Forget Paris

and the rest of France

10/98   7/00

I was forced to go to France twice!  (The first time - it rained!)

Okay!  I have a theory:  I think there is only ONE small, quaint town in France and each morning the bus approaches it from a different direction and they just TELL you you're somewhere else!!  I'd swear I was on the same small, narrow, winding cobblestone, break-your-ankle streets where I saw the same shops, selling the same stuff, sold by the same people (that's the giveaway!  It's always the same people.  It's either that or else everyone in France is sharing the same five teeth!!  One gold, four brown.)   And dog-shit everywhere!  Four out of the six of us stepped in dog shit in the course of just a couple of days.  They take their dogs everywhere.  They take their dogs into restaurants!  

At 7:00 AM they're all out with hoses washing the sidewalks clean.  Then, I guess, from 7 to 8 is the hour when the fashion photographers do their thing.  (And, therefore, this is what we think France looks like!)  Then at 8:00 AM they start walking their dogs to begin a new day of "dog-shit dancing". 

The most interesting part of the whole trip was the Perrier bottling plant.  An amazing degree of automation.  They not only make their own bottles....they make their own GLASS for those bottles!!  All in this one huge compound.  They've bought up all they land for miles around the source spring so that no one can plant the wrong crops or do the wrong thing and perhaps affect the source.  They figure it takes today's rain, 100 years to work it's way down into the drinking water!!  They don't bottle water that they don't already have an order for, so nothing stays around in storage.  

The Louvre, which contains most of their their art treasures boasts quite an extensive collection.  You simply can't see it all!  I recommend the tour here, too!  They do it with wireless headsets so you can hear the guide perfectly, but you don't have to be standing right on top of each other.  So, you can sit, stand or even wander around - as long as you stay within 20 to 30 feet or so of the guide.

This trip  - Us and: Barbara & Nelson, Flori & Ron