Now, a word from Joop

Remember when I was taking a poll of French people to get a feel for how many people in France actually know of St. Vincent de Paul? Well, I'm posting this video of Joop Timmers, our motorcoach driver and tour operator. Technically, he is Dutch, but since he runs the tours for DePaul all over France, I thought I should at least interview him to find out what he knows about St. Vincent. Here is the video:

A Movable Feast

JOIGNY, FRANCE (Aug. 16)—We left Beaune this morning to start making our way back to Paris. It’s sad that our trip is almost over. I will miss you, France.

Before we left at 9 a.m. though, we had about an hour to shop in a local outdoor market where I purchased some soaps, lavender and a large, dense, delicious chocolate cake to bring back home.

Our plans call for visiting Joigny, France, this morning to take in our last Vincentian sites of the trip. Though we were a little behind schedule, the Rev. Edward Udovic, C.M., said they had a surprise in store for us.

We were still on the bus when the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M., asked us each to take the microphone and share with the group our thoughts about the trip. One person after another commented on how this was the trip of a lifetime and thanked Fathers Rybolt and Udovic for all they did to make the experience possible and memorable.

DePaul faculty member Camilla Fojas said it brought St. Vincent to life for her. “It’s turned history into something that’s living and breathing,” said faculty member Michael DeAngelis. Another colleague Eric Nelson said no matter how much we all talk about St. Vincent and Vincentian values, there was always a missing piece—until this trip.

It was very touching to hear exactly how my colleagues were moved by the experience. Many tied aspects of St. Vincent’s work to the work they do at DePaul—in areas ranging from the graduate program in social work to fundraising for the university. Father Rybolt told us that a sense of the Vincentian mission will permeate what we do. “It’s everyone’s job, in a sense, to bring the results back,” he said.

Then it was time for our big surprise. Calling it “an artistic and spiritual aperitif before we get to Joigny,” Father Rybolt took us on a tour of La Ferté Loupière, a Romanesque church outside Joigny that featured a series of paintings from the Middle Ages that were not uncovered until just 100 years ago when some wood panels were being removed from the high walls of the church. These paintings depicting the “Danse Macabre,” or Dance of Death, were done in the 15th century, and they came right after the Black Death, when a lot of people clearly had death on their minds.


Danse Macabre is an allegory on the universality of death. The paintings show skeletons (death) dancing with a pope, a cardinal, a bishop, a king and other important people to illustrate that we are all united in death, no matter who we are, how rich and powerful we are, or what we do in life.

At first glance, the skeletons make the painting look scary. Overall though, it does have a mildly whimsical quality that attempts to make death less frightening to us all. It’s interesting that the paintings appear in a church. The thinking probably was that if you’re going to think about death, the sanctuary of a church is probably a good place to do it.

After our short visit there, it was on to Joigny, a city that sits on the banks of the River Yonne (which runs into the River Seine eventually). “I like Joigny a lot,” said Father Rybolt. We all did. It was very bonjour, to say the least. Joigny still preserves its historical charm but old and new collide as centuries-old houses are dotted with satellite dishes.

The Gondi family, which I’ve referred to in other blog posts, lived in Joigny, too, at different times, even though the family owned other properties in other parts of France. St. Vincent lived here, too, at one point.

Back in the day, the Gondis lived in a castle that still stands right next to L’Eglise Saint-Jean de Joigny, a church containing a magnificent marble carving commissioned by the Gondis between 1513 and 1518 of the Entombment of the Sepulchre of Christ with Seven Figures. “Museums would spend a fortune to get this thing,” noted Father Rybolt.


Very often in those days, castles of the very rich were located next to churches because they didn’t make a distinction between civil and ecclesiastical life, according to Father Rybolt. That’s probably because the rich supported the churches financially.

After walking by a place where St. Vincent lived, we ended up at Église Saint-André de Joigny. Father Rybolt was delighted to find the doors of the church were open so we could take a look around. It was a fairly simple old church with a lot of history to it. On one wall hung a medieval siege ladder that the locals put up to give thanks to God for allowing the villagers to successfully fend off an attack. That’s something you don’t see too often, remarked Father Rybolt.

And with that, we officially concluded our tour of Vincentian Heritage sites. With less than 24 hours remaining in France, it was now time to eat, drink and say our good byes.

THEMES, FRANCE (Aug. 16)—It’s about 5 p.m. and most of my colleagues are asleep on the motorcoach after an exquisite five-course lunch, or as one colleague called it a five-photo lunch (because I have been photographing every course I’ve had on this trip). We are making our way back to Paris on a two-hour bus ride. Tonight our driver Joop Timmers drives us to dinner at what is the oldest restaurant in Paris. Tomorrow morning he takes us to the airport, and voila, the trip ends!

The thought of getting ready for our farewell dinner in a few hours is too painful to think about because I am so stuffed at the moment. Don’t get me wrong. Le Petit Claridge in the town of Themes was probably the finest restaurant we’ve been to on this trip.

This is the kind of meal I would have tried to starve myself for had I been back home in Chicago. Sure, nobody is forcing me to eat it, but what kind of person would I be if I was in France and didn’t fully experience French cuisine? That’s one of the main things the French are known for.

So for lunch, we began with an amuse bouche of olive tapenade, whipped cream cheese, herring and olive oil loosely mixed in a beautiful clear glass.

Course two was a delicate ham and cheese crepe. I don’t eat pork, so I skipped this course, but still, it looked tempting.

Course three: beef in a brown mushroom sauce served with three new potatoes alternating with two pieces of jambon (ham) on skewers. The meal came with buffet-style vegetable concoction that was a little salty but incredibly tasty, buttery and rich. It included strips of eggplant and I don’t know what else, but it was fabulous.

Course four: A cheese plate of brie, goat cheese and a Swiss cheese with a small salad with pine nuts on the side.

Course five: A dessert trio. My personal favorite was what looked like a shot glass with an egg in it. All it was is mango syrup on top of a thick layer of cream that was put on top of a light sprinkling of ground vanilla bean on the bottom of the glass. My second favorite was a refreshing raspberry concoction that was like a melted sorbet that you sip out of an espresso cup.

After checking into our hotel in Roissy-en-France, near the Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, we had less than an hour to prepare for dinner—our last one together as a group.

ROISSY, FRANCE (Aug. 16)—I just retired to my room after dinner. We had a wonderful time at A la Petite Chaise. Founded in 1680, it claims to be the oldest restaurant in Paris. As full as we all were, we still managed to choke down some awesome food. We got to order from several choices off a menu.

As soon as we sat down, we were presented with a lovely glass of a sweet wine to start. My first course was a green mixed salad. Others had French onion soup or asparagus in a pastry shell. Each of us was happy with our choices.

After our first course, speeches were made in honor of Father Udovic, Father Rybolt and Joop for giving us such a memorable trip.

For the main course, I dined on salmon escallop with vegetables. Others enjoyed the duck or pepper steak. For dessert, I ordered the dessert of the day, which was strawberry mousse.

Others enjoyed “chocolate cake,” which really was chocolate mousse because it was so creamy.

During the course of the evening, I alternated between a delicious white wine and a smooth red. I couldn’t make up my mind, so I figured, why not have both? Our last night in Paris was not the night to start exercising great will power. We capped off dinner with a strong cup of espresso.

The evening was bittersweet. I have thoroughly enjoyed the company of this group of great DePaul faculty and staff, Fathers Rybolt and Udovic, and last but not least, Joop. We learned so much from Fathers Rybolt and Udovic. They succeeded in bringing St. Vincent to life for us. I will miss all my new friends.

The Feast of the Assumption

TOURNUS, FRANCE (Aug. 15)—We checked out of the hotel this morning and headed north to the region of France known as Bourgogne. We stopped in Tournus to see Abbaye Saint-Philibert, a magnificently restored Romanesque church.

As most of you know, Aug. 15 is the Feast of the Assumption, which is an important day in the Catholic religion. It celebrates the assumption of Mary’s body into heaven. It also is one of the holy days of obligation, which means that Catholics must go to Mass on this day. So as you would imagine, the church was PACKED. If it hadn’t been for all the people who turned out, you would never know that many people lived in this town. Here's a little video from inside the church.




So as not to disturb the worshippers, the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M., spoke softly in telling us about the church. He told us about the Roman floor mosaics and the massive “porch” that was added to the front of the church. He used the word “porch,” but what he was really talking about was a major addition of an enormous room (which is the one I am standing in throughout most of the video posted above). Then we all wandered around, so I took some pictures of the people in the church, listened to some of the Mass and then I made my way upstairs to see what the view was like from way up there.

BEAUNE, FRANCE (Aug. 15)—A short time later, we continued on to the town of Beaune, which is, indeed, très bon—and not just because it lies in the center of the Côte-d'Or wine-producing area. It was yet another very quaint French town.

Many businesses in Beaune and throughout France were closed because of the holy day. It’s odd that France is actually so Catholic for a country that prides itself on its secularism. Even big commercial trucks are not permitted to drive for the entire weekend because of the Catholic holy day, so they all just camp out in truck stop areas that whole time. (I was actually surprised that our motorcoach was allowed to drive around on the highways of France, given what they make the truck drivers do.)

The only businesses that seem to be open today were some restaurants, chocolate and pastry shops, and tabac shops, which are like our 7-Eleven stores, only much smaller.

We were on our own for lunch so a few of us went to a cafeteria style place with outdoor seating. I had a rubbery steak with frits. That was not very bonjour at all, as my DePaul colleague Tom Judge would say.

We then toured Hotel-Dieu, which was built in the 15th century as a hospital so it was typical of the hospitals that the church operated in the time of St. Vincent.

On the inside, it felt more like a church than a hospital because of the beautiful high ceilings, religious artifacts, altar and so on. A statue depicting Jesus’s suffering was there to let patients know that he overcame and that they could, too. The altar in the front of the room reminded everyone of the connection between spiritual and physical healing, Father Rybolt said. They put art in the hospital to relieve the pressure of being in the hospital. Most of the art was peaceful, but some of it wouldn’t have calmed me down. See what I mean?

Then in two neat rows on both sides of the length of the massive room were small hospital room dormers. The beds looked so comfortable and inviting. There were walls between the beds and the curtains in the front that could be drawn for privacy. Here’s a photo of Father Rybolt guiding us through the place.

The Hotel-Dieu was a real working hospital run by a religious order of sisters and endowed by the vineyards.

Part of the museum’s holdings included several self-inflicted enema pumps that looked like stainless steel versions of today’s caulk guns. Yikes!

While part of the building serves as a museum today, the rest serves as a retirement home that features a lovely courtyard. I didn’t see anyone sitting out there, but I’m sure they do sometimes.

We were told not to miss the part of the museum that contained an elaborate altarpiece of the Last Judgment by the Flemish artist Roger van der Weyden. It really is very striking. What is shown here is just a part of it.

All this touring sure made us thirsty. So it was nice that we capped it off with some Burgundian wine at Patriarche Pere et Fils, a local wine cellar.





A short time later, we gathered for dinner at Abbaye de Maizieres.




It was all very bonjour!

Getting Organized

CHATILLON-SUR-CHALARONNE, FRANCE (Aug. 14)—After breakfast, we made our way to Chatillon-sur-Chalaronne, which our itinerary describes as “a lovely town with ramparts, a 15th-century, covered market and 11th-century castle ruins.” It was extremely charming. Here's a photo so you can see for yourself.

We went there because St. Vincent was pastor of a Gothic church in the town in 1617.

You may recall from the blog entry about our visit to Folleville, the Gondi family had hired him to tutor the Gondi children there. At this point, St. Vincent was 36 years old. He heard about a church in Chatillon that was seeking a pastor. He accepted the post but didn’t tell the Gondi family anything. “He just left,” said the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M. The reason for the silent and abrupt departure is unclear. Maybe it was because he was extremely close to the Gondis, and it would have been too difficult to actually tell them he was leaving.

Once in Chatillon, he served as pastor at the church for five months—which is not a long time, but it’s huge in terms of the impact his work had on the mission. There, he made some significant decisions that formed him: he decided that charity work is fine, but it was not well organized. As a result, he established explicit directions relating to the care of poor, sick people in their homes. One of the rules, for example, was that when the sisters went to the home of a sick person to prepare a meal for them, they were to first meticulously spread out a white tablecloth on to the table in order to present the meal in an appetizing and dignified way to make the meal more enjoyable for the individual. St. Vincent must have felt that would help feed the spirit of the sick person as well.

Watch the video to take a tour of the church.




Hearing the white tablecloth story really had a profound impact on many of us in the group. So much so that later in the week when Father Rybolt asked each of us to share our thoughts on the trip with the whole group, DePaul University colleague Martin Williams said that we should all spread out the white tablecloth in every aspect of the work we do at DePaul. That’s really a great way of looking at it.

Because Chatillon-sur-Chalaronne is where St. Vincent developed his idea of organizing charity, the town “is really, really important” in the history of St. Vincent, said Father Rybolt. The other two most important places in terms of his development were the church in Folleville (the town we visited on Aug. 8) and his birthplace (which we visited on Aug. 11).

In addition to the church, we went to a place nearby where St. Vincent lived. Nuns live there now. There, we toured the building and visited a chapel that contained a copy of the rules he established for the mission and a painting of him with babies. The painting, even more so than the statue of St. Vincent with babies that I mentioned in a previous blog entry, begat all the other depictions of him with babies and children, according to Father Rybolt. Here’s a picture of the painting.

After a long walk around the scenic town, we had a leisurely lunch at Hotel du Commerce. It was a long lunch because service here is much slower than back home in the states. Still, it was nice to relax for a few hours. The main course was chicken covered in a white sauce and potatoes, and the food was delicious, except for a cold jellied-ham thing they served as an appetizer (see picture)—yet, it did not look appetizing to most of us.


LYON, FRANCE (Aug. 14)—After lunch, we returned to Lyon for a tour of the old city and La Basilique Notre-Dame de Fourviere. Father Rybolt said the church looked like an elephant on its back with all four legs up in the air. It was a pretty extravagant-looking church. The church had no connection to St. Vincent, so I snapped a few pictures and started to daydream about what kind of shopping I would do in Lyon because we had the rest of the day to do with as we pleased. I did only a little shopping, because the stores closed at 7 p.m., which only gave us about an hour and a half. We were all feeling pretty fatigued at that point. The rain that began at around closing time made us feel even more tired. I had a light dinner and made it an early night.

Taking Care of Business

Aug. 13—As you’d expect the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M., likes to tell our group stories about the history of the mission while we’re on the motorcoach going from one place to another. I’m not a big history buff, but I find his stories riveting—even the history lessons. In the world of historians and researchers, Father Rybolt is a rarity in that he brings history to life.

So I just had to share the following account by Father Rybolt that gives us a look at St. Vincent the businessman:

St. Vincent was an opportunist—in a good sense. He saw opportunities to help the mission, and he took advantage of them.

St. Vincent was responsible for not only running his life, but he had to run the Congregation of the Mission (which is what the C.M. stands for behind Vincentian priests’ names, in case you didn’t know). “Our guys” didn’t get salaries, said Father Rybolt. The priests who worked for the seminaries received an income from the bishop. But St. Vincent also was responsible for the Daughters of Charity (DOC), and the sisters of the DOC did collect salaries. “They seem like kindly woman, but no money, no mission,” Father Rybolt said half-jokingly.

So in addition to being a great religious man, St. Vincent was a very good businessman, according to Father Rybolt. St. Vincent received a hefty endowment (I think it was something like the equivalent of $2 million by today’s standards) in a combination of a place to live at St. Lazare (the Vincentians’ first home, which I wrote about in my Paris Aug. 9 blog entry), an endowment that was partly invested and some cash.

The mission needed generous endowments to make it possible to do its much-needed work in the community—taking care of the elderly, orphans and so on. Realizing this, a lot of people began to endow the missions that they wanted St. Vincent to do, Father Rybolt said.

Back then, St. Lazare was supported in land and the produce of land, especially the grain or whatever else they had, such as farm animals, according to Father Rybolt. Fruits of the land would be sold, and that would be the source of money for a great many people. So St. Vincent, like farmers at the time, had to do such things as invest in farm equipment and look out for the safety of workers so that no one was hurt. He also had managers who would go out and oversee the farms.

Not only was there income from the land, but there also were other forms of income. The old St. Lazare also owned a lot of property in Paris—whole streets actually. So another source of income was rent paid by tenants in apartments owned on St. Lazare property. In some cases, if people didn’t have money to give to the mission, they would give the church the rights to something. So the congregation could derive income from tolls, for example. Some people would give the church rights to certain lands so that people would have to pay for the right to fish in a certain area, etc.

Interestingly, St. Vincent, at one point, possessed the rights to coach lines. It’s funny to think that “we have this grandfatherly figure running a coach line,” said Father Rybolt. Even though the congregation couldn’t claim 100 percent of the income from it (it had to be shared with other churches and groups), the coach lines were nevertheless big business for the Vincentians, who also are known as Lazarists.

So on top of everything else, St. Vincent had the tough job of making sure that the mission was supported by some sort of income and that the sources of income were stable.

Getting stable income was the hard part, because the mission also relied on income sources given by the king, such as income from the issuance of municipal bonds on the city of Paris. Problem was what “the king gives, he can take back, so they went from having something to nothing occasionally,” Father Rybolt said.

That made it hard for St. Vincent to budget realistically, but he still managed. “He was at the apex of this financial network,” Father Rybolt said. “Compare that this image of a man who helped poor people. He helped them by being a good businessman.”

Note to self: Check out Monsieur Vincent, the movie. Father Rybolt has referred to it several times on this trip.

One Fine Day

CARCASSONNE, FRANCE (Aug. 13)—Funny that after going on and on about breakfast in yesterday’s blog entry, I missed it today because I woke up at 7 and we needed to roll exactly at 8! So no coffee, no nothing. I had my “breakfast” on the bus. It was M&Ms and peanuts that I picked out of a trail mix that a friend in the group gave me. I also had a Malo ball of chocolate that covered a round marshmallow perched on top of a cookie. I washed that down with some warm leftover Coca-Cola light from yesterday. As much as I needed the extra hour of sleep, I don’t plan to miss real breakfast again.

Turns out today is the birthday of the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M. We sang “Happy Birthday” to him on the bus.

Father Rybolt is so knowledgeable about Vincentian and French history. He tells great stories. Many of them are funny because of the way he describes things. For examples, see the video of him in the Aug. 7 blog entry about relics and the Aug. 12 entry about boiling Saint Thomas Aquinas’s body in red wine to get rid of the flesh and get down to the bones. He’s so matter of fact about everything.

Since we are on the bus right now, I asked a few other people for their examples of funny things that Father Rybolt has said during this trip. Lorne Henne suggests I write: “We’re told Father Rybolt turned 69 today, but we have no documentation.” I laughed because that is totally something that Father Rybolt would say.

We spent a lot of time on this motorcoach today. Hours and hours. It was nice of Father Rybolt and the Rev. Edward Udovic, C.M., our tour guides, to break up the drive today in segments. We detoured from the main road to visit Pont du Gard, the spectacular ancient Roman aqueduct. The Pont du Gard is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

There’s really no connection to St. Vincent, said Father Rybolt. So why did we visit? It was on our route, and it’s an extraordinary example of quality Roman engineering. The Romans knew you needed to have water if you were going to have a city, he said.

A big group of us went all the way to the top, but we didn’t get to walk across from one side to the other. Travel tip: while you are still on ground level and before you climb all those stairs, make sure you purchase a ticket that allows you to walk across. You won't be able to purchase it once you get up there. Still, I was happy that we got to see it, and I think I managed to take some amazing pictures of it. I’ve posted one, so you can see for yourself how breathtaking it is:

We continued on to the town of Avignon. “Protected by its ramparts, the historic core of the city is a lively center for art and culture,” according to our itinerary. “For 68 years in the 14th century, it was the residence first of the seven French popes and then of three others once Pope Gregory XXI had returned to Rome.”

After a break for lunch, we had a recorded tour in English, of course, of the massive fortress-like Palace of the Popes. “The interior, with its generously proportioned halls, rooms, and passages, is an impressive sight in spite of the loss of furniture and decoration.”

It was impressive in that I can now brag that I’ve been to the Palace of the Popes, which is an awesome structure. But the tour was brutal, because the place is so huge.

At some point today, we caught our last glimpse of the Pyrenees through our bus windows. We also got a brief look at the Mediterranean Sea. Father Rybolt also noted that we would be passing the Tropic of Cancer.

We just pulled up in front of our hotel in Lyon. After we check in, we’re meeting up for dinner. I’m sure it’ll be another fine meal.

Road to Toulouse

PAU, FRANCE (Aug. 12)—As you all know, I’m not a morning person, but these big French breakfasts sure are worth getting up for in the morning. This morning, like every other morning, I had fresh fruit, cheese and a croissant and washed it down with a blend of different fruit juices and two cups of strong, but smooth coffee. On the recommendation of a colleague, I slathered my croissant in Nutella, which I never tried before. It was quite good. I discovered that a little bit of Nutella goes a long way.

After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and drove to Toulouse. On the way, we drove through more beautiful French countryside, and we got to see the Pyrenees in the far distance.

Toulouse is a university city. It has a grittier look to it than Paris, but it’s still quaint. The town has an abundance of different ethnic storefront restaurants, traditional French cafes and lots of shops, including some American chains.

Once our bus dropped us off in a town square, we walked to Saint Sernin, a basilica dedicated to a bishop and a major stopping place in the pilgrimage to Compostela. The bishop was Saturnin, a martyr saint and the first bishop of Toulouse, who lived in the first half of the 3rd century. A pamphlet at the church tells of how he died in 250 after being dragged through the streets by a sacrificial bull. The church is older than Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

The church is architecturally very different than all the others we have seen so far. It’s a massive structure that goes straight up and looks boxy from the outside. That’s because the structure has no flying buttresses for support. They had to compensate for that by using massive pillars in the middle of the church not for decoration, but to actually hold the church up so it doesn’t fall apart.

The church also is known for the fact that under its main altar are the remains of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Click here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Theologica if you would like to check out Summa Theologica, his greatest work. Aquinas died in a monastery in Italy. Back then, they didn’t have a way to ship whole bodies. And apparently, Aquinas was a large man. So, according to the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M., Aquinas’s body was rendered. And by rendered, I mean cooked in a pot. “They put him in a pot, got rid of his flesh and left him with his bones,” said Father Rybolt. “They thought so much of him that they put him in a pot with red wine. His bones were red. It’s a wild story, and it’s probably true.” Cooking him in wine apparently was a way to show him great respect. If it was most anybody else, water would have been used.

St. Vincent’s connection to Toulouse was that he lived there while he was a university student and for four more years as a priest. As for the Saint Sernin, we visited the basilica, Father Rybolt said, “because it is an artistic treasure, and since he was a student here, St. Vincent most likely walked in there at least once.”

After our visit, we had a nice long break for lunch and shopping. Lunch was my first disappointing meal on this trip. I ordered a kebab sandwich with fries. The fries were OK, but the kebab was a mystery meat. It was so processed, fatty and thinly sliced that I couldn’t tell if it was beef, lamb or a combination of something else entirely. It had the consistency of Carl Buddig meat. I ate it because I was starving.

After a little shopping, we boarded the bus for our trip to Carcassonne where we are staying at the Mercury Carcassonne Porte de la Cite, a nice, comfortable and modern hotel with slightly smaller rooms than we are used to.

It was a scenic ride to the hotel, which is located inside the city walls. Carcassonne is the largest fortified city in Europe. From a distance, it sits high on a hill and made it look like we were approaching Disneyland.

We had a nice dinner in the hotel restaurant of salad, beef so tender that you could cut it with a fork in a tasty light brown gravy and fancy mashed potatoes decorated with thick carrot slices. Dessert consisted of cream puffs filled with some sort of ice cream topped with whipped cream. I ate the whole thing. It was worth every calorie.

The Cradle of St. Vincent

PARIS (Aug. 11)--I’m not really a morning person. As a matter of routine, I like to ease into my day after a couple of cups of coffee. Each day on this trip so far, we’ve had to be dressed and ready to go by 8:30 a.m. Under threat of having the tour bus leave me behind, I’ve been punctual.

I was afraid to sleep last night. I had to wake up at 4:30 a.m. in order to meet the group at 5:30 in the lobby for our departure to Dax, France, Vincent’s birthplace. We took a motorcoach to the train station, where we traveled first class by high-speed train to Dax. It was extremely comfortable. The views from our windows are of scenic French countryside as we head to southern France. It’s supposed to be absolutely stunning where we are going.

DAX, FRANCE (Aug. 11)—We arrived in St. Vincent’s birthplace at about 11:30 a.m. after a long, but extremely comfortable ride in first class seats on the high-speed train. Our driver Joop Timmers met us at the train station.

You’re probably wondering why Joop didn’t drive us down. We took the train from Paris in order to make good time. Joop had to leave a few days before with the motorcoach because French law prohibits him from driving for more than a certain number of hours a day. That approach would not have worked for our schedule. (I only explained that because I knew you would be wondering.)

We immediately headed for St. Vincent’s hometown. The first stop was the elementary school St. Vincent attended, which is now a law office. The town of Dax has a strong Basque influence especially in architecture because the Basque were known to dominate the area. The town also is known for its spas as the waters of Dax have healing powers. Too bad we didn’t have time to bask in the healing waters there.

As we strolled through St. Vincent’s hometown, we couldn’t help but notice how clean and perfectly paved the streets were. Dax, which is in the southwest corner of France, happened to be preparing for a huge festival called Feria de Dax, which I understand is as wild as Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I think that’s all I should say about that right here. (It’s that bad. That’s probably why our group didn’t stay in a hotel in town over night.)

So we continued walking until we reached the local police station, which at one point was where the Franciscans had a friary and St. Vincent supposedly lived there for a while. He also lived in the residence of Monsieur de Comet, a relative, according to the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M. The home was located nearby on Rue de Sully, and St. Vincent lived with monsieur while he was about 12 years old and a student. He may have been given room and board in exchange for tutoring the children of monsieur, according to Father Rybolt.

He reminded us that St. Vincent wasn’t always an elderly man. “He was a guy, too, like everybody else,” he told us. Like other young men of that time, he must have gone to parties, attended bull fights, and enjoyed hanging out with friends. “He undoubtedly enjoyed a good time, even here in Dax,” Father Rybolt said.

By the time our group broke for lunch, we were pretty hungry. A group of us had a simple lunch at a little storefront café in town. My lunch consisted of a delightful petite brie sandwich on a sesame and onion baguette and cost me a whole Euro. It didn’t have tomatoes or anything—it was just brie and bread, and it was divine. I had a bag of chips and a Coca-Cola light with it. But I didn’t have dessert. I think that’s the only meal so far where I didn’t. It’s not because the café didn’t have nice desserts. It did! I was just exercising some will power.

After lunch, we got back on the bus to head out to St. Vincent’s birthplace, also known as Le Berceau de St. Vincent de Paul (Cradle of St. Vincent de Paul). On the church square by the large oak, where St. Vincent kept his father’s flocks, is the house where Vincent was born. It wasn’t what most of us expected. It was quaint and yet stunning in its elegant simplicity. Of course, the original house was no longer there, but the house was entirely reconstructed and some of the wood from the original house was used.

What struck many of us was the size of his house. We expected it to be smaller. We had the idea that St. Vincent was poor and the son of peasants. Judging by the way that spacious, two-level house looked, his family did OK. His parents owned animals or cattle. Scott Kelley, assistant vice president for Vincentian scholarship, put it best when he said, “If you have title to property, if you have cattle and if you have access to education, even by today’s standards, you’re probably in the upper half of the world’s population.”

It would have been nice to spend some more time there on such a gorgeous sunny day. A number of colleagues commented on how peaceful the place felt and how nice it would have been to just hang out on the lawn. But we also understood that we had a lot of places to see. Our last stop was the church where St. Vincent was baptized. Just outside of the church, I met Kathleen De Maesschalck, a pilgrim from Gent, Belgium, making the journey to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, by bicycle. Click on this video if you would like to hear her discuss her experience.

Exhausted after another long, but fascinating day, Joop drove us to the town of Pau where we spent the night at the Hotel Continental, a Best Western hotel, at 2, Rue du Marechal-Foch. The hotel was totally different than the modern, upscale Novotel Gare de Lyon we had been staying in Paris. Both were comfortable, but the Hotel Continental is all about old French charm. My room had extremely high ceilings, antique furnishings and two sets of tall doors that opened out to a little balcony. I slept with the doors wide open.

P.S. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant. The food was very good, but the room was so warm that it was uncomfortable. We dined on quiche as an appetizer. The main course was something tasty that was either beef or lamb on the bone (I honestly don’t know which, but it was really good) with a delicate but savory tomato sauce served with petite white potatoes. Dessert was an apple tart. Compared to all of the other desserts we’ve had so far, this one was just OK. That’s probably because I was traumatized this morning at the train station in Paris when I bit into an apricot croissant that was masquerading as an apple croissant. I hate apricots, and it was terrible! It took a while and an espresso to get that taste out of my mouth. Did I mention yet how much I love, love, love espresso?

More of St. Vincent's Paris

PARIS (Aug. 10)--Sunday was our free day to do with as we wished. It was a great day. Since I haven’t been able to get to sleep before 1:30 since we arrived in Paris, it felt great to sleep until 10 a.m. this morning.

Cathedrale Notre-Dame
I was so tired that I’m lucky I even woke up to meet DePaul colleagues Tom Judge, Sandra Morgenthaler, Fran Cunningham, Shirley Turner, Scott Kelley and Jim Janossy an hour later to head to Notre-Dame Cathedral of Paris to attend the international mass at 11:30. Remember how I was among those in my group who didn’t get in to Notre-Dame on our first day in Paris, so I was really thrilled to make it today. Mass was beautiful. Of course, the video doesn't do it justice, but you can check it out for yourself here:



After that, my colleague Sandra Morgenthaler and I circled around the entire cathedral once. It was packed with people from all over the globe and of all religions. For example, it was interesting to see a group of Muslim women all dressed in head-to-toe black posing for pictures in the cathedral. The place was so packed that I actually felt claustrophobic. Still it was totally worth it.

You may be wondering whether I will ever tire of visiting these cathedrals? I don’t think so. Each has been beautiful in its own way. I like different things about each one I’ve been to so far. I guess with Notre-Dame there certainly is beautiful artwork to admire. But I guess mostly it would have to be thinking about the rich history of the place. Not only is the architecture on each of these cathedrals impressive--Notre-Dame is known for its flying buttresses, after all. I just had to say buttresses in this blog at least once. Seriously though, this place has seen a lot of the great events in French history. My Michelin guidebook of France says that in 1430, the cathedral was where the coronation took place for the young Henry VI of England as the King of France. During the revolution, statues were destroyed and the place was declared a Temple of Reason, according to Michelin. The book says, “It was in a much-dilapidated building that Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor and the King of Rome was baptized.” So you sit listening to mass thinking about the major events like these and others—such as the marriages that have taken place there over hundreds of years. And you’re in awe of the place, and so is everyone else. That’s why it’s packed.

After soaking in Notre-Dame, Sandra and I decided to take a leisurely walk to our next destination, which was the Louvre. First we had lunch. More goat cheese. It was another tasty salad with warm goat cheese on toasted slices of white bread. It was about 1 p.m. by then, so we figured wine was completely acceptable. It proved to be another lovely meal. We capped it off with some rather disappointing Tiramisu and espresso. We started out saying the Tiramisu was interesting and different, but really it was not very good. It was like a cake. I’ve never had tiramisu like that before.

After lunch, we meandered through roadside flea market type stalls peddling postcards, prints, silky scarves emblazoned with “Paris” all over them, key chains of the Eiffel Tower—you know the usual classy souvenirs that you expect to see at souvenir stands like these.

Musee Du Louvre
Before we knew it, it was after 4 p.m., and we didn’t have a whole lot of time to visit the Louvre. So we raced there as fast as we could to see the Mona Lisa, figuring if you see nothing else there, that’s the one thing you have to see.

You wouldn’t believe how far away it is from the entrance. We made it, and we managed to check out some other paintings, too, before they started to kick us all out.

At this point, our feet were KILLING us because of all the walking we did and we were getting really hungry. So we stopped at this Italian/Greek/French café called Chez Alexandre near the Louvre, where we had pizzas. Sandra had wine, and I had beer. This was our first bad wine experience. It was bound to happen. My beer, called 1664, was OK, not great. Sandra appropriately dubbed it French Heineken after I gave her a sip.

Not yet tired of goat cheese, Sandra ordered it on her pizza, called the Mona Lisa. Mine was the Marguerite, with cheese, oregano and exactly two olives. We shared a dessert of (I know this is going to sound strange but…) baklava. Our friendly Turkish server recommended it, so we couldn’t refuse. It was creamy and melted in our mouths. We loved it, but it didn't quite do it for us and we finally figured out why: We had not had an ounce of chocolate all day. That was the first day that was the case since we arrived in Paris. So a short time later, we snacked on fancy French versions of Twix bars, and we felt better.

Waiting for the check is a long process in restaurants and cafes throughout France. They don’t give you the bill unless you ask for it. So you should allow at least a half hour for that. As we waited to settle up, we were planning our way back to the hotel via Metro.

A helpful Parisian couple at the table next to us suggested we take a different train line because the line we wanted to take was shut down due to the discovery of a suspicious package. I thought I would take the opportunity to ask them if they know of St. Vincent. Before I left for Paris, my supervisor Carol Sadtler, who had been on this trip before, said that everyone in Paris knows of St. Vincent. I said everyone? She said yes, everyone. So that’s why I thought that if I had some time, I would put the question to the man (or woman) on the street.

In the following video, I didn’t get the woman’s first name, but she said her last name was Vincent. Cool coincidence, huh? The very knowledgeable young man is Gabriel Du Bois, a political science student at Sciences-Po in Paris. He has published a book, “La Saga capetienne,” which actually references St. Vincent. Here’s what he had to say:

I guess Carol’s right—so far.

PARIS (Aug. 9)—We were introduced to some additional Vincentian sites in Paris today. Among them were the original site of Saint Lazare, the churches of St. Laurent and Ste. Marguerite, and the Museum of Public Assistance. I recently mentioned (see Aug. 7 blog entry) that the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M., showed us the site of the original Vincentian motherhouse, which today is a firehouse. That same day, I also wrote about the current location of the motherhouse, which is on Rue de Sevres.

In the time in between, St. Lazare, located on Rue du Faub.G. St. Denis, served as the motherhouse until the Revolution. That’s the site we visited this morning. At the time, the Daughters of Charity motherhouse was located directly across the street, which made for easy communication between the Vincentians and the sisters.

On a sign in between the two sites is a likeness of St. Vincent that made us feel as though we were on DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus (if we weren’t surrounded by Parisian shops and cafes).



After that, we toured St. Laurent, which contains a plaque that says this was St. Vincent’s parish church. His close associate Saint Louise de Marillac (1591-1660) was at one point buried there, but her remains were removed in 1965. It is unclear where they are today. With St. Vincent, Saint Louise co-founded the Daughters of Charity.

Our next church, Ste. Marguerite, is significant for its historic and artistic reasons. It contains an impressive collection of paintings of St. Vincent. An original by Jean-Baptiste Feret, which was done for St. Vincent’s canonization, shows him praying for people on the battlefield. Another by Jean Restout depicts our saint greeting several noble women. Yet another is of St. Vincent preaching to old people at a hospice. That one is by Frere Jean Andre.

The church also possesses a statue of St. Vincent holding a baby that inspired an entire genre of compassionate “Vincent and baby” paintings and artwork. In some of the depictions, it seems that St. Vincent and his people felt that the more babies he appears with, the better. His work in helping orphans in the streets of Paris is well known. So maybe the Vincent and baby art provided a way to bring attention, and as a result, financial support to help him feed, clothe and tend to his foundlings. High-resolution digital images of most, if not all, of the artwork I describe here and countless others can be found at depaul.edu. To get to them, you have to click on libraries and then on special collections or archives—something like that. I’ll post the specifics as soon as I get it.

Our last stop of the day was at the Museum of Public Assistance, which I think is also known as Hotel Sully. The architectural style of the museum is very similar to the current Vincentian motherhouse on Rue de Sevres. At one point, the museum was a house, and St. Vincent would have to call on wealthy people who lived in these types of houses to seek their support to help his foundlings. In the actual museum that is part of the compound is the Musee Carnavalet, which had many works that depicted what Paris was like in the time of St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660).

Where It All Began

FOLLEVILLE, FRANCE (Aug. 8)—We departed the hotel at 8:30 a.m. for Folleville, about two hours northwest of Paris. On the bus ride to Folleville, a town rich in the history of St. Vincent's beginnings as a priest, we got a glimpse of the rich and fertile French countryside through our bus windows.

On the way there, the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M. told us about the Gondi family and their strong ties to St. Vincent. The family came from Florence, Italy, to France and made a fortune in the banking industry. Phillipe Emanuel de Gondi was an admiral in charge of fleets in the Mediteranean. His wife, Marguerite, was also a noble, and we were going to see her property in Folleville. The family would have to visit Folleville once a year to collect feudal dues that were owed to them from people residing on their property.

Father Rybolt said that not only was madame responsible for collecting the dues, but in exchange for the dues, she was responsible for providing services much like a government would be today. In addition, she was responsible for the spiritual well being of everybody in the county. I'm not sure what the population was back in the day, but about 70 people live there today.

Father Rybolt said that a story came to her of a man who was sick or dying and wanted to go to confession before he died. She asked Vincent, her chaplain, to do it. The sick man was so moved by the conversion that happened in his life based on the confession, that he told Madame de Gondi. She convinced Vincent that he should preach on the importance of confession.

Vincent always tried to bring about reconciliation, Father Rybolt said. "There were always problems that had to be reconciled, and that's one thing that he did and that was one thing that he was good at."

Addressing our group of DePaul University faculty and staff in the Church of Folleville, Father Rybolt said, "Why we are what we are and why we have the name that we have began right here." Here's what the church looks like from outside:


Legend has it that Vincent gave his first sermon in the Church of Folleville from the pulpit pictured here:


It turns out the pulpit and other furniture weren’t around until about 20 years later. Nevertheless, there’s no disputing that the Congregation of the Mission had its origins in a sermon given by St. Vincent in this parish church, and there we were, standing exactly where he stood and where he took confession. It was rather moving.

This is what the altar of the church looks like:


And this what the back of the church looks like:


I loved this church for its elegance and simplicity, especially the back of the church. The rain outside served as the perfect backdrop, making the church and the remains of the Gondi mansion seem even more beautiful.

Next door, a building that houses what looks like a large, open community room served, at one point, as a place of rest for people on the Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, Spain (Folleville and Paris are both on the pilgrimage route). Here's what it looks like on the outside:

This is what it looks like inside:

We then stopped for fancy lunch at a quaint country restaurant called Le Relais de Sains restaurant. The meal started with a dish made of mushrooms, cheese and ham. I understand it was rich, creamy and delicious. It looked like a huge, smooshy quiche. That was followed by chicken and tangy vegetable mixture. The dessert was crème brulee. This time the portion was more civilized. We had wine, of course. I’m not used to chilled red wine. It’s an acquired taste.

AMIENS, France--Other than the whole Napoleon’s tomb thing, one of the great surprises of this trip was the Cathédrale Notre-Dame d'Amiens, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981.

In his remarks about the church, the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M., said that the town of Amiens suffered a great deal during WWII. It was a transportation hub, and the train station was bombed and rubble littered the streets. As we approached the town, we expected to see a small cathedral, but holy cow, was this thing huge!

Our tour materials said: “Begun in 1220, this magnificent cathedral has an elegant nave, the highest in France. The interior has late medieval stained-glass windows and an 18th-century wrought-iron screen.” Hopefully the photos and video I post here will convey how awesome this place is.

The tour materials didn’t say anything about the fact that this cathedral has in its possession what is supposedly part of the head of John the Baptist. Who knows if it is or isn’t really his head? It looked scary, so it probably was his head. I can’t describe this one. You’ll just have to look at the photo and decide for yourself.

Given that this is allegedly the site of a major relic, I thought the cathedral would serve as a nice backdrop for an interview with Scott Kelley, assistant vice president of Vincentian scholarship at DePaul, on why relics are important in Catholicism:



Another interesting feature of the church is a labyrinth on the floor in the center of the church. Some people like to follow the path outlined by the labyrinth or do such things as praying aloud or chanting in church after mass. Kelley explained that people commonly engage in these exercises to make their religious practice less intellectual, to quiet the mind and to engage in contemplative prayer.

After our visit, it was back on the bus for our scenic ride through more beautiful French countryside as we returned to Paris.

We were on our own for dinner tonight, so three of us went out to dinner. We went to the Latin Quarter and decided we all wanted pizza. Because each pizza only cost 10 Euros or so, we assumed they must be individual pizzas. We were wrong. They were huge. The three of us probably could have shared one pizza.


We washed them down with Morettis, a beautifully smooth Italian beer that I never tried before. Now, I feel like I have to make up for lost time. I love you, Moretti!

St. Vincent's Paris

PARIS (Aug. 7)--Our itinerary promised "a fascinating day" was in store for us today. After eating a big breakfast, we were on the bus at 8:30 sharp to start our tour of the quintessential Vincentian sites in Paris.

Yesterday's weather was so beautiful: very sunny and warm. Today began with rain and alternated between sunshine and heavy rain throughout the day. At one point, there was a downpour while the sun was still shining. It was stunning! Even rainstorms somehow seem more beautiful in Paris.

Vincentian Motherhouse
The first stop on our tour was the Vincentian motherhouse at 95, Rue de Sevres. In the magnificent chapel that is part of the motherhouse, the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M., told us that we were there to look at why we are DePaul and to get in touch with what moved St. Vincent. There was a statue of St. Vincent above a doorway in the motherhouse welcoming us.

The highlight for most of us had to be the magnificent chapel with its reliquary containing the body of St. Vincent. For those of you as unfamiliar with reliquaries as I was, we aren't talking about the body of St. Vincent in a symbolic way. It was a wax effigy enclosing his relics. The reliquary sits high above the altar of the chapel. After you climb stairs behind the altar, there you are looking at the body of St. Vincent. His skull is covered with a wax mask that looks so lifelike that one colleague said it was like attending his wake. His remains lie encased in glass. Here's a photo I took:

After hearing St. Vincent's name or references to his deeds nearly every day for the nearly seven years I've worked at DePaul, it felt surreal to be standing inches away from him. We stood in awe for what seemed like a long time. Then we started our picture-snapping frenzy. It was a lot to take in, and we didn't have enough time to soak it all in, so we took as many photos as we could. Before too long, we were ushered into the nearby Vincentian Museum (also housed in the motherhouse).

Vincentian Museum
The museum houses many treasures. What really stood out were a cassock and leather house slippers worn by St. Vincent. They were tattered.

St. Vincent was a man surrounded by the wealthiest people in France, many of whom were benefactors who helped support his charitable work on behalf of orphaned children and the poor. Yet he dressed more like the people he spent his religious life serving. (His slippers were pretty worn as well, but we know that his shoes had slices in them to more comfortably accommodate his feet, which were swollen late in his life due to illness.)

Daughters of Charity Motherhouse & Miraculous Medal Chapel
Next, we visited the nearby motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity with its famous Miraculous Medal Chapel. We arrived during a Mass, and the chapel was filled with people.

The visit was not at all what I had imagined it would be. I heard that the heart of Vincent's was housed in a reliquary in the chapel. But even my DePaul colleagues disagreed about whether it was the actual heart of St. Vincent, or whether "heart" was meant symbolically.

So I put the question to Father Rybolt, our tour guide for the day. Watch this brief videotaped interview for the answer:



OK, so at this point, you've watched the video so you know that the box contains his actual heart! Prior to my visit, I found that possibility really scary. I imagined someone removing St. Vincent's heart from the rest of his body. Sacré bleu!

To my surprise, when I walked into the bright and beautiful chapel, I didn't feel that way at all. After Mass, many people rushed up to the front of the altar and got on their knees on the steps and prayed.

When I approached the reliquary of St. Vincent's heart (located in front of a statue that is to the right of the main altar) that is pictured below, I didn't feel scared or uncomfortable. I understood why the worshippers wanted to be near a part of St. Vincent, or their other saintly heroes for that matter. It makes them feel safe, protected and loved.

Church of St. Sulpice
On our way to our next official stop, the Church of St. Sulpice, Father Rybolt pointed out a firehouse on the Rue du Vieux Colombier that previously had served as the Vincentian motherhouse. It had housed the remains of St. Vincent until the Vincentians purchased the current site.

If you read the DaVinci Code, you are aware of the Church of St. Sulpice. It's one of the churches featured in the book, which is set in Paris. The church is extremely beautiful. The photos I took don’t do it justice, so I won't bother to post them here.

Hotel des Invalides
Our next stop was the Hotel des Invalides. Here it is:

The sun was shining as we strolled through the massive gardens. The French garden is distinctly different than an English garden, which is colorful and grows wild. This garden is very orderly and all the perfectly trimmed cone-shaped shrubs are spaced evenly from each other. The flowers are spaced evenly apart, too. It looked like a garden would look if it belonged to the military. That makes sense since it did belong to the military. My handy Michelin guide for France says Napoleon used to parade his troups in the main courtyard. It also says the South Pavilion forms the facade of the Eglise St-Louis, which houses the tombs of some of France's great soldiers.

Not knowing much about the Hotel des Invalides, I expected it to be a small museum of a hospital that used to serve invalids, like it kind of sounds, right? Well, of course, I was wrong. The vast, solemn edifice contains the tomb of Napoleon. As you look down on the majestic tomb, you wonder if it is actually the largest tomb in existence in the world. (I’m bad with dimensions, so I couldn’t even estimate that for you. I’m sure that information is available somewhere on the Internet.) But just take a look at this photo. I doubt it will adequately convey the massive scale of the tomb or the entire structure.

Saint-Etienne Du Mont
It started to rain again as we embarked on our last visit of the day--a church called Saint-Etienne Du Mont. While we enjoyed our visit to this beautiful church, we went there specifically to see the cloister stained glass windows. Actually, the 12 windows are believed to be painted glass windows. Anyway...each of the windows illustrates different scenes related to the Eucharist and salvation through Christ. They were significant for our group because the windows were created and on display during the time of St. Vincent. I tried and tried, but I could not get a good picture of the windows. They all were too dark.

We certainly covered a lot of ground today. It was "a fascinating day," indeed!

P.S. For all you foodies out there wondering what we ate today (because we are in Paris after all) this is for you: We were served a gigantic lunch at Le Cafe du Commerce http://www.lecafeducommerce.com/. I actually couldn't finish most of it. We thought lunch was the turkey salad they served with bread. We were surprised when it was followed by a massive grilled chicken breast topped with a brown mushroom sauce and served with a huge side of pasta. Dessert was delicious and decadent chocolate mousse. And for dinner, a colleague and I decided to eat light, so we stopped at a cafe for dinner and ordered a couple of club sandwiches. Mine was chicken, lettuce and tomato topped with a hard-boiled egg on white toast with extra mayo (I didn't request that. It just came that way.) It was the best club sandwich EVER, but it sure wasn't "light." And for some reason, we ordered dessert. We shared a huge bowl of crème brûlée. I'm talking a bowl the size of a soup bowl you would get in a restaurant in Chicago. We washed it down with espresso. Did I mention we had wine with dinner?

Bonjour!

PARIS (Aug. 6)--Our group of 37 DePaul faculty and staff arrived at Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris this morning excited but exhausted. Some colleagues managed to sleep on the flight, while others (like me) didn't have much luck in that department. We were greeted at the airport by our driver and tour manager Joop Timmers who led us to our comfortable, air-conditioned motorcoach for our drive into Paris.

Our group leaders the Rev. John Rybolt, C.M., and the Rev. Edward Udovic, C.M., gave us an orientation tour of some famous Parisian landmarks. Thank goodness it consisted of us looking at things through our bus window for a while. We drove by the Avenue des Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triumphe and saw the spot where the Tour du France ends.

In case you didn't know, Paris is the international headquarters for the Vincent de Paul Society. Apartments here have no yards, so people really enjoy their public parks. Wine costs about the same as soda in restaurants, and french fries really do taste better in France.

When we did get off the bus it was for a visit to Notre-Dame Cathedral. Some members of the group got inside the cathedral despite the extremely long lines to get in (one was wrapped around the block).

A few of us were feeling tired and hungry, so we decided to have lunch at a cafe near the cathedral, hoping the lines would get shorter later. That didn't happen. It was pretty amazing that, on a Wednesday afternoon, so many people were in line for a visit to the cathedral.

After we checked in to our rooms at the Novotel Paris Gare de Lyon, we had a few hours to unpack, rest and freshen up.

We gathered at 7 p.m. for dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Dinner began with goose pate and salad and was followed by grilled duck and rice topped with savory sauce--and of course, red wine. The best part of the meal was the dessert, which a colleague described as "deliciousness in pie form." We were given chocolate and coffee with every meal. Heaven!

After dinner, a group of us decided to walk off dinner. We headed toward the Seine River, snapped some photos and capped off the evening with a glass of wine and conversation in a cafe near the hotel.

It was nice to get a taste of Paris on Day 1 of the trip. Now it's time to rest up for tomorrow. We have a busy day planned.