Notre Dame de Paris is a Gothic cathedral on the Île de la Cité in Paris. Construction began in 1163.
I went to France in the summer of 2004. I wanted to mark the 60th anniversary of the Allied invasion of Europe by seeing the D-Day beaches and following in the footsteps of what Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation as they fought their way from the Normandy coast to Bastogne and beyond.
For the first time in many years, I joined a group tour. Group tours have their pluses and minuses, but in this particular instance the upside far outweighed the down. Arranged by the University of Virginia, the tour was a serious educational experience. Traveling across France with us on our comfortable Mercedes bus -- complete with onboard bathroom and mini-kitchen -- were an excellent tour guide and a superb military expert who was a retired Army colonel and had taught command and tactics at West Point. Both made every mile of the journey come alive through history lessons masked within absorbing stories.
We were also fortunate to have three elderly veterans of the Normandy invasion as fellow tour participants. The experience was one I will never forget.
We began with a flight to Paris, where we spent one night. While others in the group climbed on board a bus for a "panoramic tour of Paris" on our lone free afternoon, I struck out on my own for the Île de la Cité in the middle of the Seine to spend some time, naturally, at Notre Dame de Paris cathedral.
The day was not without its challenges. I don't speak French, so getting from our hotel by myself via the underground Metro armed with nothing but a simple map and advice from the hotel's concierge was not easy. I made the journey without much trouble. But as I exited the Metro and began the walk across the bridge to the island, a working woman of the streets linked her arm in mine and suggested in fractured English that she could show me a much more interesting time than I'd find at an old church. I purposefully misunderstood everything she said, and after about 5 minutes of walking with her clutching my arm, she gave up, disengaged herself, and wished me bonne chance!
One of the great pleasures of travel is serendipitous adventures. There were to be many, many more on this memorable trip.
Posts
Your temporary friend offered you a "much more interesting time than (you'd) find at an old church." Pity you didn't speak more French. What she really said was that she worked at the Musee d"Orsay and could get you in to the docent's party that night for a close-up look at all the impressionism. What did YOU think she meant?
ReplyDelete