Port cities

Here are some of the last photos I plan to post from our October morning visit to La Rochelle. I took this photo of a map in a glass case on the street near the Tour de la Chaîne. It shows the layout of what is called the Quartier de la Chaîne and the location of some of the city's towers — there are actually five of them around the Vieux Port, if you include the Tour de l'Horloge.

I snapped this photo of a detail on the wall of the Tour de la Lanterne. I've been examining it for a couple of days, but I can't figure out what it represents or represented. I guess the salt air has caused it to deteriorate badly.

Finally, here are two views of the channel that leads into La Rochelle's old port and harbor. The tide was very low when I took the photos. I wonder how deep the channel actually is. Some fairly big ferries and tour boats call in at the port, as you can see. They ply the waters between La Rochelle and places like the Île d'Oléron and the Île d'Aix.

This reminds me of home, of course. The town where I was born and grew up, in North Carolina, is also a port city. The style of the buildings and the history of the place is very different from La Rochelle's, but the natural landscape is similar. I've posted photos I've taken on trips back there on many occasions, so you might know what I'm talking about.

I figure I'll go back to La Rochelle one day. We didn't go out to the Île de Ré this time, and we didn't go to nearby Rochefort. Those are places I'd like to see. And smell, and taste.

La Rochelle : La Lanterne

As is the case with much of this blog, my post yesterday about the late president George H.W. Bush and his trip to Africa during the 1985 drought and famine there was a spontaneous, unplanned post. I'll have to go back to the articles I wrote during that trip to refresh my memory about other things that happened. That's research, and might take time.

Meanwhile, back to La Rochelle, the city we visited on October 22, 2018. This is fourth tower in my series, after the two towers that guard the entrance to the old harbor and the 15th century Saint-Sauveur church tower. It is known as the Tour de la Lanterne. The round base is a tower that dates back to the 1200s or even earlier. The top, in the form of a steeple, was added on in the mid-1400s. The Tour de la Lanterne was built as a lighthouse. Below is a photo I took standing at the base of the Lanterne looking straight up. The tower underwent restoration work in the early 1900s.

Here also is a view in which you can see the three seafront towers of La Rochelle. I took it from the opposite side of the old harbor. The Lanterne, on the right, measures 55 meters (180 feet) in height.

During the 16th century religious wars, when La Rochelle fell under Protestant control, Catholics fled the city. Thirteen Catholic priests were imprisoned in the Lanterne tower, and then murdered. For a while, the towers was known as the Tour des Prêtres.

George Bush bought a giraffe, so I did too

All the retrospectives about and tributes to former U.S. president George H.W. Bush (Bush-père, as he is sometimes called in French) has brought back good memories for me. After several years of living and working in Paris in the late 1970s and '80s, I had moved back to the U.S. in 1982 and settled myself in Washington DC to start a new career. I ended up — long story — working with my friend CHM as a translator/editor at the U.S. Information Agency for a couple of years, and then in 1984 I moved over to the Africa Press Service in the same agency as a writer, editor, and reporter.

In 1985, my boss asked me to accompany the U.S. vice-president —George Bush at the time — on a trip to Africa as a member of the press pool that would travel with him. I was thrilled, of course. I'd never been to Africa, although I had been working in African affairs for a few years, and three of the countries where Bush and his retinue would be spending time were French-speaking. For me, it was a great opportunity.

 We flew on Air Force 2, which is what the U.S. president's airplane, Air Force 1, is called when the vice-president is using it for official travel. George and Barbara Bush were both on the trip, and the vice-president briefed reporters on the flight from the U.S. to Africa and several other times over the 10 days we traveled together. Bush's purpose for going to Africa was to support U.S. relief efforts there during a major drought crisis, consulting with local leaders and touring development projects and famine-relief camps. Here's a photo Bush's office sent me after we got back to the U.S.

That's me (at age 36) in the middle seat of the row of reporters with George Bush on Air Force 2.
The others were reporters for the Associated Press, the Voice of America, the Houston Chronicle, and Time Magazine.

It was all very official, and I can't claim that I got to spend a lot of time with VP and Mrs. Bush. However, on a Saturday mid-trip we were in Niamey, the capital of the sub-Saharan country of Niger, and one of the main events of the day was a guided tour of the city's zoological park. I was wandering around, just observing, because as a government employee I didn't have to file a report that day — our agency was closed on weekends. At the zoo, I stepped into the facility's gift shop to have a look around. I was the only person in the shop besides a couple of employees. Everybody else was out in the park trying to catch a glimpse of the Bushes, I guess.

Suddenly, the Bushes walked into the shop, and security people sealed the entrance. I couldn't leave and nobody else could enter. George and Barbara didn't speak French — or much French — as far as I know, so I served as the interpreter between them and the shop employees. We each had a cold Pepsi, right out of the bottles. The three of us looked around in the shop for a few minutes, making small talk and oohing-and-aahing over items we liked and wished we could take back to the U.S. as gifts for friends. I guess I told them I worked for USIA, but I don't really remember if that came up. They just seemed to accept my presence and assistance, or maybe they took such service for granted.

Finally, VP Bush decided to buy a giraffe! Not a live one, of course, but a brass giraffe that was at least three feet tall. He could of course take something like that back to the U.S. with him. I certainly couldn't. But not one to miss an opportunity, I spotted a miniature version of the same giraffe and decided that it should be one of my souvenirs of the trip and the experience. I still have it, and I just took a photo of it for this post.

Un sandwich aux épinards

What about some food for the weekend? I'm not finished posting about La Rochelle and the Vendée region, but it can wait. Here's something simple to make and delicious to eat for your lunch.

Recently I was thinking about making croque-monsieur sandwiches. They are so typically French — you can order one in any of thousands of cafés around the country. Okay, so they're just grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches. No big deal. One thing that makes them different from American versions of a grilled cheese or a grilled ham-and-cheese is the optional béchamel sauce that you can put inside and on top of the of the sandwich with the cheese.

I don't know about you, but I love spinach and other greens. I like them well cooked (though fresh spinach leaves make a good garnish or salad — try a spinach salad with vinaigrette, chunks of Roquefort cheese, and some toasted walnuts or pecans). Anyway, it occurred to me that instead of making a ham-and-cheese sandwich with béchamel sauce (butter, flour, milk), why not make the same sandwich with good creamed spinach?

Cook some fresh or frozen spinach leaves in a saucepan or in the microwave. Drain the spinach well so it's not too watery. Add a spoonful of cream — crème fraîche if you can get it — and continue cooking the spinach until the cream thickens just slightly. Make a sandwich with lightly toasted bread, a slice of boiled ham (which will keep the bottom slice of bread from going soggy), a layer of creamed spinach leaves, and some thinly sliced or grated cheese (I used French Cantal cheese, but Cheddar would be good too). Put more cheese on top of the top slice of bread and grill the sandwich in a hot oven, just until the cheese melts and turns golden brown. This is a sandwich you'll want to eat with a knife and fork...