As we prepare to travel again, I’ve begun to organize my box of travel journals. More than twenty little books, in a few different formats, record impressions of my travels since 2008. Before that, for our Paris trips from 2005-2008 I’d briefly jotted notes on pages that I subsequently ripped (to save) from old day planners and notebooks I purged during our big move in 2016. Until I began writing this post, I’d only been able to find the record of our 2007 visit, had unhappily given up on finding 2005 and 2006. Hoped they might serendipitously show up some day. . .
This little organizational project has already paid dividends, and my 2005 pages turned up in another box of Memorabilia and Artifacts . . . and then the 2006 pages (torn from a day planner and stapled together ) found in yet another. . . We hadn’t been in Europe since 1991; no overseas travel at all for me while I worked my way through BA, MA, PhD. But, as you can read in this retrospective 2007 post, it was finally time! And from 2005 until 2019, we managed to visit Paris at least once a year. Such a pleasure and a privilege.
If you read that 2007 post, you’ll know how welcome I found Paris’s distractions trying not to think of what awaited me May 2005. And as I read the pages torn from that notebook, so much of the underlying anxiety I carried came back to me; scanning the lines through that filter, I understand my focus on the concrete details of travel. The mundane details I wouldn’t likely record now. Beyond the need to focus away from my anxiety, though, I also see that what appears pedantic in my notes — details about the flight connection; how we got from the airport to our hotel; what that cost; the careful accounting of a walking route; our respective choices for dinner, how much a meal cost, et cetera — reflected something else as well. Me, in a new environment, lifting my head up to look around more freely after years of studying, of reading and writing. Of academic writing, that is.
And stilted as these pages might be, I see myself making some space for a new kind of writing; I might even trace a line from those first pages to the writing I do here as well, perhaps, to other ways I express creativity in my life.
Judge (please, don’t judge!) for yourself:
May 30th, 2005
Departed Vanc’r — flight a bit behind — close, connection in Montreal but that flight delayed so no problem
Arrived 8:45 a.m. Paris — took ADP shuttle to R et R station — train to Central Paris, changed to Metro — all a bit awkward with luggage but quite manageable — 15 Euros for both of us.
Checked in — lovely welcome — chatted with Jennifer, prop. & intro’d to her husband, Philippe, & also to a longtime regular guest, Am. mathematician
Room readied for us while we waited altho’ only 11. We unpacked a bit, then went for a walk & some lunch — got almost to Seine but I was very tired (cranky!) so back to hotel about 1:30 for a nap. 3:00 awake & out again — walked to Berthillon’s at Ile St. Louis for ice creams, then to Rive Droit, along Rue Tivoli, through Tuilerie Gardens then back across Seine again & through Rue Mouffetarde. Dinner nearby 24E menus: Paul had roast lamb, I had lapereau (little rabbit!) stuffed with prunes. Shared bottle of red — strolled home about 9:30 & bed
See what I mean?
And yet. . . I’m so pleased to have found these pages. In these three posts ( Part One, Part Two, and Part Three) I explain why I’ve been so drawn to Paris all these years, but reading my 2005 pages now, more than 16 years later (almost 70 rather than just into my 50s) I feel such a different perspective. My friend Jennifer (yes, the same Jennifer we chatted with in her hotel back in 2005) once asked us, over a glass of wine on a cafe patio in the 13th, “What is Paris for you?” As a Parisienne and also as a hotel owner, she’d watched many visitors construct their personal Paris, associating it with fellow travellers, perhaps or with particular events or stages of life; recognizing it only in certain areas or activities; either daunted by language and social culture or revelling in the differences.
Looking back through those notes from the week before I defended my PhD dissertation (in case you didn’t read that 2007 post), I see the beginnings of the particular Paris Paul and I built together, the first tentative layer of impressions, experiences, memories in the making but also practices being established. In our Paris, for example, we still prefer to find our way into Paris from the airport, using the R&R and Metro, our luggage less awkward these days since we’ve switched to carry-on only. We stayed at Jennifer and Philippe’s most years for almost a decade (once or twice, for longer stays, we took her advice–unexpected, coming from a hotel owner, but helpful, coming from a friend– and rented an apartment). But we switched when they sold, and our older legs thank us for being a bit closer to the Paris we frequent these days.
Our relationship with Paris, any deeper connections we’re graced to have, though, began in the 13th, and our affection for, and familiarity with, that arrondissement continues. A tajine in our favourite Moroccan restaurant, a movie in a fabulous cinema, a ramble down colourful Rue Mouffetard, maybe lunch with friends . . . perhaps the cassoulet ordered from a few places in the neighbourhood. My husband devoured that dish four or five times over the ten days we stayed that spring, and I doubt he’s ordered it once in the last five years. . . Tastes change; our Paris changes — of the restaurants I mentioned in this 2008 post, two that we visited regularly over at least a decade are now closed; one has changed owners twice, although thankfully kept the same menu and, for the most part, vibe) — but our old Paris persists in our memories and surfaces regularly in our new version.
I’m in danger of getting lost in that old Paris , though, as I page through these notes. I remind myself that I began this “archival project” with the idea of organizing a kind of chronology of the art exhibitions I’ve seen. . . and from there, trying to make some sort of Mind Map that represents my knowledge (or simply my awareness) of art history. A way to recover or hang onto what I’ve learned so that I have a framework on which to add new paintings, sculpture, performance, etc. And while our travel those first few years of empty-nest, post-dissertation freedom took us to Paris, I have that whole stack of travel journals to work through, and they record trips to London, Barcelona, Edinburgh, Lisbon, Rome and more.
With that larger project in mind, I’ve just skimmed through my few pages from 2005 and I see that we made our first visit to l’Institut du Monde Arabe that June, back when the magical windows were still functioning as designed (A bit more about those windows in this 2019 post — oh, if only I’d made such extensive notes during our first visits).
We also went to the Pompidou Centre to check out the Africa Remix exhibition. I think I have the free brochure/guide from that exhibition somewhere, but I’ve rifled through the most obvious hiding places and I don’t see it. Unfortunately, we hadn’t begun my later practice of buying the exhibition catalogue (I’ve just done a quick search and see that I could now buy a softcover copy, (secondhand but in pristine condition) for $60 US dollars plus 20USD shipping). I’d only be adding it to this dust-gathering pile
but I was able to find an acknowledgment of it on the Pompidou Centre website, as well as two insightful articles about this important exhibition curated by Simon Njami: this brief essay written a few months after our visit to the exposition and this retrospective piece which establishes the show’s significance as
the first major show on art from Africa that was presented on the continent, thereby also advancing the engagement with this type of exhibition on the ground. And what is more important: it demonstrated the urgent need to redefine the roles in the future, and instead of bringing an exhibition conceived in Europe to Africa, to bring a show designed in Africa to Europe.
Julia Friedel, January 30, 2019
Also during that 2005 trip, we visited the Cluny, but again, my notes are less than meagre. To wit, I wrote: “great museum / look up guérison pour né-aveugle. (I paid more attention to our lunch, noting that it was at an “Italian restaurant on St. Germain” with the additional information,”Paul’s ‘sublime’ carbonara.” And that afternoon — we hadn’t learned moderation yet, but my comment suggests it wouldn’t take us much longer — we “Walked up to Montmartre to track down Musée de l’Erotisme–took Metro home Too long! What a walk!” I don’t know what we’d expected to find there (before the trip, I’d made lists of recommendations gleaned from a few early blogs as well as from magazine articles, travel guidebooks, memoirs, as well as novels set in Paris), but I remember being wearied and a bit indignant by the puerile quality of most of the artifacts displayed.
The next day we tried the Orsay; discouraged by a huge lineup (now, of course, we buy our tickets online ahead of time), we went the following day instead. . . .but that’s all I’ve recorded. Frustrating. But perhaps, with that dissertation defence looming, I was wanting to escape anything that smacked of disciplined observation, analysis, note-taking.
Whatever my reasons — laziness, fatigue, need to escape — my little clutch of pages nonetheless began an unbroken record of my subsequent travels, and they serve as a starting point for this little archival project of mine. I’m off now to book some tickets for exhibitions we hope to see in Paris at the end of the month, in Rome at the beginning of November. I’ll be taking better notes, these many years later. And depending how well I organize myself before we leave, I may even be able to prepare for what we will see by reviewing what I have been able to see in past years.
Given how personal and idiosyncratic this post is — and given that I’m still sorting my way through what it is I’m trying to accomplish with this trawl through my old journals — I hope that you’ve found something of interest. Canadian Thanksgiving here this weekend, and we’re gathering today instead of Monday (to accommodate various schedules and commitments). A daughter and son-in-law (both trained cooks, their first careers) are hosting, so all we have to do is show up with the pies I baked yesterday — an apple, a blackberry, and a pumpkin pie — no other cooking or cleaning required.
So I’m off now, post finally written, pies ready to travel, and a spot waiting on the couch for me, my book and blanket ready. Looking forward to reading your comments later.
xo,
f
Happy Thanksgiving! How fortunate to have trained chefs in the family… but really just to have your children be able to host from now on. After many years of hosting, I haven’t hosted Thanksgiving in several years and really hope no one expects me to host it again! I am more than ready to pass the baton. Always happy to bring the pies and a few bottles of wine. As for the travel journals, I came across the one I kept for a cross country trip I took when I was 21. Now I’m 72 and looking back on my younger self was such a revelation. So much of that self I had forgotten. So trusting, so clueless, so lucky to come out of it all in one piece!
Author
That 21-year-old’s journal must have been fascinating to read! I’m surprised, sometimes, at memories that emerge, surprised that I could have forgotten so completely and then have the event or impression come back. I suspect there will be more and more of this phenomenon to be surprised by over the next decade or so, these confrontations between 70-year-old and 20 (or 15 or 10) year-old selves. And like you, I will marvel at how trusting, clueless, and lucky I was!
Hi Frances – how exciting to be visiting Europe again. Your journals and memories of Paris through the years & your various visits, paint an evocative picture & have me longing to travel again.
Covid & Brexit have snuffed out the ease of European travel – but it feels like it’s coming back albeit with a bit more organisation than simply packing and going !
When I worked in travel I was fortunate to visit France often for work- what a delight.
Coincidentally, this week a friend and ex work colleague who I used to travel with regularly to France & often Paris posted pics on Instagram & I felt a real longing & of course FOMO.
I am looking forward to reading & seeing notes of your upcoming travels.
Bon voyage
M
Author
You were lucky, those years of hopping the Channel for work! I envy that (envy my daughter in Rome as well, so close to so many great places for a week or even a weekend trip).
You’re right, travel does seem to be returning, although oh, it’s much more stressful to prepare for. If it didn’t feel so essential to see my daughter and granddaughter after so long, I think I’d wait until more of the administrative kinks were sorted. But as I’m going, not waiting, thanks for the “Bon voyage”! 😉
A look back through your travel journals is illuminating. What was captured in your first travel journal–the focus on logistics–was clearly a carryover from the life you were living then. You would never have made it through all those years of study, while simultaneously managing to grow a family, without that logistical focus. But as you were able to travel more often, your mind and eye moved from the mundane to the memorable–to the art, the language, the people, the feel of the places you admire. Your travel journals speak not only of the places you have been, but of your interior journey along the way.
May your upcoming trip provide you with many opportunities to capture what your travels mean to you through your writing and sketching.
Author
What an insightful observation, thanks Mary! I hadn’t really thought that through, but it’s true that the background context was a substantial transition in my life. And as soon as I’d finished my PhD, I shifted from a half-time to a full-time position at the uni, so the rhythm of my days and years switched as well. Hmmm, so these little pages represent at least two kinds of travel. . .
I visited France in 2016 with an all too brief stop in Paris. I had with me a very small journal in which I hoped to record my experiences. Here at home I journal nearly every day. I still have it, the book, but I suppose I got so caught up in the trip I never actually wrote in it except for noting a lunch eaten at a cafe, a perfume sampled at a shop and a book recommendation someone mentioned. I think I am also guilty of falling on love with with my older experiences of a place and not wanting it to change. I think of the island where my family visit each Summer and think of the restaurants and shops which are gone, the hotels built in the 20 plus years we have gone there. How wonderful that you, and I am hoping I, are able to travel again.
Author
I think that’s a very good way to be as well, to be so caught up in a trip that you don’t have time to write a word!
It’s interesting, isn’t it, to go back regularly to visit a place, not home but very familiar, and to mark the changes. For Paul and I, I think the shared knowledge/memory of a restaurant or shop that no longer exists intensifies the bond that travelling together makes. . . a whole other post there, about those places that only exist in shared memories, and what happens when we lose, or lose touch with, other caretakers of that remembrance.
I hope you’re able to travel again, when you’re ready.
I love my old travel journals and have them all arrayed on the shelf behind my desk in our den. But I must say that I grew very tired of writing in them once I started blogging. So the last few trips are memorialized only on my blog. It makes me kind of sad. Last winter I even bought a lovely new hard-cover journal. Took great care in choosing it, and have hardly written in it at all. I’m hoping to one day get back the urge to start writing with a pen again. Hope your Thanksgiving dinner was great. And that there was some left-over pie to bring home???
Author
I know what you mean, Sue! We draw from a limited resource when we’re writing about travel, especially the writing we do en route. . .
We did have a good dinner and brought home enough left-over pie to keep Paul smiling 😉
Wonderful memories to have. We visited Paris in 2013 and stayed at a small hotel on Rue des Grandes Ecoles near the Cardinal Lemoine metro stop on the advice of one of my art school teachers. It was heaven. You’ve inspired me to try to find my travel journals and give them a reread. I was given my grandmother’s travel journal where she wrote in detail of her trip from New Brunswick all the way across the country to visit her brother in BC in 1932. Lots of interesting details of her time onboard the train and crossing the Great Lakes by paddle steamer. Looking forward to details of your upcoming trip to Europe….I can’t wait to go back.
Author
We stayed once at Hotel des Grandes Ecoles (but it wasn’t on Rue des G.E.) and have fond memories of that little neighbourhood — a café at the corner, especially. I’d be curious to know what memories surprise you, going through your travel journals. But I’m most impressed (and envious!) that you have your grandmother’s travel journal — what a treasure! If only Via Rail weren’t so prohibitively expensive now, it would be such a cool trip to make accompanied by her journal, comparing notes — probably a book in there! 😉
This was an enjoyable read. I also enjoyed reading about your red shoes and the context of your earlier trip to Paris. I keep journals but almost never go back to them. I find that I keep a few photos on my phone from each trip and as I go through them I can remember each of the moments and the context surrounding them. I have been doing that i the last few days, feeling the BC (before Covid) and AC difference.
Travel to Europe has been very strange this time. My partner had been caring for his mom through the pandemic, until she died a couple of weeks ago. We were waiting for vaccination and to see how this autumn would go before I was ready to travel. While it is more than marvelous to be together again, I have found the whole experience of travel very stressful (in spite of decades of travel). I well understand anxiety! Although I am very prudent in Canada and had a PCR test before departure, I was incredibly worried during travel about picking something up – not so much for my own health, as I am still fairly young and very healthy, but because I couldn’t live with myself making someone else ill. I went through the process of being tested at an Italian clinic the other day – stressful in itself given the Italian inclination towards both bureaucracy and chaos – and fortunately all went well.
I am wandering the streets of Florence, which I know so well, and everything seems off-kilter. There are more tourists than I expected, and Italians behaving semi-normally. At the same time, many places I love are closed, and there is a feeling of unease that many places give to me. The mix of people taking all precautions and those with masks half askew or scrunched up below their chins is disquieting. I hope that as the weeks progress here I will feel more comfortable with the idea of tourism, but for now I remain sad and uncomfortable. I carry the gravity of the past year and a half with me, and I feel the weight of it here. I hope you have an easier re-entry experience, although maybe it is possible to feel both the weight of loss and the beauty here too.
Author
That’s a lot to process. When my husband and I lived in different cities for work for a few years, seeing each other on weekends, sometimes only every third weekend, I learned to recognize the difficult of the Friday evening “re-entry phase.” How much more is this magnified by the prolonged distance enforced by Covid, especially when that time has included grievous personal loss. No wonder your feelings are mixed, even without the strangeness of travel these days. Take care, and may you experience the possibility your last words point to — that you might “feel both the weight of loss and the beauty here” as well.
Thanks for your kind response. G and I have adapted remarkably well to long distance, so I am happy for that. We fall into our old rhythms quickly. The pandemic overall, however, has had a huge impact on how we feel about the world (or perhaps has magnified our disappointment in people). I hope to reclaim more positive feelings, as I am a cheerful, optimistic person at heart, fueled by curiosity. The other day I took a long walk to a church above the city and while there a young man knelt to propose to his girlfriend. It was a glimpse of something fresh. I have been writing a little, too, which is a nice way to process things. Your journals are an inspiration!
I imagine your visit to Europe will be much cheerier. Visiting children will do that!
Author
Vignettes, sweet small dramas like this are what fuel our travels and forays out in the world. Thanks for sharing that.
Happy Thanksgiving,Frances,to you and Paul! So wonderful to be a guest for a Thanksgiving’s lunch in your daughter’s family (lucky you- chefs,sommeliers and what not!)
Beautiful post,so many references and I was not here from the beginning,so I’ll have to read everything very carefully once more
Dottoressa
Author
Thanks K! (and yes, there are way too many links in the post, but it’s useful for me to get them all in one spot 😉
A belated Happy Thanksgiving to you and Paul, Frances … and thank you, for a lovely hour or so of relaxed reading, curled up on the sofa of our rental house in Devon. One of my favourite things about your blog posts is how you incorporate links to older posts that enhance your stories, taking us back in time with you as you reflect on your memories.
I had a lovely walk along a cliff path this morning that actually caused me to feel emotional and struggling for words as it was stunning and I was so happy to simply be there. A feeling I tend to reserve for my much loved Swiss mountain regions.
It’s so wonderful that you’ll soon be with your family in Italy … I can only imagine how you’ll feel with those first hugs!
Bon Voyage … I hope it’s a hassle free and healthy trip! Looking forward to travelling along vicariously. Take care.
Rosie xx
Author
Thanks, Rosie. The kind words are much appreciated as encouragement for my writing here.
I’m imagining you on that cliff path (I’d love a walk like that!). . . I wonder if this period of having to stay at home is helping us look differently at what we have, recover those strong emotions we’ve tended to experience when we’re in other places. . . Although there are those hugs and emotions I’m only going to be able to experience in Italy. . . 😉
It is both an enjoyable and a learning experience for me to read of your travels. Love how you and your husband grab on and explore a chosen area so intensely. Actually, you are good at this whether abroad or walking in your urban neighborhood. :). I admit to having to look up a vocabulary word or two as I read . You’re still teaching, Frances!
Glad to read of your family Thanksgiving! Sounds like you will be out exploring and experiencing Europe once again…and soon! Have fun planning and preparing!
Charlene H
Author
I’m glad you enjoy reading about my travels. It’s true that we tend to enjoy a less frenetic pace, and we enjoy getting to know a neighbourhood. And I like your observation that I tend to do this at home as well — it’s true, and I think it will probably serve me well over the next decade or two when getting further afield (and doing that speedily) will gradually be less possible. Also trying to develop patience and flexibility re travel — Covid has been a good teacher . . . 😉
I hope you’ve had a Happy Thanksgiving! I can imagine your notes and memories of Paris trips creating something with a life of its own. I’m so happy that you’ll get to revisit the city. Have a wonderful, wonderful time. I only wish I were joining you!
Author
Oh, wouldn’t that be grand?! xo
I am very happy for you to be able to see your family again. I hope everything will go well, and keep my fingers crossed for you.
My personal history with Paris is rather complicated. My first visit (several decades ago) was marked by rain and cold (it was March), a serious lack of funds, so we could not even afford to enter a café to warm up, and the rows that accompanied the break-up of a relationship. Later visits were always short and bitter-sweet, forming crucial moments in a difficult love affair. So I have never felt the independence and self- sufficiency that I experienced in other cities. But reading your post I suddenly discovered that I really long to go back to London (although “back” may be a misleading word, given that my memories go back to 1970 and to places which have ceased to exist). But I am afraid I will have to be patient, because travel between Great Britain and Germany after Brexit has become quite a challenge, and with Covid even more so.
Author
So interesting, Eleonore, and such a good example of the filters we experience a city through. I think Paris’s reputation as a City of Romance must set impossibly high expectations for many. . .
Returning to a city as iconic as London, 50 years after your last visit, would also be very interesting. So many, many changes. I was there in ’67, ’71, but have visited again more recently — it would take a bit to get me there now, since Brexit and with their handling of Covid, etc. Patience, though, as you say . . . we’re learning that 😉
Yes, the old travel journals are a joy, entwined with some nostalgia for les neiges d’antan. You ask about “your” Paris — to me it is the serendipity of finding ourselves in a tiny, perfect hotel on the Ile St. Louis in 1972, then almost like a village, with uncrowded Notre Dame as our neighborhood church. Truly a dream come true, seeing that glorious landmark for the first time.
Author
I do love this expression: neiges d’antan!
Oh my, that 1972 memory. I love the Ile St. Louis even now, but only walking through early in the morning before the tourists. How lucky you were to experience it before the hordes descended . . . and Notre Dame!
As I was unpacking I found my Moleskine journal from our first trip to Paris, in 2010. It was so much fun reading about everything I did and saw (my inner Art History major was a bit of a show-off that time, I’m afraid!) and it was as if I were there once again. That trip set the pattern for future trips: first meal at Benoit, vintage Bakelite shopping at my two favorite shops, just the right amount of museum visits, lunches at L’Atelier du Joel Robuchon and L’Ami Jean, and a day trip outside Paris to someplace new.
It’s great fun reading about your past trips, and I’m looking forward to reading about this upcoming one. What stays the same, what changes. Your patterns, all this time later.
Author
One of the joys of unpacking! What a delight to reread after a decade that has brought you so much change near its end. And fun to refresh what that Art History major knows and will have brought to her Lisbon viewing. . .
Thanks for the encouragement — glad you enjoyed reading.
This was interesting and mirrors my own “era of note-taking”. I suppose I wanted, in those days, to not waste time or money, so was continually evaluating (best place for low cost lunch, best route) but also overdoing, which led to the occasional low mood or marital tension. Now I just ‘be’, writing down only an address for a place I don’t want to forget, or tell a friend about. I’m not ready to venture far afield quite yet, perhaps spring ’22, because I live with someone with vulnerabilities and not a lot of natural caution 😉
Author
My travel notes have changed so much over the last 15 years — but I still generally like reflecting and writing as something of an Away ritual or pattern, especially as (before Covid!) those Away times began lasting longer. I find it grounding, place-making.
And I understand waiting before travelling — were it not for needing to see our daughter’s family we’d be waiting as well.