Shortly after returning home I was living in Chicago where I went to graduate school. Eventually I answered a want ad for an international airline looking for personnel. It
turned out to be Air France, the national airline of France. I was hired. Two years later, Claudia (my first wife, now deceased) and I were married and we honeymooned in Paris. We spent
one night at the opulent hotel George V which we couldn’t afford under normal
circumstances but my Dad paid for one night (for which I hesitantly asked a
discount for Air France employees!). The room was very large and overlooked a classic courtyard.
We moved to the Méridien, a more modern but less expensive hotel, for the rest of our trip. Our room there also looked out on a courtyard; a decidedly less classic courtyard.
Enjoying
the City of Light with another person made the city even more enjoyable. The sights and sounds took on new excitement.
A memorable moment occurred when we dined at a small
restaurant. We ordered “Lapin à la style mon grand-père”, apparently a dish the
chef enjoyed when his grandfather made it. It was very good but I was flattered
beyond all measure when the waiter asked, “What part of France are you from,
monsieur?” I can imagine him going back to the kitchen saying to the chef, “Eh
Jacques, I ‘ave zees américain who sink ‘e speak
français. So I ask heem, “weesh part of la France you come from?” Ha-ha,
Jacques I get beeg teep, oui?”
While the experience at
that restaurant was memorable it was eclipsed by another restaurant. Years
earlier, when I was a Peace Corps volunteer, I read a short article about La
Colombe in National Geographic. I was taken away by the photos of this
picturesque restaurant. It rested on foundations laid when Paris was called
Lutetia by the Romans who occupied the site on Île de la cité. In 1225, a dilapidated house
rested on the site. A sculptor lived there and he had 2 pet doves which he fed.
At some point, the house fell into complete ruin and the doves were trapped
beneath the rubble. The male dove managed to escape and he kept his mate alive
with seeds and water from the nearby Seine. His loyalty attracted the aid of
people in the neighborhood who managed to remove the debris from the trapped
bird.
In time a new structure was
built on the old foundations and in the 16th century and a bistro was established there, one of the oldest bistros in Paris. The doves were memorialized in a frieze above the door.
This bistro became known as
La Colombe and was a quaint little restaurant. It’s outdoor seating , shaded by
vines and greenery was a visual delight and was what I fell in love with.
Inside was tiny and very dark and romantic. We had "Truite Amandine" for what was our first and last meal at La Colombe.
A couple of years later the
restaurant closed and the establishment was turned into a wine shop. Anyway,
the honeymoon, like all honeymoons, I guess, was way too short. So we flew back to Chicago and began planning our next trip to Paris.
