* Chambon-sur-lignon – Aug 2007

                            

Nobody asked who was Jewish and who was not. Nobody asked where you were from. Nobody asked who your father was or if you could pay. They just accepted each of us, taking us with warmth, sheltering children, often without their parents,children who cried in the night from nightmares.

After the collapse of French forces, the Nazis occupied much of France and controlled it all. Soon, the Germans brought their hunt for Jews to France. Many were rounded up, transported, and murdered. The French Vichy government generally collaborated with the Nazis in this activity, sometimes seeming even to exceed the German enthusiasm.

There were, however, many individual French men and women who did not bend to the despicable German demands. Some helped Jews (and others) escape over the Pyrenees mountains to Spain. Others hid Jews, sometimes for years. Some blew up and shot Germans. These people are known as the French resistance.

In a small remote mountain village called Chambon-sur-Lignon, Pastor Andre Trocme, his wife, and many other local citizens determined to hide Jews, especially children and arrange safe passage for others. Their incredible story is told in a book by Phillip Hallie called Lest Innocent Blood be Shed. Pat read Hallie’s book many years ago, as has long wanted to visit the village. This week we did.

We took a train from Collioure to Valence, where we rented a car to drive west to Chambon. Michelin said the drive would take less than 2 hours, but the constant mountain turns slowed us down considerably. The scenery, to the extent we could look at it, was breathtaking. We stopped for an excellent lunch in the town square of L’amastre and learned once again that the French, even in the most remote villages, can do remarkable things with a piece of lettuce and some oil.

Somewhere along the way, we realized that our rental car had a GPS system, and we managed to get it on. Pat even changed the language to English. It showed where we were, but it wasn’t until the next morning that I figured out how to set a destination.

Meanwhile, it had started to drizzle, and by the time we reached Chambon, it was late and we were tired, so after a brief stop at the Tourist Office, we went to our Hotel Clair Matin (Clear Morning). It is up in the hills, set in a deep forest. But it wasn’t a clear morning, and in the deep mist was the eerie feel that German patrols were just out of sight.

In the morning, we drove 2 kilometers back down into the village, enjoyed the market day booths, and used the maps provided by the Tourist Office to find the locations where Jews had been saved. We purchased the DVD “Les armes de l’espirit.”

At lunch, we met a Belgian couple who had been at our hotel, and they decided to join us in a walking tour (in French) of the same sights we had seen in the morning. Dominique, who turned out to be an appeals judge in Brussells, translated the guide’s comments for us as we walked from place to place.

We began at the railway station, where Jews from all over France had arrived in search of safe haven. Staring at the thin rails and the station, changed little if at all from 1943, we imagined the desperation of those who disembarked, there lives totally dependent on the assistance they hoped to get from the Protestant pastor and this largely Protestant community.

A few blocks from the station is a place that was home for many Jewish children, run by a Jewish man named Emile Seches.

M. Seches … “A policeman phoned me one day to ask me why I had not registered as a Jew. I answered him: It isn’t necessary, everyone in Chambon knows I am a Jew. I nevertheless had to see him. In large red letters, he wrote the word JEWISH on my identification card and on my food coupons card. The result was that, in order to visit my family in Saint-Etienne, I had to secure false papers.”

It is puzzling that known Jews in Chambon, and the thousands of others who passed through the village, whom the Nazis must have suspected were Jews, were with one exception, never rounded up and sent to the death camps.

In Hallie’s book, it is told that one day the local commandant came to Pastor Trocme and announced … tomorrow a bus will be here, and all the Jews must get on the bus, no exceptions. The next day, the bus arrived, and not a single person boarded. After several hours, the bus left.

But not all escaped …

On June 29. 1943, at dawn, the Gestapo arrested eighteen students as well as the headmaster, Daniel Trocme, Pastor Trocme’s cousin. They were all deported. Six returned to Chambon. Five young Jews died at Auschwitz and Daniel Trocme at Maidanek. No one knows what happened to the others.

Next to the school where so many Jewish children lived, there’s an old hotel, boarded up now, which was requisitioned for wounded German soldiers. We got chills imagining the soldiers glancing out their windows, seeing the children, doing nothing.

Around the corner and down a hill is the Protestant presbytery, built in 1842 on the site of the former lords of Chambon, home during WWII of Pastor Andre Trocme and his wife Magda. The sun is shining, the River Lignon flows gently below, and we are surrounded by the residual presence of the very best that civilized human beings can be.

Magda Trocme … “We simply tried to do our very best. There were people in the village who needed help. How could we not give it to them?”

Pastor Andre Trocme … “We are not aware of what a Jew is. We only know human beings.” 

               

Further down the hill is a primary school. Several of the students there were Jewish, but the head of the school, Roger Darcissac, “forgot” to enter their names in the registers. Inside the train station, there’s a photo of M. Darcissac (on the left) with Pastor Trocme, just an ordinary looking person, academic, forgetful. 

On the wall of a building across from the Protestant church, in a building which was a bakery during WWII but seems to be a private dwelling today, a plaque has been mounted, which says, in Hebrew and French, The memory of the just will remain for always, a quote from the 6th Psalm.

The people of Chambon have been recognized at the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial in Israel as among the many righteous non-Jews who helped Jews escape death at the hands of the Nazis.  

                       

 After the tour, we went to the train station where we were met by Madame Flaud, who created the memorial exhibition two years ago. She took us from photo to photo and explained each in detail.

There were quotes with each photo. Each calls forth a mixed response of gratitude, anger, and pride …

Pastor Andre Bettex, from the pulpit of the Protestant Church of Freycenet, a village near Chambon  … “The laws against the Jews are illegal. Our duty is to help them with all the means available to us. I urge you to do so.

Mireille Philip … “I feel humility and of gratitude in front of many of these refugees who became my friends. They were an example of dignity and courage.”

Hanne Hirsch-Liebmann, a survivor … “the people of Le Chambon believed we must all live together and even risk our lives for our fellow beings. They always shared with us, no matter how little they had.”

Elizabeth Koenig-Kaufmann, a survivor … “Le Chambon was different because of its religious ardor. The villagers read their Bibles daily and tried to live what the Bible taught them.”

Francois Levy-Lecomte, a survivor, in his book “I’ll never be 14” … “On September 9th 1944, a column of tanks. jeeps and trucks entered Le Chambon. The French soldiers gave us chocolate in brown wrappers, thick, huge chocolate bars. It was so good.”

… and so it was finally over. The people of Chambon and other nearby villages had saved perhaps 3,500 people, mostly Jews. I signed the visitor’s book at the station …

“It is our privilege to be in the presence of such goodness.”

We left Chambon, and drove further west. It was late afternoon, with the sun lowering in front of us, and the meadows and forests of the mountain country offered views perhaps as beautiful as any we had ever seen. Then we arrived in Le Puy, a center for pilgrims and hikers, perhaps the least attractive city in all of France. The GPS, however, worked perfectly, bringing us through the city streets precisely to our hotel. We thought how wonderful it would have been to have a GPS in Nice, where we had such difficulty finding our hotel, and decided to purchase a portable GPS when we got home.

And, even in Le Puy, there was something.

We were directed from our not lovely hotel to a small square and found a tiny restaurant, 4 tables downstairs, 4 more up, that looked worth trying. Pat wanted pasta, but not with the cream sauce it came with.

“Do you have a red sauce?” I asked

“No, but I have tomatoes,” said the young cook/owner. ”I’ll see what I can do.”

What he did was make a spectacular red sauce. I ordered salmon, and both dishes were as good as any other meals we could recall. Put this guy in a major city, and he would be rich. But maybe not happy.

The next morning, we drove back over the mountains to Valence, had a nice lunch at an outdoor restaurant on a broad avenue, did some window shopping, returned the car to Hertz, and took the train home to Collioure.

 

* into the Pyrenees

        

We enjoy the eastern foothills of the Pyrenees every day from our terrace, but we have long wanted to see the higher ranges to our west, stretching along the border between France and Spain.

There are excursions every week in the summer, listed at the Collioure Tourist Office, and each Friday, there’s a bus trip to Villefranche de Conflent, with English commentary. We almost never take bus trips, but the alternatives of driving or taking the train look too difficult (and more expensive) by comparison, so we decide to give it a try.

The bus leaves Collioure at 6:10 am, from the old tower next to the Port Duvall beach. We’re up before 5:00 am, breakfast, and walk over. Collioure in the cool morning is an absolute delight. Still dark but dawn is coming, dim lights casting a romantic glow, the town perfectly quiet except for the lapping of small waves along the beach. A couple is playing on the swings – out early or up all night?

Several others are waiting, and when the bus arrives early, our group is first on. There are 5-6 stops in and around Argeles to pick up additional passengers, and by the time all are on board, only a few seats are left. We’ve been driving north along the coast, looking at each coastal town, all larger than Collioure, more developed, not nearly as beautiful or charming.

We turn west and pass north of the city of Perpignan, the department prefect of our region (population 163,000), drive for an hour to Villefranche de Conflent (population 225). We’ll return to Villefranche as the last stop on our trip, but for now we go directly to the train station.

We’re early, so we have café au lait (pour moi), chaude chocolate (pour Madame), et deux croissants, in the chill of the mountain air. We’ll catch the 9:00 am le petit train Jaune (the little yellow train).

While we’re waiting, we read our books. I’ve brought with me Escape through the Pyrenees by Lisa Fittko, a heart-pounding account of this brave and resourceful woman’s successful efforts to save herself, and then perhaps 2,000 others, from the clutches of the Nazis after the French collapse in 1940. Much of this took place in the towns near Collioure – Port Vendres and especially Banyuls. It’s one of Pat’s favorites, and I can’t think of a better place to read it than driving up the very same Pyrenees mountains which was the escape route to Spain.

The first section of the train jaune route was completed in 1910, linking Villefranche with Mont Louis, which is as far as we will go today. It’s an impressive construction undertaking, including 650 engineering works along the 44 mile climb  - 19 tunnels and two remarkable bridges: the Séjourné viaduct and the Gisclard suspension bridge. 

We board the car set aside for our group, which is just about full. Pat and I sit next to a delightful French madame, who speaks just a very little more English than we speak French. She says she’s an auteur, Pat says so am I, and she is much impressed with Le Hérétique, says she is enchante to meet me.

I just read Somerset Maugham’s comment in The Razor’s Edge that “in France, an author just because he is an author has prestige,” written in 1943 but apparently still true.

As we climb, I realize we can’t see much if we stay in the car, so I move to the platform between cars, and Pat soon joins me. The views are astonishing, great vistas of mountains, rising high in the distance, and as we climb further, plunging away beneath us, some covered with trees, some huge expanses of bare rock. There are little station stops, tiny villages, and single houses perched at unimaginable heights.

The train is run by SNCF as a regular part of the rail system, and was created originally as a link to these mountain places. Now there are roads which follow the same general route, and most of the passengers are tourists. 

We exit train jaune at Mont Louis, which is roughly halfway up, a trip of 1 hour 20 minutes, and we’re back in the bus, which has driven to meet us. It’s 10:30 am, and there are several more stops in the morning, but our guide asks if we will join the group for lunch and she gives the menu of what we understand is their regular place. The alternative – we’ll drop you off somewhere in Spain and pick you up two hours later – is singularly unappealing, so we’ll join the group. 

We stop at a ski resort with a view of the highest mountain in the Pyrenees, and an old chapel with a fountain miraculously created by a statue of the virgin. The chapel features a stunning altar, with statues and ornaments in gold, by the same artist who created the even more sumptuous altar at the church in Collioure. 

We pass into Spain, a half dozen people leave the bus with nothing much in sight, and most of us go to Paller de Queixans, a restaurant situated in a completely new area of modern town houses which are vacation homes for wealthy Barcelonians, about 1.5 hours away.

Even as we enter the restaurant, we feel we have made the right choice. Our group of over 30 are the only customers. We’re seated at 6 round tables, Pat and I at a table where no one else speaks English. A friendly man announces the menu, in French, then gets his guitar and sings in Spanish, asking the group to join the refrain while waving our white napkins high over our heads. It’s fun. 

Waitresses move quickly to deliver plates filled with a thin pasta, cut into short lengths, apparently fried with mussels and other good things, served with sangria and then rose wine. We had seconds. Then came a serving of chicken, vegetables, potatoes, sausage, and who knows what else, some of which was excellent. 

Meanwhile, the entertainer was doing card tricks. Champagne was served, and we were shown the “calva” method of drinking from a long stemmed bottle, pouring a long drizzle from the upheld bottle into your open mouth. Several of our group tried it, more or less successfully.  Dessert was ice cream, with coffee, and then a choice of whiskey, cognac and vodka, all of which we declined.

All in all, it was a terrific meal, 16 euros each.  My credit card, however, did not process and I paid in cash.

The next day I called Citibank and found that they had not flagged the payment. In fact they had not received it, so it must have been a local problem at the restaurant.  

TIP: before setting out on any trip, it’s a good idea to tell your credit card issuer where you’re going to be, so they won’t set up roadblocks when they see purchases made in unfamiliar places. I had done that in May for the entire summer, and this call was just to confirm everything was properly in place, which it was. 

Again, of course, the value of Skype. Call anywhere, at 2 cents/minute. This call, 4 minutes, 8 cents. 

After lunch, Pat and I had a chat with our English speaking guide. She had been in Key West – it’s amazing how many of the French know Key West and have been there – as part of her year in America, based in DC, specifically to improve her English for this job. 

The first stop of the afternoon was a solar furnace, which we viewed from a hillside vantage point. Constructed in the 1950s for research purposes, its 860 parabolic mirrors and heliostat of 546 flat mirrors focus the sun’s rays into a to temperatures which can reach 3500 degrees centigrade. That’s hot! 

We drove down the mountain on a road that paralleled the train, so we could see where we had been, and the views were even more spectacular.  

When we were near the bottom, our guide told us about the maiden run of the yellow train in 1905. A select group of 6 was on board for the event, but the engineer drove too fast around one of the many curves and the train flew off the tracks, landing 80 meters down in a gorge, and everyone was killed. “That was the first and last accident with the train juene,” we were told, but I’m nevertheless glad she saved this particular information until after we had left the train. 

Villefranche de Conflent is a fortified town founded in 1090 by Guillaume Raymond, Count of Cerdagne. The remarkable old church within the walls was built in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. After the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1679, the fortifications were improved by Louis XIV’s ubiquitous military engineer, Marquis Sebastian Vauban, who also expanded the castle in Collioure, all to defend against attack from the Spaniards to the south 

There are only two streets in Villefranche, but our 30 minute visit was well worth it. Old, old buildings, all shops now, narrow streets, water running down open culverts, a church as old as any we have ever been in, and witches, good witches. That’s all I know. Good ice cream too! 

We slept for most of the rest of the drive, back to Perpignan and then letting off the passengers, us last in Collioure at 6:30 pm. It was a good trip, and at 33 euros each, a terrific value.

* “Wed-nes-day”

 Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Since we have company “from the new world” coming tomorrow, we go down to the village to make a reservation for dinner. I try my best to use only French, but don’t quite make it. Je voudrais faire un reservation pour quatre personnes pour se sois …..?

I don’t know the word for Wednesday. Pat points to the word in French (Mercredi ) and asks the waiter who is making the reservation, “How do you pronounce this word?”  He immediately answers … “Wed-nes-day.”

* trains and web schedules … not always equal

We are taking the 14:45 (2:45pm) train back to Collioure. I had purchased tickets for a later train but we’re ready to go earlier.

As the train is pulling in, Pat notices that the train board does not include Collioure. But I looked up this train on the web, on a search for ‘Perpignan to Collioure,’ and it had a departure time (14:45) and a Collioure arrival time (15:10), so up we go. 

As the train approaches Argeles-sur-mer, the stop before Collioure, and begins to slow down, I look for a conductor to confirm, just to be sure, that this train does actually stop in Collioure. But no conductor is nearby, and the train pulls out. It’s only 3 minutes from Argeles to Collioure, but in that interval, the conductor appears and informs us that the train does not stop again until it reaches Cerbere, the last stop in France, and not a place you want to linger.

We enter the tunnel before Collioure, there’s a brief flash of light, and we’re in the tunnel after Collioure.  We remember the Kingston Trio’s immortal song about the MTA in Boston, where you need(ed) an exit fee, and the poor man “would never return.” 

More to the point, I explain to the conductor that the web had stated a Collioure stop, and she, a lovely young lady with excellent English (“my boy friend is British”), writes a note on our ticket to her colleague in Cerbere that we should be allowed to return to Collioure without additional charge. In Cerbere, the colleague agrees and the return train is due to leave in 20 minutes.  

TIP:  The lesson is you cannot trust the web schedules completely. Always check in the station. 

This happened to me once before, when I was at the station trying to buy a ticket on a train which did not stop in Collioure. I thought that was my mistake, but now I think it probably wasn’t. I’m going to try to figure out if there is a way to read the web schedules that will reveal this kind of error.

* mobile phones in France

    

French mobile telephones (nobody in Europe, except us, says cell phone) are next on our list. We go to the Orange store, this being the France Telecom outlet, and also SFR, which is the French representative for Vodaphone. At SFR, we learn that they offer phones and you can “top up” minutes on the internet, through the phone, or at any outlet.

But the minutes you but have a limited shelf life, use them or lose them, which is not what we want. Our objective is to have phones which we will use infrequently, and we want to buy a small quantity of minutes to last for several months.

Back at Orange, we select phones and make our purchase. Nokia phones, with instruction books in English as well as French.

The next day, setting up the phones, I learn that Orange “top up” minutes are also “use or lose.” It takes only a second to realize that the clerk in the Orange store is not at fault. She would assume that everyone knew how minutes were sold, so there was no need to spell it out. And we didn’t ask. My next reaction is to return the phones. But maybe that’s not going to solve anything either. The cost per two weeks, or per month, is not that great, and we can buy minutes for when we travel, since we have almost no use for mobile phones while we’re in Collioure.

* a day in Perpignan

      

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Collioure is a marvelous place, but shopping is not its strong suit. We decide to train to Perpignan for the day with a list of tasks. We take an early train, and the shops are not yet open, so we walk to the Palais des rois de Majorque, the palace of the kings of Majorca.

In the 13th century, Majorca ruled our part of France, and Perpignan was their center for this region. A palace was therefore built for their visits, taking 30 or so years, which is remarkably quick when you look at the size of the stones that were dragged up the hill. I take lots of photos and think maybe it could have been a site for a meeting between the representatives of Lorenzo de Medici and King Ferdinand of Aragon in the 1480s. “Could have been” is enough for my evolving historical novel.

Finding a hair salon is highest on our priority list, since Pat was not happy with the lack of attention paid to her color on her last visit in Collioure. We find a local Jean Louis David, which may be adequate, and then we stop looking, although we had a list from the yellow pages with us. Guess we’ll have to go back.

mobile phones 

French mobile telephones (nobody in Europe, except us, says cell phone) are next on our list. We go to the Orange store, this being the France Telecom outlet, and also SFR, which is the French representative for Vodaphone. At SFR, we learn that they offer phones and you can “top up” minutes on the internet, through the phone, or at any outlet.

But the minutes you but have a limited shelf life, use them or lose them, which is not what we want. Our objective is to have phones which we will use infrequently, and we want to buy a small quantity of minutes to last for several months.

Back at Orange, we select phones and make our purchase. Nokia phones, with instruction books in English as well as French.

The next day, setting up the phones, I learn that Orange “top up” minutes are also “use or lose.” It takes only a second to realize that the clerk in the Orange store is not at fault. She would assume that everyone knew how minutes were sold, so there was no need to spell it out. And we didn’t ask. My next reaction is to return the phones. But maybe that’s not going to solve anything either. The cost per two weeks, or per month, is not that great, and we can buy minutes for when we travel, since we have almost no use for mobile phones while we’re in Collioure.

After purchasing our phones, we head to Galeries Lafayette, but the only purchase we make is a small “Catalan” flag to complement the French and American flags we already have. Galeries in Paris is spectacular, in Montpellier it is outstanding, but here the architecture is sort of drab, and the merchandise is limited.

We have a nice lunch at an Italian restaurant, with a waitress whose mother came from Canada. We are impressed that the young girl moves quickly and is attentive, qualities which are not universal in France. We compliment her on her approach, and she says this is her first waitress job, and she’s still nervous. As if to prove her point, she spills a pitcher of water at the next table, drenching a man who, however, appears not to mind. You see, charm can overcome disaster.

We have other tasks to accomplish, but inexplicably, we just head back to the train station. We never look for another beauty salon or the picture frames we need.

trains & web schedules 

We are taking the 14:45 (2:45pm) train back to Collioure. I had purchased tickets for a later train but we’re ready to go earlier.

As the train is pulling in, Pat notices that the train board does not include Collioure. But I looked up this train on the web, on a search for ‘Perpignan to Collioure,’ and it had a departure time (14:45) and a Collioure arrival time (15:10), so up we go. 

As the train approaches Argeles-sur-mer, the stop before Collioure, and begins to slow down, I look for a conductor to confirm, just to be sure, that this train does actually stop in Collioure. But no conductor is nearby, and the train pulls out. It’s only 3 minutes from Argeles to Collioure, but in that interval, the conductor appears and informs us that the train does not stop again until it reaches Cerbere, the last stop in France, and not a place you want to linger.

We enter the tunnel before Collioure, there’s a brief flash of light, and we’re in the tunnel after Collioure.  We remember the Kingston Trio’s immortal song about the MTA in Boston, where you need(ed) an exit fee, and the poor man “would never return.” 

More to the point, I explain to the conductor that the web had stated a Collioure stop, and she, a lovely young lady with excellent English (“my boy friend is British”), writes a note on our ticket to her colleague in Cerbere that we should be allowed to return to Collioure without additional charge. In Cerbere, the colleague agrees and the return train is due to leave in 20 minutes.  

TIP:  The lesson is you cannot trust the web schedules completely. Always check in the station. 

This happened to me once before, when I was at the station trying to buy a ticket on a train which did not stop in Collioure. I thought that was my mistake, but now I think it probably wasn’t. I’m going to try to figure out if there is a way to read the web schedules that will reveal this kind of error.

* Ireland with the kids – July 2007

 

There is surely something magical about Ireland, a feeling I had even before marrying my wife of Irish descent. There is such a connection between the Irish and the U.S., and Ireland has had such a long history of mostly futile revolt against the oppression of the British – the history alone is a powerful draw.  

The glorious beauty of the country, all those shades of green (44), are enchanting. Or at least so I’m told, since my partial color-blindness may be limiting what I actually see.  

The Irish people are friendly, charming, and always helpful, although I’ve learned never to take the always vague travel directions offered by an Irish person. And now, prosperity has arrived for the first time in Ireland’s long history. Young people actually come to Ireland instead of leaving.

                      

 A major attraction of Ireland for us is “the cousins,” Pat’s relatives in Westport, and we’re looking forward to that visit at the end of the trip.

The only drawback is the weather. All that green comes from all that rain. It rains every day, usually a gentle rain that doesn’t last too long, but rain all the same. Never go to Ireland without a rain jacket and an umbrella.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Driven by Ryanair’s ever declining luggage allowance, we’re getting better at taking less on our travels. This time we each pack one of our new Delsey four-wheel spinner suitcases, not nearly full, and each weighing slightly under the 15 kilo (33 pound) limit. I have my camera bag, Pat her handbag, and no carryons. 

Karen and Joe come up for some lessons regarding our apartment. We give them my “home exchange thesis” and everyone laughs. Then we spend a careful half hour explaining how to use the computer we are leaving for them. They know the basics but have never used Skype, and never heard of Slingbox. We instruct them and wish them well.

Lunch and a long walk in town, then up to our apartment for final preparations. I try to call my daughter Missy, who has just delivered her second child (my 4th grandson) two months early, but all I can do is leave messages. I talk to my son Jon, however, and learn that all seems to be going quite well, with less complications than her first son, also born two months early. 

We train to Port Bou, expecting an hour’s wait for the connecting train to Girona. But a woman runs out and tells us there is a train about to depart, and we rush across to the other platform and board.

In Girona, we take the bus from the gare to the airport. The Novotel shuttle has stopped for the night, but we take a taxi which Novotel pays for. A very comfortable room, a glass of red wine, and we are asleep. 

Friday, July 6, 2007

We breakfast at Novotel, shuttle to the airport, check in at Ryanair. We are expecting to pay 12 euros for each of our checked bags, but are not charged anything, unless it’s being added to our credit card. Something to check when we return to Collioure. (There was no separate charge on flight day, and I think the luggage charge was included when we bought the tickets on line) 

I’m reading Leon Uris’ mighty novel, Trinity, both to establish the mood for our stay in Ireland and as part of my study of novels, especially historical novels. There is much to learn from Mr. Uris, and I’ve decided to apply my method of listing scenes (on a spreadsheet) to Trinity. So after I read each section, first for the pure enjoyment, I am numbering each scene, identifying the characters and major topics, and entering all of this into my spreadsheet.  

Uris has done something very interesting with “point of view” in this book, alternating between Conor Larkin’s best friend Seamus O’Neill and an omniscient narrator for all of the scenes where Seamus is not present. This enables him to present all of the background history, and the inner thoughts of the other (mostly Protestant) characters, while still retaining the immediacy of Seamus’ first person point of view. 

The flight is properly uneventful, but the car rental from Hertz is not.

Again the problem is the Collision Damage Waiver insurance. I am informed when we pick up the car that Hertz is charging me an additional 25 euros, above the fixed price which I pre-paid and thought included everything but local taxes, for not taking their insurance. This is absurd, and I’m afraid that I lost my temper and made a scene, for which I was properly reprimanded later in the day.

I’ll call Hertz when we get back to Collioure, but for now I am thinking this is a royal rip-off. I think the car rental companies make a lot of money by grossly overcharging for collision insurance, and they don’t like it that Citibank and others provide the coverage at no cost to their cardholders. 

NOTE: Hertz is not much interested in my complaint and see nothing wrong with not telling me in advance that they will be charging me for something I didn’t get. Ridiculous!

Driving from Shannon to Adare has the expected confusions induced by the ridiculous Michelin directions, but we are better now at extracting the truth from the nonsense and we get there without major incident. 

Our B&B in Adare, the Berkeley Lodge, is lovely, and so is the town. We enjoy the church, where a wedding is taking place, and the shops, where Pat finds running pants and we buy a fly-swatter at the local hardware store. When you live in a village of no real stores, you buy what you can wherever you may be. We also find Listerine, not sold anywhere in France, and are delighted.  

Then we check out Lena’s corner pub, where we find the entire wedding party (minus bride and groom) occupying the time between ceremony and reception in the company of Mr. Guinness and his companions. There’s also a group from a local company doing a team-building project by figuring out the riddles of The DaVinci Code. It is incomprehensible, and probably a surprise even to Dan Brown, how much that book has invaded our society. In Paris, there are DaVinci Code tours, including at the Louvre. 

We dine at another local pub, enjoying the interaction between the proprietor and his guests, many of whom he seems to know quite well. The food is … well the food is Irish pub food. Enough said. Nobody goes to Ireland for the culinary experience. The potato salad is of course excellent, as is the beer.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Pat finds a marvelous place to run, on the grounds of Adare Manor, which hosts a marvelous golf course, the home this year of the recently completed Irish Open. Gorgeous scenery and long flat roads. She returns exhilarated by her best run in months.

Meanwhile, I took a walk, photos of the church, and a brief conversation with the gentleman who was removing the very few pieces of trash from the main streets and sidewalks. 

Breakfast is wonderful. We’re given a choice of a variety of eggs, sides, and other dishes, and I believe we could have had them all if we had asked. Our waitress, who both cooks and serves us, thought my poached eggs on toast looked a little “small,” and convinced me to add a rasher of sausage.  

We’re the only ones dining at 8:00 am, although the B&B is full, so we have time to have a delightful chat. Ireland is changing, especially in the fact that immigrants are now coming to Ireland for the first time in its history, if we don’t count the invasions. Most are Polish, and they seem to be hardworking and well-liked. But still the mix of languages and cultures present new problems. 

Before we leave Adare, we drive through the Adare Manor grounds, so I can see the ruined castle and abbey. Then south for about an hour to Killarney. No problem until we actually enter Killarney, where the right turn we have to make to get to our rented home was eliminated last Christmas.

I take this personally, since I pride myself on being able to interpret the directions and maps and get us where we need to get. Pat points out that I have established an impossible standard, and that we need to just accept the fact that entering cities, any city, is going to be a mess.  

We find the Tourist Office, get a more complete map and better directions, and find the Texaco station where we are supposed to meet John King and Pat’s children at 3:00 pm. Now, however, Pat is worried that her kids will have the same, or worse, difficulties than we had, and that we will not get together as planned, an eventuality made more tense by the fact that none of us has a cell phone. 

However, that problem is for 3:00 pm, and it’s now just 12:30, so we drive back to the Tourist Office, find a parking space, and begin to explore the wonderful town of Killarney. Even though it’s not raining, we buy two small umbrellas.

At 2:45 we return to the Texaco station to begin worrying.  At 2:58, we spot Kerry waving from the passenger window, right where they are supposed to be at precisely the proper time. They had some difficulties, but Kerry apparently was a better navigator following the directions I had sent her than I was. John King shows up a few minutes later, and we’re soon in our home for the week on Ross Road. 

The house is part of a group of perhaps 20 homes, built as duplexes for “letting.” But now they are mostly owner occupied, just our two unit duplex still rented. We meet our neighbors. Kevin begins by kicking a soccer ball with a curly-haired girl of maybe 4 years old. Her parents arrive and introductions follow. They are from Glasgow, Scotland, having ferried and driven all the way. We expect to see them during our stay, but it turns out we don’t, except to give them our leftover (unopened) food when we leave. 

Kerry unloads all of the goodies she is bringing for us … outdoor food covers which Pat ordered from Lillian Vernon, the Sony laptop on which I am now typing this journal, and a digital voice recorder I want to use in Florence in October (a technique highly recommended by Elizabeth George for capturing the nuances of settings).

The four “kids” — Kevin and Dawn, Kerry and Susan — who have flown all night and then driven all day, sack out for a couple of hours. 

When they awaken, we all walk into town – it is, as advertised, about a 10 minute walk – and search for a restaurant. Our choice is Danny Mann, which promises live music. The food was ok, and the music was lively.

We’re joined at our table by a lady from Melbourne, Australia, visiting friends in Ireland. One of the great joys of traveling is meeting people from places all over the world and sharing experiences.  More and more, we see women traveling alone, like the lady. Her friend from Australia came to Ireland, met a guy and married. They started an internet company of some sort, and have made a ton of money. Now she’s off to Nice, to the home of a guy she met at a party. At least that was her story. 

Sunday, July 8, 2007

No trips today, just hanging out in Killarney. First thing, Pat and I drive to the supermarket and load up on basics for the week – paper goods, cereal, milk, coffee. There are two coffee machines. One is an American style drip machine, which takes forever to make two cups of coffee. There’s also a coffee press, but the filter is missing.

The next day, Pat finds the filter, I re-assemble the press, and we forget about Mr. Coffee. Much better. Now that I’ve learned to use a coffee press, I feel so European. 

Well, we don’t exactly hang out. We walk into town, rent 6 bikes at 12.50 euros each for half a day. As soon as we get the bikes, it begins to pour, and we pour into an alley for protection. The rain abates in a few minutes, and we head out into the national forest, the entrance being just 3 blocks from the middle of town. It drizzles, but it never really pours again, so we just continue.

                         

There’s one large hill. Kerry, who rides 150 miles on a weekend, goes right up. The rest of us struggle. Dawn and I walk the last 100 yards.  From the top of the hill, the broad vista across the countryside is well worth it.

Next we ride to Ross Castle. When we see it, Pat and I realize we’ve been there before, by boat across the lake. Outside the castle, we meet a group of junior high school students from Maryland and Pennsylvania, on a “People to People” trip. We talk to one of the teachers. It sounds like a fantastic program, exposing young people to other places and cultures and what is described as a life-changing experience.  

I’m thinking how much better off the world would be if our President had been exposed to other countries before he invaded them. 

Now it’s raining a little harder, but we have no choice. We take the wrong road and repeat a loop, but then get oriented and find the back exit to the park which is on the road back to our rental house. We’ll return the bikes tomorrow morning. 

We decide to cook in, so Pat and I return to the supermarket and buy pasta, sauce, hamburger, garlic bread and wine. I cook my pasta with meat sauce, at triple the usual quantity, and everyone eats and eats and we still have too much left over. 

Monday, July 9, 2007

The kids drive the Ring of Kerry, which they’ve all done before, except Kevin. But this trip is his graduation present, so off they go. Pat’s daughter Kerry is, of course, named after County Kerry, and her name is all over everything.

Pat and I head south to the third peninsula, the Ring of Beara. We take the wrong way out of Killarney and go the long way to Kenmare, then head around the northern edge of the peninsular. For the first several miles, we don’t see more than an occasional glimpse of the bay, our view more often blocked by trees. 

At our first stop, there’s a group of very young and very small children, about to head out onto the choppy water, in a stiff wind, in tiny sail boats. We ask their instructor if he expects them to capsize, and he says, “They’ll all be in the water in 15 minutes. It’s the best way to learn.”

The kids are wearing wet suits, but the water looks cold. They all get wet pushing the boats into the water, but we watch for several minutes and nobody capsizes. The two boats “manned” by girls do great, and the two boys (one very small and one very large) in the other boat have a hard time, but they get it going.

We follow the narrow road and the driving is difficult when cars come the other way. It’s even more frightening when trucks and buses come the other way. We reach a cove of surpassing beauty, alternating sun and clouds, and pause to enjoy, reflect, take photos.

At our lunch stop in Castletownbere, there’s a group of kids from Belgium, wearing Santa hats. They serenade us with “we wish you a merry Christmas,” and are excited to pose for pictures.

We work our way around the Beara loop. The hills, sometimes green and filled with sheep, other times a barren landscape of huge rocks, are spectacular. 

The “big” town on this loop is Glengarriff, and we stop to shop. I get a sweater and a Guinness coffee cup with a lid, just what I had been looking for. 

We complete the loop on the road we should have taken to get to Kenmare, and find that the route we did take, although longer in kilometers, was much easier driving and no longer in time. 

Pat and I are first back to the house, and wait for the kids to return from the Ring of Kerry. They arrive, excited by their trip, and we head into town for dinner. Another restaurant, not terrific, but the Guinness is fine.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

The Dingle peninsula has perhaps the most spectacular scenery in all of Ireland. We drive in caravan, pass through Castlemaine, and stop at the overlook of the a spectacular beach, a long wide expanse of sand, with blue water and crashing waves, and the mountains of the Ring of Kerry across the other side. Other views include hillsides filled with sheep, and some cattle, ancient graveyards with Celtic crosses. 

We’re looking for signs to Dingle, but instead see signs to An Daingean. Most road signs in Ireland include place names in English and Gaelic, but here on the Dingle peninsula, the English has been eliminated, which is very confusing for tourists.

We begin to notice, however, several road signs where the word “DINGLE” has been spray-painted on. What’s going on? In the town, we see large posters proclaiming Dingle as a place “without democracy.”  

                       

While the others shop, I take a seat on a bench. I’m joined by an elderly gentleman with a cane who I learn is named Jack Farrell. I welcome him to my bench, which we soon decide is far more his bench, since he spends part of every day on it.

Jack explains that there was an election, and 95% of the people voted to have both names on the signs, but the powers that be decided otherwise, and one dark night the word “Dingle” was eliminated from all the road signs, starting the battle royal.  

This war of the signs and spray paint has been going on for almost a year, a local skirmish in the larger, nationwide effort to resuscitate the Gaelic language (forbidden centuries ago by the British), and Jack at least made no predictions as to how it would end. 

Dingle Town (or An Daingean – go ahead, pronounce it, I dare you) is as delightful as we remember it, with green hills peaking through between the old buildings, good shopping, and great pubs. 

The kids go off to complete the ring, including the Connor Pass, while Pat and I take the road back to Killarney. I’m not used to so much driving, it’s hard driving requiring constant intense concentration, and, quite frankly, I’m tired. 

We check our email at an excellent internet center in Killarney, where we receive daily updates from Karen and Joe, who seem to be enjoying Collioure. They’re playing with all our toys, making calls on Skype (they report that they owe us $0.38), watching TV on Slingbox, and using mlb.com to watch a Phillies game.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Kevin, Dawn and Susan drive off to Cork to kiss the Blarney Stone, Kerry gets a bike for an extended ride in the national park, and Pat and I spend a quiet day in Killarney before our long drive to Westport tomorrow. 

We explore options for cell phones in Europe. Our Cingular cell phones would work here, but the per minute charges are fierce, and we have set our service to a reduced rate, no use for the summer. Vodaphone offers phones for 40 euros or so, with more than that in call credits, and a rate of 0.19 euro/minute for calls. However, calls in France and elsewhere have a 0.79 euro connect fee per call, and if we call each other, we pay the connect fee twice. When we get back to Collioure, we’ll go to Perpignan and see if we can make similar arrangements based in France. 

The book store.

I have been waiting all week to look at the selection on Irish history, and today is the day.  So far on this trip, I finished Trinity and read Brian Moore’s Lies of Silence about the more recent IRA in Belfast. Now I’m ready to read the history that underlies these and other works of fiction.

First, I want an overview of Irish history from the first invasions to the present, and I select The Course of Irish History, a book produced in conjunction with a 1966 TV series. Each chapter is written by an eminent historian, including several chapters to bring the work up to date. What I’ve read so far is excellent, much more than an outline but not too overloaded with detail.  

Later in the week, in Westport, I buy Tim Pat Coogan’s Ireland in the 20th Century, and decide that I will later purchase Robert Kee’s The Green Flag, A History of Irish Nationalism. Kevin, however, buys the Kee book and loans it to me, so with the three, I think I’ll get a very solid understanding of the long and tortuous Irish national experience.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Our original plan was to drive from Killarney to Westport, about 5 hours drive time. Then we decided to detour in the middle of that trip to see the cliffs of Moher. The kids stick to the revised plan, but I revert to the straight drive.

We’re all on the road before 8:30 am. Pat and I arrive in Westport by 3:00 pm, having stopped for lunch in Tuam, the largest town between Galway and Westport.

We find our B&B on the South Mall in the very center of town, and wait for the kids, who arrive at 7:30 pm. They’ve seen the cliffs and made other discoveries, including a ruined castle that I think is the sightseeing highlight of the trip for them, since it was not a tourist spot and they were there all alone, as if they had discovered it. 

We have a terrific dinner at the bar adjacent to Wyatt’s Hotel, where we toast Pat’s father, John Hanahan, whose ancestors emigrated to the U.S. from Westport. This trip was funded in part by the inheritance left to Pat by her father. She thought that bringing his grandchildren to the home of his ancestors was a wonderful use of the money and surely would have made him very happy. 

Friday, July 13, 2007

Our B&B breakfasts are excellent, after which all 6 of us walk around Westport in the on again-off again drizzle. I stay too long at the bookstore, as I often do, and the others move on. When I go to look for them, they are nowhere to be found. But Susan comes to find me.

                     

They’re all assembled on a side street, at the shop of Pat’s cousin Betty, who, together with her husband Michael, manufacture and sell individually cut wood puzzles. They also sell Michael’s photographs. Among us, we purchase three puzzles and three photographs.  

                       

We have lunch at Henehan’s Bar. Which somewhere in the dark and musty past, had something to do with Pat’s Hanahan ancestors. The food is excellent, and Mike Henehan, son of the current owner, who Pat and I met last year, comes over to say hello. 

By the time lunch is over, it’s just about time for the purpose of our trip to Westport, a visit with the Irish cousins. We walk to Mary Carroll’s house on the Crescent adjacent to the church, but she does not answer Pat’s knock.  

We drive south on C59 approximately 9 kilometers to the cousin’s family compound. On land that we believe used to be Henahan owned, three of Mary’s children have built homes adjacent to each other. So there’s son Liam and his wife Anita, and their four children, daughter Maggie and her husband Noel, with their two children, and daughter Betty and her husband Michael with their two children. 

                      

Kerry, Susan, and Kevin had each ordered one of Michael’s photographs in Betty’s shop that morning, and now they’re ready. But first, Michael shows us his album, and explains how he took some of the pictures. He is an excellent photographer, with the patience and skill to wait for the proper light.

There’s one photo of an old building, a place Michael knew when he was a child. When he re-visited, it had not been entered for many years, and he was careful not to disturb even the dust. I bought the photo, and when we returned to Collioure, realized how wonderfully it reflects, in a way that is different but similar, the stunning photo of an entryway in one of the Greek Islands by Georges Meis hanging on our wall. 

                       

 Back downstairs, Dawn sits on the floor with the four youngest children. She starts out with animal noises, seal noises, complete with flapping flippers, and they are captivated. None will try it, until Owen suddenly erupts with a great imitation. As the afternoon goes on, we come to think Owen is in love with Dawn. 

We make our obligatory trek to the Henehan homestead, just up the road, with Liam and Noel to guide us. The ancient huts, once with thatched roofs, are a reminder of Ireland’s poor history. Liam says the road to Westport, 8 km away, used to run right in front of the old cottages. We climb through the mud and take our pictures. 

Our lovely visit finally concludes, and we drive back to Westport. Pat wants to visit Mary, the mother of those we just left, so we return to the Crescent and she’s there. It turns out she has two new hips, and is much spryer than we remember from last year. The captivating smile has returned to her face, and she claims to be “on top of the world” now that she can walk to the store or anywhere else she wants to go. 

The kids didn’t follow us to Mary’s, and when we get back to the B&B, they’ve already gone to dinner, having expected that our visit would be much longer than it was. We go back to the Wyatt and have Irish coffee and dessert. Perfect.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

The kids are ready to leave at 5:00 am, off to Shannon to catch their flights home. We say goodbye and agree it’s been a great trip.

At breakfast, we learn that Anita’s sister is engaged to the son of the woman serving us at the B&B. 

Pat and I drive to Bunratty, a tiny town just past Shannon. Actually, we’re not in the town, but on an isolated farm house with beautiful views of the meadows and the Shannon River. There’s also internet connection at a computer in the hall provided for guests. 

We go out for an early dinner in the little shopping area that surrounds Bunratty Castle, eat at Durty Nellies, and buy two CDs of Irish ballads and drinking songs. The kinds of things you buy at the end of a trip.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Breakfast at the Bunratty B&B, fill the tank and drive 10 minutes to the airport, return the car to Hertz, and fly Ryanair to Carcassonne, where we taxi from the airport to the train station. 

We think we have time for pizza, and walk two blocks, with our luggage, to a small restaurant. Then I suddenly realize there’s an hour time change, and we have but 20 minutes to get back to the train station and catch our train.

We change trains at Narbonne, and then on to Collioure. It’s great to be back, having completed one of those surreal travel days, where you end up in a different world from where you started.

Both good worlds, and we appreciate every minute of it.  

 

 

* visitors from the “new world”

 Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Since we have company “from the new world” coming tomorrow, we go down to the village to make a reservation for dinner. I try my best to use only French, but don’t quite make it. Je voudrais faire un reservation pour quatre personnes pour se sois …..?

I don’t know the word for Wednesday. Pat points to the word in French (Mercredi ) and asks the waiter who is making the reservation, “How do you pronounce this word?”  He immediately answers … “Wed-nes-day.”

 Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Pat’s cousin Karen and her husband Joe are due on the 11:48 train from Cerbere, on their way from Barcelona. This is our first family visit, and only our second visitors from the “new world,” so we are quite excited. It being the 4th 0f July, Pat takes the American flag we purchased in Normandy (for this purpose) to the platform and stands ready to wave the colors.

But 11:48 comes and goes, and the only thing that arrives is the rain. We had left the cushions out on the terrace, and debate whether to run back upstairs (remember that our apartment is only 100 yards from the gare). We decide not to, and the drizzle subsides.

But still no train. The electronic announcement board now says 12:44 for the next train, skipping automatically to the next scheduled departure. We start a conversation with a couple from Australia who are on their way to Edinburgh for a wedding, and they worry if they’ll make their connection in Perpignan. Someone says they can make up time, and just then a passenger train speeds by without stopping. “Is that how they make up the time? Are our guests now on their way to Perpignan?

Pat goes into the station and reports back with the good news that the train from Cerbere is expected in 10 minutes. Lo and behold, in 10 minutes the train arrives, and Karen and Joe emerge onto the platform. They’re going to stay in our apartment while we are in Ireland, and have come a day early so we can visit before we leave.

The next several hours are a blizzard of family updates, a brief tour of our apartment (300 square feet doesn’t take long), a walk to the Madeloc Hotel so Joe and Karen can check in for the one night we will all be in Collioure. Their room is very nice, as is the hotel. We walk down the hill into the village for a first look around and lunch.

We’re thrilled that Joe and Karen seem to be as enamored with Collioure as we are.

Later, we have champagne on the terrace, and then dinner in the village, where our reservation for Wed-nes-day is in order. We have an excellent meal looking out over the beach and bay. After dinner we walk out toward the sea and the chapel on the rock, and are almost blown away by a sudden gust of wind.

We finish the day (for us) by introducing Collioure ice cream to our guests, and then head back up the hill. The next morning, we learn that Joe and Karen returned to the beach for another glass of wine, followed by a late night swim in the pool at their hotel.