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Ile de Ré
"And over there is the bridge to Ile de Re,"’ D explained, pointing westwards across the water, as we sauntered along the sandy beach at La Faute-sur-Mer, on France’s Atlantic coast. "Lionel Jospin has a home on the island, I might have mentioned that," he continued. He hadn’t told me that the former French Prime Minister was a regular on Ile de Re, but friends in Paris mentioned that the island, situated some three kilometers (2 miles) off the coast, near La Faute, where we would be spending a week in the summer, was a popular vacation spot for affluent residents. And they all seemed to emphasize the "affluent" part, when describing the Retais.
Two years later, in September of 2004, as we exited the toll bridge from La Rochelle on the mainland, I expected to enter a secluded paradise of pompous mansions, streets lined with imported palm trees and upscale boutiques, men in white loafers, showy motor boats, and maybe even a long strip of nightclubs, with the windows blacked out, and other bon genre scenes.
But Ile de Re is far more intriguing. It’s an island of quaint villages, picturesque stone homes with colorful shutters that open outward, beautiful lighthouses, bike paths and sand beaches.
The island covers some 85 square kilometers, but I got the impression that one could return every year and still discover something new. We drove by camp grounds, wooded areas, a small harbor, villages and even vineyards.
Before heading back to the mainland, we ate in St. Martin, on the terrace of a restaurant facing the small harbor. The weather was mild and the afternoon surprisingly sunny. I know little about sailing, but the skippers maneuvering their boats in and out of the harbor seemed to have their work cut out for them.
We will probably go back next summer to a house with green shutters.
A destination des gares parisiennes
Les photos prises sur le quai, avant de composter nos billets et de monter dans le train. On trouve la scène très romantique, même avec les énormes valises sur les épaules.
Louvre Pyramid
The glass pyramid of the Louvre, at sunset.
La pyramide en verre du Louvre, au coucher du soleil.
Windows on Milly
The town of Milly-la-Foret, situated some 50 kilometers southeast of Paris, near the Forest of Fontainebleau.
Pictured: the old market hall, in the town center, a window from the town church, and the wooden shutters affixed to the old stone homes.
Milly-la-Forêt, la commune située à une cinquantaine de kilomètres au sud-est de Paris, près de la Foret de Fontainebleau.
Les vu de nuit du halle de Milly, en centre ville, un vitre de l’église, et des volets de maisons en pierre.
Parking in Paris
New, leaner pedestrian symbols
28 days earlier
Putting together an itinerary for our upcoming Paris trip is making me muse over the pleasures we used to enjoy when we lived in the French capital, and those annoying experiences which, most likely, would still touch a nerve. Of course, a lot has changed since we used to call Paris home. It’s amazing how much places continue to evolve in your absence. Considering the profound impact that Paris has had on me and my lifestyle, you’d think it would be unable to move on without me. Two aspects of our day-to-day lives in Paris, for which we cultivated strong feelings of love and frustration, were public transportation and l’art de table.
Le transport
Lots of changes are afoot in Paris to revitalize mass transit. Before we left the 18th district, the RATP had started installing electronic boards on metro platforms to inform passengers of the estimated wait time before the next available train. And it was about time. After seeing displays on platforms in other cities a few years earlier, I found it surprising that subways in cities like New York and Paris didn’t offer riders more precise information about how long riders would have to wait for a train. I become really impatient if I feel I’m idling on a subway platform, with no visibility on when the next rain will arrive. That’s because whenever the train is unreasonably late, I face the same dilemma: get out and walk, I’d now doubt hear the train pulling up to the platform below. Stay and wait, and the train would never come.
Other big improvements were implemented after our departure, like the new, extended metro hours on weekends, and the new tramway around Paris. I’ll probably get to take advantage of this, and other changes, during our visit in March.
I’m optimistic, although common sense dictates that no matter how much efficiency these improvements bring to mass transit, they won’t cure our fellow straphangers of their bad habits. I’m not referring to the screwball riders – like one late-night passenger we encountered who spent the entire trip talking on a dead cell phone about the most shocking things he could dream up, seemingly to surprise the other passengers – but the inconsiderate people. D is especially fond of the riders who try to board a metro car, sometimes while the train is still pulling into the station, before letting passengers off. Then there are the imbeciles who rush up to the train, slam themselves into the side of the car and pry the doors open as the train is pulling away from the platform, as if blithefully unaware that the loud buzz meant that the doors were closing. Naturally, some of the worst offenders are the ones who wedge themselves through turnstiles behind paying passengers. The first time someone did this to me, I started screaming and hollering because I thought I was being attacked. I hadn’t realized how common this practice was in Paris, and that most people just accept it.
Dining in and eating out
After about a year in France, I started eagerly hunting down elusive products that are readily available in American supermarkets, gems like peanut butter and sour cream, fat-free cooking sprays, butter substitutes and barbecue sauce. I suppose these things were so tempting because I no longer had easy access to them, but the desire quickly waned, once I discovered that if I searched hard enough, I could purchase these items, for a premium, and how easily I got along without them. And I was sufficiently distracted browsing the rich array of choices available in our neighborhood supermarkets, and discovering different cuts of meat and the local butcher. The thrill of shopping in French specialty shops will still be there. I just hope most of my old favorites will still be in business.
We used to patronize a popular restaurant chain with bistro locations all over the city. The prices were reasonable and the menu proposed a decent selection of grilled fish and meats, so we’d always leave feeling content and with the scent of smoke and barbeque filtering out of our clothes. We’d request a table in the non-smoking section and away from the kitchen, but invariably, we would find ourselves sitting down to feast next to a table in the smoking section, with a patron chain-smoking between bites of her charcoal-grilled steak. I am curious to see how our dining experiences will change in light of laws passed in France to ban smoking in restaurants and public places.
IA-K
IA-K has launched a new website, www.ia-k.fr, to showcase the wide array of imaging and printing solutions provided to retail customers and businesses in France. The site uses bold colors to promote the company’s high-quality graphics solutions for marketing and general printing.
Sebastien Saugey plans to enhance the website with more content, including additional company and contact information. “This is only a beginning,” he commented.
Sebastien launched IA-K in 2005 to provide graphic design expertise and imaging and printing solutions to retail customers, graphics professionals and small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) in Metropolitan France. Popular applications include point-of-sale, business brochures and other marketing communications. The company is based in Milly-La-Foret, a town that lies roughly 50 kilometers south of Paris.
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