After a fairly uneventful drive through Italy’s highly confusing highways, we discovered with no small amount of excitement that we are going to go through the Mont Blanc Tunnel, the 20th longest road tunnel in the world at 11.6 km! As we drove towards the tunnel, through the incredibly windy lower Alps, we saw signs advising that crossing the tunnel will take about 2 hours. We ignored them, especially since google maps said otherwise. Except that it did take two hours. Two long, beautiful hours spent crawling up to the tunnel, which only had one lane open and allowed only one car every few minutes. The crawl did allow us to gaze at the stunning mountain from various angles as the road twisted and turned a lot, but how much can you really stare at a mountain until you get bored? Thankfully, there was a Belgium car in front of us with two pre-teen kids, who provided further entertainment by walking around their car, running, hanging outside of the car windows eating giant sandwiches, making faces at us, waving and sticking their tongues, and just being two fun Belgian kids.
And then we were finally at the finish line, with the
entrance of the tunnel alluringly close, calling us in. All that charm and
excitement were gone, however, when we learned that we needed to pay 50 euros
to ride through the damn tunnel! These were the most expensive 11.5 kms I have
ever driven. Inside it was, you know, just a good ole tunnel. With that, we
were already in France.
A quick overnight stay in Macon, and we were headed towards
Paris for the next few days. Ah, Paris, Paris, Paris! The city of lovers, croissants,
fashion, and expensive museums. What did we do? Instead of enjoying, all the glorious
city had to offer, we had to find a notary to sign another power of attorney
for the purchase of the Montenegro house since it seemed that the previous one
missed an important point. We topped the day with a lovely dinner in the Latin
Quarter where we met with an old friend and drank wine until the wee hours of
night.
When we planning this leg of the trip, we realized that the
French Open was already underway in Paris. Tennis fanatics that we are, the
Diplomat immediately proposed we spend a day at the stadium, watching whatever
we can catch. Since it was rather late in the game (so to speak), we only managed
to get ground tickets, which meant no access to the main court with all the
famous players, mostly watching doubles games and walking around and checking
out the stores and the side courts. We did end up watching a couple of fun
games with former professional players, something called Legends
Trophy. After a hilarious match courtesy of Mansour Bahrami, who had us laughing
hysterically with his court antics, we also saw an aging but still delightfully
agile Martina Navratilova in a stoically serious female doubles game. Secretly
bored after one set, we left to buy Son an absurdly expensive tennis hat.
In Paris, courtesy of our amazing Brazilian friend L, we
were lucky to stay on the famed Avenue Montaigne, one of the most exclusive and
luxurious arteries in the capital, connecting Champs-Elysées to the Alma Bridge.
Any self-respecting haute-couture brand is located there, and her apartment building
is right above Bottega Veneta. Posh or not, it did seem that some of the
tenants in the building had strong feelings against some of the designers on
their street because we saw an odd notice in the elevator, asking the tenants
to please stop throwing trash and dog feces (!) on top of the famed designer’s
store awning… Have they no shame!
A quick walk on the street reveals lines and lines of fashion
revelers, standing in long lines to go inside and stock up on precious luxury
goods. Their tenacity is remarkable and so it the depth of their wallets,
apparently, judging by the prices I saw in the windows. I just hope no one
throws dog poop on them from the fancy buildings above. Or at least, if they
do, that I am around to see it!
Done with the gorgeous Paris sights, the Diplomat and I got
ready for the next stop on our trip – Porto, Portugal to visit our fabulous
friends T and G. This time, we were flying, so we had to leave the car for a
few days at Orly airport, along with all of our suitcases inside. Since the
trip was already costing quite the pretty penny (in case you were wondering),
we found cheap, off-airport, parking in a nearby village. It was run by a pair
of affable French folks and was in essence a sort of a farmland with a giant
barn, where you could park your car and then they would drive you to the nearby
airport in a rickety van whose back door had to be tied with rope. Clearly miscalculating
the time it would take to get back to the airport from there, we arrived at the
parking lot with precious little time to spare.
One of the big differences between the Diplomat and me is
that he likes to go to the airport Indian style – several hours ahead, preferably
the previous night, and overnight there with dry snacks packed from home. I, on
the other hand, cannot stand waiting around too long, even if I have a club lounge
access, and prefer to arrive as late as possible. In this case, we had followed
my philosophy a little too close for comfort and ended up running like mad people
inside the terminal, being those annoying people who apologize to everybody
while cutting the line, saying that their flight is boarding. All our progress was, however, stopped by a
pair of sadistic security guys who insisted that all my liquids should be
indeed put in plastic ziplock bags and proceeded to dig through my suitcase
with the diligence of a phlegmatic mole examining a burrow (I told them I do
not believe in plastic and that only made them go through my carry-on even
slower while looking at me without even a hint of a smile). Convinced that we
had missed the flight (it was past the boarding time noted on my boarding pass,
we threw everything back into the small suitcase and ran towards the gate like a
pair of convicts who have just escaped prison. Only to arrive at the gate where
(naturally) no one was boarding, and everyone was just picking on their phones.
We made it successfully over to Porto.
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