Paris, The Cluny, and Napoleon

..The Orangerie is a must visit.

Napoleon’s Death Mask

It’s mid-afternoon. We finally ease into Paris from the périphérique (ease – wrong choice of word).

We feel, if not chipper then somewhat settled, until our GPS instructs us, “to take the eighth exit at the next roundabout.” Eighth! This can only mean the dreaded l’Étoile with the Arc de Triomphe at its centre.

I notice that the GPS has switched to using the same tone as Parisian waiters use when you’ve asked for something unusual, like a seat out of the draft.

l’Étoile! Twelve streets worth of traffic circling the Arc like a great school of rather nasty sharks, each with a different plan. In the midst of the mayhem, dozens of selfie-taking tourists sprint back and forth like unwary bait fish.

When we find street work blocking every access to our destination like Byzantine walls, we almost don’t care. Magically, we seem to have slipped into a Kamikaze-like fatalism. Perfect for navigating Paris.

No point yet in discussing the hotel and underground parking garage here. No point in casting a leaden pall over this whole exposition. But, then, miraculously, we’re 4 levels underground in our stall, and I can turn off the ignition. Neither of us are sure how we got here.

Paris! The Tuileries

A quick feed, a wash and brush-up, and we’re good to go. Art, food, culture, history – Paris has it all. Great perspectives too.

An evening view of the Eiffel tower from the Trocadero – wow! And strolling the banks of the Seine on a warm, spring evening is pretty well as romantic as it gets.

I don’t expect to see many birds (other than Wood Pigeons) in Paris. One has to know a big city very well to find unusual birds. I include Wood Pigeons in this post – this is called Bird Noetz, after all. I spot a few Blackbirds in the Tuileries too.

Wood Pigeons in the Tuileries

Wood Pigeon watching is free in Paris, but almost everything else costs from a lot to plenty. Department stores like Printemps now seem outrageously expensive. Galeries Lafayette, forget about it.

Specialty soap shops such as the one V. discovered, should have armed guards around the merchandise. You can either buy a bar of soap, or dinner – your choice. But,ah, it’s Paris, unlike any other city in the galaxy.

Soutine, I believe

The Orangerie is among the world’s great galleries. It’s filled with modern works, as the brochure says, from “Renoir to Matisse, from Cézanne to Picasso, from Douanier Rousseau to Modigliani and Soutine.” Even so, it’s still manageable. Lots of selfies going on here too. À chacun son goût, I guess.

Monet’s famous Water Lilies is the star attraction, and these giant panels are stupendous works. Luminous. Colour choices and juxtaposition, sensational.

Monet – Waterlilies (detail)

Napoleon. Not everyone is a fan of the Ist Emperor, but he certainly made his mark. Spend any time at all dealing with the niceties of French bureaucracy, and you’ll see what I mean.

I once had to fill out quite a bit of paperwork to get my wallet back after I’d left said wallet on a national park ticket counter for thirty seconds. Even with my picture ID inside, it still took two hours to get the thing back. Being in France, I had the proper documents in order, and stamped, naturally.

Of course, there’s much more to Napoleon and his legacy than unnecessarily inconveniencing me. The Russians and Austrians were very badly inconvenienced by him at the Battle of Austerlitz, for example. The beautiful Alexandre III bridge is just the allies getting back at the Ist emperor.

A fascinating and complex individual, Bonaparte, and the subject of countless studies and books. The city of Paris is a more monument to Baron Haussmann of course, but there is a lot here that is Napoleon too. His tomb in the Invalides is a must for students of history.

Napoleon’s bicorne from Waterloo – Don’t you hate it when your hat gets wet!

Bonaparte’s Sarcophagus

The Cluny

The impressive Cluny museum in the Latin Quarter preserves a bit of medieval Paris. More than a bit, actually. One of the best collections of western European medieval art anywhere is preserved here.

The frigidarium of an Roman bath complex forms the ‘bones’ of the museum. Incidentally, Clunaic style influenced the art and architecture of much of western Europe during this period.

The museum famously houses the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries. A late medieval work loaded with symbolism, this is a testament to the skill of the weavers of Flanders. Perhaps Monet thought about the tapestries when he painted Water Lilies. Ukyio-e prints, sure, but maybe these too.

The unicorn symbolizes purity and religious grace. Only virgins can capture unicorns, by the way. Just so you know.

Cluny courtyard, Roman Baths, and the Demoiselle et le Licorne

It’s Paris and, of course, the food is great. The food court at the Bon Marche always lures us in. This time, no exception. Often, we wonder if the visit is an excuse to roam from eatery to eatery.

I hear many that French people lament the fading of some customs such as the 3-hour lunch. Probably it’s more the non-locals, like us, that bolt and run, Parisians seem as meal conscious as ever.

We try to let the French public choose where we eat. If a place is bustling it’s likely good; if it’s as quiet as “an undiscovered tomb” (as Henry Higgins says), it’s almost certainly not.

After a good meal, and a glass or two of decent wine, there’s the evening stroll along the Seine. Nice way to end our visit. Tomorrow, Sancerre.

Red Kytes and Polychrome Bulls: Visiting Lascaux

Ice Age Horses

A bit longer in Perigueux, with a chance to visit its museums, would have been nice. However, we had tickets to see the famous paleolithic art of Lascaux. Plus we had to be in Paris that evening. So, after a quick breakfast, we packed up and hit the road.

Auroch

I had longed to see Lascaux when I was a young archaeology student. Impossible then when gourmet macaroni and cheese was high living. Now, I’ve long forgotten the professors who taught me, and much of what I learned about the palaeolithic – it’s been a while – but Lascaux stuck with me.

Someone, or a bunch of people, have called Lascaux the “Sistine Chapel of Paleolithic Art”. I’m not sure why it isn’t the other way round, chronologically-speaking, but anyway. Certainly, the paintings are remarkable. And there are others. The Karst bluffs along the Vézère are famous for their caverns. Many were occupied on and off over the last 40 000 years or so of the last ice age. Amazing place!

Red Kytes

We arrived on a perfect day, sunny and mild, with a slight breeze. A few dozen migrating Red Kytes, and what looked like a Booted Eagle or two, kettled over low, heavily-treed hills, drifting west on shifting thermals. My real camera having just decided to give up the ghost a day or two back, I had to depend on my phone – not at all ideal for bird photography.

The Limestone Hills of the Vézère Valley

A warm day like this would have been rare when the cave walls were painted. It was the last ice age, after all, when giant deer, aurochs, wild horses, rhinos, and mammoths roamed the neighbourhood. The portraits of such beasts adorn the cavern walls. Were they created for magical purposes, or otherwise? Nobody can say. Europe was quite Arctic-like then. Inside a cavern probably wasn’t a bad place to be. So, there’s that.

With the cavern-riddled hills as a backdrop, the buildings containing the exhibits overlook the pleasant village of Montignac.We couldn’t see the actual caverns of course. These were closed to the CO2-breathing public many years ago. Instead we see exact re-creations of important galleries. And they certainly seem perfect, even down to the smell of cold stone. Or perhaps I was imagining that. A subconscious childhood memory maybe from when I explored the limestone caves in the cliffs surrounding the town where I lived. I once scratched my name on the cold stone. Maybe I painted a picture of a deer too, maybe.

These paintings are terrific – powerful, realistic representations of ice-age beasts. They are dated to the Solutrean, or Magdelanian. The aesthetic seems consistent with that of the beautiful, cunningly-flaked, leaf-shaped projectile points from the period. Beautiful things they are too!

My student attempt to flintknap a Solutrean Point. Not very good,I suppose, but, the right shape. Trying to replicate artifacts teaches archaeology students something about the methods and skills of the tool-makers.

Ice Age Beasts and Mysterious Markings. The artist (s) obviously ‘played’ with images, as with the antlers on this deer.

As to the significance and purpose of cave art. Who knows? Seventeen thousand years is a long time, and, as David Lowenthal once pointed out, “The Past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

While the paintings are indeed spectacular, the object that fascinated me most was a small, red-stone lamp. Easy enough to miss, but charming too.

I like to think that the person who made and used this lamp made some of the pictures too. Thinking about that actually gave me a bit of a shiver. I was seeing, in that humble artifact, the hand and mind of a long-dead, working artist, and, in a way, communicating with them.

Lamp

Indeed, it is the small accidents of survival that can, in a flash, bridge the millennia between oneself and a maker – the slip of the brush, the thumbprint in the clay, the misplaced notch on the spear shaft. They blur time and cause it to slide a bit. Suddenly, an age or two seems like nothing at all. The small, casually-dropped things, the trivial artifacts, often have more emotional power than the famous, colossal, historic monuments. Not that I won’t go look at those too!

Périgueux: The Dordogne

Isle River Bank – Local Inhabitant

Our next stop should have been Paris, but Paris on May Day seemed an even worse option than Bordeaux. Instead we leapt (figuratively speaking) at the chance to spend a couple of nights in the old pilgrim town of Périgueux in the Dordogne – famous for its medieval streets and massive cathedral. Bordeaux was great, but birding there, well…

Saint Front Cathedral in Périgueux

Périgueux is on the banks of the River Isle in the heart of the Périgord, home of foie gras, black truffles, and duck confit. A number of authors have set books here and in the region, including Michael Crichton. Martin Walker too, with his enjoyable Bruno mysteries.

The massive Romanesque Saint Front cathedral dominates the medieval core of the town, which has a history going back to pre-Roman Gaul and beyond. The museum here is reportedly quite good.

The prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux, also, are not far away. They date back 17,000 years or so. More about those in my next post.

Périgueux Architecture

Unfortunately, most restaurants and shops in Périgueux were closed both days – this being Sunday, followed by May Day – as were the Gallo-Roman and Military Museums. Drat!

Still, the cool afternoon was pleasant; the streets narrow and interesting. We had to limit ourselves to window shopping. Probably just as well. They do seem to sell some nice stuff.

We stopped for charcuterie at an outdoor cafe, one of the few places open, but whose name neither of us can remember. The glass of champagne here surprisingly inexpensive, nicely complimenting the generous platter of cured meats and the cheeses.

With not much else to do but enjoy the slightly breezy afternoon, we lingered with glasses of Bergerac, the local wine. Bergerac is under an hour away from here.

The red seemed rather like a Bordeaux, but softer – more Merlot in this blend, I think; the white crisp and aromatic Sauvignon Blanc, exactly what V. likes best. No sign here of Cyrano however.

Sunday in Périgueux

The Isle is a pleasant, unhurried river with treed banks down to the water, and a paved walkway. Aside from a couple of early morning strollers, and a dog walker or two, there was no traffic to disturb the many small birds singing and calling from the thickets.

My Merlin app confirmed nineteen species, from European Pied Flycatcher to Common Chiffchaff.

Hearing birds was easy, spotting them was almost impossible. At one point, I half-slid down on bank trying to get a better look at the Pied Flycatchers, and almost ended up in the drink. That would have been embarrassing. Would I have remembered how to say, “throw me a line!” in French? I doubt it.

The Flycatchers are pretty little black and white birds, and new to me. Very active, and, in the thick foliage, almost impossible to photograph.

The River Isle in Early May

So…I’m going to say, Chiffchaff.

The valley of the river also has its share of parks, walks, and historic sites, including chateaux. Driving through the area was quite pleasant. Lots of limestone.

I have mixed feelings about chateaux, although they’re pretty impressive. But who got exploited here when the aristos built and managed the place, I wonder? That’s the Liverpool in me talking. Sorry.

Chateau Puyguilheme

With a bit of imagination, one can people the turrets and galleries with imaginary musketeers, courtly ladies, and Cardinal Richelieu. The period is right, I think, for this place – 16th century. Still, it’s lovely and quiet today. Renaissance architecture, it has been renovated by the French state. Closed when we visited.

History, Birds, and Wine: Bordeaux and Saint-Émilion

Eurasian Blackbird

It seems like a long time since I posted, but I’m back. Lots to report too.

Late April, 2023

After a pleasant and interesting few days in Barcelona, we caught the train to Bordeaux. The train skirts the Pyrenees, and follows the Mediterranean coast to Narbonne, Roman Narbo, a town I wish we’d had more time to explore. Then the line cuts sharply left- the route forms a right angle.

The coastal marshes speeding past the windows of the train are famous birding locations. Even rocketing along on the TGV, one can pick out quite a few species. There’s a trick to it, mostly looking well ahead and focusing on a group of birds until they pass.

No birder can pass these brackish flats without at least trying, despite the resulting headache. So, the list: Common Shelduck, Greater Flamingo, Slender-billed Gull, Yellow-legged Gull, Grey Heron, Little Egret, Eurasian Marsh Harrier, Eurasian Kestrel, Eurasian Magpie, Mute Swan, Pied Avocet, Eurasian Oystercatcher. These at the Salines de la Palme and the Grau de la Franqui. No photos, of course. You’ll have to take my word for it, but I won’t blame you if you don’t.

A quick stop in Narbonne to change trains, and then we’re off to Bordeaux on the fast train. I expected to see lots of white Storks en route, but there was nary a one.

Our apartment in Bordeaux was a bit of a surprise both in terms of location and size, but at least it was close to the laundromat so we could wash our clothes. We rubbed shoulders with the undergrads who, by the way, were very helpful.

The next day we picked up our rental car on the edge of town. Finding our way back to our lodgings from there, and solving the mystery of the underground parking garage,made for an interesting morning.

Our stay in Bordeaux had to be short, just three days. We ate some great food, drank some of the region’s luscious wine, had a thoughtful gaze at the charred doors of the city hall (Palais Rohan), suddenly famous after the riots over government policies earlier in the year. We visited the underwhelming wine museum, and strolled the famous river front too. Other than Rock Doves and Mallards, we saw precious few birds in Bordeaux — Common Swift, Eurasian Blackbirds, a Serin, Common Wood Pigeon. Not enough time to look, really.

Wood Pigeons

The Palais Rohan

On Sunday morning we freed the rental from the bowels of the labyrinthine parking garage, popping out into the narrow streets of the university district like Jonah from the whale, and then headed out. We planned to arrive in Périgueux on the River Isle in late afternoon. Saint-Émilion, that famous wine town, was, more on less, on the way. To go to the Bordeaux region and not visit this famous village seemed unthinkable.

The charred doors of the Palais Rohan (city hall)in Bordeaux, set on fire during protests against government policies.

The gray morning turned bright and warm (briefly) as we left the busier roads for narrower ones that followed the contours of lovely rolling hills carpeted with vineyards.

Our route took us past chateaux with very famous names we recognized at once, a somewhat surreal experience. Not the least of these was Château Pétrus, identified by modest signs marking the rows of vines that produce this extremely expensive Pomerol wine. No big showrooms and gift shops here. No need when a bottle of 2022 will cost you 6000 dollars U.S., if you can find one.

We didn’t attempt to visit the Chateau; I’ve been sneered at by enough Parisian waiters and other guardians of French culture to be able to predict the kind of look I’d get, even if someone deigned to open the door to our knock. Kind of like the look the Maître d’ of Club 21 in New York once gave my flip-flops.

Out of the car, the place was magical, the air still and fragrant with the scents of growing plants, of budding flowers, and of pale, buff-coloured loam; the fluting songs of Blackbirds and Wood Thrushes floated up from here and there along the rows. A Yellowhammer zoomed past, a mustard-coloured flash diving toward some choice spot among those old vines. Overhead, a Common Buzzard circled. If terroir makes a wine, as it must in large part, then we are experiencing it, at least in the only ways we could afford. Magical!

Château Pétrus: In the movie, Sideways, Miles refuses to drink any “stinking Merlot”? Too bad. Pétrus grows only Merlot.

Saint-Émilion, on a cool, slightly rainy April day. Lots of wine ‘caves’ to drop into for a tasting.

Saint-Émilion was busy and parking was a challenge. A bright day, as I say, and generally true, except for an the occasional shower. A bit cool when the clouds hid the sun – I had to buy a warm vest.

I can’t say that this famous village is unspoiled, but it tries its best. Saint-Émilion occupies a hilltop around which vineyards radiate like spokes on a wheel.

Like all tourist towns, this one has lots of places where one can buy things, but precious few reasonably priced eateries, especially perhaps, on a Sunday in April. Saint-Émilion was, and is I believe, also a stop on the old pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela.

The medieval church is a must-see. It is dedicated to the saint (8th century, I think). It, and many other buildings, typify the solid stone architecture that often marks a successful, economically-viable French village with a long history. It doesn’t hurt either that this one is at the heart of one of the greatest vine-growing regions in the world.

Searching for Gold

Golden Crows

I know this blog is supposed to be about birds, but I haven’t been birding lately. I’ll start again once the migration begins. In the meantime, I’ve been writing about other things. My new article in Norther Beat News is about placer mining. Sticking with the theme – gold – I include a shot of a crow in the golden evening light (mirrored) that I especially like. Sometimes, the light is just right.

Romancing the stone, panning for gold in BC

Jeepers! Honey Creepers

Leaving the present, and terrible, international situation for a bit. Thinking of more pleasant things….

Red-Legged Honey Creeper
Howler Monkey

For us, going to the tropics has been out of the question for the past two years-like a lot of people, I guess. Darn pandemic! We’ve certainly missed those evening breezes coming off the Caribbean, and the smells of Latin-American food being cooked down the beach somewhere. One night, in desperation, we even watched that Jeff Bridges movie from the 80’s, the one shot at Isla Mujeres and Tulum. We ordered in Mexican food, drank a few bottles of Sol, and had fun picking holes in the plot. Still, it’s not quite the same.

At least, I can rummage through my pictures of tropical birds. These are from Costa Rica, from the Cloud Forest at Monte Verde. The more observant reader might notice that not all images are of birds. Well, any port in a mountaintop storm.

Turquoise-browed Motmot

On that trip, V and I spent a few nights at a lodge near the Cloud Forest Reserve. Our driver, on his first run ever, checked google maps, and picked what was likely the worst road in the region to get us there. When we arrived an hour or so after the regular van, we were as well-shaken as a protein drink. Later on, we took a (guided) jungle walk at night, which came complete with tarantulas, little rivers of Leaf-cutter Ants, a ghostly Olingo high in the trees, and sleeping Trogons.

The next night was so windy that we thought the roof of our bungalow was going to blow off. At dinnertime, we huddled in our puffer jackets eating pasta and drinking Red Tapir Ale, thinking fondly of the beach we’d left behind at Playa Hermosa. Our birding tour of the Cloud Forest almost didn’t happen-the guide being afraid that jungle trees might fall on us. In spite of rain and wind, however,we ventured out and ‘got’ our ‘target birds – the Resplendent Quetzal and one of the loudest birds in the world, the Three-Wattled Bellbird (hard to see, but easy to hear).

Violet-eared Emerald
Hoffmann’s Woodpecker
Yellowish Flycatcher
Resplendent Quetzal
Blue-gray Tanager
Three-wattled Bellbird
Red Tapir Ale
Cloud Forest Day

Cloud Forest Night

Memories of Oaxaca

Crested Caracara

The Dancing Men

****************

They have faded into the valleys,

Those Kings who sipped

the thin mountain air

like gods.

Only we, the

Dancing Men remain in the high city,

waiting, waiting

for our own Gods to release us.

Prisoners still, we linger

on these misty pathways above the clouds.

MC 2001/2022

*The Dancing Men are 300 or so stone carvings of captives at the ancient Zapotec city of Monte Alban. Most look contorted, as if tortured and mutilated, and are thought to represent captives, most likely of high rank. Unfortunately, I can’t find the pictures I took of them.

Finally!

I’ve spent a lot of time searching for the Glaucous Gull. This Arctic visitor shows up on the west coast semi-regularly, but I just could never seem to, as Owen Wilson says in The Big Year “nail that sucker.” And I’ve really tried, really tried. I’ve gone to windswept Oregon beaches in January, landfills in March, Goldstream River with its spawned-out salmon lots of times. I followed up every report, within reason. I even spent the better part of a day at a sewage lagoon in Duncan, afraid to leave, but punished for staying, if you know what I mean. My reference picture might have been part of the problem–it’s possible.

Glaucous Gull (reference)

In any case, I finally caught up with the culprit at Goldstream, the place where I had tried so many times before. indeed, the first bird I saw when I pulled up to park was the Glaucous Gull! The river was very high, drowning the more recent remains of spent Chum and Coho, and keeping all gulls close to the picnic area. My young bird was tugging hopefully at an almost bare fish skull, and getting very little sustenance from it, or so it appeared.

I must say that the bird didn’t closely resemble my reference pic except, maybe, for the beak, so I couldn’t really be faulted. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway!

Finding my bird, after so many failed attempts, had a curious effect. The marvellous sense of birding adventure that consumed me when, six of seven years ago, I rejoined the hobby had suddenly returned. I even posted a picture of the subject on my bulletin board! So, although it took awhile – “thanks Pal!”

Glaucous Gull (the real thing)

Garafraxa

Garafraxa

exhales dolomite,

the dusk-deepening, stone breaths

of this steel-hard species of limestone,

where

Hart’s Tongue and rare orchids

survive in the cracks and crevices

of coral reefs marooned,

ages and ages past.

Of pre-things left behind

Now,

dampened under northern light,

and broken by northern ice.

I’ve seen limestone in other places,

hotter places,

where the rock

blazes white beneath the sun.

Pharaohs used to plate their tombs with limestone

pyramids made white-bright with limestone

you could go blind from that limestone;

no one ever went blind from dolomite.

The Garafraxa Road loops over the old reefs,

a ragged ridge of tomb-grey skeletons,

once swarming stuff

that hated winter and hated ice

waiting, without patience, until the poles move

little by little,

hoping,

perhaps, that

when all of us are gone,

the warm oceans will return

to drown these fields

where, for a hundred years,

farmers’ children stooped a thousand, million times

to fill stone boats,

to build stone fences,

around their Garafraxa farms.

I had a friend once, killed by dolomite.

He fell, and a great squared tower stone

fell after him, and crushed him.

In those casual days

such things happened more often,

Towers built by forgotten men

to burn rock

into lime,

abandoned,

square towers made of blocks

of dolomite,

all loosened through age,

standing like castles.

Richard, climbing there in the evening, alone.

His father tied him to a wide plank, I heard,

and, harnessed to it, dragged his son home

desperate against death, long ago.

Afterwards,

stonemasons took those towers down

to save other boys from falling

the fatal blocks cut up and used,

no doubt,

for tombstones,

in the cemeteries,

along the Garafraxa Road.

MC 2021