"Are you all on your own, then?"

The proprietess in Kenmare, an entrance and exit point to the Ring of Kerry, asked me directly, "Are you all on your own, then?" Well, "yes." Usually, the question went unspoken.

Abandoning hope that the sun would come out, I left Glendalough and drove the short thirty miles to Dublin and somehow managed to bring the car into Ranelagh in South Dublin where I'm staying again at Marie MacMahon's. It feels like a month has gone by since I was last in Dublin.

Major accomplishments in Ireland:
I didn't book the first flight home the day the hubcap fell off.
I didn't get killed on the road. Large block-letter roadside signs in every county say something like this: "142 people killed on County Cork roads in the last 4 years." Terribly reassuring.
In addition to my life, I'm returning with all my limbs. Only minor feet blisters, and those are from France.
I've lost no money or important documents; only a ring.
Today, I have the thought that mythic pilgrimages always come with obstacles, otherwise they're not mythic. Perhaps this visit to Ireland has been a mythic pilgrimage of a kind. My car, my lame horse. The rain, rivers to ford. The back country roads, the pathless wood.

Although, I'm not home yet. Ahead of me is the 7:00 drive tomorrow morning to Dublin Airport, where I must face the Avis tribunal. And then, having made it to the airport and having received my rental-car punishment, as long as I don't lose my passport and driver's license, I board Air Canada for points across the Atlantic.

County Kerry to County Wicklow

Yesterday, wearing two wool sweaters, I drove the whole day in the rain from Kenmare in County Kerry to Cork to Waterford and then up to the tiny village of Glendalough in the Wicklow Mountains. The radio reported flash flooding in Dublin. I arrived in Glendalough early enough to knock on three doors before finding a B&B with an available room. My window opened to a backyard of trees and the sound of a roaring river. The proprietess, Ingrid, single mother of three young boys, said worry existed about the river rising even higher. This morning, as some of us stood outside under umbrellas, the tour guide said, "We're used to rain, you know, but soft rain, not these torrential rains; it's scary."

Curtains of blowing rain hid most of the wild hills and two deep lakes of Glendalough, nickname the "garden of Ireland." In addition to Dingle, this would be the other place I would want to return to in Ireland, when the sun is shining, to hike the 127 km Wicklow Way, which is the oldest marked hiking trail in Ireland. Staying at the B&B were two couples from Holland who were taking three days, in rain gear and all, to hike it. They seemed ecstatic. I know that feeling, when you're really out there touching the wild.

What I did get to see at Glendalough were remnants of a monastic settlement and pilgrimage site going back to the sixth century, including an impressive 100-foot tall, intact stone tower. In the ruins of the stone church was a 1789 carved gravestone for a Kehoe, my mother's maiden name. Glendalough is the only ancient monastic settlement whose entrance gate still stands. Directly inside is the sanctuary stone, a large boulder marked with an ancient cross, to signify that all who enter are now under the abbot's authority and not the king's. Sinners and criminals would come to seek refuge and forgiveness. Pilgrims who couldn't make it to room would do their best to make it to places like Glendalough, more than once, in the hopes of insuring their entry into heaven. Rain water contained in hollowed out stones was said to be curative, especially for the face. I was the only one in our group who cupped the water in my hands and splashed my face.

I had my usual Irish breakfast this morning: muelsli, brown bread, and hot tea.

From Dingle to Killarney to Kenmare

I changed my mind about driving the 120-mile Ring of Kerry today. Nothing could be more beautiful than Dingle. (The two nights in Dingle were a rest I needed.) So I planned an easier day of driving, ending up in the little town of Kenmare (population 2,672) as originally planned. The church steeple just rang 4 pm. I'm staying right in town in Hawthorn House, probably the best B&B since I've been on the road. Only a spot of rain today, so the drive out of Dingle was magnificent, with views of the Ring of Kerry all along the way. Instead of the Ring, I drove about 30 miles north to Killarney and then drove down through the Killarney National Park, which is forested and mossy with all forty shades of Irish green. Freshwater lakes. Waterfalls. [Note to Colleen: I got over my prejudice about the English having owned the Muckross Estate and visited the house. Mary O'Neil, my Dingle connection, explained how the entire estate of 11,000 acres had been donated to the Irish government, so that made me feel better about stepping across the threshold of Muckross House. First time I've been in a manor house with a literal upstairs/downstairs.]

After checking into the B&B, I walked the town and found signs to a prehistoric stone circle, as it turns out, the biggest of its kind in southwest Ireland. It's tucked up a tiny Kenmare Street. Three beautiful horses were grazing alongside.

PS Dingle

Stephen, the B&B proprietor's son, talked to me about "blow-in's," people who come to visit Dingle and end up staying. I told him I might be a "blow-back-in." The population is only 1,828; just about the right size for me.

Writing yesterday, I omitted having learned about an island off the far western tip of the peninsula, Great Blasket Island, which was a completely Gaelic-speaking island for 300 years until, having dwindled to twenty residents, they were forced to evacuate in 1953. What has made the residents' story so compelling is that a half-dozen or so Blasket Islanders became writers. Scholars visited the hardscrabble island to study the language and to meet these native writers. Ultimately, much of their work, largely autobiographical, some letters, were translated into English and are available now in print. Standing within sight of the island, a remarkable center has been built in homage to its former residents and to the Irish language.

Dingle (An Daingean)

I woke up this morning to the dramatic sounds of wind and rain. I just stayed in my B&B bed for a while listening. At breakfast downstairs, I discovered that I am the sole occupant of Mary O'Neill's B&B at the moment; I also have Room 1, which was my room number in the Doolin B&B as well. (Is this a pattern I see?) So Mary's son Stephen did the honors of serving breakfast to the only guest. (The first two weeks of September are slow for Dingle; so I've come at a very good time.) By late morning the rain hadn't let up, so I decided to explore the peninsula anyway and take my chances. [Interruption: the sun just broke through, it's early evening.] So I walked to my awaiting little car and discover that the right front tire is nearly flat; also the power steering light is back on. No panic, no problem. I knew the wherabouts of Dingle's petrol station, took myself directly there, and put air in the tire. While doing so, I noticed that in addition to the tire's hubcap being gone, the rim is dented. Oh, no. Avis will ruin my life for sure. "I can't go on, I go on." I went on. I knew there was a good chance the "PS" light would turn off, which it did. So at least one of the wrong things was partially right. Am I visiting Ireland or am I having a relationship with a car?

(Regarding the matter of driving in Ireland, I've quickly discovered that it's an issue for locals as well. Eamonn, my hero at the petrol station in Doolin, told me he'd lost three cars on Ireland's roads! I braved the peninsula's back roads last night to go to a nearby tiny village for an AA meeting, which consisted of four men and myself. The men assured me that having the entire left side of your car scratched and mutiliated from hedges and such is quite routine.)

As I was saying, despite the rain, despite the car, I went on and drove a thirty-mile loop around the very end of Dingle Peninsula, which is the most westerly point in Europe. This is a place of the most extraordinary beauty, rolling hills and valleys, a mountainous spine running down the center, offshore islands, a view across Dingle Bay to the Ring of Kerry, a four-mile long beach, ocean and bay surrounding the peninsula on three sides; a powerful coming together of wild and tame, sparkling and misty, soft and ragged, the ancient lands and the forever newborn green. I'm told there are 500,000 sheep here; 2,000 prehistoric stone monuments, ruins, and remnants of monastic settlements; and 10,000 people. (Before the famine, the human population was 40,000.) I could live here. Two bookstores in Dingle. The locals' faces look calm. Out on the western end of the peninsula today, I saw a woman walking with her child and dog and she was wearing the warmest of smiles.

From Doolin to Dingle

Ireland, both coasts as it turns out, has had a summer of almost constant rain. Fortunately, driving from Doolin to Dingle, there were cloudbursts mixed equally with sunbursts, although the downpours were severe enough that even the windshield wipers of my little car cowered. Speaking of the car again, when I turned on the ignition ready to leave Doonmacfelim House that morning, the "PS" light for power steering malfunction was on. Oh, no. First a hubcap. Now, the power steering. I made my way a mile up Doolin Hill to the "petrol station," where Eamoon not only filled the gas tank but checked all the car's fluids. Plenty of power steering fluid. He started the car and, voila, the red light had gone off. Eamonn wasn't an employee of the petrol station; just a kind Doolin stranger hanging out at the one and only petrol station in town. The kindness of strangers is Ireland is the singlemost important reason I've been able to navigate in any way whatsover in this country.

Just a few miles south of Doolin are the famous Cliffs of Moher. Again, no tour buses, just a few of us diehards willing to brave the rain and headwinds with water-repellant jackets and umbrellas. I decided to obey the stark danger signs and venture no further than what was recommended. My physical luck hasn't been feeling at its strongest on this three-week trip. So I just took in these iconic cliffs with my own eyes and in my own time. Again, just two miles south of the Cliffs of Moher was my next important stop: Saint Brigid's holy well. Another place I've longed to see for many years. Brigid, at one time, was actually co-equal with Patrick in her importance in Ireland's early Christianity. They were the twin pillars holding up the Catholic Church here. (Before the actual Brigid, there was the Irish Brigid of myth as well.) As it turned out, her holy well was just alongside the coast road, well-marked, and with space to pull-over and park. The well, with running water, is embedded in a kind of limestone alcove, full of pilgrim's mementoes, statues, rosary beads, memorial cards, notes, handkerchiefs. I added small flower buds for each member of my family and other loved ones. I touched my forehead to the ground.

From Saint Brigid's well, to get to Dingle on the Dingle Peninisula in the far southwest of the country, I drove through towns like Liscannor, Mullagh, Kilrush, Killimer, Listowel, and Tralee. At Killimer I took the ttwenty-minute Shannon car ferry across a small bay which saved 86 miles of driving. A good thing, even though at this point, the driving was going a whole lot better than the day before. The car still felt like it was made of bone china, but I was getting used to it. I only got lost once and only had to knock on three doors. The route from Doolin to Dingle was still narrow two-laned, but mostly two lanes that could reasonably fit two small cars passing each other.

I arrived in Dingle yesterday at 2:30 pm, so early I was kind of in shock to be here so early before sunset. Here I'm staying at O'Neill's at the "quiet end" of Main Street, a two-story B&B run by Mary O'Neill and her son Stephen, with a holy water fountain at the inside front door. My room overlooks the street and has a window box which made me fall in love with it immediately. In fact, I think I'm in love with Dingle and the Dingle Peninsula. This may be the most beautiful place I have ever seen. More to follow.

PS Doolin

Buses. I forgot to mention the buses - the huge, top-heavy tourist buses. Like the trucks, these behemoths also bully and barrel their way down the secondary country roads here. I've also seen the occasional cyclist or exercise walker at imminent risk of becoming road kill. I felt, myself, as if I were facing execution, either by
truck, bus, or other car; or, if not that, by Avis upon the return of their battered vehicle. But that's all behind me now. Right?

In the aftermath of my harrowing day on the road, I didn't do justice to Newgrange. I've been drawn to Newgrange since first reading about it twenty-five years ago. Thirty miles north of Dublin, in County Meath, Newgrange is a large grassy mound constructed on a high hill overlooking the meandering and peaceful Boyne River, a 5,000 year-old sacred mound of carefully constructed stone whose neolithic spiritual function is speculated to have been as a passage tomb. Newgrange is older than its cousin in England, Stonehenge, and even older than the Pyramids in Egypt. The stone chamber inside the soft grassy mound is so perfectly designed that not a drop of water has entered the chamber in all these fifty centuries - and these are stones fitted together without mortar. I made a point to arrive as early as I could get there with the intention of missing the tour buses. I did even better than I thought. I was the only one there for the first shuttle to the site. In fact, the young Irish man operating the shuttles softly pleaded with me to wait an hour for the next bus when there would be more people. I almost folded and then remembered my ambitious plan for the rest of the day. I respectfully said it was okay with me that I be the single person on the tour. Several minutes later, a Dutch couple arrived, so then there were only three of us. As close to a private tour of Newgrange as one can get. Our guide took us into the chamber. As directed by her, I placed my cheek on the chamber floor and looked toward the opening through which the sun enters the chamber for seventeen minutes on winter solstice. The narrow stone corridor into the chamber is shaped in an "S." One can't imagine how the sun could enter the chamber, at any time of year. But here was a perfect opening, only able to be seen by the human eye from a particular spot on the chamber bottom.

It was after Newgrange that I got lost, but I've already covered all of that. On my twisted way to Doolin, I drove through the towns of Trim, Athlone, Ballinasloe, Lisdoonvarna, and then Kinvara, Burren, and Ballyvaughan on the southern side of Galway Bay.

Doolin surprised me: Remote, windswept, on the edge of the Atlantic, with a wild feel about it but with green rolling hills on which grazed horses and cattle. In County Clare, population 200. Pubs known for their traditional Irish music. I stayed at Frank Maloney's Doonmacfelim House and had a great breakfast. (Breakfast has become my main meal since I've been in Ireland.) I didn't meet Frank until the morning. "Are you Frank Maloney?" I said. "Is it good news or bad news?" he fired back with a grin.

Doolin

The sun's about to go down. I just arrived in the pastoral village of Doolin, which is on the West Coast and just north of the Cliffs of Moher, where I go tomorrow. Bits of a stone castle stand in the backyard of my B&B. Cows are munching on the edge of the narrow road that's Doolin's main street.

How do you cry on a blog? My day went like this: Up at 6:00 am, catch a bus to the airport, rent a miniature car, find miniature car in the car park, dare to get into the driver's seat which is on the right side, drive on the left side of the M3 freeway to Newgrange, maybe a half hour north of Dublin. (Newgrange might just make the whole Ireland trip worth it. I'm ready to come home.) After Newgrange, get lost looking for the Hill of Tara. Find Tara after stopping to ask for directions; stopping is excruciatingly difficult when country roads have sometimes not even inches of shoulder. As I start up the Hill of Tara, it starts to rain, not the soft kind. After the Hill of Tara, I head east for my next destination, Doolin, and enter into a spiral of lostness. If you add up the hours, I am lost for a large part of the entire day. Once, I even knock on the door of a house alongside the road. Huge trucks, lots of huge trucks, with extra-wide tires terrorize me and miss the miniature car by a hair, over and over, not on the highway, but on the roads with no shoulders. [Interruption: Just now it started to rain, so loud it announced itself, so fierce it's falling in sheets. Maybe it will stop before I have to walk back across the road to my B&B. Maybe not.] The car, minus a hubcap, and I hobble into Doolin. Now I'm going to eat one of the chocolate bars I bought in Geneva.

Special note to Colleen: getting lost meant I got to see the barren Burren.

Dublin

Two days ago, I was walking along the Seine. Yesterday and today, I am walking along the Liffey, the river that figures prominently in the work of James Joyce and, because of that holds a mythic status for me. Like the Seine, the Liffey too has many bridges, including a new one called the James Joyce Bridge designed by the somewhat dazzling Spanish architect Calitrava. I made a point to walk down the quayside to see it today.

Within my first hour of arriving in Ireland, the white-haired Irish gentleman taking bus tickets at the Dublin Airport said softly under his breath, when I expressed concern that he had dispossessed me of the return portion of my round-trip ticket, "We must have hope and faith." Are the fairies trying to give me a message, I wondered? He then handed me my return ticket.

I'm staying at a B&B in South Dublin, a large three-story house with elegant dark-rose walls and a brightly painted yellow door with a shiny brass knocker. Marie MacMahon, the owner, raised her children in this house and I took to her immediately. No doubt that's why I had such a good night's sleep. At breakfast this morning, I met two of the other guests: Nick, who's here to play the tuba for a Dublin orchestra, and Theresa, who shared with me her perspective on the long relationship between Ireland and England. She quoted Cromwell having said this about the Irish: "Go to hell or to Connaught," the rocky west coast soil of Connaught offering little hope at that time. (Cromwell is decidedly not popular in Ireland.)
For breakfast, Marie offered me a "fry," which I believe is a traditional Irish breakfast of eggs, sausage or bacon, and potatos. I opted for muesli, toast with homemade blackcurrant jam, and very good tea. (Marie was careful to credit her sister for the jam.)

Ireland speaks of its "soft rain." Well, it was softly raining this morning, so I was glad I had packed an umbrella, in spite of the added weight. To get to Dublin center from the house, it's either a fifteen or twenty minute walk or you can take a bus that stops just up the block. I've already done both. Yesterday, I was a bit lost making my way back home on foot when an Irish fellow on a mountain bike came to my rescue. Daniel Curran. We had a cup of tea and then took a walk along a nearby canal, before he walked me home. I told him Daniel was my father and brother's name and that Curran is the last name of one of my best friends. He gave me his phone number.

It's the end of the day now. I'm sitting in an Internet Cafe with a dozen other people tapping away on the keys just like I am. (The keyboard is back to normal, at least my version of normal.) Just like in Paris, I've been walking all day: A historical walking tour that started and ended at Trinity College, and then a different kind of tour at Kilmainham Gaol where twelve leaders of the Easter Rising were executed. Bullet marks from the struggle are still evident in the columns in front of Dublin's main post office, which served as the headquarters for the men fighting for freedom from English rule. From beginning to end, today has been deeply moving and satisfying for me.

Early tomorrow morning, I'm launching myself into the countryside and driving from the east to the west coast. May the fairies be with me.

PS France

This morning, Scott and I watched the sunrise from the car as we drove to the Beauvais airport, where I caught a RyanAir flight to Dublin. So here I am sitting in an internet cafe on Dublin's famous O'Connell Street, named after the Irish revolutionary Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847), because there's a loose end from France that needs tying up: our two days in the Loire Valley. We visited two of the grandest chateau, including Chambord - I learned the meaning of a castle "keep." The whole group of us - Scott, Christine, Mathieu, Alexandre, and me - then accepted the dinner invitation of a formidable and beautiful restauranteur named Birgitte, whose very special restaurant called La Marine in a small village and secreted under a stand of trees alongside a canal of the Loire River. We ate better than kings and queens, all seven of us, including Birgitte and her most lovely daughter Diane (pronounced "dee-ON") who joined us. Birgitte's younger daughter Fanny had stayed with me for a week in Santa Monica this summer, and this sumptious feast was Birgitte's abundant thank you. I had Mignons of Pork with champignons. We were also invited to spend the night, as Birgitte is also becoming a hotelier as well as restaurant owner. My rooms were an apartment adjacent to the restaurant; I slept in a canopied bed with the river canal outside the window. Everyone else stayed at Birgitte's remarkable 17th century couvent (convent), one wing of which she has transformed into her home, the other which she is transforming into a series of apartments. Between the two wings stands a chapel and a clock tower. The entrance sign reads: "Monastere de la Visitation Sainte Mare de la Bretauche - La Chapelle et les Parloirs." The convent was once the property of the chateau next door and still standing. We spent a magical night, morning at breakfast on a huge old country table, and ended up staying the rest of that next day, Alexandre and I braving the cold water of the swimming pool. We tore ourselves away from Birgitte before the sun went down and drove back to Paris and Epinay. I will never forget this part of my trip, ever. Also Birgitte could use a housekeeper or someone to fill in when she's on vacation. Hmmmm. My internet cafe hour is up. Now I must return to Dublin.

My final entry from France

Time has just about run out. I'm back from my last day in Paris, which I spent mostly at the Musée D'Orsay and later, with Scott, at Montmartre, the highest spot in Paris and perhaps for me the sweetest spot yet. A Catholic mass was in progress in Montmartre's Sacre Coeur, another towering cathedral, and I remembered that a mass was also being said in Notre Dame on my very first day. It's now 8 pm. Scott's preparing a barbecue and we're going to celebrate Mathieu's twentieth birthday a few days early.

I've written only a small fraction of my experiences and impressions. About Paris, in general, it's been so much about the deep past for me. Maybe that's because I spent most of my time in the arrondisements along the Seine, in old Paris, classic Paris. With every footfall on cobblestone, I felt like I was stepping back into the Middle Ages - or stepping on it - a layer of medieval Paris lies buried just beneath the streets of Paris. I walked for miles and miles and pale ghosts of former residents seemed to be walking right alongside me, en masse. The longing to time-travel has been intense. All the ancient stonework; the walls, friezes and gargoyles; narrow streets meant for horses; all of this tugged at me.

I'm not sure I have any other complete sentences left in me tonight. I did just about everything on my wish list and added on a morbid fascination for royal decapitations and executions.

Major accomplishments during my stay: I managed not to fall on the steep, narrow, two-story staircase in Scott's house nor, after the first day, have I hit my head again on the low door leading to my snug aerie on the third floor. I forgot to mention that next door lives a goose whom I can hear through my window - a sound I have enjoyed

Bon nuit.

I take the train to Paris

It seems like a month, rather than a mere week, since I stood on Point Zero across from Notre Dame on my first evening in France. Since then, I've spent three nights in Genéve, Suisse, which I've written about. But before Genéve were two extraordinary days in the Loire Valley, about which I have not yet written. And then there's Paris. Since I just got home from several hours at the Louvre - the Louvre! - I'll resume the Paris part of my story and trust there will be time enough to get back to the Loire. Speaking of the Loire, I have now seen all three of the major rivers in France: the Seine, the Loire, and the Rhone (I saw the Rhone in Genéve), a fact that brings me joy.

On my first full day in France, a Tuesday, I returned to Paris on my own, although Christine was kind enough to walk the few blocks down the street to the Epinay train station with me. My instructions were to get off at the Paris-Austerlitz station, which I did. That's when I got lost, coming out of the station up onto the street and not having a clue in what direction to go. My simple goals were to return to Notre Dame and also to find a bank that would change my dollars into Euros, a completely foreign concept to me. Since I got off the plane at Charles De Gaulle Airport and placed my foot on French soil for the first time, so many firsts have followed: my first French sky, bird, cat, night, morning, boulangerie; my first sleep in France. Last Tuesday was my first experience speaking in French to a stranger on the street, a Parisienne who pointed me in the direction of my destination, La Place St Michel. In spite of following her finger, I ended up in the labrynth of the National Museum of Natural History with mastodons and such. Adjacent was the beautiful Jardin des Plantes where I tried my luck with a wizened French gentleman, for whom I felt an instant affection and who said to me gently, "Ah, St Michel, ce n'est pas prés." Ah, it's not close. So with a gap-toothed smile he told me I needed to get to the river and moved his arms straight and then to the right. Merci, monsieur. One more stop in a Pharmacie where the clerk was not so friendly, and I had my bearings. Once you see the Seine, you pretty much can figure out where you are in Paris. I was heading back to the Left Bank, where my friends had taken me the night before. I spent a long, deeply satisfying time at Notre Dame, as well as at the closeby bookshop Shakespeare and Company, named after the small publishing house of Sylvia Beach, who dared to publish James Joyce's Ulysses, when no one else would. The owner is renowned for rooms stuffed with books, especially the avant garde, and for taking in serious writers. There's still a bed and a writing table upstairs on the second floor reached by a narrow; one-person-at-a-time staircase. Mr Whitman's motto: Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise. The store's stamp reads: Shakespeare and Co Kilometer Zero Paris. I was enthralled.

I'd better shorthand the rest of this day or I'll never finish. And probably the truth is I never will. The longer I'm here, Paris only expands. You can absorb it in chocolate-size bites only. And today I had the strong feeling the city was absorbing me.

After Shakespeare and Co, I found Boulevard St Germain, the heart of what was at one time the literary and artistic center of Paris. Existentialists like Jean Paul Sartre and Camus hung out in this part of the Left Bank. Sartre and his companion Simone de Beauvoir had a regular table at a cafe that's still there and right next door to another cafe with the same history of artists and intellectuals. I read that Alberto Giocometti, a sculptor who inspires me, came here too, as well as the American expatriate "lost generation" of Hemingway. I ended up picnicking solo on a tiny, nondescript square on Boulevard St Germain, directly across from the two cafes. My camera battteries had died, so a friendly clerk sugggested the store Monoprix on the Rue des Rennes, which is perhaps a little like Trader Joe's except that it also sells clothes. I found batteries and bought white peaches and chocolate for my picnic. Only when I found a spot to sit down did I notice the cafes La Flore and Les Deux Magots across the street. Later in the afternoon, a sudden downpour sent everyone without an umbrella scurrying for cover; my Patagonia hoodie kept me dry as I walked the Rue de Rivoli to meet Scott and Christine at an appointed time at a cafe I'd heard serves the thickest and best hot chocolate in Paris. Alas, as it was the end of the day, the chocolate had run out. We stopped at another cafe, me for tea, my friends for hot chocolate anyway. In Paris, tips are already included in one's check (called an "addition"), so when I gave our attractive waiter a little extra he said discreetly, "Mademoiselle, je ne suis pas mariée." Mademoiselle, I am not married.

PS on Mont Blanc

On the day we visited Mont Blanc, that morning at around 3 am, eight climbers were killed in an avalanche on Mont Blanc: three Swiss and five Austrians. In the afternoon,we noticed helicopters flying near the summit and Scott remarked that helicopters are used only for search and rescue. So, we saw them searching.

Mont Blanc

A deep satisfaction derives from a dream come true. On my computer monitor at home in California is a list of mountains I would like to climb. Together with Mt Kilimanjaro, on that list is Mont Blanc - both so far away, unlikely propositions. Yesterday, I touched Mont Blanc; I breathed its pure air; I made eye contact. An aerial tram, one of the highest vertical tramways in the world, carried us 12,600-feet up the south side of the mountain, from the small village of Chamonix to a lesser peak called Aiguille du Midi. We disembarked only 3,000-feet or so beneath the domed summit of Mont Blanc (15,781-feet). Numerous outdoor terraces were ours for two hours, to picnic, to absorb the 360° view of the many surrounding peaks, to commune with Mont Blanc's summit, to soar on its beauty. Snow climbers - Italian, Swiss, French, British - equipped with exotic and colorful mountaineering gear, were heading off from our spot. Climbers already trekking up the side of Mont Blanc looked like ants, as did their tents nestled together below in an encampment in the snow. The weather cooperated to warm us with the sun and to give us an unobstructed view, so clear you could see human tracks on the summit.

Ecstasy. But as life sometimes insists, Ecstasy is often paired with Agony. And so we come to Part II of my Mont Blanc experience.

As we boarded the tram for the ride back down to Chamonix, Scott said, "Anyone interested in getting off at the halfway point and walking down the rest of the way?"

"How long is the hike," I asked. "And how steep?"
"Oh, an hour, and it's not steep, there's a path."

So with enthusiasm, we all gave the nod to the idea, and our party of four set off down the trail - Scott, Christine, Mathieu, and me. About a half hour later, I noticed that the village below seemed no closer. In fact, it looked astonishingly far away. The alpine roofs looked like they were on a distant planet.

"This hike is longer than hour," I said.
"It's two and a half hours," Scott said.
"You're joking."
"No, I saw the sign at the beginning of the trail."

Even though three years ago, I climbed California's Mt Whitney with ease, I hadn't stayed in shape. Oh, what kind of damage might I be in for, I wondered. I slowed down to conserve my feet and legs. An hour into it, the town looked no closer, I stopped to tighten my hiking boots (fortunately, I brought them to France), and I was trailing significantly, with Mathieu in the lead and almost skipping down the hill. My legs, my quadriceps in particular, started turning to jelly and were virtually gone for the final half hour, which turned out to be the steepest part of the descent. Scott offered me his shoulder to lean on and, with his help, I hobbled down to the trail's end and back to horizontal ground.

It turns out we had descended 4,300-feet or so.

I looked back up at the summit, still shining glacier-white, and the agony and the ecstasy became one.

I took a hot bath when we got home and today, though sore, all is well.I will be able to walk the streets of Paris again.

It's midnight and I am writing this from 65 Rue de Petit Vaux, Epinay sur Orge. We drove back from Geneva today, taking a detour through the Burgundy wine region, picnicking in the town of Beaune, much of whose architecture dates back to the 15th century, or even earlier. Centuries-old stone walls that should have crumbled long ago still stand. As Scott said, winemaking goes back as far as the Romans.

Tired, we ate dinner at ten o'clock. So much life is going on, eating at nine or ten is regular in Scott's home, and I've fully adjusted. In fact, I'm the last one up tonight, my job to turn out the lights;

PS from Genéve

Regarding le petit dejeuner, I forgot to mention the orange juice, tea for me, and espresso in beautiful small cups. Regarding all meals, there is no word for this in French, but I have nominated myself the official dishwasher.

We are leaving for an excursion to Mont Blanc in an hour, àpres the petit dejeuner. Mont Blanc, in the Alps, is the highest peak in Western Europe. Am I excited? Oh, indeed.

From Genéve

Yesterday, Scott, Alexandre, Mathieu, and I drove from Epinay to Genéve, a drive of about five hours, mostly on the A6, which is a freeway much like ours in America, but bordered by rolling green farmland, thick forests, and many road-sign images of impressive churches considered to be of some historical or architectural significance. Since arriving in France, I have observed an abundance of Catholic churches, many of them nearly as old as twelfth-century Notre Dame. This morning, walking in the old sector of Genéve, we saw the Catholic Cathedral that was overtaken by the fathers of the Protestant Reformation sometime in the 1600s. The Cathedral's Catholic origins are unmistakable, however, all vaulted ceilings, towering arches, and stained-glass.

Mathieu is Scott's oldest son and my 6'1" godson, who turns twenty in ten days. Alexandre is fourteen,the same age as my godson Joe. In the backseat on the way to Genéve, Mathieu was reading George Orwell and Alexandre William Golding's "The Lord of the Flies," in French, of course. We are staying in the apartment of Scott's long-time girlfriend, Christine, who is remarkable with food: le petit dejeuner, dejeuner, et aussi le diner. Toutes! We've also picnicked a lot, which I love. For those of my readers who want to know more about breakfasts in particular (you know who you are), les petits dejeuners in France are about one thing only: plaisir. This morning, for example, Alexandre had first some pure butter on his fresh bread, and next some softened chocolate. (Chocolate is bounteous here in a way that I have never seen.) A French breakfast table is, above all, colorful, and liable to be filled with fresh long baguettes, toast, croissants, pain du chocolat, brioche, many jars of all sorts of jams, perhaps some red apples, and finally, importantly, butter. The French breakfast celebrates abundance and companionship, forgives and discourages any guilt surrounding food. This has been my experience every morning since I arrived.

My last blog ended with the propitious sign of the full moon rising over Paris. As we drove through the mountains surrounding Genéve in the rain yesterday -- low mountains that Scott called "the pre-Alps" -- a massive rainbow displayed itself across the road. Is my trip blessed, I wondered? Was it also a sign of good fortune that I started my own relationship with Paris at Point Zero?

Before leaving for France, I had read in a guidebook about Point Zero, a spot ill-described but supposedly situated somewhere at Notre Dame andserving as the mark for the exact center of Paris. In centuries past, all measurements to and from Paris used Point Zero as their fulcrum. So, perhaps having a nature that prefers beginning at the beginning, I made note of this Point Zero. What better place to begin? Shortly after arriving, after enjoying my first dejeuner of fresh tomatoes and mozzarella under the arbor in Scott's backyard, he asked me if I'd thought about what I'd like to see in Paris. "Well, there's Point Zero," I said. "Point Zero? What's Point Zero?" he said. Although living in and near Paris for twenty years, Scott had no idea what I was talking about, neither did anyone else sitting at the table. I felt a bit ridiculous. Several hours later, however, in the square at the front of Notre Dame, we suddenly looked down and spotted an age-polished, large, round plaque with the barely legible letters spelling Point Zero. I had arrived.

Bonjour, ma famille et mes amies

I'm writing from my friend Scott's house - a very old, stone French countryhouse, small but with three stories. My room is on the top floor; its door is so low I spent the first few days bumping my head. I would have written before now, but I was having trouble with the blog and also having to get used to a different keyboard. On the French keyboard, for example, both the comma and period are not where an American typist would expect; neither is "a" or "m" nor many more letters. So my typing is quite slow. I'm hoping to finish something before we leave for Geneva, which will be soon. I'm staying in the village of Epinay Sur Orge (the Orge is a river that flows into the Seine). The village may be small, but has two boulangeries and its own Post Office. I've already been to the boulangerie this morning for two long baguettes and a half-dozen croissants. Everyone you see in the morning is carrying a baguette, and in the afternoon baguettes are ever-present too. Alexandre, Scott's 14-year-old son, showed me the correct way, the "French way," to carry a baguette: horizontally and at your side.

Epinay is a twenty-minute ride by car to Paris; Epinay also has its own train station with trains going straight into Paris. I arrived at Charles De Gaulle Airport at around 1:00 pm (13:00 French time) and by 5:00 I was standing in front of Notre Dame. No building I have ever seen comes close to the massive size, majesty, or creative imagination of Notre Dame. The hundreds of gargoyles and the brooding bell tower, where Victor Hugo's hunchback lived, particularly held me rapt, thrilled even. Scott, his girlfriend Christine, and I were fortunate: there were no lines to enter the Cathedral, and so we easily got inside, where a Mass was in progress, spoken in French, of course, and with music. I vowed to go back by myself the next day, which I did, to stare again at this phenomenon. After Notre Dame, we walked the narrow cobblestone streets of the Left Bank for an hour or so (perhaps more to come later on the Left Bank) and then had a picnic of cheese and bread sitting on the bank of the Seine. I have to say that to be sitting there on the Seine, within sight of the Tour Eiffel, watching my first sunset in France, felt unreal and very real at the same time.

Before heading home, Scott took me on a night-time tour of Paris. We drove down the Champs-Elysée, around the Arc de Triomph, and got out at the Tour Eiffel all lit up in blue to commemorate France being President of the European Union at the moment. Normally, the Eiffel Tour is lit with golden lights at night like the rest of Paris. A still-yellow full moon was rising, big and glorious. I do not exaggerate.