A SAILOR GOES TO PARIS: BACKBLOGGING

Amazing to think what this gargoyle has witnessed over the centuries...

As promised, here is the soon to be growing list of links to posts about our month in Paris:

June 20 Leaving Pains
June 21 Kindness of Parisians
June 21 Fête de la Musique
June 23 Kayaking -- guess we can't stay away from the water!
June 24 Angers
June 25 Day of the Dead
June 25 Boys' Day Out
June 27 Chip's Birthday, Part One
June 28 Wine Museum and creepy wax figures **NEW POST**
June 30 Waterfalls and futures **NEW POST**

A SAILOR GOES TO PARIS: MONTMARTRE

Paris, France

Yesterday, we visited Montmartre and Sacre Coeur, because you have to when you're in Paris. We enjoyed the surrounding neighborhoods but bolted through the tourist areas, wall-to-wall Americans and tourist shlock.

Looking beyond the tourists, every step is a feast for eyes. The buildings, the cobblestones, balconies with flower boxes.

I was on a quest to find the original shopping malls built in the 1800s, the precursor to today's version. Many of the originals still exist, and I want to visit as many as possible, not to shop but to gawk at the amazing structures and ponder who else has passed over the same stones in the last 150 years.

A special thanks to my Parisian blog readers, soon-to-be cruisers who told me about them!

I promise to publish more thoughtful posts with more organized photos once I have my computer again. For now, enjoy this smattering of shots.

One of the world's first shopping malls.

You are not allowed to leave Paris without taking this shot.

la vie en cliché

RAFT UP: SAILOR OR TRAVELER?

Paris, France

"I soon realized that no journey carries one far, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within." -- Lillian Smith

It's time for Raft-Up, where a group of sailing bloggers writes each month about a common topic, one of us each day, to offer readers varying perspectives on the same theme. You'll find links to the other blogs at the end of this post. This month's topic: Sailor or Traveler?

Traveling by boat obviously makes me both a sailor and a traveler, so the real question here is, which one is not optional. The fact that I write this during a one-month stay in Paris is probably a good hint.

I am a tumbleweed raised in a family of oaks, born with an itchy desire to find out what else is out there, who's out there, and what they're doing. I seek out new places, new cultures, new anything, new everything.

Travel is both my teacher and my muse. I never tire of seeing what a very tiny piece I am in this gigantic human puzzle, how different I am from the other pieces and yet ultimately, if I look hard enough, exactly the same. It is that fuzzy line between foreign and familiar that feeds my writer's mind.

Sailing for me is secondary but a perfect mode of transportation, teaching me to slow down and savor, to notice and digest. It requires me to be in touch with nature, to live outside myself. If I am a very tiny piece of the human puzzle, in the midst of gargantuan nature, I barely exist at all. It is humbling and at the same time invigorating.

It is uniquely rewarding to sail into a faraway harbor, knowing I came under my own power, that I have earned my way, inch by inch. It's an accomplishment that cannot be matched by stepping off a plane (although I like that too).

And, best of all, when I've explored that new harbor, I can go home, because I have brought home with me. Every day I travel. Every day I am still home.

For Chip, sailing came first and gave birth (or is it berth?) to an avid traveler. Sailing quickens his pulse but travel tunes him into the pulse of the planet. I have to say, he embraces the planet. I am an observer, but Chip is a member of the global family. He walks right in and sits down at the table. He will communicate with any form of language at hand, by sharing his meal, holding the door open, surprising them with his thoughtfulness. He is a keen observer of the human condition and should be the writer here. Instead you're stuck with me.

We both find that cruising comes with limitations. That little bit of water we cross to go ashore separates us from the people on land in a way I don't quite understand. We can interact with them, but we are perpetually separate, always the outsiders. While that might be true of all forms of travel, I have found it much harder to make that arc from the water, an arc we will keep trying to make.

So we are one traveler who loves to sail and one sailor turned traveler. We have no immediate plans to stop sailing, but when we do, we will not stop traveling. How else would we find out what's waiting just beyond....and just inside. How fortunate for us that we are kindred, roaming spirits, the further we extend into the world around us, the better we understand the world within.

Read other Raft-Up bloggers on the same topic.

who are these people? me | chip | cara mia | our very long timeline

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A SAILOR GOES TO PARIS :: Checking In

Greetings from PARIS!

We arrived safely, and I've finally borrowed Casey's computer for a quick update. Paris is perfect. The weather is perfect, low 70s every day. Our apartment is perfect. Our neighborhood is perfect.

Okay, there will be grand detail when I have time and connection. For now, here are a few photos from the little camera to whet your appetite:

Chip being very French in front of the Pantheon.

Our first dinner.

The reunion in the Metro.

Me and my baguettes heading up our perfect street.

Chip in our apartment. (Louvre)

At Pere Lachaise.

More soon!

A SAILOR GOES TO PARIS: WATER, WATER

Paris, France

You've probably noticed we have a hard time staying away from water, even in France. I read in a guidebook that Paris has a 105-foot waterfall. Really? Casey offered to give us a tour, so today, we packed a picnic and headed for Buttes Chaumont park in the 19th arrondisement.

The 61-acre park is a dramatically beautiful swath of green cutting through an otherwise city of gray.

It perches atop a hill with sweeping vistas crowned by the highest point in Paris, Sacra Couer.

There's a little guy on the right there for scale.

Then, Remi took us on a tour of another water feature: Canal Saint-Martin.

We've been planning our next adventure after Cara Mia. It surprises some, including our kids, that we perceive a life after Cara Mia, but it's part of our sailor/traveler/adventurer mentality. We are travelers first, sailors second (a close second), adventurers always. What we don't perceive is life without a boat.

Our plan, as it stands today, is to tool around in the Bahamas, maybe the Caribbean, and then, wait for it..... sell Cara Mia and buy a canal boat to traverse the extensive French canal system that meanders throughout the country, including the wine regions. It will be an adventure with a business element. We will put the canal boat in a charter program and/or conduct wine tours from onboard. Perhaps you'll join us for a tour? (Okay, you might have to wait a few years.)

Chip and Remi doing a little Canal Saint-Martin recon.

This particular canal was created by Napoleon to supply fresh water to the growing population and is controlled by a series of locks. Today it is mostly a tourist attraction and a lovely one at that.

Remi escorted us to a tres cool bar tucked way back in an alleyway, one we would never find on our own, the ultimate reward for hanging out with locals.

A SAILOR GOES TO PARIS: VIN

Paris, France

Today, we set out on our own, Dylan now in Rome, and Casey at work. Chip is still fighting the pain from having his tooth pulled, but he's a trooper.

He had his first French crêpe, although technically it was a galette, which is a crêpe made with buckwheat. So delicious.

In the Passy neighborhood, we peered at Balzac's house, which was closed for renovation.

What is that skinny tower is in the distance? (looking southwest from Passy)

Apparently old Balzac had a lot of debt and went to great lengths to dodge his creditors. First he tried to thwart them by renting this house under the name of his housekeeper, then when they found him anyway and came to the front door, he would ditch out the back. Wily character.

Balzac's place was just 'round the corner from our destination: the quaint Musée du Vin, housed in an old limestone quarry.

The museum itself is in the tunnels and, in a bizarre twist, combines wine artifacts with wax figures. What is the French fascination with wax figures? They're so creepy.

I very nearly screamed when I rounded a corner and saw this:

BWAAAH!!!!

Oddly enough, that was a wax image of Balzac escaping those creditors ....

The tunnels had beautiful displays of tools, winemaking paraphernalia, glasses, carafes, corkscrews, and our favorite, a trick wine glass.

That's it on the right. They were a little sketchy about how it worked (a national secret, perhaps?), but the theory is you put your fingers over certain holes, turn it a certain way, and the wine comes out one of the little holes in the rim, apparently flowing inside the pottery. Yeah, sketchy, but tr es, tres cool.

Antique tap handles.

Vintage glassware.

The world's first sippy-cup.

Decanter with a stable base crafted especially for use on ships.

It was a delightful little museum with an audio tour that was pretty meh. It was particularly confounding that the items in the display cases were helpfully numbered yet the numbering was completely random -- or perhaps another national secret? Audio: Notice items 17, 1, 4 and 22, blah, blah.... We would totally miss what they said while trying to find number 17:

Numbers. Maybe there's a way to put them in order?

We gave it a single thumbs up, but the wine tasting at the end of the tour was a nice touch. I wonder if the Louvre will offer a free tasting at the end?

The beautiful, beautiful Passy neighborhood.

A SAILOR GOES TO PARIS: CHIP'S B-DAY, PART I

Paris, France

Yes, it was all delicious.

With our little family together for a week in Paris, we decided to celebrate Chip's birthday a bit early -- and then again later -- and maybe again. But for today, we made sandwiches with bounty from the open market at the end of our street. (More on that later!) We plied fresh baguettes with butter, Camembert, tomato, avocado, aged meats, and delish sauces available in little jars for 50 cents each: Bearnaise, Aioli, Bourguignone and, quite amusingly, Americain, which is the same as our French dressing.

First stop: Notre Dame, for a tour of the inside.

I could do an entire photo essay on Notre Dame, and maybe I will. It is a massive and massively beautiful structure.

Love that row of Kings!

Joan of Arc.

In keeping with Catholic tradition (one I don't know anything about), there were lit candles at the various stops inside the church. I felt strongly that another tribute would be appropriate rather than placing lit candles at the feet of Joan of Arc. Seriously?

From Notre Dame, we walked over the Seine and through St. Germaine to the Jardin du Luxembourg for our birthday picnic.

The palace in the park was built by Marie de Medici (yes, those de Medicis), who, as the widow of Henry IV and regent (acting for a minor royal) to her son Louis XIII. It now houses the French senate.

Besides the fact that the garden is beautiful, we chose it for Chip's birthday, because it is near the Pantheon, number one on his list to visit in Paris.

The Pantheon is worthy of another photo essay. It is truly spectacular. The history of the building could fill a book unto itself (the kids bought Chip one such book).

Both the exterior and interior are breathtaking. Below ground, it houses a crypt for some of the greatest minds of the last centuries: Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Marie Curie, Louis Braille, and Alexandre Dumas. Most crypts are dark, dank and creepy. This one is well-lit and beautiful. Why wouldn't great minds want to hang out here?

Voltaire and his very large shadow.

Just when you think it can't be any more impressive, you exit the building to a sprawling view of the Latin Quarter and the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

Then, at his request, an outdoor cafe for a very French café and a smoke under the watchful eye of the Pantheon.

And then to our little apartment for dinner (pasta with Creme Fraiche/mushroom sauce), the four of us plus Remi, and oh-so-yummy French patisserie treats.

Birthday Part One: Check.

An architectural ornament on exhibit in the Pantheon.

A transportation exhibit on exhibit outside the Pantheon.

S.W.A.K. (and a glare?)