The First Day is Always the Hardest

     We flew from Dulles Airport in Washington D. C. to the Paris-Orly Airport, arriving in Paris at 7:45 a. m. local time.  We flew Open Skies, which is a new division of British Airways.  Open Skies planes are normal commercial sized planes, but they seat less than 100 people.  You can choose between "biz bed," a seat which reclines to a flat position, or "biz seat," which reclines to a comfortable position but does not make a bed.   Since they are so new, they've been running really good specials.  We got two seats for the price of one for our trip.  You can  read more about the airline here.

                                      The Chateau at Blerancourt, France
     Marty and I took turns driving from the airport to our hotel in Holland.  The first day of jet lag is the worst.  No matter how brightly the sun is shining, your body knows that it's really only 3 a. m. at home.  We try to push through the weariness and stay busy so that we can get on the local schedule, but it still takes me a few days to adjust.  So the two of us took turns napping between driving shifts.
     On the way to Holland, we visited the chateau at Blerancourt, France, which is the home of the Franco-American museum.  It was during World War I that J. P. Morgan's daughter Anne bought the chateau to use as a headquarters for herself and a group of American women volunteers who worked to help people in the area recover from the war.  Their charity was called "The American Committee for Devastated France."  The chateau later became a museum to celebrate French and American friendship.
     The museum itself is closed for renovations, but there are beautiful gardens surrounding the chateau, which are open to the public free of charge.  The gardens are planted within walls of smooth cream-colored stone, and many of the walls support various white climbing roses.
     I'm including some photos of my favorite of the roses: a blowsy white French beauty with a pale pink blush.  It's called "Palais Royal," and it looks absolutely gorgeous against those cream stone walls!

          Rosa "Palais Royal" growing against a garden wall at Chateau Blerancourt.

      Detail of Rosa "Palais Royal" growing against stone wall in gardens of Blerancourt.
  
     A less formal area of the grounds is planted as a wildflower meadow, with a path mown through colorful blue cornflowers and red poppies.

    A mown path winds through the meadow of red poppies and blue cornflowers.

                              A closer look at two iconic French wildflowers.
     On one of our rest stops in Belgium, we met a trio of fugitives from some local farm. A rooster and two hens walked casually out of the woods and across the driveway to look for bugs in the grass nearby.  When they caught me taking their photo, the two hens ran back to the woods.  The rooster, however, was bolder and happily took some bread crumbs from me before following the ladies back to the woods.

          Why did the chickens cross the road? Maybe they found out about "coq au vin."