May 29, 2010

Three days to countdown. Three days from now we will be on American flight #48 headed for Paris—the beginning of a three week expedition to la belle France. Encore.

Many months ago, our friends of more than forty years Bob and Sandy Heckman, asked us if we wanted to accompany them on a river cruise up the Seine from Paris to the beaches of Normandy and back. Eight days on a river boat with only 150 passengers, gourmet cuisine, French wine, Joan of Arc, Monet, Calvados and Camembert. Not merely frivolous, but educational too, with lectures on history and culture, classes in French cooking and painting and performances of traditional French music.

Not being cruisers, we were a bit leery at first, but a few trips to the internet and rave reviews from TripAdvisor.com about this particular cruise and company convinced us that it was time to release this beautiful country from the self-imposed boycott we had enforced since 9/11.

Tom and I have traveled to France many times. Well, at least eight or nine times, on reflection. Tom lived there for almost a year in the early sixties and I made my first visit after college graduation in l962. In fact, on that trip Tom proposed to me in the Bois de Bologne, in the heart of Paris, a romantic bit of nostalgia that we still conjure up from time to time. We went back in 1970 as a result of an IBM trip and after that we hardly ever considered going anywhere else. Whenever an adults only vacation was in sight, we’d go to France. Several times, we considered Hawaii, or Canada, but France would always win in the end. It’s only been in the last few years—since 9/11 in fact—that we have ventured outside that “comfort zone” into Asia, South America, and yes, even Hawaii.

What did we do with our kids, you ask? We hired baby sitters and left them at home! This is no longer the norm, but it was perfectly acceptable during the seventies and eighties. And lest you think the McQuaid boys were horribly deprived, we would take them to Florida, or California, Jamaica or even Club Med once or twice. Travel has always been a priority with us.

The boys’ first trip to Europe came when David and Mark were 17 and 18, David newly graduated from High School and Mark about to be a senior. We sent them to Europe on a “If it’s Tuesday this must be Belgium” type tour, and we took Eric, aged 12, with us to France. We all met up at the end in, yes, Paris, and from there finished the tour as a family in London and the Cotswolds. How I wish I had a blog about that trip!

Forgive my reminiscing…I remember at one point our paths were going to cross somewhat: David and Mark and their group were in Blois in the Loire Valley and Tom and I and Eric arranged our more flexible schedule to surprise them at their hotel. I’ll never forget walking into the courtyard of this modest but lovely French hotel in the beautiful Loire countryside and there, alone at a wrought iron table was David writing a letter. I can still remember the feelings of love and pride to see my oldest son sitting quietly in a French garden, no rock and roll, no TV, and of course no cell phones or internet. He was so surprised to see us, as if it was all pure coincidence. He ran and got Mark and we visited at the small round table for an hour or so before they had to leave with the group for the evening’s activity.

A couple of years later, Erica came to live with us and we all went back to France, this time David and Mark traveling some of the time on their own but staying with us and Eric and Erica in our rented villa in Golfe Juan on the Riviera for a week or so. It was that first trip, though, that turned young Eric into a true Francophile. He would get up in the mornings, leave the hotel and go and buy breakfast for us, managing to communicate and to exchange francs like a seasoned pro. He, like his father, went to live in France after college graduation. Although he majored in French in college, it was through living in Paris and working for Rank Xerox for a year that he truly became fluent in French. We visited during his stay in Paris and he passed what I call the True Fluency test: he sat in the front seat of a taxi and carried on a real conversation with the driver, actually mumbling in French! Now that’s impressive.

But I digress. Back to the present. After my research, Tom and I agreed that the river cruise was a good idea, that the Heckmans would be sterling travel companions and that we should go—but not just for the week of the cruise, but for at least three weeks to do yet another Tour de France, just like the old days. Bob and Sandy were easily convinced and we were on.

After a few in depth discussions about preferences, I was charged with figuring out the itinerary and this is where we stand: our trusting friends leaving their fate in our (well, my) hands for two of the three weeks that we will be gone.

Briefly then, this is the plan: We arrive Wednesday morning, get a car at Charles de Gaulle and drive, jet-lagged, about two and a half hours to Vezelay, a popular small village with a spectacular cathedral, where we can decompress, rest, spend the night and please God be rested for the next day’s journey to Cannes.

In Cannes resides the inimitable Avery Glize-Kane, avocat, raconteur, bonne vivante, and the Auntie Mame of the Cote d’Azur. For those who don’t know, Avery (or Betsy as we call her) grew up in Baltimore and knew Beloved at an early age. They were friends in high school. After graduation, she took the obligatory trip to Europe, fell in love with France (and a Frenchman), and became a permanent resident of France. Moving with husband Jean Glize to Nice, she went to Law School, graduated first in her class, went from minimal French to speaking French like a native, and built a fabulous life in Cannes, a resort of the rich and famous about 45 minutes from Nice. She practiced law for many years before retiring a couple of years ago and her client base included international royalty, show biz celebrities, as well as run-of-the-mill gazillionaires. I forgot to mention above that each of our trips to France would include a couple of weeks of traveling around by car and then a final week or more in Cannes, party central, home of the Film Festival, docking port for yachts as large as ocean liners, and the Croissette—a promenade at the edge of the Mediterranean running the length of the city and destination for movie stars and other recognizables. Some of our experiences there border on the unbelievable. But I’ll leave those for another day. Betsy and Jean divorced years ago, but remained friends until he sadly died a few years ago. During the eighties, Betsy started a Riviera chapter of the Navy League (a USO type organization for officers) since Cannes was a popular destination of the Sixth Fleet and carriers, destroyers and other ships would sit in the Cannes basin for weeks on end with thousands of handsome American naval enlisted men and officers begging for entertainment--which Avery happily provided in the way of parties, excursions, and other activities both social and cultural. The Navy League in the South of France flourished under her guidance and for years she has counted among her closest friends the highest ranking Naval officers From the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen to National Security Director General Jimmy Jones.

So we will leave Vezelay on Thursday, drive about seven hours to Cannes, and spend the next five days with Betsy, who, oh by the way, is now the United States Consular Agent in Nice, a prestigious job requiring her to bail Americans out of whatever jams they get into, and solving other problems for Americans in France, making use of her thousands of contacts in the process. The job also requires her to attend countless ambassadorial and diplomatic soirees, receptions, balls, and other social events, thus keeping her party instincts well honed and up-to-date. A lousy job but somebody’s gotta do it….

If we survive whatever Bets has planned for us, including showing Bob and Sandy all the wonderful sights within striking distance of her home—Monaco, St. Paul de Vence, Eze, Antibes, Golfe Juan, Juan les Pins, Mougins, Grasse, and of course Nice itself—we will press on June 8, swing up through Provence spending the first night outside of Aix en Provence at a beautiful inn that Tom and I stayed in some years ago. From there we will drive back toward Paris through Carcassonne, Albi, Cordes, Rocamadour, and two nights in Sarlat, the charming medieval town near which Tom and I rented a villa for a month about ten years ago in an area of France called the Dordogne. From Sarlat we can explore some of Les Plus Belles Villages de France, a French designation bestowed on those villages that the French government has deemed worthy of being called the most beautiful in France. I call them Oh-My-Gods. You round a bend and there before you is Domme, or Roque Gageac, or Collange la Rouge, and all you can say is “Oh…..my….God.” It will be Sandy and Bob’s first time in these parts of France and my greatest hope is that they will love it like we do.

After all too short a time—my only fear is that I have bitten off more than WE can chew—we will need to hightail it to our final stop-off point before returning to Paris and taking the cruise. Sancerre seemed a nice compromise--again about two or two and a half hours from the airport where we will return the car and catch our ride to the boat (God willin’). Sancerre is a wine town famous for its white wines which we may sample a glass or two of (you think?). Tom and I had lunch there after leaving the Dordogne and our rented villa to go home that time and it seemed like a friendly little town.

Then the next day it is onto the river boat where we will be wined and dined, educated and enlightened, broadened and edified, by the experts of Viking. I’ll save that itinerary for when the time comes.

A few days in Paris, and maybe a walk through the Bois, will end another idyll in France, the country of kings.