The taxi showed up on time, and off we went! The driver took us straight up rue de la Roquette, which dead-ends at the gates of the Père Lachaise cemetery, so I was able to get a good shot of the gate as he turned left onto the avenue de Ménilmontant. On the avenue, we paralleled the outside wall of the cemetery for two long blocks, and the full length of that wall is lined with panels etched with the names of Parisians who died in WWI.
At the right here is the end of the line of panels.
At the left here is part of the middle, and at the right the beginning of the line, with a couple of people for scale. The larger etching at the top of the first column says "1914" and below that "A" (the names are arranged in alphabetical order within year of death).
By blowing up the right-hand photo, I was able to count about 42 entries per column, and the letter "B" shows up in the 15th column. Horrendous death toll.
When we reached the corner, we waved good-bye to Batistou on our left as the driver turned right, up avenue Gambetta (past our friend Françoise's apartment), and made for thePériphérique, Paris's beltway. Just as we reached it, at the huge rotary at Porte de Bagnolet, three emergency vehicles converged from different directions and set off in convoy ahead of us: an ambulance, sapeurs-pompiers (firemen), and an emergency bloodmobile. We soon lost sight of them, and we never encountered the wreck or other emergency that brought them out.
After a smooth ride the rest of the way to CDG, we set up base camp in the outer lobby, where David guarded the pile of luggage while I set off exploring the lunch options.
No proper sit-down restaurant was in evidence, so we settled for the counter-service Maison Pradier, which had the best-looking sandwiches and provided seating, which most of the places didn't.
At the right here is our selection. David got a ham and Ementhal baguette, and I chose a smoked salmon, spinach, and herbed-fromage-blanc "toastée"—a sandwich on sprouted-wheat bread that was wrapped in paper than heated in a sandwich press until the outer surface was lightly toasted. Pretty good.
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David had his usual apple turnover, but I got a delicious coffee éclaire.
The flight went smoothly enough, but once we finally got to Milan, we still had an hour's ride in the limo to reach our hotel. We were the only ones picked up on that run. Half of the hour was getting from the airport to Milan, and that part was definitely not the picturesque countryside you picture when you think of Italy. It was pretty flat, punctuated here and there with a metal-sided building, with very little agriculture.
Everyone else on our tour had flown in from North America, on an overnight flight, and arrived in the morning. We'd booked a mid-day domestic-EU flight, which then got pushed another couple of hours later (on the airline's whim, so far as I can tell), pushing our limo ride right into Milan's rush hour. So the second half of the ride was spent inching through downtown Milan to the hotel.
In fact, we were the last of our Tauck party to arrive, by a goodly margin. When we finally straggled in, so late I was afraid we might miss the introductory briefing, our Tauck tour director Danny (Danni?, short for Daniello anyway) assured us that he wouldn't start without us, that we should check into our rooms, take a deep breath, and rejoin the group at our convenience. We did so and still had some time left in the ice-breaker cocktail party.
On our last Tauck tour, we didn't find we had a lot in common with the others in the group and found it hard to fit in, but this group turned out to be much more copacetic. After the cocktail and short briefing, we adjourned to the hotel's restaurant for our introductory dinner.
The limited Tauck menu offered two choices for each course. The person next to me ordered the Milanese risotto creamed with marrow and drizzled with pesto.
David and I both chose the ravioli with prawns, zucchini, and stracciatella cheese. (Stracciatella, I finally learned on this trip, is the mixture with which burrata is filled—a combination of mozzarella and cream.)
David and I also both chose (over the catch of the day with caponata and tomato sauce) the braised veal with gremolata with potato cream and sweet-and-sour onions. I don't seem to have gotten a photo of that.
For dessert, we chose the same thing again: ricotta with hazelnut brittle and caramelized pears.
The other choice was, as on almost every menu we encountered for the rest of the trip, tiramisu. But no one ever makes tiramisu with decaf coffee, so we never dared to order it.
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Because our flight was so late in the day—3:30 pm!—we just ran a little earlier than our usual schedule, leaving the hotel buy taxi in time to get lunch at the airport, and I got one more breakfast of those great boiled eggs. In the U.S., you can usually check in for your flight, and hand your luggage over to the airline, almost any time on the day of your flight, and you can do it at just about any desk belonging to your airline. At Charles De Gaulle—Roissy, though, specific airline desks are assigned to specific flights, and they don't open for check-in until a couple of hours before boarding. That meant we'd have to have lunch before checking in and getting rid of our luggage, so I did take care to verify in advance that food would be available outside security.