Beach(es), skulls 'n' critters and crossing Paris by Train.....

As they are want to, the Eid al Adha festivities came along, two months after the end of Ramadan and the Eid Al Fitha celebrations. This year the three day public holiday dovetailed nicely into the mid-week, and the Government announced that the full week would therefore be public holidays. Woohoo, ticket to France booked for the Thursday afternoon and I was set for the break. I had originally thought of going to Tanzania for a short Safari - but apparently that's not something I'm allowed to do solo!

So on Thursday 16 August I went to work in the morning, left a little early to take the cat to his cat resort and spa for his week away and then off to the airport for an early afternoon flight to Paris. Unfortunately the Oman Air Paris flight gets in too late to catch a country train, meaning an overnight stay in Paris. What to do - well I transferred myself across to Montparnasse and hunkered down in a hotel for the night. Mind you, before calling it a night i did go out and find an open bar for an evening sit in summer and a beer or two.

Catacomb contents

I'd decided that Friday would be a good time to go and see the catacombs of Paris, being 1) local to Montparnasse and therefore 2) close to the Montparnasse Vaugrigard station where I would catch the express train to Flers. After a long and slow breakfast I set out on foot for the entrance to the catacombs, which just happened to be near the station I had arrived to the previous night, Denfert Rochereau (more on that station's utility later).

The dizzy making entrance to the catacombs 

Street signs for the catacombs

Having witnessed the queues at various Paris tourist monuments, I'd booked my ticket online which gave me a 2 hour window in which to join the express entry queue. I'd taken 11 - 1. Getting there a little early, I'd retreated across the road to a cafe for coffee to await the start time. It was rather pleasant to sit there, looking at the queue that stretched all the way around the small square, knowing that for me there was no queue!

So on and into the catacombs. The Paris catacombs were formed from the mines that were used to extract the limestone from which much of older Paris is built. You only have access to a limited amount of the tunnels though and diverging tunnels are blocked or gated off, to ensure you follow a set route. Much better than having lost souls roaming the streets below!

Mining in the catacombs began by the 12th century, as people sought lutetian limestone to build their houses from. A lot of the early mining was uncontrolled, with many mines unmapped and abandoned when the underground limestone seam they followed was exhausted. Over time as Paris expanded people built above the abandoned (and largely horizontal) mine shafts. Occasionally this led to building collapses and the need for rather expensive foundations on new buildings.

In 1774 a special department was created to map and administer these abandoned mines. Parts of the work involved connecting the mines and shoring them up to support the streets and buildings above. At the same time Paris's cemeteries were becoming overcrowded and occasional collapses were causing public health and public relations nightmares. For example a basement wall in a building next door to the les innocents cemetery collapsed, spilling the contents of a mass grave into said basement. What to do? Simple really, take a lot of the older bones from the cemeteries and put them somewhere else! How convenient, there's abandoned mines below the streets doing nothing.......

Entrance to the Ossuary

So in 1782 Police Lieutenant General Lenoir had a "voila" moment and combined two of the Police responsibilities of cemeteries and mines to create the Parisian Ossuary (that's a bone store to any uneducated plebs that didn't know!). It was all rather necessary as by then the main Parisian cemeteries were bulging from 600 plus years of the dead, not to mention they needed to make room for the shortly forthcoming victims of the French Revolution, which you may recall involved rather liberal application of the guillotine!

Bone stacking 101

Initially bones were simply moved underground to the ossuary area and stacked, but over time and under later inspectors general of the mines things were improved. The Ossuary entrance was created to respect the dead and the bones were neatly stacked, with skulls and long bones creating outside walls to hold the other bones in place. Memorial plaques were erected denoting the origins of the bones and when they were interred in the Ossuary.

Bone stacking Masterclass

It's an interesting and sobering place to visit now. Although it wasn't always the case as there are tales of parties and other events occurring in the Ossuary, including a concert played by a full orchestra with invited guests arriving from high society.

Believe it or not this was once a concert hall!

So after all that excitement I took myself off to the train and Normandy. 

Over the rest of the week I did a little work on the house, the operative word being little and relaxed. Included in the bill of fare was a visit to the Normandy landing beach of Omaha, and a later visit to a zoo.

Looking over Omaha beach and bunker

Bunker above Omaha Beach

Spot the Bunkers?

Omaha beach was quite interesting and is rather humbling. It is hard to understand what the people who landed on these beaches went through. Walking through the remnants of fortifications and the museums gives you a sense of perspective and respect. I went to two museums, the Musee D Day Omaha and the Musee Memorial d'Omaha Beach. Omaha was one of the five landing beaches and, with Utah beach comprised the American landings, the other three beaches Sword, Juno and Gold were landed by forces predominantly from the UK and Canada, supported by smaller forces from other allied countries.

I found the day rather interesting and again contemplative, there was however one jarring note -  This was caused by a middle aged American wheeling his aged father around in a wheel chair. Said relative was a former member of the "Big One" (the First Infantry Division) and had been one of the men ashore on D-Day (1st wave, 2nd wave, something later - don't know, didn't hang round to find out). Now don't get me wrong, what happened that day was horrendous and anyone who was part of it deserves undying gratitude. What I found jarring was the way the middle aged American was accosting people and if identifying them as French or another European nation, demanding that they thank his father for his sacrifice (quote unquote). I felt particularly sorry for the young Italian guy he accosted.  Not cool dude! His dad was wearing the requisite D-Day landing veteran museum pass and cap, so instantly recognisable for what he'd been part of.

A Sherman recovery tank, showing signs of combat

Apart from that and some quiet time in the French countryside, doing things like christening my new bicycle - and discovering how disgustingly unfit I am -buying some Normandy Gin (apple botanical) and visiting the local butter biscuit factory, I had time to visit Zoo de Jurques, surprisingly in Jurques.

Now I love this sort of stuff. Half the fun of doing touristy things in Normandy is discovering just which way "crazy computer lady" (the in-car GPS) will take me this time. It seems to treat going somewhere as an adventure and returning home as an exercise in getting it over and done with ASAP please!  And for no discernible reason, routing to the same place never seems to be the same twice, although I s'pose it could be my "old timers" disease kicking in.

Hi there

So for an enjoyable hour and a half I got to drive down 2nd and 3rd class country roads, lovely stuff. Green tunnels, tiny villages and hamlets with unexpected house, chateau and villa designs, spectacular panorama's over hills, forests and farmland! Much more interesting than a quick blast down a main road, where everything is sanitised and you're going too fast to appreciate the changing world around you.

Gray wolf says "what's that in the stroller?"

Eventually I got to Jurques (two blinks and you've missed it), and found the zoo. Funnily enough the turn off was directly from one of the main roads through Normandy and my later almost direct route home.

No idea what sort of bird this is, but it photographs well!

Jurques is quite a nice smaller zoo, which I can thoroughly recommend as they've put a reasonable amount of thought into their habitats. Climbing animals have enclosures with suitable layouts and so-on. My favourites the snow leopards have a steep walled gully to play in, the mountain goats have what looks like the walls of a disused quarry and so-on. Even though it's not a large zoo, Jurques has a wide range of animals and for the first time I saw wolves - grey and white. After watching the white wolves get fed I can attest that "wolfing your food" is an apt description of how these wolves made their meals of 2 (extra large European size) chickens each disappear. All in all I had a good day roaming the zoo before heading out for home via the fast route.

Seconds after receiving his chicken, White wolf begins to wonder where it's gone

What you lookin at HUH?

And then all too soon my break in France was over and it was back to Paris and the plane for Muscat.

And that discovery about crossing Paris by Train. If you have to go between the Montparnasse area  and Charles De Gaulle airport, everybody (including railway staff) says to take the airport line between CDG and Gare du Nord and the 4 line between Nord and Montparnasse.  This takes a good two hours and involves a few hundred meters of manually humping your bags through tunnels with multiple sets of stairs, so EHHHH! WRONG ANSWER! The right answer is Denfert Rochereau - CDG and the 6 line between there and Montparnasse, which comes and goes from a platform right next to the MET entrance gates at Montparnasse. This route cuts out hundreds of meters of tromping and replaces multiple stair climbs with one. Nord is also at the middle of the 4 line and the airport train routes so if you get on there it's a struggle to get a seat. Denfert Rochereau is almost at the end of the line so plenty of available seating, and with but 2 stops between it and Montparnasse on the 6 line... It's just so much simpler and cuts at least half an hour off the cross city commute.  Wish I'd known about this back in March!

And here's why I wish I'd known this in March - which you may have seen on Facebook...

"I have to chronicle this its a real comedy of errors.
So yesterday I left France. Rail from Normandy to Paris is the sensible decision right?
First train leaves on time. Gets to Rennes for my transfer couple of minutes late. No problem, except the station is a construction zone with limited and choked access points. I miss the connection by seconds.
Ok I’d left plenty of time. French rail tried to charge me to change booking I objected and won. Next train is over an hour later and a longer trip. No probs it would be tight but still ok.
Get on the train, backtrack past my point of origin and onwards. All going well til just short of Paris when the train slowed and they announced a safety issue. Add over 20 minutes. Tight is now looking like not possible.
Check with the guard, take the 4 train, taxi is slower, change at Noord.
Hare off through Montparnasse station, queue at the ticket machine, it faults and won’t issue tickets, watch see a machine issue, queue and get my ticket. What seems like an eternity later I’m on the train. Halfway through I notice a sign advising that both stations you can transfer to the airport line are undergoing maintenance and closed on the 4 line. At this point a nice Frenchman steps in and guides me through another station, to transfer success.

By now I know I’ve missed checkin.

Get to the first airport stop (I need the second) and they announce train teminating here. No further advice. Gah.
Look for helpful rail employee - none in sight.
Only option is to exit the station. Gate won’t read my ticket. Try another ok. Discover there’s an airport shuttle train, yay, miss it by seconds so have to wait a few more minutes.

Finally get to the right terminal and of course the checkin gate is at the far end. As I get closer the OmanAir checkin area is looking awfully deserted, except for one guy, who looks at me, smiles and says “Mr Hunt, we’ve been waiting for you”. Bags checked, pass issued, priority through security, I made it.
I got to the checkin desk 45 minutes before departure! They are supposed to close at 90 before.

Arrived into the brand new Muscat Airport (opened while I was away, lovely and efficient).
Didn’t even break stride in the baggage hall as my bag tumbled out the chute as I walked up.... Welcome home."

Tickle my tummy? Pleeeease