We are leaving Paris today, and I’m feeling sad. I’m up for a new adventure, of course, but this part of the trip has special meaning because I’ve been visiting a dear friend. So on top of seeing the sights, we’re catching up on years’ worth of conversations.
To illustrate today’s post, I’ve chosen a clock that’s in an old train station, Gare D’Orsay, which is now the Museé D’Orsay, chock full of Impressionist paintings. It’s a beautiful clock, but like all clocks it’s a reminder of time passing … and passing … and passing.
Travel seems to slow the passage of time. But not enough. Not nearly enough.
Still, we’ll be back through this beautiful city briefly on our way home, so for now it’s “Au revoir, Paris!”
I saw the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries years ago, but I’d never forgotten them. With their rich colors, chaste lady, distinctive unicorn and ever-present coat of arms, they seemed the epitome of the high Middle Ages and courtly love.
Yesterday I saw the six tapestries again, and, thanks to the Cluny Museum, was able to sit and contemplate their beauty and mystery.
The tapestries represent the five senses: touch, taste, smell, sight and sound. In the “touch” tapestry, for instance, the lady strokes the unicorn. In the “smell” tapestry, the lady’s companion presents her with a dish of carnations.
But there is a sixth tapestry, the one you see above, and experts aren’t exactly sure what that panel represents. One clue is in the words “Mon Seul Désir,” my only desire, and in the actions of the lady, who appears to be setting aside a necklace. Could it be that she is returning a gift, asserting her virtue? Many think so, which would make free will our “sixth sense.”
My own sense of these works, after spending a few minutes in their presence, was how they could transport me to a stiller, deeper world, a world of rich fibers and innate stillness, a world as different from ours as one could possibly be.
To be in Paris is to be immersed in beauty, not only because of the many fine museums (like the Marmottan, which we visited yesterday), but also because every view is a head-turning one. Whether it’s the Eiffel Tower, Claude Monet’s “Impression, Sunrise,” or an ordinary street corner, it’s worth a second glance.
What would it be like to live in a place optimized for style, from Metro signs to newspaper kiosks to national icons? Would it become humdrum? Knowing human nature, I’m afraid it might. But to the traveler, the city never loses its luster.
It’s been more than a year since the Olympics electrified France and the rest of the world. The French are keeping the Olympic spirit alive by sending the cauldron, known here as the Vasque, up into the night sky throughout the summer. They will do so for the next two summers, until the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The cauldron rises as the sun sets, an alternative light, an unearthly sight floating above the Tuileries. When I first glimpsed it I thought of the UFOs I used to read about as a child — strange hovering craft.
The Vasque hovers too, because it’s tethered. But it is most decidedly of Earth. And of Paris. Stylish, elegant, no more nor less than it needs to be.
Built to promote sustainable energy, the Vasque creates a flame without combustion by projecting mist and light. It’s advertised as a “flame without fire.”
We found a front-row seat by slipping into a café on the Rue de Rivoli, where I sipped tea and snapped this shot. A perfect night for the Vasque. A perfect night, period.
“We’ll be harvesting soon,” said our Colmar hostess. “It’s very early this year so we’re in a state.” It’s hard to imagine this poised, multilingual woman as anything but calm and pleasant, but running a winery and a hostelry could test anyone’s mettle.
Her words confirmed what we’ve noticed on our wanderings: the grapes seem ripe and ready to pick. It’s been a hot, dry summer in the Alsace. And though our contact with the region’s famed wines has been limited, I can tell how delicious they are by watching others imbibe.
The best part of wine country for me has been discovering the Sentier Viticole, the Wine Trail. Grapes growing, hikers hiking, bikers biking — a jumble of motion and activity and joy. I wish I could have hiked forever, but that’s not very practical, is it? Moderation in all things, except, perhaps, moderation.
Yesterday, the bells of Eglise St. Martin called worshippers to Mass. Dong, dong, dong, they sounded. From inside the church, where we were sitting, it felt like they were banging on my ribcage, pulsing with my blood. They rang briefly at the consecration and again at the end of the service, after a thrilling organ postlude (another auditory treat).
But I kept coming back to the bells, their clanging a poignant reminder of faith and time. I was remembering a book I read for class last year, Village Bells: Sound and Meaning by Alain Corbin, translated from French, so doubly appropriate to mention here.
“The bell was regarded as a support for collective memory, and with good reason,” Corbin writes. “The people long preserved the memory of its sonority.” Bells represented cohesion, community, the triumph of civilization over disorder.
For me, they are one more reason to love the European way of life, a life where (at least in the city of Colmar), bells mark the morning and the evening … and the magic of this place.
I loved fairytales when I was young, read them incessantly, then read them aloud to my children later on. Now I’m in Alsace, where the villages seem to have stepped right out of a fairy tale.
One village in particular, Riquewihr, is said to have been the inspiration for the animated version of “Beauty and the Beast,” which was played plenty at my house when the girls were growing up.
Set aside for the moment the 21st-century tourists who crowd this shot and imagine Belle dancing through the streets saying “Bonjour, hello, how is your family?” It’s almost a dead replica, n’est-ce pas?
Our guidebook calls it the Bridge of Fannies because there are so many people crowded on it that at first all you glimpse is a sea of posteriors .
Make your way to the front of the span, though, and you’ll be rewarded with a view of Petite Venise, a neighborhood of colorful houses and cascading geraniums.
Canals were threaded through Colmar long ago, siphoning water from the river so farmers could barge their wares into town.
Now ducks ply these waters, and tourists photograph them — and everything else. How could they (I) not?
The café faced Église St. Martin, which we’d just explored. We had noted the glories of this Gothic church: its two organs, stunning altar, and vaulted ceilings. We dropped some change in its donation box, and then we sought nourishment at a café across the street.
I had my eye on a pastry I’d seen displayed in a case. St. Honoré, it was called. I rehearsed the words silently: “Bonjour, madame! Je voudrais une pâtisserie St. Honore, s’il vous plait.”
Miraculously, the server understood me. Miraculously, there was a slice of cake left. It was delicious, so beautiful to look at that a Dutch customer at the next table ordered one herself. Based on our shared love of pastries, we struck up a conversation and exchanged contact information.
Later on, I looked up the pastry, and learned that it’s named for the French patron saint of bakers, St. Honore. Only in France would there be a patron saint of bakers and a pastry named for him.
St. Martin. St. Honore. Two saints … and a pastry.
“The trail starts at the end of town. Walk until you reach the vineyards, keep going, and then you will see it,” said the woman at the tourist information office. We weren’t convinced. Earlier, this same person had told us that the trail started at the tourist office itself, which it did not.
Still, we had nothing else to go on, so we made our way through Eguisheim, once voted the most beautiful village in France. The grapes hung heavy on the vine and it was warm in the sun, but we pressed on, walking slowly but steadily uphill.
Finally, a stand of trees. It was the beginning of the park, the forest and a network of trails that, if I understand it correctly, could take us all over the area if we had the stamina to hike them.
We reached a bridge, a decision point. Would we continue up the steep path to the ruins of three castles? Yes, in fact we would. Up, up we climbed, making friends with our fellow hikers, including two sweet Australian shepherd doggies.
The climb wasn’t as strenuous as we feared, and within an hour we were standing on top of the world — or at least well above the Alsatian plain. The bells of Eguisheim wafted up to us from the village, striking the hour — one, two, three — as we clambered over the ruins of an 11th-century castle: stones that were quarried a millennium ago!
It was hard to leave, but we had no desire to spend the night up there. So we made our way slowly down, back to the village and civilization. Three castles, two tired walkers.
