LETTER FROM PARIS #37 - suckered - and loving it

Experienced travelers know in advance that if, for example, you buy a coffee at Heathrow while you wait for your departure, will cost an arm and a leg. Likewise, when you go to an elegant hotel and order a simple beverage, expect to pay through the nose. Not just in Paris either.

So it should have been no surprise to me when Shirley and I went to the Meridien Hotel in Montparnasse for an orientation meeting for our cruise on the Saone/Rhone ending up in Nice. We were, without apologies for past remarks: tourists. Gaping, gawking, asking dumb questions – tourists. Comforting yourself by being surrounded by people you know and people who speak your language. Cosseted from the possibility of having to deal with the locals at anything but the most superficial level.

Starters: waiting for the “meeting” we stop at the ritzy, chic, minimalist bar, for light refreshment. 13 Euros later – I have a small beer, Shirley has a diet Coke. Bad? No worse that paying $28 dollars for a martini and a coffee at the R.O.M. in Toronto.
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We had decided to forego dinner, expecting that a meeting where people who had already paid anywhere from 6K to 8K Euro might have a few little hors d’oeuvres. Sure. One glass of wine, and no seconds. Little bowls of peanut/raisin mixes, some olives, and other stuff like what the airlines give you for an in flight “lunch.”

Shirley4y tells me that she’s going to scream if I make one more remark about “cattle” or “herd” mentality.” I shut up. In fact, I confess, not to her, I am enjoying it. I exult in finally being in a very easy comfort zone: everyone speaks English: everyone is from Canada, U.S., England, Australia, or New Zealand. You can wallow in the comfort of the familiar environment. No more threatening surroundings where the language is a challenge and the culture a little bit of a shock.

I have always believed, and many of you probably share the feeling, that people who travel in groups and depend on organized-to-the-last-detail tours, are the most comfortable travelers. There are no challenges. Your hand is being held. Shirley and I have preferred the hazards of just the two of us traveling in what could be an alien environ men t. There are more of us I know,

So here I am writing this from Chalon-sur-Saone. Our bus took us from Paris to Beaune.
Lovely, wine-sotted Beaune. I was in oenophile heaven. The bus, with appropriate commentary, took us past the legends of wine: Puligny Montrachet, Cote de Beanie Villages, Merseult, Pommard, and Nuit St. Georges.

Before the wine-tasting was lunch. I had spotted what looked like a nice café. We had acquired two couples from the States, both from South Florida by way of New York. Amiable, friendly, and without a word of French among the four of them. Delighted to be escorted by someone who spoke the language. I took charge. We tramped together into a restaurant that had neither of the two tourist no-nos: a menu in English and pictures of the food. We ordered. I won’t stop to praise the food. My dessert, two “coupes” of ice cream was served with a large piece of something cold. Thinking it was just ice, I bit down. Nothing happened. I popped it out of my mouth, thankful that I had not swallowed it: a large and jagged piece of glass. Our host was horrified, but not so horrified that he refunded one cent of the charge, even for the ice cream which of course I would not finish. Now I have truly been anointed as a tourist. The restaurant owner knew he would never see me again and that in the short time I had before the boat departed, I would not have time for a lawsuit. But wait – he was very sympathetic.





Best was the wine tasting. We were herded, following a guide with a hand in the air to a tasting. So many took the tour it was divided into three manageable groups. / We were each given what looked like a sommelier’s cup. We tasted and tasted and tasted. After about eight I was not only tasted, I was getting quietly wasted.

I dared ask the woman who guided us whether or not the Beaune area, and the whole Burgundy district, used any grape other than the traditional chardonnay for all white wines and the Pinot Noir (for all reds. There were two variants, Aligote for the white, Gsamay for the red. I asked, idly I thought, if she knew about other varietals like say – San Giovese. She looked at me liked I’d just told her that God was dead! Another person in the group knew why I had asked. She, (her father was a Kentucky Bourbon whisky distiller) said it was part of the French problem: They did not recognize that there were wines from many other countries. The lofty; pretension bordered on arrogance, and explains in part why French wines are in deep trouble. (Remember when the English motorcycle manufacturers stuck with kick starters and died under the impact of the Japanese battery-starters.) Same stuff. Failure to change until it is too late. It is at once both sad and brave of the French to take a stand.

Which again says something about the pride of being French. It is not bravado. It is not a kind of mindless jingoistic patriotism. It is a deeply felt, profound sense of themselves. In spite of the conflicted quality that I wrote about earlier, there is still, under it all, a sense of “being”” a sense perhaps of Cartesian truth – that “I think therefore I am” – or I am French and I think I do know who I am. My wine is supreme. Take that Australia and Chile!