The next day I drove my brother to the Calvados Department where the temperatures were almost freezing!  The strong winds did not make things any better and so we had to bundle up like Eskimo babies just to keep warm.  Our first stop was Arromanches-les-Bains, a modest seaside resort which owes its fame to the gigantic landing operation which took place in June 1944.  In the roadstead of the little port are the remains of a Mulberry harbor, the most extraordinary industrial and maritime achievement of the war.  Arromanches harbor was chosen as the landing point for Mulberry B for British troops, while Mulberry A for the Americans was taken to Omaha Beach.  More about Arromanches can be read here at my posting from 21 NOVEMBER 2009.  The establishment of these artificial ports meant the laying of 146 Phoenix caissons, representing 500,000 tons of concrete (each one was 7 meters long, 20 meters high and 15 meters wide; 33 jetties and 16km of floating “roads”.  Mulberry B at Arromanches, later known as Port Winston, enabled 9,000 tons of material to be landed each day.  Several Phoenix caissons are still there today.  Nearby is the Musée du Débarquement.  It contains a collection of models, photographs, dioramas, arms and equipment of the Allied forces.  Sadly, it was closed when we arrived because it was still so early in the morning.  Our next stop took us directly to Bayeux, the first French town to be liberated (7 June 1944) and was fortunate not to have been damaged during the war.  Along the Quai de l’Aure one has a fine view of the river, the water mill in what was once the tanning district.  The arched bridge, the old fish market and the towers of the cathedral in the background.  Notre-Dame Cathedral still keeps watch over this charming, old-fashioned town and the Bayeux Tapestry presents its unique record of the events of 1066 to the visitor.  The Bayeux Tapestry is displayed in the Centre Guillaume le Conquerant in an impressive 18th century building, which was a seminary until 1970.  It is displayed under glass around the walls of the specially designed Harold Room.  The origins of the tapestry are unknown.  It was probably commissioned in England soon after the conquest from a group of Saxon embroiderers by Odo of Conteville, Count of Kent and Bishop of Bayeux, to adorn the cathedral he had just had built.  It appears in the cathedral’s Treasury Inventory for 1476.  In the 18th century it was wrongly attributed to Queen Matilda.  The embroidery is in colored wool on a piece of linen 50cm high by 70 meters long.  Click HERE to see the tapestry in its entirety.  The work is the most accurate and lively document to survive from the Middle Ages and provides detailed information on the clothes, ships, arms and general lifestyle of the period.  The illustrations give a very realistic account of the events of 1066.  From the initial rivalry between Harold and William to the conquest and final Norman victory the story is told in 58 detailed scenes.  The English are distinguished by their moustaches and long hair, the Normans by their short hairstyles, the clergy by their tonsures and the women (three in all) by their flowing garments and veiled heads.  Here are several photos I took with scene descriptions.

--Where Harold, Duke of the English, and his soldiers ride to Bosham.

--Here Guy brings Harold to William, Duke of the Normans.

--In the lower border we see a little naked couple, one of the erotic motifs that appear here and there in the margins of the Tapestry.

--Here Duke William and his army come to Mont-Saint-Michel and cross the river Couesnon.  Duke Harold gives proof of his courage and strength by rescuing two Normans from some quicksand; he carries one on his back and drags the other to safety with his right hand.

--Here Duke William’s soldiers do battle with the men of Dinan.  Two soldiers with torches are trying to set fire to the fortress.  Above right is Conan; on the tip of his lance hang the keys to the city, which William receives on the tip of his own weapon.

--Here William comes to Bayeux, where Harold swears a sacred oath to Duke William by placing his hands on Holy relics.

--The appearance of Halley’s Comet (in the upper border) causes great consternation among all who see it.  It was visible in England from February 1066 onwards, reaching its maximum brightness at the end of April.  This comet was regarded as an ill omen and it inspired terror.  The presentation of Harold to his people is thus directly followed by the suggestion that his coronation took place beneath an ‘evil star’.  The new King is clearly also perturbed by the comet.  Harold sits listening, head to one side, as a man addresses him.  The Tapestry seems to imply that they are talking about the impending invasion by a Norman fleet, for beneath the King’s feet we see ghostly ships in skeletal outline.

--These men carry arms to the ships of Duke William.

--Here Duke William crosses the sea in a great ship and arrives in Pevensey.  After a delay of two weeks, the ships crossed the Channel on the night of 27/28 September.  The bulk of the army was Norman, though Bretons, Flemings, Frenchmen and Italians also took part.  The ‘great ship’ is the Norman flagship, the Mora, with a wooden human figure mounted on her sternpost.

--And here troops have hurried to Hastings to seize food.  The meat is cooked, and here the servants serve it on spits which they carry to the table. 

--A feast is held and Bishop Odo, seated at the semicircular table laden with dishes, imparts his blessing on the food and drink.

--Here the troops set out from Hastings and advance to do battle against King Harold.  Duke William asks Vital whether he has seen Harold’s army.

--In the midst of the Norman cavalry a party of archers advances and Duke William exhorts his troops to prepare themselves manfully and wisely for the battle against the army of the English.

--The Tapestry shows the Anglo-Saxons forming a shield-wall and repulsing a cavalry attack on two sides.  We thus see Harold’s troops for the first time; they are armed and armored in the same way as their opponents, but they fight only on foot.  The lower border now fills with casualties.

--Here, at the same time, both English and French fall in battle.  There are casualties on both sides.  Horses plunge and somersault in the mêlée.

--Duke William tips back his helmet to show his face.  The man riding ahead of the Duke is possibly Count Eustace of Boulogne.  A long line of archers in the lower margin accompanies the renewed cavalry charge.

--The cavalry charge leads to a final, bloody, hand-to-hand combat, in which Normans kill Anglo-Saxons.

--Here King Harold is slain with an arrow piercing his head; the English flee.

Notre-Dame Cathedral is a fine Norman Gothic building.  Only the towers and the crypt remain from the original church, which was completed in 1077 by Odo of Conteville, King William’s turbulent companion in arms whom he eventually had to restrain.  The portal of the south transept is pure in style; the tympanum over the door shows the story of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was assassinated in his cathedral on the orders of Henry II.  The well-lit nave is a blend of Romanesque and Gothic dating from the 13th century.  The St-Pierre chapel in the north side contains this beautiful altarpiece called a retable depicting the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  There are some chapels along the south side of the cathedral that still contain 15th century frescoes.  Beneath the chancel is the 11th century crypt, which is divided into three small chambers, each of which contains six bays of groined vaulting.  Above the decorated foliage of the capitals are 15th century frescoes (restored) of angel musicians.  Just outside the cathedral is the rue Bienvenu with a beautiful timber-framed house decorated with wooden carvings inspired by religion and legend.  Across the street we decided to have a typical Normandy lunch at the Au Louis d'Or Crêperie.  Each of us chose something different and which we then shared while downing bowls of apple cider.  Unfortunately we did not have time to wander the streets of Old Bayeux because we were in a hurry to get to the American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer.  After visiting the brand new Visitor’s Center and Museum, we walked down to Omaha Beach along a small path, which winds down the cliffside.  After making it back to the top again we explored the vast cemetery with its 9,385 Carrara marble crosses.  I’ve written about this place before in blog postings from 18 JAN 2010 to 22 MAY 2010.  Check them out for more photos and a better understanding of what can be found in the cemetery.  The American Battle Monuments Commission has a great site with even more information.  This final picture is of the monument erected just outside of the cemetery to the US 1st Infantry Division.  Running out of daylight, we hurried on to La pointe du Hoc.  The Jurassic limestone plateau ends in a tall cliff (over 30 meters) dominating the lower rocky shoreline at Grandcamp.  The Germans heavily defended la pointe du Hoc; their observation post covered all that sector of the sea where the American invasion fleet appeared on the morning of 6 June 1944.  As the troops landing on Omaha Beach would have been particularly vulnerable to attack from this battery the American commander ordered a naval bombardment in which the Texas fired 600 salvoes of 14-inch shells.  The 2nd Battalion of specially trained Rangers captured the position by assault at dawn on 6 June scaling the cliffs with ropes and extendable ladders but not without heavy losses – 135 Rangers out of 225.  It took the full force of the commandos of the 116th Regiment of the US infantry, assisted by tanks, to subdue the German defences.  You can read more at my blog posting from 3 JANUARY 2010.  The gaping craters and battered blockhouses give some idea of the intensity of the fighting.  A slim granite column on the edge of the cliff commemorates the battle.  Our last stop for the day was in La Cambe.  This is the final resting place for over 21,500 German soldiers who fell in the fighting of 1944.  You can read more about it on my previous posting from 22 MAY 2010.  The only photo I took on my brother’s final day was this one in my living room.  That morning I had to get up very early to take him to Caen to catch a Brittany Ferry for Portsmouth.  We had a fantastic time together and I can’t wait for him to visit again. 

Getting to Château de Versailles is not difficult but you MUST know which RER train to take.  Since we were staying at the Hôtel de Reims, we took Metro line 14 to Bibliothèque-François Mitterrand and then took RER commuter train C5 directly to Versailles-Rive Gauche.  A round­-trip ticket only costs 6,10 Euro and the entire trip lasts about 30 minutes.  If you don’t watch the monitors at the RER station for which train is going to Versailles-Rive Gauche, you may end up very far from the Château entrance.  After exiting the train station, take a right on Avenue du Général de Gaulle until you come to Avenue de Paris.  Make a left and voila!  You’re there!  Be wise and book your ticket in advance online at the Versailles website.  This way you can avoid unnecessary lines and begin your tour immediately.  My brother and I arrived just before the gates opened and had an opportunity to take photos of the façade moving ever closer from the Great Courtyard toward the Royal Courtyard and finally, the Marble Courtyard.  After entering, we began our tour by visiting the Royal Galleries.  Louis-Philippe, King of the French from 1830 to 1848, transformed Versailles into a museum dedicated to the glories of France.  Through his desire to reconcile the different regimes, the Citizen King succeeded in creating the first museum of the history of France.  He transformed the apartments of the princes and courtiers into vast galleries, in which the ancient paintings and sculptures were brought together in evocative retrospectives.  The galleries devoted to the 17th century are a good introduction to the tour of the royal apartments located on the first floor of the central body of the château.  I found the images of Versailles in the 17th and 18th centuries the most interesting, particularly this work of Pierre-Denis Martin called “Le Château de Versailles en 1722”.  The first stop after the Galleries is the Chapel Drawing Room.  To attend Mass the King had to cross this room, which links the Royal Gallery to the State Apartment.  Its decoration is therefore related to that of the Chapel.  It is here one receives an audio guide which allows you to explore the château at your own pace.  Following the tradition of the Palatine chapels, the Royal Chapel has two storeys.  The galleries were reserved for the King, the royal family and important members of the Court, while the rest of the congregation occupied the ground floor.  Consecrated in 1710, and dedicated to Saint-Louis, ancestor and patron saint of the royal family, the chapel was the last building to be constructed at Versailles under the reign of Louis XIV.  The decoration of the ceiling depicts the continuity between Old and New Testaments.   Upon entering the State Apartment one passes by several statues located in the North wing.  Of course, one day is not enough to see everything at Versailles.  There are many rooms within the palace we did not get to see.  Of the ones we did see, I can only tell you about some of them.  One of the first rooms on our tour was the Diana Drawing Room.  Louis XIV, who was an excellent billiard-player, had a large table set up here, covered when not in use with a crimson velvet cloth, its edges fringed with gold.  The ladies followed the game from benches set up on platforms, which gave them a good view and allowed them to applaud the King’s successes.  The whole of the decoration of this room refers to the legend of the goddess Diana.  Above the fireplace is Charles de Lafosse’s “Sacrifice of Iphigenia,” and opposite is “Diana Watching Over the Sleeping Endymion” (1672) by Gabriel Blanchard.  The bust of Louis XIV is the work of Bernini.  Another room was called the Apollo Drawing Room, which was used for formal audiences since Versailles was the first royal château to have a throne room.  The silver throne, standing as high as eight foot, was melted down in 1689 and was replaced much later, under Louis XV, by a gilt wood throne.  On the ceiling is painted the image of Apollo in his Sun Chariot surrounded in the corners by allegoric representations of four continents.  The famous portrait of Louis XIV by Hyacinthe Rigaud hung in this room until the Revolution (this one is a copy while the original hangs in the Louvre).  The War Drawing Room, the Hall of Mirrors and the Peace Drawing Room form an ensemble whose décor is devoted to the military victories and political successes of Louis XIV.  In 1678, architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart presented the King with plans for the construction of the present Hall of Mirrors.  Work began immediately, and was completed in 1686.  It served as passageway giving access to the King’s Apartment.  Here gathered the courtiers who hoped to see the monarch on his way to the Royal Chapel.  Grand celebrations were also held here, such as full-dress balls, or the masked ball given on the occasion of princely marriages.  In the 19th century, at the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War, the Prussian king, Bismarck and the victorious German princes and lords declared William I, German emperor—thus establishing the Second German Empire—on 18 January 1871 in the Hall of Mirrors.  This was seen as a victory with heavy symbolism for the Germans and a stinging insult for the defeated French.  French Prime Minister Clemenceau chose the Hall of Mirrors to sign the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I on 28 June 1919.  In 2007, three years of restorations to the hall were completed, including the replacement of 48 of the 357 antique mercury mirrors by Vincent Guerre.  One exits the Hall of Mirrors into the Peace Drawing Room.  As its name suggests, the decoration of this drawing room is dedicated to peace.  Above the fireplace is a painting by Francois Lemoine (1729), showing “Louis XV Offering Europe an Olive Branch”.  This room was also connected to the Queen’s Apartment, to be used as the Games Room.  Here every Sunday, under the reign of Louis XV, the Queen Maria Leczinska gave concerts of sacred and secular music, which played an important role in the musical life of Versailles.  After the death of Queen Maria-Theresa, the King’s Bedchamber was attached to the Kings Apartment and became generally known as “the room in which the King dresses.”  At that time it was called the State Drawing Room.  In 1701, Louis XIV decided to turn the room into his bedchamber.  It was here that the Sun King would die on September 1, 1715.  After him, both Louis XV and Louis XVI would continue to use it for the ceremonies of the “lever” and the “coucher”.  It was on the balcony, on October 6, 1789, that Louis XVI, the Queen and the Dauphin appeared before the crowd as the royal family was forced to leave Versailles for Paris.  The former State Cabinet of Louis XIV and the King’s Wig Cabinet were joined together in 1755 to form the present Council Chamber where one can observe in the panelling medallions evoking the work of the King.  The Council of State met here on Sundays and Wednesdays, and occasionally on Mondays, while the Council of Finances met on Tuesdays and Saturdays.  Once or twice a month there would be Extraordinary Councils, such as the Council of Dispatches.  The King would be seated in an armchair and the ministers on folding chairs.  Also during the reign of Louis XIV and his successors, the King would summon his family here for certain ceremonies such as the signing of the registers during princely marriages.  It was also here that, in 1700, Louis XIV accepted the Spanish crown for his grandson the Duc d’Anjou from whom Juan Carlos, the current King of Spain, descends.  It was in this room, the Queen’s Bedchamber, that the Queen gave birth to the heirs to the throne to a public audience.  In her Memoirs, Madame Campan, who was Marie Antoinette’s First Woman of the Bedchamber, described what such a birth could be like: “the moment that Vermond the accoucheur announced ‘The Queen is about to give birth’, the crowds of spectators who rushed into her room were so numerous and disorderly that one thought the Queen would perish….  Two Savoyards got up on the furniture the more easily to see the Queen, who was facing the fireplace on a bed got ready for her labour.”  In the Salon des Nobles, the Queen of France held official audiences, and the ladies newly admitted to Court were presented to her.  Certain elements of the décor, the ceiling in particular which portrays an allegory of Mercury, recall the fact that originally the Queen’s Apartment was symmetrical with the King’s.  The furniture and green damask walls of fabric were designed specially for Marie-Antoinette in 1785.  In Queen Maria-Theresa’s day, the Antechamber of the Grand Couvert was known as the Room of the Queen’s Guard, hence the ceiling decorated with warlike themes.  Visitors who had obtained an audience with the Queen would have to wait here before entering the Salon des Nobles or the Bedchamber.  This room was also used for concerts and theatrical performances.  The name Grand Couvert comes from that of the ceremonial requiring that the King and Queen eat certain meals in public.  One of the most noteworthy was the meal that Louis XV and Maria Leczinska took here in the company of the young Mozart on January 1, 1764.  Out of the paintings hung in the Grand Couvert, the most famous is the large painting by Élisabeth Virgée-Lebrun exhibited in the 1787 Drawing Room.  This State Portrait of Marie Antoinette and her children Marie Therese, Louis Charles (on her lap), and Louis Joseph, was meant to help her reputation by depicting her as a mother in simple, yet stately attire.  The Dauphin, Louis Charles, points to an empty cradle, which should have held Madame Sophie, who died at a very young age before the painting was completed.  The Salle du Sacre was originally the site of the château’s third chapel.  When in 1682 the Court and Government were officially established at Versailles, it served as the common guardroom of the King’s and Queen’s guards.  Permanently cluttered with the sedan chairs of the ladies of the Court, benches, screens and arms racks, and hung with painted canvas, courtiers nicknamed this room the “magasin” or storeroom.  Here, every Holy Thursday, the King would wash the feet of thirteen poor children.  Its present appearance and name date from the reign of Louis-Philippe who installed the painting by Jacques-Louis David, depicting the coronation of Napoleon I on December 2, 1804.  Situated in the South Wing (or Princes’ Wing), covering the first floor and the attic on the park side, the Hall of Battles took the place of the apartments reserved for the members of the royal family.  The architects Nepveu and Fontaine designed the hall of Battles as a setting for the vast paintings dedicated to the great French victories, from Tolbiac, won by Clovis in 497, to Wagram, a victory for Napoleon in 1809.  It was Louis-Philippe’s express desire for the busts of the great officers and princes of royal blood who died for France to be exhibeted in the Hall of Battles, along with the commemorative plaques bearing their names and dates.  A complement to the Hall of Mirrors, it leads to the 1830 room created to honor Louis-Philippe’s accession to the throne and the new constitutional monarchy born out of the 1830 Revolution.  Before heading to the Versailles Gardens, be sure to stop at the souvenir shop and prepare to be completely OVERWHELMED with books and keepsakes of your visit.  I ended up purchasing a large book for my brother’s wife as well as a small tapestry and some magnets for their regrigerator magnet collection.  Outside, beyond the château to the west stretch the gardens and the park, laid out around a main east-west axis, perpendicular to the chateau, and a secondary axis from north to south running along the façades.  At the foot of the buildings, landscape artist André Le Nôtre created the parterres, designed to be viewed from the terraces.  They were also intended to set off the château’s architecture.  The two perfeclty horizontal ponds of the Water Parterre, mirrors reflecting the façades, which were dug considerably later (towards 1685), demonstrate this concept pushed to the extreme.  Statues of stone, marble, lead and bronze populate the gardens with people and animals, often derived from mythology or allegories.  Le Nôtre made sure that the sculptures emphasised rather than interfered with the lines of the garden.  Openness and scope characterise the work of Le Nôtre.  Before him, the gardens were closed and relatively modest in size.  They now open onto the surrounding countryside and have changed scale.  Le Nôtre also gives greater importance to the central axis, around which all of the other parts of the garden have been arranged.  Starting from the terrace of the château, the Grand Perspective draws the eye to the horizon.  As it moves further away, it crosses the parterres, descends through groves, follows the canal between the forests of the park, gently rising through the countryside towards the sky.  The Grand Canal is 1,650 meters in length!  The Fountain of Apollo owes its décor, which deals with the major theme of the mythological, symbolical and political concepts developed throughout the gardens, to its prime position.  Just as Louis XIV is identified with the sun god, Phœbus Apollo, similarly, Apollo rising above the waves denotes the rising of the sun and the dawning of a promising reign.  The weather was nice but cold.  It was made worse by the strong winds.  Before reaching the Grand Trianon, we stopped at La Petite Venise Restaurant within the park to eat lunch.  The Italian fare was delicious and I highly recommend it to anyone visiting the gardens to spend some quality time here when they need a rest or when they are hungry.  You won’t be disappointed.  After eating our fill of ravioli and fettuccine we headed out again to the Grand Trianon.  In 1668, Louis XIV bought a village named Trianon, which he joined to the Versailles estate and demolished.  A pavilion decorated with blue and white tiles, which became known as the Porcelain Trianon, was built here in 1670.  In 1687, the King decided to replace it with a larger building, the work of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, which became known as the Marble Trianon from the way in which it was decorated.  From then on until the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, the Trianon was constantly inhabited, apart from during the Revolution.  However, it is mainly the installations commissioned by Napoleon I and Louis-Philippe that still remain in this dwelling, fully restored in 1965 by order of General de Gaulle.  In 1761, Ange-Jacques Gabriel, by the order of Louis XV, designed the Petit Trianon for Madame de Pompadour.  It was constructed between 1762 and 1768 but four years before its completion Madame de Pompadour died.  It was then occupied by her successor, Madame du Barry.  When Louis XVI ascended the throne in 1774, he gave the château to Marie Antoinette for her exclusive enjoyment.  Of note are the beautiful French Pavilion and French Garden.  Later, the queen had the garden transformed and asked the architect Richard Mique and the painter Hubert Robert to design an English Garden in its place: hence the appearance of small brooks, picturesque views and lawns.  Nearby is the Belvedere Pavilion which dominates the landscape of the English Garden.  This small, classical pavilion is not open to visitors and its facades, roofing and interior are scheduled for restoration by the World Monuments Fund.  Visible from the Queen’s bedroom is the Temple de l’Amour, the setting for many of Marie-Antoinette’s fêtes.  Completed in 1778, this classic dome is often used in films.  During our visit, there was a film crew on site with actors dressed in 18th century garb.  Marie-Antoinette disliked Versailles and spent much of her time at the Petit Trianon, as far away from Court intrigue as she could get.  She enjoyed playing the role of a peasant milk maid or shepherdess and had her architect Richard Mique design what is known as The Queen’s Hamlet.  The houses were modelled on the style of Normandy cottages yet were, in fact, quite elegant inside.  Between 1783 and 1785, Mique built twelve houses, of which ten still stand, among them the Queen’s Cottage, the Billiard Room, the Mill, the Boudoir and the Pigeon Loft.  Our day at Versailles came an end around 14h00, just in time to make it back to our hotel, pick up our luggage and get to Gare Saint-Lazare for our train to Cherbourg.  For those of you who read the previous articles, my brother and I DID make it back to the banks of the Seine when we briefly stopped at Metro Station St-Michel – Notre-Dame in order to buy those three prints for five Euros.  What a deal !

Paris is so much nicer when you visit with a family member !  Last week, my brother visited me from the United States and I took him to see some of my favorite places in and around Île de la Cité.  Of course, a three-day vacation in Paris is difficult to do especially when there is so much to see.  Perhaps when he comes again with his wife, we will have the chance to visit many of the extraordinary sights that we missed like the Catacombs, Père-Lachaise, Le Grand Palais, Musée d’Orsay and perhaps make it to the top of the Eiffel Tower.  Can you believe it ?  In all of my visits to the city of lights, I’ve never been to the top !  After meeting up with him at Charles de Gaulle Airport, we took the Roissy Bus to Opéra Garnier and then the RER and Metro to our hotel L’Hôtel de Reims in the 12th Arrondissement near the Gare de Lyon.  It is a cozy, handsome, newly renovated retreat along the quiet Rue Hector Malot, not far from Metro Station 14.  An added bonus included the incredible shopping and restaurants featured underneath the Arches du viaduc des Arts (a quiet promenade) that follows the nearby Avenue Daumesnil.  Sadly, I did not take any photos of this wonderful place but I grabbed some screen shots from Google Maps.  The day before my brother arrived, I spent over an hour walking along the promenade, planted with gardens of all types and sizes.  Our first destination was a leisurely stroll through the Jardin des Plantes that radiates outward toward the Seine from the Muséum national d’Histoire.  From there we passed by the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont and Lycée Henri-IV before reaching our intended objective, Le Panthéon, an enormous national monument that functions as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens.  Some of the tombs include those of Victor Hugo, Louis Braille, Marie and Pierre Curie, Voltaire, Rousseau, Émile Zola, Alexandre Dumas and the heart of Léon Gambetta.  Underneath the central dome is a 67-meter pendulum initially installed by Léon Foucalt in 1851 to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.  After a short walk to the Metro, passing by the prestigious Sorbonne University, we emerged at Place Charles de Gaulle at the western extreme of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées to visit l’Arc de Triomphe.  This monument to was commissioned in 1806 by Emperor Napoleon after the victory at Austerlitz and honors those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.  Panoramic views from the top are spectacular as one can see all of Paris and the grand avenues that radiate from it.  Our next stop was the great icon of France, the Eiffel Tower, built in 1889 for l’Exposition universelle de Paris by engineer Gustave Eiffel.  The best way to view the city’s most popular monument is to arrive by Metro at the Palais du Trocadéro, walk down the stairs toward the base of the tower and finally have a casual stroll through the Champ-de-Mars gardens.  If you are interested in military history or wish to visit the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte, make your way to l’Hotel national des Invalides.  This impressive structure initiated by Louis XIV in 1670 houses the Musée de l’Armee, Musée des Plans-Reliefs, Musée d’Histoire Contemporaine and is crowned by the gold-gilt Église du Dôme.Underneath this magnificent dome is the final resting place for some of France’s war heroes, notably Napoleon Bonaparte.  His remains were placed here in 1861.  No expense was spared for the tomb and his body lies within six separate coffins.  They are made of iron, mahogany, two of lead, ebony and the outer one is red porphyry.  The tomb sits on a green granite pedestal surrounded by 12 pillars of victory.  In my opinion, there is no better way to unwind after a long day of sightseeing than to take in the show at the Bal du Moulin Rouge located in the Pigalle district.  The cabaret built in 1889 by Joseph Oller is famous for being the spiritual birthplace of the modern can-can.  Artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec contributed to its popularity by painting numerous scenes and posters of nightlife at the Moulin Rouge.  The current revue is named “Féerie”.  It contains four main scenes with a total of 69 songs.  Multiple acts are performed by a total of 100 artists including Doriss girls (showing their breasts), dancers, acrobats, magicians and clowns.  Traditionally each revue runs for 10 to 12 years and costs 7 to 9 million Euros to create.  We made our booking in advance and had the “Belle Époque” dinner before the show began.  I can’t say anything more about this experience than WOW!!!  It is definitely worth the 180 Euros per person and shouldn’t be missed.  I first saw “Féerie” in 2001 and I am still enchanted !

This is what the Transatlantic Station in Cherbourg used to look like before World War II.  Those damn Nazis destroyed much of what once used to be beautiful.  Fortunately, the building has been restored although I guess none of us will ever get to see it with its original tower.  The current building is now the Cité de la Mer dedicated to maritime history.  It also has a huge aquarium featuring many kinds of fish.  Large ships like the Cunard Queen Mary II and the Queen Elizabeth still dock here with tourists every year. 

I hope that everyone had a nice Christmas.  I know that I certainly did !  I drove to the south of France to stay with friends in the Lot Department with whom I have spent the holidays with for the last ten years.  The drive from Cherbourg went well enough although I had some fog between Caen and Tours.  After that, there was plenty of rain.  This made the total drive 9 hours and 5 minutes.  It’s always my job to put out the Christmas ornaments and decorate the tree when I arrive.  At my church in Querqueville, I purchased some adorable felt ornaments from the organization Secours Catholique during their national campaign for Catholic Relief Services.  Photos of the ornaments can be found at the bottom of the page here.  Of course, we always put out the Nativity that I made several years ago from some old wood and moss found in the forest behind my friend’s house.  During the night of the 23^rd it snowed and the temperatures dropped drastically.  It was certainly a white Christmas for us.  My friend’s father was able to put his new wood-burning stove to good use.  It creates a lot of heat from small wood pellets.  The snow never melted and everything was just as it should be at Christmas.  For Christmas Eve, we had our traditional feast at the table elaborately decorated using some fresh greens, pinecones and some old ornaments.  First on the menu were the aperitifs of various French liqueurs.  Then we were on to the six-dozen oysters that I bought earlier in the day at the market.After that we had foie gras and verrine de saumon before moving on to the main course­—a goose, potatoes with wild mushrooms, haricots verts and grilled chestnuts.  After a short break we sipped a variety of wines and nibbled on our plate of cheese which included Leerdammer, Cantal and Rocamadour cabécou.  For dessert we ate homemade carrot cake and two bûche de Noël.  The meal ended at midnight when the baby Jesus was placed in the crèche and we all drank a glass of champagne.  I was exhausted and went to bed right away while others sat downstairs talking until the wee hours of the morning.  Christmas day was kind to me and I received many wonderful gifts including shirts, a bathrobe and some Tintin books and DVDs.  I also received a painting of my favorite bande dessinée character done by my friend’s neice.  The trip back to Querqueville was uneventful and took only 8 hours and 30 minutes.  There were a few places that were still covered in snow just after driving past the Civaux Nuclear Power Plant.  It’s good to be home and I wish everyone a very Happy New Year !