“…wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”
-Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
“How can you govern a country which has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?”
-Charles de Gaulle, Les Mots du Général by Ernest Mignon
Later in my journey, when I was in Scotland, I would go to my tent at night so busy thinking and reminiscing over the day that I could not sleep. I bought an herbal lemon tea and mixed it with honey to help with this. After several days, still without good sleep, a man I met at a campground poured some local malt whisky into my mixture. That made all the difference–I slept like a bear in the middle of winter. Jenn and I might disagree over who was the herbal lemon tea and who was the honey, and I will leave it to you to decide, but my brother Chris was the whiskey. It took a while to get used to the new ingredient–there was now 50% more to take into consideration–but we worked well together. Whatever it was that we planned on doing, Chris made it work better than we two would have done without him. He has a left brain analyzing decisiveness that Jenn and I lack. Altogether, we looked like a redheaded gipsy caravan.
We made some poor travelling decisions, though. We carried our bicycles in boxes or bags through most of France. There are too many stories of the frustrations to tell. We would shove the bikes into crannies on trains, and drop one bag to catch another from falling. What was most pathetic was when one of the taxi drivers we hired to transport this mess asked us what the point of bringing the bikes was. But anyways, once they were out, they were out for good. I am telling you this so the rest of the story is not tainted with this lunacy. I remember all the lugging and heaving as if it were in a separate universe. Dropping the packaged bikes, we would become travellers exploring the world. Picking them up we would become sweaty American cranks. The rest of this will take place in the travellers’ universe.
The transition from Spain to France was more of a culture shock than between Morocco to Spain. I expected Spain to be more European and less North African, and it was the similarities that were strange to me. Whereas I expected France to be like Spain, but I found them very different.
The French language was the biggest difference. Luckily, it shares enough with Spanish that I could understand if the words were written. But when it was spoken, I was completely lost. My theory is that it was invented by smooth talking, sophisticated Germans attempting to learn Spanish while fighting through a head cold. The writers of language history books won’t tell you that, but two pieces of evidence point to it. First, they say their r’s in the back of their throats, like Germans. Second, their vocabulary is lifted from Spanish, but ends with sounds obviously imitating some sort of viral infection. For example, the Spanish say the English word “why” as “poor-kay”, whereas the French say it as “poor-qwah”, to which the logical ending is “ah-ah-choo!” If you listen carefully, you can hear the whole thing behind closed doors, with no fear of embarrassment at well-intentioned, though unnecessary, tissues passed around by non-French speakers. Another example is that in Spanish you say “good morning” as “boo-ehnos dee-ahs”. In French, you say “bone zhour”, ending with a glotteral swallow of mucus down the throat.
This brings me to another difference between Spain and France, which is really an English speaker’s misconception. I personally hold that this glotteral, mucusy sound in their r’s is the source of the rumor that the French are pretentious and easily disgusted with things not up to their standards, even a good morning. I do not think anything could be further from the truth. The problem is that it sounds like someone saying “ugh”, which is usually used in a sentence like, “Ugh, her dress looks like it came from Sears. Let’s move to another table so nobody thinks we’re friends.” In my short experience in France, even in the fashionista paradise of Paris, I did not meet people who looked down on others. Only people who held high standards of beauty. Even the museum curators in the Louvre, for whom (I imagined) arrogance was a deciding factor in employment, were down-to-earth. The French that I met were generally well educated, loved art, debated philosophy, and were often haunted by a disappointment with life that can only come to Romantics. But never once did I meet a French person who looked down on anyone else.
We spent the first few days together in the Provence region in a city called Avignon. It is best known for its intimidating stone papal palace and a bridge that never makes it to the other side of the of the Rhône River. There we went to our first little cafés, for which France is known, and we ate savory galettes and crêpes and drank wine or coffee to our hearts’ content. My knowledge of basic phrases includes hardly any French, so encountering anyone who did not speak English was a game of charades. This often meant that I picked something at random on a menu and ordered it. I ended up tasting a lot more food that way, and had everything from a platter of cheese and cold meat slices to a sweet duck foie gras. I picked up some of the language, but with only a week to practice, my fundamentals were still embarrassing when I left.
We wanted to see more of Provence, and Jenn had yet to visit a winery, so we rented a car and Jenn drove, as she was more used to a manual transmission than either of us. Our big stop that day was the Pont du Gard aqueduct from the Roman era, stretching from one hilly bank of the Gardon River to the next. We hiked there for a while and spent the rest of the day meandering throughout the hilly countryside. We stopped wherever suited our fancy, like wineries, roadside fruit stands, cheesemakers, and one stunning town on a tree-covered hill ahead of a golden-green dell. It was an old town, or at least had the look of one. Every structure was of grey and white stone dusted with green and yellow moss. Doors, windows, and any wood surface splintered and peeled. It was empty. There was nobody there. Some front doors were left wide open, including that of a small chapel, but there were no cars and no people. Just the sound of a few birds and the scuttling noises of some lanking cats. I felt as if I were in a cursed town in a fairytale.
Back in Avignon that evening, we found one of the few open restaurants in the city at which to eat. Had we arrived only a half hour later, we would not have gotten food anywhere in the city. France closes its businesses at the same hour that Spain is ramping theirs up for the night. We had to get used to life being on a regular schedule again. But the most major difference between France and Spain was something I began to sense in Avignon. On the whole, it seemed that there was a peaceful quiet to the country that I did not find in Spain except on Sunday mornings. There were usually people walking about in every French town, but everything about them was more subdued and thoughtful. The French, it seemed, went out shopping to see what was there. The Spanish seemed to go shopping with a few specific things in mind, and would proceed to get lost somewhere in finding them. The French are never lost. They are only adjusting their expectations to somewhere they did not plan on being. The French are always in a state of comparing reality to their vision, and this requires quiet concentration. The Spanish, if they ever tried, gave up on realizing their vision long ago, and live a life free of as many expectations as they can. I do not know which one is right. Perhaps they are just different.
As it was, our redheaded gypsy caravan was on the move again, but with a rearrangement. Jenn wanted to stay in the wine regions down south, but Paris was calling me, and I had convinced Chris to go. So, for the first and only time during the trip, Jenn and I said a temporary goodbye. I packed Samantha into a bag, and she, Chris, and I took a high speed train to the City of Lights. Throughout the Paris trip, we were in constant communication with Jenn. While we were enjoying ourselves in that beautiful city, she was having a far trickier time. She had planned to ride a large amount of miles to Provence. A bike map app on her phone landed her on unpredictable routes, specifically a toll road screaming with cars. To save time and her life, she took a train to Provence. This mode of transport disappointed as well with a railroad strike held her back a day from meeting us in Tours. Though high speed trains in France require that a bicycle be packaged, almost no bicycle bags are sold in the country it seems. She finally wrapped it in a tarp, and had only one pair of hands for the all of her luggage. I would have felt bad about this, but Paris is a beautiful city. One which wipes the mind clean of worries.
The weather in Paris was bright and sunny. Every day had perfect springtime clouds–white and fluffy like scoops of ice cream–moving in proud procession over the land and under proud blue skies. The city is sliced up into different districts, each emanating from the center like a mollusk shell. All the great sights, like the Champs-Élysées and the Eiffel Tower, are spread throughout. Yet at each one, it feels like central Paris. It is a massive city, and to get anywhere by walking takes a great deal of time. But there is a flow and a rhythm that seems to get you anywhere you want to go exactly when need to be there.
Another curious effect that it had on me, which I felt nowhere else the rest of the journey, was that I became self conscious of what I was wearing. My logical side refused to entertain the thought of carrying the weight of more clothing. But I felt underdressed, and somewhat embarrassed when I encountered any Parisian girls. For the most part, I had two types of clothing. For my bottom half, I had brown and light tan cargo pants that would unzip into shorts. For my top half, green, blue, and tan multi-pocketed vented collared shirts. Besides these and the normal necessities, was my classiest piece of clothing: a plain, light blue t-shirt, so I didn’t always feel like I was on safari. Five pants, six shirts. I was adamant that I would not need more, and I did not. But in Paris, I wore my light blue t-shirt every day. I wished I could have rented some nicer clothes. Perhaps, when I return someday, that will be a business I will start.
Travelling with Chris made for nonsensical, awkward experiences, which was enjoyable as this is our shared sense of humor. Together, we were pretty good at making a plan, and so we did for Paris and followed it through. We spent a day at the Louvre, explored the catacombs, meandered through the cathedral of Notre Dame, walked the Champs-Élysées from end to end, and watched the lighting of the Eiffel Tower.
I am afraid to say too much or too little about the Louvre. There are more than enough explanations of it, written by far more knowledgeable and capable authors than yours truly. Too much, and I will slip on a detail. Too little, and you might as well not be reading. Here are the basics, the Louvre is the largest museum in the world with some of the most treasured art from all eras and locations. It holds everything from ancient Assyrian statues of cherubim to western classics like Mona Lisa (which takes about 15 minutes of crowd fighting to get about 5 seconds of clear sightline). It was once a palace, and retains much of that atmosphere in its many halls. It is a highlight of Paris. Some say you cannot see it all in an entire day. Chris and I took that as a challenge, and proved them wrong, exiting punch-drunk on art and dizzy with names and dates.
The sign above the entrance to the catacombs says “Arrête! C’est ici l’empire de la Mort” (“Stop! This is the Empire of the Dead”). Despite the warning, it is more unnerving in memory than it was in the moment that I was in underground tunnels with piles of human skulls and other bones. I tried to have a level-10 reverence for the dead, but the graffiti on the bones and the giggly irreverence of the other entrants put a cap on it at about a 5. By the way, I don’t know who JR or EP are, but I hope you are haunted by your lack of respect and are no longer + each other.
The cathedral of Notre Dame was a very reverent experience. After having been affected so deeply in Barcelona’s basilica of La Sagrada Familia, I took cathedrals more serious than I had before. And we happened to visit during a mass, a mystical thing to watch. I will not bore you with it. I am aware of the fact that the vast majority of mankind, even fellow travellers and religious people, do not find the same magic in the rituals and solemnity and the corporate singing of music and the flickering sea of candles casting a sea of rippling shadows on the stone walls and the incense smoke rising like spirits to the starry ceilings and the feeling of taking part in something ancient yet present. So without a grudge, I will move on to how impressive the flying buttresses were.
The flying buttresses were impressive.
With the stained glass windows as a giant eye, the cathedral looked as if it were a sacred and beautiful spider that might pick itself up and crawl away if Paris ever became too sacrilegious for something so holy. Then again, Paris has seen more sacrilegious days than now and Notre Dame is still there. Perhaps those spider legs will hold their ground if those days should come again.
The final evening in Paris, we strolled the “world’s most beautiful avenue”: the massive, strictly manicured Champs-Élysées. We stopped at different times to eat ice cream or sweet crêpes from one of the many confectionary stands in parks or shopping areas off the main stretch. It was a beautiful evening. Some extra clouds moved in to diffuse the city into a haunting blue, and a golden sunset cusped the gap between sky and horizon. We took some time at the Arc de Triomphe, standing at the last pedestrian walkway light in the middle of the frantic roundabout. Then we headed to the Palais de Chaillot on a hill in Trocadéro. There we sat on a ledge looking down the long waterway of fountains at the Eiffel Tower. At last it began to sparkle with lights, awakening to its electric nightlife.
It is hard to express how much I loved Paris. It casts a spell that makes one want to write or paint or think or love or do anything worth doing eternally. I have a dream of returning there someday in nicer clothes, learning French, getting a florist girl to fall in love with me, then having my heart broken and sitting in cafés, drinking champagne and espresso, picking up smoking of unfiltered cigarettes, and writing about the depths of sorrow and joy till my fingers bleed. Or maybe I’ll just spend a few more days next time, I don’t want to set the bar too high.
We took a train in the morning to the small quaint town of Tours in the chateaux laden Loire Valley. There we got an AirBnB in a half timbered apartment above a pizza restaurant. As I said, Jenn made it to Tours a day late due to a railroad strike. All high-speed French trains require bicycles to be in some sort of bag, even if all you do is drape it over the frame. Jenn had wrapped hers in a heavy blue tarp, and was a pathetic sight to see, alone with all that to carry. We all put together our bicycles the day she arrived. I spent the afternoon repairing a slight wobble in my rear wheel. And by repairing, I mean making it an enormous wobble, then fixing it back to a little worse than it was before. My spokes were to be a harbinger on most of the miles we all rode together. But I won’t spoil a story for another chapter.
Clouds moved in over the Loire Valley and it began to sprinkle. Eager to test that everything was in working order, Chris and I rode our bikes down some wet and misty roads to Chateau Villandry. The chateaux of the Loire Valley are pristine castles filled with decadent architecture and art. They are usually surrounded by sweeping lawns, fountained ponds, and prim, colorful gardens. In the rain, this was especially enchanting. Jenn stayed at a wine festival in town. An essential element of Jenn-ness is wine tasting, and she did not have enough of it in her few days in France.
The next day was a magic beast of a day. We rented a car and drove to Chateau Chenonceau. The castle is near-white, with steep blue roofs capping each section. Inside, the walls and floors are either wood or stone, often draped in tapestries and rugs. There were many rooms throughout, bedrooms with ornate beds and fireplaces, windowed hallways with checkered flooring, and a large kitchen below it all. We finished our visit and drove through hours of French countryside, avoiding tollways, to Mont Saint-Michel.
It was something out of an epic fantasy. Arising from a muddy plane on the cold northern coast is a large steep formation of rock, soil, and trees. Near the bottom, a stone and half-timbered village begins. It rises up the formation until it reaches a thick set of walls which shoot upwards towards a grand cathedral. On top, a steeple pierces the sky. At any moment, I felt as if a dragon might spread his wings from either side of the church, rising up and landing on its roof. We arrived a few minutes too late to enter the cathedral. But we charged around the cobbled streets like knight errants before they closed the gates. Alas, we found no dragons.
The next day, we took a slow train, which allowed unpackaged bikes, to a station in Paris. From there, we rode through the rainy streets to a second station and boarded the next train to Freiburg, Germany. Out of the land of misty chateaux and quaint cafés our redheaded gipsy caravan went, and into the Black Forest of Germany. Our bicycle journey was about to begin.
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