something about the history of Lourdes: How in the mid-1800's the young Bernadette who was gathering firewood near a cave (grotto) and had the first of several visions of the Virgin Mary and eventually uncovered a spring whose waters have been pronounced "healing" by the Church. The church has documented 66 miraculous healings and Lourdes has been the focal point of pilgrimages by both the "faithful" and the ill. The Sanctuary covers a good deal of area, with a large basilica built above the grotto where Bernadette had her visions. The basilica had statues of various saints hugging its periphery and inside, a large and beautiful mosaic of the Virgin was on the walls, reminiscent (to us) of the Sacre Coeur mosaic in Paris. Many other wall mosaics in various chapels contained within the church, told of the life of Mary. Outside and beneath the basilica are the water fountains from the spring, for the public to gather water for drinking. Further along the pathway is the grotto with a marble alter and the statue of the Virgin placed where Bernadette saw her visions. It is a lovely setting and commands respect. Pilgrims can buy candles to be lit at the grotto and there is a massive multi-tiered candelabrum, able to contain perhaps 50-100 3ft tall candles. The number of people on an October afternoon was surprising to these two uninitiated onlookers. Everyone who was there seemed to be lighting candles or going to the rock to kiss it (as penance?) or sitting in quiet contemplation. We saw many nuns wearing different habits and many ailing people - expected since this is a place of healing. Even further along the path is the area set aside for bathing in the sacred waters, 6 tubs for men and 11 for women (does that mean women are greater sinners?). Alongside all of the sincere piety was a small city of souvenir shops selling every religious article I can think of; the only thing missing was barkers ready to pull you into their shops. I wonder if this sort of souvenir hawking has been happening for centuries or just since the development of plastic? On the next phase of our visit we took the funicular (cable car) up the side of the Pic de Jer, a mountain 948 meters high and almost straight up, to see a stupendous view of the valley. The funicular was 100 years old and creaked and jostled it's way up the mountain so much I had daymares of the cables breaking and sending us hurtling down the mountainside to our deaths. It didn't happen, but I wondered what possessed me to make the ride in the first place. (Probably because we couldn't reach the top in any other manner.) At the summit was a grotto (cave) we could walk through, lighted and with piped classical music. It was a pretty lengthy cave and as I was going through it I realized I was hunkering down as though the density of the rock was pushing me down. It was then that I began to have an inkling of the fascination caves have had for mankind. Back outside, we made the short walk from the cave's exit back to the summit. The views are breathtakingly beautiful with the valley below us and the Pyrenees spread out behind us. The sun has returned as we head south (yippee!!!) so the day was spectacular. Returning home, we cooked a regional specialty - cassoulet au confit de canard - white beans, carrots, tomatoes, sausage and confit (whatever that is) de duck. Bruce thinks it looks delightful - I may have soup!!!
10/20/00 Friday
Well, I didn't eat soup and the dinner was delicious! It was so tasty we licked our plates! Around 9:15 PM, sitting in Queenie studying up for Spain, we heard singing from a long ways off and realized it was the nightly candle light procession at the Basilica. I wish we had gone to see it - a parade of people walking the Sanctuary Square in the twilight, holding candles and singing Ave Maria - I'll bet it looks grand; it sounded grand! We drove most of Friday; did I mention somewhere up above about seeing lovely scenery? Well, today we found a whole region filled with smoke from huge, ugly refineries. God it was ugly. Homesteads where trying to raise crops and livestock in that haze and all I could think of was to escape as fast as Queenie could take us! Before we got there though, we found a store specializing in Fois Gras and last night's cassoulet so we stocked up. The storekeeper, knowing her business, had us sampling all sorts of treasures and, of course, we bought a little of each! Tonight we are in Urrugne, just outside of St. Jean de Luc, south of Biarritz, in a campground filling up with Dutch (they get around!) and British snowbirds heading for Spain. Whatcha think - shall we join them??