Showing posts with label Pyrenees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pyrenees. Show all posts

07 May 2016

She Didn't Need A Miracle. Neither Did I.

I've been to Lourdes.

No, I wasn't looking for a miracle cure--not even for the conflicts that raged within me.  In fact, I never planned to go there:  I just happened to pass through.

Back in 2000, I took a ride from France into Spain and back, through the Pyrenees.  Yes, I pedaled up Tourmalet, Hautaucam, Aspin, Portillon and Peyresourde, all of which have been part of the Tour de France at one time or another.  But I also pedaled through some cities and towns full of history and culture, including Toulouse (where I started) and Foix.  And, of course, Lourdes.

Now, I didn't think that a visit to the shrine would do anything that a good masseuse couldn't.  Still, I figured it would be interesting to stop there.  Even with all of the hawkers selling the tackiest souvenirs imaginable, it's lovely and charming--and offers some rather stunning vistas of the mountains and river valleys, not to mention great cycling.

The latter is known to many, including Rachel Atherton.  However, the ride she did is, let's say, just a little different from what I did:

 

08 August 2010

Crossing Another State Line From Memory

Is Arielle inspiring wanderlust in me?  Or does she have it all on her own, and does she merely take me along for the ride?


Today we crossed another state line.  So that makes two-- Pennsylvania two weeks ago, when I rode to the Delaware Water Gap, and Connecticut today—since my surgery.

Going to New Jersey doesn’t count.  Not really.  Or does it?  We New Yorkers sometimes say that Jersey is a foreign country.  I wonder whether the Brits say that about the eponymous island in the English Channel.  Although it’s a semi-independent part of Great Britain, it’s actually much closer to France and has a language--Jerriais-- that bears more resemblance to French than it does to English.

Then again, lots of people would like to think of anyplace where Snooki would live as a country different from their own. Otherwise, they’d start campaigns to deport her.

Anyway, I started my ride by crossing the RFK Memorial (nee Triboro) Bridge to Randall’s Island and the Bronx, through neighborhoods where women don’t ride bikes.  I made a wrong turn somewhere north of Fordham Road and ended up on a highway and riding a square around the perimeter of the Botanical Gardens.  From there, I managed to find my way to Westchester County.

For someone who lives in New York, I really don’t spend much time in Westchester County.  Occasionally a ride will take me to Yonkers or Mount Vernon, both of which are just over the city line from the Bronx.  But I never have felt much inclination to explore the rest of the county.

Part of the reason might be that my first experience of cycling in Westchester County came the year after I came back from living in France.  That in itself can make Westchester, and lots of places, seem like a comedown.  (I think now of the time I ate a particularly bad take-out dinner the day after returning from a cycling trip through the Pyrenees and the Loire Valley!) But I first entered Westchester County on a bike near the end of a cycling trip from Montreal to New Jersey, where I was living at the time.  I had cycled through some nice Quebec countryside, the Vermont shore of Lake Champlain and the Berkshires before entering New York State near the point where it borders on Massachusetts and Connecticut. 

That night, I slept in a cemetery that was in or near the town of Austerlitz, NY.  It was a clear, moonlit and pleasantly cool evening.  I had no idea (and wouldn’t find out until the next day) where I was, and I had almost no money left.  So I simply rolled out my sleeping bag.   I slept fine:  There was absolutely nothing to disturb me.  And I guess I was a good neighbor.

After all that, Westchester County seemed like just a place with lots of big houses and lawns and a bunch of golf courses.  It wasn’t bad; it was just a bit of a letdown, I guess.

Later, Westchester would become the place where friends of Eva, Elizabeth and Tammy lived.  And all of those friends didn’t like me, or so it seemed.  Going to their homes felt a bit like going to the in-laws’ or to a relative of one of your parents—and that relative didn’t like your other parent, and saw you as his/her child.

Fortunately, I didn’t think about any of those things today.  I didn’t see as many houses that seemed like ostentatious versions of houses the owners saw on their European trips as I recall seeing in previous treks through the county.  And, when I stopped in a gas station/convenience store for a bottle of iced tea, I saw the friendliest and most polite attendant I have seen in a long time.  He’s from Liberia.

I hadn’t started out with the intention of going to Connecticut.  But after stopping at the gas station/convenience store, I realized that I wasn’t far from the Mamaroneck harbor.  So I rode there, along a fairly meandering road where two drivers pulled over to ask me whether I knew how to get to the Westchester Mall.  It’s funny:  People assume that because you’re on a bike, you live nearby and are familiar with the area.

From Mamaroneck, I took another road that zigged and zagged toward and away from the shore of Long Island Sound to Rye.  There, I knew that I wasn’t far from Connecticut, so I continued along the road to Port Chester, the last town before the border.

I only took a few photos, and none of them came out well.  But that part of the ride was pleasant, even charming at times.  Then, after crossing the state line, I ventured up the road into downtown Greenwich.  I’d have gone further, but I started later than I intended to and didn’t particularly want to ride the last few miles of my trip in the dark.  I’m not adverse to night riding; I just didn’t feel like doing it tonight.

In Greenwich, about half a mile from the state line, there’s an Acura dealer.  Just up the road from it is an Aston Martin/Bentley dealer, and a bit further up the road are a BMW, then a Mercedes, dealership.  So, I’m guessing that the annual per-capita income of that town is probably not much less than I’ve made in my entire life.

On my way back, I rode down Huguenot Avenue.  It’s in Little Rock.  Actually, it’s in  New Rochelle, a town founded by the people for whom the avenue is named. (The town is named for La Rochelle, the French port from which most of them sailed.  “Rochelle” means “little rock.”)  If any of you recall The Dick Van Dyke show, which featured a young Mary Tyler Moore, you’re old.  Seriously, you might remember that the show took place in New Rochelle.  The town has changed a bit since then, as you can see from new structures like this:


It connects the local Trump Tower (How many of those things are there?) with another building on the other side of the Avenue.  I wonder whether cyclists are allowed to ride in it.

14 July 2010

Cycling On Le Quatorzieme: Revolutionary?

Today is, of course, le jour de Bastille.   Three times in my life, I've been in France on this date: Twice I was cycling in the countryside; the other time I was just barely keeping myself out of trouble in Paris. 


Possibly the most interesting of those quatorziemes was the one I spent in a town called Foix.  I ridden from Toulouse through the Pyrenees into Spain and had just come back into France when I came to Foix.  If you are in that part of the world, I definitely recommend going there.  It's not a big city at all, but it has played significant roles in the history of France and the region.  I won't get into it here, for much more than a blog post would be needed to do it justice.  But it's also worth going simply for the spectacular views. friendly people and the castle:






According to a local song, El castels es tant fortz qu’el mezis se defent: The castle is so strong it can defend itself.   Indeed, since it was built around the year 1000 C.E.,  it has never been captured.  Within its walls resided the counts of Foix, who were considered l'ame  of the Occitan resistance against the Albigensians in the 13th Century.


Most people think that some particularly clever Marine came up with the slogan Kill 'em all.  Let God sort 'em out. Actually, it was Arnaud Amaury, the Abbot of Citeaux and the Papal Legate to the Crusaders, who said Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet ("Kill them all; God will know His own.") when Simon de Montfort, the Commander of the Crusade, pointed out that not everyone in Beziers, a town he was ordered to sack and burn, was a heretic.

No matter how many people they killed, they couldn't touch the Foix castle. I have no idea of what the Bastille was like. But I imagine they would have had a much, much more difficult time storming the Foix castle than they did with the Bastille. How would history be different if the Foix castle had been built in Paris or the Bastille in Foix?

Anyway...When I showed up at the castle on my bike, people--all of them strangers--applauded. Do people applaud during revolutions?



04 July 2010

Birthdays

The other day I mailed a birthday card to Marilynne's daughter.  She and I underwent our surgeries on the same day last year.  

If that day is our birthday, then I'm only about five hours older than she is.  Hmm...That sounds like the makings of some sort of science fiction story.   If any of you want to take the idea and run with it, be my guest:  I seriously doubt that I'll ever write science fiction.  I just don't think it's in me.



Anyway, in one sense, we were both born that day. If that's the case, how long was our gestation period?  Was it the time we had been living as female?  Our entire lives?


But today is what most people--as well as the laws of just about every jurisdiction in this world--would define as my birthday.  It is the date on which I came, a whole bunch of years ago, from my mother's body into this world.  I probably will always celebrate this date as my birthday, partly out of habit and, well, because it's the biggest national holiday of the country in which I was born and have spent most of my life.  It's a bit like being born on Bastille Day in France or Christmas in any country that celebrates it.  


The only times I wasn't in this country on the Fourth,  I was in France.  Three times I was in Paris; the other time I was in a town called Auch in the southwest.  Unless you've been there or know something about French history, you've probably never heard of it.  I ended up there on my birthday ten years ago in the middle of a bicycle tour I took through the Pyrenees.   It's a lovely place, and if you should go there, you should certainly go to la Cathedrale Sainte-Marie






 It may very well have the best acoustics of any place of worship in the world.  It certainly has one of the best organs and choirs.    The singers were rehearsing that day.  I got into a conversation with a sweet-faced alto-soprano who was about twenty years older than I was.   Even before she talked, I could sense her enthusiasm and passion for that cathedral and for her music.  


When she asked where I came from, I said, "Les Etats-Unis."


"Eh...Votre jour d'independence."


"Oui.  Et mon anniversaire."


Her already bright eyes perked up.  "Voulez-vous une chanson speciale?"  With a smile, I nodded, and she and the choir gave a little impromptu concert for an audience of an American cycling solo in France on his birthday and his country's day of independence.


Whatever my birthday is, I believe I have an interesting heritage.  And I feel honored to share at least something with Marilynne's daughter.