05/01/2026 – Okay, can we just forget that yesterday happened??
So, we started off the day bright and sunny. It was a beautiful day, nice and cool, and we decided to walk to the local McDonald’s to get breakfast. This! This is what broke our day. Deciding to get an egg a’muffin while in the land of croissants and pain au chocolat apparently upset the travels gods to no end. It was a good breakfast, not exactly to US standards, but good and Kathy loved her coffee.
We walked back to the Chateau after breakfast, brushed our teeth, and started off for Besancon – a lovely 3.5 hour drive according to google maps. Immediately, there was a problem. We didn’t get one block when the car’s Automatic Braking Control System warning started going off. I didn’t really care if the system did not work – I have driven millions of miles without one. But…. the alarm. The ding-DONG of the bell. It started off small, then it grew after all. DING-DONG! DING-DONG!! Then? It would stop for a minute or two. We thought we could make it to our next location with the alarm ringing in our heads. But it got more and more incessant. The nearest AVIS car rental agency was 40 minutes away… of course, in the opposite direction of where we were headed. Three and a half hours was now at least five hours. We tried determining what made the system angry. Was it when cars were ahead of us? Next to us? When we were going fast? When we slowed down? It did seem to stop when we went very slowly. DING-DONG! And the tiny light on the dashboard would light up. We made it to the exit for the Avis car rental and were headed down the off ramp when Kathy looked up. Was it a bird? Was it a plane? No! It was the seat belt alarm!! In the back seat! The light on the roof near the rear-view mirror flashed every time the Automatic Breaking Control System tiny light on the dash also flashed. What the…? Kathy rearranged the bags in the back seat and… voila! Silence!! The tiny light on the dash was just a ruse for the car wanting us to seatbelt our bags. Aaaarrrggghhh! We took the roundabout at the end of the off-ramp all the way around so that we were now making a U-turn and headed back past Saumur and on to Besancon. Kathy had appeased the travel gods. Or so we thought. Turns out, she only appeased the car gods. The travel gods had more up their sleeves.
We arrived in Besancon around 5 pm (instead of the anticipated 3 pm arrival). The roads got narrower and narrower the closer we got to the hotel. We had advised the hotel of our need for parking and they said they had a good rate. Once we got into the center of the medieval town, we were stopped by metal posts in the road. No cars allowed. Hmmm. How do we get to the parking area? We drove around a bit, then noticed a post near one of barricades that had a speaker with a push button below it. Kathy exited the car and pushed the button. She told the disembodied voice that we were trying to get to the Hotel du Paris. And, magically as if Kathy said “open sesame”, the metal post lowered itself into the ground! We drove over the submerged post and entered the forbidden zone where only foot travelers (and the way too fast bikes and e-scooters) roam. This helped, but we were still stymied. We drove around the area – probably the wrong way down a one-way street or two – but could not find the Hotel du Paris. We soon ended up outside the city center and again had to push the button to ask the travel gods to lower the barrier on the street. Maybe the second time around we would find the hotel. Dave finally pulled over while Kathy got out and pretended to be one of the foot travelers. Lo and Behold, she found the hotel and its 1’x1’ sign about 10 feet above the ground. Ha! Travel gods defeated! You would think by now, with all of the traveling we have done, that we would never scoff at the travel gods, lest they get the last laugh. And laugh, they did. And mightily! Kathy kept texting Dave, relaying questions that the hotel had. Finally, the hotel replied: your reservation was for LAST NIGHT, not tonight! Wah, wah, wah… Dave was very busy planning 4 trips for us this year, one trip for the grandkids coming to visit us – and then all of us going to NYC, and two trips for others, that he missed the date on this one hotel reservation. Fortunately, the hotel had a room for us tonight, so we managed to lay our heads down on a bed at night. But by then, it was too late to explore the area, except to walk by the house where famed French Writer Victor Hugo (“The Hunchback of Notre Dame”) had lived.
The hotel was gracious enough to allow us to keep our car in their courtyard parking area after we had checked out so that we could go visit the Museum of the Resistance and the 19th Century astronomical clock at the old church, which were the reasons why we had picked Besancon as the stopping point while driving from Saumur to Strasbourg. The Museum was fascinating. It really enlightened us as to how the French were defeated so quickly by the Germans in 1940 and how their desperation, anger, and shock dragged them down and allowed the Germans to dictate how they would run the area not occupied by Germany, known as Vichy France, almost as cruelly as Nazi Germany. It also showed the hows and whys of the French Resistance, and how different groups focused on different areas like influencing politics, disrupting the military, and helping hunted persons escape.
Interestingly, Marshal Philippe Pétain was the leader of the Vichy government, yet when Dave asked two of the young ticket agents what happened to him after the war, neither one knew. Petain was a beloved World War I hero and after the Nazis invaded France, he entered into an Armistice with Germany. There was much a lot of discussion within the French government as to whether it should surrender, which would allow them to continue the fight subversively, or enter into an armistice where it would collaborate with the Germans. General Charles de Gaulle argued for surrender, but was ultimately discounted and left to fight as the leader of the Free French Forces in exile. The Vichy government eventually sentenced him to death and confiscated all of his possessions. Meanwhile, the French people, loyal to their beloved Petain, took a wait and see approach. Petain not only collaborated with the Nazis, but passed anti-Semitic laws without Nazi provocation. He had thousands of Jews, Romani (Gypsies), Spanish Republicans, foreigners, communists, and resistance fighters interned, tortured, and executed. After the war, he was tried and convicted and spent the rest of his life in jail.
All in all, our trip to Besancon – as exasperating as it was – paled in comparison to the hardships faced by hundreds of thousands of French people not that long ago. Plus, we got to see monkeys! Yes, in the moats surrounding the Citadel which houses the Museum of the Resistance, they have baboons which have been imported from Ethiopia, along with other exotic animals from all over the planet.
After we left the Citadel, we stopped by the church to view the astronomical clock. It was a apiece of art, for sure. A technical masterpiece by Auguste Lucien Vérité, the Besançon astronomical clock is a 5-meter-high, 2-ton behemoth, combining technical research and poetry. An astronomical clock is when a clock provides, in addition to the time, indications related to the evolution of the sky, such as the relative positions of the Sun and the Moon, the Sun in relation to the ecliptic, the constellations of the zodiac, etc. This one has 30,000 parts and its 60 dials display 122 indications, all interdependent. Perhaps this is why the clock was not working when we visited it. It was still stunning nonetheless.
We got back to the car and were able to get out of the ancient city without any problems. The trip to Strasbourg was smooth as well. In Strasbourg, we checked into the boutique hotel and then wandered around looking for a place to eat. Strasbourg is not exactly French; it looks too German. But it’s not exactly German either. It is proudly Alsatian, a curious mix of both, which probably came about due to it changing sides between France and Germany every 20 years or so for a very long time, due to the interminable wars between the two countries. There is a small contingent of people who would love to be an independent nation, but they do have certain qualities that already separate them from the rest of France, both governmentally and socially. Many of the older population speak Alsatian, rather than French or German, and the cuisine is a curious mix of both. Also, by agreement when the area was repatriated back to France after World War II, they have a different type of healthcare system. The arrangements seem to work for them.
Since we arrived in Strasbourg early enough, we decided to hoof it over to the Cathedral of Notre Dame to attend mass before dinner. No, not that Notre Dame. We went to mass in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris last weekend. This is a different Notre Dame. It seems that most cities in France have a Notre Dame in them. Like most of them, this one had tourists queuing up to tour the insides. We weren’t sure how to get in to attend mass, so we asked for assistance. Unlike most other places we have been to in France on this trip, the people of Strasbourg are not overly welcoming, friendly, or helpful. When Dave asked a security officer where to go for mass, he just waved us over to the other side of the huge complex. We completely encircled the grounds, but could not find the entrance for mass-goers. After one lap, we stopped and asked some police officers – who were monitoring an anti-war in Iran demonstration – how to attend mass. They pointed us to a line nearby. We got in line and 5 minutes later were asked to pay the fee to climb up into the bell tower. Not what we wanted. It seemed that everyone we asked just pointed us to somewhere other than where they were, just to rid themselves of us. We ended up in the front of the cathedral again and saw that the line for tourists had gotten much smaller. We asked another security officer near the door (and near the first officer who said we had to go to the other side), and he politely opened the rope, allowed us in and advised us to go to the small chapel to the left side of the cathedral. Once inside, we followed our ears to the music being played and found the mass. It was standing room only, but we found two chairs, one row behind the other, and took our places. Mass was nice and traditional. Kathy was next to an Asian couple and noticed they were doing something fantastic! We have been to mass in 15 countries, spoke in 8 different languages. We obviously don’t speak most of those, so we just politely sit when they are speaking. We know the routine of the mass schedule, so we know when to say the prayers, and we say them in English. But for the bible readings and the sermon, we are clueless. This couple next to Kathy, though, had an awesome idea. The woman held her phone and set it on Google Translate! The priest spoke slowly enough and clearly enough for the translation to occur. Brilliant!
After mass, we sat down at a hotel restaurant in the square near the church. We were seated next to a couple from the French Alp town of Grenoble. We enjoyed our conversations with them and they assisted us in figuring out the waiters there. The waiters were very busy and… shall we say… not very thorough in their work. When the failed to provide us bread, although every other table received bread, Kathy tried to politely gain their attention. Politeness did not work with this crew. The Grenoble couple came to our rescue and got us bread. When Kathy asked for a second glass of wine, they brought her a second glass… of air. The glass was empty. None of this ‘half full, half empty’ philosophy. It was fully empty. Dave ordered the chicken dish. He mangled the pronunciation, but pointed to the item and the waiter nicely advised him how to correctly pronounce the dish. Then… he brought Dave the pork dish. Dave knows this because the Grenoble man next to us pointed out that Dave had the same dish that he did – and it was pork, not chicken. But, we both enjoyed our dinners. Then, it was back to hotel for some needed slumber.