Home

We finally arrived home in Sydney in the early evening. We caught the airport train to Central and walked up onto the country platform to catch a Blue Mountains train. We were a little saddened – the contrast with Roma Terminal, Gare du Nord or even Napoli Centrale is dispiriting. What must people think of us? 

We couldn’t make the phone work – so there was nothing for it but to walk from Warrimoo station, wheeling our luggage. We could smell the smoke hanging in the air. Exhausted, we staggered up Greens Road and home. You would think our adventures were over, but the night had a final surprise ...

We let ourselves in and were opening up the house - by this time it was very late at night. Suddenly four police cars arrived outside. Our security conscious neighbour, a policewoman, had decided to take no chances with strange people across the road in our house. We assured the massed constabulary that all was well.

Paris-Singapore-Warrimoo

As I start to write it is about 6:00 pm in Singapore and 12:00 pm in Paris and 9.00 pm in Sydney and we woke up at 7.00 am in Paris - but yesterday - not today, and caught a nice taxi to Charles De Gaulle...

which looks like aliens have landed - which - as far as Parisians are concerned - they have.

We were waiting in the web of movable tapes, with a couple of hundred other unfortunates, for the dubious pleasure of having our passports looked at by a gendarme who couldn't give a merde. A cheerful redhead made the same mistake as several others and charged down the wrong alleyway in the maze. We called her back on course. She raised both arms and pronounced, "What do you expect, we're French, we can't even get people into three lines."

Once we were past the checks we paid off part of the French national debt by buying breakfast. Lyn can't stop talking about paying €9.60 for a croque monsieur.

Singapore airlines were excellent again but 14 hours is a longue duree. I watched: Man of Steel, World War Z, The Lone Ranger and 42. This is the mental equivalent of chewing gum for 10 hours - but my current book is an extremely nuanced reassessment of foreign relations prior to WW1 and I find myself reading the same sentence again and again...

With 90 minutes to go Singapore Airlines were preparing to stuff yet another meal into their stupefied charges when Lyn turned to me and said, "Happy 27th Anniversary". I'm not sure, technically, on the world clock, at what point this day began, or when it will end...

Singapore airport was miraculously efficient again and had McDonalds! The taxi was quick, and at the Goodwood Hotel we upgraded ourselves to a poolside room. We have lived like lotus-eaters for the last few hours. Our only excursion has been to the shops to avoid eating in a restaurant. Even if we were willing to pay $115 a head for dinner and $17.50 for a glass of wine - we'd probably snooze between courses, rather than gaze into each other's eyes.

At one shop Lyn asked the Chinese girl serving us if they sold bottled water. She barked, "what?", except it sounded like, "WHAAA!" Lyn and I looked at each other and struggled to suppress the giggles - she sounded like the love child of the "I wok so harrd" lady at Blaxland shops. We are nearly home.

  

Sacre Coeur and Montmartre

We were much relieved by the better news from home but didn't finally leave the apartment till 12.00 pm ... and then realised we hadn't had any breakfast! Lyn bought warmed quiches from a charcuterie and we ate them while we walked to the bus stop on the Boulevard St Michel. (Like everybody else of a certain age I hear the Peter Sarstedt song every time I say it.)

From there we caught the bus to the Gare du Nord and then walked towards Montmartre. On the way we purchased a padlock from a little hardware store. Then we walked determinedly past the hordes of hucksters to catch the funicular up to Sacre Coeur. It was great to feel the breeze and look out over Paris but, let's be honest, it is a pretty ugly city. From any height Sydney or Rome are gorgeous. Paris needs a very vaselined lens to even rate. Sacre Coeur, on the other hand, is a pretty church. Maybe it is the lack of dead people.

 
From there we walked down the other side of Montmartre, which was pleasant, and bought a baguette on the way. 
  

My photo of this scene was dismal, even by my own standards, but somebody on the www. had this photo of exactly the same scene, so I’ve stolen it. In my defence, my photo was sans plastic bag and sans witches hats. Interestingly, the blogger had commented exactly the same idea as my own – the further you get from the crowds at the summit, the prettier Montmartre becomes.

Then we caught the bus to the Eiffel Tower. Which is big. We didn't go up, but I ran into a former student there. I guess if you spend 5 weeks visiting places like this you are bound to meet someone you know.

  
In the toilets Lyn rescued a crying young Scottish girl and met her grateful family. From there we walked in search of:

a) a bus stop

b) a drink

On the way we crossed a bridge and did the lock and keys thing.

We found the drink we needed at the Musee d'Art Moderne which was very nice except the environs of the museum are also the hangout of skateboarders doing tricks - very noisily. Then we found an appropriate bus. It took us in the right direction but it was peak hour. Ultimately we reached a combination of traffic lights and pedestrian crossing which proved non negotiable. The driver suddenly turned around and announced rather testily, "Terminal" - and everybody got off. It was sixish by then so we bought food and wine. And came home.

We ate and drank and packed for tomorrow morning. 

We have discussed our thoughts on where we have been. We would go back to Rome. London too. Paris non. We are glad to have been here, but it didn't capture our imagination in the same way. Perhaps you have to be younger, or richer, or poorer, to love the "City of Light". 

Tomorrow - Singapore - which we both disliked intensely. Our plan there is to drink by the pool, and sleep.  

Shopping for gifts and the stuck door

Today we went shopping. Lyn had a long list of people for whom she wanted to purchase gifts. 

This was one of those days. When you are down, events usually conspire to kick you. Days of worry about the fires, and our own inability to do anything about them, have been made still worse by news that friends, and some of my students, have lost their homes. The Ancient History HSC examination went ahead, but with several of my students absent. I faced a day doing something I dreaded – shopping for gifts. I felt useless and exhausted, so after lunch I told Lyn I would go back to the apartment and meet her back at the Metro entrance next to the Hôtel de Ville at 3.30.

Returning to the flat I opened the door and somehow turned the key in a manner that forced the locking bar down. It jammed against the kitchen floor. The door was stuck in a half-open position. I was unable to either remove the key or to turn it so that the bar lifted. I had visions of, at best a very embarrassing phone call to Nastasja, the representative of the owner in Paris, and at worst, a very expensive visit from a locksmith. Worse, I had only about 90 minutes before I would have to make the choice between leaving the flat with the door open, or leaving Lyn to worry where I had got to. I dithered; I worried at the lock; I tried pushing and pulling the steel bar to unjam it; I tried turning the key hard, soft, quick, slow; I sweated; checked Nastasja’s phone number; and then repeated all of the above. Ultimately it occurred to me that the key would not turn because the bar was jammed against the floor. It had not stuck until it reached half way. Clearly the floor must be slightly higher there. I gave the door a wrench towards me; the bar scraped and then was miraculously clear. The key turned. I was saved.

I scurried back to the rendezvous with Lyn. On the way I passed a brilliant jazz band busking on the Pont Saint Louis. (I thought, “Lyn will love this”.) However, she was very late. I waited. I watched, fascinated, as two teachers escorted a class of kindergarten children in fluoro jackets down to the metro. I wondered about French school excursions. It rained. There was no shelter where we had agreed to meet, so I stood in the rain. Eventually Lyn arrived, flushed with success. We walked back to the bridge where the band and the crowd were now leaving, discouraged by the rain.

From this point the day improved.

Picardy and the Somme

The rural fire service website says that for now you are ok, which is a relief because when we left at 6.00 this morning we were aware that there was still a hot afternoon ahead of you. 

There were 8 of us - 6 Australians and an American couple. Joe from Philadelphia was a Great War enthusiast and I feared he would turn the Great War into the Great Bore. My fears were unfounded. Joe was clearly in poor health and his main impact on the trip was that he kept dropping and forgetting things, which kept Lyn occupied anyway.

Julien was our guide and proved a true multitasker. His English was proficient in that charming French way. "The Eenglish are attacking at Poitiers zo zat zay are coming around Peronne" etc. His driving was only disconcerting because it was terrifying, not because he was doing anything that all the other Parisians weren't doing.

I am grateful to have seen these places at last. Rural France is much more rural than the bits of Britain we saw. We liked the space around us at last.

Villers Bretonneux

The plaque is out the front of the school. Inside is a small hall with carvings of Australian animals.

 

Pozieres. Bean wrote that this site, "is more densely sewn with Australian sacrifice than any other spot on Earth".

 

The British memorial at Thiepval. Note the abseiling restoration workers.

 

German crosses are iron, French are white and the rest have the familiar tombstone markers.

The good little Western Front museum at Peronne.

My most thoughtful moment, of many today, came when I found this tombstone - bear with me.

If you can't make out the inscription...

P.J. Ball died on 25 March, 1918. The place, date and battalion suggest that he died stopping the last German offensives on the Somme in the last year of the war. He was 23. He was already a Sergeant and had won the Military Medal. (At this time the MM was given to enlisted men who had done something extraordinarily courageous - but not so crazy that you could get the VC.) He "got knocked" in March,1918, no doubt in the effort to halt the great German Spring Offensive. His surviving family chose the epitaph:

"I fought and died in the Great War to end all wars. Have I died in vain?" 

Lyn survived the day, and even found bits to appreciate.  

Batobus Sunday

The internet suggests you all survived the night but international news reports imply that armageddon approacheth for Sydney. Good luck Mum and Dad.

We took a long time to get going this morning. When we did, we paid a great deal for a day pass each on the Batobus. This is a Batobus.

It was a 'get on get off when you like' pass and Lyn likes quiet boats. I liked less walking after yesterday. 

We got off the Batobus at the beginning of the Tuileries and walked through to L'Orangerie. The queues there stretched way past the '2 hour wait' markers. Luckily we got pretty much straight in because we already had tickets! One of the things we have got right on this trip is doing our research.

The point of this museum is Monet's huge waterlily paintings (for those who didn't know). Monet basically said to France, "You only get these paintings if you show them here - in this way." Monet was right, though we both found the very furthest corner from each painting was the best spot.

The pleasant surprise was that the basement level of the museum contains a handful of truly great paintings: several Renoirs and Matisses and one brilliant Modigliani. How this place kept these masterpieces with the Louvre and the Musee D'Orsay hovering on either side is a miracle.

Then we crossed the Seine and wandered up past the National Assembly to the Musee Rodin. The sun was out (sort of) so to prove we'd been to Paris here are photos with pointy bits.

We were starving, and this being Sunday, not much was open.  Lyn threatened to eat my arm. 

Luckily the cafe in the next Museum was open. The Musee Rodin is another case of an artist leaving his stuff to Paris on his own terms. It is a sculpture garden with a museum, and a good cafe. Terrific idea.

We then walked back to the Seine along the Esplanade des Invalides and caught the Batobus home.

We napped and ate out. We have an early day tomorrow because we are being picked up at 6:10 am for our battlefields tour. 

 

Louvre

Today we successfully replaced the glass for the plongeur and walked around the Louvre for 5 hours. We are buggered.

Hope things are better for you all this morning than is predicted...

The Louvre is bigger than the Vatican and the displays equal the BM or the great Roman museums. The Egyptian section is astoundingly good. The French have stolen nothing but the very best there. Lyn liked the Venus de Milo. The Winged Victory of Samothrace was being repaired. So it goes on my list of things I've missed, like the Unicorn Tapestries and 7 of the windows in Sainte Chapelle.

We made an early decision to only look at galleries that interested us. The Mona Lisa is small and constantly mobbed. The rest is great, but we were in a state of sensory overload. Frankly, we are feeling strung out anyway, concerned about home and family in the bushfires and feeling powerless.

Lyn's charm offensive

Bushfires were item 3 on the French news all day.

We took an age to leave the apartment because we had a disturbed night after an exhausting day. Eventually we headed for Notre Dame. It is big. Also crowded with tourists like us, but really big.

Lyn prayed for you all to be safe. I'm not sure her usual fire-lighting habits were appropriate, but old habits die hard.

One church is never enough. We walked to the other end of the island to see Sainte Chapelle. If Notre Dame is Megagothic, then Sainte Chapelle is Prettygothic. I walked in and thought, "€8 for this?" Then Lyn pointed out the big show was upstairs. Walking upstairs involved your typical narrow winding medieval staircase - so I went alone. The chapel is basically a bunch of flying buttresses supporting walls of stained glass. Wow. This was ONE window. It stretched from floor to ceiling.  

After this we walked back across the bridge and headed for the Musee D'Orsay. The iron grating was heavily decorated with padlocks. Lovers put their names on the locks, lock them, and throw the keys into the river. Love will endure forever and all that. I pointed out that every lock we read was dated 2012 or 2013. I assume the authorities must periodically come along and romantically cut them off.

At the Musee D'Orsay we discovered the building is an artwork itself. It is a converted 19th century railway station.

We saw lots of paintings we'd seen before as reproductions on walls and chocolate boxes. We decided that Monet bloke was pretty good. The cafe where we rested before touring the final floor was spectacular too. They have left the original giant station clocks in place. 

Lyn continued her charm assault on the French all day. The French are completely unlike the Italians who will jump in to help you communicate. They look at you grimly while you struggle through elementary requests. They rarely offer help. If two adults wait 15 minutes in line at a ticket window at a museum, what do you think they want?

Lyn wins them over every time. She NEVER does what I would do and say, "deaux". She wishes them good day. She asks questions in a full sentence. She then asks something else in French while they are serving her? "What does this mean?" "Where can I buy this?" "How do you say this?" "What cat is this toothbrush?" "Can you scratch my elephant?" Invariably they reply courteously, and in French. She is courageous and indefatigable.

This shot looks through the clockface, across the Seine, to the Louvre beyond.

On the way back to the apartment we went to our first patisserie and our first charcuterie. We have since eaten our successes.

Then, disaster. Lyn broke the cafe plongeur. Merde! Now we will have to buy a replacement. Parisian shop assistants would be ringing in sick now if they knew what faced them tomorrow.

Hope it doesn't warm up again tomorrow for you.  

 

Paris

We are watching the English language France 24 news channel - and there was some nice graphic film of the Sydney fires. The BIG news in Paris was the strike. When we arrived at Paris Nord our taxi was quickly enveloped in traffic which the driver indicated was "mal" and "incroyable". Police vehicles were the only things moving fast, cordons were going up. We got to our apartment ahead of our local contact, Natasja, because she too was caught in the chaos. The cause - school students throughout Paris are on strike because a schoolgirl was taken from class and deported with her family as an illegal immigrant. When your government does something like this in Paris, you strike, and you take to the streets. Allons enfants de la patrie etc.

Our apartment is wonderful. We explored a little this afternoon. We went to Jardin du Luxembourg and sat at an outdoor cafe drinking Sancerre.

Then we went to the Musée National du Moyen Âge. The famous unicorn tapestries are on loan but it still was pretty amazing. I learned that sculptors in the Middle Ages don't get enough credit - just because they aren't Bernini. The carved altarpieces were amazing. You get a double bonus at this museum because it is built on, and in, the ruins of Paris' Roman baths - yup - Romans again. 

Exhausted already, we went for some groceries, and were back in time for the news on the telly. Lyn is fast asleep next to me. I'll wake her about 7.30 and we'll go out to eat. Then, about 7.00 your time, we'll call some of you. Calls to Australian landlines are free on the apartment phone. Incroyable!

Lyn and I said goodbye to the Citroen at Ashford. Lyn has just woken up and insists I tell you how good she was in the Chunnel. She was really good.

This is where we are.