Efoss3

I'm really enjoying all the details you've included, especially the parts your children enjoyed. I'm sure your boys liked being able to buy their pizzas and getting bread on their own.

We took our now grown children to Europe and that was an experience, rather than a vacation- your son is insightful!

Looking forward to hearing more,
Evelyn

Nikki

Your trip started off with a bang and the report did too. Really enjoying it.

Canada_V

Thanks again to everyone for their comments, and for letting me know you are out there

-----

<b>Side note on Orangina advertising</b>
Nothing says pulpy orange pop to me more then random sexy animals in bathing suits… well, I guess that is true now! I don’t know if this is just a France thing, or it if how Orangina is always marketed, but while we were there, there were pictures of sexy giraffes (is sexy giraffe an oxymoron?), zebras, bamboo (yes I know bamboo isn’t an animal) in swimsuits, saucily perched on ice cubes, advertising Orangina. I must admit, don’t really get it… but we do now have an Orangina photo essay (including a series of smart cars with these comely creatures)

<b>Montmatre</b>
Onto the Metro to the Montmatre – DH was interested in the Dali museum and it wasn’t on the museum pass either, hence including two areas sort of on opposites end of Paris in the same day. Though, realistically, we confirmed what I had read in several places on this forum, but maybe can only REALLY sink in once you’ve actually been there, but it is a compact city with lots of efficient transportation options, so really even ‘far apart’ places are close enough together.

Getting out at the Abbesses metro, we saw a bunch of people waiting for an elevator on the metro platform. An elevator? How lazy can those people be?!?! Losers… OK... after what seemed like 100’s of steps later… “Why are we such losers…? There is no such thing as laziness in Parisian design… if there is an elevator, there is a reason!”

Made our way following the signs to the funicular passing lots of very ‘tourist oriented’ shops. Have to admit that Montmatre was our least favourite stop in Paris. It seemed the most ‘spoiled’ by touristy-ness. Now granted, we were there on a Sunday afternoon and we only went to the ‘signposted’ tourist section; on a Sunday afternoon the only people on Isle Saint Louis seemed to be tourists too, but we had the chance to see it early morning and late evening as well, so maybe it isn’t fair to poor Montmatre. At the funicular, both DH and I were approached separately by men looking to tie string around our fingers. I smiled; made eye contact; said no monsieur and kept walking; shared a laugh when he ‘guessed’ Nigerian when I didn’t initially respond to his question about what nationality I was (I think Japanese is probably the only ethnicity that would be a worse guess then Nigerian for me…); and kept moving. DH looked irritated and said NO in a loud voice. Both methods appeared equally effective

The lineup for the funicular was a big crush of tourists. We played the game of ‘no I will not be intimidated by your attempts to cut in front of us in line’ with a group of large (Italian? Spanish?) sisters/cousins/friends-who-look-alike. Irksome. Being almost 6 foot tall helps avoiding being pushed around too much, but it isn’t a hobby I engage in by choice…

Followed the signs to the Dali exhibit, walking through Place du Tertre and all it’s ‘obviously only there for the tourists’ restaurants and caricaturists. I was under no delusions that other places in Paris that we had been or were staying were ‘off the beaten path’ neighbourhoods, or that we were anything but tourists, but that main part of Montmatre didn’t seem to be pretending that it was anything BUT for tourists. The shape of the buildings, the view, lots of things had great charm, but this was the first place that I found the charm was totally spoiled by the ‘amenities’. When we found the Dali exhibition, we decided that the entrance price was too much to take the chance. Maybe if we hadn’t had that initial impression of the area we might have been more willing to take a risk – or if the weather had been nicer (it had just started to rain fairly heavily) DH might have gone in, and ‘come and gotten us’ if he thought we would have liked it. So we decided to leave Montmatre.

We decided to stop into Sacre Coeur on our way back. There was a mass going on, and I found that sort of strange – people in the centre participating in a religious service, and then a circuit of tourists walking around ‘sight-seeing’. We aren’t a ‘church going’ family, and even though there were obviously lots of tourists walking around, it just seemed disrespected or wrong or maybe just awkward, to eyeball the stained glass while people were worshipping, so we just looked briefly from the back and moved on.

Although the kids wanted to go back down on the funicular, neither DH nor I wanted to go back that we, so we looked on the map for a nearby metro in the opposite direction, picked Chateau-Rouge and headed off. Apparently by going ‘behind’ Sacre Coeur we stepped through some sort of force field that marked the edge of tourist books, because in one minute we were in a crush of tour groups and the next we were pretty much alone, and the next we were somewhere completely different.

<b>Down the hill into a different Paris</b>
We walked down some crazy quirky streets, looking at houses a all angles that looked like they had grown there organically like magic crystals or coral. The kids showed that they had adjusted to being in Paris by suddenly shouting out “I smell bakery!” so they popped in and got us an afternoon snack of croissants/pain du chocolat.

Turning the corner, we noticed that we had just passed our third hair styling place with, based on the pictures in the windows, and the people getting weaves and braids inside, a black clientele. And when we got to the metro station, we were clearly in an African neighbourhood. It was absolutely thronging – looked like it there was a Sunday market going on. We weren’t able to spend too much time looking around, but Kerouac – I thought of you and thought this needs to be a place to come back to when we had more time to add new layers to our experience of Paris!

<b>Test driving tomorrow’s train trip</b>
Monday we were going to be catching an 8am train to Amiens for our day trip to visit Vimy Ridge, so we thought it would be a good idea to stop by Gare du Nord to get oriented (so we would know how early we needed to get up ) We looked at the schedule board, and none of the trains seemed to have platform numbers. Eldest son A went to the information kiosk to ask about how it worked, what we were supposed to do with our tickets, etc. And once again, not only was I proud of him and how he was able to communicate, but I was very appreciative of the info kiosk staff – who could probably speak English – who were patient and appreciative of his efforts, and of what looked like a Parisian businessman type who was in line behind A, who was watching the whole discussion not with a look of irritation because he was being held up, but with an amused, warm smile…

<b>An early night</b>
We took the metro back to the Cite stop (again to make sure we had the timing right for the morning), and to prove that we are able to learn... when we saw the elevator at the platform of the Cite metro... we took it! and avoided a whole bunch more stairs ;-)

Picked up a baguette (boy, do I miss the ability to pick up excellent, fresh bread at any time… any where!) and had supper of the leftover chicken, pate etc.

After supper, went across the street (literally!) for some Berthillion ice cream. There had been lineups about a dozen deep anytime we came or went from the apartment, but perhaps because it had been raining on and off, and was still spitting, there was no line, so we were able to just step up to the counter.

A = Raspberry and Pistachio
B = Mango and Caramel
Me = Rhubard and Earl Grey Tea

I really enjoyed the Tea flavour in particular, and B really liked his, but A said his raspberry tasted too much like real raspberries for his liking!

Getting up early in the morning, so early to bed!

<i>Tomorrow – Remembering WWI and Private Norman Goodwin Broughton</i>

Pat_in_Mich

We were also amused (or maybe confused) by the Orangina advertising!

Canada_V

Hey, and just want to give a quick thank you to the fact that I have this forum in which to give this trip report.

This trip was (obviously!) very important to me, and I am very excited to be talking about it. Friends and family are interested and patient about listening - but I know that there are limits... Like the friends with the new baby... I am happy to hear about all the nitty gritty baby details, because they are my friends, but perhaps I no longer <u>really</u> share their obsession with all that new baby minutia. But, I will listen to them about their baby because I care about <u>them</u> (and then they in turn will listen to me about my France trip ;-) Isn't that one of the ways that balanced friendships work?)

So I am really glad that on this forum I can go on and on and feel that any of you reading are actually interested (because you are under no social obligation to me!) and because I know that I love reading trip reports so I realize that it IS possible for there to be someone out there genuinely interested, because I am genuinely interested in all the reports I read and commented on!

So thank you!

V

kerouac

A lot of the billboard ads that you see in France are tie-ins with the television commercials.

For the full Orangina experience, go to YouTube and search for the Orangina commercial. Warning: your eyes might pop out of their sockets. (I would have put a link here for you, but my office does not allow access to YouTube.)

Canada_V

Hey Pat - glad I wasn't the only one It was fun playing "collect the Orangina ads"... Oh happy day when we spotted the elusive "cat in a bathing suit", though that one was appealled to the contest judges, as the cat was apparently only for Orangina rouge, so there was some debate as to whether it counted... we decided that rarity made it eligible for bonus points only...

Canada_V

Thanks for the tip kerouac! We will Youtube it tonight...

kerouac

Okay, here is the full Orangina experience!

http://tinyurl.com/2slqeu

Canada_V

Wow kerouac...

<<Warning: your eyes might pop out of their sockets.>>

You got that right
I think I'm glad my kids were only exposed to the print ads :-s

Nikki

With soda like that, who needs wine?

Canada_V

<b>Canada in WWI history lesson - background</b>
When doing our initial France trip training, the Vimy memorial was the one thing that topped the list for DH – for it’s specific Canadian historical significance, but also a visit inspired by Jane Urquhart’s novel “The Stone Carvers” which develops a fictional story around the impact of WWI on the ‘home front’ of a new Canada, as well as around the creation of the monument itself.

So we planned a day trip to the area where we would take a train into Amiens, rent a car, visit the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial just outside Albert, then drive to visit Vimy, returning the car to Arras and taking the train back to Paris from there.

In addition to the ‘official monuments’ I wanted to find a way to make the visit more personal. Every small town in Ontario has a war memorial that serve as a poignant reminder of the impact of this war so far away from these small, rural communities. We live just outside one of those small communities, so the boys and I visited the war memorial and wrote down the 16 names from WWI. We were able to then look up those names on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website (http://www.cwgc.org/) Thanks laverendrye for the link…) to find out where they were buried.

We found one person who was buried in a cemetery that was not too far from Hamel, in the direction of our drive to Vimy. Norman Goodwin Broughton, was the son of a farmer who lived within a couple of miles of where we live now. He was 18 when he died on Oct 21, 1916. His birthday showed that he was born almost exactly 100 years before my eldest son. At 18, I think it was especially easy for the boys to visualize him – he was the same age as that guy who used to babysit… he was the same age as that guy who refs your hockey games. We collected a couple of small stones from the area that we believed his farm had been located and brought them with us from Canada.

<b>The trip</b>
Everyone was up early, and on the road in time to catch the train from Gare du Nord to Amiens at 8am. Our ‘pre-scouting’ of the previous day helped us out! Upon arriving at Amiens, we had about a 10 minute walk to the Avis office (we could have picked up the car directly at the train station, but there would have been a 25E surcharge for doing so). As it turned out, we had to walk past the Amiens Cathedral in order to get to the office, so we were glad we had to make the walk.

The Amiens Avis staff were very friendly – had some limited English language, so we again made use of a combination of A’s French and our high school ‘nouns and verbs’ to successfully communicate. Discovering we were from Canada was met with “Ah!!! Celine Dion!!!”.

The basic “tourist map” of the area that we had picked up from the Amiens tourist information centre was more than adequate for the basic navigation we needed to do, and so we easily made our way out of Amiens to the Beaumont-Hamel memorial.

<b>Beaumont-Hamel</b>
This memorial commemorates all Newfoundlanders in WWI (technically Newfoundland wasn’t actually part of Canada at that time) but of specific significance the 1st Newfoundland Division who fought at Beaumont-Hamel, where on July 1 1916 "of the 780 men who went forward, only 60 were available for roll call the next day".

The memorial site has a visitors centre with well presented information that was accessible and understandable to all of us – both kids included. There is the memorial itself - a caribou on top of a rocky outcrop overlooking the battlefield, and the battlefield and trenches themselves. We were able to walk around the battlefield from the British lines to the German lines, overlooking no man’s land from both sides, see where there trenches were laid out, etc. While most of the trenches and battlefields were ‘fenced off’ so you could see them, though not walk in them (to preserve them, but also because there is still a risk of coming across unexploded armaments.), there was one section of trenches that had been 'restored' so that we were able to walk through and experience that way. The book I had brought to France was “Birdsong” by Sebastian Faulks. I had known that there much of the novel took place in WWI battlefields in France, but I didn’t realize that the battle of Beaumont-Hamel was portrayed in great detail. As I got to those sections over the course of our trip, having been at the physical location made those passages more tangible.

My boys were, I felt, appropriately respectful and moved by the what they were seeing and learning. But they were still 8 and 11 year old boys, and they naturally ‘played battle’ when going through the trenches. It made me think that whatever it is that had my boys feeling that ‘excitement’ of war (and we certainly aren’t a very ‘warrior-like’ family…) has to be the same root that meant those young men not too much older would have signed up 100 years earlier, and now lay buried in those cemeteries dotting this area of France. How important and exiting it would have seemed to a from small town Ontario to travel to Europe and be part of the war. And how many of them really expected never to come back and die the way they did.

<b>N G Broughton’s grave</b>
Norman Broughton is buried at the Adanac cemetery near Miramont, which was about a 15 minute drive from the Beaumont-Hamel memorial. This area of France seems to be dotted by these small cemeteries – just appearing at a roadside, in the middle of a farmer’s field, at the edge of a village. We found the cemetery, and used the grid coordinates from the war graves commission information to find the grave. We took photos, and placed the stones we had brought from Canada. What we realized that we should have brought with us was paper and a crayon to do a rubbing of the gravestone. There were the gravestones from all over the commonwealth – Brits, New Zealanders, Canadians, and most poignantly “A solider”. The boys seemed particularly moved at the idea of an unknown soldier, and that that family would have received a telegram that the solider was missing and presumed dead, but that they would never have known for sure.

<b>The Vimy Memorial</b>
We went straight to the memorial itself – an impressive and imposing structure. It is a very moving monument – almost overwhelming especially after the more intimate memorials at Beaumont-Hamel and the cemetery. 11,000 names of soldiers with no known grave are engraved on the memorial. The kids realized that these names would have matched up with some of the un-named soldier’s gravestones we had seen earlier.

We then went to the visitors centre to have the tour of the trenches and the tunnels. It was pretty drizzly out, and it was still early in the season, so we ended up with a tour of just us 4. It was very interesting and informative, and the Canadian guide was very knowledgeable. We ended up having to cut the tunnel part of the tour short because of lightning, and the risk of the power going out while we were in the tunnels. It was well worth the visit – though we were glad that we had visited the Beaumont-Hamel site first as it was a more ‘personal’ experience, rather than a museum experience (if that makes any sense). Both sites were very excited to have Canadians visit – at Vimy they said that around 10% of their visitors are Canadian. I definitely don’t think you need to be Canadian to find it impactful.

<b>Returning home</b>
Drove into Arras and dropped off the car. Interestingly, I didn’t have to pay any kind of surcharge for the ‘one way’ drop off. Also interesting the price to rent the car for the day through avis.ca was less than half the price of renting it through avis.fr (and none of the ‘consolidators’ like AutoEurope would quote a rental for a single day).

As we got on the TGV train back to Paris, they made an announcement that our 1 hour train trip was going to be 50 minutes late (in arriving in Paris, not in departing from Arras). I guess there was something wrong that meant the TGV couldn’t GV… When we arrived in Paris, we were given an envelope with which we could send our tickets in to receive a full refund because it was a late TGV train. So we sent it in… I’ll let you know if we get the refund!

For us, it had been a well worth it day trip. I am very glad to have been able to make the pilgrimage myself, and to expose the kids to the history. I remember going to Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam at a similar age, and finding real value in that ‘physical memory’ as I matured and my understanding and perception of the story and situation evolved, and I hope that some of what my boys had seen might stay with them in a similar way.

<i>Next… first day of the Museum pass</i>

decee

What wonderful memories you are creating for your boys. I'm sure that this tour will remain with them always. And for you to bring some rocks from home to put on the gravesite is so thoughtful!!! I would think it would have been very moving to be there--so much history and sadness in one place. Your story gave me goosebumps as I read it! Thank you for passing on this part of your journey.

lilaki

hi canada_v,

fellow canuck here...

i'm loving your trip report ... i especially liked the section about your vimy day trip.

DH and i will be in paris in october and we're also looking at doing a day trip ... we're toying with a chateau somewhere (other than versailles) but DH has expressed an interested in vimy. you're one of the few folks on this forum who have first-hand experience of a paris-vimy trip...

some quick questions:

1. how much were your train tickets?

2. how much was your car rental? were you able to get an automatic?

3. what time did you arrive back in paris?

4. how much driving did you do for the day? and was the route fairly easy to navigate? (we drove for a week in provence last year and found it easy-peasy).

thanks so much!!

kerouac

Visiting military cemeteries were an important part of my childhood, as the French side of my family had been both in the military and/or refugees during both world wars.

I am still moved whenever I visit any such cemetery, no matter what army was involved. I find the military cemeteries in Vietnam just as tragic as the ones in Europe.

Efoss3

This episode is interesting. I didn't know the history at all, but have seen a WWI memorial in almost every town in France no matter how small. It is hard to imagine so many deaths.

I think one of the reasons that I love France was hearing about my father's trip there in 1918 by ship into Brest via Liverpool. Lucky for me (I wouldn't be alive), my father landed after the war was over, but not before he saw many of his comrades' bodies thrown overboard when they died of the flu of 1918. My dad was twenty at the time. He told me that they had good bread in France and I think he liked the girls there.

I'm glad you were able to find a reasonable car rental. This trip must have been meant to be.

Canada_V

Lilaki - I would definitely recommend doing the Vimy day trip, and including the Beaumont-Hamel part, especially if your DH has expressed an interest. Here are the details of our day trip...

I bought Prems tickets via the www.voyages-sncf.com site. I bought them pretty early, but there seemed to be Prems tickets available for both routes for quite a while after the initial 3 months out date (as opposed to our tickets to Montpellier, which went up in price pretty quickly).
Trip from Paris to Amiens was 10E each and we left at just after 8am.
The trip from Arras to Paris was 12E each and we left at 6:30pm (and should have been back by around 7:30pm except for the problem with the train).
We rented the car through avis.ca and it was 79E for the day including tax (but not including CDW, which was covered under our credit card). I'm sure we could have got an automatic - they had them there - but we were ok with a standard. If we had picked it up at the train station it would have been more, but the walk was no problem.

The car rental company in Arras closed at 6pm, but if it has just been DH and I we might have taken a slightly later train back and poked around Arras a bit and eaten there before going back.

The driving was VERY easy - we didn't have a 'real' map, just the tourist board one of the Amiens region, and we would have had to try pretty hard to get lost The Beaumont-Hamel cemetery was on an historical route that was well signposted with poppy signs and arrows. We didn't drive more then 1/2 an hour at a time, so maybe a total of 1 1/2 to 2 hours driving in grand total - probably less. We had to do a bit of driving around looking for the Adanac cemetary, but we were working only with our tourist map and the instructions from the veterans site. If I had actually printed off the google maps map I had created, we would have been able to find it immediately. Even that though was no real problem.

The only thing that I would have done differently was lunch - we should have brought a picnic with us from Paris. As it was, on our way between Miramont and Vimy, the only place that we found was a "Frititeria" which was sort of a road side 'chip truck' and sandwich place. As it turned out the sandwiches and fries were both great, but we sort of lucked upon it.

(I would also recommend reading the Stone Carvers and Birdsong to accompany the visit.)


Kerouac - I have a strong memory of visiting an American WWII cemetery near Cambridge as a young teenager - there is something about the rows and rows of headstones, all the same in aggregate, then each unique when you look at them one at a time. I have a great grandfather buried in Belgium, but we didn't get that far this trip. If we had had more time, I would have also liked to visit a German cemetery, because that kind of loss of life is tragic for both sides, and in some ways more poignant for the individuals on the 'losing' side.


European WWI trench warfare seems so horrible, and in particular from our Canadian perspective, but also overall, it seems like such a 'loss of innocence' war I find it especially compelling. Being on the actual soil where those young men fought and fell, and in some cases still lie... tragic.

From Birdsong
"Price was reading roll call... He hurried from one unanswered name to the next. Byrne, Hunt, Jones, Tipper, Wood, Leslie, Banres, Studd, Richardson, Savile... Names came pattering into the dusk, bodying out the places of their forebears, the villages and towns where the telegrams would be delivered, the houses where the blinds would be drawn, where low moans would come in the afternoon behind closed doors; and the places that had borne them, which would be like nunneries, like dead towns without their life or purpose, without the sound of fathers and their children, without young men at the factories or the fields, with no husbands for the women, no deep sound of voices in the inns, with the children who would have been born, who would have grown and worked or painted, even governed, left ungenerated in their fathers' shattered flesh that lay in stinking shellhoes in the beet-crop soil, leaving their homes to put up only granite slabs in place of living flesh, on whose inhuman surface the moss and lichen would cast their crawling green indifference"

Canada_V

But one last thought before I leave Vimy and the WWI sites - as I re-read my last post, I don't want it to seem as though the trip was completely 'dark'. The overall feel of our visit was reflective rather then sombre.

Maybe it is travelling with kids, or maybe it is just appreciating the 'luxury' of having a chance to step back and see that history. The energy of the new generations fills the gaps left by the sacrifices of the earlier ones I suppose.

JayMazz

Miss V!!!!

I am glad you took the advice of "doing" The Tower to kill time: I'm even more glad you found grace in the lines and contours of the old iron design. I was pleased that you made it to Tour Montparnasse too... these were two things we posted about weeks ago.

From the ground my jaw drops in front of the Eiffel Tower... From 56/59 floors up on Tour Montparnasse, my jaw drops again... breathtaking on all on 3 of my trips!

Glad the kids loved the metro... they aren't the only ones! When I first get to Paris, I swear 1/3 of my time is spent riding the metro for the first few days, riding and ppl watching. I grew up in Santa Barbara, CA, USA and we had nothing like it - it is amazing. I love the fact that i just pop out of holes in the ground and I am in a new Parisian Village each time - LOVE IT!

I am impressed by your detail of your TR, and very impressed that you let your kids do things on their own; I know waaaaaay too many parents that would have FREAKED OUT at the gypsy moment!!! And I know many of my friend's kids who couldn't buy a loaf of bread on their own in the USA, let alone France! Props to your boys. You should be proud.

I LOL @ the whole French Dressing thing... too fuuny!

A+ Trip Report!

~Jay

Leely2

What a great experience for your children--all of it, of course, but also the trip to Vimy. My sister was sitting with my three-year-old niece reading her a Madeline book this weekend. I heard my sis say, "This is Paris." And my niece said, "Yes, auntie's going to take me there." Gulp.

I'm not a “on-site guide book” person either and I do try. I just can't seem to get the hang of it. Hence my audioguide addiction (when available).

More, please.