Aboard the Normandie

[Odainsaker 2,135]

Back in another era, the mode for long-distance, intercontinental transportation was aboard the great ocean liners, and among these was the French Line's stylish SS Normandie.  This liner only sailed on the regular trans-Atlantic run between Le Havre and New York City for four years between its maiden voyage in 1935 and the outbreak of war in 1939, but within that brief time it became a legend as the most stylish art deco palace of the seas.  Normandie burned and capsized at its pier in the Hudson River while being re-outfitted as a wartime troopship.

The 2005 television documentary À bord du Normandie gives us a wonderful period glimpse into this romantic lost world, from the direct train connections and boarding at the terminal in Le Havre to the arrival at the Midtown piers of towering Manhattan.  Travel like this is very elegant, but the color footage of the departure and arrival terminals, with their busy queue lines and concourses, seems oddly familiar.

The film is narrated in French, but just the imagery alone may still amaze non-French speakers.