Northern Italy and Paris: Skis and Stained Glass

Council meeting (1545-1563) in Santa Maria Maggiore, Trento

 

 Trento to the Dolomites to Paris
Well, I wish my knees were as flexible as my travel plans have turned out to be. What set out to be an 18 day ski trip, plus a 5 day Verona sightseeing stopover has now turned into something quite different (I am in Paris at the moment, so I shall explain the serendipity of how I got here).

A day in Trento to partially recover from jet lag was surprisingly interesting. I have always just passed through here on the train or rushed for the bus, but it turned out to be a very interesting town. Because of the annoying habit we have of anglicising names, I had not connected "The Council of Trent" with Trento, and this city turns out to have been a very important place in the 16th century, with gatherings of religious and political people that had great significance at the time of the Reformation. This is commemorated in the various cathedrals and churches. 

 

Santa Maria Maggiore today

 There is a lovely old castle, overlooking the town, beautifully decorated with murals and frescoes throughout.

 

 

 

The whole town is all scrubbed up in an almost Disney castle sort of way. The place is alarmingly clean with even the 11th century church of San Lorenzo having not a scrap of dirt or mould on it. 

 

The historical centre is charming, and it being a university town, was full of stylish young things sharing two bottles of Coke between four at cafe tables around the piazza.

 

 Old murals decorate houses, so a pleasant day was spent snapping and sipping.

These are not stones, it is a trompe l'oeil effect mural.

 Onto the mountains the next day began an amazing spell of fabulous weather for me. The Dolomites have had some of the worst weather for over 50 years, but the accompanying snowfall left a wonderful base of snow, despite a few avalanches that wiped out some of  the access lifts to the Marmolada Glacier. But as I arrived, the sun came out, the temperatures rose, and I basked in bright sunshine for the next eight days.

 

View at sunset from the bedroom balcony of my charming Campitello hotel.

Unfortunately, my knees were not quite so thrilled with the huge number of km I was able to put under my skis each day on all this wonderful white stuff. So after a couple of days I could see that my original plans needed a bit of tweaking. I calculated that I could probably last about 8 days if I took things carefully, so that left me with 12-14 days to plan differently. 

One constraint was my luggage, as my original plan of a mainly ski trip meant I had brought ski boots with me, plus helmet etc, and all this weight did not lend itself to being lugged around many changes of venue. I settled on Paris as somewhere I could easily occupy myself for 12 days, so that became the plan.

In the meantime, I cosseted my knees along, and managed to get in some great skiing, going to a different ski area each day, and sampling the various restaurants that seem to be around every corner of a ski run. 

 

 

 One of my favourite places that I returned to three times was Buffaure which has a 7km run of lovely intermediate standard, and the middle section has 14 Stations of the Cross set in pretty shrines alongside about a km of the ski run.

  Other mountain restuarants have their own little shrines in the snow, as well.

The Buffaure run passes a little chapel where I lit some candles last Friday on the day of the funeral for my friend Len May.

 At the bottom of the 7km run, you can transfer to another area, Vigo, either by bus (boring!), or more interesting transport - rather like Noddy goes to Toyland. It is impossible not to grin as you ride along...

The towns of Val di Fassa, where many of these ski areas are located is in an area known as the Alto Adige, and used to be part of Austria before the First World War redrew the borders. Many of the locals consider themselves to not be truly Italian; their first language is often Austrian German with Italian second, plus the local dialect of Ladin (NOT Latin). The architecture is very Tyrolean, and many buildings are decorated with intricate murals. Canazei has many of these, of varying artistic merit,  but very important to the locals.

Some have religious themes, some are local mountain scenes, and the ones below commemorate the arrival of the first tourists by car in the valley in the early 20th century - obviously a significant local event.

 The whole area of inter-connected ski resorts and picturesque villages is ONE thing that the Italian government really got right in the post-Second World War period. They convinced all the many individual areas to coordinate their development, and organised the rental of local farmland as ski terrain during winter, all under the umbrella of the Dolomiti Superski network, so while you can opt to ski just one area, you can also use the Dolmiti Superski Pass which covers more than 20 ski areas, 1200km of fabulous runs and over 400 lifts. Skiing bliss........... The ambience of skiing seemingly endless beautiful moutain runs, interspersed with dining (and wining) at charming rifugios is pretty hard to beat. If my knees could cope, I would probably fritter away lots and lots of money returning yet again.

Anyway ......... Making such sudden plan changes put my poor little iPad to a lot of work, as I first had to cancel the extra mountain and Verona accommodation, and try to set up replacement Paris accommodation and travel. Paris hotel bookings were very bleak at such short notice, with scruffy hotels being offered at nasty prices, so I turned to Airbnb which offers B and Bs of varying standards and levels of professionalism. The process was rather fraught, as such people often do not keep their booking calendars updated, and I was operating under a very tight time-frame. There is a 24-hr lag between your placing a booking request, and the time they have to respond to either accept or decline. 

This got a bit nerve-wracking when Pierre did not respond, then Alexandra accepted, then later declined as her flat-mates planned to have a party(!!!!),then Sandra's room was not available, but her daughter had one but it had no bathroom or kitchen (I could shower at the very nice public baths five storeys down, next door), and Maxime kept offering me different places than the one I wanted to book!!! In the end, Maxime has been a success , as the second option he gave me has turned out very well. It is on the Left Bank, sort of on the edge of the Latin Quarter, but even better, it is on the ground floor WITH NO STAIRS. Almost all of the other options were on the 4th to 6th floors, with no elevators, which would have been great fun with my gargantuan 5-tonne suitcase. It is also in a lovely area just beside Rue Mouffetard which is one of the liveliest street markets and features in many of the travel guides. I did not realise this, and discovered it the morning I arrived off my train, and needed to fill in a bit of time before the room was ready.

To backtrack a bit, I also decided to take a sleeper train to Paris as I wanted to spend the afternoon in Verona on my way down from the mountains, and this avoided finding another hotel for the night. Here my trusty iPad let me down, as although I can book flights online to all far points on the globe with a flick of my mouse and credit card, I cannot buy a ticket on a train in Italy unless I am a "registered user" for which I have to have an Italian address! And the only travel agent in the mountain valleys who could print me a rail ticket was several miles down the valley. The trip to make the booking turned out however, to be time well spent, as I had particularly wanted to get a lower bunk for the purposes of night-time "wanderings", and the train turned out to be completely full, so heaven knows where I would have ended up sleeping if I had just turned up on the night. My sleeping was amazingly good with the rocking and rolling of the train putting me well off to sleep until 7.30am with only one night-time perambulation. So a surprisingly good way to travel.

Verona lived up to the travel guide descriptions, though I was only able to see about half of the sites of interest.

 

Once again, lovely pedestrianised areas with two main piazzas and winding cobbled streets connecting them. The old Roman arena is remarkable well preserved and is the site of a famous summer opera season.

Again, there were beautifully painted and decorated buildings,

and two beautiful cathedrals.

The passeggiata is an institution there, so I sipped my glass of wine and watched the passing parade. Everyone looked as though they had dressed for the occasion, and not a pair of track pants to be seen. All ages participate, from little babies to elegant geriatrics, so a very pleasant way to spend a Saturday evening.

So I had started out in the morning from Campitello, taken the ski bus 7 km to the bus station, then a bus of 1.5 hrs over the mountains to Bolzano, then 1.5 hrs in the train to Verona, afternoon in Verona, and onto my night train at 8.50pm. Except it didn't come. No explanation, no announcement, just no train. Luckily I had struck up a halting conversation with two Italian women also going to Paris, so they set off to find out what had happened. No one was very forthcoming, but then there was a sign on the board saying it was delayed until 12.30pm! Much kerfuffling, and no clear info, and three more trains along our platform, then suddenly, up pops our train only an hour late. Still no explanations from anyone, but we hopped on gladly. I found my compartment, already filled up by Japanese girls and their luggage, but thankfully my reserved lower bunk! Hallelujah! So off to sleep very quickly, and into Paris not even late the next morning. Somewhere along the way there were Italian/Swiss mountains (that I slept through), and lots of pretty French countryside.

Since I was 2 hours early for my room, I decided to walk from the Gare de Lyon to my apartment since it is only about 2.5km, and the sun was shining yet again - what have I done to please the weather gods so much? This is how I "discovered" Rue Mouffetard

 

and bought my lunch there to wait for the apartment. Reading my guide book later, I am clearly not the first to discover it, but it is charming nevertheless.

I now have a table of guide books spread out before me, with lovely decisions to make for my next 12 days. Which day do I do the Left Bank walk? When is it best to take day trips to Versailles, Giverny and Chartres? Do I really actually want to go to the Louvre again (will it have changed in 40 years, and I can always just see the pyramid from outside)? So I think tomorrow will be the "Historic Paris" walk starting at Notre Dame, and further epistles will tell those stories.

 

Paris Numero Deux: Notre Dame and the Streets of Paris

 Thank you knees! I am so pleased that my dodgy knees have sent me to Paris! My brother Kevin has a saying about things to do or not to do: "It's worth a day of your life....", because some days just float past without memorable events to recall, while others stand out in our memories forever. My last two days in Paris have definitely fallen into that latter category. They have been so full of sights and experiences, that this email-writing process is essential for me to capture as much as I can. Please excuse excess verbiage if I witter on a bit too much about things.

Monday morning was cloudy (I thought! - see later) as I set out on an Ipod audio-guided tour. I had my little carnet (booklet) of tickets for the Metro or bus, and headed to the corner to catch my Bus 47 to take me to Notre Dame for the start of the walk. Feeling very Parisian, I hopped on the bus, and poked one of my little tickets into the validating machine. Nothing happened, and the bus driver and everyone were shouting at me in various incomprehensible French ways, waving me onto the bus. Highly confused, I stumbled on, wondering if I actually had the wrong ticket, and some inspector was going to descend on me with more scary French abuse for being a dastardly English tourist and not paying for my travel. Nevertheless, I was safely delivered to Notre Dame, and began my tour, with the intention of finding a Tourist Info place somewhere later to sort out my ticket problem. 

Notre Dame is very hazy in my 40-year-old memory of Paris, but the outside and the inside lived up to everything I was expecting, and as with so many places that we have seen in dozens of movies and travelogues, we feel it is familiar anyway. 

 

 

 

 

Those magical flying buttresses....

The audio tour led me out of Notre Dame, and over to the Left Bank, past the unfortunately closed-for-the -day Deportation Memorial, so that is a pencilled note to return to. Meandering around the Left Bank, listening to historical tit-bits was very atmospheric, then back over a bridge to Sainte Chapelle. 

The external architecture of Notre Dame is unbeatable, but the interior of the upper chapel at Sainte Chapelle holds my "Wow!" prize for the day. As I walked up the stairs into the fabulous stained glass surrounds, the audio guide quoted the Genesis line of "Let there be light!", and I was completely awe-struck. Due to the then-new Gothic building techniques freeing up walls from their supporting role, these walls are completely filled with the most beautiful stained glass depictions of biblical scenes in radiant colours, most of which are original. 

 

 

 

 

What is so absolutely humbling about these two buildings, is that they were constructed by mediaeval "peasants" using untested building techniques, no power tools, and essentially some ropes, pulleys, buckets, hammers and chisels, and maybe a wheelbarrow or two. I look at their beauty, elegance and grandeur, and wonder how far we have come in the last 500 years or so! The chapel was built by Louis IX, to house the supposed Crown of Thorns which had been "liberated" from Constantinople where it had been taken by Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine. Louis paid the equivalent of 500 million euro for the crown, 370 million euro for the jewelled shrine to hold it in the chapel, and only a mere 50 million euro to build  the actual chapel! This relic is now held at Notre Dame and displayed a few times a year.

Next door to Sainte Chapelle is the Conciergerie which were the courts and holding cells for those who fell foul of the Revolution, so it is quite a sombre tour through places where so many had spent their last night before being loaded into the tumbrils on their way to the guillotine. 

 

 

One room holds all the names in alphabetical order as listed in the original records, so famous people such as Louis, Marie Antoinette, Robespierre and others are amongst the hundreds who perished this way. Quite gloomy, but very interesting.

 A bit more wandering, and my tour was over at Pont Neuf, so time to get on the Metro to head home. I found the correct tunnel for my line, and again tried to put my ticket into the turnstile - no success again! A woman came out of the ticket office, and this time smilingly ushered me through the turnstile, and refused my ticket, saying something that sounded like "Gratuite". Curiouser and curiouser. What was wrong with my tickets? Or was it "be kind to old ladies" day in Paris? Well, I won't hold you in suspense any longer, but this morning I was looking up the daily weather for Paris, and there was a news report that the air pollution (that "cloud" of yesterday) had been so bad for a few days that cars could only be driven on alternate days, and to encourage this, public transport was free on Sunday and Monday! So THAT is why my tickets had not been working, and everyone had been ushering me through without paying.......... Today, the turnstiles happily gobbled up my little tickets.

Today has been a "looking from the outside" day. I have this time used some iPad guidebook tours to see around the main sights of Paris. Bus 69 is a regular public bus that begins in the west at the foot of the Eiffel Tower,

 

 and winds along the Seine and around the lovely neighbourhoods of the city, across to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery on the edge of the Marais district in the east, with my guidebook descriptions to tell me what I was passing, which was lots of everything. I then took half of the return journey to hop off near the Georges Pompidou Centre which I only wanted to see from the outside, as the very modern contents may or may not make it onto my viewing list, but I wanted to see the amazing building with all of its beams and pipes and struts exposed. It did not seem hugely busy, so maybe other tourists have it lower down their lists as well. 

I then passed through some nice shopping streets towards the Seine again, stopping for lunch in the sun that had now come out at a restaurant overlooking the river - not too expensive at 5.50 euro for a bowl of passable fish soup, croutons and cheese. But most importantly, it had a loo! Previously, as a tourist, I spent half my time scouting for possible loo sites as I looked at the other sights. Having recently adopted a high liquid intake regime for various reasons, I now spend my WHOLE time on loo lookout! It all becomes a bit counter-productive when in order to obtain loo access, I buy a drink ............

On to the next stop on my walking tour, the Louvre Pyramid which was not there 40 years ago when I visited the interior. I think it is lovely in itself, but I am not totally convinced of its suitability in juxtaposition with the original Louvre buildings. 

 

Never mind, it gives art buffs something to argue about. The interior has had to go back on my possible viewing list, as David has reminded me that even though IT may not have changed a lot in 40 years, I have, so I should go! 

I then set off on the second walking tour of the day which led through the Tuileries Gardens, 

 

past the Place de la Concorde,

 

then all the way along the Champs Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe.

 

 Lots of Parisian scenery passed by my steadily more aching legs. Most of the sidewalk cafes were very sparsely populated, so with every guide book saying "Don't eat here, it's a rip-off", I wonder why someone does not adjust the economic model a bit to actually attract the tourists, rather that make them feel unwanted.

Back on the Metro at the end of my walk (very hard to find, discreet signs, no highly visible signs like the ones in London or New York), I was starting to feel as though I am getting my head around the geography and some of the transport connections. My plans for the next days keep changing as I discover more things I want to see. Having read of the beautiful organ at S. Sulpice, I now discover there is another one with concerts at S. Eustache, plus a full choir and organ etc at Notre Dame on Sunday morning. Well, even 12 days cannot cover everything. 

Tomorrow is the Musee d'Orsay for Impressionists, plus maybe another walking tour, and Thursday is Versailles as rain is possible for Friday, then after that .............

 

Paris Numero Trois: Versailles, Musee d'Orsay, and l'Orangerie

 Message to self: You ARE a tourist; get over it! 

I am hereby declaring that I will not worry about looking like a tourist, and trying unsuccessfully to blend with the locals. I am never going to pass as a stylish Italian fashionista, or a chic Parisienne, so I will just be warm (or cool as the case may be) and comfortable, and get on with it. This also means that I can have all my tourist necessities close at hand and safe, so I tend to look like some version of a travelling bag lady. 

Yesterday, on my trek to Versailles, I had my nice warm bright pink ski jacket on (in the train carriage then, and today, I was the ONLY person wearing colour - everyone else was in black, grey or navy), and each zip pocket had its designated contents - for protection from pickpockets but ease of access by me. Underneath my skivvy I wore my Katmandu money belt with passport and credit cards. This all makes me look a bit tubby, however. Slung over my shoulder is my Katmandu nylon travel bag, light, functional, and quite ugly, with water bottle, iPad, zipped up coin purse, and the traveller's best friend, Kiwi muesli bars (continental picnic lunches are fine, but you cannot sneak a quick crusty baguette and cheese to snack on when a museum guard is hovering) . . Also around the neck was my camera, and later the Versailles audio guide, plus my iPhone and earpiece with another Versailles travel podcast. I waddled along, happy as can be, with everything I needed in easy reach, and out of the way of sneaky pocket-pickers! But hardly stylish, I must say!

So Wednesday was the Musee d'Orsay, set up in the old Orsay train station in the 1970s to house an important part of the Parisian collection of 19th century art. (They define the 19th century in this case as from the 1840s to 1914.) 

 

So this begins with the classical Romantic  art approved by the Salon, all very Grecian and airbrushed, then the Realists, who develop into the marvellous Impressionists, and finishes with the post-Impressionists, leading into the modern works to be found at the Georges Pompidou Centre. Most people, like me, go there for the Impressionists, and it really is a feast of these - Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Gaugin,  Van Gogh etc. 

 

Quite beautiful. Crowds of school students and Chinese tourists to trip over, however.

Rodin's Gates of Hell, containing miniatures of many of his other great sculptures.

Thursday was the aforementioned Versailles trip, which glitters as much as you imagine. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But it is the little personal items that really bring it to life. For example, the Empress Josephine was an avid rose grower who instructed Napoleon to keep his eye out for likely specimens on his warring travels, so even during the British blockade of the French ports, specimens from Kew Gardens were allowed through! Here there were some more school groups, but absolute truckloads of Chinese tourists. I thought they had all gone to Italy last year to ride in Venetian gondolas, but large quantities seem to have landed up at Versailles as well, so access through some rooms was rather like battling Tiananmen Square.

Friday was the Orangerie, a smaller, less crowded museum which focuses on the Impressionists also. The upper level is two large oval rooms containing eight (four per room) enormous curved Monet water lily works that he painted specifically for this space, in the last days of his life as his eyesight was failing. They surround you in each room, and you could just sit forever, gazing around at the magic of light and water and colour. 

 

 

 

 

Downstairs is the Walter-Guillaume collection, husband and wife art dealers who worked alongside the artists of that period, promoting their work, and gathering it as well. Again, there is Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Picasso and more, so quite an artistic feast. 

 

Deraine’s "Arlequin et Pierrot"

 

 

Cezanne's "Arbres et Maisons" (sounds better than "Trees and Houses")

 

Renoir's "Blonde a la rose"

The afternoon was spent wandering  the Left Bank, sort of doing a churches tour, but stopping off as the whim struck. My luckiest strike was at St Severin where I arrived as the organist was practising for 40 minutes for the evening's Bach concert! Fantastic sound! I hope to catch a couple of other church organs over the weekend if my planning works out.

So a busy little Parisian person I am for six more days. Markets, Les Invalides, and Chartres are on the list, though Giverny has had to be deleted as it does not open until April! One lucky bit of Internet searching that was, as I was investigating train times for getting there!

Love to all, from the least stylish tourist in Paris.

 

Paris Numero Quatre: Les Invalides, Chartres, Montmartre and the Marais, the Deportation Memorial, and the Louvre

 Bonjour mes amis - my schoolgirl French has been getting a workout over the last ten days, and shall we say, comprehension has generally resulted, but muffled cries have been heard from the graves of the members of the Academie Francaise.

Almost there - only another day in Paris, then off to Italy for a day with Katy, then on the plane home. Saturday was Les Invalides, 

 

with a very interesting First and Second World Wars museum, 

 

Paris taxi used to carry troops to the front line in a First World War emergency

 

leading to the chapel displaying the humungous tomb of Napoleon in a magnificent rotunda. 

 

 

Then on to Rue Cler, one of the pretty market streets where Parisians really do shop for both their everyday food, and yummy provisions for fancy dinner parties. A thousand cheeses and scrumptious viennoiseries (cream cakes, I think), so that you absorb calories just by walking down the street.

Sunday was lots of holiness. First was Notre Dame for the Gregorian Chant Mass - very beautiful, and from somewhere in the depths of my brain, from fifty years ago, came the melody and words for me to sing along with the Pater Noster. Memory is a very strange thing! Then home via the market at Place Monge, one of the pop-up markets, for gazing at lovely fresh produce, strange sausages, and more of those thousands of cheeses.

 

 Later in the afternoon it was off to St Eustache, near the Les Halles markets, for an organ concert.

 

 

 Beautifully played, but a bit quiet and contemplative for me - my tastes in organ music tend towards the thunderous chords end of the spectrum. However the church was beautiful as well, so it was definitely worth it.

Monday was a walking day covering two areas: Montmartre and the Marais. Much puffing up the hill to Sacre Coeur of Montmartre was worth it, both for the view, and the church.

 

 

Another dose of holiness, as I caught a Mass in a side chapel. After the Mass, they placed the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance for prayer, as the congregation committed, 125 years ago, to keeping vigil 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. You can put your name down to spend the night praying in the church to be part of this continuous prayer cycle -quite amazing. There is also a statue of thanks to Our Lady for the night during the Second World War, that a cluster of bombs fell just near the church, but did not explode, and no one was hurt. 

 

Then back outside to the combination of charm and tackiness that is Montmartre. However, it has always been an "outside the walls" place, just we tend to see the Toulouse Lautrec version as arty, rather than tacky. A lovely area to meander around in, and spend 3.50euro for a coffee to sit and watch the passing parade.

The afternoon was walking time in the Marais, an area that has gone up and down a few times in its history. In the 1600s, one of the Louis kings commissioned a beautiful residential area in what had been a marsh (marais), the result being the gracious Place des Vosges square surrounded by elegant homes, with a lovely residence for both the king and the queen.

 

 

Later the area fell on hard times and became an immigrant slum, with many ethnic enclaves. Now it is being re-gentrified and is a lively area of restaurants and shops, but still with some remnants of the Jewish Quarter and other traces of its seedier past. Many winding cobbled streets to poke around in, and even a little shop with a jacket I just had to buy.

Yesterday was an early start on the train for Chartres, with cold drizzly rain being the first really bad weather day I have had. Ski jackets rule,however, and my bright pinkness kept me warm. Chartres is just breath-taking, both for the architecture and the stained glass windows.

 

 

 

 

 

 I spent about two hours just gazing in wonderment, then caught another dose of holiness with Mass in the subterranean crypt - very atmospheric! Luckily the sun came out for an hour while I did my self-guided tour of Chartres town - St Aignan, a lovely ancient church nearby, is painted inside in the colours that once adorned many of the old churches that we now see only in grey stones. The local people did not worship in the cathedral -that was for pilgrims - these smaller surrounding churches were where they went. This one is about a thousand years old, I think. 

 

 

Wandering back to the station, the twin spires (oddly, they do not match) and flying buttresses are a magical sight overlooking the town.

 

 

 I know I have been wittering on about the incredible engineering feats that these primitive peasants carried out, but to think of them treading on hamster-style wheels to raise every stone hundreds of feet up into the air to produce this absolute poetry of construction, is quite humbling.

Today was the Louvre, or should I say, a tiny section of it, as you would have to camp there for months to see it all. I followed my audio-guide's recommendations and just did some of the Ancient Greek and Roman section, 

 

 

plus a bit of the Italian Renaissance and French Romantic periods, and that was  enough for three hours of quiet wonderment. I did not even bother to try to trample over the crowds to get at the Mona Lisa! 

 

 I was much happier with one of his other paintings, or a Titian, Giotto or Botticelli next door. 

 

Leonardo da Vinci: "St Anne, Virgin and Infant"

Giotto Crucifix

Also fantastic were the two "slave statues" by Michelangelo

 

Michelangelo's Rebellious Slave

Michelangelo's Dying Slave

 Quite apart from the works of art on display, the Louvre itself is a work of art, being the royal palace before the Louis kings decamped to Versailles. 

 

 

The Apollo Gallery in particular is a very close rival to the Hall of Mirrors.

Ironically, despite the warnings of long security and ticket queues to get in, those flowed quite quickly - it was the ladies' loo that had a queue of fifty people! There was almost some toilet rage as large Chinese tour groups tried to jump the queue, feigning lack of understanding. Shall we say, the ladies  being usurped were very firm with their directions to the "BACK OF THE LINE!!!" Again, as at Versailles, these tour groups are the largest blocks of people to be seen. It must be pouring plenty into the French economy.

Fortunately, this time, the Deportation Memorial was open, and we were allowed to enter in small groups of no more that about ten at a time which made for a very quiet and comtemplative atmosphere. Very moving, and artistic as well.

They went to the end of the earth and they did not return.

That was enough for one day, so a quiet evening awaits as I read up on the Rodin Museum for my last day in Paris.

 

PS: Unfortunately, a travel bronchitis bug struck, so Rodin never got visited. That means I now have two good reasons to return to Paris: Monet's Giverny gardens (closed until April), and Rodin. But of course, one never really needs a reason - Paris, like Rome, is reason unto itself.

 

Au revoir, not adieu......... 

Paris to Milan to Dorno and HOME!!

A 5am start, trundling my suitcase through the streets of Paris to the bus stop began my trip home. My family tease me about my Scrooge-like aversion to catching taxis, and I had vowed that on this trip I would actually splash out on occasion rather than humping the Samsonite up and down station stairs and over cobble-stones, but I seem fated to not actually do it. This time, my web search for the best way to order a taxi in Paris came up with the useful tip that Paris taxi drivers drop their price flag as they begin their journey to collect you, so if you are the first trip of the day, which at 5am is quite likely, the journey from the Paris suburbs to your central hotel may generate a 20 euro charge by the time you step into the cab! Scrooge does not like that!!!! An even more useful Paris website is their public transport information site which told me that a bus to Gare de Lyon left only 100m from my apartment, with no Metro stairs to negotiate, and only cost one of my carnet tickets, meaning that I had a very smooth 10 minute bus journey delivering me to the station entrance, accompanied by my aura of virtuous frugality.

 

The daylight fast train from Paris to Milan travelled very speedily through the French countryside, past the mountains on the Italian border, and into Milano Porta Garibaldi station. Katy's wonderfully kind son Bruno rescued me from there, as unexplained maintenance work meant our train disgorged us in an unsignposted area of tracks with no indication as to how you actually found your way up to the main station! Just one of the delights of travelling, as the Samsonite got hauled in many wrong directions until by chance I emerged in the right place! 

 

From Milan Bruno drove us into the countryside to the village of Dorno where Katy now lives, a pretty and quiet little place surrounded by rice fields awaiting their spring planting of that lovely Italian risotto rice. She kindly tended to my coughing and spluttering, taking me to the local Farmacia where there was a shop-wide discussion in Italian about the best medications for me to use on my upcoming 30-hour flight. Armed with these, and fortified by a lovely hot bath, I was delivered to the airport the next day, and onto my many flights home. 

The sighting of Piha and the Waitakeres as the plane heads for Auckland Airport is always the best part of any trip ..........