Paris to Verdun
Early Wednesday morning, we left Paris in our car which had been safely parked during our time in the City of Light. We carefully programmed our on-board GPS for our next destination -- Verdun -- and headed out through the city. We were surprised at how easily we were guided through the rush-hour traffic. On the eastern edge of the city, the GPS unit (or, as we call her, Hazel) took us off the main highways and through the countryside on lesser roads. We later realized we'd mistakenly told her to avoid toll roads.It was a blustery, sometimes rainy day. At one point we stopped at the side of the road to put some lunch together (cheese & crackers, etc) and were nearly blown off our feet. Eventually, we drove by the last of the wet farm fields and over darkening hills down into the valley that harbours the small town of Verdun.
I had originally thought it might be fun to stay one night in the town of Verdun, France -- because Dad was born and raised in Verdun, Quebec. Then I discovered that Verdun, Quebec was actually named after another town of the same name in the south of France, not the north. Nevertheless, this Verdun was in just the right place for us to break our drive across France. Verdun is also the site of one of the most horrible battles of World War I.
Dinner à la France
Our hotel for this one night was a small, fairly modern (i.e., not more than 50 years old!), although basic, place that seems to cater primarily to French travelling salespeople. We were tired and still adjusting to this time zone so we decided to have dinner in the hotel restaurant. (Almost every hotel in France -- even the smallest -- has an in-house restaurant that at least tries to be elegant.)We were the first diners to enter when the restaurant opened for dinner at 7:00 pm. We chose our table and began making our way through the French menu. The dinner special we all chose, consisted of Salade Meuse (we guess a salad specialty of the area), pork medallions with vegetables and cooked cherries, a cheese plate and an ice cream dessert with more cooked cherries and chocolate slivers. All this for only 18 Euros each (about $22). It was wonderful. The salad could have been the whole meal -- potatoes, lettuce, dressing and other good things -- all topped with a poached egg! The cheese course consisted of a second basket of wonderful slices of baguette (we'd already devoured a first basket of bread) with a LARGE wedge of Brie on a plate. If I'd bought just one of those wedges in a Toronto store, I would probably have paid $4 or $5.
One thing I found quite interesting was the quietness of the restaurant. I'm always complaining about incessant, unpleasant music and general noise in restaurants at home. This restaurant was entirely the opposite. Not only was there no music, nobody said a word except we four! All the other guests were clearly travelling business men and women. One pair of men dined together, but they never spoke, just texted on their phones. All the others were dining alone. There was no conversation. There was no banter between servers and guests. Nothing. Very peaceful!
The second thing we all enjoyed was our server's reaction when I asked for tea. It was when he was serving the cheese course.
"Nous voulons du thé pour trois," I said. (We'd like three cups of tea.)
"Non," he said to me quite firmly and continued speaking briefly.
I wasn't quite sure he understood what I was requesting, so I said again, "Nous voulons du thé pour trois."
"Non," he said again very firmly. Then I understood the rest of his statement. No tea could be served before the dessert! Apparently, tea before dessert simply is not the done thing here.
Needless to say, we've been informing each other on numerous occasions since, "No tea for you!"
Verdun Battlefield Memorial
This morning, after breakfast at the hotel (also a quiet affair), we drove into the nearby hills to visit the Verdun Battlefield Memorial. Watching an English video presentation really helped us understand the horrible events of those battles. As I recall, about 200,000 French and German men died in a ghastly, months-long battle. It was very saddening. The accompanying museum was very interesting because of Mom's grandfather who fought at Vimy (several hundred kilometers away). We saw the kinds of uniforms and equipment used in those days and came away amazed that anyone survived at all.
Of course, this being France, the museum closed for lunch. They pushed us out into the rain and we turned the car toward Alsace (the far northeast corner of France) from which Mom's grandfather Caple's grandparents (Philippe and Barbary Koebel) left for the New World in 1836.
