Evocative of the City Before Me

I insisted on taking the kids to Shakespeare & Co. yesterday and we burned precious fuel walking around in a big circle to find it after crossing over to the Latin Quarter.  And though it is not the same building nor establishment that Joyce had 'Ulysses' proofread in, it is still wonderful to be in a cavernous old bookstore where suddenly, once again, everything is in English.  I had thought to get my older daughter Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” but looked in vain for it in Beijing.  It was, of course, in stock. 

I had finished all the “French” novels I’d brought with me and was in the middle of a long, contemporary novel that was feeling rather American.  So I picked up a copy of Guy de Maupassant’s “Bel-Ami,” which proved especially easy to tear into.  Also titled “The History of a Scoundrel,” George Duroy is most assuredly a dick.  Though there is no redemption nor much of any reflection he is utterly plausible as he stares down a duel he has gotten himself into or listens to his friend Forestier’s terror on from his consumptive death bed.  Most importantly the food and the manners and the setting are all here in Paris so that every paragraph is evocative of the city before me as I look up. 

And I had time today to read.  We killed at least forty-five minutes waiting to get in to the Musee D’Orsay.  Mercifully a downpour only began after we’d made it beneath the shelter.  We started, as I suppose you must in the main Impressionist hall.  My daughters galloped off and I sat fixated on Gustave Caillebotte, ‘The Floor Scrapers’ from a decade before Bel-Ami.  I remember this painting from years ago and if pressed would have said I saw it in the Louvre.  But here it was.  And though it was seen as shockingly vulgar and homoerotic in its day, I had a strong memory of the three men working there with their half-finished bottle of red wine, there with them on the floor and how that must have been and perhaps still is, a perfectly acceptable way to carry out one’s work in France.   I caught up with my kids at the end of the hall, staring into the their cell phones and insisted they repeat the journey, a bit more deliberately. 

Later I had quite a bit more time to read, later.  My younger one was dead set on seeing the Eiffel Tower.  And so you shall.  Fortunately at the outset, I didn’t know just how many lines this would entail.  Security line, followed by the ticket line and the queue for the elevator and by the time we’d reached the mid-point it was beginning to pour and there would be no way to make our dinner reservation.  We walked around the three sides best protected from the rain.  It’s pouring and it’s late, but we’re not going to come this far and skip the ride to the top.  Another rather long line in order to pay once more and then the queue and the exciting elevator straight up, to step out unprotected into a wild stormy night.  Well, yes, here we are.  Quite something.  Where’s the queue to get down?  It snakes around most of our exoskeletal perch.  Fortunately I had a scoundrel with me to return to who was also doing some climbing. 

The Most Lifelike

Paris was chilly.  It’s July.  We have a place on the Quay Henry IV with a view out over the traffic and the blowing plane tree leaves to the Seine.  We’re a little too far down stream to have the booksellers with their green cases to flip up and open shop.  But I can see Notre Dame. 

Of all the medieval cathedrals I can think of, it always seems the most lifelike.  Downriver to the southeast look back the head of the church rises up with a ring of mournful eyes to stare out across both banks.  But it is, of course the flying buttress ribbing that anthropomorphisizes the building into something more like an enormous whale carcass or a giant octopus risen up out of the river.

I sat on a rickety chair out on the porch of our apartment.  Some bop was in order and I pulled up Harold Land’s “Eastward Ho!” which fit the scene. And with the music to drown out the traffic three floors below, I wrote and considered where it is I was sitting, once again. 

But only for a while.  Restless, with everyone else still asleep, I went down to the riverbank and looked back at the impenetrable block of apartments that must have been built in the sixties with their faded modernity.  To get coffee and bread I ducked around the back to Boulevard Morland, named for one of Napoleon’s Colonels who didn’t make it home from the battle of Austerlitz. 

A shop for juice and fruit.  A restaurant that had been swarmed late last night was had but one other patron and I grabbed my espresso and sat out under an umbrella.  Two young paramilitary guards with menacing looking machine guns were standing, chatting, guarding something.  Restless again, I made my past them to the boulangerie and stocked up on breads and pastries to return to the apartment with.

Imagine Him Gawking

Rudely disabused I was today of a comfortable verity that I’d always known was nonsense.   They do give speeding tickets in the European Union.  Five summers in a row I’ve managed to tear across the continent in Austria, in Ireland, in Greece, in Portugal and in Italy.  I will confess that I disregarded the speed limit in all these places with impunity and it was great and it never seemed to matter.  I had this rough notion that highways equaled Germans, equaled driving as fast as you wanted in the EU. 

This does not hold in France.  Driving up to Chartres today I was caught in a speed trap and told I was egregiously beyond the speed limit and would be forfeiting my license.  “I see.  So, can we talk?  I have definitely learned a lesson.”  “No.  This is my job.”  “I mean there must be a way, I don’t mind paying the fine but . . .” It quickly became clear that there would be no way to talk oneself out of this circumstance.  “Good luck.” He told me, handing my receipt.

The windows of Chartres were dimmed only slightly by all this traffic anxiety.  I’d promised the apogee of the stained glass art form and ducking through an alley and coming upon the wrought iron gates, which were fortunately open for us on this Sunday we stepped in and considered the two receding columns of primal luminosity.  And it was all, quite worth it and it all seemed to make sense because suddenly no one could believe how beautiful it was. 

One window scene from the Bible, St. Julien l’Hospitalier in a simple yellow boat, had been recast on a poster beside a boat full of refugees, reminding the flock: “I was a stranger . . .” These blobs of glass were delicately wrought to tell a story and here they are still capable of more than simply beauty.  I suppose it’s a bit trite for an American in France, but I always think of Hemingway’s brief description of how powerful Chartes was, from his “Moveable Feast” and it was comforting to imagine him gawking up at the same majesty.  Is it me or is one of the two towers at the head of the building Romanesque and the other Gothic?  I suggested as much.  We’d seen so many lovely Romanesque churches riding through the Dordogne countryside this morning.

Later, that night, we were finally, miraculously there in Paris.  Once again it was late.  And more importantly, the EU championship soccer game was being held tonight between France and Portugal.  We were in our AirB&B-like dwelling and the younger one and I decided to brave the city to find food to bring home.  Up to the Bastille and every restaurant was brimming over with fans watching the game, none were serving.  Every Tabac, ever pub and every anything as we arrived upon the Place des Vosges was similarly commandeered by the eager sports fans.  We hounded on for a falafel place I’d read about that might easily have been closed but as we got close I saw two patrons heading our way with falafel and took heart.  We scored!  Then we caught a cab home and watching the TV learned that the absence of raw insanity stemmed from the fact that France had, in the ensuing few minutes, lost the game to Portugal.  Devouring my falafel I was glad we were all home and not walking around draped in the Portuguese flag.

Purely Practical Constructions

I’d been dreading this day a bit.  I must have told everyone concerned nine or eleven times by now that everyone will have to get up early on this morning.  “We are not leaving at noon on Saturday morning.”  “We know, we know.”

Yesterday we’d driven over to remarkable Pont Du Gard, a timeless Roman Aqueduct.  I was considering writing “ruin” but there is certainly nothing “ruined” about the Pont Du Gard, which was undeniably built-to-last.  “The Great Wall” not withstanding, there are not many constructions of any stripe to have survived from the contemporaneous Han Dynasty, back in China.  I was going to say that extant non military, non residential, non ceremonial, purely practical constructions of from any dynasty would be hard to find, but then I thought of the Grand Canal.

My wife was set on visiting the town of Grasse.  The following day we’d plans in play to drive the exact opposite direction.  Grasse has a perfume museum.  Loyal readers will recall that we had just visited such a place but, as mentioned, my wife as set on visiting the town of Grasse.  I found a reasonable looking hotel in the nearby coastal town of Frejus.  Grasse didn't seem to have much by way of hotels. 

By the time we’d driven over it was getting on 6:00PM.   The museum would certainly be closed.  We agreed to go in the morning.  (The morning that everyone would need to get up early for and be packed and ready.)  Well, the hotel was grand and the pool was just what most of us needed and the dinner, well, we’d need to wait till 9:30PM to be served but it was worth the wait.  Late then, we all went up to our four person bedroom and made our way to oblivion.

And at by 10:00AM the next morning we were up and we were checked out and we were not en route to the perfume museum.  Rather we were heading west, cutting across the south of France to Bordeaux.  The whole ride over to Frejus then, had been a bit of a bust.  

I won’t dwell on it.  But be it noted that the French highway toll system is by far the worst I’ve encountered in the European Union.  It is much worse than China or the U.S.   We chewed up crazy hours queuing for a dozen or more tolls, we could have easily paid for once or twice with a bit of smart-toll coordination.  With the recent sample set of Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland there is no question that the French highway system the nadir of my European driving experience.

Ya' Done Broke Down

My computer screen has been inoperative since shortly after we landed here.   I awoke to the first morning in France with an inert screen of darkness.  I could hear the computer humming away beneath it.  “You’ve been a good ole wagon, daddy but ya’ done broke down.”  Fortunately everyone in the family has a computer and most of them are more concerned with their smart phones. 

This morning I have to get go to the place to secure our rental vehicle.  No more bicycles.  We need to cover one-thousand kilometers of driving in the next few days.  And I need to return a book to the bike rental company.  But this is also the first morning since we arrived a few days ago when I might be able to have my computer looked at.  My first morning was a Sunday and any sort of computer store was most assuredly closed. There is a store I’d searched out that day that serves Mac’s here in Avignon so before I do anything else I hike up into the old city and try to find the place. 

I had more time to think about how this was going to be a useless venture than I’d initially considered.  It was a good twenty-five minutes of marching, considering all the time my progression on my little mapping app.  The city was just rising and there was only the occasional person walking in front of me, or cutting across my path.  I came up on what must have been the street and the number of my Mac store set me before a building that was closed.  I asked the red headed, contemporary of a woman, manning the soap shop next door if she knew about a Mac store.  “Ahh, next block.”  And so it was.

I waited in their petite, hip-ette showroom, while an Italian woman engaged with the two French proprietors.  The men seemed to enjoy peppering their speech with Italian and it was all quite jovial until they turned to me.  I noticed a framed photo of a young Steve Jobs there, beside the main counter from the days when he was hirsute.

A big guy with a buzz cut asked and after falteringly trying to explain the problem in French he gave me the clearance to switch to English.  He looked and my computer, noticed a place in the back where some of the case had been chipped away and then communicated as much in French to his partner, another tall, stout guy with short blond hair. “That was there before the problem . . .” I offered. They suggested they’d need a week to do any diagnostics whatsoever and, as long suspected, the entire venture had been useless as I was leaving town today, never to return.  “Pas de problem” I suppose I had held out hope that they might have spotted something obvious.   They didn’t.  I asked what the quickest way was to a cab queue. 

Rue des Teinturiers

Back in Avignon. The last time we arrived here a few days ago, it was 3:00AM.  No one was interested in eating any dinner.  The next day we were off on our bikes into the countryside.  All we saw of the city was the train station where the rental cars have all gathered and the imposing city walls with their gate towers.  This time, I wanted to head into the old walled city.  I’ve found what appears to be a particularly cool place, but they don’t take reservations.  No one else seems to think going out for dinner is a good idea. 

Compromise. We’ll cab it over to the twisting street that looks so close on the map, the street where the dyers once all had their water wheels and shops.  No one is particularly interested in learning why the slits in the towers were built to accommodate archers, or about how cool medieval guilds were.  But the cab helps to expedite what would have in fact, been a notable schlep and we reached the point beyond which cabs can’t travel to start our journey down the winding, millennium’s-old Rue des Teinturiers beside the River Sorgue. 

A bit of a lark, we are looking for a place call “L’Ubu” that is supposed to be extremely hip at 9:00PM on a Thursday night.  I am actively scoping out compromise eateries to fall back on as we’re likely to be turned away and the neutral mood won’t last long. The street is full of people and late dusk shadows and it isn’t hard to imagine what it might have been, when these plane trees were four hundred years younger.

L’Ubu, which, my kids and I agree, sounds a bit like the mighty warrior from the Three Kingdoms, appears before us sooner than expected.  They have a place for us to sit outside to the side of the pedestrian flow.  “We’ll have a table for you, in less than ten minutes.”  The waiter sports a trim beard and specs and he dashes off after we’ve been settled all this, promising to return shortly with waters for all.  And soon he’s back, jumping over another table to serve a couple and then with similar vim, is on to us again.  “Let me move you to your spot.”  Remarkably he confirmed that he grew up here, just down the road.

I’m not facing the street, but rather the wall of an old building, above the water, and they are broadcasting a strange video mix of nonsensical stitch-togethers.  The food was a not particularly memorable, being all a bit too consciously metro, but the waiter was fun and the setting with its parade of odd actors, tourists and touts all yelling and it seemed almost certainly to be the thing I would most strongly remember about this city.

Apparently It's Not A Very Steep Climb

Baux Provence appears to be a remarkable medieval hill town in the photos I have searched for on Google Images.  I have written ahead though, to ask:  “how high is the hill? How arduous is the bike ride up?” We’re biking there you see and I’m a bit concerned that some of us might make it only part of the way up before throwing in the towel.  

I have been told that cars are only allowed so high up.  Everyone must park and then walk the remaining distance, unless, of course, you are on a bike.  I cling to this as a central supporting beam in my architecture of persuasive blarney.   Other timber includes:  “Apparently it’s not a very steep climb.” “If we have to, we’ll walk our bikes up.”  “It’s not that important.”  “Let’s see what we think.”

Left and left again, passed an aqueduct that I wanted to believe was Roman, up the path and we’re on a golf course.  It is good that someone has mapped all this out for us.  We sail along past the putting green, yielding for golf carts and on beyond two staff like looking people sitting outside a building smoking.  “Is there a place for dining?”  They give us some simple directions, which I mess up and which sends us to an odd collection of overbuilt dwellings, sans any people.  “No, no, no, Monsieur, it’s down there.

Sweaty, dirty and nervous I entered the refined atmosphere of the upscale golf clubhouse.  I kept asking for le petit dejeuner and not the dejeuner but we got in and got a table and got fed, which was absolutely necessary before we could continue.  And it was late now, with the hill before us.  I played my hand as if it were a certainty that we’d make our way up.  But if pressed hard on multiple fronts, I knew I’d have to cave. 

It certainly wasn’t the happiest ride we’d had thus far, but we worked off the lunch and made it to a bluff, beneath the great cliff face.  I bluffed now and said there was a place to park the bikes, right up ahead, when the others finally made it to the crest before the final ascent.  Fortunately, two hundred yards up the path there was a parking slot beneath some stone stairs leading up to the hill town.  And as happens I was hit with a strong sense of resemblance to our walk beneath Mount Parnassus and a slow ascent to the Mehrangarh Fort.  How remarkable now to look down now on the Alpilles.