Nancy, France

In December, 1961, Mary and I were tired of hitchhiking in the cold so we found jobs at a newly-reopened U.S. Air Force base at Chambley, France. It wasn’t easy. We searched from Paris to Frankfurt, listening to rumors, following hunches, filling out paperwork, until finally this job opened up for us. I was hired as the Service Club Director and Mary was my half-time assistant and half-time French helper. I got the lead job because of having been a counselor at numerous YMCA day camps.

One of our jobs was organizing field trips to interesting places. Chambley is a tiny town in the northeast Alsace-Lorraine section of France with Metz being the nearest big town. To the south, but still in Alsace-Lorraine, is Nancy. It has an opera house, and since I like opera, I arranged a trip to see an opera there. That’s all I remember. I hope that the guys who went on the trip were impressed by Nancy, because when Mary and I returned in April this year, we found it absolutely glorious!

We arrived at the train station, having gotten up early enough at Lydia’s to catch the 6:30 train from Colmar. The map to our hotel looked like an easy hike down just one long street, no turns, no chances to get lost. Sometimes, I admit, that backpack made me feel like a little old lady, and Mary, with bad feet, felt the same. Valiant, we plodded onward and onward and yet a bit farther onward. The map showed our hotel to be just past Place Stanislas, so every time we’d come to a little park where four streets met, I asked someone if that was Place Stanislas. The answer was always an amused smile and “Non. Tout droit.” Meaning keep going straight ahead.

There is no mistaking Place Stanislas. An enormous open space gently rises to the center where stands a magnificent statue of Stanislas, the last King of Poland, on his majestic horse. Regency style (?) buildings flank the square, and the ubiquitous outdoor dining tables and umbrellas flutter around the edges like lacy doilies. Ornate gates of real gold painted wrought iron are at each corner and the two places where the main street enters and exits. Fountains on the north side corners are spectacular in their exuberant display of water! water! everywhere. Each is composed of statues caught by the sculptor at the peak of energetic action. They guard the entrance gates to the large grand park.

Place Stanislas is a glorious, happy, rich space where commoners and kings can meander or sit and enjoy the sunshine or an aperitif. Mr. Stanislas is the one who made it all possible. He became the Duc de Lorraine after his daughter married the future King of France. Blessed with lots of money, he had grandiose plans for turning Nancy into a showplace to rival Paris or any other large city, and he succeeded, at least during the times he lived.

Residents are rightly proud of Nancy. They keep it spotless, which was refreshing. The morning after our arrival I was up early, as usual, and walking. The hotel was only a block from Place Stanislas, so that’s where I headed, passing the opera house on the way. It was about 7 a.m. and the paving stones, laid out in patterns, were being scrubbed clean by a street sweeping machine.

The weather was cool, so I headed into the grand park and sat in the sun by the rose garden to warm up. So peaceful. Then back to the hotel to pick up Mary and start our day.

We definitely wanted to see the Musée des Beaux Arts, one of the buildings on Place Stanislas. But first we had to find a boulangerie for our morning apple turnover and an apricot non-fried donut sort of yummy thing.

The Beaux Arts is laid out beautifully and intelligently, by themes, except for lighting that in some areas bounces off paintings, making it difficult to see the entire work all at once. The main focus is on artists from Lorraine or artists who worked in Lorraine. These lesser-known artists were, in our opinion, equal to or better than many of the more famous ones.

The use of color in the impressionists and pointillists is so intriguing! Spots of cools and warms mold the shape. Mary taught that technique in her middle school with the same results I had when I tried it – mud. But not these artists. They achieved crispness and definition.

The sculpture of the woman’s head is one of the most beautiful things ever seen, partly because of the light shining from above onto her upturned face. Imagine, from the photo, how it looks and forgive the two-dimensional picture for not conveying the full effect of the three-dimensional graceful miracle of marble.

After the Beaux Arts, we visited the Ducal Palace museum which shows how trees became furniture in the old days, and iron became artistic curves and points. Early photographs of many Lorraine villages were proof that life used to be hard work and dirt. In the adjoining church are tombs of dukes and others. I gloss over this museum only because I was getting tired of looking at things. It’s truly educational in the best way – enjoyable.

The day was cold, so we found an outdoor café and sat in the sun eating a pave of apple, nuts and caramel, warming ourselves up. Then there was another long walk, exploring here and there and finally the big park where we saw peacocks strutting about. It was then 7:30 p.m.. We were tired and hungry, but didn’t want to take the time or energy to find a restaurant so chose, instead, the snack stand by the entrance to the park. It was a great choice, because my chicken and raclette cheese Panini eaten outdoors on the park bench was heaven-sent. A good price, too, not like the onion soup and chevre chaud salad the night before which cost me around 20 Euros ($24?).

That night, I bundled up with extra blankets and a bedspread until sometime in the middle of the night when I finally warmed up. That was the coldest I’d been since we got to France.

Bacchus and Me

I don’t drink wine, so I was delighted to discover that water with meals is perfectly acceptable now in France. Back in 1961, tap water was suspect, but now it’s perfectly safe. If you want to pay a premium for it, you can get bottled water, even bubbly bottled water, but the best way to order ordinary water is by the carafe.

A carafe is a lovely frosty bottle that once held wine. It is brought to your table along with two small wine glasses and replaced as often as you like. It seemed to me that this was a classy way to serve water. A step above putting a plastic glass of water and a straw in front of you.

I got in trouble the first time I tried to order a carafe in Paris. Not knowing the right word, I ordered the wrong kind of water. The waiter pointed to a nearby table where a bottle of water stood and I nodded because it looked like what I’d seen elsewhere. He brought a bottle of Evian water, expensive.

“No,” I said. “But this is what you ordered,” he rejoined testily. We may or may not have been speaking in French. “But it’s not what I want,” I pleaded. “It’s what you asked for,” he scowled. “Non, s’il vous plait. Not in that bottle.” Furious, he grabbed the Evian off the table and stalked off to the kitchen or wherever and after awhile brought back a “carafe,” plunking it down on the table with such force I thought it might break.

After that, I didn’t exist. Mary was the only customer at our table. Later as we were leaving, I complained to her about how rude he’d been and she said it was my imagination. Not! I’ve been ignored before and recognize the signs. It’s hard not to.

I think this was probably the only actively impolite French person we met. However, look out during tourist season! He was only warming up with me. Remember: “Un carafe de l’eau, s’il vous plait.” Un carafe. Don’t forget. Unless you’d rather have wine, which is fine, of course. Mary frequently had some wine. I’m the teetotaler, not her.

After I got home, I had a regular appointment to check my blood levels – cholesterol and all that stuff. I was curious if all the cheese I consumed daily might have affected things. It was not a lowfat diet by any stretch of the imagination.

Curious, I looked up the prevalence of heart disease in French women, both because of their cheese-rich diet and the huge number of female smokers. It turned out that recent studies have shown an increase in heart disease that’s attributed to smoking rather than diet.

The reason the fat-filled diet didn’t raise cholesterol levels was suggested to be the drinking of red wine with meals.

Help! I come from a long line of alcoholics and do NOT want to drink wine (also, I am a Latter-day Saint and we don’t drink alcohol). I do drink grape juice, however, so I looked up (yay google) to see how it compares to wine in fighting heart problems. What joy to find that it’s just the same!

All the good things in wine are also present in the juice before fermentation.

Whew! However, the day my blood was drawn for the test, I was still on my French diet – pastry, cheeses and no grape juice. I had lost two pounds but my bad cholesterol was up about thirty points. Ouch.

I’m sure that if you’re concerned about diets the way most of us are, you know that a few non-doctors say that animal fats are good for you, even better than vegetable fats. Don’t believe it! It may be marginally true for a few people, but my daughter-in-law and I have seen the results of eating a lot of animal fat (butter, for her; cheese for me) and for each of us, our bad cholesterol rose. When she went back to a vegetable spread instead of butter, her levels went back down.

I will still eat cheese, but more moderately than before. Paul Newman’s Own Concord Grape Juice sold at Costco is the best I’ve ever tasted. Who needs wine when they can have that!

Actually, I don’t know if you can order grape juice in France. In the late afternoons, when we would stop at an outdoor café for a rest/snack, I would order hot milk (it comes whipped with sugar on the side), which is as good as their cheese. I believe the cows and goats grazing on the lush green fields of France are superbly happy because the products made from their milk are unmatchable.

If you are in France in August, the French who are left in the cities might well be grumpy. All their friends are off at the beaches or the mountains, and they are left behind. Try to overlook their scowls. Order your “carafe de l’eau” and thank the waiter for your delicious meal. Even a hard French heart will melt if treated kindly.

[The photos are Mary and the waiter in a gem of a tiny restaurant down a narrow street in Lyon; a patisserie in Albi showing that we weren’t the only people in love with French pastries; a café in Collioure on the Mediterranean; and Place Stanislas in Nancy, filled with places to sit, drink, and watch the world go by.]