Home Again

Sheila and I have returned home after a fantastic trip. We saw all of the sights, ate great food, and shopped a little too much. I'm sure you'll all get to hear the full story and see the photos in person at some point, but I thought I'd feature a few of the highlights here.

As I mentioned in a pre-trip post, I arranged a visit to the shop of Maître Jacques Castinet, a fencing antiques dealer. On the 7th we met him near the Porte d'Orléans metro station and he drove us to his little shop in a suburb of Paris. He speaks very little English, and my French is equally limited, but we got along just fine.

The shop is amazing, not huge mind you, but stacked to the rafters with old weapons, masks, books, prints, paintings, sculptures, and pretty much anything else having anything to do with fencing. I was in heaven! I easily could have spent a week there drooling over all of it.

In the end it took me about an hour of browsing, and hemming and hawing before I decided on a 19th century dueling sabre, and a matched set of 19th century lunette foils for myself, and an additional lunette foil for a friend at my fencing club. I won't tell you how much I spent - more than I had planned, but I don't regret a Euro-cent of it. The Maître also threw in a couple of posters and magazines, as well as a bottle of Maestro - Parfum De L'Escrime (I kid you not) that Sheila and I had been chuckling about. In thanks for his hospitality I had brought along a set of Canadian Fencing Federation, and Alberta Fencing Association patches to add to his collection. It was a delightful time.


A few days later we popped up to the conjoined towns of Valenciennes and Saint-Saulve, where my Mother's Father's Mother was born. We spent a day and a half wandering around the towns, looking for traces of the family's history there, aided by some vague directions from a Great-Uncle, and a copy of that portion of the family tree. Unfortunately that branch is missing a lot of information, as my Dad only had the memories of a few family members to go on when piecing it together. Much of the family scattered during WWII, and for one reason or another, the various siblings and cousins didn't manage to stay in touch.

I didn't expect to uncover any great secrets or missing links. Mostly I wanted to see the town where that eighth of me is from. To walk the same streets, see the canal, the houses, and the church where my great, and great-great grandparents lived their lives.

We did find some traces. In the cemetery we found the graves of my Great-Great Grandparents, as well as a Great-Great Uncle, and a number of other individuals who had the same family names, but who's place on the family tree remains a mystery.

We discovered a fresh pot of geraniums on my Great-Great Grandparents grave. Some living local relative still thinks of them. We got our hands on a copy of the phone directory and took down all of the addresses of individuals in the area bearing the family name. The plan is to send out letters with copies of the family tree to all of them, asking if they are related, and if they can fill in some of the blanks.

The rest of the trip was terrific too. I got to show Sheila some of my favourite places, as well as explore new ones with her. We spent a lot of time poking around Île de la Cité and Île Saint-Louis. Hôtel des Invalides was another highlight, housing several terrific museums, Napoleon's tomb, and the most impressive collection of cannon I have ever seen. Sheila's favourite spot was Mont-Saint-Michel, which I'll agree was spectacular, and I'd happily visit it again.

Anyway, like I said, you'll all get to see all of the photos eventually. Maybe we'll even play you our La Vie En Rose music box. You might call it a tacky souvenir, but Edith Piaf and I know a classic when we hear it =D

Santé!