Springtime in Paris

I am in a reminiscing mood today.

Sparked off by an Ella Fitzgerald singing April In Paris on the MP3 player and an early morning sms from KH in Paris. Says he is looking at the Eiffel Tower, all lit up at night and it is beautiful. He had just finished the river cruise on the Seine and all around are lovers and young people. He wishes I were there. Heh.

So do I pal. So do I!! :-)

The last time I saw the Eiffel Tower all lit up in gold and yellow was from the roof window of our tiny hotel room in a street just off the Champ de Mars. It was so close you could reach out and touch it. I remember a full white moon peeking past it.

Back then, we were on the last leg of our five-week tour through Europe. We had gone through England, Holland, France, Italy and Switzerland, blowing the better part of some $12k I saved while he was in uni.

We drove through Europe at a time when the mainstream was signing up with Chan Bros after graduation. What a trip. We stayed in pensions and no-star tiny hotels with rickety stairs (in Amsterdam, due to space constraint, the stairs were so vertical they were more like ladders!), no lifts, saggy beds and no loo attached. We ate bread (toast or croissants being the norm. The best and unforgettable bread being the rolls fresh from the oven in a Sorrento hotel overlooking Capri) , lots of pizza and pasta, lots of pate and more bread. But we also fell in love with confit du canard on that trip.

My favourite scenes and places:

1) driving through pastoral France. The road would wind and wend and suddenly you'd find yourself right in the middle of a tiny village. And yet, no matter how tiny, each village had its own church and what huge, hulking stone beauties these were - usually romanesque constructions that were so timeless. Before this, all I knew of church was Risen Christ in Toa Payoh!

2) Mont St Michel rising out of the sea where we stayed the night. Where I spoke my first complete conversation in French - and was actually understood! KH was very impressed. Heck, I even impressed myself! :-)

3) the lovely Cinque Terra town of Vernazza in the evening. Nothing like sitting on the parapet of the ruined castle, with the blue Med turning gold. And that was where Gillian was conceived. Hence Vernazza being part of her name.

4) Sorrento in the worn Lorely et Londres Hotel. Our room came with white sheets, terazzo floors, french doors and a huge terrace that opened out to a view of the Bay of Naples, Vesuvius and Capri - and surrounded by lemon groves! And two years later when we went back to the hotel with little Gillian, the old man sitting on the bench still remembered us - we had great parma ham with melons there too.

5) Attending mass in St Peter's Square with Pope John Paull II saying mass. Yeah, he was a speck in the distance, but how can you beat having mass with thousands of pilgrims, from different cultures and creeds all over the world, all speaking different languages, in one place and yet feeling like you've come home? This is what Catholicism - the Universal church - meant.

6) Venice by moonlight. St Mark's Square turns magical at night with three orchestras taking turns to strike up the music. You could sit at a cafe and pay a bomb, but we were poor tourists lah. We just stood around the near empty square and lapped up the free music and the romantic atmosphere. In the day, the place is so packed with tourists and pigeons but at night, so empty that you could practically have the whole place to yourself.

7) Staying in the Alma Domus in Siena. Cheap, good and run by the fiercest nuns you ever met! Our room, S$60, had a tiled floor, wrought iron bed, attached shower (a rarity in Europe for this price!) and a tiny balcony. But the view was stupendous! We faced the awesome striped Duomo which was lit at night - it will just take your breath away. And in Siena, it was memorable to slurp a gelato in the brick-laid fan-shaped Campo in the sun and after that, a great carbonara in a restaurant nearby. Of course I had the midnight runs after that but it was worth it!!

8) Assisi in the evening. When the fields turn to gold.

9) Luging in Chamonix. And sitting in a teeny cable car, chugging Coke, nothing but snow below and sky above, as the teeny cable car slowly pulled its way from the Aiguille du Midi in Chamonix to Italy and back. The giant glacier lay beneath and all around were the tallest peaks of the Alps, including Mont Blanc.

9) Being chased by an irate Frenchman who demanded our passports after we sneaked into a hotel, used the loo and went out the back way. How were we to know that pushing the emergency exit door would trigger an alarm?? We had to bluster our way out of that one. And honestly I don't know why we just didn't ask for permission - would have saved us the stress!

10) Meeting and making Singaporean friends in EuroDisney. Somehow we all just clicked! They smuggled bread from the sumptuous buffet at the Disney hotel for us every morning! And when we left, all four of us, with luggage etc, crammed into our Renault Twingo and zoomed down the highway to Paris! Our friends were 'richer', so they stayed in a swish hotel off the Rue de Faubourg on the Right Bank. Their room came with a marble bathroom, four poster bed, snotty receptionists. Our room on the Left Bank had no window, save the one in the roof, a wonky tv and no toilet - down the hall! But we had a great time seeing Paris together. It was sad to part when the time came.

What great memories!

Now with the Euro at 2:1, going to Europe will be extremely expensive. So I am glad we went back then. Now at least can reminisce. I do want to go back to Europe one day though. Meanwhile, I content myself by just reading guidebooks, travelogues and surfing the net. Salivating all the way...