Race Among The Ruins

A certain Duke of Normandy who moonlighted as the King of England had a castle built upon a cliff towering over a great bend in the Seine. It must have been quite magnificent even during the 100 years war. Now, it consists of a formidable pile amid the ruined remnants of a once great wall. Imagine the smile of an old school hockey player who enjoyed chewing on gravel.

There aren't many teeth left in that smile. The place is, nonetheless, beautiful. A small French town is literally nestled between the bend in the Seine and the white chalk cliffs.

The ruins are Le Chateau Gaillard, and the town(s) is (are) Les Andelys.

We drove to the ruins from Amiens, having skipped my planned stop at Beauvais because the time was "Slip Sliding Away." I had been to the cathedral at Beauvais many years before; that seemed like the best stop to eliminate. I'm certainly glad that we didn't skip Chateau Gaillard. It was one of the most picturesque places we saw...and we saw a lot.

While we were on our way to the chateau in the black Kia, another car, black or dark blue, was also coming toward the chateau.

The drive there was interesting...my wife and I with the Google gal. The chateau is off the beaten path...except for the path of farm implements and tour buses. It seemed to be quite a rural area. At one point, a green tractor with a harrow or marker attached came around a corner toward us. The attachment extended into our lane. I live in a rural area; this kind of thing is routine. This was no cause for alarm...or wouldn't normally have been. Did I mention the corner? Did I mention the attachment extending into our lane? I didn't mention that the roadside had recently been mowed. Not the kind of mowing that mulches up the grass; the kind of mowing that merely cuts the tall grass, causing the herbage to fall, concealing who knows what--like some kind of Burmese tiger trap, or punji sticks--beneath its emerald veil. I swerved toward the inside of the curve. Belatedly, the tractor did veer away. (That sounds like the name of a girl. Had someone been telling me this story in person, and used those words, I might have said, "Oh, yeah. I think I went to school with her." The person would say, "With who?" (People I talk to don't usually say "whom," even when it would be correct to do so.) and I would say, "Vera. Vera Way." The person wouldn't laugh, but would continue the story, annoyed at the interruption.) As I was saying, the tractor did veer away. 

All the while, another dark car continued toward the chateau from the opposite direction. It pulled a trailer along the floor of the Seine valley.

I avoided the collision with the farm implement. The mower, however, had placed the trap well. The fallen grass with long lovely stems had hidden the only piece of curbing in a ten mile radius. (Perhaps I exaggerate...perhaps I do not). The car jolted; there was a loud bump. It seemed that the right front wheel rim had found the curb concealed in the grassy ghillie suit. I was imagining the horribly marred rim, and hoping that the insurance would cover it. 

When I did look at the tire and the rim, there was not so much as a scratch.

When we arrived at the chateau, I got a text message from a friend back home who was ready for me to drop by and help out with something that I had offered to do. I made a few phone calls back to Weiser and sent some texts to get some other friends to cover the problem that I was unable to handle personally. 

We found that the tourist information center was closed...and looked as if it had been for years. The restrooms were open...wide open. Having learned from previous experience, we were prepared for the lack of paper products. We did our "Race Among The Ruins" at a leisurely walk, first down one steep slope and up another, before infiltrating the crumbling walls. We took lots of pictures. One of those pictures was of the long bridge over the Seine. 

We didn't know it at the time, but our route would take us across the bridge, but only after we had encountered the dark car pulling the trailer.

Next time: Dark car vs Dark car with trailer

They do as we did...

Daughters are strange and magical creatures. Absolutely nothing is more adorable than a baby girl. Whether she’s laughing, or staring questioningly from beneath the bowl of oatmeal that she has just poured over her head, she’s a tender, fragile, and lovable manifestation of the goodness in humanity. Unfortunately, she soon embarks upon a steady course to gradually, almost imperceptibly, shed all that is sweet and lovable.

At thirteen, the slow process is rushed to completion; the slow melt becomes a deluge. Almost all that is sweet and lovable is swept away. A cold, barren, bitter blade covered with thistle, shrouded in a cactus, and wrapped in barbed wire remains. Fortunately, this state is only temporary. Once again, slowly, imperceptibly, sweetness, with an alloy of maturity, begins to accrue. 

By the time she reaches sixteen, she shows definite human characteristics…many of which are good. She retains the light, doe-like grace of her early teens, adding to it the beauty of a young woman. She is… usually…a joy to be around. Young men have noticed her; they’ve been noticing her for a while. She has noticed their noticing, and she has been cultivating that fertile field; she has been dabbling in the dark arts of maquillage, and has pressed into her service potions of potent perfumes both penetrating and pervasive.  

She advances in years, knowledge, talents, beauty, and charm. Eventually, she finds a young man who has spent a number of years doing his best to become human. He finds her irresistible; she reciprocates, seeing in him evidence of what she hopes he may yet become. He sees in her all that he could ever want, hoping that she will never change.

They don’t know what lies ahead. They don’t comprehend what trials loom before them. They don’t see the obstacles that will cross their path. They cannot conceive of the heartaches that they may face. But they know that their parents before them didn’t understand these things either. As parents, we don’t know what the future holds for them any more than we knew what it held for us when we were young and in love. We did, as they do, pledge ourselves for today, tomorrow, and forever. We did, as they do, hope for the best, and struggle to maintain the hopes, and the dreams for the good and meaningful life, to see our children do, and be…better than ourselves.

Amiens - thoughts of French prison

It was black. It wasn't what I had ordered. I didn't care about the color. My order never specified the color. I had specified the type of car that I wanted. This was a KIA. I had requested fine European engineering. I got something from the land of fermented cabbage and cheap electronics. I told the girl at the rental company that it wasn't what I had ordered. She said this was a comparable substitute. I said it was fine. I was so excited to get behind the wheel to speed about the French countryside, that I might even have accepted a Deux Chevaux without objection. What did it matter if the car's make, KIA, was also an acronym for Killed In Action? She said, "Baby, you can drive my car." And that was enough for me. Perhaps I should've pondered those letters more closely. But I didn't. 

It was just the three of us...me and two unforgettable babes...my wife, and the sultry disembodied voice of the Google Maps gal. We were on a road trip in a foreign land with No Particular Place to Go...except we did have a particular place to go, several places in fact. We were headed to Amiens, Beauvais, Richard the Lionheart's castle, and Bayeux. We had a sleek black and somewhat stubby ride with a five speed manual transmission to ourselves for two whole days. Nothing could stop us...or very few things...once we got going in the right direction; turns out those roundabouts are great places to make U-turns; just enter and don't go out until you're going back the way you came. It was exhilarating. My wife used other words; I'm not allowed to repeat those.

We were on a journey of discovery. We discovered that France does in fact have toll roads; we discovered how the Google gal could choose routes that avoided toll roads...after we payed the first toll. We made our way to Amiens. We found our destination, the Amiens cathedral. There were no parking spots. We drove around looking for parking. 

The search for parking began on a rather inauspicious note (b sharp, or maybe c blunt, I'm not sure). Driving up a narrow street (and by narrow, I mean one little car fit comfortably) I found a police car, with lights and siren going, coming directly at me. I wondered if I was in violation; maybe I was going the wrong way on a one-way street; I suddenly wondered what French prison was like; Had the Bastille been rebuilt? Was the Chateau d'If real? Could I be sent to Devil's Island? No. I don't know. And probably not. Respectively. 

It was a two way street, and a vehicle was parked, PARKED! I say, on one side of the street. I could see that only one of us would be able to get by the parked car. I thought about racing the cop for the gap, but the thought passed like a bit of bad gas, and sanity prevailed. I stopped, and let the cop pass both the parked car as well as my car before proceeding. After about 20 minutes of driving around, we were back at the cathedral where a couple spots had opened in our absence. I gave a few euros to the clochard who assisted us in parking, and paid the machine a euro for our parking place. 

After we went through the cathedral, we walked around town until we found a boulangerie to get some lunch. There were a couple restaurants near the cathedral, but they seemed over priced. We had sandwiches and drinks on a bench in the middle of a thoroughfare for foot traffic. We enjoyed lunch and people watching before we had to unpark (or is it depark?--no, that's where de children play.) the car, and put the rubber to the road once more. Very nice time in Amiens...with the exception of the parking problem, and prison scare. 

The Roquefort stands alone

Sylvie called. She wanted to know where we were. I told her that we were at the chateau. She hadn't read my earlier email about taking the bus. She thought we were still at Pierrefonds. I told her we were in Compiegne. She said supper would be at 7:00 p.m. She would pick us up at the hotel.

We needed to get back to the hotel to clean up a bit before Sylvie picked us up. We left the gardens. On our way back to the hotel, we stopped to explore a church. I can't remember now whether it was Eglise St. Jacques, or Eglise St. Antoine. We enjoyed the little detour, and following the directions from the Great and Terrible Google, we found our way back to the hotel. We had covered a lot of miles from Versailles to Compiegne to Pierrefonds, and back to Compiegne, but the best part of the day was yet to come.

Sylvie had prepared a superb meal. She presented us with crab cakes and salad. We devoured that, enjoying every bite, and she raised the stakes with a very tasty and filling rice and chicken dish. My wife expressed some surprise that another dish was added to the table. I informed her that the traditional French meal would be served in courses. The rice and chicken was the main course, so once we made our way through that delicious dish, we would be on the downhill side. I can't remember if we had anything between the chicken and the cheese. I do remember drinking some sweet and refreshing juice...and a lot of it. I had to turn away the Roquefort, not being a fan of bread mold in any form. I did enjoy the mild brie, Camenbert, and some other cheese whose name I forget. The dessert was simply unforgettable...or it would've been, except that I can't remember what it was. What it was, was delicious.

The best part of the evening was the company, and the conversation. Gerard and Sylvie and their family, of which only Mathieu and Francois were able to attend, had been wonderful friends when I had lived in Compiegne years before. They were still wonderful folks. They all spoke a little English. Mathieu and Francois spoke English quite well. They translated for my wife while we conversed in French. One topic of conversation was the problem with the phone numbers that Sylvie had given me...both of the numbers had contained what looked to me like 6's...they were actually 4's. Missed it by that much.

After the dinner, we continued to visit until quite late. Sylvie began to drive us home...then I remembered that we didn't get pictures of us together. We went back to the house...Mathieu had already left, but we got pictures of all the rest of us.

After the long day, the hotel bed was truly welcome.

"Gardens bright with sinuous rills"

In Compiegne did Louis XV
a stately residence decree:
Where l'Oise, the sacred river, ran
through regions so dear to this man
in the land of Picardie.

We got off the bus in Compiegne at the palace, or Chateau de Compiegne. I had been there many years before. The chateau is tremendous inside; it is fabulous. I like it even better than the palace at Versailles. (There are a lot fewer people for one, and it has a lot of 1st Empire stuff which I enjoy, for another. Napoleon had the place restored and made it an imperial palace). We had hoped to be in time to tour the palace and then visit the beautiful and expansive gardens.

And we nearly did. Did you ever notice that if you add the word "nearly" to a positive statement, it turns the statement into a negative. It's really just a softer way of saying something failed. For example, saying that a ballplayer nearly caught the ball, sounds much better than saying that he missed the ball. "Nearly" creates the illusion of success, or very nearly does, almost. (For a discussion of the effect of the word "almost" please see "nearly."

We went inside and found the usual metal detector with the requisite inspector-of-all-things-carried. 
"Is this the way to see the chateau," I asked. 
"Yes, but it is closed," he said. "But you can still see the gardens."
"I understood the chateau was open for another hour, until 1800."
"It is, but it's too late to enter now. But you can still see the gardens."
"If it's still open, why can't we go inside?"
"Because it closes at 1800. But you can still visit the gardens."
"Well, then. We'll go in for a quick tour and then see the gardens."
"It's too late to visit the chateau. But you can still visit the gardens." He seemed noticeably frustrated at this point in trying to explain the situation. He wasn't doing a very good job of it.
"But it's open until 1800. We'll see the chateau and then visit the gardens."
"You are too late to come in the chateau, but you can still visit the gardens."

We spoke a little more to get some clarification. The bottom line was that we were not getting into the chateau. Apparently the rule is quite firm that if one does not arrive more than an hour before the closing of the chateau, one does not get to enter the chateau, even though the chateau does not close until 1800 (which is 6:00 p.m.). It was 5:15; we weren't getting in. Missed it by that much.

Much to the amusement of the other chateau workers who were witnessing our conversation, I finally informed the good man that we would skip the chateau and just visit the gardens. The whole conversation was worth it just to see them enjoy the frustration of their colleague. 

The gardens are truly remarkable. We walked around the side of the chateau and enjoyed the view down the great alley that joins the palace gardens with the great forest. We admired the statuary and got some pictures of them. I particularly liked a secluded Grecian gazebo (I'm sure there's better, more architecturally correct word for it, but I don't know what it is). There were a few people enjoying the great grassy expanse in the middle of the gardens, but not many. We nearly had the gardens to ourselves (nearly, see: almost). A quiet peaceful walk with my wife in the gardens of the imperial palace; what a great day!

...

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, 

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; 

And here were forests ancient as the hills, 

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.