Ben in France

Well, really, there are too many stories to tell.  Ben arrived in Paris on 7/1/11, and I was there at the gate to meet him when he came through customs.  I had taken the 0637 train from Carcassonne, and at 0721 caught the TGV (high speed train) from Narbonne to Paris-CDG airport.  The train comes into Terminal 2 at the airport, so I had to catch a shuttle to Terminal 1, but I was there waiting for him.  It was kind of funny, watching folks walk through the door after customs.  Several planes of dark-haired folks came through, and one military flight from Germany came through (everyone had on fatigues and carried camoflouged duffle bags).  But we could ALL tell when Icelandic Air landed and those folks started coming through the gates--white-blond hair on everybody (except Ben).  He kind of stuck out--too tall, too dark to be Icelander.

We took in Notre Dame after arriving and settling in at our hotel--good to keep moving, so as not to go to sleep (we were both tired! He'd been flying for 10 hours and I'd been on the train for 6).  We ate a meal at the restaurant next door to our hotel, Hippopotamus (the European equivalent of Denny's) and passed out for the night.  The next day, we went to the Louvre and Luxembourg Gardens.  The following day we took the 0910 train for Bayeux, in Normandy--2 hrs from Paris.  We saw the Bayeux Tapestry there (77 meters long!) which tells the story of the Battle of Hastings and William the Conqueror in 1066 AD.  I hadn't remembered that he was "William the Bastard" prior to that Battle--he was probably called worse by the Anglo-Saxons he conquered!  We were fortunate in that there was a Medieval Faire in Bayeux that Sunday afternoon, and what a wonderful place to have it!  The medieval town of Bayeux was just the best setting for that Faire.  There was music, and jugglers, and costumed folks on stilts amusing the crowd, and Norman apple cider (a specialty of the area) to taste.  It was altogether perfect!  On the Fourth of July we went around the town in the AM, saw Bayeux Cathedral and went to Omaha Beach, gun battlements at The Hook, and the US Cemetery and Military Memorial there.  A great way to spend Independence Day, remembering those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom in 1944.

We took the evening train back to Paris, and on the 5th we went to Musee d'Orsay, the Impressionist museum in Paris which was made out of the old train station there.  Very interesting.  Walked around the Eiffel Tower area, ate dinner and went back to the Eiffel Tower for their nighttime show of twinkling lights on the Tower, which they do for 10 minutes every hour from 10 pm to 2 am.  It was fun.  The next morning we headed out of Paris for Beaune, a town in the middle of Burgundy.  We stayed at Lion d"Or, a nice hotel in the town, and went to Marche du Vins, a community wine-tasting experience held in an old abbey in town.  The next day, we met our guide, David, at 0900 and did a full day tour of the Burgundy Valley, complete with a great 6-course lunch with 10 wines to taste!  (Glad I wasn't driving!).  We saw the Cotes-de-Baune area and the Cotes-de-Nuits area, both of which produce great Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays (the only 2 grapes which grow in Burgundy, where the winters are pretty cold).  For Steve Schiebel: we saw the vineyards of Joseph Drouhin, the father of the Domaine Drouhin folks in Oregon!  It rained all day, but we got to taste wines in 4 different places, so we didn't care . . .

The next day we returned by train to Carcassonne.  Left Beaune at 0653 to Lyon, and caught the TGV around to Carcassonne, arriving here at 1320 in the afternoon!  (we thought we wouldn't get here til about 1630, but our reservations had us going to Toulouse, waiting for an hour, and then returning on a milk-run train to Carcassonne--as it turned out, the TGV stopped in Carcassonne on its way to Toulouse, so we hopped off and saved ourselves 3 hours!).  We toured castles, abbeys, museums, and just generally enjoyed a more relaxed schedule.  Ben LOVES cassoulet, the local specialty--a white bean stew with confit de canard (duck), and sausage, with or without pork added.  He had it four times, I believe.  Now he's gone back to the US, in search of the perfect cassoulet recipe.

On the Fourteenth of July (Jour de Bastille, their independence day), we watched the most amazing fireworks show over the walls of the old city that I have ever seen.  They really take their jour de Bastille seriously!  The day before that, we had visited some castles in the south, the "sons of Carcassonne"--the Castles which were on the border between Occitaine and the Spanish kingdoms of Navarre, Catalonia, and Aragon. We went to Queribus Castle on the day it was raining in Carcassonne, and for awhile we missed the storm--but while climbing up the long hill to the castle, the wind picked up to 80 mph gusts going through those castle walls/gates, and the wind actually blew Ben's glasses off his face!  (He caught them).  So we cautiously came down the hill and didn't go to Peyrepertuse, the neighboring castle which we could see from Queribus--we could see the wind and rain pounding that castle, so skipped it altogether!  But we had fun.  Ben has always loved climbing around on old castles--he loved it as a 3 year old in Ireland, and he loved it this trip, too.  He was very taken with the history of the area, as am I.  The apartment seems too quiet now that he's gone.