June 14, 2002
22. Descent
For the last couple of weeks, I've been rollerblading down by Les Invalides, the cluster of monuments that was formerly a barracks, an armoury, and military hospital, and a church with a beautiful gilded dome (which was converted to The Temple to Mars during the revolution when churches weren't in fashion). Napoléon's Tomb is there now, with his russian-doll-like seven-layer coffin.
It's a really nice place to learn to rollerblade. At the back (from the perspective of the Seine), it's flat and long enough to build up plenty of speed, but wide enough to be able to turn -- well, nearly. You can see the Eiffel Tower, and when you get tired of aller-retour (back and forth, or round trips), you can go around the entire building complex and practice gentle ascents and descents. I'm pleased to say that I can rester equilibre (remain balanced), turn fairly sharply and effectively (la virage), but I need to work on my freinage -- the ability to stop.
There are always plenty of things to see on a Sunday around Les Invalides. Between the buildings and the Seine are four large lawns, very broad and green. There are little signs forbidding any games involving balls, so there are usually only seven or eight simultaneous football games. Off to the side, the older crowd are usually playing boules or petanque on the dirt surface -- a game similar to lawn bowling or curling with large silver balls.
For some reason, last week, we saw a severed arm lying on the sidewalk. It looked pretty real, but given the giggling car beside it, it might have been a prank.
The real event of the week, however, was the Descente de la Loire with the dive club. On Sunday, I got up at 06h00 so I could take the métro out to Massy with my borrowed wetsuit, palmes and a planche so I could meet up with the group. We drove out to Chateau Sully-sur-Loire, an hour and a half away from Paris.
During the drive, I saw the agriculture of France. We drove along tree-lined roads, through ancient villages and by vast fields of wheat. Even though I get out of the city every day, it was still pretty great to see outside the area covered by public transit.
Chateau de Sully-sur-Loire was initially constructed in the fifteenth century, with additional work in the seventeenth century. I was told that it was a smaller chateau, which was obviously a mistake -- it was immense, with large and impressive towers joined around a courtyard. The sunnier walls were covered with ivy (vignes vierges, or virgin vines, so called because they will never bear grapes). Since I've been putting off Versailles until I have guests, this is the first chateau I've ever seen, and I was suitably impressed.
While there is a distinct lack of chateaux in Canada, the Loire is renowned for its surplus. The extremely wealthy nobility built these homes for themselves (and typically for their lovers) to occasionally escape the city, and now the Chateaux of the Loire are a renowned tourist route.
We drove up-river from the Chateau, where we changed by the side of the road into our wetsuits and trudged through the brush in our wetsuits. Divers will immediately see the flaw in this plan -- wrapping yourself in neoprene on a sunny day and taking a hike is NOT a cool idea. Regardless, I managed to entertain myself by learning most of the French vocabulary for "thorny, prickly plant".
We immediately wet ourselves down at the river (causing the water to spit, hiss and steam) and then proceeded to the deeper part, walking backwards to avoid tripping over the rocks in our fins.
Unfortunately, the water wasn't nearly deep enough, and there wasn't really any current to speak of. Apparently, the nuclear reactor visible on the horizon controlled the water flow. Actually, I was assured that it was a coal- or oil-burning electric power plant, but it looked exactly like something out of a Simpson's episode.
Swimming in shallow water with a wet suit is very difficult. First of all, you need vertical space to effectively use your fins -- and mine were tiny cheap-o fins anyway. Since we weren't weighted down (as in a dive), the buoyancy of the neoprene causes your whole body to float on the surface of the water and you really have to kink up your neck to see. But the worst were the two-headed radioactive glow-fish coming from the "coal- or oil-burning electric power plant".
We only went down about four kilometres of the Loire, which really doesn't seem like far until you consider it's 160 trips across a 25m swimming pool (for the non-metric readers, that's pretty close to 160 imperial trips).
The Loire wasn't really helping us along, so we had to pretty much fin all the way, except where it was entirely too shallow and we walked. We arrived at the beach in front of the chateau dehydrated, hot, and completely broken from exhaustion. So we had some alcoholic beverages, notably Xavier's passionfruit-rum-cinnamon mix. We all changed back to street clothes in the street.
But of course, you ask, what did I eat that day? The restaurant had a menu for 16.50€ including wine (didn't drink any), an entrée (tomato and mozzarella salad), an escalope de volaille (in this case, turkey in cream sauce) and ice cream for dessert (vanilla/coffee) followed by real coffee.
After the meal, we sat on the lawn in front of the chateau in the shade. We peeked through the main door into the courtyard, but didn't have enough energy to do the tour of the chateau. It was a pleasant temperature underneath the trees, and you could feel the heat coming off the massive stones of the chateau from the afternoon. The fish in the water around the chateau were large and fat, and lazing at the surface of the water. Mindlessly green fuzzy trees sent their groping branch-fingers to invade the sky and leech the very sunlight from the air.
We attempted to chat on the way home, but we were all too fatigued. In Paris, I took the RER and then the métro to my place, where I stumbled into my apartment, carefully rinsed my gear in fresh water and crashed into the bed. I was asleep before my feet left the ground.
I can't take credit for any of the pictures, which were taken by a dozen people with a Nikon Coolpix 775 care of Marie Pierre. This is the model I'm interested in for my camera, although it's not going to be available much longer. I reduced all the pictures, so you can't judge the quality, and I adjusted the levels, so you can't judge the colour. Haha.
Would you like to float down the Loire? Carry glowfish home in a jar?
Posted by The Inaccurate Tourist at June 14, 2002 12:00 PM