France will always have a special place in my heart. It was my first foreign destination, and it made quite an impression on me. After, I was at the impressionable age of 17. And naturellement, France has something no other country has: Paris! At 17, I was amazed at how comfortable I felt roaming around a foreign city where a foreign language was spoken. (Fortunately, that foreign language was French, which I was in my third year of studying in high school.) I could not get enough of riding the Metro all over the city. And it was in Paris where I first met my lifelong love: the chocolate croissant, or “pain au chocolat” in the vernacular. It is likely this trip that has made world travel such a breeze for me, while it can be scary and intimidating for some others.
That trip in 1980 was a month-long school trip covering much of northern France. There were 6 of us lucky students who made the trip, along with a teacher. After investigating Paris for a month or so, we hit the road in a van and explored the peninsular regions of Normandy and Brittany. Without a doubt, the most emotional point of the trip was visiting the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial overlooking Omaha Beach. After the coastal visits, it was time to head inland, where we spent 3 weeks with host families in Orléans, city of Joan of Arc. We got to make day trips to see such sights as some of the flamboyant châteaux of the Loire Valley, including Chambord and the river-spanning Chenonceau. I made a couple trips back to Paris by train, one with my host family and another with a classmate. I could not believe how easy it was to get around the country, even for American teenagers. You can probably see how influential this trip was in making me the traveler I am today.
All of my subsequent trips to France have been to Paris only. I’m not complaining. In 1997, I took my mother to Paris for an extended trip over Christmas. I included an overnight round-trip to London via the recently opened Chunnel. Like I could resist. Next was a two-day work trip to Paris in 2006, followed by a night in London (reached once again by Chunnel). My work companion had never been to Paris, so I showed him some of the main sights. My final Parisian encounter (to date) was in 2011, during a 3-month work stint in Luxembourg. It was a day trip via TGV (high-speed train) when my mother and my good friend Brian came to visit me. A day trip to Paris. How good could life get!
I have yet to do an “official” Fabulous International Sightseeing Trip to Paris or anywhere in France. I’ve primarily been focusing on cities I haven’t been to. But there’s always hope! As I’ve been to Paris several times, I’m likely to do a tour of France’s secondary cities, such as Marseille, Lyon, and Strasbourg. When I dig them up from their hiding place, I’ll post some of the snapshots from my French encounters.
Let me just add, when you go to Paris, DO NOT MISS Sainte-Chapelle on Île de la Cité, just around the corner from the Notre Dame. Not as famous as Notre Dame, the Louvre, or the Eiffel Tower, it is breathtakingly stunning nonetheless. The world’s most beautiful stained glass. Trust me on this.
Vive la France!