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The Wingham Advance-Times, 1965-03-25, Page 3Paris Is Still The Wonder City Continued. from Page Two are still pocked by dotted lines left from spreying machine gun fire. The rail line swings away from the Rhine at Koblenz and follows the valley of the Mo- selle toward the border of Lux- emburg. In the Moselle valley the banks of the river rise near- ly vertically for hundreds of feet, but ingenious and hard- working peasants discovered centuries ago that these steep walls could grow grapes. From river level to the tops of the crags the cliffs are terraced in- to narrow vineyards, sometimes no more than a few feet wide and every square inch of the soil is devoted to the carefully tended vines. A combination of soil and climate produces the fruit from which the world -famed Moselle wines are made --and they find their way into every great eat- ing place on the globe. ON TO FRANCE The route swung up and out of the Moselle valley and then crossed the border into Luxem- burg, a small, independent and very interesting country. We passed through the hilly, forested area known as the Ar- dennes, which the French mili- tary assumed to be impassable for German armoured divisions in the war. Hitler, of course, proved how wrong they were and the dash through the Ar- dennes made useless the com- plicated fortifications of the Maginot Line across the level sections of the border on which the French had relied. There was no mistaking the change when we passed over the border into France, The bustling and well -painted Ger- man towns gave way to much less inviting French villages in the steel producing area of the north. France, though highly interesting, has a sort of care- less, slap -dash atmosphere about it that is very noticeable, ONLY ONE PARIS Our party arrived in Paris about 10 p.m. and without de- lay we were introduced to a cagey French way of doing things. We had reservations at a smaller hotel on the Right Bank, but our taxi drivers(two were needed) had never heard of the hotel; indeed they had never heard of the street on which it was located, though they were highly knowledgeable about everything else. Knowing that we were strangers and very tired they suggested we go to the Claridge, one of the big and expensive hotels, located on the "Main stem" of the city, the Champs Elysees, just below the famed Arc de Triomphe. Though no one ever admitted it, we came to the conclusion the cab drivers earned them- selves a fair commission for delivering us to the more ex- pensive hostelry. Despite its drawbacks, Paris remained a completely fascin- ating city. One of the oldest settled communities in Western Europe, it was a city long be- fore the Romans carne to at- tempt regulation and order. I would say their attempt was a failure. CHURCH ST. MARIA ZUR WIESE, one of the most beauti- ful Gothic single-naved churches in West Germany built about 1430. The city is a vast complex of what must have been, atone time, separate neighborhood centres. There are countless "places" such as the Place d'- Armes, Place de la Concorde, ' Place des Ternes, etc, These centres are similar to the fam- iliar "square" in Goderich, cen- tral points into which eight or ten major streets converge. As a result, most blocks in the city are not rectangular, but have at least one side running off on a bias. The smaller streets are extremely narrow and they turn and twist so that a stranger would be lost mo- ments away from the well- known main thoroughfares. Unlike London and our cities in America, the build- ings, even in the busiest areas, consist of shops on the ground floor with four or five floors of apartments above. Parisians apparently like to live where there is lots of action --and al- ways have preferred this way of life. It is not hard to imagine the hordes which must have poured into the "places" during the momentous years of the French Revolution. AT THE FOLLIES One of the highlights of the stay in Paris was a visit to the famed Follies Bergere on Satur- day night. This is the show the visitor to Paris cannot miss. A comparatively small theatre, it presents a spectacle of cos- tuming, color and scenery that is simply fantastic. Stage set- tings are changed some 48 times during the course of the three and a half hour show. As you may have heard many of the presentations include nearly - naked girls, and though you may find this shocking you will have to take my word for it that at no point is there any- thing in the least "sexy" orsug- gestive. The entire show isded- icated to beauty in its finest forms and I wouldn't have miss- ed it for worlds. The quickest way to see the highlights of a big city when time is limited is to take a bus tour on which a guide tells you, in your own language, the im- portant facts about the sights you see. We took one of these tours on Saturday afternoon and visited such famous places as the Louvre, former palace of the French monarchs and now a museum and art gallery. The "musts" at the Louvre are the originals of the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. Notre Dame cathedral was the next stop. Situated in the earliest settled part of the city, an island in the Seine river, the cathedral is shrouded in eons of history and bejewelled with two of the finest rose windows in exist- ence. It is also surrounded by persistent salesmen peddling dirty photographs and covered in layers of grime --but still well worth seeing. The tour took us up to Mont- martre, where the artists were out painting in the square near the basilica of Satire -Coeur; past the famed Opera and into dozens of other picturesque places in the city. A VIEW OF A half-timbered house in Soest seen from one of the streets of the town. a UP THE TOWER Finding our way about on our own we ventured a few trips in the maze of underground railway lines, One of the more interesting was the ascent of the Eiffel Tower on the Left Bank of the Seine. Here eleva- tors, three of them, took us up the more than 1,100 feet to the very top and we tried for pic- tures of the city spread out be- neath us like a carpet. On the way down we stopped at the 350 foot level and had late afternoon lunch in a restaurant with all Paris at our feet, LONDON NEXT At noon on Monday we were out to Le Borget airport and took a plane for London, a pleasant flight of about an hour --and so commenced the most interesting portion of the entire journey. I must admit that, despite several admixtures of Scottish and Swiss blood in my veins, I am still an Englishman at heart, and the history of the Old Country has been my fas- cination since early school days. In London I found the true centre of English history.I could spend months exploring its ancient buildings and its storied streets. The hotel we had selected this time proved ideal --and we had no trouble persuading the cabby to take us there. The Cumberland is located at the Marble Arch, one of London's famous landmarks, just at the corner of Hyde Park. It was a few moments' bus ride from Piccadilly Circus, and from that point you can take off for any point in London. Streets are plainly marked, busses are" very easy to identify and the bobbies are the most courteous people in Europe. In all, Lon- don proved an extremely easy place to get around in, despite its tremendous size. It is interesting to recall that the combined populations of Paris and London total more than the population of Canada. Paris, the smaller of the two, has eight and, a half million inhabitants, and London a cou- ple of million more. THROUGH WESTMINSTER Miracle of miracles, even the weather favored our visit to London and every one of the five days there, the sun shone clearly. Even the Londoners couldn't believe it. The first two days there was a haze in the air and a persistent smell of coal gas, but then a breeze cleared even that taint from the nostrils. The first and most persistent impression in the city was, as it had been at every point in Europe, the concentrated mass of human beings and vehicular traffic. Entering an underground station you face a descending escalator which may take you clown as much as 60 feet, four or five times farther than the longest moving stair one sees in this country. And every step is jammed with the masses of people going to or coming from work. The streets are often so- lid clots of traffic. If you are timid you close your eyes in a taxi. On the country roads you not only close your eyes --you pray at the same time. Accident rates, incidentally, are three times as high on busy highways as they are in Canada or the States. Safely ensconced in ourcom- fortable hotel we set out to see London, starting with the bus to Piccadilly and from there on foot toward the Thames. It was a pleasant surprise to find that many of the places of highest interest could be reached in the course of a couple of hours' stroll in the ancient borough of Westminster. Wandering down Regent Street we found ourselves in St. James's Park, then in Birdcage Walk and soon in Whitehall, the very centre of the British Commonwealth. Big Ben, atop its square tower, was right in front; off to the right was the soaring pile of Westminster Ab- bey; to the left the centuries' old Westminster Hall in which Sir Winston's body lay in state a few weeks ago. Just beyond was the long gothic outline of the houses of Parliament along Wingham Advance -Times, Thursday, Mar, 25, 7,965 - Pale 3 aa . 11 Aa4At- �ap�t�', Y91{:i-15U71ai�5 5 1 5 a 1 3+ A➢ a? :- { 1 4 Y 5 a n 1 a L • Y 4 Y L A MEDIEVAL flour mill in the centre of Soest is still in operation. the Thames. I don't know that I have ever experienced a deeper thrill than that moment when the centre of the Common- wealth lay before my eyes. AT THE PALACE On our first morning we were well away on the tradi- tional pattern --off to Bucking- ham Palace for the changing of the guard. However, we were able to vary the routine by get- ting into the back yard of St. James's Palace, down the Mall from Buckingham, where we saw the ceremonies in which the New Guard (this time the Welsh Guards) were put through their paces before they follow- ed their fifes and drums to the Queen's residence for the public ceremony. This procedure takes about two hours in all, and all the pomp and splendour of British military tradition is paraded before the somewhat forbidding windows of the official resi- dence of the monarch. The Welsh Guards were re- lieving the Scots Guards, and before the ceremony was com- pleted we heard selections from a brass band, a fife and drum band, and a pipe band, the Regimental sergeant major of one of the units had handed a ceremonial dressing down to his men;thepipe major of the band from the Royal Scottish had properly dressed out four or five of his expert pipers and the commanders of the two guards had trucked back and forth over the gravelled inner court exchanging serious con- fidences for 35 or 40 minutes. The entire procedure is un- doubtedly archaic; 200 years behind the atomic age --but burdened with the serious im- port of British solidarity and conservatism. Certainly you might laugh; but if so you would laugh in the solemn face of Winston and his ilk who saw us through the dreadful perils of modern war on a basis of philosophy as ancient as the changing of the guard. Person- ally, I wouldn't presume to knock it. FAMOUS BUILDINGS During the next few days in London we managed to visit many of the famous and an- cient buildings --Lancaster House, home of a line of earls and maintained in all its orig- inal beauty as the setting for many conferences and official receptions; the National Gal- lery (art), the British Museum, Westminster Abbey, the Guild- hall, ancient seat of the muni- cipal government of the City, A CANADIAN CHILD stands on the millstone for a better look at the huge water -wheel at a medieval mill standing in the centre of Soest. the all-important single square mile within the lines of the original Roman wall and still the heart of the financial dis- trict. Naturally our visits to these places were hurried and we had time to see only a few particu- larly important exhibits in each. At the British Museum we saw the Rosetta Stone, the key which unlocked the secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing; the Elgin Marbles, from the Parthenon in Athens; and origi- nals of Magna Carta and many other historic documents. Westminster Abbey is in- tensely n - tensely interesting, with its long history and the tombs of monarchs and famous person- ages, but at present it is grimy with dust as workmen go about the slow task of cleaning its interior. St. Paul's Cathedral, on the other hand, 1 found utterly mag- nificent. Its interior is bright with gilt work and the high al- tar, reconstructed since the war to Sir Christopher Wren's original plans, is in itself an inspiration. The great dome soars 365 feet above the floor of the church, and it was not without some forethought that I commenced the long climb to the Whispering Gallery and on up, right to the golden ball high above the roof of the dome. Tiring though the climb was, the view of London spread be- neath was adequate reward. Continued next week. PUMP YOUR BRAKES TO AVOID SKIDDING Safe -driving on winter streets isn't a matter of luck. So often it's knowing the little tricks of the trade. For example,. there are drivers who rarely skid. They keep safe by pump- ing their brake pedals instead of holding them to the floor and locking the brakes. The safest way is to slip the car into low gear before braking, then brake gently, intermittently.