Changing the itinerary

Sometimes you have to not be afraid to totally change your plans.  When I originally planned my trip this spring, I had the crazy idea that I wanted to spend Bastille Day 2013 in Paris.  My friends Liz and Nate would be there (Liz, who’s a professor at Old Dominion University, has a grant to do research at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris for the summer, and her husband came to join her after finishing teaching his summer class), and it would be a stop on our trip back from Belgium.

Soon after I arrived in France, I received an email from Liz, apologizing profusely, and explaining that her short-term apartment in Paris had been advertised as much larger than it was, and there was no room for guests.  Drat.  I asked my in-laws if I could invite Liz and Nate to their house here in Marolles, and of course they agreed.  However, the two round-trip train tickets would be a ridiculous amount for a short weekend in the country.  We finally compromised:  I would drive through Paris on my way back from Belgium and pick Liz and Nate up, and that way they would only have to pay for a return ticket to Paris.

And, actually, if I were honest with myself, there’s a reason I wasn’t terribly unhappy missing Bastille Day in Paris:  crowds.  I love Paris to death.  But I actually prefer Paris the way I know it best:  bundled up against the thin layer of drizzle that pervades in the winter, or hopping from foot to foot to keep warm in the metro, stepping into warm bakeries or cafés for a treat or a strong coffee, enjoying relatively short lines for museums and tourist attractions.  I’m not sure I would recognize Paris under the blanket of elbow-to-elbow sweaty tourists and hot sun, its dank alleyways and metro stations stinking of piss and dog poop.  My suspicion was confirmed when I drove amidst thousands of tourists from the Netherlands into Friday-before-a-holiday Paris traffic.  Normally a five-and-a-half-hour drive, the trip from Brussels was extended by three and a half hours by picking up Liz and Nate at Porte d’Ivry metro stop.  I had been gridlocked trying to get onto the periphérique, missed my turn, and had to backtrack down some of Paris’s more colorful streets and avenues.  (This time my small navigator was working with a fully charged phone, a marked difference from the last time).  In perfect Parisien fashion, I parked right in the middle of the street, turned on my hazard lights, hopped out to greet them, threw their bags into my trunk, and off we went to more peaceful landscapes.  Once out of Paris, I was not anxious to return, and was grateful that I could drop my friends off at the train station in Le Mans on Monday.

And what do you do when you escape the city?  A lot of slow-paced cooking, sauntering around the garden, wine-drinking and even some napping.  On Friday we scrounged for food, as the in-laws were still in Alsace on their own vacation.  On Saturday, we did a proper grocery run, as we knew we would need everything for Sunday too; shops, stores, gas stations, everything would be closed for Bastille Day.  We made desserts from the garden’s bounty—raspberry charlotte and cherry clafoutis—enjoyed local rillettes (their first time tasting the local pork specialty), picked lettuce, and made a beef roast and a lasagna on Sunday night.  We weren’t making food the entire time, though.  Sunday morning we toured the countryside, stopping at some of my husband’s favorite local haunts; we took a drive past the castle of Monhoudou, saw the lavoir (ancient public laundry facilities) in Mamers, saw the artists’ village in La Perrière, saw a 15^th century tower on a manor house, touched a 347-year-old oak, drove through the magical forest of Bellême and the town named the same, gazed into the murky and mineral-laden waters of l’Etang de la Herse and its Fontaine Romaine (roman fountain),

A very patriotic Gaël, L'Etang de la Herse

The water is supposed to have therapeutic qualities

passed the farm where Patrice grew up and the church where we were married and the old mill and former bakery in Marcilly, then passed another chateau (Pouvrai) on our way back.  On Monday we stopped in Le Vieux Mans (the walled medieval part of Le Mans) and visited the cathedral before Nate and Liz hopped on the train back to Paris. 

The ramparts of Le Vieux Mans

Nate and Liz admiring a façade

Some people living in Le Vieux Mans have a strange sense of humor; click to enlarge if you can't see what I'm talking about

The stones on the sides of the street were to stop the carriage wheels

I realized Monday morning that we’d missed having the kind of hoopla celebration that Americans generally do for holidays for the French Independence Day, but that I didn’t really miss it at all.  I noted that I’d heard something that was probably fireworks on Saturday night, but was more annoyed at the noise than anything.  Perhaps a quiet weekend around the table was the best way to celebrate France after all.