Saturday, 20 June 2009. We rested after the short trip from Chartres, and then joined the group for a delicious dinner. The hotel has an elegant entry, but our rooms faced another part of the building that enclosed the air conditioner. I guess we would have been more grateful if we had sweltering weather, but the weather has been beautiful.
Sunday, 21 June 2009. Breakfast in the hotel, then worship at St. Gervais, whose community is the Brothers and Sisters of Jerusalem, the same that were in Vezelay. The sanctuary was lovely, but there are a limited number of stools to sit on (no chairs) and if you are late, you get to sit in the aisle on the floor. (Hmmm... something to consider for our late worshipers at First Pres!) A LONG service with a short sermon, 12 communion stations, lots of singing of the liturgy, which is of course in French. The passing of the peace we understood, and the monks and nuns who are kneeling in the chancel come down the aisle, and grasp both of your hands to pass the peace. It was very heartwarming. We stood for about 50 minutes of a 75 minute service!
Then, not having been on our feet long enough, we walked to the Louvre, and walked around inside the Louvre for 4 hours (not counting a short lunch break)! Then we walked back to our hotel! Quite a trek.
The Louvre is magnificent. It was formerly a GRAND palace, and I do mean grand. Huge. Beautiful buildings surrounding an enormous courtyard, fountains, and of course the recent (1989) glass pyramid entry you may have seen in DaVinci Code. I was as enthralled with the buildings, ceilings, columns and staircases as with the art. Well, almost.
The most famous things we saw were the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory of Samothrace, and Venus de Milo. It is said that if you look at every piece of art it will take you nine months. Four hours doesn't quite cover it. There is an entire room of Peter Paul Rubens' works, each one of them taking up the size of a wall in an average home. Lots of Rembrandts also. We didn't visit the many collections - Egyptian, etc. Not nearly enough time. We would definitely have an annual pass if we lived in Paris.
Another wonderful dinner that evening.
Monday, 22 June 2009. This is the official last day of the pilgrimage, and we were free to explore Paris.
Bobby and I visited the Cluny (Musee de Moyen Agen) to see the six Lady and the Unicorn tapestries; they are magnificent, and there were many, many schoolchildren there on field trips.
There were many other Middle Age artifacts - tapestries, armor, shields, religious items, etc. Quite interesting.
Since we had previously only walked around the outside of Notre Dame Cathedral, we decided to go inside. Us and about 2000 other people. A traveling choir was singing, and that was wonderful to hear. I think Notre Dame is more beautiful outside than in, but they do have lovely rose windows.
We had lunch at a cafe on the Seine, with Notre Dame in the background. Quiche with wine. What could be more French?
After resting, we met up at 6:00 p.m. for farewells, then a goodbye banquet. We toasted with champagne, took lots of pictures, did an examen of the entire pilgrimage (we've been doing these periodically throughout the trip). We were gifted with candles from Taize, and we presented the leaders with thank yous also. I wrote a limerick for each of the leaders to lighten things up a bit, and there was lots of laughter over those.
Dinner was at a tiny restaurant near the Pantheon, then we walked back to the hotel for coffee or cocoa, then off to bed.
Tuesday, 23 June 2009. Most pilgrims departed today, but we all had time for the hotel breakfast, so said more goodbyes then. We took a taxi to the St. Jacques, which is our favorite hotel. It's the best one on the trip, we think. Although the Hotel Bourgogne in Cluny is a close second.
We used the bus to travel to the Musee D'Orsay, although we still did a lot of walking after we got off, due to some misdirection from very kind strangers - French, American and Australian!
We finally found it, as did every other tourist in Paris, and we were in line for tickets for half an hour. But it was well worth it.
The D'Orsay has almost every other famous painting that the Louvre does not, and mostly artists that everyone has heard of: lots of Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Renoir, Pisarro, Degas, etc. We were there about three hours. It is a beautiful, light-filled old train station, and is very open and airy.
We walked back to the hotel, window shopping along the way. Rested after checking into our room, then went back to the St. Severin area for happy hour and dinner. Played I'm Perfect and drank wine in a sidewalk cafe, then chose one of many, many restaurants for our dinner - delicious! Onion soup, salmon, and chocolate mousse. More walking around, and now we are preparing for our return home tomorrow.
Memories: the lunch cruise on the Seine in the rain; the sidewalk cafes; St. Chapelle windows; all of the cathedrals; the Jerusalem Community nuns with their sweet faces, and blue and white habits; the winding streets of Vezelay; the beautiful French countryside with Charolais cattle; the Assisi Chapel in Vezelay where we were joined by the French stranger who sang Laudate Dominum with us; Fontenay Abbey; the town of Cluny and the hospitality of the hoteliers Natalie and Michel; our wonderful guide Sherry, who enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed her; her leading us to the bell tower and up onto the roof of St. Benigne Cathedral, where all of Dijon lay before us; dinner at the private home of Anne and Paul Blagny, and their graciousness to us; magnificent Chartres cathedral, and walking the labyrinth there and exploring the town of Chartres; the museums and fine art of Paris, and the hospitality and helpfulness of strangers of all nationalities. Lastly, the loving leadership of Joan Currey, John Griffin, Tom Glenn and Jeffrey Gaines, who introduced us to travel as pilgrimage, and also the warm friendships we cultivated with the other nine pilgrims on this spiritual journey.
It was all a gift from God.
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