Rome

Rome

Cooking classes complete, we were on our way to Rome. Italy is not a big country, so we took the train. It only took 45 minutes, and we were deposited in the centre of the city. Ya gotta love the train for that.

Finding our way to the subway and sorting in out to our stop went off without a hitch; the short walk to the Hotel Empire Palace, less so. It was 35 degrees and humid when we surfaced at the corner of Via Vittorio Veneto and Via Leonida Bissolati, scaling Via Leonida to Via Settembra, losing our way every few steps while we searched for cross-streets on our map. The streets of Rome are not what I would call a grid. We’d only gone a couple blocks so far, and if those few steps were any indication, finding our way didn’t bode well, so we decided to keep out of the warren for a while until we found our bearings. That went better. We had to double back a couple short blocks, but we arrived, a little warm and flustered, but otherwise without mishap. We knew our best routes before too long and kept to them.
There were restaurants along the way, shops and wine outlets. They were good, but we’d been spoiled. No meal could compare with those we’d prepared under the tutelage of Claudio. We had to remind ourselves that they weren’t bad. They were better than most restaurants we’d ever ate in, as a matter of fact. But nothing compares to home-cooked, if done right. And we’d done right.

On impulse, I ducked into a Brioni outlet, where I could have bought an uber-expensive Italian suit, were I so inclined. It was not large. Rather narrow, in fact. The shelves were not so packed with wares as we’re accustomed to. Everything was just so. So much so that a sales clerk followed my every move while I was within. Just in case I stole something, I suppose. “Not to worry,” I told him after he’d shadowed me for a minute or so, “I may not look it," (shorts, T, and sandals) "but I can afford anything in this shop.” I could. I own Canali and a few customs, if that means anything to you. I just chose not to. I didn’t need another suit. I just wanted to take a peek at James Bond’s (the Pierce Bronson years) tailor.

The Colosseum

We began the grand tour the next day, taking the subway to the Colosseum. The guidebooks had warned us to get there early to avoid the lines. What we thought early was not early enough, apparently. There were long lines already. We bought our Roma Passes and set about waiting for the line to move. It did not. Not to worry; we did not wait too long before being headhunted.

“Why are you waiting in line?” a young man said. “Buy a tour with us?” he said.
I was reticent. I told him I’d been warned about scams. He set me at ease.
“You are not buying the tour from me,” he said. “You are buying a tour from that lady, over there,” he said, pointing at a young woman with an abundance of people around her.
“What’s in it for you?” I asked
“I get a commission for bringing you to her,” he said.

The Forum

“Sold,” I said, eager to get out of the line and into the shade she was in. We lucked out. It was not a scam. She was a travel agent of an actual agency situated just outside the Vatican. More than that, the tour we were booking was not just for the Colosseum; it included a tour of the Forum in the afternoon. We passed the line, having booked their tour, only then realizing that the line we had been in was only the tail of a much longer line. We’d likely saved ourselves hours, if not the whole day, booking with them.

Great tour. Of course I’d say that. I love history. I especially love the Cradle of Civilization stuff. I’d taken Classical History in university, after all. I barely listened to the guide, already knowing what I was looking at, its history, its legend. So too the second tour of the Forum, although I did listen more carefully to David, our Italian/Brit guide, from time to time.

When the trip was winding down, David said, “See that small cluster of tourists in the shade by that column?” We nodded. “I want all of you to go there. They’ll leave when we arrive.” We did, and they did. “I hate the sun,” David said, looking up at it through the trees, glaring at it as it glared back down on him and us. All people who live under the glare of the sun hate it, David said. But we had a shield of leaves, then, and its baleful glare was reduced to a whimper.

I paid even closer attention when David gave us travel tips. He told us how to look out for and to avoid pickpockets. “They’re so good, they must have a university to teach them how to do it.” He told us not to buy water from street venders, but to refill our own from the fountains about the city. He told us where the good restaurants were and how to recognize them. He also told us that he was conducting another tour the next night around Trajan’s Column, if we were interested. We were. We signed up for that, too. It was much easier signing on with these consecutive tours than trying to sort them all out, ourselves. So we told ourselves.

Trajan’s Column

So, the next night, we met him under Trajan’s Column, we proceeded to the Parthenon, and then, crossing the Piazza Venezia and the National Museum, where Mussolini made his speeches from his balcony to the gathered masses, we mounted the Spanish Stairs and loitered outside a Roman apartment building. We walked a Roman street under the Commune di Church. We crossed the Tiber on the Ponte Fabricio, again on the Ponte Cestio, and again on the Ponte Sisto, finishing our tour at the Fountain of Neptune in the Piazza Navarro.

David informed us that if we were thinking of touring the Vatican, he was taking names. Why not, we thought, and signed up for that tour, too. Then he brought us to his favourite restaurant a couple blocks outside the piazza, where we had the best pizza of our lives. David gave us two more tips before he left us: never eat in the piazzas, he said, they’re overpriced; and never rent rooms in a hotel if you are staying a week, when you can rent an apartment for a quarter the price.

Vatican City

The Vatican was full, but not as full as it could be, we were informed. We were also informed that if we wished to skip the crowds when visiting the Vatican, February was the best time to come, when tourism was at its lowest and there were only five thousand visitors per day, and not twenty- or fifty-thousand. We shuffled along with those twenty thousand others, following our guide’s raised baton and listening to her lectures by earphone.

Bev lagged behind for a moment. Only a moment. Try as she might, she couldn’t close the gap between us, again, no matter how many times she said “excuse me.” I had to reach through the gap and haul her back next to me.

The Sistine Chapel

We inched through the Borgias apartments, finally allowed to sit in the Sistine Chapel for five minutes before being ushered out. We were the lucky ones, the last allowed in that day, for security reasons. The Pope was going to lead a prayer vigil and the Vatican had to be cleared, for some reason.
We were not denied St. Peter’s Basilica. We were told to take our time, in fact. And we did, marveling at sheer size of it, at the majesty of the domes and the chapels, lingering before the statuary (most notably, Michelangelo’s Pieta) and the altar(s), before buying a few religious trinkets in the gift shop, all blessed by the Pope, apparently (I had the rosaries I bought blessed by Father Pat, just to be on the safe side).

Our final day was spent at Pompeii. I had to go--Classical Studies, and all that—to see the famed city with my own eyes, its cobbled streets, its frescos and its gladiator school. Let’s not forget its brothels; the frescos there were only slightly more risqué than those in people’s homes.

We remembered, our last night, that we wouldn't be allowed to bring the bottles of wine we’d bought with us. Airport security, and all that. So we partook of a bottle, leaving the one that remained for our cleaning lady, with a note, thanking her for her attention during our stay.

And with that, it was time to be on our way.

Roman Holiday, Piazza della Verita

One last thing: Have you ever seen Roman Holiday? You have? Then you know where I’m going with this. Everyone ought to go to the Piazza della Verita. Gregory Peck did, after all, and he brought Audry Hepburn with him. We went, too. There’s a little church called the Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin there. There’s a marble face at its entrance, the face of the sea god Oceanus. Why’s it there? Who knows why? But it’s been there since the seventeenth century. It’s not called the face of Oceanus anymore, though; it’s called the Bocca della Verita, the Mouth of Truth. Go ahead. Stick your hand in its mouth.

Maybe not. Not if you lie. Not if you want to keep you hand, that is. Rumour has it that it bites a liar’s hand off.

I risked it. I put my hand in its mouth. So did Bev. And look...we both walked away with our hands still attached.

So yeah, you can trust me…can’t you?

Tuscany

Casagrande

Chef Claudio picked us up at 9:30 am. That gave me ample time to have breakfast and get to the farmacia to buy my orange cheaters and get back to the Casagrande lobby in time for the pick-up. Breakfast always took place in the covered courtyard of the hotel. It’s a great space. Flagstones under pillared arches, the hedged garden in view. Draped vines cascade from the terrace above. It’s cool in the sunken space, a marked contrast to the heat that each day would bring.

A mother and daughter waited with us, the daughter illustrated by a tattoo for each trip she’d taken. The van darted in and picked us up, winding about the country roads, climbing the Tuscan landscape until we came upon Claudio’s place, where we’d had our welcome meal. But this time we saw it in the light of day. Typically Tuscan, whitewashed and clay-shingled, it set atop the hill, overseeing the neat tiers of olive trees below it. The surrounding grounds looked arid, in spite of how green the landscape appeared. Ditches were non-existent, the occasional clay half pipe leading to grated manholes here and there. We spilled out into a comfortable heat, directed by his wife to a low-lying structure opposite the house. A small, yet varied garden lay at the base of the stair that led to where we’d spend the next few days preparing our own meals. Rows of herbs flavoured the air. From the ground, from varied potted plants. Beyond that lay a long, rectangular swimming pool surrounded by tables.

We descended into the pleasant coolness of a cellar, but it’s not a cellar. A kitchen filled most of the lower building, the unseen bits storage. Not there wasn’t enough storage in the main room. The left wall boasted shelves from floor to ceiling. The rest of the room was sinks and islands and stovetops. There was only one oven, surprisingly small in the expansive space. I was fascinated by it. I was fascinated by how many knives there were, some long, some small, some narrow, some quite wide. One or two as heavy as a mallet.

“I am not going to teach you to cook,” Claudio told us that first day. “Anyone can cook. That’s just following a recipe. I’m going to teach you technique.” And so he did.

We began with a custard, eggplant parmesan, and ravioli stuffed with ricotta. He taught us how to debone and season a chicken. He explained how white wine was better for a sauce. White wine cooks to a golden glow. Add butter and a dusting of flour. Red wine invariably browns.

It was a great experience. We were reticent at first, eager not to appear foolish or display a lack of skill. But familiarity loosens one up. We were all learning, after all, regardless whether some were more experienced than others. One must begin somewhere. Lunch as per our efforts.

We spent the afternoon strolling about Figline, browsing the shops and street vendors until we were picked up for supper, an odd supper at that: wine and cheese tasting. It was more informative than I might have imagined. You hear about perfect pairing, but you have no idea unless you’ve experienced it. We had four wines displayed on the table. An assortment of cheese was brought and we tried each with each wine in turn. Cow cheese, goat cheese, sheep cheese. This variety and that. Some wines fell flat with this type, but the cheese burst forth again with a sip of another. I nibbled. I should have gobbled. I was still starved upon completion, so Claudio brought me a pasta carbonara and desert. Coffee was invariably espresso. Always rich. Always perfectly flavourful, with a proper bitterness that did not overwhelm.

The next morning, I did not have coffee at the hotel, preferring to wait to have Claudio’s perfect coffee. We cooked wild boar, biscotti, a type of flatbread pasta, gnocchi, and a soufflé. Does that sound like a lot of food? It was. We never ate supper until 8 or 9 pm after a five-course lunch. Mind you, we never ate lunch until about 1 pm, either.

I took a swim in the hotel pool before the afternoon excursion to Arezzo. The pool was open to the garden, very cold, but very comfortable once in. Soft conversation echoed off the tile fresco.
It took the better part of an hour to get to Arezzo, where we were met by Stephanie, our guide, outside the Duomo, a Tuscan Gothic Cathedral. She was an Art History prof from Florence U, eager to relate the history and significance of all we saw, beginning with the statue set right outside the Duomo, a statue that said, “You are a conquered city, and I, the Medici of Florence, am your master. Behold me, and be afraid.”

Arezzo

We toured cathedral, treated to a lecture on its stained glass and portrait of Mary Magdalene, we toured the public park Il Prato, with its massive statue, commissioned by Mussolini. We made our way to the Piazza Francesca where “Life is Beautiful” was filmed, where we discovered that Arezzo is a steep city built on a steep hill, and like in Figline, where people still congregated in the market and square, as they have for hundreds of years. Here, too, a mediaeval festival was in progress, or was; it was being dismantled as we rounded the square. More churches followed, one very old, almost Roman, sparse and unadorned except for its painted panels at its entrance and alter, the crypt below the altar, exposed to the nave; the next not so old. The tour culminated in the Basilica Piero della Francesca, a famed Franciscan cathedral, known for its frescos.

Steep Azezzo

We had dinner at the Tattoria il Cantuccio, at the base of the very steep decline that led to it. Bev bought an antique on the way down, a small leather disk box, probably the only thing in the shop we could afford and carry.

We returned in time to catch the end of Figline’s festival. Claudio met us there. We experience fireworks closer than I’ve ever seen, or will again. They were fired off no more than thirty feet from us. The Catherine wheels and flares and floral bursts. The smoke enveloped us, swirled about us, the ash from the spent fireworks falling amid us, landing on us, if not burning us or our clothing. We smelled of sulphur, we reeked of it. We had to shower before bed. We lay our clothes out to air overnight. It didn’t help that much. They still smelled like a spent match the next day.

We had our final cooking class with Claudio the next day: lasagna, peppered beef, focaccia bread, and a something I requested, steak stuffed with prosciutto and sage (delightful, by the way).

San Gimignano

Our afternoon was spent on a driving tour of the Chianti Classico country, San Gimignano and Monteoliveto, visiting a winery while there. We spent time in the piazza before touring the vineyard where we bought a couple bottles. More wine was drank, more food eaten. More trinkets bought.
Bev went straight to bed upon returning. I had to walk the meal off. I walked around the Piazza Figlini a couple times, surprised to see so many people still out at that hour, their children with them, no matter their ages.

Time for bed. We had to repack and make our way to the train station the next day.

Cooking compete, we were on our way to Rome.

The International Kitchen

And now for something completely different. I’d heard about cooking vacations from a B&B host in Stratford a number of years before and the thought had been kicking around my subconscious since. She cooked beautifully. The breakfasts were a sight to behold. And, as I was the primary cook in the family, I wished my meals to look and taste as good. How to do that? Cooking classes. And since there were vacations that catered to such tastes, I thought I might like to dip my ladle in.

There were a number of companies who offered cooking vacations, with names like Epitourian Vacations and The International Kitchen and such. I chose The International Kitchen. They offered an Italian (obviously) cooking course in Tuscany that caught my eye. It wasn’t just cooking classes. There are some like that, but this vacation offered classes in the morning and tours of the surrounding countryside in the afternoon. That pairing appealed to me. It also offered a number of lengths, as well: two days, four days, seven days. I decided that four days sounded just right, because I wanted to spend some time in Rome, as well.

We booked the dates. We packed and boarded the plane. Timmins to Toronto to Frankfurt to Florence. I did not sleep as well as I hoped. My feet swelled, my legs prickled. There were a couple infants in our section that defeated my use of ear plugs. I did sleep a little, but it was a long, and thankfully short, night. We had five hours to kill in Frankfurt, so we strolled, we browsed the duty-free shops, we had breakfast and I had a bit of a snooze under Bev’s watchful eye. I had a beer with my croissant for breakfast. It seemed the thing to do, my having seen more than a few people having the same. When in Rome, or, when in Frankfurt, and all that. The beer helped me sleep. There’s that to recommend it.
Disaster! I left my book and prescription eyeglasses on the plane in Florence. Sadly, it had left by the time I noticed, and it hadn’t really been that long between disembarking and the discovery, but planes are not idle, are they? That pissed me off. I was becoming addled, my memory a fleeting thing, of late. I blame stress. Either way, a reader losing his glasses is a big thing. What to do when you can’t see the written word? Fret. Worry. That’s what’s to do.

Figline Valdarno

We were shuttled from Firenze (Florence) to Hotel Casagrande in Figline Valdarno after said disaster, with me fretting about my foggy vision, barely taking note of the Cyprus trees and vineyards that rushed past us on either side of the highway. I’d asked the airline to attempt to retrieve them, but I knew it was a lost cause. They didn’t sound hopeful. In truth, I doubt that they even made inquiries. They’d likely made it into a bin by then. I thought I might buy some cheaters from a drug store.

Hotel Casagrande

We checked in, my mind still set on finding some eyeglasses. The hotel radiated ambiance. It sprawled. Narrow halls. A cobbled and treed courtyard. High walls. It was once the Lord’s manor, converted to its then fate years before. Rooms were small, but they were Renaissance cool, both in decor and temperature. Stone and tile and all that.

We took in the town upon arrival. The piazza was barely thirty seconds’ walk from the back gate, almost in our backyard. I fell in love with it on first sight. Terracotta and red tiled, the shuttered 2^nd and 3^rd floor rose up over the arched pillars of the ground floor. Frescos divided rows of windows. A church sat at the head of its length, its stained-glass rosette an eye that looked upon the faithful. Embossed wooden doors were scattered about, as were balconies and planters and a tower of two.

We were pleased to find that there were Renaissance games taking place in the piazza. Contestants were dressed in house faction frocks, competing for the honour of their “families.” Voluminous white shirts, brightly coloured pantaloons. There was jousting, archery, feats of strength and artistry. Barrel hopping, foot races and the like. The officials looked like they’d be at home officiating for the Borgias. It all looked to be great fun for the gathered spectators, who took it all in from the perimeter ropes and the cafes, over wine and antipasto. Children raced about, as children will, thrilled by the proceedings but aloof to them, all the same.

How the competitors were able keep to their feet is a mystery. The piazza was cobbled and paved, and slippery. It wasn’t level, either. It dipped ever so slightly to the centre. It was scattered with stalks of grass. There might have been a few patties here and there, too. Horses. You get it.

Unfortunately, the farmacia was closed. It was Sunday. Everything was closed, everything except the cafes, that is.

We were picked up at 7 pm for the welcome dinner at Chef Claudio’s. The meal was a marathon, three and a half hours long, spanning eight courses, each one as wonderful as the last. Add wine to the mix and the excitement of meeting new friends, and I had little resistance. By meal’s end, I was bloated. I could not eat another morsel. But I did have a little shot of grappa to clear the palette. It was bright. It was airy. And for a moment it seemed to alleviate my gastral discomfort. But by the time I took to my bed, I was treated to the discomfort of my excess, once again. There was nothing to be done but sleep on my side. No other position was possible. I vowed to not do that again. I broke that promise, but only daily.

I was up bright and early the next morning, waiting for the farmacia to open, with little time before we were to be picked up for our first day of lessons. I can’t say I was pleased with my purchase. The cheaters were a bright orange. Not particularly comfortable. But better than the other options that seemed to cater to women more so than men.

But at least I could see.

I’m a reader, after all.

To not be able to read was a torment.

Paris, Part 4

My prediction of a swelled, woolly head came true. I inhaled water, juice and coffee with breakfast. Bev remained in bed. She didn’t sleep well the night before, her “cold” fully manifested. I suspect that the champagne and the late hour didn’t help. I asked her if she wanted me to stay with her to nurse her, but she told me to try to make a day of it; that there was “no point both of us being stuck in the room,” and “you’d only watch me sleep, anyways.”

I agreed, suggested that we meet at Shakespeare and Company for a late lunch if she could make it. It was close, just blocks away, not too difficult to get to, even in her state. I told her that I’d go to the Louvre, since it had been closed the day before. It too was close, also within walking distance, easy to get back to the hotel from. We decided on 2:30 pm. I promised to be back then to check on her if she didn’t make it at the appointed hour, wondering if I should contact a doctor if she worsened.

I left, crossed at the Isle de la City into the 1e arrondissement, then on to the Louvre. It’s immense, too much to take in with only three hours left to me. I didn’t even make it to the second floor (actually the third, as they referred to the ground floor and the “0” and not the first.

It’s a magnificent collection, but so large I had a tendency to not see what I was before my eyes after a time. I made a list of the things I wanted to see: Mona Lisa, The Consecration of the Emperor, The Rape of the Sabine Woman, Une Odalisque, The Astronomer, The Raft of the Medusa. I also wanted to see the Egyptian, the Sumerian, the Greco statuary, Aphrodite (the Venus de Milo) foremost among them.
Some of the paintings were bigger than my house. I had to stand way back to capture them all, and when I was that far back, the lights glossed the canvas out.

The Mona Lisa was a disappointment. Not the artwork, the display. It was smaller than expected, behind glass, surrounded by multitudes of students so thick that it took me fifteen minutes to get close enough to discover that I had a far better view of the painting in my guidebook.

I looked at my watch. Times up! I crossed at the Pont du Artiste. It turned out that it was a much shorter route.

Bev had a bit of an adventure of her own. She met a Parisian man with bad teeth at Notre Dame, a chef, who asked her for the time in French, and stayed to chat her up, and flirt. She says no, that he was only being nice, but he told her that she had a pretty face and hinted that all husbands (hinting me) have a tendency to stray whenever out from under the watchful eye of their wives. He stuck around after that, piling on the compliments. This would lead me to believe that he was telling Bev that my presumed straying gave her, as one of those neglected women, left to her own devices, the right to stray as well. Or am I being cynical? Bev said, yes. I thought, no.

We lunched at a café adjacent to Shakespeare and Company, taking a river cruise afterwards. We’d been discussing it for some days already, and owing to Bev’s illness, we thought that taking one wouldn’t be too taxing. We certainly couldn’t do much more than that. Bev got winded quickly while we walked down to the Seine. She was soon exhausted. We climbed down to the park at the tip of the Isle de la Cite, at Pont Neuf, and approached the moored boats.

We bought tickets on a covered boat. It looked like rain and I didn’t want to risk having to hide below the observation deck. The covered boat I had in mind was not the closest, necessitating the need to walk by a few “perfectly good boats,” in Bev’s opinion. Once we gained our seats, Bev cooled down and enjoyed the ride. It was a pleasant enough cruise. The expected rain did not fall, the sun came out to say hello once or twice, illuminating the bridges we pass under. The Eiffel Tower approached and then fell back behind us as we looped back the way we came.

After the cruise we were mooned by a white kid surrounded by blacks. We watched as the kid and his friends were chased and apprehended by first three and then eight cops. More tourists gathered about us to watch the excitement.

I kept finding myself returning again and again to Shakespeare and Company. It appealed to me, its halls lined with shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, the shelves stuffed and jammed with books new and old. It smells like books. Obviously. But not like a bookstore that sells new books; it smelled like libraries and used book stores, the sound close and muffled. Magical, sacred to a book lover. An English girl manned the till. She’d begun to remember me after a time, noting which books I’d leafed through, time and again, and took the time to chat with me. Blonde, tattooed, Doc Martens. She’d done her fair share of travelling too, it turned out (go figure, what with her finding herself working at an English language book store in the heart of Paris), so we talked about places we’d been and people we’d met and where we each hoped to go. We talked about home and how we were always itching to leave but homesick when away.

I enjoyed talking to her but I didn’t want to spend all of my waning hours in a bookstore, so I decided on some Josephine Baker posters that kept catching my eye and thanked her for the chat.

Bev and I took one last leisurely stroll before returning to the hotel to set our luggage in order. We had an early start the next day.

It was quiet when we woke. It always was at 6 am. But the city would wake with first light, and soon the cacophony would build. First one car would pass, then a flurry of others. Horns would bleat and blare. Brakes would squeal. City sounds. City sights. We’d seen a fair number of homeless in the nooks and crannies throughout, the most surprising place being under the suspension bridges, with next to no footpath underneath. They lived in tents and under suspended blankets, their clothing drying on a rope, their possessions in boxes and in heaps. Some heaps were the inhabitants themselves.

We left our final five Metro tokens as gift for our chambermaid. We didn’t need them anymore. We might as well give them to someone who could put them to use. A bottle of wine too, for good measure.
It was time to go home.

Bev needed to convalesce.

 

Paris, Part 3

Up at 7 am after eight hours of blissful sleep. I wonder if the two Belgian blondes I had the night before had anything to do with that. Those are beers, by the way, in case you’re wondering.

We took the C-line to the Eiffel Tower after breakfast and reserving a table at the Moulin Rouge for 8 pm, hoping to beat the crowds to one of the world’s premier, must-see, attractions. We did. Somewhat. There was already a queue when we arrived, one we thought long at the time, but nothing like the one that had grown by the time we’d reached the viewing gallery. By then the line was easily five times as long and growing by the minute. We thanked our lucky stars and good grace of forethought.

It’s a beautiful sight to behold, its wrought iron curled into loops, its entirety painted ecru, its height set with lights. It’s solid, it’s firm, it’s a gossamer web of riveted steel that sweeps up into the sky. Our first good view of it was from its base, our heads thrown back, its height seemingly curving back over us.
Armed guards surrounded the base, their automatic weapons at the ready, their eyes ever alert and suspicious. They looked lethal. They looked intent. I was saddened by their very presence. Why would anyone wish to destroy such beauty? Why would anyone want to target those who’d come to gaze upon it?

We joined the line and were immediately set upon by an Arabic woman who showed us a sign but did not speak. Bev read it and passed it on to me. It was a sad story, one written in English and replete with tales of her being stranded and homeless and not being able to speak either English or French and asking us for whatever little amount we might spare to help her get back home to her homeland and family. I took one look at her and saw a scam. She was too flush, too well dressed, her costume jewelry too clean, too there. I passed it back to her and shook my head. She, in turn, offered her sign up to the man behind us, and then those behind him. Most waved her off without ever reading the sign. And before long she was gone, we thought to find more receptive people, but we discovered later, upon leaving, that she’d gone on break. We passed her having lunch, smoking, talking English with those other homeless and destitute souls, who likely suffered the same plight as she did. They probably made a comfortable living on the kindness of strangers. By strangers, I mean tourists. Professional beggars never plead money from locals, I was to discover.

Bev got ogled and pinched repeatedly by an altogether ugly guy in an olive drab military tunic while we shuffled up the queue. I turned to face him, expecting that my scrutiny might dissuade him of further groping; it must have, because not only did he refrain from any further groping, his gaze floated everywhere but into mine. It struck me that he was the spitting image of Nick Tortelli from Cheers. Bev thought so too.

Between her and him there was an altogether oblivious well-dressed man who apparently didn’t believe in bathing. Probably for health reasons; you know, soap is toxic to the skin, a veritable carcinogen. His aura was far more intense than that of someone who skipped a shower now and again. He actually reeked. A thick, oily bubble hovered about him. He reminded me of Pigpen. Bev couldn’t smell him; there are hidden perks to having the flu; that might have been one of them, especially so considering that he crowded into the lift with us. Judging by the reaction of those who also shared that small space with us, I doubt that they appreciated his eschewing soap for health reasons, either.

Bev’s failing health dictated that this would not be a taxing day, so we took the lift up to the third floor of the tower. That doesn’t sound too high, but, in fact, it is. The first floor is 57 m above the ground, the second 115 m, the third (the viewing gallery) 274 m. The tip of the tower rises to 320 m, but to get up there you’d have to be an employee or a climber.

We took the stairs down, turning around for pictures, pretending to be one of those athletic few who walk, and sometime run, to the viewing gallery.

The rest of the afternoon was spent strolling and browsing and laying about. We spent more time in Shakespeare and Company. It was close to the hotel, close to cafes and restaurants. I almost bought more books, but found the strength to resist the temptation, thinking about how much my bags would weigh on the return trip. Rest, supper, relax, wait. Then the time for our evening excursion was at hand.
The minibus picked us up promptly at 8 pm, then others around town, first two young women from a hotel a block away (one of them, Heather, the woman I was chatting up the night before), an Australian couple, and lastly, a retired couple from an upscale hotel on the right bank.

We got to know each other a bit on the way there, launching into and stalling with traffic, lurching and racing forward again, rounding traffic circles, darting in and out of traffic. Heather and friend were a little late, having just arrived back from a Seine river cruise. They’d been racing all over town, trying to take it all in, with not enough time to do it. They were there for a dental convention even though they weren’t dentists. Their boss was, and he signed them in to all the talks they were to attend, and they promptly attended none of them. The Aussies were from Brisbane, and had heard of all the spots I could remember, Charter’s Towers included. The retirees were from Washington State as well, only a short hop from where the girls hailed from.

We tumbled out at the Moulin Rouge, basked in the glow of the reflected floodlights that bathed the red windmill, received our vouchers and cleared security. No cameras, security said, relieving the two girls of theirs. They did get them back when we left.

The show was total camp, but fun, made more fun by the sheer volume of champagne placed on our furthest corner table. The women invariably sprouted tall fanned fathers and posed and danced with breasts bared, the men rarely so. Never, actually. Maybe Vegas shows are the same; cruise ships are similar, if somewhat fully clothed. I understood none of it beyond, “Danse, danse, danse et danse,” couldn’t even glean what the show was about, if it even was about anything at all except “Danse, danse, danse et danse.” It began as some sort of Aladdin love story, then became something of a clown and circus affair. There was a history of the Moulin Rouge, from the Can-can to the 40s (post Nazi), to Elvis, to disco, to today.

Our table saw the bottom of three of the four bottles of champagne given us and we christened the fourth before the curtain dropped and we were whisked back out onto the street and into the awaiting shuttle that took us each in turn back to our hotels. We stayed up, sharing a drink with our new best friends, Heather and friend, before retiring to bed.

The champagne had made my head light. Three glasses of the stuff and a pinot noir with supper and a blonde (beer, remember?) afterward was swimming in my skull by the time I got to bed. I suspected that I’d have a woolly head the next day.

I was not disappointed.

Paris, Part 2

We slept until 9:30 am after returning from Amiens. Breakfast was taken at a leisurely pace, in stark contrast to the steady stream of haste we weathered the day before.

The morning was warm, the day and the city already in motion, the prior dawn was cool, dim and devoid of activity except for the city sweeping up what leaves and dirt had settled since the last time they’d tackled the task. Rivulets flowed down the curbs to gutters and drains at that early hour, pressure washers sweeping left and right behind it, their hoses snaking back to the water trucks that followed them in their turn. The public toilets on the streets were being scrubbed out. Long handled brooms brushed up the bits, their green bristles reminding me of curling. But that late in the morning, those industrious masses were only a memory, the gutters once again filling with butts.

What followed was a day reminiscent of the Linklater film “Before Sunset,” similar if not an authentic recreation a year after the film was released.

Our feux film began in Shakespeare and Co., the English language bookstore that Sylvia Beech began, distinguished by its having been the first to publish Joyce’s “Ulysses,” and encouraging and the publication and being the first to sell Hemingway’s first book of short stories, “Three Stories and Ten Poems.” But where Jesse was on the last leg of a book tour, I was just browsing the chaotic jumble of stacked shelves and piled books. It was musty. It smelled of old books. There were beds tucked in among the shelves and stacks, testament to its reputation as a flop house for writers in Paris. A painted passage graced the wall above the lintel of an interior door on the second floor, declaring: Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise.

We had lunch on the terrace of La Petite Grill. It was not Le Pure Café. But it might as well have been. Corner lot, red wainscoted exterior, wooden bistro sets spilling out onto the sidewalk and hugging its flanks, storied limestone above. I liked to think we were in the café of question while we ate there, even though we weren’t.

An America family paused outside by the chalkboard sign by the entrance as I contemplated the plate of frogs’ legs I’d ordered and had yet to try. I’d asked the waiter a series of foolish questions when ordering. “Are they good? What do they taste like?”

He said, “They are frogs’ legs,” tossing his arm and shrugging, probably thinking, “Stupid tourist, why are you asking me such stupid questions.”

The Americans were even more the tourist than I. Knee length shorts, knee-high socks, Hawaiian shirts, matching Tilly hats. Yes, they had cameras around their necks. I was the definition of cool compared to them.

“Look, Dad,” the mother said, “they’ve got cheeseburgers.”

“Really?” he said.

“I don’t think you’ll like them, though,” she continued.

“Oh?” he said.

“Remember? They’re not like the cheeseburgers at home. They put them on toast and any serve them with mayonnaise and catsup.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, crestfallen at the prospect of not getting America while not in America.
Once they’d passed by, the only entertainment to be had was our watching people park. How they managed to fit into such tight spaces was a wonder. At least until we watched them. A driver would sneak into or leave a spot no longer than his car, inching forward and back until pressing up against and pushing the cars fore and aft until they were snuggly in or free of the space. All cars in Paris had scratches and dents, regardless how expensive. Most cars weren’t, though. They were small, economical, light, no more than 1.3 litres, usually diesel things, not the cherished phallic symbols they are in North America.

We walked along the Seine, inching past the little green mews that perch open along the walls, the bouquinistes, not buying anything except a few vintage erotic postcards since all the books we saw were French. I don’t read French. Why did I buy vintage erotic postcards? Research. I was writing a novel set in the Great War and I’d read more than once that the soldiers would buy them, something to linger over while stagnating in the trenches, so I had to have a few to describe in my own book. If not books and postcards, the vendors sold prints and tacky tourist stuff, the same postcards you could get everywhere as well as the hundred-year-old pornography—Kiki and Josephine Baker, too, if you were a mind to—old movie posters, tattered comic books and magazines. I saw one peddling original artwork. This wildly eclectic mix didn’t seem at all out of place.

We took a moment to take in the fountain at the corner of St. Michel station, one we walked past a few times without giving it a second glance until then. It was beautiful, the angel, his wings spread and aloft, his sword held high, vanquishing a devil, the water flowing out from beneath them, cascading over rocks and dais, the base green with algae.

We walked to the Louvre, but it was closed, so we rode the Metro to the Champs-Elysées and the Arc d’ Triomphe. We climb its claustrophobically tight spiral stair to the top to take in the city from its height, then had supper out on the street, watching the world go by, the people, the bustle and haste.
We did not haste. Bev was slowing down, telling me that her cold had grown worse, that she was tired and growing feverish.

We returned to the Latin Quarter. Bev went back to the room to rest. I went to La Petite du Periguirdine, the little restaurant pub down the street where I met a woman from Washington State who was in the city for a convention. We chatted for a while until her friends arrived and dragged her across the street for a late-night pizza.

I ordered a second beer and read for a while, glancing up on occasion as the people strolled by, taking note how Parisians and tourist dressed, the differences in their posture and poise, and how easy it was to tell one from the other.

Arras and Amiens

Even with the wake-up call we barely made our train to Arras. We did have four minutes to spare. We thought we had lots of time as we hit the street at 7:30 am and the train left at 8:22 am, but we got lost in the Metro, wasted two billets when we had to exit the underground and start again. We had to stop to get directions. Unfortunately, we asked someone who didn’t speak English.

“Arras?” I asked.

He answered with a long drawn out, melodious syllable, pointing. Once his finger pointed the way, we were off like a shot, finally finding our way, running to the RER B-Line platform, three floors down. We made out first train, like I said, with only four minutes to spare and even though it only stopped once before our destination, I checked my watch about every ten seconds or so, my heart squeezing tighter with each glance. We were going to be late, I thought. We weren’t going to make our train to Arras.

The B-line brought us to our station, where there were what looked to be a million people on the move, students capering about, businessmen bustling about industriously or tapping furiously on laptops. Backpackers sprawled across seats, sleeping, oblivious to our or anyone else’s haste.

We ran down the length of the train when we reached our platform, prompted to further haste by the conductor, leaping up the steps to our car once we spotted it, collapsing into our seats, lathered in sweat. Within moments, the train eased out of the station.

There was no need to fret. Simon was not there to greet us when we disembarked in Arras under a sheet of rain. He pulled up forty minutes later, giving me ample time to inspect the cenotaph in the square outside the station while Bev tried to keep warm in the station house. It was a little cool, I thought, blaming the rain and the fog that would rise up with it, and the damp and the breeze that followed, but it wasn’t so cold as to warrant her pulling her windbreaker close and hugging herself, I believed. In fact, it grew muggy and warm as the clouds broke and the sun burst through, and still she wore her windbreaker long after I had discarded mine. I should have realized she was sick, but she didn’t either, not then, anyways.

We departed immediately, seemingly in haste. We had a lot to see, after all: first, a spot where the Nazis shot members of the French Resistance; and then, from then on, maybe too many historical sites of the Great War, battlefields and cemeteries galore, some places that I’d told Simon I was keen to see, others he thought indispensable. Thankfully, the rain stopped before we reached Vimy Ridge.

Another David joined us at Vimy, Canadian, nineteen, enthusiastic about Vimy and its legacy, less enthusiastic about his prospects for the future. He expected to perform high paying labour jobs in exotic places in the winter so he could backpack Europe in the summers. I wished him luck. I was also a little jealous. I dreamed of that sort of thing when I was younger, but I’d done what was expected of me and got a full-time job instead, venturing out only as time and money allowed. It was never enough.

Our guide at Vimy was a Newfoundlander, a self-professed geo-nerd, one living in Sudbury, attending Laurentian, working at Science North, but taking the summer to work abroad for Parks Canada. Small world.

Small talk aside, we toured the trenches, descended into the depths of the tunnels, and marvelled at how far and how close the trenches actually were, two-thousand meters apart to the south, yet only twenty or fifty meters at times to the north.

Beaumont Hamel was sadder to behold, by far. Whereas we Canadians had only taken 9,000 casualties all told at Vimy, the weight of the first 50,000 casualties taken on the first day of the Somme by the British and Newfoundlanders pressed down on me, the magnitude of the loss horrifying and humbling.

The cemeteries were overwhelming. There were so many of them, and so many headstones and crosses, each nation setting them so differently. The British preferred to bury their dead at the sight of battle that felled them. Some sites, like the Somme, were huge, the headstones too numerous to count; others were small and intimate; almost all were drenched in sunlight, some few shaded by majestic elms. The French brought their fallen to huge sunlit cemeteries, with two soldiers buried to a cross. The Germans preferred quiet, somber, shaded sites, the crosses black, the soldiers arrayed four to a cross, an enormous cross at the center, the only spot not shaded under a lattice of overhead boughs that left the burial site in a blanket of sorrow. No matter the method, the numbers were mind-boggling, the sheer immensity of them overwhelming. They brought tears to my eyes. So many men, young and not so young, laid to waste for no gain, for no reason, except maybe to prop up a dying age.

We had supper in Amiens, in the court before the Hotel d’ Cite, lingering over our meals, enjoying a glass of wine and coffee and dessert, sure that we had time to spare before we had to make our train back to Paris. We spoke about the Great War and my great-grandfather; we spoke about Simon’s recent holiday to Poland and Auschwitz.

Bad news. We were stupid. We did not read our return tickets well. Even Simon had misread it. We had 9:20 pm on the brain when, in fact, the train left at 9:12 pm. We raced to meet it, only to hear it pull away as we made for the platform. We checked when the next train was: 5: 20 am.

Simon offered to drive us to the edge of the city, where the RER B-line began at Charles de Gaulle Airport. This was no small thing: it was a two-hour drive by the autoroute.

I felt guilty, but I grasped at the lifeline offered, just the same. A godsend, that Simon Godly.

I craved a beer as the RER deposited us back at St. Michel, but all the cafes and bars were closing shop for the day as we came upon them.

To bed then. Tomorrow was another day.

Bev woke with a cold.

Were it only a cold.

It was the flu.

And it would only get worse.

 

Paris

We arrived in Paris late and bought two one-week Metro Passes before finding our way to and booking into Hotel Moderne St. Germaine shortly after midnight. We were going to be there for the better part of a week and decided that the week pass was cheaper than having to buy tokens again; and besides, they were good for the Bus and RER as well, so long as we used them in the city limits.

We showered to wash the travel off us and watched a little TV to wind down. MTV. We only had six channels and all of them were French, so there wasn’t much choice to be had.

I showered again when I woke. I always shower when I wake.

Ste. Germaine

I received a call that morning from a guide we’d hired, Simon Godly, a retired Belfast cop who settled in France to pursue his two passions, Belgian beer and the Great War. We’d hired Simon to give us a tour of Vimy Ridge, something that ought to be a rite of passage for all Canadians, something that was especially important to me as my great-grandfather fought there on that fateful day in April during the Battle of Arras. We were to tour the Somme too, and that was a lot to see in one day, so we were going to have to get an early start. He told me what train I needed to take and when to take it and where he’d meet us when we got there.

I had no intention of missing the train the next day so decided to get my tickets early. It took longer than I expected, so it was a good thing I went when I did. I made my way to the Gare de Austerlitz to buy tickets. I practiced my feeble French while I waited, keeping watch on the cashiers to see how they reacted to purchasers. I’d heard that tourists were not treated kindly by the French, less so by Parisians. I decided that this one was nice, but not that one; this one was bored, that one numb. There was one of the five that I didn’t want to get. Go figure, she was the young and pretty one. She snapped at the couple already before her, she almost yelled. She was certainly not patient. But as the line crept forward, I could see that my fate was sealed. I prayed that one of the other cashiers would hurry up and be done first, but such was not the case.

Gare de Austerlitz

I was getting the bitch. There was no getting around it. I girded myself for impatience and discomfort. I was not disappointed: I found myself face to face with her unsmiling face.

“Excusez-moi,” I said, nervously. “Je parle un petite peu français…” I gestured so with my fingers, pressing my thumb and index finger together to show how little French I actually did speak.

She broke into a smile, washing away what impatience and anger she’d previously burned with, reached across to me from under the glass and took my hand and patted it. “That’s okay, dear,” she said in a husky, thick, but clear accent, “I speak English.”

“Oh, good,” I said, visibly relieved. “I was hoping to buy tickets to Arras for tomorrow, returning from Amiens that evening.” She was an angel, a paragon of patience and good grace.

I was reminded of Stephano in Venice and the way he treated Bev like a princess and me like I was something he’d scraped off his boot. I’d heard that Latin men treat all other men like they are a barrier to their access to women, whether those women are married to said man or not; I wondered if Latin women were of a similar bent. That French girl had certainly smiled at me and patted my hand and set me at ease, where she had growled and finger-pointed at the couple before me. Or was it just the woman? Was she flirting with me? Did she always treat men in a positive manner but not women? I don’t know. I was just thankful that she treated me so well.

Bev relaxed in our room. She was still tired from the late night, and still tired in the early afternoon, so she napped after we lunched.

Once she woke, we began discovering the 5e Arrondissement. Small steps, just the area around St. Germaine and the hotel and points close by. We began with a sort walk close to our hotel, one noted in detail in Lonely Planet guide I’d brought with me, Hemingway’s walk from his residence to his other apartment, his place of work, the route he set down in great detail in his book, “A Movable Feast.” Along the route were the Pantheon, St. Etienne du Mont Church, with its crypt of Ste. Genevieve and the picture of Jean-Paul II praying before her sarcophagus, and the best hot chocolate I’d ever had at the Brassarie Balzar.

The Pantheon was magnificent, a testament to Louis XV’s desire to celebrate his recovery from gout—I guess some good can come from self-absorption. Its crypts were a wonder of names: Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, the heroes of the city throughout the ages.

Afterwards, we looked for a good place to eat. We were in the Latin Quarter, a notable tourist area, so we expected everything to be open, and some things were, but not everything. We walked down to the Rue Mouffetard, a narrow street of stalls and markets and cafes and bars, its crossroads much the same. There were younger tourists about there and the shops reflected that, with younger, hipper fashions and accessories displayed that held little interest to Bev and me.

We finally settled o the La Petite Hotellerie, a little restaurant not too far from our hotel. Bev had beef and I had the duck, in case you’re wondering. The place had ambiance, one wall dominated by a full wall mural and another enormous painting in the back. Both depicted a dusky Paris in the late 1800s, all top hats and horses. The other side was a wall of bottles, fitting as the bar bisected the sides. One table in three smoked incessantly, in pairs and singles, sometimes in threes. They even smoked while they ate.

To bed afterwards. We had an early wake-up call. We had to get up at 6 am to make our train for the North and the trenches of Vimy Ridge.

Bev was more exhausted than ever.

We still had no idea she was coming down with the flu, though.