GHS 212 Mini-reunion in Paris

Last weekend, we had a mini-reunion -- in Paris. It was not a "big" year, like a decade year; the next one of those will be the 50th and I'm sure it'll be in Philly so the maximum number can attend. No, this was the 47th and not an official reunion, of course. It all started at the 45th, two years ago, with people saying how they would really like to come to Paris. Over the years, several classmates have come to Paris, individually, and occasionally their trips have coincided and we've had lunch or dinner together. I always enjoy meeting up with these visitors. As I've said before, most of these women and I did not know each other in high school. It was, and still is, a very big high school, with hundreds of girls in a graduation year (what the French call "une promo"). Class 212 graduated in 1968.
A little over a year ago, I created a poll to find out how many of our classmates wanted to come to Paris, thought they could do it, and when they would prefer to do it. Of course, not everyone could come and of those who could, not everyone could come at just any date, so I had to find the best solution. For the teachers in the group, we had to do it before classes started, and that pushed us to August instead of September and this year just seemed more popular than next year. I wrote to a couple of tour directors I know to ask about how to organize a group. I had about 25 classmates interested and if I added in spouses and other travelling companions it could have been a very large group. Gary Kraut, of France Revisited gave me some very sound advice: involve a travel agent in the US and get a deposit from the participants at least 6 months before the reunion. No one used the travel agent, but she was nevertheless very helpful in suggesting they make their own flight arrangements and even suggested a hotel or two. And once the request for deposits went out, the group size dropped, too, which, for me, was easier to deal with.
I'm not going to name names in the blog; I don't know how each person feels about having her name out there, so I'll just use initials, if I talk of anyone specifically, at all. If you decide to leave a comment, it's up to you to name yourself, but please leave out others' names unless they have already identified themselves. This is also why I am only going to post the "official" photo that was taken before we went for our walks, because Tom, the photographer asked if anyone minded it going up and no one did.

The reunion was from Friday evening to Sunday noon. Some arrived a few days before, some stayed a few days after, but the part I took care of was just that bit. (a couple GB and EZ with E's husband) arrived for a great stay with us and a little trip to the southwest of France -- preceding posts) First off, a dinner cruise on the Capitaine Fracasse. We met at the loading dock on the Ile des Cygnes between the Bir-Hakeim and Grenelle bridges. Four of the group were in a taxi whose driver did not know how to get onto the Bir-Hakeim bridge to leave them off and drove them around and around. But they made it! And one whose flight was via Moscow came running across the bridge trailing her suitcase, and she made it! All 17 of us (11 classmates, spouses and friends) made it. It was a warm evening and the banks of the Seine were packed with people just hanging out, drinking, eating, dancing. We didn't see much of the monuments; we were too busy talking! The food was excellent, much better than I think anyone expected. After dinner, we went up to the upper deck to see the sights and just before we docked, the Eiffel Tower did its hourly show of blinking lights right in front of us. (I can't seem to add the image google made of the assembled burst of shots -- quite nice, but sorry, not here.)
This was the real reunion.
On Saturday morning, everyone dragged herself out of bed to meet at the Splendid Hotel Tour Eiffel, where most were staying, for our 4-hour bus tour of Paris. To start, the four at the Hotel Albe had a taxi driver who took them to a different Hotel Splendid and they had to walk fast to be on time. (By the way, everyone was satisfied with the hotels. The Splendid will be completely renovated starting next month, so I imagine it'll be more expensive next season.) On the way, they were able to take in the cavalry horses in training at the Ecole Militaire, not a sight most tourists get. The guide was a few minutes early, but the bus was an hour late!
Our guide, Richard, is from Madagascar. His English is good, when just speaking with him individually, but on the bus, in the fuzzy mike, giving his tourist spiel, well, no. His accent got in the way. It's not a typical French accent. He didn't stress the right syllables (NA-po-leen), and he mixed up some syllables (lily water flowers - liliwarflor), so if anyone was really listening, it was next to impossible to follow. We had to cut the tour to 3 hours, and we did get a discount. We stopped at Montmartre and most of the group climbed all the way to the top. As requested, we got dropped off at the Place d'Odéon and were able to get a bit to eat before the walking tours started at 2.
Most of the group went on the James Baldwin in Paris walk with Monique Wells. I wasn't on this walk. The impressions I got later in the evening were that it was a very hot day and the pace was perhaps a bit too fast. They heard a lot about the fights he got into and not much about what he wrote in Paris or the political circumstances. On the whole, though, they liked the walk. A suggestion to tourists on a guided walk would be to give the feedback as you go, so the guide can adjust the spiel.
I had the privilege of leading the smaller group in the Marais. We caught the 96 bus at Odéon and got off at Saint Gervais, to start the tour at the Shoah Memorial. I think it went well. It was a very, very hot day and we stopped about half way through for some drinks or ice cream. (I had the advantage of being part of the group, not an external, hired guide.) This stop also allowed us to readjust our expectations, so we cut out going all the way to the Museum of Jewish Art and History and I cut short the commentary on the mansions north of the rue des Francs Bourgeois. We ended at the Place des Vosges and went on to Bastille to catch a bus back to the hotels.
Dinner on Saturday evening was at the Grand Bistro on the Place Breteuil. The terrace was open; it was almost like being outside. It was perfect. By this time, we had decided to cancel the Sunday picnic at the Parc Floral since it was going to rain, and it did rain on Sunday morning. Some, not all, of us gathered at the Splendid and then went to a café on the deserted rue Cler for a coffee/late breakfast. I left the group, there, to go home and flop on the couch, while the others continued their tourism. From the pictures they've shared, I think they got a lot out of their short stay and I'm so, so happy they came.

To Najac and Back, part 2

It was just an hour to go from Cordes-sur-Ciel to Najac. We crossed the 13th century bridge, St. Blaise and watched a group of kids who had stopped for a swim and a few kayakers trying to get the feel of the kayaks as they fought the current. (Very little current and the river is very low in spite of the recent rain. In fact, they were going with the current and still had trouble.)
This bridge is already part of Najac. The hotel is just the next bridge upstream, within walking distance. We got to the hotel early enough to just rest. Having spent three days driving, we were ready to just settle a bit and have dinner at the hotel. This was our third stay at the Belle Rive and this time we were treated to a big room. Well, two rooms since we had our friends with us: a double and a triple. Each room also had a sofa and a desk or coffee table and plenty of closed space. This was nice for a four-day stay. We had dinner there the first evening and two other dinners -- the menu doesn't change enough for a really long stay. Everything was well-prepared and well-served, but a longer stay would have been monotonous, I think. The asparagus omelet from April has become a mushroom omelet in summer. I've posted a view of the fortress from the hotel before, so here is one of the hotel from the fortress. Click on the photo to enlarge it. You can see the hotel, the swimming pool and the tennis court. Since it had rained, the pool was a bit too chilly. We had another day of relaxation our last day there and I dipped, but didn't swim.

On Sunday, we went to Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val after a brief walk in Najac, up on the crest of the hill. The whole idea of going to St. Antonin on a Sunday was to see the town on a market day, except we couldn't see the market or the town (medieval) for all the people! The place has become more and more popular as they exploit the filming of The Hundred Foot Journey (La Recette du Bonheur) a couple of years ago. It was released in 2014. I had asked Emma to reserve a table at La Festin de Babette for an excellent lunch and meeting up with them. It was a long, leisurely, Sunday lunch along the river. After lunch, we went up to Le Pède to see the new kittens and show off the site.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in conversation, walking around, admiring the views, the work done, the work still coming up, the kittens, the vegetable garden, the kittens. There are three, but I only dared put up a photo of one. I'm a sucker for kittens and I'm not alone.
We got back to Najac just in time to see the austere church and climb up to the fortress for one of the last tours of the day. It's really very interesting. The site was inhabited before the 10th century because the area was rich in copper, silver, iron and more. All those trees we see around were not there; it was almost entirely vineyard.

By the 10th century, there was a château. The difference between a château, a château-fort, and a fortress is a château is inhabited by the lord; a château-fort is a fortified château, and a fortress is occupied by troops, only. Najac was in the Comte de Toulouse's territory, with a strong Cathare population. It was also the administrative capital of the Rouergue region. After the victory of Alphonse de Poitiers, King Louis IX (St. Louis)'s brother, in 1229, the city of 6000 lost it's status. Alphonse de Poitiers created the new town of Villefranche-de-Rouergue, upstream on the river, tempted the population with a tax-free incentive and that was the end of Najac's wealth. The château was mostly destroyed (there's still a square tower) and replaced by the military fortress, with a drawbridge, an offset main door, the longest archer slots in the world (where have we heard that before?) and more.
In spite of the climb up to there, we were still stuffed from our lunch and picked up something for dinner from the bakery in Najac.

I had promised M that we'd see dolmens. Monday, we went looking for dolmens near Martiel and finally found them. I had printed out the map and we only did a little of the walk, points 1to 5.
At the end, 5, there was a depression, maybe the quarry where they got the stones in about 1500 BC. There was also a cave. Paul and I did not go into the cave; we left to go back to the car thinking the others were just behind us. After telling us they'd follow, they went into the cave and explored and took pictures. They lost track of time and when they came out they lost track of the track. We were worried, having waited an hour by the car. They had the keys, so we couldn't go for help and there was no phone reception. Big, big sigh of relief when they came down the trail, at last.
It was already past noon and we sped to Villefranche for lunch, followed by a short visit of the town and then on to the potter in Saint-André-de-Najac. Since our very first visit, when we noticed his window display in Najac, we'd been wanting to go to his place.
The original plan was to go to Toulouse on Tuesday, but we were all spent and decided on a day of rest before heading back to Nogent on Wednesday.

To Pechmerle, Albi, Najac and back

There's quite a lot of catching up to do.We are home from a vacation in the southwest and last month we went to England and before that I think I've already forgotten what we did. This and the following couple of posts are not in chronological order of events

When we go home, a bunch of high school friends, 16 counting spouses and accompanying friends, came to Paris for a mini-reunion. This is similar to what we did in the Catskills, except there were only 8 in the party. We did it at Barnegat Light five years ago and there were 16 of us. There was a major reunion in Philly three years ago and at that time, some said how much they'd like to come to Paris.So, they are coming! Not everyone who wanted to – it was impossible to fit everyone's scheduling needs or finances, but enough to call it a mini-reunion, of sorts. But, before we get to the reunion, we (Paul and I) had a week with Er... and Ga.. and Er's husband, Mor...

They arrived on Wednesday morning and Paul accompanied them to pick up the rental in the afternoon. It's a Nissan van. I've never seen such a poorly designed van. Supposedly, it corresponds to a « grand Espace », which is what was described on the rental site. I know that in a grand Espace, there are real seats in the back and room for baggage. This thing is a short van. The middle seat in the middle is a hump, for a kid.The seats in the back have no legroom – also for kids. We managed. Since we didn't need both back seats, we folded one to the side for baggage room and folded the short part of the middle seat forward to give the person in the back some legroom. We were traveling light, so we found room for the baggage.

We left on Thursday morning and spent all day on the road – a long drive down to La-Tour-De-Faure, across the river from Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, a "must see" village in the region. By the time we checked into the hotel, found a gas station and then headed into the village it had started to rain. By the time we found a parking spot in a lot at the high end of the village it was pouring. There was a mass exodus from the parking lot, which means we found a parking space easily and it also meant that, in this very touristy spot, we were able to walk easily in the streets. So, we walked. Like so many of these villages, there's a castle at the very top of a hill (in this case, it's just a ruin of a castle) and the town grew around the castle. St. Cirq has several streets, so it's not just along the crest, but they are all narrow, steep streets with 12th and 13th century half-timbered buildings and then later stone houses. You can see the shop window/workshop architecture of the period. As I said, it was pouring, so we did not do as much browsing as we might have done otherwise. We retreated into the first little restaurant that looked open at such an early hour (6 pm) and got ourselves a table. We had very low expectations; all we wanted to do was get out of the rain. Big surprise! The fish, the cassoulet, the confit de canard – everything was good, very good at Lou Faoure

The hotel in La-Tour-De-Faure, Hotel des Gabarres, was comfortable and I had chosen it because it is not far to Cabrerets, where the cro-magnon Pech Merle is. Paul and I had visited Pech Merle 14 years ago and I knew this was not to be missed. Our visit on Friday morning was reserved for 11:15, so we had plenty of time to spend in the museum. It's a tiny museum, but worth spending time in. It rained most of the morning, but that's not a problem when visiting a cave. Our tour was in English, very well done by a young man who took his time, kept making sure we all understood him and making sure that everyone got to see what he was highlighting with his laser pointer. This is the cave with handprints and spotted horses, lots of mammouth and bison. Geologically, it is a very big cave with high and wide chambers and narrow passages, but beautiful calcite « marbles » in one place, multicolored discs elsewhere, fountain-like stalagtites and stalagmites. It's got bear claw marks and human footprints that go back to the cave painting period from 20,000 to 40,000 years ago. Because there is so little charcoal used in these paintings, they can't date them precisely. All they can figure out is that there were several periods. Some paintings are superimposed on others – there's a fish, in red, that you can make out beneath one of the spotted horses. The panel of spotted horses was done in black with the spitting technique – the painter put the pigment in his or her mouth and spat the outline of the animals, the spots, the handprints. The pigments were manganese oxide for black and ferrous oxide for red. There's a tiny bit of charcoal filling in the mane of one of the horses, which is how they can date that, but was that added later or is it contemporary to the horses? I just love this stuff!

We had lunch – a good lunch – in Cabrerets and headed for Albi.The car's GPS does not let us see the itinerary or choose an itinerary, but I had the map in hand. On a Michelin map, red is a major road, a former national road; yellow is a bit less major, a departmental road; and white is a local road, often just an unmarked lane barely wide enough for two-way traffic. The shortest route took us on lots of white roads and that's what the GPS wanted us to follow, but they were bumpy and uncomfortable, so in spite of the temptation to go on the road past Emma's, we ignored the GPS and took the road via Villefranche-de-Rouergue. The GPS's pleas that we turn around got on our nerves, but we persevered and arrived at Albi at exactly the time it had originally said we would. We found our hotel and set out almost immediately to wander around the city. It was too late for the Toulouse-Lautrec museum and the cathedral was too dark to see anything really well, but we meandered and found ourselves at a very nice little restaurant for another excellent dinner.

The next morning, we opened the Toulouse-Lautrec museum and had the museum to ourselves for most of the visit. I like this museum; it is made up of work rejected by the Paris museums after his death in 1901. It's full of sketches and early renditions of paintings and posters we know well. There are plenty of drawings and watercolors from when he was only 11 years old. You can see how his art evolved. It's housed in the former bishop's quarters, next to the cathedral, so just the building merits a visit. You can see the medieval paving blocks that made the floors look like cartpets, the painted ceiling beams and painted ceilings. It was a palace. In the 16th century, the then bishop turned the farmyard into an elegant garden.

The cathedral has been restored inside and they are in the process of cleaning up the stonework on the outside at the entrance. We were too late to get tickets to see the most interesting section, the inner sanctum and we needed to leave before mass at 11. It was Assomption, a major holiday in France. That gave us time to finish up the visit at the museum and see more of the gardens.

Before leaving Albi we stopped at the market and got ourselves the wherewithal to make a nice picnic lunch, which we ate on the way to Cordes-sur-Ciel at a turn in the road with a wonderful view of Albi in the distance.

Cordes-sur-Ciel is a planned town. In the 12th century, during the Cathare heresy, the count of Toulouse was in a power struggle with the king of France. He created this town at the top of a hill, of course. There was no castle already there and he did not build one. Instead, he created a walled town and invited farmers and merchants to live in the town and farm the fields below – tax-free. In exchange, they were to protect the town, which was on the border of the king's territory. The center of the town at the very top of the hill was the market place not the church. The town was Cathare and resisted the inquisition and the imposed return to Catholicism (from Albi) until 1321. Once there was no religious or power struggle to worry about, the town florished and the early Renaissance homes along the main street are magnificent. The town has become a bit more touristy than it was 14 years ago, the last time we were there.

We allowed the GPS to direct us to Najac along the white roads that wind through the countryside – again a stone's throw from Emma's. Next installment.