Trip one, phase one - La Salette Fallavaux

Where the heck is La Salette Fallavaux, you ask, and why the heck would anyone go there?

Well, I'll tell you. See the guy in the picture? He is the reason I am going to La Salette.

He is my father, Roderick Malcolm McIsaac (note the different spelling from my name. It was spelled "Mac" on my birth certificate, and I never changed it). I never knew him, because I was really young when the plane he and 57 other people were on, returning to Quebec from Rome via Paris, crashed into the Alps not far from Grenoble. Visiting his grave has been on my 'bucket list' forever, and I have decided that now is the time to do it.

There is not much there except this massive sanctuary, Notre Dame de la Salette, which is a pilgrimage site for Catholics because apparently the Virgin Mary appeared to a couple of teenagers there in the 1800's (reminiscent of the Lourdes legend).

Perhaps they created this tiny cemetary in this spot for these 58 Canadians because they (my father was part of the crew, the commisaire du bord, or purser in English) were apparently prominent Quebec Catholics who had been in Rome because of the beatification of Marguerite Bourgeois, founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame. If you have to be dead, this looks like a beautiful place to rest in peace.

I will have to wait until I get to Grenoble to figure out how to get to La Salette, but I am pretty certain that I will have to rent a car. Can't be any worse than driving in downtown Toronto.

Trip one - phase two - Paris

I am going to Paris because it is there.

I have never been there, and I will be a couple of hours away by high-speed train, so why not go? I know absolutely nothing about the city as a city, so I pretty much threw a dart at a city map to pick a district for my base. I will be staying in the 9th district, Bastille, which is close to Montmartre and within walking distance from the Louvre and other must-see Paris icons.

Funny story. After I had booked my hotel stay in the 9th district, someone told me that I should only stay in districts 1 through 6. Too late. I am sure it will be fine. It looks okay on the Google street view.

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I have since learned that my hotel is a four-minute walk from the Opera Garnier (eat your heart out, AM) and four-point-five minutes from this grand shopping place, Les Galeries Lafayette. I am not a big shopper, but I have to check it out. Look at the architecture:

I am thinking that maybe I can pick up a couture outfit for Daisy

A timetable would not help me in Paris because I only have two days and, being me, I will have to spend time just sitting around and observing life in Paris.