Unexcused Absences France 2016 – Week 6 (he said)

France 2016 – Week 6 (he said)

by Kent 22 Aug 2016

August 14 to August 20, 2016. We continue our story where we left off, at the enormous street-and-covered-market in Meaux (pronounced, like many French words, by dropping most of the letters, then changing the sound of the remaining ones, so you end up with what could have been written, “Mo”). We spent a few more days enjoying the sights and tastes of the town and our American boat neighbors. Eventually, we ended up at the Meaux WW I museum.

Cathedral and bishop’s palace in Meaux

In 1914, the German advance was literally stopped at the gates of the city in the First Battle of the Marne, which allowed the French forces to regroup and push the invaders back to a line roughly through south-western Belgium and northern Champagne. The Musée de la Grande Guerre du pays de Meaux was built in 2011, and is based on the incredible private collection of Jean-Pierre Verney. The visual centerpiece of the museum is a reconstructed battlefield, with a typical French trench (characterized by wooden walls and supports) and a German trench (done in concrete) facing each other across a no-mans-land. The detail is exquisite, down to canteens, spent shell casings, mortars, and field glasses.

Museum of the Great War in Meaux

Another section gives the visitor a sense of life in the trenches. The slideshows, photographs from the front lines, are projected on the walls of a narrow passage, and the floor is a gray-brown vinyl covering over low-density foam. With each step you take, speakers play the sound of boots squishing in the mud. The side rooms have vintage film footage of the battles in progress, and the whole thing is just terrifying to imagine taking part in.

A pigeon-carrier truck

The German mobilization order from WW I

Recreated German trench

Impressive display of military shells

The museum did a fantastic job of covering all aspects of the war, not just the military hardware. There were sections devoted to front-line medicine, home-front rationing, propaganda, and a temporary exhibit on the types and purposes of the different obus (shells) used in the conflict. Throughout the museum were paintings by soldiers who had lived through the conflict. Meaux is just a quick train ride from Paris, so if you really want to get a sense of what things were like 100 years ago in France, make sure you take a day to visit this museum and its beautiful town.

A soldier’s painting from the Great War

From Meaux it was a short 8-hour cruise over two days for Après Ski to reach the Port de Plaisance de l’Arsenal, a ~200 slip marina located just steps from the Place de la Bastille in downtown Paris. Entering the city by boat was not quite as we expected. The Marne River was very shaded and tree-lined right up until it joined the Seine, only three kilometers upstream of Île-de-la Cité. We had expected an industrial river. Once on the Seine, though, the scenery was continuous factories and industry that gradually changed over to 19th century architecture as we approached the city center.

Approaching Paris on the Seine

Half a kilometer upstream of Île Saint-Louis is the entrance to the Arsenal marina, and we called on the VHF (channel 9) and locked up into possibly the coolest place to park your boat in all of Europe. The marina is served by two subway stations and numerous bus lines just steps from the boats, and the Gare de Lyon train station is a couple blocks away. It is a 15-20 minute walk to Notre Dame, and the eclectic Marais quartier (neighborhood) is less than a 10 minute walk away.

The Port de Plaisance de l’Arsenal marina

In usual Kent & Heather fashion, we had a busy schedule right from the start. The first evening we had a dinner rendezvous with Stuart, son of Tim & Heather (Chamamé), who lives in Paris. We last saw him during the luncheon of the boating party in Ay, Champagne, a few weeks ago.

Paris!

The first item on our tourist agenda the next day was to visit the Paris Catacombs, a large network of spaces carved out of the rock 80-100 feet down. The original chambers were excavated in the 12th century, in what were then the distant suburbs, to extract limestone for buildings. As time passed the now-empty chambers were forgotten. Then, in the 18th century, a series of cave-ins occurred in areas that were now part of Paris proper. So, King Louis XVI established the Inspection Générale des Carrières (Inspection of Mines) service to map the Parisian underground.

The reinforcements added in the late 18th century

At the same time, back on the surface, the Paris cemeteries were becoming overcrowded. Skeletons were piling up at an alarming rate, and to make room for the newly dead, the old bones were exhumed and stashed wherever they could. It was then that scientists were becoming aware of how infectious diseases were transmitted, and they realized that the stacks of skeletons and densely packed new corpses weren’t helping matters, from a health perspective, so they attempted to pass decrees limiting the use of existing cemeteries. This, you might be surprised to learn, didn’t work very well.

A few of the 6 million skeletons in the Catacombs

Meanwhile, the authorities were finishing up the mine mapping and reinforcement campaign, and the Prefect Police Lieutenant-General Alexandre Lenoir, who was nominally in charge of both the mines and the cemeteries, decided to combine the two efforts. It was decreed that all the surplus bones, close to 6 million complete skeletons, would be stored, in an orderly fashion of course, in the now reinforced mines.

One of numerous walls of bones

The Catacombs have been a tourist attraction ever since the first famous visitor, the Count of Artois (who later became King Charles X), visited in 1787. Tours were occasional up through the 1860’s, then monthly, then bi-weekly, and by popular demand they became daily events by the turn of the 20th century. Now it’s one of the most popular tours in Paris, and tickets are not sold in advance, so one must brave a 1-3 hour line that snakes around the Denfert-Rochereau Metro station. Even the current name is clever; d’Enfer is French for “Hell”, so naturellement you enter the Catacombs through the pavilion of the former Barrière d’Enfer (Gates of Hell) city gate.

The famous “barrel room”

Next, we took the obligatory walk through Notre Dame, a lovely cathedral in the center of old Paris. A short walk to the west is the Saint Chapelle, the private chapel of King Louis IX. The building represents the end-game of Gothic architecture, in that, at least from the inside, the structure appears to be made almost entirely of glass.

La Sainte-Chapelle

The Marais, the neighborhood north and east of Notre Dame, is famous for being the original Jewish quarter of Paris. Today, it’s a mix of falafel stands and stylish shops, interspersed with a few kebab restaurants. Thanks to Trip Advisor, we found a most interesting kebab place. The basis for their signature dish is roasted cauliflower, which is then augmented with diced tomatoes and peppers, and drizzled with a salty bean purée, all stuffed into freshly baked pita bread.

Lunch at Miznon

The next item on our Paris program was to climb the towers of Notre Dame. Friday and Saturday nights in the summer the towers are open until 11pm, and we figured a sunset view from up high should be pretty good. Unfortunately, scattered rain showers prevented a colorful sunset, but the view from the top as the lights of the city came on was easily worth the 10 euro entry fee.

Looking east from Notre Dame

As part of our ticket to see La Chapelle, we also got to visit the Conciergerie, which was the Parisian version of the Tower of London. It was here that many of the nobility were kept prisoner after the French Revolution, including their most famous “resident,” Marie Antoinette. The museum has restored one of the old cells, complete with a mannequin in a black veil, to show her living conditions before getting the chop. The room is surprisingly well appointed, given how much everyone seemed to hate her.

Marie Antoinette’s cell at La Conciergerie

At this point, Saturday night at the end of Week 6, we are four nights into our eight night stay in Paris. There will be much more about Paris in my next post.

France 2016 Cruise – Week 6