Friday, 17 Sep. Paris to St. Jean Pied de Port

To get to the starting point, most people fly into Paris and then take the train from Montparnasse to St. Jean Pied de Port. That’s what I did, so cool to spend a day and a half in Paris. So lucky that Rick sent me off with a hug and I’ll see you in 4 weeks – but would love to have been with him in Paris.

I’m hoping to sit in churches all along the way so today, in the morning before taking the train, I went to two churches. Both of which I’d found when I’d been lost in 2 different jet lag fog walks within a few (2) bocks of my hotel. So I went back. The first, Saint Germain Des Pres abbey, was built in 540AD, oldest current part from 1000 AD. The second was the Church of Saint-Supice, started in 1646 and my favorite part, the Lady l, was finished in 1660. I sat in both for a bit of quiet. Both are incredible, but the second was truly amazing because of the giant sculpture and chapel for Mary behind the altar. You couldn’t even see it until you walked around and behind the alter. I was astonished. I wish I could have seen it with Rick’s mom, Mimi. She loves Mary and this was a gift of a place. The marble fresco (described as white, but looked brown to me) was incredible carving, no haloes, gilt, signs of anything but a woman and her son and the faces were beautiful. I took an up close photo and then one with a woman who was cleaning meticulously to give an idea of scale.

After both periods of sitting, I was calm when I walked out. So – will carry on with the pattern and take time to sit. I will say that I look for Mary or the kinder actions of Jesus to sit in front of if possible. And to think of the incredible number of people over the centuries/years who have done the same, though with perhaps a different type of devotion. Buddhists talk about devotion as a critical element of the practice. Again, different, but a way to connect.

THEN the train. Oy. The sitting calmed me down from the 4am wake up of – oh my goodness, I’m going early to make sure I don’t miss. And thank goodness I did. Montparnasse makes Grand Central look like a village train station. Well, not exactly, but close! AND not a single information booth. Anywhere. I got dropped off in terminal 2, found someone who pointed (no one speaks English and all of my French sure sounds like Spanish) to terminal 1. Felt like a mile. Happily, I found a nice woman who between my ticket and her bits of English was able to point to where I’d look. No announcements are in English (why should they be, I’m in France) and out of 6 information people I saw walking around after about 40 minutes, one spoke a wee bit of English. Wish I wasn’t so American in my lack of languages.
I made it on.