A French Love Affair Begins in Paris

 

I am an unabashed Francophile. Thanks a wonderful professor at Brescia College, Sr Maureen Brown, I fell in love with all things French when I was an undergraduate. In 1969 I made my first trip to France as I was returning from the Peace Corps in Sénégal.  I did all the usual tourist things. I visited the Louvre, gazed at the Mona Lisa and the Winged Victory, went up in the Eiffel tower and ate at a myriad of restaurants. It was the first of many trips.

 

Paris seems to have been designed for walking.

There are interesting things to see everywhere, from streets with

 odd names, street of the headless woman 

and hotels identified by colorful signs.

There are peaceful parks everywhere in this fast paced city.

The Seine, like waterways everywhere attracts children playing in the water and others simply relaxing.

 

Across the Seine from the Eiffel tower is the magnificent Trocadero fountain of the Palais de Chaillot. The fountain is the largest fountain in Paris consisting of 20 water cannons aimed at the Eiffel tower with a range of 150 feet and numerous other sprays of water. It is truly a water wonder. It replaced the original Trocadero fountain and was built for an International Expo in 1937. Walking beneath and among the various sprays of water is an experience.

 

 

Like all big cities, there are many suburbs outside the city proper. The most famous is probably Versailles about 12 miles from Paris. Louis the XIII went hunting with his father Henry IV on the forested marshland there. He later built a hunting lodge there and as he spent more and more time there and he soon found the humble hunting lodge insufficient and in 1631 began the construction of the palace that stands there now. Louis XIV, the Sun King, added to the palace and moved the de facto seat of government to Versailles.

 

Other banlieues are not so splendid. I took the Métro to the end of the line and roamed around Cheville a busy neighborhood ,  

                                                              with nice homes

                                                                modest homes

                                                                and the usual bistros.

The many churches in the city attest to the history of Catholicism in France-from Notre Dame 

Festooned with gargoyles to shed water, ward off evil and to remind the faithful of the perils of sin

   

                                                                                           and images of saints. 

I was fortunate to have visited Notre Dame Cathedral before the huge throngs of tourists typical of years later and before the disastrous fire in 2019.

                                                          

to the wedding cake that is Sacré Coeur. 

         

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                        and the jewel box that is Ste-Chapelle