GENE AND i SHOULD BE PACKING
Introduction: I almost bagged this blog. I was concerned that I might sound insensitive to what’s going on in the world. So I slept on it, and decided this morning that we all need diversion right now, a break from this damned pandemic. So here you go…
Gene and I should be packing for France. We had a great adventure planned, and reservations to fly out of Phoenix this Tuesday. We were to land in Paris and take the high-speed train to Normandy.
We had a charming hotel reserved in Bayeux, and two tours scheduled. The first was a tour of Omaha Beach, where the Allied forces landed nearly 76 years ago during the largest seaborne invasion in history, and 4,414 Allied soldiers lost their lives that tragic day.
The second was a tour of Mont-Saint-Michel, the tidal island off the northwest coast of France. “Mindwalk,” the 1990 film starring Liv Ullman, Sam Waterston, and John Heard had a life-changing effect on me. It’s a fascinating conversation among a physicist, a U.S. senator, and a poet, about how the world works. (Is it more like a clock or a tree?) And the movie is set in The Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel.
From Normandy, we were going to drive to Beaune, Burgundy, where we were excited to explore the 15th Century walled town and taste the fabulous wines made from the Côte d’Or vineyards surrounding Beaune, “the very epicenter of wine porn.” – Robert Draper, The New York Times, Sept. 30, 2015.
We are wine-lovers, and have been to vineyards in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, and – last May — Chateauneuf-du-Pape, where we sat in a restored 13th Century wine cellar and tasted eight wines. We could hardly wait to sample the Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays in Burgundy.
Next, we planned to drive to Paris for eight days. I had found a charming apartment through Airbnb in the first arrondissement*, near the Louvre. When we travel, we like to immerse ourselves in the place, pretend we live there, and site-see as the mood strikes. While we still can, we decide for ourselves what we’re going to do and figure out the local transportation.
The downside to this approach is you don’t see as much as you would on a tour, you get lost a lot, and sometimes you order a liter of wine, instead of a glass. The upside is, you don’t feel rushed, you have more interaction with the people who live and work there, you learn how to navigate the city, and sometimes you order a liter of wine, instead of a glass. (Yes, this happened to us in Avignon last May, and we had to hold each other up all the way back to our hotel.)
Last May was our first trip to Paris together. We stayed in the Marais district, which is filled with young families and interesting museums. We hung out each morning in a different café, eating the best croissants in the world, drinking lattes and freshly squeezed orange juice, and watching parents walk their children to school and day care before work. It’s an amazing way to start the day!
We were hoping to do that again this year, as well as some things we haven’t done together: tour the Louvre, not just take pictures of it; have lunch at the Jules Verne on the 2nd Floor of the Eiffel Tower; walk to Montmartre and climb the steps of the Sacré-Cœur (and the additional 300 to the dome); walk through the Musée d’Orsay, see the Chagall on the ceiling of the Palais Garnier opera house; and take a blanket to the Champ de Mars and watch the light show on the Eiffel Tower at dusk (with a bottle of wine, of course).
But back to reality. Here we are in Phoenix, Arizona, 32 days into Governor Ducey’s “stay at home” order. It’s 97°, and I’m trying to look on the bright side. After all, we have plenty of food and toilet paper; we have a home we love in a neighborhood where we can walk in safety; we can be with friends and neighbors (at a safe distance or on Zoom); we have access to wonderful entertainment through Netflix and Amazon Prime; all our children and grandchildren are within 30 minutes of us; we have two sweet kitty cats; and we have each other.
So, no France this year. But we are among the lucky ones. And don’t we know it.
*The 20 arrondissements are arranged in the form of a clockwise spiral, starting from the middle of Paris, on the Right Bank of the Seine.
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