Admittedly, war touring isn’t for everyone. After all, that’s far from the Eiffel Tower, isn’t it? (Well, no, you can actually see the Eiffel Tower from an American war cemetery.) And you’d rather be drinking Champagne, right? (Well, the largest U.S. WWI monument in France actually overlooks Champagne vineyards at Château-Thierry.) And you’d rather visit the Gothic cathedrals of France than the war shines of Americans. (You mean like those that you’ll pass along the way?)

OK, I won’t try to convince you. But if you’ll give a look and listen to the presentation below, you’ll see and learn why someone—maybe not you, but you’ve got curious friends and relatives, right?—might want to visit these sights.

Don’t just take my word for it.

Earlier this year I met with John Wessels, Chief Operating Officer of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), to ask if the ABMC would be willing to participate in a Zoom talk with me to explain to readers of France Revisited the interest of knowing about and one day visiting the American WWI sights of France. He readily agreed. There was then a question of finding the right person to co-present with me.

I’ve written many articles about touring American war sights in France relative to both the WWI and WWII, I’ve have given lectures in the United States on the subject, and I’ve personally taken numerous travelers to visit these sights. But I’m a generalist regarding travel and touring in France. So I needed a true specialist to join me for the presentation, preferably a military historian who’s visited the sights to be discussed who could speak authoritatively about both major events of the First World War and the creation and evolution of memorials, monuments and cemeteries. Thanks to John Wessels and to the ABMC’s media and communications duo of Hélène Chauvin in Paris and Ashley Byrnes in Arlington, we found the perfect specialist for the program: Ben Brands, the ABMC’s historian and a war veteran himself (Afghanistan).

I now invite you to watch the France Revisited “Conversation with an Expert” below in which Ben Brands and I speak about the American WWI memorials, monuments and cemeteries of France. This presentation—illustrated with numerous maps and photos—was conducted and recorded via Zoom on November 10, 2022, with a live audience of readers of France Revisited. Several segments were rerecorded shortly thereafter so as to resolve technical problems and for coherence.

The timeline below the video indicates the list of topics, events and sights along with the speaker, whether Ben Brands (BB) or myself (GLK). The full presentation lasts 1½ hours. If you wish to watch only portions of the presentation, I recommend that you watch it directly on Youtube and on full screen so that you can click or tap directly on the timeline in the Youtube description section in order to arrive at segments of particular interest to you and better view details of the images. Be sure to watch my introduction and Ben Brand’s conclusion to understand the underlying reasons for organizing this presentation.

Video timeline

0:00:00 Introduction by Gary Lee Kraut
0:05:40 Ben Brands presents the work of the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC)
0:07:12 Who is Ben Brands? What is his role as historian at the ABMC? His tour of duty as a company commander in Afghanistan.
0:12:22 A comparison between a WWII map of the Invasion of Normandy 1944 and WWI maps of northern and northeastern France and Belgium. (GLK)
0:15:24 American entrance into war. Pershing visits Lafayette’s tomb in the Picpus Cemetery in Paris. (BB)
0:18:39 The annual changing of the American flag over Lafayette’s tomb in Paris. (GLK)
0:19:30 Origin and evolution of the ABMC. (BB)
0:23:35 The Lafayette Escadrille Memorial. (BB)
0:27:41 The Suresnes American Cemetery. (GLK, BB)
0:32:00 Mont Valérien, a major French WWII memorial, a 5-minute walk from the Suresnes American Cemetery. (GLK)
0:34:17 The American Naval Monument at Brest. (BB)
0:36:39 Why didn’t the Germans intentionally harm the Allies’ WWI sights during WWII? American involvement in the Somme. The Somme American Cemetery. (BB)
0:40:35 Cantigny. (BB, GLK)
0:42:09 Amiens and the American Red Cross huts at the former Cosserat Textile Factory. (GLK)
0:45:01 Art Deco design and architecture in Saint Quentin and Reims. (GLK)
0:46:33 The American Monument at Château-Thierry, Paul Cret, Belleau Wood, the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery. (BB)
0:57:52 The French-American House if Friendship in Château-Thierry. (GLK)
0:58:34 The Oise-Aisne American Cemetery. (BB)
1:01:04 Quentin Roosevelt, a president’s son killed in aerial combat. (BB)
1:05:08 Anne Morgan and the National Museum of French American Cooperation in the Château de Blérancourt. (GLK)
1:05:56 The Saint Mihiel American Cemetery and the Montsec American Monument. (BB)
1:09:20 Philanthopist Belle Skinner and the village of Hattonchâtel. (GLK)
1:10:18 Verdun and the Douaumont Ossuary. (GLK)
1:11:56 The Montfaucon American Monument. (BB)
1:14:18 African-American soldiers: segregation, heroes, awards and burials. Jewish grave markers. (BB)
1:20:52 The Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery. (BB)
1:23:09 The Romagne German Cemetery, Jean-Paul de Vries’ Romagne 14-18, Sergeant York. (GLK)
1:25:17 The French and American Tombs of the Unknown Soldier. (BB)
1:27:25 Conclusions by Gary and Ben.

Sights discussed in this presentation are located in the Paris region and the departments of Finistère (Brittany), Somme (Upper France), Aisne (Upper France) and Meuse (Eastern France).

Text © 2022, Gary Lee Kraut

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You see, Henri’s dreams are filled with gold thread, plush red velour and the seats of power. The décor in the royal apartments at Versailles may be too gaudy even for Henri’s taste, yet the scent of royalty and of noble etiquette is the finest of perfumes to his French nostrils.

So the thought that I, an American who owned a GI Joe doll when he was 4, would be invited to the throne exhibition before it opened to the public was as vexing to Henri as a French chef telling a Texan how to barbecue ribs.

“Speaking of saddles,” I said when he ask if I’d seen “True Grit,” “you really should see the exhibition ‘Thrones in Majesty’ at Versailles. I called to see if you wanted to meet the curator with me for a private tour but the line was busy so I figured you were still trying to deal with that little problem of yours.”

The latter was a lie, and I don’t know what little problem he might have been having, but it was enough to bring out hives on his neck. That’s the entire difference between college French and actual Parisian: the former teaches you how to engage in conversation, the latter teaches you how to put someone down.

“I saw ‘Black Swan,’ he said. “Good acting but I didn’t care for much for the story.”

“Yes, well it’s too bad that you weren’t available to go with me to see the thrones. I had the Hall of Mirrors to myself.”

“The exhibition will be there until June 19,” I continued, “but if I were you I’d try to get there by Easter. After that the crowds will make it difficult to see the thrones. After those recent exhibitions relative to the chateau’s decorative splendor or kitsch, the display of the thrones gives an eerie sense of the emptiness of a power once it’s gone.”

“I don’t need a lesson in French history from an American.”

“Not just French, Henri, there are other thrones as well: Chinese, Papal, Polish, African, Incan.”

“I know,” he said, “I’ve seen the catalogue.”

“Yes, I’m sure the catalogue is beautiful. Some people are content with that. Personally I prefer the real thing—but that’s just me. And you’d love to see the throne of the Russian Emperor Paul I. Aren’t you the one with that quaint little collection of copies of Russian imperial Champagne glasses?”

“Yes, you would have those glasses on Saturday if I’d invited you to my dinner party, but it was just for a few close friends.”

Parisians hate when you out-French them.

“You have close friends now?” I said. “How nice for you. Anyway, you really should see the thrones, if not by Easter then at least by May, especially to get an uncrowded view of Napoleon’s throne in front of David’s painting of the Coronation of Napoleon.”

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I’m planning on going to exhibition right after I return from my weekend with friends who have a chateau in Burgundy. You wouldn’t know them.”

“But you wouldn’t want to go right after the weekend, Henri—the chateau of Versailles is closed on Monday. The gardens remain open through.”

“Yes, I’ve been there many times.”

“Perhaps, but not like this…”

Thrones in Majesty, Chateau de Versailles, March 1-June 19, 2011. Open 9am-5:30pm until March 31, 9am-6:30pm beginning April 1. Entrance: 15€ (chateau+exhibition), including audioguide. To get to Versailles from Paris take RER C to Versailles-Rive Gauche (last stop). The chateau is 10-minute walk from the station.

© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut

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* * *

Little by little over the coming decade Paris as we think of it will spread out from the confines of its peripheral boulevards and embrace its neighboring suburbs in the creation of Grand Paris, Greater Paris.

The umbrella project is still in its debating stage with various possible plans being drawn up and discussed across municipal borders, in Paris City Hall, and in the president’s palace, yet already various lights of the future constellation of Greater Paris are being designed. Some have already been illuminated. Case in point: Boulogne-Billancourt, a comfortable southwestern suburb of Paris, between the Seine and the Bois de Boulogne, accessible by metro at the end of lines 10 and 9.

The City of Light is still far from being thought of as the Region of Light, nevertheless Boulogne-Billancourt is well on its way to being a full-fledged part of Greater Paris. One small light was switched on this week with the opening of the Paul Belmondo Museum in Boulogne-Billancourt.

The museum, housed in little neo-Classical “folly” or pleasure palace, presents the work of Paul Belmondo (1898-1982), a sculptor (primarily) who maintained a devotion to the traditions of 18th-century classicism and antiquity at a time when many of his contemporaries were exploring and creating other movements and inspirations.

Belmondo notoriously did not want a museum devoted to his work. The impulse for the museum was likely less his own fame or talent than that of his famous son, the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, who with his brother and sister donated the works in their possession to the form the base of the collection.

Presented on four levels, two open and bright, two containing dark wooden niches, the initial figures seen here hold the promise of a collection devoted to serenity and grace, as in his beautiful Marianne/La République dites d’Alger (1933). But before long it becomes evident that the figures, mostly busts, however technically skilled their execution, have instead been emptied of character, like a once elegant women who has been given anti-depressants in order to hold her pose.

The emotional void of Belmondo’s work as presented here is all the more striking in that Belmondo’s most viewed work—and deservedly so, seen by millions of visitors to Paris—is his copy (1964) of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s joyous and orgiastic La Danse that decorates the façade of Paris’s Garnier Opera. Carpeaux’s original (1865-1869) is in the Orsay Museum.

In the absence of emotion or expression, the museum does reveal Belmondo’s excellent technique in sculpture and drawing as well as in his creation of designs for medals and medallions commissioned from Belmondo by the French national mint. Several sculptures by his contemporaries complete the collection.

The Paul Belmondo Museum makes for a charming sculptural walk-through, however the museum isn’t inspiring or significant enough to warrant coming to Boulogne-Billancourt for it alone. That isn’t to say that it should be avoided but rather that a traveler should consider coming out this way with a sense of discovery for the town as a whole, including this museum.

Boulogne-Billancourt has already earned a sweet if modest place as an afternoon’s excursion into the near suburbs thanks to the presence of:
– the Musée des Années Trente, a.k.a, M-A30, a museum dedicated to arts of the 1930s;
– the Albert Kahn Museum and Gardens. The gardens are comprised of French, English, and more uniquely Japanese gardens, along with zones presenting of three types of forest. The museum holds a vast collection of images from around the world commissioned from numerous photographers and film cameramen by Albert Kahn (1860-1940). Improvements to the garden and museum are currently underway’
– lesser attractions that can nevertheless lead a visitor to wander throughout the town, including the Paul Marmottan Library, devoted to the Napoleonic interests of its founder at the end of the 19th century, a brief stroll in the Cemetery of the West (Cimetière de l’Ouest), and assorted buildings from the 1930s. An mp3 audioguide to sights and buildings from the 1930s in Boulogne-Billancourtcan be downloaded free of charge from the town’s website.
– and the usual pastry and café pleasantries of Paris’s comfortable western suburbs.

Ile Seguin

Further reasons to venture this way will appear in the coming years now that one of the Paris region’s major projects is about to start taking shape: the redevelopment of Ile Seguin, a 28.4-acre island in the Seine that from 1920 to 1992 was occupied by a Renault factory.

The Ile Seguin project, unveiled in the summer of 2010, promises an island dedicated to commerce, culture, and green space. Its current model includes a 600-800-seat concert hall for classical music, a 3000-seat hall for amplified music (+ possible seating for 2000 more on the square out front), a music conservatory, an upscale hotel, movie theaters, shopping, art galleries, the Madona Bouglione Circus (1400 seats), and the Cartier Foundation, along with acres of covered garden, with the full project slated for completion by the end of 2017.

A magazine put out by Boulogne-Billancourt’s town hall puts a question mark beside the space of a possible Museum of the History of France. The idea of such a museum is highly politicized, with each political, ideological, and intellectual camp claiming that another will use it to promote its own vision of what defines France, so the question mark is quite substantial. Nevertheless, the mere possibility of such a museum being built beyond the limits of Paris is a sign that the capital is prepared to spread its goodwill.

Paris is expanding its horizons—and so should the visitor.

© 2010, Gary Lee Kraut

Musée Paul Belmondo, 14 rue de l’Abreuvoir, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt. 01 55 18 69 01. Open Tues.-Fri. 2-6pm, Sat. and Sun. 11am-6pm. Entrance: 4.70 euros, free for under 16. Museum passes available for those also planning to visit 3 or 4 of the other museums in town.

The museum is a 15-minute walk from metro Boulogne-Jean-Jaurès. Or from that station take bus 123 to the Eglise Notre-Dame stop then walk 5 minutes from there. There’s also a free bus named SUBB within the town, with the Parc Rothschild stop being right near the museum.

Related article: For an article about recent developments on the eastern edge of Paris read Paris Rive Gauche: A 21st Century Left Bank.

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* * *

The weather has been gloomy in Paris this summer, the sun unpredictable. No sooner are you ready to go out when the sky changes.
Le temps est bien maussade à Paris cet été, le soleil imprévisible. Le temps de se mettre en route et le ciel change.

Still, the desire to be outside and the need for nature are irrepressible. Returning to Parc de Sceaux, I continue my photographic experiments: alone against a tree,
Pourtant l’envie du dehors, le besoin de nature est irrépressible. De retour au Parc de Sceaux, je continue mes expériences : seul contre un arbre,

toes fanning out (a French expression meaning total inactivity),
les doigts de pied en éventail (une expression française qui dit la totale inactivité),

involving a couple of kind tourists with their feet in the water,
impliquant un couple de gentils touristes les pieds dans l’eau,

or playing between shadows and light.
ou jouant entre ombres et lumières.

And this is Paris’s emptiest week of the year: I’ll be here to take advantage of it!
Et c’est ce week end que Paris sera le plus vide de l’année : je serai là pour en profiter!

Photos and text: Va-nu-pieds

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-The attack may be frustration at having gotten lost, relief at having arrived, apology for having gotten laid up, and irritation at having been led so far off track.
-The evolution is hopefully good humor, copious servings, conviviality, kind service, a meal well earned.
-The finish is satisfaction, amusement, a sense that at least there’s a story to tell (the best way to savor a meal), and any apprehension of the journey home tempered by a general sense of well-being.

In the case of the suburban adventures for this article, those dinners also have the taste of samosa, badji, dall, curry, tikka, kormas, vindaloo, tandoori, nan, massala, biryani, lassi, and other Indian offerings for which I claim no expertise, only appetite.

The expertise I left to Fabien Nègre, the gastronomic philosopher and all-round loquacious bon vivant whom I frequently turn to regarding restaurant-related matters. Fabien recently suggested that I join him at two Indian restaurants, the first in Paris’s southern suburb of Le Plessis Robinson, the second in the northern suburb of Asnières. Visitors to Paris are unlikely to have heard of either suburb because they have no known sights or notable riots there.

If seeking Indian adventures within the city limits, skip directly to the second part of this article since the first part concerns restaurants that require some logistical effort if journeying from the center of Paris.

Part I: Suburban Adventures

Rajasthan

I don’t want to discourage anyone from enjoying a decent lamb tikka massala, but it took me 90 minutes by public transportation (metro, suburban train, bus) from the center of Paris to get to Rajasthan in the southern suburb of Le Plessis Robinson. Furthermore, I was late getting started (well, Fabien had told me he’d be in the area all evening and could show up at any time).

Admittedly, there was a limited bus schedule that evening; it should be possible to arrive in less than an hour with good connections. Still, the attack had a distinct taste of “this better be good.” Fabien greeted me with an “I’ve been here since 7” (it was now 10) to which I responded, “We only have an hour before the last bus.”

Having got out of the way, Fabien then introduced me to Chaudhary Maqsood, the owner, whose warm welcome is the kind that one always hopes for after a long journey.

Rather than take the time to survey the menu Fabien and I simply ordered everything and instructed the waiter to keep it coming. For 55 minutes he did. I think that some of it was quite good and some of it was more ordinary and that we were kindly served in a comfortable setting of suburban ease, and I have vaguely fond memories of a lamb tikka massala, or was it a biryani (possibly both), but I was so focused on trying a dozen dishes in record time while listening to Fabien describe the difference between Indian regional cuisine and the state of contemporary French cuisine that I didn’t bother to take notes. Occasionally I had to warn Fabien to cut down on the commentary of the whos and whats the kitchen so that he would eat and we could get out in time.

The fact that our meal was one hour too short is no reflection on the restaurant itself, and in retrospect we could have had an additional 20 minutes if the bus schedule had been correct. I nevertheless include waiting on the street as part of the attraction of this restaurant adventure since it gave us a chance to learn about the origins and Fancilian life of the members of the kitchen staff who were also waiting for the last bus. To hear Fabien discuss Delhi with the dishwasher you’d think they actually grew up in the same neighborhood, but I don’t know if Fabien has ever been further east than Venice.

In short, if you have a long-distance desire for honorable Indian food, a hankering for a glimpse of a relatively peaceable southern suburb, and a good book to read (or Fabien to listen to) on the train, then put Rajasthan on the list.

Rajasthan, 11 Grande Rue, 92350 Le Plessis Robinson. Tel. 01 40 83 09 51. www.restorajasthan.com. Open daily. Take RER B to Robinson then Bus 179, 195, 390 or 395 to the Coeur de Ville stop. The restaurant is then 100 yards away. With waiting time for RER and bus the trip will ideally take about 1 hour from the center of Paris.

Kaveri

Kaveri, named for a river in western India, sits across the highway from a northern whip of the Seine in the working-class suburb of Asnières. The restaurant’s immediate surroundings are actually more given over to middle-class apartments with a view of the Seine, and Loreal has offices nearby. Nevertheless, one doesn’t typically go to Asnières for quality, other than to go to the well-reputed Théâtre de Gennevilliers, which one passes when walking from the metro to the restaurant. Nevertheless, Kaveri is a more polished and slightly pricier restaurant than Rajasthan. It isn’t a high-end restaurant but its spacious, purified décor, relatively devoid of Indian clichés, does lend itself to business lunches and genteel dinners.

Reaching Kaveri by public transportation from the center of Paris should take less than 45 minutes. It’s a straight if bifurcated shot on metro line 13, direction Asnières-Gennevilliers, to the Gabriel Péri stop. The restaurant is then a 15-minute walk (1/2 mile) from the station (have GPS or a map).

Those 45 minutes don’t take into account the haphazard schedule of northbound line 13, whose infamous delays and crowding have led users to accuse the subway system of ignoring their plight in favor of lines servicing wealthier suburbs. (Plans are underway to gradually improve service on the line beginning in 2011.) Once again it took me 90 minutes to get there—again no fault of the restaurant.

This time I hooked up with Fabien while we were both waiting for the metro at Place de Clichy. It was a long, crowded, annoying wait of about 30 minutes, after which we let a few packed trains go by before stepping on, but there is never dead air with Fabien. By the time we arrived at the restaurant I knew a thousand fascinating and forgettable facts about the River Kaveri, the history of line 13, and the life of Didier Gobardhan, the French-Indian owner of the restaurant we were going to test, along with a few things about Younis Mohammad, the Pakistani chef.

Once arrived, Fabien and I again ordered everything on the menu but this time settled in for the long run. All and all it was very good and well spiced though slightly uneven meal (some dishes overcooked). As a starter, the bara kabab (lamb) won out over the tandoori quail, with chicken tikki winning the bronze. For a main course, the butter chicken and the eggplant with prawn were both excellent, and the dal sag added good spinach-and-lentil variety to the meal. I enjoyed a mango lassi and appreciated getting to know Grover Vineyards’ ripe Bordeaux-leaning Indian cabernet sauvignon La Reserve (not that I’m planning on ordering a case).

In short, location, location, location Kaveri has not, but if looking to venture into an unknown suburb with the promise of good butter chicken at the end of the road then it’s well worth considering.

Kaveri, 3-5 quai Aulagnier, 92600 Asnières. Tel. 01 40 86 10 11. www.kaveri.fr. Open daily. Take line 13, direction Asnières-Gennevilliers, to the Gabriel Péri stop. The restaurant is then a 15-minute walk (1/2 mile) from the station (have GPS or a map). Kaveri opened in 2009.

Part II: Urban adventures

Passage Brady, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, La Chapelle

There are two main areas for Indian restaurants in Paris. They’re in separate neighborhoods in the 10th arrondissement but are actually connected as you’ll see below. The more central of the two is Passage Brady, a covered alley that goes from Rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin to Boulevard de Strasbourg and then more picturesquely from Boulevard de Strasbourg to Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis. Metro stop Strasbourg-Saint-Denis is the point of entry to explore this neighborhood.

I’ve no particular recommendation for Indian restaurants in the passage, which is a polite way of saying that none of them is noteworthy, or as the friend whose office is nearby said when I asked him to he recommended one so that we could have lunch there, “They’re all the same, let’s go somewhere else.”

That shouldn’t deter you from visiting this area because the area surrounding Passage Brady on Rue du Fbg St-Denis is truly one of the most remarkable food streets in Paris. Every return traveler curious about food or ethnic mixes or neighborhood life should put it on his list under the itinerary heading “6:30pm-7:30pm: Wander in unknown neighborhood to work up appetite.”

Here, Indian shops and restaurants coexist in ethnic vibrancy with Black African and North African and otherwise Parisian shops. Easy directions: Start at the arch at the beginning of Rue du Fbg St-Denis and walk north.

The heart of Indian/Pakistani/Sri Lankan commerce in Paris is a 15-minute walk beyond Passage Brady on Fbg St-Denis toward the La Chapelle metro stop, which is why I say that the two Indian areas are actually connected. If out to explore Indian Paris and have a meal, I suggest—for the full rewards of this urban ethnic adventure—visiting Passage Brady and Faubourg St-Denis then walking north, passing scenes of street life (e.g. men gathering by ethnicity outside telephone businesses) and the Gare du Nord train station along the way to the La Chapelle quarter.

The intense subcontinentness of the La Chapelle quarter begins right behind the train station at about #180 rue du Faubourg St-Denis and continues on neighboring Rue Cail, Rue Perdonnet, and Rue Louis Blanc. Somewhat surprisingly there’s a very pretty very French bakery at the corner where Cail meets Louis Blanc, a clear sign that one neighborhood ends and another begins.

The La Chapelle is chock full of inexpensive Indian restaurants, “Indian” being shorthand for Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and/or Sri Lankan. For what it’s worth, I note that when I asked a Sri Lankan friend (living in the aforementioned suburb of Asnières) to have lunch with me in the area at the restaurant of his choice, he suggested the Sri Lankan restaurant Bharath, and I trust his choice in the matter because I know that his Sri Lankan wife is a very good cook.

Bharath, 51 rue Louis Blanc, 75010 Paris. Tel. 01 42 09 35 84. Metro La Chapelle. At #67 on the same street there’s also a Café Bharath, which is also a restaurant, where I’ve never eaten.

Elsewhere in Paris

Maharaja is a kindly Indian/Sri Lankan find in the Batignolles quarter of the 17th arrondissement. Batignollesis an old-fashion middle-class neighborhood of special attraction to the curious traveler.

Maharaja, 48 rue La Condamine, 17th arr. Tel. 01 43 87 08 22. Metro Place de Clichy, La Fourche, or Rome.www.maharaja-restaurant.com. Open daily.

More bourgeois settings for Indian cuisine are naturally found in upscale areas such as the two following selections on the Left Bank near the river:

New Jawad, 12 avenue Rapp, 7th arr. Tel. 01 47 05 91 37. Metro/RER Pont de l’Alma. Open daily.

Yugaraj, 14 rue Dauphine, 6th arr. Tel. 01 43 26 44 91. Metro Pont Neuf. Closed Mon. all day and Thurs. lunch.

Both are nice, easily accessible, and spiced for French and international taste bud. Where’s the adventure in that?

© 2010, Gary Lee Kraut

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Firearm regulations tend to be stricter in Europe than in the United States, but France has a long tradition of hunting and target shooting, and individuals who avidly participate in these sports constitute a strong political force.

It might surprise you to learn that the private ownership of shotguns and hunting rifles by individuals with clean criminal records is very common in France. There are numerous shops right here in Paris where you can buy guns and ammunition.

In order to purchase them you have to be in possession of either a hunting license (permit de chasse) or a sport shooting license (license sportif de tir). The hunting license is more difficult to obtain in France than in the United States because it requires you to actually know something about hunting, gun safety, and shooting. You have to pass a fairly rigorous test before you are granted a hunting license in France. The sport shooting license is much easier to obtain. You merely have to have a clean criminal record and be a member of one of the many shooting clubs in around the country. There are special exceptions to these rules for foreigners who are coming into France for a specific hunt or to compete in an international shooting tournament.

The last time I spent an extended period in France, I brought my favorite shotgun with me and obtained a sport shooting permit after I arrived. I even bought another gun while I was here and brought it back to the United States. I didn’t bring a gun this time, however, because of a sticky new regulation requiring anyone in possession of firearms of any description in France to have a gun safe in their home. Well, our apartment in the Marais came with a great coffee machine but no gun safe, and I was not interested in buying a 500 euro safe for a stay of only one year, so this time I left my guns at home. That doesn’t prevent me from shooting in France, however, because I either borrow or rent a gun at my club, le Ball-Trap Club de Gonesse.

Ball-trap is the French word for what we call “clay target sports,” which include skeet, trap, and the various forms of sporting clays. The club is located in the middle of vast grain fields in the town of Gonesse, about 14 miles northeast of Paris, not far from Charles de Gaulle airport. The town of Gonesse was prominently mentioned in the news in 2000 because that was where the Concorde supersonic jet crashed. When the planes take off from de Gaulle, they pass directly over the shooting club. Shooting clubs tend to be located in places like that. We have a club in Atlanta that was built directly on top of a former landfill.

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the BTC de Gonesse is that I can get there from Paris using public transportation. Granted, I do have to walk about a mile from the last bus stop, but for me, that just adds to the appeal, because I get to mix some exercise in with my shooting. Everybody else who shoots at the BTC de Gonesse is a permanent resident of France, and they all have cars.

On previous stays in Paris I would rent a car, at a daily cost of about 100 euros, every time I wanted to go shooting, but when visiting Paris once on a ten-day trip, without a gun or any ammunition to carry, I figured out by pouring over the metro map and consulting Google Earth that I could take the #7 metro to Fort d’Aubervilliers followed by the #250 bus to its final stop in Gonesse, which brought me within easy walking distance of the club. In addition to saving a huge amount of money on my shooting, this mode of transportation has allowed me to see parts of the working class suburbs of Paris that I would otherwise have missed.

The BTC de Gonesse is a shotgun shooter’s paradise. It has three or four combination international skeet and trap ranges as well as five or six sporting clays (parcours de chasse) layouts and a running boar target. It offers very inexpensive gun rentals, and reasonably priced ammunition is available. There are also experienced instructors on hand for beginners or for experienced shooters who want to perfect their skills. The staff and the other members of the club are friendly and helpful. I’ve yet to meet anyone there who speaks English. For someone who doesn’t speak French, or someone who is not very familiar with all of the clay target sports, a trip to Gonesse could prove to be a confusing and frustrating experience. My French is far from perfect, but I made it a point to learn all of the vocabulary involved in shotgun shooting before my first outing to a French shooting club. In addition, I am a very experienced shooter and I serve as a referee for shotgun tournaments and even write a blog for my club back in the United States.

Even so, they simply do things differently at a shooting club in France compared to back home. It takes a while to catch on to all the procedures, but I was able to do that just by watching what everybody else was doing. For example they have a really fun shotgun sport in France that they call match po’. They shoot it when a large number of people want to shoot at the same time. The shooters are divided randomly into teams of perhaps ten shooters each. Each team lines up behind its first shooter at two different spots on a sporting clay layout. A series of targets is thrown from the different traps on the layout, and the two teams alternate shooting the targets from their respective positions on the field. After every shooter from each team has shot twelve targets from the first position, the teams switch places and the target sequence is repeated. Usually an additional target is thrown at the end to make for 25 total. At the end of a round of match po’, there is an individual winner and a winning team. Even though you may not know half of the people you are shooting with, a sort of team spirit is instantly created and you naturally root for the other guys on your squad, and of course, deride the guys on the other squad.

At the end of a day of shooting at the BTC de Gonesse, I asked some other guys in the clubhouse why the sport was called match po’. They consulted with each other in very rapid French that I was not really able to follow and finally came up with a satisfactory answer: “That’s just what it’s called.”

BTC Gonesse: Route de l’Europe, 95500 Gonesse. Tel: 01 39 87 52 03

A list of ball-trap clubs in the Paris regions: http://www.balltrap-idf.fr

The post The Borrowed Gun: Sports Shooting in France appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

The first mile or so of the path progresses with fits and starts as you wind your way outside of the city and into the immediate suburbs of Malakoff then Châtillon. Little by little the path then settles into an easy-going, occasionally rolling, unhurried green (verte) flow (coulée) passing through the relatively tranquil towns of Bagneux, Fontenay-aux-Roses, Sceaux, Châtenay-Malabry, Antony, Verrières-le-Buisson, and into Massy.

Two-thirds along the way is the most well-known greenery to the immediately south of Paris, Parc des Sceaux, a delicious spot for an afternoon loll-about after a genteel ride out and before a satisfied ride home.

Yesterday, I pedaled the path in the company of Va-nu-pieds. Va-nu-pieds is the pseudonym—the lens name, if you will—of a French photographer whose work on France Revisited can be found here. A va-nu-pieds, literally “goes barefoot,” is a vagabond, a tramp, a ragamuffin.

Before going barefoot in the park, however, we spotted from the Coulée Verte the Château de Sceaux.

One glimpse of it and you’re sure to want to approach for a closer view.

Entrance is free. You can walk your bikes through the park, but Va-nu-pieds would have none of that, so we attached them outside and spend a few hours wandering around.

The chateau was mostly constructed under the ownership of Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), Louis XIV’s Minister of Finance. It’s a photogenic place in a post-card kind of way, but the main attraction of Sceaux is the park, created by the grandfather of French landscape gardeners André Le Nôtre (1613-1700). Le Nôtre’s work at Versailles was already well underway by the time Colbert purchased Sceaux.  Hired by Colbert then by Colbert’s son the Marquis de Seignelay, Le Nôtre designed what remains one of the pleasing and accessible noble parks of the Paris region.

As with other noble parks in the region it had its 19th-century era of ruin but has since been lovingly restored

Its trademark features are its cascade,

which includes these spouts,

its Grand Canal,

and its perfectly aligned rows of populars, plane trees, horse chestnuts, lindens, and other trees whose names I never remember.

The sculptures are less noteworthy, but I like the image above right.

It’s simply a delightful place for a stroll, a picnic, a lounge on the grass (actually allowed here!), photographic explorations, a jog, prolonged conversations, a nap, romance, and, as far as I’m concerned, a illicit pee in the woods. There are snack stands and cafés in the park.

Other than biking along the Coulée Verte, Parc de Sceaux is easily reachable from the center of Paris by suburban train. Take RER line B, direction Massy-Palaiseau, directly to the Parc de Sceaux stop, a 21-minute ride from Chatelet-Les Halles. The park is then a 3-minute walk from the station.

(c) Gary Lee Kraut

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He has a beautiful backyard, full of all kinds of trees and plants and a vegetable garden and a chicken-n-pigeon coop where he raises birds such as chickens, pheasants, and Texan and Hubbell pigeons.

I like visiting his backyard because I don’t have one of my own.

I see Turkish filberts from my window but no ginkgoes or beeches or pines, as he does.

I see pigeons, but none like this, none I would want to hold.

Then we’ll have lunch, if possible with something from the garden, like the zucchini that’s plentiful right now or those cherries earlier in the month. And perhaps pigeon.

No, just kidding, we didn’t eat one of those beautiful pigeons on Sunday. We ate rabbit.

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* * *

After nearly 20 years of travel writing in France, I’m happy to say that there are plenty of notable towns and villages and landscapes I’ve never visited. Why happy? Because after all these years I still get to feel the sense of discovery and adventure that comes with exploring someplace for the first time.

Annabel Simms has been at it a long time, too, long enough to have ventured well off the tourist trails but still within quick reach of the world’s number one tourist destination city. The result of those wanderings is “An Hour From Paris,” an outstanding, intensely practical, open-your-eyes guide to lesser known towns and villages within an easy train ride of Paris. First published in 2002, the book’s fully revised second edition is now available.

In 20 destinations/chapters, half of which are little known, Simms describes in nearly obsessive detail unhurried walking tours that will make even oft-return travelers and residents feel like first-time wanderers. As a bone to first-time visitors, a brief twenty-first chapter entitled “On the Tourist Trail” mentions well-known sights such as Versailles, Giverny, and Fontainebleau.

he selection of destinations testifies to both the persistence of small-town and village life just outside the doors of Paris and Simms’ own sense of the pleasure of traveling near yet far. Or as she says of the town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, “it offers maximum dépaysement (change of scene) for minimum effort.”

Testing the book in Poissy

I decided that the best way to judge the book’s worth was to make some minimum effort myself one sunny day and follow in the author’s footsteps in search of maximum dépaysement. So I took the suburb train RER A line 30-minutes northwest to the Seine-side town of Poissy.

I chose the book’s “Poissy” chapter, which also includes the neighboring villages of Villennes and Médard, because I’d never been there before and because even Ms. Simms is cautious about Poissy, calling it “a modest place, familiar to most Parisians only as the name of a terminus on the RER line service the northwestern suburbs.” I figured that if the author could create a stimulating walking tour from a place that apparently held such little promise then “An Hour from Paris” must have many secrets to tell.

I more or less faithfully followed in Simms’ footsteps, doing so quite easily thanks to the book’s excellent maps and the author’s flawless instructions. In Poissy I discovered the church Collégiale Notre Dame, which has remnants of the baptismal font where Louis IX was baptized in 1214 and a colorful Renaissance “Entombment of Christ.” The walk through the courtyard of the Poissy Toy Museum (which I didn’t enter but where Ms. Simms clearly enjoyed herself) was enchanting. I saw the Villa Savoye, which was designed by Le Corbusier in 1929. To the contemporary eye the villa may resemble a small generic office building near a strip mall, but it was once considered a wondrous example of chic avant-garde eurotrash. One needn’t have a particular interest in any of these three sights to enjoy the diversity of the walk, a walk that’s far enough off the beaten track that the villa now stands across the street from a low-income housing project while the Toy Museum is across the street from a high-security prison.

I’d been in Poissy for less than two hours but already my walk was full of discreet, worthwhile, and varied sights and scenery. That’s when the real dépaysement began.

The author’s guidance now took me into greenery and out of Poissy on a Seine-side walk to the villages of Villennes then Médard. I was led, by suggestion or opportunity, to stand on a bridge overlooking a branch of the Seine, to “stroll down a private, peaceful and pretty, [that] leads past houses whose gardens stretch to the water’s edge,” to admire a hedge of firethorns in full bloom, to sit in a café in front of “the striking 11th-century church,” to visit the house that Zola bought in 1878 and where he lived “for about eight months of the year until his death 24 years later,” and to “make a nostalgic detour to reach the river,” where I sat above the riverbank in restaurant-café that is “the only source of food and drink in Médan and is open sporadically, depending on the whim of the owners, a retired couple.”

I don’t know if I’d call that last detour nostalgic, but my afternoon in Ms. Simms’ footsteps was entirely delightful, full of discovery, and leisurely paced, especially since that retired couple’s “whim” corresponded with my own. (See how I followed in her footsteps.)

Getting to know the GPS lady

In text and in maps “An Hour From Paris” gets you exactly where you need to go to enjoy the particular area under exploration. Simms’ writing is impeccably clear. Hers is the voice of your GPS. But this GPS lady isn’t satisfied with staying in the background. Occasionally, out of the blue, she will let you know that she is not simply working by satellite but has actually been here.

Here, for example, is a delicious line from a description of the village of Andrésy: “… continue along the river as far as the Rue de Trélan. There is a little jetty with an electric bell to the right which you press to summon the small speedboat opposite…There is a little riverside garden in which you can eat outside in the summer (where I saw a red squirrel) and the tiled floor, lace curtains framing the river and the old-fashioned oak furniture make for a cosy retreat inside.”

I just love that red squirrel that scampered into the text. It’s as though you’re driving down the highway and the GPS lady, after so accurately telling you to turn left, bear right, and continue straight for 2 miles, suddenly whispers, “Look, there’s a deer!”

Such asides are infrequent, once or twice per chapter, but after coming across several of them I found myself wondering who this GPS lady really is. The author’s bio simply states “Annabel Simms is a Londoner who has lived in Paris since 1991. She is a freelance writer and English teacher.” However, little by little, often subtly, perhaps unintentionally, the GPS lady reveals herself to be more than the unerring voice of practicality.

Annabel Simms is at times:

• a proper Englishwoman: “It invariably has a calming effect on the nerves.”
• an intrepid traveler: “The gate is to stop cars, not pedestrians, so if it is closed simply scramble up the railway embankment around it and down on the other side.”
• a wistful observer: “The atmosphere is remote and mysterious… even on a sunny day when children are playing on the lawn.”
• a what-the-hell participant: “I expected to be bored, but was fascinated and ended up pressing buttons to make the trains move and trying out a 19th-century fortune-teller’s board, remarkable accurate in its prediction.” (That’s at the aforementioned Poissy Toy Museum. What, I wonder, did the fortune-teller’s board so accurately predict?)
• a frustrated naturalist: “You could continue along the river instead of crossing the main road at this point, but although the walk is quiet and very pretty (I saw yellow irises growing by the water and a friend reports seeing a green woodpecker there) the gate through to the car park further on is sometimes locked and you have to continue for another half-kilometre before you can cross the road.” (Don’t you just love those irises and the gratuitous green woodpecker?)
• a slumming aristocrat: “It’s always fun to take a ferry, especially when it is free, but I must confess that I found the ‘parc naturel’ a trifle disappointing.”
• a writer with an obsession for detail: “Take the Rue Dr Plichon on the right, which becomes Rue du Moulin. It leads down to the river and the main footbridge to the islands. Turn right into the Chemin du Bras du Chapitre and follow the riverside path until you come to no. 13 just past the corner of the Rue Robert Legeay.”
• and an urbanite longing for solitude: “The great attraction of a visit to Champs is the fact that… few people actually stop off there…”
• hungry for nature: “However, it is very easy to get lost in the wilder, un-signposted paths between Maison de Sylvie and the Hameau, although you might see a deer bounding past, as I did.”
• and oh so glad to be out of the city: “As very few visitors seem to know about the existence of this station, your detour will bring you into contact with local people who treat you with a warmth you can only dream of in Paris.”

Most guidebooks these days are simply spiritless attempts to find a marketing niche or to promote an attitude, but “An Hour From Paris” appears to come straight from the heart of the its author. For all its GPS-like practicality, the voice behind this book is that of an inquisitive and quirky traveler who truly wishes us well in our soft adventures in suburban Paris. To judge from my visit to Poissy (I saw a magpie there), that voice is well worth following.

An Hour from Paris by Annabel Simms.

© 2009, Gary Lee Kraut

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I picked Poissy from the 20 destinations in the book because I’d never been there and because even Ms. Simms is cautious about it, calling Poissy “a modest place, familiar to most Parisians only as the name of a terminus on the RER line service the northwestern suburbs.” I figured that if the author could design a worthwhile walking tour out of a place that apparently held such little promise then “An Hour from Paris” must be full of discovery.

“An Hour From Paris” is an intensely practical guide that one is unlikely to read front to back. But I’d enjoyed reading it that way for its quirky mix of practical information, GPS-like directions, and odd asides that seem ever so gently, and in a British way, to say “I was here.”

Here, for example, is one of my favorite passages from a description of the village of Andrésy: “… continue along the river as far as the Rue de Trélan. There is a little jetty with an electric bell to the right which you press to summon the small speedboat opposite…There is a little riverside garden in which you can eat outside in the summer (where I saw a red squirrel) and the tiled floor, lace curtains framing the river and the old-fashioned oak furniture make for a cosy retreat inside.” I just love that red squirrel that scampered into the text.

I’ll discuss the quirks of the text further in the actual review to appear next month. I’m using today’s blog not to review but to illustrate the visit outlined by Ms. Simms that I more or less faithfully followed—quite easily, I should add, thanks to the book’s excellent maps and the author’s unwavering eye for detail. I did not, however, enter the various museums that she mentioned along the way, though I did stop to photograph the cat, above left, near the entrance to Poissy’s Toy Museum (where I saw a magpie). The fact that the museum is across the street from a major prison for hardened criminals tells you that you are indeed well of the beaten track in these parts.

The spire of Collégiale Notre Dame, the church were King Louis IX was baptized in 1214 (remnants of the baptismal font are there), appears in the photo above with the cat. Here below is a colorful Renaissance “Entombment of Christ” found in that church.

I made a detour from Ms. Simms’ outline to buy a sandwich in town then returned to her trail to visit the Villa Savoye, photo right, designed by Le Corbusier in 1929. To the contemporary eye the villa resembles a generic office building near a strip mall, but when it was completed in the early 1930s it was a wondrous example of chic avant-garde eurotrash that few people would have wanted to live in. It’s in a little park across the street from a low-income housing project.

I already knew how detail-oriented Ms. Simms is from reading the book, but I realized when following her route that in addition to wanting to say “I was here” she also wants to encourage readers to look for details, whether, when heading downstream to Villennes, you’re standing on a bridge overlooking a branch of the Seine (below left) or “strolling down a private, peaceful and pretty, [that] leads past houses whose gardens stretch to the water’s edge” (below right)

or admiring a hedge of firethorns in full bloom (having asked a local what they are then looked up the translation back home)

or sitting in front of “the striking 11th-century church.”

A mile further upstream, at Médan, there’s another church, and a small private chateau, and the house that Zola bought in 1878 and where he lived “for about eight months of the year until his death 24 years later.”

You can then “make a nostalgic detour to reach the river by turning left” and have a seat by the river at Plaisirs d’Eté, “the only source of food and drink in Médan [which] is open sporadically, depending on the whim of the owners, a retired couple.” I don’t know if I’d call the detour nostalgic, but it was certainly delightful, especially since the retired couple’s whim to open coincided with my own to go.

An enjoyable day of discovery indeed! I’m looking forward to following in Ms. Simms’ footsteps in other town and villages where I’d never thought of setting foot.

Click here for my complete review of Annabel Simms’ An Hour From Paris.

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