At the end of Casablanca, Rick assures Ilsa, "We'll always have Paris." What is it about the City of Lights that causes so many Americans to call it their favorite city? I first saw Paris the summer of my college graduation in 1961. I was alone , but the charm of the Left Bank, the museums, Notre Dame, and all the rest swept my gloom away. I was determined to return.

Finally in 1985, I came back with my wife, another Francophile, and our three daughters. We rented an apartment and spent a month living the Parisian life, or at least our version. Each day, we would walk down to the market and get French bread for breakfast. After that, we would stuff our bag with sandwiches and head out for our highlight of the day. Whether it was a glass factory, the Goblein tapestry museum, an intimate museum such as the Musee Moureau, or an afternoon at the Tulieries Gardens, we never got tired because we had the time to relax. At lunch we would eat our picnic lunch and in the afternoon we would head back to our apartment via the same street--the one with the ice cream shop with every imaginable flavor. The proprietors came to know our favorites, especially that of our youngest daughter Kristin, chocolat. So for a magical month of July we bought a good bottle of vin rouge for 10 francs or a dollar, delicious cheeses and pastries, and daily ice cream. Instead of one trip to the Louvre, there were many. And, for the most part, nobody got tired.

Only two years later, I returned to Paris on a NEA grant for the Humanities to study Gothic art and architecture for 6 weeks. Our program was sponsored by Cornell. Each week we had lectures on the history, style, and importance of the Gothic movement, and then we hit the streets finding many superior examples close to my apartment on St. Germain, including the old St. Germain church itself, Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, and many more. Every Wednesday we would head out to Chartres Cathedral, where Malcom Miller, the noted Chartres expert would concentrate on several aspects that most tourists never see. The most thrilling were walking among the rafters beneath the nave roof, where one mistake could send you topling down towards lower ceiling, and walking outside along the nave towards the towers as well as climbing up inside the towers. In my down time I ran in the Tulieries or sunned and read in the Luxembourg Gardens. All were in walking distance from my 6th floor apartment. I have never been in as good shape as I was that summer, especially since there was no elevator to get to my room. I did make some interesting friends in the study group and we often went out to eat or see a concert, but I was relieved when Betsy came for a week and when my parents and my sister came as well later. That six weeks in Paris was the most intense and delightful time since the earlier 4 weeks in 1985.

In 1989 my wife, youngest daughter, and I joined a group of Darlington students and parents for a tour of Paris and the Loire Valley, among other sites. It was not our most endearing trip. At the very end, some of the students got smashed and the teacher/escorts were held responsible, even though some of the offenders' parents were there. Needless to say, bad feelings ensued. It would take several years before we took a student tour again.

Now it is 2008, much too long a time span to be away from Paris. On this trip, my wife and I joined our oldest daughter Cat, her husband Chris, and our two grandsons Jay, 8, and Graham, 6, for 3 days in Paris and 7 in and around the Pyrenees. More on this trip next time.