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I'm back in Paris, comfortably settled in a small apartment on the Ile Saint Louis, having wisely decided to avoid the travel nightmare caused by that ignoble French tradition, la rentrée. The French, after all, get a minimum of six weeks' paid vacation per year. Those with kids take advantage of the school holidays, and go away for much of July and August, either to their vacation homes (yes, they can afford them) or to rented places in the French countryside or in other countries. Then, at the beginning of September, everyone returns, to "re-enter" the cities and "re-enter" their lives. I was returning to Paris via the TGV bullet train, so my "commute" wouldn't have been all that bad even if I had waited until today to make it, but -- having been stuck in la rentrée traffic for hours in the past -- my family who were driving decided to leave yesterday. It worked. They managed to avoid the endless traffic snarls along the way, and last night were comfortably ensconced in a chateau (literally) halfway home. They'll similarly avoid the bulk of the traffic today, and have a pleasant drive back to Leiden. The chateau, BTW, is an example of French hospitality at its best. They had arranged to stay there in one of the guest rooms on the way down south, and asked the owner if it were available for the return trip. She said that she'd be away and the chateau would be empty, but she gave them the key so that they could stay there anyway. Try to imagine a rich person in America doing that. The "easy drive" will NOT be the case for those hoping to eke the last few hours of vacation time out of their vacances d'été. Many of them will take 20 or more hours to make what is usually a four-hour drive. Meanwhile I sit here in a pleasant cafe having breakfast, and the rest of my family is cruising along at normal highway speeds, having prepared a breakfast for themselves in the kitchens of a spacious chateau. The result of all of this is that again (for the rest of the day, anyway) I have the city all to myself. Well, myself and hordes of American tourists who are taking advantage of their version of la rentrée to visit Paris. Tomorrow the adults will go back to work and the kids will go back to school, but right now my cafe is sunny and the coffee is good and the bells of Notre Dame are ringing in the background, as if to shout "Sanctuary!" just as they did for Quasimodo. Such a deal. I hope things are going as well for all of you at the tail end of your summer vacations, wherever they may have taken you. And may you have a pleasant rentrée into your normal life, hopefully discovering that it, too is pretty much a never-ending vacation, if you just choose to see it that way.
