Wednesday, May 10. Ginger and Elliott invited us to visit France with them earlier this year, so the trip was planned for May 10-19. We arose at about 4:45 a.m. at home to prepare for a SuperShuttle van that arrived at 6:25 a.m. to transport us to Los Angeles International Airport. Departing LAX at 10:55 a.m., we flew American Airlines to Dallas (DFW), arriving at about 4:15 p.m. their local time, and then caught another American Airlines flight, leavilng at 5:10 p.m., from there to Paris. The connection was tight; we arrived at the DFW gate for Paris just as they were boarding. The flight to Dallas taught me that paying extra for seats near the front of the plane in order to exit more quickly to catch a connecting flight may do you no good unless you also pay extra for early boarding. Otherwise, you may have to, as I did, end up placing your carry-on bags further back than where your seats are, losing you the advantage of your seating—you’ll have to go back to where your bags are and then be stuck behind those seated between your seats and your bags. We were seated in row 13, but our bags were at about row 26, as the baggage racks were all filled up to there by the time we boarded at LAX. From there, it was the cramped, long flight to Paris in Economy Class. Jacque Riggs had sent me the book Lincoln’s Secretary, a biography of Lincoln’s personal secretary John G. Nicolay penned by Nicolay’s daughter Helen. I had started reading it at home and read more than halfway through the book on the flight. During the flight, I also watched two movies, Hidden Figures and 1898. 1898 was a Spanish movie about Spanish soldiers trying to defend a Spanish outpost in the Philippines from Tagalog natives during the Spanish-American War. I can’t sleep in the tight quarters on these flights.

Thursday, May 11. It was about 9:35 a.m. local time when our flight arrived at the Paris airport (CDG).Ginger and Elliott’s flight from Boston had arrived earlier and they were waiting for us at the airport after we passed through French customs. Elliott had served his LDS mission in France and returned to the country several times since; he is still fluent in French. So he was our excellent guide throughout the trip. From the airport we took the train into Paris itself, and Elliott showed us some famous buildings near our flat—an AirBNB.

Our sixth-floor flat was at 3 Rue de Temple on the next block from the City Hall and just blocks across the Seine from the famous Notre Dame Cathedral, on Île de la Cité. Fortunately, the flat had a small elevator to lift us and our bags. We had eaten on the flight and so had light lunch of cheese, bread, and fruit at our flat.

Another view from our flat.

After lunch, we went for a walk, past the city hall and over the bridge to Notre Dame Cathedral. We did not go in, but were impressed with the outside architecture and craftsmanship..

At Notre Dame Cathedral.

Impressive.

But we did tour nearby Sainte-Chapelle chapel with its wonderful stained glass.

Lovely Sainte Chapelle chapel.

Sainte Chapelle.

A hospital, a few residences, and some governmental buildings share the island with Sainte-Chapelle and Notre Dame.

The public entrance to the Palais de Justice de Paris, where judges hang out and where Marie Antoinette was once jailed on the Île de la Cité.

On another bridge across the Seine, Pont des Arts, romantic tourists started attaching locks, tossing the key into the river. Attempts have been made to remove the locks—not too successfully by the time we arrived.

Love Lock bridge.

We crossed that bridge to hitch a ride on a Seine tour boat.

Cruising the Seine back and forth through Paris.

That evening, we had a fine dinner at Astier. Most of the meals we had came with three courses; a starter or entrée, a main course, and a dessert.

At Astier, my starter was a prawn with grapefruit, radishes, and avocado. My main course was veal ribs with carrots in a carrot sauce, and my dessert was a Mandarin meringue pie. It was all excellent. Carla’s main course was kind of a chicken soufflé.

Friday, May 12 was good and bad. We visited the Royal Palace and Gardens at Versailles, taking a Uber ride from our flat. After we arrived, while we were buying tickets to go in, Carla’s wallet was snatched from her purse as we later discovered when we got text messages from our credit card companies asking if we had made expensive purchases at a nearby restaurant—on one card the amount was $1,851.96. In addition to the credit cards, she also lost her driver’s license and $60 in cash that were in the wallet.

Not knowing this, we toured the Palace and grounds; the Palace, I suppose, defines opulence, and the grounds are large and pretty. The messages from the credit-card companies came as we were visiting Marie Antoinette’s quarters on the grounds. We declined the charges; the big ones were at La Violette, a restaurant in Paris, and there was also a small charge that we declined at a KFC. One of the cards was the only card we had with us that did not charge foreign-transaction fees, so Elliott used his card for most of the remainder of the trip. It seemed to me that an employee at La Violette must be in on the fraudulent use of credit cards, because attempts were quickly made to use both of Carla’s credit cards with purchases exceeding $1500 each but in different amounts and just around the time the restaurant would have opened for the day.

But this was not the end of Carla’s problems for the day. When we exited the grounds at Versailles, we didn’t realize how close we were to the new LDS temple, and we took a very short Uber drive to get to the temple for the open house. We had really been within walking distance. In any event, there was a security check-in upon entry to the open house. As Carla was opening up her purse for the check-in, she observed that her Samsung Galaxy S7 cell phone was missing; it had not been taken in the earlier snatch of her wallet, because she had used it since when she received the message from the credit-card company. She had not activated the location feature of her phone and it was locked so that whoever heard it ring would not be able to use it. Elliott was able to make later contact with the Uber driver; he was unable to locate it in his car and had taken a fare after our ride. And we could not locate the phone outside the temple where we got out of the car.

But we were able to tour the new temple and were impressed with its beauty and intimacy. It is not a large temple, and it is sandwiched between some upscale commercial buildings; I missed it when our Uber driver went by it and then circled around to park in front of it. But I had the feeling that it would prove a great benefit to France. A couple of sister missionaries were the guides for the small group we went with; one was from Murrieta, California, and the other was Sister Marshall from Utah. She told our group that one of the paintings of Normandy in the temple had coincidentally been done by her grandfather. After the tour, we took a bus provided by the Church to a nearby train station, and then took the train to our lodgings in Paris.

Before dinner, we decided to visit the Paris home of Victor Hugo.

It began raining as we left and while we were window shopping at some local art galleries. So we stopped at a nearby boutique for some hot chocolate before dinner.

The evening’s dinner was in Paris at Le Chardenoux. My starter was artichokes and gnocchi in a cheese sauce; my main course was a tender, buttery pollack fish in a tomato sauce with menthol peas; and my dessert was profiteroles with strawberries.

Saturday, May 13. After an early, quick breakfast in our flat, we were off to a beautiful Paris museum—the Musée d’Orsay. It contains a fine Impressionist collection which we toured and has other interesting paintings and sculptures.

When we had seen enough, we rested outside in the Tuileries Garden.

We walked back along the Seine and had crêpes for lunch at Cat’Man Crêperie.

After lunch and during a stroll through the surrounding area of Paris, we passed the LDS Institute where Doug and Suzy Jones from our ward recently served a mission together.

Back at the flat, Carla put in a load of laundry and we rested there while Elliott and Ginger shopped for gifts for their children. The evening’s dinner was at Ginger and Elliott’s favorite restaurant Le Timbre. It is a very small place; the name in English would be The Postage Stamp. My main course was slow-roasted pigeon—small, but good.

It was crowded that night, our last in Paris. We went to the Arc de Triomphe, intending to view Paris from its top, but the line was so long that we decided not to wait; there was quite a crowd atop that landmark. We did walk closer to the Eiffel Tower and got a nice nighttime view of it from the Seine.

Sunday, May 14. Elliott rented a car to use for the rest of our trip. It was a roomy, diesel Renault Espace. We picked it up at the rental agency offices and drove to church in Cergy, a Paris suburb. Elliott had served there on his mission. We arrived a half-hour early; the meeting started at 9:30 a.m. They have a nice ward building and the members were very friendly with each other and with us. We attended their sacrament meeting and spent some time after that meeting talking with Fanny, whose sisters Elliott taught as a missionary, and Domenic who had been the ward mission leader then. The bishop had served in the mission field in France at the same time as Elliott. The sacrament meeting had an Aaronic Priesthood theme with a few of the boys, their Young Men’s President, and the bishop speaking; the YM President also led the boys and other YM leaders in a choral number.

From Cergy, we drove to Giverny and visited Monet’s home and famous garden. We ate at the café there—I had the vegetable soup— and had an ice cream cone; mine was pear sorbet. I really like ice cream.

From there we drove to the town of Alençon, another place where Elliott had lived and served on his mission.

We strolled in the area around his former lodgings and also listened to part of an organ recital at an old church—Eglisé Notre Dame. And we then drove to our lodging at the Château de la Pommeraye in Normandy.

We were met there by the owner Alexandre. We were the only occupants for our stay, and he upgraded our rooms. The château was built in the 1600s. Alexandre prepared us an evening dinner that may have been our best meal on the trip. He opened with a tasty soup with broiled shrimp, followed that with a main course of scallops with a rice cooked with raisins, gave us an apple sorbet as a pallet cleanser, and then finished with an apple pastry.

Monday, May 15. Alexandre followed up the next morning with a lovely breakfast consisting of various cheeses and sausages, fruits and yogurt, and juices. After breakfast we drove to the coast and visited Gold Beach, where the British landed troops on D-Day in World War II. From there we drove to the city of Caen, where we went into the church where William the Conqueror was entombed. Elliott had spent seven months in Caen on his mission. We also drove by William’s castle there.

We were then on to Omaha Beach and its museum and graveyard—sacred and moving places. We then went to Pointe du Hoc at Omaha Beach where we saw where the German Army had built bunkers and gun turrets, and where US Army Rangers had to climb the cliff to knock out the German emplacements. The ground everywhere was pockmarked with artillery hits.

From there we drove to Bayeux and had a light, late lunch of pastry or crêpes. In that city, we then went to see the 74-yard-long tapestry that told the tale of William the Conqueror’s victory over Harold. After viewing the tapestry and a related cinema, we did some window shopping, and went into the cathedral there.

Then it was off to dinner at Bayeux’s Le Repière, recommended by Hugh and Emily for its cheesecake.

We enjoyed that for dessert after a good meal, and I kindly switched my dark-chocolate chip for Carla’s white; I had their Repière salad and some leg of lamb. It was about 9:00 p.m. when we finished dinner. We arrived back at our château after 10.

 

Tuesday, May 16. After the again fine breakfast at the château, we drove to Mont Saint-Michelle, took a tram most of the way from the parking lot to the entrance, climbed the many steps, and toured the church on top. I sweated, but it was worth it.

We shopped and ate ice cream on the way down.

From there we drove to the town of Dinan. We had a late, light lunch there, sitting in the shade of a tree in front of the church, and strolled the streets.

We drove to our next AirBNB near the village of Saint-Nicolas-des-Motets. This was a sunny farmhouse with a good kitchen and rooms, except that the beds were a bit uncomfortable and showering for Ginger and Elliot required going through the bedroom Carla and I used, the minor inconvenience.

Wednesday, May 17. Elliott drove us to Montrésor, a beautiful town with an old castle; we did not go into the castle but did stroll through some old streets and went down to the lovely stream that runs through the town.

We had lunch at La Crepicoise in Loches. I had the plate du jour, pork with mustard sauce and vegetables; it was very good. At a street market, Ginger bought soap and I bought a sausage. And Ginger bought a pretty blue hat in a chapellerie.

From their we went to Chenonceau, or the Ladies’ Château—so known because it was essentially designed by women. It is a beautiful building and setting on the river Cher. We toured the château and one of the gardens and went through the labyrinth that was part of the grounds.

Next we visited the city of Amboise. We walked a long street to a home briefly lived in by Leonardo da Vinci and in which he died in 1519; it was open but about to close, so we did not pay to go in. In the town, we strolled some more, got goodies to take home, and enjoyed some good gelato. We canceled our evening dinner reservation there and, instead, at a grocery store bought some things, including frozen pizza, to fix at our place. And, and after we ate that dinner, we watched an episode of Poiret; our BNB was equipped with a full set of DVDs of the Poiret episodes and a full set of the Laurel and Hardy films. Carla put some laundry in the washer.

Thursday, May 18. We drove (and by “we”, I always mean Elliott drove us) on a rainy day to the city of Blois, where Ginger and Elliott bought a shirt for Ethan at a sporting goods store. We had lunch of sorts at a nearby McDonald’s; I tried their hot dog, which is not offered in Southern California, and which is not as good as Costco’s hot dog.

From there we drove to the impressive Château de Chambord, where it is said that da Vinci designed the staircase. At $25 per head, we didn’t go in but did take pictures of the many-towered building from outside in the rain. Hey, you seen inside one fantastic château, you seen inside ’em all.

We came home to rest until dinner time, when we ate at a restaurant near Tours—L’Arche de Meslay. For the main course, I had sliced roast duck; and for dessert, a lemon tart. Both were good. But the starter may have made me sick, as I tend to be allergic to eggs in their eggy form. It was a terrine containing salmon and another fish. I had some intestinal problems during the night and next morning. Why did I order it to begin with? I didn’t know what a terrine was; I thought it would be a tureen, like of soup. But once it was there, I decided to brave it out.

Friday, May 19. We arose early and departed our final French lodging, driving to Chartres, where we went inside the huge, two-towered La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres and walked around the neighborhood.

Then it was onto the airport CDG. Elliott dropped Carla and me off, and we are able to check into our short flight to London, and then connect there to our flight to LAX. It was a long, cramped flight home by British Airways, but Carla liked the food, and I finished my book and watched three movies en route to Los Angeles—Prometheus and two Chinese movies, Line Walker and One Night Only. LAX reentry is a hassle—long lines and more long lines to wait in to get through customs and out of the terminal; but our SuperShuttle arrived within minutes and we made it home okay. It was good to get home, but we were happy that we could spend the time Ginger and Elliott and visit beautiful France and our newest LDS temple, dedicated for use just this past Sunday.