On a previous trip to France, we'd hired Christian Mayer to take us from Paris through Monet's Giverny and the villages of Honfleur and Bayeux (where the 230-foot-long tapestry resides depicting Norman events leading to William, Duke of Normandy's, conquest of England in 1066). Christian drove us to Deauville, with its grand casino, racetrack, and wide beach, as well as to Ste. Mere-Eglise, where paratrooper John Steele from the 82nd Airborne remained suspended when his parachute got caught in the church steeple on D-Day, 1944. Unlike the depiction in "The Longest Day," the American was taken prisoner and escaped to become a town hero. From Ste. Mere-Eglise where we stayed, we toured the beaches, cemeteries, and museums of World War II on the Normandy coast.
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| Bayeux, France |
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| Honfleur, France |
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| Monet's Giverny Lily Pond and House (in background) |
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| Crater Bombardment on Omaha Beach, France |
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| Recreation of parachutist John Steele hanging from church steeple in Ste. Mere-Eglise, Fr., on D-Day |
Our guide, Christian, was an American from New Mexico who'd married a French woman and relocated outside Paris. In June, 2018, we returned to France and hired Christian to guide us from Biarritz, on the Atlantic, through the Basque country of France and Spain in the Pyrenees, close to Christian's home where he and his wife were raising their family.
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| Christian Mayer with Charley at Chartres Cathedral, France, 2011 |
Since the name "Mayer" sounded Jewish to the Germans during the Occupation of France, his paternal grandparents were forced to sell their mountain camp for children and relocate in Nice, where they opened a restaurant. They moved on to settle in Cap d'Antibes, where they operated a hotel. Christian's grandmother ran messages to the resistance in a pump tube on her bike. His grandfather was arrested, charged with an "act of resistance," while his granduncle was executed by the S.S. Christian's grandmother washed the linens of a Frenchman sympathetic to the Germans and got her husband released.
"My grandmother didn't want her two sons drafted into the War," Christian told us. "My uncle Jean and my dad 'Dadou' were members of the French National ski team, so the family was able to make its way to Paris. I remember my dad telling me they heard Allied bombers overhead for an hour before they actually bombed. He described the German revolving machine guns that enforced curfews in the City.
"A German with the code name 'Ernie Blake' had been a double agent and was rewarded by the U.S. with cheap forest land in New Mexico.There he built a ski lodge and the St. Bernard Hotel in what became Taos Ski Valley. He advertised for a ski instructor/hotel operator. 'Dadou' was the only one who answered the ad. Eventually dad was able to bring his brother Jean, also a ski instructor in France, and the rest of the family to Taos. The two brothers pooled their money and their parents added their savings to become owners of the St. Bernard Hotel. It's still there.
"My mother was from Vienna and answered an ad for an 'au pere' in Taos, where her brother was the ski lift engineer. That's where my parents met. Eventually dad and uncle Jean split and dad bought out Jean's portion of the St. Bernard. Uncle Jean opened the Eidelweis Hotel there. The two hotels stood side-by-side.
"My cousins and I grew up on skis and snowboards, despite the fact that snowboards were forbidden on the slopes of Taos at the time. We used to sneak down to the weekly concerts in the hotels and hung out with the musicians. I guess that's how I got started playing the sax. I formed my own band and started touring Europe."
"How did you become enamored with the sea if you grew up in New Mexico?" I asked Christian.
"Well, my dad was a U.S. citizen and after my parents divorced, he moved to Hawaii. I loved to surf out there."
"Did your mother become a citizen?"
"Well, mom was a proud Austrian. She refused to apply till after the divorce, when she had to go to work."
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