vitesse, or bullet train) had limited luggage capacity we could take
the bikes (in cases) to the train station the day after we got to
Geneva, and they'd arrive in Paris before we left. Great way to avoid
the hassle of lugging the bikes thru the train stations. Except, when
we double-checked once we got to Geneva, the 4 business days were now
3-5 days to France, and the baggage agent said there was no way they'd
get there before we left (the 5th business day). So..plan B. Naomi
said there was space for larger luggage near the doors, and if that
didn't work, well then she'd drive the bikes to Paris herself (plan
C). She wasn't able to come to the platform with us (we had to go thru
an unmanned customs station first), but she waited outside while we
waited inside. Switzerland is one of those marvelous countries where
they not only tell you the platform, but they also have a schematic
about where to stand for which car. So, we planted ourselves near the
far end of the platform, as ours was scheduled to be the last car.
And...as the train pulled into the station, it was clear that they had
hooked it up backwards. As you can imagine, this resulted in some
chaos, as people scrambled from one end to the other. We had counted
on boarding as close to first as possible to have the best luggage
options, and instead we were confronted by luggage space that, while
not full, wasn't big enough in any case for my bike. We managed to
shove David's in, and another passenger indicated that there was a
bigger space for luggage at the front of the car (we were now the car
right behind the engine). Sure enough, there was a large compartment
with plenty of space. I don't think that compartment can exist in any
but the car behind the engine (or possibly the last car), since it is
where the doors between cars would normally be. Our seats turned out
to be upstairs, so we moved our lighter luggage up there, where the
space was also larger.
We left the station slowly, and moved pretty sedately for the first
couple of stops. We were starting to make cracks about "pas grand
vitesse" when we got into the countryside proper and really picked up
speed. David turned on the GPS and we saw speeds as high as 300 kph
(180 mph). The train was really quiet and smooth and pretty clean,
although the bathroom had no water for hand washing.
The main reason for booking our return through Paris was to visit
Huguette Sirey, the woman who nearly married my father 53 years ago.
Although her family scotched that plan because they could not deal
with her marrying a divorced man, my mother (believe it or not)
remained close to her, and she, my sister and I have visited her from
time to time. My sister more than I, and I was beginning to worry that
I wouldn't recognize her, so I asked CK to send me a picture. This did
not arrive before we left Geneva. Upon leaving the train, however, my
eye was caught by a sign with my name in big orange letters. There she
was, waving her sign, having deduced our train from the scant
information I had mailed her (I did not want to suggest that she come
to the station). I would not have recognized her. Although she is
about 85, she proceded to march us up and down stairs, insisting on
pulling one of our bags, through the metro system to our hotel, which
she had located before we arrived (and left a message in case we
missed each other). She does like to talk, so it took a little while
to extricate ourselves, although she kept saying she knew we wanted to
settle in. The hotel had an elevator, but it required going down a
flight of about 4 or 5 steps to get to. This has been the rule, rather
than the exception in Europe -- not very accessible. Nina wanted to
see the Catacombs, which are not open on Mondays, so we dropped off
the bags and hustled back to the Metro. But, although we reached the
catacombs an hour before they closed, the line was ridiculous, and
they had stationed an official at the end to say that the line was now
more than an hour long. So instead we repaired to a cafe for
omelettes, as we hadn't really eaten for about 8 hours. That evening,
we went to see the Eiffel tower, which is pretty spectacular when lit
up. The lines to take the elevator to the top were also ridiculous, so
we skipped that as well. I thought there would be fewer tourists so
long after Labor Day! Perhaps so, but not few. So we contented
ourselves by walking along the Seine. When we decided that the road
alongside was just too noisy, we stopped to contemplate the map and
our immediate surroundings, then turned around to see an amazing light
display on the Eiffel tower! Apparently at exactly 8:00 (or was it
9:00?) they put on this show of flashing lights that makes the entire
thing look like it's infested with fireflies. Very cool, and fun to
see it without expecting it. We headed off toward the Champs Elysees
and found a nice little restaurant with outdoor seating. Then along
the Champs Elysees to the Metro and home.
The next day, which was Nina's last in Paris, she wanted to do a
walking tour of the Marais, which was the district we were staying in
(we were quite close to the Bastille metro station). That was fun, and
included wandering into the Jewish quarter, where preparations for
Sukkot were in full swing. Several vendors were selling the lulav and
etrog. Since I'd finally managed to come up with the word "citron"
after eating some patries that had candied citron, it was fun seeing
them sold. We also stopped into a Jewish bakery and got several very
yummy sweets. Eventually, we tired of the walking tour and headed to
Notre Dame. It, too, had ridiculous lines to go up into the towers, so
we contented ourselves with touring the inside. It seemed darker and
more crowded than I remembered, and the trees outside seemed to have
grown enough to make it difficult to really get a good view of the
flying buttresses. Nothing ever stays the same.
Next we headed toward the Latin quarter, via a bakery (Kayser at 8 rue
Monge) reputed to be one of two with the best croissants, according to
"It Must Have Been Something I Ate," a recent favorite book by Jeffrey
Steingarten, the marvelously obsessed Vogue food writer. The
croissants were indeed fabulous. We had tried to find one of the hot
chocolate suggestions from the same book in the Place des Vosges, but
did not find it, so we settled for the recommendation (Angelina at 226
rue de Rivoli) of a friend of Nina's, who had lived in Paris. Very
posh and very good.
We had invited Huguette to dinner without having chosen a restaurant.
We researched on the internet several possibilities from the same book
and chose La Regalade. It was very difficult to determine how
vegetarian friendly it was, so David and I had made a side trip over
there to see if we could look at the menu. Despite what the website
said, it was closed on Mondays. So we asked Huguette for a suggestion.
She had previously asked us to lunch for Tuesday, and was rather
flummoxed by needing to worry about serving a vegetarian. She had
planned to serve scallops, but while David eats fish, he does not eat
shellfish. Thus ensued a discussion of the difference between the two.
Anyway, after an hour or so of research, Huguette came up with Le
Divellec, a restaurant with a Breton chef that she described as
"expensive, but not extravagant" and which specialized in fish.
Crossing our fingers for Nina's dinner (she does not eat fish), we
agreed to meet her there at 8:00. Since it wasn't far from the Latin
quarter, we figured we'd just wander around, leaving ourselves enough
time to find the restaurant and walk there. We went by the Sorbonne
(could not go in for security reasons) and along several side streets
in this university district. We skirted the Luxembourg gardens (just
closing) and arrived at the rue de le Universite with about 15 minutes
to spare. We were looking for 107 and arrived at about 16. Looking
both ways, it looked like the right had the most potential for getting
that high in numbers, and headed that way. It took a while to find
another address, and it was lower. So we reversed course and headed
back up the street. The numbers turned over very slowly, and finally
appeared to peter out altogether at 105! At this point, we were faced
with a large square with the Assemblee Nationale, and nothing remotely
restaurant-like in sight. And now we were late. Turned on the GPS,
which slowly found itself and indicated that indeed there were more
numbers beyond the square. We found Huguette pacing outside. Still, we
were almost the first diners in the restaurant.
Le Divellec was marvelous. The wait staff was unflamboyantly
attentive, and they didn't bat an eye when asked what they could
provide for a vegetarian. They whipped up a very nice assortment of
mushrooms, potatoes, green beans and salad for Nina. David and I had
two different fish in terrine. Fabulous. A little appetizer to start
(on the house, with a different one for Nina when she rejected the
first fishy one), and an amazing dessert cart to finish. And the
entertainment! Chef le Divellec invented a lobster press, which the
waitstaff utilizes at the table for those who order lobster. This
performance cannot be said to be unflamboyant. In fact, it's
marvelously over the top. Vincent would have hated it. But it was very
entertaining. As far as I could figure, it simply allowed the "coral"
to be pressed out of the body without getting any shells in the
resulting extract, which was then was mixed with various other things
to form a sauce cooked at the table.
The bill was also amazing. I'd like to know Huguette's definition of
extravagant. But you only live once, and it was one of the fanciest,
and best, meals any of us had ever had. Huguette talked non-stop
through the entire meal. Very entertaining, but it took us nearly 3
hours to get out of there, and we still had to get home, get Nina
packed, and get to bed early enough for her to catch an 11:00 metro to
the train to the airport.
The next day after foraging for breakfast back at the Place des Vosges
(in the Cafe Victor Hugo, with an extremely churlish waiter), we
tackled the Metro-RER combination that would get Nina to the airport.
Of course, we didn't leave quite as early as we had planned, and the
ticket machines decided to reject all of our credit cards and would
not take paper money (only 1, 2 and 5 Euro coins). Nor would the candy
shop provide change. So we used our regular Metro tickets and then
bought an RER ticket for Nina at the transfer station. It was a bit
tricky to figure out which train (each RER train line has 4 possible
destinations, as each direction splits into two near the termini), but
we got her on one not horribly late, and it seems she made it to the
airport on time.
David and I then repaired to the Bois des Bolognes for a soothing
walk. Earlier, I had discovered that despite the Google information
that comes up first when you Google "L'Orangerie," it is NOT open on
Tuesdays. This museum, in the corner of the Tuileries, reputedly
houses an impressive collection of Impressionist art. I've never
managed to go because I'm always either in Paris on the wrong day or
it's closed for renovation, or something. And now, I'd blown it again.
It had been open on Monday, but since I thought it was also open on
Tuesday, we'd decided to do what Nina wanted that day, rather than
dragging her to a museum she wasn't interested in. Instead, David
found the Musee Marmottan, near the Bois des Bolognes, which houses
Monet's collection of Impressionist art, including a lot of his own
and Berthe Morisot's, as well as a bunch of First Empire furniture and
medieval sculpture and illuminated manuscripts. That mollified me a
bit, but I'd still like to see L'Orangerie one day.
We finished the day with dinner at Huguette's. She had originally
planned lunch, but apparently woke up panicked in the morning and left
a message at our hotel asking if we'd come for dinner instead. That
suited our schedule just fine. We stopped off at a flower store on the
way and again found Huguette pacing outside. She said she had come
downstairs to look for her garage keys. Anyway, she escorted us
upstairs to her tiny apartment, about which we had been forwarned both
by my sister and by Huguette herself. The sitting room has been taken
over with storage for years, although she's making an effort to sort
things out, so one can at least walk in and turn around in there.
Since the rest of the apartment consists of a small bedroom, foyer,
tiny kitchen, toilet, and bath, that's a significant reduction in
living space.
Dinner had, in the end, been ordered from a caterer, but Huguette was
still as nervous as if she'd spent all day on it. She popped the main
course in the oven and served the appetizer on her desk converted into
the smallest possible dining table. Serving dishes had to find
roosting places on nearby hassocks and even the floor. She had cooled
a bottle of champagne in celebration of our wedding (5 years ago).
Unfortunately, she had partially frozen it, so when David opened it,
it started spewing champagne everywhere. Despite being the farthest
from the bathroom, he managed to control it admirably and minimized
the damage. Huguette pulled a towel and what appeared to be hospital
scrubs out of a cupboard and started skating around her bathroom on
them to clean up the mess, while I sopped up the rug. Exciting.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and we eventually extricated ourselves
since we had to pack and leave relatively early in the morning.
Back at the hotel, we asked about the airport shuttle we'd noticed a
sign for (fully booked by now, as it was nearly 10:00), and then a
taxi. With two bicycles, roller bags, and Timbuktu shoulder bags, we
didn't really want to try the Metro/RER method. The night receptionist
called several cab companies and finally found one that said they
would come at 8:00. We made it down to reception at about 7:40 the
next morning, hurried through breakfast, and waited for the cab. And
waited, and waited, and worried. The day receptionist had arrived, but
the night one didn't leave until he found us a cab. This required
calling yet another company and waiting a bit more. FInally, at 8:30,
a cab arrived and headed into very heavy traffic. In the end, we got
the airport only about 10 or 15 minutes later than we had planned, and
since each 10 gates had a separate security line, we easily made our
plane. We'd checked the bikes and carried on the rest since United
only allows one free bag internationally. David had kept a few tools
(a long 8-mm allen wrench and a monkey wrench) with him to save weight
on the bike case. I'd forgotten about my fingernail scissors, which in
any case are legal in the US. Fortunately, the baggage counter lady
had asked specifically about knives, so David was able to transfer his
little Swiss army knife (also legal in the US because the blades are
so short) into his bike case. So David lost the tools and I lost my
scissors.
The flight to Chicago was unremarkable, although cold enough that I
spent the entire time with my blanket wrapped around my head and
shoulders. We took off late and arrived a little late. Customs took a
while, and then we had to recheck our bags (quick), catch a shuttle
(just missed one - 5 minutes' delay) and go through security again
(HUGE delay). No matter whom we talked to about the fact that we were
stuck in security and our flight was about to leave, we could not
speed up the process. I even ran straight from the xray machine in my
socks, putting on my shoes on the escalator, from one terminal to the
other (security served two whole terminals, unlike Paris' 10 gates),
but we still missed our connection. Shades of our train trip a couple
of months ago. Back to Customer Service, where we were able to get on
a flight 2 hours later. Another cold flight and we still had to
collect our luggage. The main lock on David's bike case had been
ripped right off, but the baggage people said merely "Oh yeah, it
happens all the time." Then to BART. We had called Lewis from Chicago,
and he had agreed to stage our car at North Berkeley BART. He
confirmed that it was near the elevator, so we got on the rear car.
David had to take both tickets upstairs to add fare, while I sat on
the bench and guarded our luggage. I watched a lady slowly schlep down
the length of the platform with her suitcase, head to elevator, and
then come back. She reported that the elevator was out of service! One
more time, we lifted my 50-lb bike case onto my back and dragged
ourselves the length of the station to the escalator. Then I went and
got the car. Boy, were we glad to get home! Just about 23 hours, door
to door.
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