The Seine at sundown with the Eiffel Tower in the background
One of the biggest arguments I ever got into in my life so far was over Paris. It was in the days when I was still a lowly cubicle jockey at a Chicago publishing company and was daily plotting my escape from the 9-5 grind. I was eyeing France as my preferred country of rescue. I had in mind this idea to go to Paris for a few months, improve my French, find some simple paid-under-the-table work like dishwashing or cleaning or even teaching English, live on a diet of croissants and pastries, hang out at Shakespeare & Co. and write some classically bad expatriate poetry...
Shakespeare & Co. bookstore in Paris
If I couldn't find any work, I had some savings I could fall back on--but for how long I didn't know. I needed to work the practicalities of this idea out first and find out how much it costs to rent a small, simple, furnished room in Paris for 3 months or so. And while I'm looking into it, I thought I'd better find out more about Paris' neighborhoods, like which ones might not be safe, especially for a foreign woman on her own.
In Paris on my own. Frenchmen sure like to show off around young ladies!
I decided to turn to the Internet--every advice-seeking girl's best friend. I posted the questions I had about cost and safe neighborhoods in the forum of a major travel site. The firestorm my innocent questions set off still baffles me to this day--and opened my eyes to the truly warped perception even people who should know better have of the single female traveler.
My post got a few normal, straightforward replies at first--from both male and female respondents. Then some guy inexplicably posted a response suggesting I must be seeking casual flings in Paris. I ignored his comment at first, recognizing him as a troll. Another male commenter came to my defense, demanding the troll explain himself, while a couple female commenters expressed the very same bafflement I felt. The troll persisted however, and I finally replied with a sarcastic comment that he must read a lot of romance novels to think such a thing. Another male commenter (who claimed he lived in Paris for decades) jumped in backing up the troll--why, I'll never know--claiming my original inquiries had something suspicious about them. It got ugly from there--real ugly. I'm your classic nice girl--soft-spoken and often too sweet for my own good--but I don't take such accusations quietly.
A picture of me in front of the notorious Moulin Rouge cabaret in Montmartre. Does this make me a suspicious female, or just a typical tourist?
The troll backed off and apologized; his Paris-living ally only grudgingly relented after a number of other commenters got through to him that he was way off in his interpretation of my questions. Meanwhile, a Scotsman on the forum sent me a private message with the subject line "Pay no attention to those morons" and gave me a tip about a work exchange website called HelpX that I might find useful. (Indeed I did, for France as well as Australia. The one good thing that came out of the forum fiasco.) I can laugh about the brouhaha now, even if I still don't understand it.
What did I do wrong after all? I just wanted to spend some time in Paris, a city I'd been to once before and wanted to experience more meaningfully. And I just wanted to know how much it would cost me...and assurance I'd be safe.
Dark and scary passageway. ;-) Taken from the Louvre.
Courtyard of the Louvre
At the Louvre
The answer is nothing. I did nothing wrong--nothing that anyone else planning on visiting another country or even another city for an extended time wouldn't do. And certainly nothing that any other woman wouldn't do. Yet somehow my questions exposed a couple ugly stereotypes about women travelers and women in general. The troll made his initial comment based on his assumption that any single woman who travels to a city like Paris, known for romance, must be doing it for the sole purpose of finding romance herself. It never occurred to him I might want to go there for the art and architecture, the food, the language, or just the sake of getting out of town and experiencing another culture. Maybe he believes only men do stuff like that, or couples. And maybe his assumption had nothing to do with my choice of Paris or France--maybe he believes women travelers are on the hunt for men or sex no matter where they go--Paris, Peru, Tunisia, Tanzania, Beijing, Borneo.... I sincerely hope he doesn't believe that though--he'd be way off.
St. Michael the Archangel sculpture at the Place Saint-Michel. Believe it or not, women tourists are actually interested in monuments like this.
The Arc de Triomphe. Chicks like this stuff too.
It's not that some women don't travel for romance--because of course some women do. And it's not that there's anything wrong with that reason either--hey, get it how you can, ladies, get it how you can. It's just that there was no suggestion of it in my questions on the forum board, and there was no reason for the troll to make the suggestion, much less in an accusing manner.
As for the other guy, the one who demanded I explain my motives, I guessed he thought he was only defending the reputation of his beloved Paris, though my question about safety was a standard question for any female traveler, regardless of destination. But there are still men who remain oblivious to this concern--or worse, suspicious of it. Some men (and unfortunately even some women) think that if a woman voices a concern or complaint about her safety, then she must be doing (or planning on doing) something to provoke danger. In short, she must be asking for it.
My response to anyone who believes such sexist nonsense is this: No.
Sculpture inside L'Arc de Triomphe...saying "No."
If women who travel express concern about safety while abroad, the very simple and obvious reason is that experience has taught them to be aware and be careful. Including when in Paris. And in my own experience, definitely when in Paris.
My experience as a woman traveling alone in Paris has been that some Parisian men (notice I say some--not all or even most) do nothing to quell the "French lover" stereotype in their interactions with foreign women. In fact, some even seem to embrace it. There were days in Paris when I felt like I was trapped in a Pepe Le Pew cartoon.
For example, that first picture at the top of this post? The one of the River Seine? That was taken just a minute before a young man (admittedly, a very nice one) on the pont approached me and tried to get me to agree to meet him later that evening. The third picture, the one of me in a purple dress standing in front of a statue in the Tuileries? That one was taken a few minutes after another man came up to me with the opening line, "Je vous trouve très charmante" (Really? You just met me!), and then offered to take me somewhere to talk over a glass of wine. One of my numerous visits to Notre Dame was a bit marred by a man who stopped to ask me the time (another popular pick-up approach in Paris) and then sat down next to me (I had sat down outside the cathedral trying to fix my camera) to talk about American girlfriends. He didn't look too happy when I excused myself to take a picture of some statue of a guy on a horse, this picture actually:
In front of Notre Dame. I have no idea who this is on the horse, but he was a helluva lot more interesting to me than the guy harassing me.
Notre Dame Cathedral.
Detail of sculpture on front exterior of Notre Dame--also more interesting to me than the guy harassing me.
Those incidents all occurred on my 2nd visit to Paris, when I had a better sense of how to handle such situations--with a gracious smile and a polite "non, merci." My first visit I had been less prepared. One of my less cherished memories of that first visit includes a very unnerving afternoon I spent at the Jardin du Luxembourg, just down the street from my hotel and where I had gone with the idea of writing out some postcards. Within minutes of sitting down in a quiet spot, I moved to a more crowded section of the park after an older, mustached man in a green suit suddenly came up to me and tried whispering in my ear. Not long after sitting in my new spot, another man came along and said hello, then chastised me for ignoring him. After a third man came along, an immigrant from Mali, and tried to get me to tell him which hotel I was staying at, I just got up and left. I ended up writing my postcards in my hotel room.
View from my hotel room--the Hotel de Suez, nice, safe, reasonable, and convenient...
...And the room comes with a real French bidet. Yes I took a picture of it, and yes I'm putting it on my blog. It's my blog and I'll do what I want.
To make one thing clear, I don't think all these incidents kept happening because I'm so amazingly hot or anything. I think they kept happening because I was a foreign woman and alone. To be female, foreign, and alone is a triple dose of vulnerability anywhere in the world. And there are men out there who go after solo female travelers, sometimes even regardless of their age or appearance, because they think we're an easier target. In Paris I suppose some men play up the French lover stereotype in hopes of attracting a living stereotype of the lonely lady looking for love in one of the world's most romantic cities.
Dealing with wanna-be romeos was actually just one of the awkward things about being a woman on your own in Paris. Another was dress and style. Women in Paris are indeed stylish looking, some without even appearing to put any effort into it. French women in general seem to dress up more and dress more feminine than women in America. I knew I couldn't pass for French but I also didn't want to look like a typical tourist or slob. So I wore mostly dresses and skirts while sightseeing in Paris. But when I wore a sundress on a hot Feast of the Assumption day to the Sacré-Coeur Basilica in Montmartre, I was interrupted in my prayers by an usher who told me I would have to cover up or leave. (For the record, I did neither. I stayed where I was until I finished praying. I remember being especially annoyed because there were 2 men sitting in a pew near me dressed in sloppy, sweat-stained t-shirts and what looked like boxer shorts, talking away as if they were on a park bench, and the usher hadn't said a word to them.)
Sacre-Coeur Basilica, the church my sundress scandalized.
There is also the awkwardness of being a woman alone and not particularly looking for romance in a city known for romance. My first time in Paris was in April. April in Paris. Let me tell ya, it is everything it's supposed to be--less crowded, fresh-smelling, with colorful flowers and trees in bloom everywhere. Also honeymooners--honeymooners everywhere. After a trip up the Eiffel Tower, I bought a ticket for a boat ride on the Seine. I had been advised by my father's friend Louis to take the boat at sunset or at night, when all the lights would be on along the river. And he was right--it made for a very pretty excursion. Pretty and awkwardly romantic.
Directly ahead of me in line getting on the boat were two honeymoon couples, one still in their wedding clothes. They were all aglow and giggling, swopping wedding-site stories, while I lurked behind them, a quiet and lonesome spinster. Once on the boat, each and every rider was directed to a corner where a photographer would take your picture and try to sell it to you later, before you were allowed to go find a seat. I appeared to be the only lone rider on this boat--everyone else was with a group or a friend or partner. When it was my turn to step up the camera, the photographer looked over my head as if wondering where the rest of my party were. "I'm alone," I announced. "Je suis seule." "Elle est seule, elle est seule!" the ticket taker shouted at the photographer repeatedly and shrugged his shoulders at him. The photographer looked annoyed, then impatiently waved me on--waved me on past his camera. There was no point wasting a photo on just me. (And to be honest, I didn't want mine taken.) As the boat ride commenced and the sun set, romantic French music wafted from the boat speakers, the honeymooners uncorked a couple champagne bottles and giggled and glowed and got drunk, the families and groups swayed to the music and took group photos. I sat by myself and tried to focus on all the beautiful lights of the beautiful city around me and felt, well, awkward doesn't quite cover how I felt. Like an ass. I felt a bit like an ass. A solo female traveling ass.
Me, myself, and I...and the Eiffel Tower
But here's the thing. I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat. I'd go to Paris again and again--alone or with friends or on my honeymoon, whatever it takes. For the food, for the language, for the art and architecture, maybe even for the romance if I get crazy enough. Paris is stunning. Paris is worth a heated argument. Paris is worth the awkwardness of being a woman alone.
One of the best things about travel is that it can create opportunities for all sorts of epiphanies. Most people who travel, or who desire to travel, know this. The wish to run away somewhere for a time and uncover some inspiration, figure something out, find the answer to a nagging problem is one of the enduring reasons people travel.
Solitary sunflower in France
Some people, like Emerson, who called traveling “a fool’s paradise,” think this motivation is unrealistic and even foolish. I don’t think so though. I think epiphany-seeking is a fine reason to travel. The trick is just to know that an epiphany is something that can never be forced, whether on the road or off it, by fools or by wise women, in paradise or on your own front porch. Epiphanies keep their own time—they can come miraculously (i.e., when you need ‘em) or unexpectedly (i.e., when you’re ready for ‘em), but you don’t get to pick.
In late summer 2009 I went to France for a month. I had no special itinerary in mind, but I knew I wanted to spend some time in the country, maybe on a farm or in a small village. I was in Ireland before going on to France and while there looked to arrange a work exchange somewhere in France through HelpX. All I really wanted was work somewhere quiet and pretty and peaceful, somewhere I might get a sense of everyday French life that didn’t revolve around the great tourist-mobbed whirlpool known as Paris.
Field of end-of-summer sunflowers, Poitou-Charentes region
Main Street, La Groie
Field in La Groie
“Quiet and pretty” is not a tall order in the French countryside. It comes with the territory—literally. So when I found a work arrangement in a tiny commune an hour or so away from the city of Poitiers, in the Poitou-Charentes region, I knew I’d be getting what I was looking for. Still, you never know what your hosts will be like—if you’ll like them, if they’ll like you, if they’ll work you too hard, if you’ll mess up, if you’ll all get along…. I’d done two HelpX work exchanges previously in Australia, and I’d been lucky with hosts so far.
In La Groie, the tiny commune near Poitiers, luck endured, luck stayed a friend—and introduced me to some new ones, beginning with June and Martin, a retired British couple living in and restoring an old country home in La Groie and looking for help around the new/old homestead.
June in La Groie
Me with Martin and June
June and Martin proved to be any work exchange helper's dream hosts. Their idea of work for me was such arduous tasks as gardening, baking cheesecakes, brioche pudding, and other scrumptious desserts, picking blackberries, playing Scrabble, eating all kinds of local cheeses, and meeting their kind neighbors to practice my French with them. And oh yes, walking their dogs. They had, ahem, 5 of them: 3 female galgos (Spanish greyhounds), 1 female podenco, and 1 sturdy, steadfast black male mutt.
Beautiful Shona
Flora, Zack, and Tana--three amigos
Freya soaking up the sun
Five dogs! Plus 3 cats and several ducks, hens, and roosters. But Martin and June aren't animal hoarders, they're animal rescuers. Their galgas and podenca had all been rescued from Spain, which has a notoriously reputation for greyhound abuse, an issue about which Martin and June are passionate. And as for the cats, quackers, and bawkers? Well, what home in the French countryside doesn't have its fair share of such helpful creatures.
Paris, mon amour
Me with beautiful Charlie
The five dogs needed their exercise every day, of course. And one of the best times of day, every day, was the early evening walk we took with them, through the corn and sunflower fields surrounding La Groie. Tana and Zack especially liked to run right through the maze of the fields, in search of rabbits and pheasants and maybe a little unleashed freedom. In late August in La Groie, it's hot and there was little wind about, even at night--so if you saw the tops of corn and flower stalks shaking, you knew it was Tana or Zack pouncing on a discovery. One evening though we went out with the dogs only to find that one of their favorite fields had been cut down--just like that! Tana looked especially confused, ready as she was to bolt through the stalks only to find everything strangely wide open.
Late summer sunflower field
High fields
Newly cut field--no fun for the dogs
After passing the fields, we'd turn with the dogs onto the main road back to La Groie, sometimes encountering Pascal, one of the neighbors, or his diminutive elderly mother, out for a late tramp, both dressed in dark, simple country clothes. By the time we got back to the house, the dogs anxious and pulling and weaving all in and out between us and each other, we were always greeted by the evening's first stars.
Dom and Tana
Apart from June, Martin, the neighbors, and the animals, another friend I made in La Groie was a fellow helper, a uni student from Liverpool in the very last year of his teens named Dom. Dom arrived on the scene a week or so after me, and I’d worried a little about meeting him. I figured it would be very awkward once he arrived. He would probably totally ignore me, an ancient spinster of 36 at the time, and spend the whole time texting his classmates back in England. But Dom was great--intelligent, funny, respectful, easy to be around.
Dom, me, and June
The day after Dom arrived he heard there were coypu, or nutria, a large rodent-like creature, living in the brackish lake near the house, and he immediately made it his mission to see one. “I will see a coypu, before this holiday is over,” he declared. One afternoon I went with him down to the lake to stake the critters out. We spent a couple hours tossing stones into the lake, stalking through the woods, shaking tree branches, and making fools of ourselves inventing strange calls--whatever we thought a coypu might sound like--all to try and flush the little critters out of hiding. But to no avail....Until I got a message from him out of the blue a full year later. Dom wrote: “So last week some friends and I were in Rome on holiday and decided to rent bikes. And as we were riding along the Tiber River, what did I see?”
Another evening June and Martin went out on a visit, and Dom offered to impress with a famous peppers stuffed with couscous recipe of his, while I sat lazily in the other room watching the melodramatic (to understate it) Edith Piaf biopic La Vie en Rose (and wondering if all this stuff really could happen to one person--good grief). I took a break from the Piaf soap opera to find Dom rushing in a panic around the kitchen. The oven didn’t work anything like the ones he knew back in England, he didn’t have peppers and had to improvise with tomatoes, and worst of all, “That is NOT couscous,” he said, his voice cracking with panic as he pointed to the box he’d found in the cupboard, whose French instructions he had totally mistranslated. It turned out to be bulgur wheat. Or something. And you know, it didn’t taste half bad.
More fields near La Groie
Past the lake, La Groie
Cathedral in nearby St-Maixent
So what's all this have to do with epiphanies? Well, I'll tell ya. Martin and June turned out be great conversationalists as well as warm and generous hosts--cultured, kind, witty, and down-to-earth. I remember all kinds of things we talked about, but one story stands out the most.
We talked about traveling a bit--only natural, since that's what most of their helpers who come through are doing with their lives at the moment. June and Martin told me about one girl they knew in particular, a girl very close to them, who left home for awhile to travel and work in another country. After a couple years gone she announced she was ready to come home. It wasn't that she had tired of the country she'd gone to or something had gone wrong. She simply had realized that she had found what she was looking for in traveling and being away. She'd needed to know there were good people in the world, and she found it was so.
That story really struck me. It stayed with me. But I don't think it brought on any kind of magic like an epiphany. Until recently.
At the time I identified very much with the girl in the story's need to travel and get away for awhile. I didn't identify with what she discovered (or perhaps, re-discovered) about the world until I began questioning why I've been writing this blog. I suppose after the past few years of doing a lot of traveling I wanted to think and write about what it was all adding up to. I'm finding I keep writing blog posts about all the great people I've met in all parts of the world, all the people who've treated me kindly and were good to me even though they didn't necessarily have to be. June and Martin. Dom. Friends I've made elsewhere in France, in Australia, in Mexico, in Northern Ireland, on Inis Oirr....And I think what it comes down to is that I'm discovering the reason I travel--to keep and renew my faith in the world. Some people do that by going to church, some by volunteering, some by reading inspirational literature or watching Oprah. Me, I do it by traveling.
Call it a belated epiphany. Took me two years for it to come to me. So I'm a slow learner. Better get back on the road to see what else I can learn, how many more good people there are out there.
Martin, June, and Dom in St-Maixent. Martin is showing off his pajamas, er, I mean French trousers.
Every year thousands of Americans visit France. And by France, I mean Paris, the sights around it like Versailles, and Mont-St-Michel and the D-Day beaches of Normandy.
That's a big exaggeration on my part, I know. You'll find Americans visiting all parts of France. But it is true that until you've been to France and have distanced yourself farther and farther away from Paris, France's greatest tourist magnet, you don't get a sense of how relatively few Americans venture away from the French capital. In Lourdes and Carcassonne I barely encountered other American tourists. (In fact in Lourdes I don't think I encountered any.) And in Marseille it was as if American tourists are so uncommon that whenever I visited or stood in line for any tourist sight there, people assumed I must be Irish or English (I certainly don't look French, unfortunately, so all over France locals easily recognized me as a visitor).
Me, passing for not-American in Marseille
For those Americans who do indeed limit themselves to just Paris when they visit France, it's a shame. France is hardly homogeneous. It's a country with many regions vastly different from each other, with different local traditions, cuisines, industries, landscapes, and attitudes, and its cities other than Paris have a very different feel to them than the City of Light.
This post offers a few pictures and comments about the city of Marseille, way down at the bottom of France, right on the Mediterranean Sea. I admit the chance to sea the Mediterranean for the first time was my main reason to strike out for Marseille, as well as its allure as a place many people were warned not to go to for so long.
Prado beach south of the city
I dip my feet in the Med for the first time.
Marseille is a port city, always has been since it was founded by Greek sailors in 600 BC, making it France's oldest city. Fishing and shipping have been Marseille's most important industries for centuries, but these industries suffered badly beginning in the 1970s after that decade's oil crisis. Marseille gained a bad reputation for crime, and despite being the country's 2nd largest after Paris and the capital of the popular Provence region. Stories abound of Marseille's rough side, of smugglers, white slavery, sailors' gangs. Then there's Marseille's status as an ethnic melting pot. While Paris is extremely diverse, its non-European population hasn't left the same exotic imprint on the city the way Marseille's many North African immigrants and their French-born descendants have. I had to see this town. I had to.
At the train station in Marseille
Looking back at the Vieux Port (Old Port) of Marseille
It turns out Marseille is quite lovely--sunny, full of character, and a burst of brightness, of blinding white buildings and sun-bleached mountainsides when seen at a distance from the windows of a train headed Marseille's way. Indeed, in recent years Marseille has been revitalized, with money from the EU going into rebuilding the fishing and shipping industries. Yes, it's sprawling, and yes, I'm sure it still has its share of slums and rough neighborhoods. But guess what? So does Paris. So does Chicago, back home. Show me a big city and then show me a perfect city--the one isn't likely to be found in the other.
View of Marseille from the Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde
Messy Marseille. Tilted arch. Actually it was me doing the tilting
So what's Marseille got going for it, other than a Mediterranean climate? Well, bouillabaisse for one, a hearty fish and shellfish stew made with local catches and a blend of Provencal spices like basil, saffron, and garlic. A piece of advice about looking for a place that serves authentic bouillabaisse in Marseille and throughout Provence--if a restaurant is selling it cheap, say for only 10 to 15 Euros, then it's not likely authentic, much less very good. There's also pistou, much like pesto but minus the pine nuts and often served as soupe au pistou, with white beans, potatoes, and macaroni added to the broth. On the sweet side there's also navettes, fragrant cookies made with orange flower water and shaped long and oval like a boat. It is a seafarer's city, after all. To smell fresh navettes is just as good as eating them. And speaking of smell, funny that a city with a reputation for being "dirty" would be so good at making soap. Savon de Marseille is famous throughout the world for its soaps made from vegetable oils and seawater. You have undoubtedly seen Marseille soaps, or something masquerading as such, being sold in department stores, boutique shops, fancy-schmancy bath product stores.
As far as sights go, there's tons in and around Marseille to see. A couple worth mentioning. If you're a literature freak, or island freak, or just like boat rides, Marseille has 4 little rocky islands off its Vieux Port (Old Port) known as the Frioul Archipelago. On one of the islands, If, is a chateau--actually a fortress and later a prison, built in the 1500s--that was used as a setting in Alexandre Dumas's novel The Count of Monte Cristo.
Heading out to the Frioul islands
Chateau d'If, picture from Wikipedia
You can take boats throughout the day from the Vieux Port to the islands. The fortress on If is worth seeing and taking the boat out to, but other than the fort, there's little else there. It's best to plan the trip to give time to spend on the other islands, specifically Ratonneau, which is bigger, has several beaches, and some cafes/restaurants. Sunny and rocky as hell though--bring your bathing suit and bring your sunglasses.
View of Chateau d'If from Ratonneau island
One of the Frioul islands
This being Europe, of course there are grand old cathedrals in Marseille. And this being me and my blog, of course you're gonna read about one. The Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde, mes amis. The Basilica of Our Lady of the Guard. This is a neo-Byzantine chapel with a striking stripey bell tower that sits on the city's highest natural point. There, it's believed by the people of Marseille that Our Lady guards the city, the port, and sailors. Inside the church's decorations have a maritime influence, with some scenes depicting historic and miraculous moments in Marseille's port history. It's a lovely church with wonderful views of the city and sea. And it's a nice idea, to think of this golden lady at the top of the tower guarding the city and looking out for sailors and seafarers making their way to this great old port in the great old sparkling Mediterranean.
The bell tower of Notre-Dame de la Garde
Inside the basilica
Passion of Christ statue. This is what I felt like after walking all the way up here in high heels on steep, cobblestone streets on a hot day.
