Fast trip to 1900 Paris

Christmas was celebrated early, on December 23, 2018, at my daughter's house (both she and her husband had to work on Christmas Day.)  On Christmas Day I was with my cats and tried to stay busy.  I had set a small holiday area on the butcher block.  The little tree under the globe turns and plays several Christmas carols.

While packing away gift wrapping for next year I found a very slim package between two wrapping papers.  It was a present my husband had bought for me some years ago but had told me he had lost somehow, or misplaced and so never given to me.  I opened it - surprise: a new present from my late husband, a pretty scarf.

A month or so ago I saw on the Net that a museum had an exhibition on Paris 1900.  I did not know the museum and thought it must be in New York City.  Then several days ago I read some more on this exhibition and wondered where in New York this museum was located, the Frist Museum.  It turns out that it is the art museum in Nashville!  When I searched the address I realized it was on Broadway, downtown Nashville, only 3 miles from my house ... so I decided to go and see the exhibition last Thursday December 27, 2018.  I walked up and down the foyer, admiring the art nouveau details, the cast aluminum doors and grill works.  This was originally the main post office for Nashville, built in the 1930s and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  The white Georgia marble building with gray-pink Minnesota granite was renovated and converted into the Frist Art Museum when a new post office was built near the airport.

The exhibit named "Paris 1900: City of Entertainment" opened here on October 12, 2018 and will close on January 6, 2019.  I am very pleased to have found out about it before its closure.  It will travel to only three US cities: Nashville, then Cincinnati, Ohio from Mar-1 to May-12, 2019 and to Portland, Oregon, from June-8 to Sep-8, 2019.  It was like a special present to me - a quick holiday trip back home to Paris.  The brochure given at the entrance showed the groupings of the exhibit - 1) Paris, Showcase of the World, 2) Art Nouveau, 3) Paris the Capital of the Arts, 4) The Parisian Woman, 5) Traversing Paris and 6) Paris by Night.  The exhibition, originally on view in 2014 at the Petit Palais, Fine Arts Museum of the City of Paris, brought over 250 objects - paintings, prints, decorative arts, sculptures, costumes and fashion accessories, posters, photographs, souvenirs, etc., usually only seen in several Paris museums.  There were also videos of films of the period.

Paris, Showcase of the World - this was Paris at the turn of the 20th century during its prosperous golden age, with technological, political, social and economic advances and progress.  After World War I, in retrospect, this period was called "La Belle Epoque" (the beautiful era) with nostalgia for its modernity, carelessness, luxury, peace and joie de vivre (and excess.)  Paris attracted the whole world and was the undisputed capital of arts, elegance and pleasure.  Baron Haussmann rebuilt the city with large avenues and parks - everything brightly lit and why it deserved to be called The City of Lights.  At the time France was the world's biggest exporter of automobiles with 600 car manufacturers in France and 150 different makes.  The Sacre-Coeur basilica of Montmartre was built then, the large department store Les Galeries Lafayette was opened.  The first section of the underground Metro was built.  Below are paintings illustrating that time by Louise Abbema (1858-1927) with Allegory of the City of Paris, 1901, standing up on the left.  Two bottom right paintings by Henri Gervex (1852-1919) and top right is Jean Beraud (1849-1935) Le Boulevard Montmartre.  (Click on collage to see better.)

The Frist brochure says "The International Exposition of 1900 was the culmination of these projects and showcased the cultural power of the French capital to the world."  Two new rail stations were built - Invalides and Orsay.  This landmark world exhibition of 1900, welcoming the new century, drew 51 million visitors during its 212 viewing days (when France only had 41 million inhabitants at the time.)  It was a great moment of optimism and triumph for industry and technology.  Vintage film clips show French President Emile Loubet opening the exhibition on April 14, 1900.  People hopping on the revolutionary "moving sidewalks" are shown, too.  France had invited foreign nations to participate and 43 of them did, building pavilions to showcase their countries.  A huge print in the Frist museum gallery showed all these pavilions.

I assembled some postcards of these pavilions below.  In the center is the monumental main entrance door into the 1900 Paris Exhibition.  Click on collage to read the countries of the pavilions (Austria, Finland, Russia and Siberia, Italy, Serbia, Egypt, Mexico, English India, South Africa, Hungary, Ottoman Empire.)

There were many huge buildings too, called palaces such as the Palace of Electricity, of Metallurgy, of Education.  The pavilions and buildings were temporary apart from the Grand Palais and Petit Palais (great and small palaces) which were built to stay in Paris as museums.  Below are postcards of the Petit Palais on the left with the Grand Palais on the right, during the 1900 exhibition.  Below each is the way they currently look with their interior below it.

The Electricity Palace is in the center of the collage below.  There was also a reproduction of Medieval Paris, and more.  I have read some people saying that the Eiffel Tower was built for this 1900 exhibition.  No, Gustave Eiffel had his tower built between 1887 and 1889 as a centerpiece for the Paris 1889 World Exhibition celebrating the centennial of the French Revolution - it was inaugurated on March 31, 1889.

The 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris was a huge event.  The following was not mentioned in the current Nashville exhibition, but I can add that Russia obtained the first prize for their sparkling wine thus defeating French competition for the Champagne Grand Prize.  Rudolf Diesel, a German born in France, exhibited his diesel motor.  Also, Campbell, the American company created in 1869, received a gold medal for their soup.  This gold medal is still printed nowadays in the center of their soup can labels.  Look at your cans!

Art Nouveau - In 1900, Paris was one of the European capitals celebrating this new art form.  To access the 1900 Universal Exhibition a new ornate art nouveau bridge was built, named Alexander III in honor of the Tsar of Russia (his son, Nicholas II had laid the foundation of the bridge in 1896.)  It had art nouveau lamps, nymps, cherubs and winged horses at each end.  Below is a postcard from the 1900 exhibition, the bridge as it stands now and a painting shown in the Nashville exhibition, painted by Auguste Leroux (1871-1954.)

As an aside to the exhibit in Nashville, I can explain that in 1900 the French Government wished to affirm their "Franco-Russian friendship" (hence the construction of the Alexandre III bridge.)  In addition to their pavilions, Imperial Russia was introducing their Trans-Siberian Express Railway.  It was the world's longest railway (not finished until 1916.)  At the Paris 1900 worlds exhibition Russia and French Wagon-Lits, the sleeping car company, let visitors experience the luxury on board real railway carriages which included an ornate Russian Orthodox church.  Moving panoramas provided the impression of the journey going through the Urals, Siberia and Manchuria.

Some art nouveau pieces, ornaments, furniture, prints and paintings were exhibited here in Nashville.  An art nouveau Paris Metro entrance was shown in a very large photograph covering a wall of a gallery.  Click on collage below to enlarge.  On left is art nouveau painting of the drowning of Ophelia by Paul Seck (1866-1924) and in the bottom a stained glass study by Alfons Mucha (1860-1939.)

I have many photos from the remaining sections: Paris the Capital of the Arts, The Parisian Woman, Traversing Paris and Paris by Night.  This will be for my next post because it would make this post way too long.  This post will be next year as 2018 is ending.  For 2019 I wish you all much happiness, good health, fun and joie de vivre.  (Click to enlarge to read cards.)

Armchair traveling to ...Simla, India

Just a few more knee therapy sessions and it will be over.  It seems that this second knee surgery was easier than the last one.  But in the last few days I have developed more pain in my left ankle and foot - I had an injury there years ago and the ligaments are gone.  I'll see an orthopedist soon.  As the character of Gilda Ratner, Roseanne Roseannadanna, in the TV show Saturday Night Live used to say: "...it's always something - if it ain't one thing, it's another."  C'est la vie!  I spent much time reading the first few weeks after surgery, not in an armchair, but in a sofa bed since I was not allowed to step upstairs to my bedroom.  (Below painting is "Reading Girl on a Sofa" by Isaac Israels (1865-1934) a Dutch Impressionist painter.)

The last time I went to our house in Georgia I gave about 400 more books to the library, but there are thousands more to go through.  For years my husband and I gathered books from book sales and second-hand bookstores.  Many are still unread and it is difficult to decide which ones to keep - of course my husband, because of his advancing Alzheimer's disease, cannot read anymore.  I brought several boxes of books to Nashville and while recuperating from my knee surgery I read "light reading" mysteries.  Then I decided to read a slim paperback I had bought in Monreal, Canada, years ago.  It is called "The Pool in the Desert" by Sara Jeannette Duncan.  It contains four novellas originally published in 1903.  The back of the book says "Sara Jeannette Duncan was the first Canadian woman to achieve international success as a journalist, novelist, and travel writer.  Born in 1861, she wrote more than twenty books during a career which took her to the Far East, India and England."

Sara Jeannette Duncan was a vey interesting and successful woman.  She was the first woman to be employed full time in a daily newspaper, the Toronto Globe, in 1886, and also worked for the Montreal Star.  She embarked on a world tour with a fellow journalist and while stopped in Calcutta, India, met Everard Cotes, a British civil servant.  She returned to India within two years to marry him.  She then spent the rest of her life in India, although visiting her family in Canada often and traveling to other countries.  Most of her books describe India in realistic local colors and her stories are in the setting of the manner of the Anglo-Indians of the British Raj, as the ruling party, the British Crown, was called in the Indian subcontinent from 1858 to 1947.  (Click on collage twice to enlarge.)

The book The Pool in the Desert contains only 189 pages but it provided me with hours of research and travel.  The stories are set in Simla, India, as it was called then; now it is called Shimla.  I researched this city and its history.  It turns out that starting in the early 1800s the British took refuge from the summer heat in this western Himalaya town because of its cooler climate.  At some 2,100 m (6,889 ft) above sea level, Simla, surrounded by deep forests of cedar, oak, deodar and pine, was a cool hilly town with green pastures and snow-capped peaks.  In 1864 it was confirmed as the British imperial summer capital of India.  It was nicknamed "The Queen of the Hills."  Below are some old engravings of Simla (be sure to click on collage to see well.)

Every year close to 5,000 British civil servants (imperial clerks and staff,) viceroys, military attaches, wives, children and servants made the tiring 1,200 miles journey from Calcutta to Simla.  There they built houses, cottages and bungalows (bungalow is an Indian word) in timbered houses, in mock-Tudor architecture, flower gardens, etc.  They also established several schools, a theatre, art exhibits, a post office, a mall with exclusive shops and a big bazaar.  They played croquet on the lawn, golf, and took afternoon teas.  It became a popular British "Hill Station."  Here are some vintage postcards.

To serve the Anglican British community Christ Church was built in 1857.  Below is a vintage postcard of the church back then and the way it looks now.

The English novelist, journalist, writer and poet Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) visited Simla yearly with his family.  His father, Lockwood Kipling was asked to serve in Christ Church.  Kipling wrote often about Simla.  Other personalities visited and some built summer homes there, including Lord Kitchener, commander of the British Army.  Artists visited Simla as well, such as the English artist and poet Edward Lear (1812-1888) who drew a series of watercolors of Simla and the surrounding areas.  (Shown below courtesy The Houghton Library, Harvard University.)

During the era of the Raj Simla had a reputation for being exclusive and expensive.  It also had a naughty reputation because of the concentration of so many unattached men (civil servants, engineers, soldiers, merchants) bachelors and women visiting during the hot weather season.  Young single women came from England in search of a husband among all the single English men there.  Rudyard Kipling said in a letter that Simla was a place for "frivolity, gossip and intrigue."  An area in Simla is even called "Scandal Point" because of its improper past.  It is a small square between the Ridge and the Mall Road.

Because the British viceroys spent from early April to late October in Simla and ruled the entire Indian subcontinent from there an official residence was built 2+ miles (3.5 km) from Simla in 1888.  British Viceroy Lord Dufferin and Lady Dufferin were the first to occupy the lodge on the 331 acre site, on top of Observatory Hills.  It was state of the art for the time, the first building with electric lighting, its own steam generator, and running hot and cold water.  Below is a vintage photo of the Viceregal Lodge, Lord Dufferin (1826-1902) Lady Dufferin (1843-1936) and one of the dining rooms - photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons Canada.

This magnificent building was in the "English Renaissance" style with elements from castles of the Scottish highlands, and interior walls covered with teak wood from Burma.  Its gardens were a perfect setting for garden parties; the immense lodge could host 800 guests.  At the time it employed a staff of 700.  Notable personalities were its guests and even Mahatma Gandhi visited the then  Vicery in 1940.  Below he is surrounded by a crowd upon his arrival in a rickshaw in Simla in 1940.

After India independence in 1947 the Viceregal Estate went to the President of India who just spent a few days a year there.  In 1964 the building renamed "Rashtrapati Niwas" (Presidentiel Residence,) became the Indian Institute of Advanced Study with the support from the second president of India, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, a scholar of comparative religion and philosophy.  Now the Institute offers 2-year fellowships for research and study of cultures, civilization and meeting of different viewpoints.  The building has been renovated.  Several rooms are still open to the public.  (Photo below courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)

India is a large country with an abundance of diverse and beautiful sights to visit so Shimla is not on the regular tourist circuit of common Western travelers.  Shimla is now the capital of the state of Himachal Pradesh.

Owing to its romantic setting Shimla has become an ideal destination for Indian honeymooners in summer and also in winter, under the snow.

In 1903 to afford easier access to their summer capital the British built a narrow gauge 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) railway from Kalka, near Delhi, into Shimla.  Until then everything, including official documents, came to Simla via mules and porters.  This railway is still in working order and a great tourist experience providing dramatic view of the hills and villages of the lower Himalayas.  This toy train travels at a clunky 15 miles an hour through 103 tunnels and 865 bridges.  It is one of the steepest railways in the world climbing from 2,152 ft (656 m) and ending at Shimla at an elevation of 6,811 ft (2,076 m.)  The journey takes almost 6 hours and goes through 18 small stations and 102 caves, making 919 curves and turns where many monkeys appear.  Originally known as the "British Jewel of the Orient" the Kalka-Shimla Railway became part of the Unesco World Heritage Site in 2008.

Once in Shimla one can stop at an outdoor cafe on a hill and observe the mountain tops nearby such as the Pir Panjal Range of the Himalayas, more than 19,000 ft high, the Rakt Dhar at 20,100 ft and the Badrinath at 23,190 ft.  Trekking circuits from Shimla are also popular - one day's travel will bring you to Dharamshala where the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government are in exile (also in the state of Himachal Pradesh.)  It is a spiritual center for Buddhism.  Every year Shimla hosts one of the toughest mountain bike races in India - the MTB Himalaya biking race which covers 400 miles (650 km) in 8 stages and draws competitors from around the world.

After spending so much time with Simla and its history I was hoping to find other books with stories set there.  At the Brentwood library I found the whole 12 mysteries written by British author Barbara Cleverly.  They cover the adventures of Inspector Joe Sandilands of Scotland Yard, after WWI, while on assignment in Simla.  Cleverly recreates the atmosphere of the Raj with wonderful descriptions of the area during the waning years of the colonial culture.  I kept my iPad close by to look up many of the Indian words she mentions.  One of them was "tiffin" as in a character saying "... will  you come and join me for tiffin ..."  Tiffin is an Indian English word for a type of meal, from a snack to a light breakfast or luncheon.  It is still popular today and usually is a packed snack or lunch.  A whole industry now produces tiffin boxes of different sizes.  In a Nashville Indian grocery shop I bought a small tiffin box to carry a snack when I'll drive back and forth to Georgia.  I even found a book of reminiscences and tiffin recipes from an expat from India.  I have read five books of the Simla mysteries and will read the next seven.  I'll be armchair staying in Simla for a while longer.

You could say I am immersing myself with nostalgia for the atmosphere of the old British Empire, but I am reading fiction.  In reality, I think that under the guise of helping faraway lands, Western powers plundered these countries like India on a huge scale.  Instead of being beneficial and humane colonialism robbed them of vast economic resources and wealth.  Imperialism had contempt for native populations, it was arrogant and self-serving.  The British were not benign and considerate, they were in India to exploit and for the benefit of their home country, not the local population.  For example India in the 18th century was prosperous with a 23% share of the world economy but when the British left in 1947 it was only 3% and 90% of the population was poor.  In 10 years (1891-1900) 19 million Indians died in famines alone.  I am just armchair traveling, escaping the realities from the pain of my surgeries, the stress of being a 24/7 caregiver for my husband and the difficulties of moving from Georgia to Nashville, TN.

I'll end this post with a quote from Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan who, with Prime Minister Jawaharial Nehru, registered in 1964 the Indian Institute of Advance Studies now located in the former Viceregal lodge of Simla, India.

"The greatest event of our age is the meeting of cultures, meeting of civilizations, meeting of different points of view, making us understand that we should not adhere to any one kind of single faith, but respect diversity of belief.  Our attempt should always be to cooperate, to bring together people, to establish friendship and have some kind of a right world in which we can live together in happiness, harmony and friendship.  Let us therefore realize that this increasing maturity should express itself in this capacity to understand what other points of view are."  - Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.

Hiking on historic Allatoona Pass Trail

Going on trips is very nice but it delays my writing posts and visiting my friends' blogs, so I am behind again on both counts.  We returned to New York City last week, and I'll write about it in the future, but now I am going back to the first week of November when we hiked around Lake Allatoona.  My last post covered our visit to the lake on Wednesday, November 6.  The following day, on Thursday, we drove about 13 miles (20 km) from our house to the Allatoona Pass Civil War Battlefield Interpretation Trail.  We had never been there before - it was a nice sunny day and a good one for walking.  We drove along the old fortification below the former railroad bed and arrived at the trail-head.

Allatoona Pass (also called "Deep Cut") is located on the western shores of Lake Allatoona.  A bloody Civil War battle took place there, in October 1864, after the fall of Atlanta.  The Confederate Army had retreated from Atlanta and planned to attack the Federal garrison of 976 troops defending the railroad cut at Allatoona.  At sunrise on October 5th, 1864, after an all night march, Major General Samuel G. French's Confederate division of 3,276 men attacked this federal garrison in an attempt to sever the Union supply lines by taking control of the rail line.  But French did not know that a few hours earlier a Federal force of 2,025 men under the command of Major General John M. Corse had arrived on a train from Rome, Georgia, as reinforcement for the Union troops there.

After an intense attack of several hours the Union troops held the pass and the Confederate forces withdrew as they were also running out of ammunition.  The Battle of Allatoona Pass had been a vicious and bloody one.  The casualty rate had been high with 1,603 men from the two sides killed or injured - the Confederate suffered 27% casualties and the Union 35% for a combined percentage of casualties equaled only by the Battle of Gettysburg.  Brigadier General French later said, about this almost forgotten battle, that it had been "a needless effusion of blood." As a result it would take almost three weeks to bury the dead from both sides.

Battle of Allatoona Pass by Thure de Thulstrup, Swedish born American, 1848-1930

At the time there was no lake.  Lake Allatoona was to fill this valley in late 1940s.  In the 1860s Allatoona was a small village with just a few houses, a railroad depot and crossroads.  The Western and Atlantic Railroad had a pass cut through the Allatoona Mountains in the 1840s.  Solid rock was hit after 60 ft of dirt was cleared.  Slaves brought in from east Georgia completed the 180 foot deep pass.  Before the battle all the trees had been removed to provide fields of fire.  Below is a photo taken in 1864 and a drawing from 1888, after the tracks had been widened in 1886 to the new standard for Pullman cars.

In 1928 the railroad was relocated a few hundred feet west of the pass and the battlefield was developed.  The Allatoona Pass is now a beautiful walking trail where the tracks used to run.  It is a moderate hike of about 3 miles round-trip.

There are many interpretive markers giving detailed information about the history of the area and the fierce battle fought there in 1864.  Not much has changed and it is said that few Civil War battlefields have remained as untouched as the Allatoona Pass Battlefield - it is not a well known place (I had not heard of it and have been living here for decades) and in a remote area - even with our GPS we got lost twice before finding the trail.  The Clayton/Mooney house shown in the top 1864 photo above is still there.  Before the battle it was used as headquarters then after the battle it became a hospital to treat some of the 1,600 casualties.  There are bullet holes in the gables.  Below is a picture I took of this ancient house.

I understand that little has changed since the time of the battle.  There are preserved earthen forts and extensive undisturbed trenches and outworks.  We started our hike by first going down to a Memorial Field with monuments to both the Confederate and Union soldiers who fought there (no Georgia plaque though as there were no troops from Georgia in the battle.)  Please click on collage twice to enlarge and to read the plaques.

We walked toward the mountain cut and stopped to read another marker.

As we proceeded down the trail we started to see the two massive rocks on each side of the path.  But first we turned right onto an ancient trail which was part of the old "Tennessee Road" or "Sandtown Road."  It had been an Indian trail, then a dirt road for wagons going toward Alabama or Tennessee.  The wheels of the wagons made deep grooves which are still visible.  It was a lovely trail.

After a while we returned to the main dirt road, where the railroad tracks used to be.  There was no one walking but us.  It was sunny but the trail ahead was in the shade.

We stopped to read more interpretive markers.

It was a bit dark entering the gorge and it seemed to me much colder than at the beginning of the trail.  Both my husband and I felt the chill in the air and buttoned our jackets.  I don't think I'd like to hike there alone in the evening ... too much violent history and dark shadows.  I placed a picture showing my husband to give some perspective for the size of the steep walls of the man-made "deep cut."

My husband had walked ahead while I was taking pictures of the rocky walls and I hurried up the trail to join him as it was sunnier ahead - and warmer.  The ground was covered with dead leaves and I did not make a sound walking.

I found him in front of a marker.  It was the grave of the "Unknown Hero."  It seems that the grave used to be across the railroad tracks and protected by a wrought iron fence.  But when the tracks were reworked the body was exhumed and reburied in this lonely spot of the trail.  I hope the Unknown Hero did not mind the move.  Click on collage to read the marker.

We kept walking on the trail which was running along side of Lake Allatoona.  It was mid-week in November so there were no other visitors on the trail or on the lake.

There were some old steps, covered with moss, going down to the lake.  We sat on the bottom step for some time, admiring the scenic view.

As I had read that the trail eventually dead ends, we climbed back the steps to the trail and walked back.  On the opposite side of the lake I saw a small cove at the bottom of a little hill.  The reflections in the water were so soft, just like a watercolor palette.  I stopped for a while and took pictures.  My husband went ahead.  Further on I stopped again at the grave of the soldier, took a photo, then met my husband at the entrance of the gorge.

There is a little road at the trail-head where the antebellum house is located.  A few steps away is a Bed and Breakfast - the "Lake Allatoona Inn" which was built in 1893 as a Victorian mansion for a family who had been living there for decades before the Civil War.  Then we drove home.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

I finished this post yesterday evening but wished to read it one more time this morning before publishing it.  I did ask my husband how he had enjoyed the hike and he said "it felt a bit eerie walking there when I was alone .... like something was not right."  I had felt the same way so I looked on the Web to find out if others had had the same feelings.  There were many references to the site being haunted for years.  Here is a site mentioning one of the sightings, click here to read it.  Another site said "I firmly believe Allatoona Pass Battlefield to be one of the most haunted Civil War sites of North Georgia ... it was a short but extremely violent battle ... evidence suggests that at least the majority of the dead were buried in or very near the battlefield, many in mass graves ..."  It is one of the favorite places for groups researching paranormal activities.  Reports of gunshots, voices, ghost trains, temperature drops of about 10 degrees in the old train bed, gunpowder smells have been reported.

Then I read several reports of people seeing a "light" at the base of the grave of the Unknown Soldier.  I am skeptical but I still took a second look  at my pictures.  I went back to check my last picture of the grave which I had not published ... and I saw something bizarre I had not noticed before.  I showed it to my husband, and we could not figure out what it is.  So I am showing it below.  The picture on the left is the first photo I took of the grave and on the right the second one I took when I was alone.

I did not touch the second picture in any way.  This is the whole original picture below.  There is a white something behind the base of the marker.

I am going to crop it now to enlarge it.

There is no body of water behind the grave.  It is on a flat area with a ditch behind it, with no rocks just trees.  What is the little white light?  I thought it must be something on the lens.  So I checked the next photo, taken 8 seconds later.  There is not white on the bottom left of that picture, so it is not a smudge on my lens.

Do you see what I see under the grave marker?  I am going to make a circle around it.

Here is the picture below again.  I don't know what this white fog-like thing is.  There is part of a tree behind the pole of the marker.  If it were a shadow it should be dark and not light, no?  plus the marker is in the shade so how could it reflect light behind it?  I just don't understand it.  There were no rocks there, just a hill behind the marker with all the trees.  There must be some technical explanation - can someone explain it to me?