EASTER IN PARIS ON THE morning I set off for Victoria there were four inches of snow on the ground, yet our Channel crossing from Newhaven to Dieppe was fortunately not as rough as it might have been. At Dieppe a fast express was waiting for us on the quay, and in due time we arrived at Paris. Here we met our future guide, Guillaume, a cheerful French Rugger international. We took a suburban line train for Versailles, where we were to stay, and having arrived, found a shock in store for us. We would have to walk two kilometres to our breakfast every morning! The following afternoon, on Easter Sunday, we were taken by Guillaume to see the beautiful gardens of the Versailles Chateau, and we viewed with awe the huge marble Trianons, which, we were assured the spendthrift King Louis XIV had had built merely for his afternoon tea! On Monday, when we visited the Louvre, we had a new guide, a Monsieur Florence, Guillaume having attached himself to a smiling group of Yorkshire girls. In the afternoon we had a coach trip around Paris, stopping once or twice to see such sights as the Are de Triomphe, the Place de la Concorde, and famous roads like the Champs-Elysées. Tuesday came and we were given a detailed tour, this time of the actual Chateau at Versailles, and in the afternoon we visited the Eiffel Tower. The famous military museum, the Invalides, was next on our list, and we visited it on Wednesday, admiring the old cannon which contrasted effectively with two captured German tanks. Of special interest were Napoleon's tomb, and his hat and sword which were also on view. On Thursday, our trip on the "Bateaux-mouches" on the Seine was rather spoilt by rain, but we enjoyed an interesting walk around Montmartre, the steep-hilled home of Bohemian Parisiens and the famed Moulin Rouge. Later we visited the Ile de la Cité and admired Notre Dame, here we also saw the Conciergerie, the famous prison of aristocrats and of Marie-Antoinette, during the revolution, and the beautiful stained-glass "vitraux" of the Sainte-Chapelle. Our last day, Friday, was spent in a coach trip to the Chateau of Malmaison, the home of Napoleon and his wife Josephine. Here we saw some of the famous Gobelin Tapestries, and the one and only tribute to the British we ever found, an account of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. On our return run, we stopped at Saint-Valérian, a high-wooded hill overlooking an impressive view of Paris, and remembered as the site of Gestapo executions of the Maquis. During our stay we had had a thoroughly enjoyable time, coloured by the interesting, and instructive tours of the sights and always enjoyable merely for that gay, indefinable French atmosphere which we found everywhere. The weather was not quite so good, however, but that was no fault of Mr. Poole and Mr. Goetzee, to whom we are all most grateful for their organisation of the visit and to whom its success was due. |