August '97, Paris
Middle of so-called EU vacation
So anyway I took trains from Dicen to Paris and I arrived just before dawn at an underground station stop chosen at random and when I emerged at street level I was surprised to see the 'Arch of Triumph' right there in all of it's glory with the golden August morning sun just splashing all over it and so I took a seat on one of the park benches which circled around parts of the monument's traffic circle and it provided quite the view. And quite an emotion to go with it. It was religious!
And I was the only witness at first - the only one watching the show from the benches - until I noticed after a minute or two that another 'personage' had mysteriously appeared on another bench which was more to the left of mine and closer to the monument. And right out of thin air!
She was an elderly women with long gray hair and wearing a full length common black taffeta dress and she just sat there on the bench motionless while being completely 'taken in' by the same sublime show that I was. Her face I did not see.
An apparition obviously from a remembrance of things past.
Versailles !!!