Notre Dame

One of my favorite places in the world is gone.

I'm crying while I watch the news. Notre Dame survived the Revolution, the Commune, the Occupation, and now it's been destroyed by a fire. I've been there so many times; it's always been the first place I go whenever I'm in Paris. The interior never failed to soothe and inspire -- that hushed darkness, lit by those magnificent windows.

I took this picture in 2017 -- it does not capture their beauty, but today I'm grateful to have it.

Au revoir

The Tour Eiffel through the web of trees by Place de la Concorde.

I'm at Roissy, waiting for my flight home. It feels as though it's been months since I was in Abu Dhabi but it's only been a little more than two weeks. I have more than a thousand pictures to go through, and I'll be posting them over the next several weeks.

I'm still sorry I didn't get to Ethiopia but it's hard to imagine it could have been better than this trip.

Last day

It was pouring when I woke up yesterday morning, but by the time I'd had breakfast and dressed it was steady rain, and by the time I'd finished my Starbucks latte, it had stopped.

But it was gray and gloomy all day -- here's a view I couldn't resist while walking along the Seine to the Orangerie. It wasn't cold enough to stop me going to the Île Saint-Louis to buy an ice cream at Berthillon, so I had sustenance on the way and my personal Paris food trifecta was complete (baguette with butter and jam, croque-madame, Berthillon ice cream.)

I've eaten at many fine restaurants here on previous visits and they're amazing but this is the food I crave in Paris.

Clocks

This is too easy as a subject, but that doesn't mean it's not irresistible -- the views behind and through the giant clocks at the Musée d'Orsay.

You can see Sacré-Coeur in the distance on the left.

Musée d'Orsay

This is where I spent most of yesterday. When you're tired of looking at art, you can go to the cafe and have tea and cake, or sit in a comfy leather sofa by a window and read for a while (both of which I did.)

I love the architecture of this building as much as I love the art -- the old bones of the railway station it was originally, gilt and frou-frou beautifully restored, with the very modern galleries and staircases within. It's a tension that seems to enhance the art rather than detract from it, if that makes any kind of non-pretentious sense.

Another good reason to come to Paris in February -- this museum is always crowded, but there was actually room to breathe yesterday, to occasionally be the only person in a room looking at a painting.

And though it was drizzling when I finally left, it wasn't that cold, and I had a pleasant walk back to my hotel, stopping at a cafe for a croque-madame on Poilâne bread with salad. It's not haute cuisine, but it's one of my favorite things to eat in Paris.

Saturday reflections

Traditional Parisian facades reflected in the window of a modern art/furnishings showroom on the rue de Lille.

Paris

 Because who doesn't enjoy a good gargoyle?

Paris, and everything is easy. Somewhere on my way into or out of Beirut (where it turned out I had to go through yet another security checkpoint, including frisking, to get from the lounge to the plane) I found myself wishing I was flying to New York, that I had just planned to stay a few more days in Jordan and gone home from there, instead of stopping off in Paris.

I've changed my mind. Paris is never a bad idea, even in February. I love that it's still full of charming little hotels like the one I'm staying in near the Jardin du Luxembourg, with flowered drapes and quilted bedspreads and flowerpots outside the windows. And of course, baguettes with butter and jam served with cafe au lait in a breakfast room with small round tables with floor-length tablecloths and fresh flowers. Even a fellow guest who hums loudly while reading Le Figaro at the next table can't distract from the perfection that is a fresh French baguette -- when I was thinking about how I wanted to spend the day, I considered finding a bakery and just sitting on a bench eating bread until I either exploded or had to leave for the airport.

Instead, I went to Notre Dame, because I always go to Notre Dame. I am not such a traditionalist that I was dismayed to find a Starbucks on the way, a new development since the last time I was here eight years ago. Because while there may be many experiences that aren't enhanced by having a large cup of hot coffee in your possession, it turns out that walking through the Left Bank on a pleasant winter's morning isn't one of them.

Fly like an eagle

Bonus bird blogging.

I just came across this video (via Colossal) and had to share it, though I'm feeling that I ought to disapprove of using a bird this way:  footage from a camera strapped to the back of an eagle. That's Chamonix, in the French Alps, that the eagle is soaring over and around.

This is a little of what it's like to be a bird. (Or maybe, since the eagle's head is clearly right there, what it would be like to be Harry Potter riding Buckbeak.)

Cool. Really, really cool.

St-Malo 1985 (Travel Flashback)

In 1985 I lost my job, and spent my severance on a trip to France. I never really intended to go alone; I was planning six weeks travelling around France, followed by several days in London with family, and various friends planned to meet up with me for a week or two along the way.

One by one, they all dropped out, and I decided to go anyway, armed only with a French Rail pass and a copy of Let's Go France. I think I decided to go just because the idea scared me so much. I'm naturally shy, and though I spoke decent traveller's French, this was long before easy online reservations, and it took me several days to work up the courage to call the hotel in Paris that was my first stop and reserve a room in French. The rest of my hotel rooms would have to be found when I got there. I threw up from sheer panic several times on the flight over.

The first morning, I couldn't find the breakfast room; the only door I could see was marked private and though I could hear the clink of china behind it I was too shy to knock. Instead I went back to my room and cried. I cried a lot on that trip. Every town was a new challenge, finding a hotel, finding a grocery, finding a bank. Sometimes even a cafe was too intimidating and I had yogurt or an apple or half a roast chicken from a charcuterie for my dinner.

But I saw so much. I went to Lyon and Beaune and Annecy and Chamonix and Aixs-les-Bains and Angers and Mont St-Michel and Bayeux. If I liked a town I stayed an extra day; if I didn't I left the next morning. I met people. I had adventures.

Then I got the flu in Quimper, a bleak (at least in November) town at the far reaches of Bretagne, in a part of France called Finisterre. You would probably translate that as Land's End, but at the time I called it The Ends of the Earth. I was stuck for several days in a musty hotel, coughing, fever dreaming, and reading the only English books I could find near the hotel, which were two slim Ed McBains and Joan Collins's autobiography. Being sick and alone in a foreign country is terrifying, and more than once I thought about bailing on the rest of the trip and going to my uncle in London. And if getting to London had been easier, I might have done that.

Instead, the minute I felt strong enough, I took a train to St-Malo. It was raining, and cold and I was still sick, but I felt much better just being somewhere with more than one cafe. The next day the sun was out and I had that wonderful sense of resurrection you have when you've been really ill, and St-Malo seemed magical. I walked on the beaches and the ramparts and I was happy. Perfectly happy (despite my expression in that picture.)

The next morning when I came down for breakfast, the hotel bar, which had been deserted on Sunday, was packed with sailors and dockworkers, drinking and smoking and yelling across the room at each other. And it never even occurred to me to leave, or cry. I fought my way to a table and had my breakfast.

I've always considered this trip to be the best thing I've ever done for myself. I'm still too timid, and there are many times that holds me back, but I'm not afraid to travel by myself, and some of my best adventures have happened only because I was alone. I'm happy to have a companion, but I never wait for one to be available.

I'm going. Come along! And if you can't, I'm going anyway.