The Palace of Versailles

On our second full day, we headed out to Versailles, which is about 12 miles southwest of Paris. In the morning, Marie-Jeanne walked us to the appropriate train station, not far from Notre Dame. She also gave us the heads-up on a special deal which combines the train ticket with admission at a significant savings (for those of you who might go).

Versailles was formerly the residence of the king and queen of France, including -- perhaps most famously -- Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. The palace and gardens are absolutely enormous. Pelagia and I guessed that it would take a staff of several hundred just to keep the gardens maintained.

Perhaps the most interesting thing was in Marie Antoinette's "little" villa (where, we are told, she could escape from the "rigors" of the palace). There we saw the dining table and learned that Louis XVI had drawn up plans to mechanically raise the enormous table, fully set, from the kitchen which was located on the floor directly below. I guess they didn't have time to realize this plan, but it gives you an idea of the kind of luxury there.

At the king's bed, for another example, we read about all the rituals attendant on the king's going to bed and rising from it. Sheesh!

As I once heard someone comment after visiting Versailles: "Now I can understand why the people revolted."

At the same time, you can see how someone like Marie Antoinette could be so out of touch with real life as to say something like "Let them eat cake" (if, in fact, she did) when told that the peasants had no bread.

Anyway, the top three photos are from inside the palace. The first is of one of the many elaborately painted ceilings. The second and third are from the famous Hall of Mirrors.

The third photo is interesting. This simple blue disc is not part of the original palace. It is part of a modern art exhibition which has placed a piece of work in almost every room in the palace. To be honest, this was the only one I liked at all. Some of the others, for instance, included an enormous ceramic sculpture of Michael Jackson with bubbles (I believe that was in the queen's drawing room or something) and a chain link fence with inflated rubber ducky swimming tubes hung on it. Yes. I'm serious.

I'm noticing that this seems to be a trend in such places. In Constantinople, for instance, we noticed that the Turks had a hideous modern art exhibition (with these enormous canvases that were all white with a black speck in the middle, for example) right in the middle of Hagia Sophia, in the room where the Holy Fathers met for the Seventh Ecumenical Council.

There was somewhere else we noticed this, too (I think Rome), but I can't remember now the context. Anyway, I think it's bizarre, but then again I may not be "with it."

Anyway, after the palace, we spent a lot of time wandering through the gardens -- although only a small piece of them. They are VAST. The fourth photo shows the Orangerie, a building where the orange trees are kept in the winter. Apparently, one of the Italian nobility who ruled in France missed having orange trees, so they had to invent a system to keep orange trees alive in the much colder climates of northern France.

After visiting the palace and the grounds, we explored a bit of the little town of Versailles before getting back on the train to Paris, totally exhausted.

More tomorrow...

The Seine River Tour

Continuing on past the Louvre, we entered the extensive Tuileries garden, one of several beautiful gardens in the city (see top photo). Of these gardens, we learn:

The Tuileries Gardens, as you see them today, are the work of the famous French landscape architect Le Notre who stand to build them in 1664 at the order of Louis XIV's Minister of Finance Colbert. This is the same Le Notre who laid out the parks of Versailles and it was this same Le Notre also who laid out St. James's park for Charles II of England. This garden replaced another, but vastly inferior garden, which Catherine de Medici had built there about a hundred years before Le Notre was commissioned to change and enlarge it. But even in Catherine's time, this garden was already known as the Tuileries Gardens.

We then continued over to the Seine River, where we caught the water taxi which runs a continuous circuit through the heart of the city. The first stop was the Eiffel Tower, located toward the western end of the city (see second photo). The line of tourists waiting to take the elevator up to the top was quite long, so we opted out. We enjoyed the view from the ground for awhile, having a snack underneath the tower, and then headed back to the boat. We then headed for Notre Dame, a massive cathedral built between 1200-1345 on one of the two tiny islands in the middle of river. The third photo is a view of the church from the boat.

Later, we met our friends Emmanuelle and Julija in front of the church, where we took the bottom photograph of ourselves. Emmanuelle is a French girl whose family converted to Orthodoxy some years ago in what could be described as France's version of the EOC. We were classmates together for one year in Greek school here in Thessaloniki. She is now doing an MA in Greek literature at the Sorbonne. Julija is a Serbian girl who has been studying theology in Paris for several years now. She is a friend of our bishop, Bishop Maxim, and we met her during our trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina last December.

The two of them took us around the city for awhile. We walked by the Sorbonne and stopped in St Stephen's Church to see the relics of St Genevieve, one of the patron saints of Paris and an Orthodox saint from the fifth century. St Simeon the Stylite sent her a letter after seeing her in a vision.

They also introduced us to a new phenomenon in Paris which we thought was great. A private company has set up bicycle racks all over the city, with good, sturdy bikes electronically locked. For 29 euro a year, you get a membership card that allows you to take and leave the bikes at will. Thus, if you need to go somewhere in the city, you simply grab the closest bike, ride to where you're going, and leave it at the closest station. Emmanuelle let Pelagia try one of the bikes out, which she liked. Incidentally, you can a photo of this, and all 260+ photos from the trip, here.

Finally, Emmanuelle took us to a Georgian restaurant for dinner, with two of her friends, a Russian-French man and Russian-American woman. The Georgian cuisine was very interesting -- a mix of mediterranean, Turkish and Indian. And it was so nice to have such a variety of foods to chose from! They have restaurants from everywhere! That's one thing all the Americans here in Greece miss. Greeks like Greek food -- and usually not much else. In fact, they're generally downright suspicious of anything not Greek. Fortunately, Greek food is delicious, but it's also nice for us American types to have some variety, so the Georgian restaurant was refreshing.

More tomorrow...

The Market and the Louvre

The next morning, our first full day in Paris, Marie-Jeanne took us for a tour of the city. First, we went to the local open market (see top photo), where we saw stores full of beautiful vegetables, cheeses and meats.

The second photo is of Marie-Jeanne's favorite cheese store. We went back before we left and got a selection of French cheeses to bring back for our neighbors, who kindly took care of our animals.

We had coffee sitting out in the sun at a cafe in the market, and then headed toward the heart of Paris.

The first stop was the Louvre, which was formerly a castle and then an enormous palace. In the inner courtyard of the palace, you can see the famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) pyramid-shaped entrance to the museum (underneath the pyramid). We didn't go in to the museum--as it would take days to really see everything--and proceeded on to the palace gardens, Jardin des Tuileries.

Americans in Paris (via Greece)

I know, I know! It's been over a month since I posted anything on here. The truth is that this summer has been incredibly busy with work. I made some progress on my dissertation, which will focus on leadership and hierarchy in the first-century Christian community in Corinth. And then there's my normal translation work. I didn't think you'd all be really interested in a photo of me sitting in front of my computer, so the blog has suffered. : (

But now I finally have something to report. Pelagia and I celebrated 5 years of marriage last month, and to mark the anniversary I arranged a trip to Paris for last week. We spent 5 full days there and just returned this afternoon.

We have three different friends living in Paris, and they had all invited us to come visit them in Paris. One even had a free apartment to offer us, so that sealed the deal!

We flew out of Thessaloniki, had a brief layover in Rome, and then on to Paris. I had found cheap tickets with the Italian national airline, Alitalia, which--as it turns out--is on the brink of collapse. In fact, there was a good deal of uncertainty as to whether they would still exist today for our flight back!)

Our friend, Marie-Jeanne, met us at Charles de Gaulle airport in the evening, and then took us on a taxi tour through Paris (including a nighttime drive down the Champs-Elysees) on the way to her home, which is just east of the Bastille. See map below.

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As it so happens, Marie-Jeanne currently has two apartments in the same building, so she gave us use of the one on the top floor. Apartments (or studios, to be more precise) in Paris are, I imagine, much like New York. They are extremely tiny and expensive. But it was plenty for our purposes. And it had a wonderful view.

The top photo was taken from the balcony as soon as we walked in. That's the Eiffel Tower lit up in blue, with the Bastille to the right.

The third and fourth photos were taken from the balcony the next morning. Again, you can see the Eiffel Tower and the Bastille on the right of the third photo. The fourth photo is of St. Marguerite's, located next to Marie-Jeanne's building.

It was getting late by the time we arrived, but Marie-Jeanne had prepared a wonderful, typical French dinner for us, complete with fois gras. In the second photo, you can see Pelagia during the cheese course. : )

Stay tuned for Day 2! (Warning: I am making my way through several hundred photographs!)

Feast of the Dormition

Happy Feast! Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. Even though it's summer and the rest of Greece is on vacation, this has been a busy time for me. I'm trying to get something done on my dissertation by the beginning of September, in addition to my usual work of translating (I'm working on a book of essays on the topic of "The Church and Eschatology.")

Anyway, yesterday was the Feast of the Dormition -- the Summer Pascha, as they call it here. We had a very nice Liturgy in the morning at our parish of St. George's here in Panorama. At the end of Liturgy, we did the service of the Lamentations to the Theotokos in front of an icon of the Dormition in the center of the church.

In the evening, as is our parish custom, we went to one of our local monasteries here in Panorama (our favorite one), which is dedicated to the Dormition. I've posted about the monastery many times before -- they have about 50 nuns and their spiritual father is Abbot George of Grigoriou.

They do the Lamentations service as part of the Vespers on 15 August itself and--as with most of the services at this monastery--many, many people come.

As last year, the protosyngellos (chancellor) of Thessaloniki led the service at the monastery. You can see him in the center of the bottom photo (I'm off to the left).

In the middle photo, you can see the abbess of the monastery, Melania, carrying the icon of the Theotokos.

Pelagia also took some video, which I've put together below (it's 2:49 long). At the beginning, you get a view of the monastery's courtyard and the church, and you can hear the Lamentations being sung through the speakers. (The church is usually so crowded that many people--especially Westerners who are used to the idea of "personal space" and temperatures below 125--go outside.) The rest of the video is from the procession at the end of the service. We walked around the monastery, stopping in four places, including the monastery's cemetery, to pray. The procession ended on the steps up into the church (the last photo), where the protosyngellos, Fr. Ioannis, gave a nice talk about the Panagia as the mother of all Christians, who are the body of the her Son.

Afterwards, the monastery offered everyone a very nice kerasma (treat) -- a dessert that was so good it was hard to believe it didn't have milk! The few who were able to squeeze into the archondariki with Fr. Ioannis and the abbess heard some very nice stories about miracles of St. Demetrios.

For a few more photos, click here.

Hungarian Visitors

Well, my parade of visitors continues. From Friday until this morning, I hosted two Hungarian girls -- my friend Iren, along with her friend Zita. They both converted from Greek Catholic (Uniate) to Orthodoxy about 10 years ago. Hungary has only about 3000 Orthodox faithful, along with about 300,000 Uniates. The predominant religion, of course, is Roman Catholic. Of course, the Serbian Orthodox Church has a presence along its border with Hungary.

Anyway, I met Iren last year when she was in Thessaloniki for 3 months to study Greek. Now, she's traveling through the Balkans with her friend on a pilgrimage/vacation before returning to England, where she is doing an MA in the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies at Cambridge.

As usual, the Lillies hosted us all for a wonderful meal and company last night, and today they were off to continue their journey. The above photos were taken last night of our dog and cat playing with each other in an unusually affectionate way.

Iren and Zita left this morning, and in the afternoon three of my Serbian friends returned from their stay on the Holy Mountain, and so now they are staying with me until they leave for Belgrade tomorrow.