I find Paris a difficult place to visit because there’s no effort to help the non-French-speaking visitor. We spent a day in Paris some years ago, and it turns out that was pretty much enough. We did little more this time except take a boat ride on the Seine and spend more time in The Louvre. The Louvre presents its own navigation problems, even with the English guide. We spent forty-five minutes looking for the area of French Impressionists. It turns out there are pitifully few in the collection. After the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Arc of Triumph and the Seine, the attraction of Paris is three or four museums and then the City itself. While Paris is beautiful, I think Vienna is an equally beautiful (and romantic) city. The idea of sitting at a sidewalk café and sipping a $9.00 glass of white table wine doesn’t turn me on. Make that two glasses of wine, a double decker hamburger with fries and a poached sea bass with grilled vegetables and the tab became, in round numbers, $103.00. I would have been equally satisfied at McDonalds, but, like The Louvre guide, I couldn’t understand the street signs well enough to find one.

The scale of Fontainebleau is between that of a chateau and Versailles, and I had the feeling of a more relaxed atmosphere than that of Versailles. That’s probably because it was a hunting lodge rather than a seat of government. I felt that several of the smaller chateaus in the Loire Valley were architectural gems, while Fontainebleau is a gaudy crown.

For lovers of French clocks, this is the place to see. Every major room has a fireplace with a mantlepiece and every mantlepiece seems to require a clock.

Our first stop in the Loire (Lo-are - I’d always pronounced it wrong) was the Abbaye Fontevraud, originally the burial place of Henry II of England and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, their son King Richard 1^st (Lionheart) of England, their son King John (of Magna Carta fame), their daughter Joan, Joan’s son Raymond VII of Toulouse and Isabella of Angouleme. Four empty coffins with life-like effigies are all that remain after the desecrations of the French Revolution.

Aside from the coffins, the most interesting feature of the complex is the kitchen, which is reminiscent of a beehive or dovecote. Notice the chimneys and the apse-like features which the chimneys surmount. There were originally eight and six remain. Inside, what one sees are six alcoves situated around the outside perimeter of the building, with open chimneys above each. The central part of the room also has a chimney above. It appears that fires for cooking were started on the floor (or on some apparatus for holding wood) below each chimney, and the smoke made it's way up to the opening in the ceiling, much like a wigwam. There must have been a lot of people to feed if eight fires were required, and, on days when the wind was adverse, the cooks ate mostly smoke.