Back home on Isla Mujeres

At six in the morning I can hear the tired engine and the loud exhaust sounds of the muffler-less municipal garbage truck.  The crew operating the garbage truck are currently only two houses south of ours.  I have to hustle to get the can out on the street before they pass us by.  The guys wave and holler a greeting as the truck slowly rolls up to our curb.  One worker tosses the full can high into the air, towards his buddy who is perched atop the myriad of reeking plastic bags and cardboard boxes.  

 

Our can is emptied, and carefully placed back on the street right-side up with lid affixed.  They laugh, joke with each other.  One guy sings bits of a song that could be ribald, off-colour judging by the way it makes the others giggle. 

It's good to be back on Isla.

During May and June we traveled for six weeks through Dieppe, Vimy Ridge, Dunkirk, the Loire Valley, Paris, southern France, Cinque Terre, Tuscany and Venice before returning home via London.  We mangled several languages, speaking a combination of French, Spanish, and English with the odd word of Italian tossed in the mix for that truly continental sound.  We ate delicious food, but missed the 'heat' - the spice of Mexican foods.  Apparently our palates have adjusted to Mexican food better than we thought. 

We drank different wines and beers, enjoying Belgium beers and French wines a bit more than German beers and Italian wines.  We dealt with crowded underground transit systems, high-speed trains, city buses and commuter boats.   And the crowds.  Line-ups to see museums.  Line-ups to get on the trains.  Line-ups everywhere! 

The sights, the sounds, the smells - all different.  New.  Exciting.

Now, sitting on our street-side balcony we watch friends speed past on their motos or golf carts.  They yell hello, welcome back, and wave as they speed past.  Sue Lo, on her daily walk around the airport, stops to chat - recounting her recent adventures in Machu Picchu. 

Fashionista riding a bicycle in Paris - K Lock Photo

My sister Joann dashes up the street with her laundry bag in hand, coming for a morning coffee and to do her laundry.  She has misjudged the intensity of the scudding clouds - and is soaked with a warm deluge as she arrives at our house.
 
A motorcycle slowly putts past with two adults - the woman clutching onto a little one, so small that one tiny foot with a yellow bootie is all that is visible. 

A young girl, standing in the foot-well of a motorcycle turns to chat with her dad as he drives her somewhere special.  She is wearing a pink and white polka-dotted dress and a matching bow in her hair. 
Her happy smile is wide and loving as she looks at him. 

The contrast between the Isla motorcyclists and the Armani-suited motorcyclists or the beautiful fashionistas riding bicycles in Paris is startling to say the least. 

In the evening we sit on the east side of the house, wine glass in hand, staring at the turquoise ocean, aware that we missed this most of all.  The colours.  The sounds.  The smell of the water.

We will always be proudly Canadian, but, Mexico is now home.

                                 ___________________________

This is the last posting for this blog.  Please join us on our other weekly blog Notes From Paradise - living on an island in the Caribbean Sea on the east coast of Mexico.  

http://lynda-notesfromparadise.blogspot.mx/

 

Dancing Fountains of Versailles

Apollo Fountain at Versailles

“Huh!  That’s it. 

That’s what we paid extra money for, and then waited three hours to see?”

The twice daily “Dance of the Fountains” at Versailles occurs at eleven in the morning, and again at three-thirty in the afternoon. 
 
“Why?”  We wondered gazing around the vast and meticulously groomed gardens.  Why such a short amount of time, and why not leave the fountains working all day from the time the park opens until sunset? 

Water – or more correctly the lack of water is the problem, and has been since Versailles was built in the 1660’s during the reign the Sun King, Louis the 14^th. 

Waiting for water!

The gardens of Versailles cover eight hundred hectares; have fifty fountains, with over six hundred jets to spray the water from the mouths of Gods, water nymphs, horses, or mythical sea creatures. 

The original gravitational hydraulic system included thirty-five kilometers of piping.  Before the advent of electricity a combination of windmill-power and horse-power was used to pump the water, diverted from local rivers, up to the reservoir on top of the beautiful Grotte de Thétys.  From this reservoir the water would make its way back through the fountains returning to various streams or ponds.

Rental boats on Grand Canal

Around 1668 the 1500-meter long Grand Canal was constructed as a pretty venue for boating activities, doubling as a collection basin for the water. 

Still there was not enough water.  The head Fountaineer Jean-Baptiste Colbert devised a system of signaling, via whistles, to warn other Fountaineers that the King was walking towards their area.  

One arm of the Grand Canal at Versailles

The workers would scramble to turn on the appropriate valves, ensuring the fountain was working as the king strolled past with his entourage, then turn off the valves to feed the next fountain on his route. 

It must have been a bit of a comedy show at times, anticipating where his royal highness intended to stroll next. 

Perhaps the Sun King had a mischievous sense of humor, making last minute adjustments to his promenade – just to see if the workers could keep up with him.



People watching, waiting for the fountain show.

Two more attempts were made to solve the critical water shortage at Versailles.  In 1681 a complex system of waterwheels and pumps was engineered to pump water from the Seine River up 100 meters above the level of the river into the fountain system at Versailles. 

With various equipment failures and conduit leakage the expected volume was reduced by half. 

Then in 1685 twenty thousand soldiers were employed to divert water from the Eure River.  The war of 1686 – 1689 ended that project, unfinished. 

Versailles with its stunningly beautiful setting still has water problems.  The twice daily Dance of the Fountains is quick, and a tad repetitive. 

Go, enjoy!   Just remember; it’s not Vegas.




Hotel de France - perfect, just outside the main gates.

Paris - never enough time

Paris Icons,the Eiffel Tower and the "Gendarme"

The City of Lights is a beguiling city. 

A beautiful city. 

A place of many neighbourhoods, cafes, bakeries, and shops. 

We are only here for four days, and we can't possibly see it all.

Petit-Luxembourg Palace

We wandered through the Luxembourg Gardens, the second largest public park in Paris, located just blocks away from our hotel.  Marie de Medicis, the widow of Henry IV and the regent for the under-aged King Louis XIII decided to recreate the Pitti Palace located in her native Florence.  In 1611 Marie purchased the hotel du Luxembourg and began her new creation.  This beautiful park surrounds the French Senate, located inside the still existing Petit-Luxembourg palace.

Notre Dame Cathedral

Eventually we wound, our way through various charming neighbourhoods, to the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral located on the Île de la Cité in the River Seine.  Notre Dame de Paris is considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture in Europe.  The first phase of construction started in 1163, and the cathedral was essentially completed by 1345. 

After the construction began and the new thinner-styled walls grew ever higher, stress fractures began to occur.  In response, the cathedral's architects built the first flying buttresses (large supports) around the outside walls.  Many decorative statues served as additional supports and/or water spouts. 

Among these are the famously fierce gargoyles, staring down from great heights on the timid parishioners.  The grey stone of the exterior and of the gargoyles was once covered with vivid colors but time has worn away the ornamentation - leaving only the scowls and the stinking, hot breath of the devils, dragons, and demons.

Galleries LaFayette Centre

A block from the cathedral we boarded a red-top open-air bus, for an overview tour of the city. For the next two hours we ricocheted through dense traffic, past famous sights: the Paris Opera House, built in 1861; the Place de la Concorde where in 1793 King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were guillotined; the 3,300-year-old Cleopatra's Needle that once marked the entrance to the tomb of Ramesses II; my favourite shopping centre the Galleries LaFayette built in 1912 with its gorgeous Art Nouveau glass and steel dome; and of course the iconic Eiffel Tower built as a temporary entrance to the 1889 World's Fair. 

Pont des Arte - and "lovelocks"

After exiting the bus tour, we ambled along the walkway of the Seine River, past book sellers, and artists until we arrived at a pedestrian bridge, the Pont des Arte, arching between the venerable Louvre Museum on one bank, and the Institute of France built in 1670 on the other bank.  The Pont des Arte sparkled in the sunlight - glittering with thousands of padlocks, known as lovelocks, secured to the metal bridge.  Much to the annoyance of city officials and bridge engineers the structure has become a romantic rendezvous for couples.  They declare their everlasting love by attaching a padlock to the railing and throwing the key into the river below.  The tradition started in about 2000 on this bridge, but in other countries has been happening since World War II.  Being as our last name is Lock, well, we just might have to participate in this custom.

Paris Catacombs & the bones of 6 million people

The next day Lawrie and I paid a visit to the fascinating Catacombs of Paris, located in an ancient and abandoned limestone quarry, right under our hotel. The Catacombs hold the remains of approximately six million people, relocated - between the end of the 18th century and the middle of the 19th century - from crumbling and infection-prone Parisian graveyards.  From the first day of their creation April 7th 1786, the Catacombs were a favourite attraction for the rich and famous.  In 1787, Lord of d' Artois, who became King Charles 10th, visited the Catacombs, with a group of ladies from the Court.  In 1814, François 1st, emperor of Austria visited.  In 1860, Napoleon III explored the area with his son.  I can't imagine what it would have been like to descend under the city along a labyrinth of low-ceilinged limestone tunnels, dark galleries and wet narrow corridors - before the advent of electricity! 

Our last night in Paris

Later that evening the six of us, two brothers, a sister and spouses, gathered for a relaxing meal at El Trocadero Cafe, across the plaza from the Eiffel Tower. 

We sipped wine, reminiscing about our four days in Paris and waited for the lights to illuminate the tower.  At ten in the evening the lights came on - sparkling and flashing causing the crowd to collectively suck in a breath and breathe out: "Wow!"

What a great way to end our short visit to the City of Lights.