Paree Is for You and Me--Day Fourteen

It's our last real day, as we leave the next morning too early to do anything but get to Charles DeGaulle. We are kind of burning out, though--so much to absorb that you realize you can't quite absorb it all. Still, the morning gets off to a fine note as we walk in for maybe the fifth time to have our coffee at the counter at Tabac de l'Universite and the guy who has waited on us several times smiles and shakes our hand like he does with the local regulars. And people say Parisians aren't friendly.

We then Metro to Notre Dame and decide come hell or ridiculous line, we're going to the towers. So we stand, move little, freeze lots. It's well over an hour, but we finally get past looking up at the chimera and gargoyles and get to go inside and begin the ascent.

They make you stop half way up and try to sell you things--that's where the giftshop is. Pretty sneaky. Then you continue and get to go outside, where you learn what really cold is. The wind comes whipping down the Seine at 46 meters high. No wonder the chimera look so mean and perturbed, even with their wonderful views.

We don't post pictures of ourselves on the blog, but if we did, you'd see us looking really chilled.

You do get to go back inside for the south tower belfry, luckily free of Quasimodo. Alas unfree of children, whose parents let run oddly wild in places where steps are steep and narrow. And where other visitors might prefer not to have a kid running past him and almost stepping on his big feet. Fortunately I did not have to kill any children in Notre Dame. (Why yes, they were American children, how did you guess?) We did get to see the 13 ton bell they call Emmanuel. It's good to know the bell has a name.

You keep going up from there, and get a great 360 degree view, even if you don't look long because it comes at a price--what feels like 10 degrees below zero windchill (I lived in Iowa for four years, so I know windchill). Here's the Invalides dome and that tower and the Seine and way off the Arc de la Defense, even.

After the adventure we want food, mostly since we know calories are heat. We head into Ile St. Louis and lunch at Le Flore en l'Ille, which even better than being tasty, is warm. Actually, I order a soup that's watercress based and perhaps the greenest thing I've ever eaten. It got to be a bit monotonous, to tell the truth. (See, Smitty, not every meal was perfect.) But to make ourselves happy we hit Berthillon one last time for the best ice cream on earth. This photo as art isn't much, but if you've been to Berthillon you are Pavlov's dog and this is a bell (not to be confused with Emmanuel, of course).

We sort of wander the town after that, hunting down Christian Constant's chocolate store as its supposed to be so good. Again, it's almost too artful to get anything, and very expensive, but we buy some bon bonbons. We end up in a Metro station that looks like this...

and can't figure out why there's no French word for graffiti. (I mean, we have people tag rocks in the park where we like to walk our dogs in oh-so-tranquil, except for the monthly gang stabbing, Santa Barbara.) Do they just patrol that well, or clean up that quickly, or actually respect things? More power to them.

For dinner we decide we want to go out on a cassoulet high so Google a bit at the hotel to determine what people think is the city's best. Many say Fontaine de Mars, where we went a few nights ago, and we sure loved it, so figure let's go back. Again, it's just incredible food. We could have a pot of cassoulet weekly and not get tired of it. Since it's not far from the Eiffel Tower, we go by for one last peek, and it's even reflecting in the big tour bus windows.

Since it's our last night I want to keep doing things so in that way the vacation can't end. We never made it to the famous Willi's Wine Bar, so although I realize it's more restaurant than bar, I figure we can get in and have an after-dinner round. We get there and it's still swinging, if already after 10:30. At first we have to stand near the smallish bar, as it's occupied by diners. We actually win over many eating, as our position lets us close the door as people seem to forget on their way out, as if the cold night air wasn't a hint you don't leave doors open. We enjoy a Cognac and Armagnac, trading off to sample both, wish I had what they were but don't as am noteless for the evening. They were lovely and warming, though, especially given our doormen position. We finally do get to sit at the bar, checking out all of the famous Willi's posters (that you too can order on line--do it from my website, and I get a cut of the action).

Then it's time to head back, to finish up packing, to cry. Trip ends are always so hard as I want vacation forever but I want to be home (comfort and the pups, you know) and I want to no longer have to be sure I'm getting the most of time abroad. I don't do it enough to take it casually. I mean I can go to the beach 3 miles from my house if I just want to laze in the sand.

So it was one last evening's entrance to our two-week home room 34, and that looked like this.

With that our travelogue comes to its end, with the hope a door opening means more opportunity, more of the more-ness the world has to offer.

Paree Is for You and Me--Day Thirteen

Believe it or not, this trip, and the chronicle of it, are coming to a close--just two more entries. But I do not have the journal notes for these last two days, so it will be a bit more impressionistic and very much keyed to the photos. No doubt we had breakfast this day, but where I'm not sure. Perhaps it was a day we actually sat and ate and had fine coffee at La Terrasse, close to Ecole Militaire, the imposing school and the Metro stop. We then Metro up to Rue Montorgueil, a pleasant pedestrian street filled with shops eager to fill you stomach. And signs eager for you to take lots of photos, only some of which I'll post.

I have to admit this next sign is much more appealing visually than as a clarion call for the sick to come forward for aid. First, I'd prefer my pharmacist not to look like a Pilgrim. Second, although I know the snakes are part of the Caduceus or Rod of Asclepius (I'll let purists argue that one out on their own), there are at least three of them on this sign, so I'm beginning to imagine that's Samuel Jackson under the Pilgrim hat ("gotta get these motherfucking snakes out of this motherfucking cauldron!").

Sorry, got distracted there watching Nomar homer so the Mets are tied for first (thanks Dodgers) and Broxton gets the win (good for my fantasy team).

Meanwhile back in Paris...we do stop and get a baguette from Eric Kayser's shop as Elizabeth at Three Forks had just recommended them in a comment on the blog. And it is good, but everything is good--the wonderful bread, that we get free wireless in the hotel, that now grown-up children of friends have such good taste they make brilliant recommendations. Of course, everything is beautiful because it's Paris, dammit. Even their snails are beautiful.

This street runs us back into Les Halles, so soon we get every possible angle of St. Eustache, where we saw/heard the organ concert on Easter Sunday. To prove there is a god, the sky gets briefly blue, too, even if the church has a clock on it, which seems to confound the senses of time the religious are supposed to have with our earthbound version. Or the architect just couldn't resist.

The area also features wonderful kitchen supply stores, and as a foodie who thinks he can cook a bit, it's probably the same as Mookie and Nigel walking into a neighborhood made of Milk Bones. We end up at Dehillerin, where even Julia Child shopped. But it's been open since 1820, so I have a hunch Victor Hugo probably shopped there, too. (Oh, don't be miserable because of that joke.) It is incredible, the best such store I've ever been in--even beats Surfas in Culver City. Amy kindly buys me a terrific copper pot as a birthday present, so we have to head back to the hotel, as a copper pot makes for a great dead weight, too.

Since we didn't go to Patiserrie Secco for breakfast, we can stop for lunch, and all the shopping for kitchen goodies has us hungry. Of course that blue sky by St. Eustache has since clouded over and we get caught in a brief downpour, but things clear up in time for us to eat along the Seine in our usual spot. I think I have a pissaladiere and Amy has a sandwich but neither of us remembers for sure. No doubt there was a post-lunch sweet.

Afterward we head back to Galleries Lafayette as it's time to do some more souvenir shopping and the place and its dome just amaze. It even has a rooftop observatory, and for it Jesus visits the Eiffel Tower in his glorious rays.

What's more, Lafayette is full of food, as I pointed out earlier. In its top floor cafe pretty much everything is self-serve, and then we discover that France is the best country in the world as this department store has self-serve beer on tap. Think about how much more smoothly shopping trips in the U.S. could go if each Macy's had a place where men could get liquored-up as their wives shopped away. Lafayette also had this surprise, a single-arched McDonald's, clearly, from this photo, a gathering spot for terrorists. (I kid, in a Tropic Thunder way.)

For dinner we played the dumb Americans. We opt, thanks to the ever-helpful Pudlo Paris, to try Le Comptoir de Relais, a place with an actual Pudlo plate (he does plates and not stars). Luckily we don't know that if you Google the place it's the star of many "impossible to get reservations in Paris" stories. Nope, we just show up and ask if we can eat there that night. At first they only offer us tables outside, and even with heaters and blankets adorned with an awfully (not ofally) cute pig, that seems extreme. But the maitre d' then asks if we don't mind taking the last table on the way to the kitchen, and we say oui oui.

The place offers one set menu every evening, no choices, for 48 Euros per. Not cheap, but it's 5 courses at a fantastic place. And you don't go to Paris to save money. Indeed, our meal was exquisite, starting with a brilliant broth with just a spot of foie gras in it, the simple and complex flavors playing off each other and upping one's hunger. The second was a coquille saint jacques, a gorgeous presentation of scallop. The third, perhaps the best lamb I've ever had, or carre d'agneau du Limousin roti, as that almost sounds as good as it tasted.

But then it was the cheese course. We could make that much out from the little postcard menus written in French that we still have, but had no idea what was going on when the previous course's plates got cleared and the waiter set up a wine bucket holder to the edge of our tiny table. Then the maitre d' swooped in with a massive slate full of maybe 9 cheeses, each with a honey or quince or jam that matched it. Since we were the first people in and eating that evening, and a course ahead of any other table, the maitre d' said, "You have a half hour to eat as much of this as possible." Of course we couldn't, but we certainly tried everything, much of it cheeses we haven't seen it the U.S., including a smoked sheep cheese we can't remember the name of but can still sort of taste, if we think hard enough. Later the table next to us got to their cheese course and asked us what was good. Turns out they had a different cheese plate, with fine examples of many things we actually knew. We really lucked out.

There was dessert, too. Lait de vache cuit, jus frais de kiwi, premiere fraises Gariguette. Speak French to my stomach and it will love your forever.

Paree Is for You and Me--Day Twelve

Bet you thought I'd never get back to this trip, did you? (Or finish my film or movie lists, either, well...ok, I haven't finished those. But now you have a reason to keep coming back--to read about music groups you don't know and movies you've never seen.) Since the date I'm writing about is already over 4 months ago (it was 3/26), I will rely heavily on my notes written then for obvious reasons.

I turn 45 and Paris isn't so giving. We head out and do the typical Patisserie Secco and Tabac d'l'Universite morning routine, eating our pastries along the Seine, so far, so good. Pain aux amande here is indescribably good, with a touch of chocolate even, but it's the combo of flakiness and chewiness that makes it so wonderful. Then we metro to Cite, Amy's favorite station, on the line were the trains zoom along as if the engineers are all TGV drivers in training.

We are headed to St. Chapelle, but the line to get in is surprisingly long. We learn this is also an entrance for the city justice building, so security here is much tighter than at other spots--they actually ask Amy if she has a knife in her bag. (Well, it is a big purse.) Once inside the complex, the church itself--a fine Gothic example, if not as huge as nearby Notre Dame--is easy to enter.


All the guidebooks tell you it's one of the best, if not the best, stained glass displays in Paris. Then you enter, and you're in a stunted floor of a nice enough arched church, but nothing special. And you begin to wonder.


Turns out the lower part is where the commoners got to worship back in the day. (Good thing there's nothing like that these days, where the rich get better stuff than the rest of us.) As commoners, they got something more common. But the "real" people, they got to go upstairs, which you are allowed to do (you paid your Euros), and you wind up a circular staircase to be nearly knocked senseless. Turns out it's all stained glass, amazingly beautiful even on an overcast day like the one when we were there. It almost seems as if there's not enough columns to hold the building up around all its windows. If you ever wondered what it might be like to be dropped into a human-sized kaleidoscope, this is the church for you. Luckily there are benches along the walls so you can sit down, as you almost have to, it's sort of dizzy-making. Pictures, at least my pictures, don't do it justice.



The windows tell Bible stories, but it's too hard to follow the narrative with all the colored glory drawing your eyes to a different fantastic place.

From there we decided to do the DK Paris book's walk in Faubourg St.-Antoine out from Place Bastille--once a horrible prison, now it imprisons drivers in a terrifying traffic circle (we were repeatedly happy we never rented a car). Mostly we windowshop the Viaduc des Arts, shops set in the arches of an old railroad viaduct.

There's lots of cool stuff, but we aren't bringing designer furniture back from Paris. (We don't belong in the upstairs church at St. Chapelle, after all.) On the way back we walk the top of the aqueduct, the Promenade Plantee, a brilliant idea for a way to work a park into the middle of a city. Those clever Parisians. It also gives great views of the interesting architecture in the area, like this mix of caryatids and art moderne.


Back in the center of Bastille-land we find some take-out sandwiches in a little place and munch our simple lunch on a bench in front of the new Opera House, watching teen punkers, the crazy traffic--we even get asked for directions, but, alas, don't know enough to help.

We then want to go to Montparnasse to see the Catacombs, as a little memento mori never hurts on one's birthday. We get there to find they are closed for renovation--do the skulls need polishing?--but that leaves us moving to plan B, which would be the Montparnasse Cemetery (yes, there is a theme here), but we don't get to see the tombs of Sartre and de Beauvoir, Serge Gainsbourg, Beckett, Baudelaire, Man Ray, etc. as the skies open up and my umbrella is still enjoying itself at Bofinger (if you can remember way back to that entry). So we move to plan C and hope to commune with the spirits of Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Hemingway at the famed cafe Les Closerie de Lilas by downing some spirits ourselves, but it's closed as they're putting in new carpet. I begin to wonder if 45 is going to be such a good year.

So plan D is changing neighborhoods all together and we Metro up and over to Madeleine to see if all the stores closed on Easter Monday are open and not polishing their skulls or re-carpeting. Turns out the famed places are open, so we wander through Hediard and Fauchon gawking in our foodie ways at displays of food set up like art. It's hard to imagine buying anything here, everything is so precisely, gorgeously laid out. If you took an item it would be like bad karma commerce Jenga or something. It's a relief when one worker at Hediard sneezes and let's out a hearty "Jesus Christ!" to break the decorum. I am still thirsty after the sandwich and not finding Les Closerie de Lilas open so we walk the few blocks to the guidebook suggested Mannekin-Pis, which is right across the street from Harry's so is easy to find but nonetheless closed, without a note or anything. I start to feel as if I'm personally responsible for shutting down half of Paris.

After a break back at the hotel, we head over to the Eiffel Tower for an evening ascent pre-dinner. We learn: 1) the dancing lights on the hour aren't as cool to watch from on the tower itself; 2) Altitude 95 is fun enough--champagne at 30 stories high over the City of Lights is cool--but they over-work their service so they're inattentive, 3) it's really hard to get off the tower, especially when you're trying to do so on the lowest level and every elevator car arrives jammed with people from the two stops above yours.

The we hike to Petrossian, the famous purveyor of caviar that has a restaurant too and for my birthday I figure it can't be bad to connect with my Ukrainian-Russian roots. Turns out the dining room, above the sort of museum-like turn of the century first floor store front, is much more upscale; it's easy to imagine Madame Lyubov Ranevskaya eating here at the turn of the last century (well, if she wasn't a fictional character). Dinner is terrific. We both take the 45 Euro menu as a la carte you'd need to be a Russian noble spendthirft to eat here. Amy has a salmon trio with artichoke and potato whipped souffle and red mullet with coconut "perfume," as the waiter puts it, I have the risotto with crab and caviar (have to have some of it at this place) and the perfect special sea bass with a zucchini tart I would order all by itself. For an expensive place they oddly offer wines by the glass at 5 Euros each, something you couldn't get in the U.S. unless you like wines from a box. We have the viognier with the first, the recommended sauvignon blanc with the second, and then a gift of what I think was Baumes-de-Venise (which took us back to our Provence trip) with dessert. Great pairings. Dessert was a trio of incredible tastes, each in a glass--some vanilla pineapple combo, an apple-citrus crumble, and some chocolate crunch balls. All in all a wonderful meal of elegance and fine service. So not everything went screwy for my birthday, that's for sure.

Paree Is for You and Me--Day Eleven

OK, so I went a whole month without writing another one of our days in Paris, and even with this one out of the way, I'll have 3 more to do, 2 of which I don't have notes for, but luckily have plenty of photos. You probably know how it is--after a couple of months the vacation slips into dream time, something it's almost hard to imagine you did.

But on Day Eleven, we went to the land of even harder to imagine, Versailles. This over-opulent palace proves it's good to be the king, until, of course, the mob arrives, drags you out, and beheads you. But that risk adds a certain frisson, no doubt. We RER there with only a tiny problem, as the computers are down to buy our handy rail-museum combo tickets for about 10 minutes. Versailles is also an odd approach--you make the left from the one road up from the train station, it all looks like suburbs, and then at the end of a road, it's Vegas or something, clomps of grandness beyond anyone's need.


Even with the throne made of paper, it's mind-blowing--you want to call it ornine, as it's beyond ornate (you might have to read that one aloud). Plus I'd get paranoid realizing in every room there are paintings staring at you from the ceiling.

And then I sort of like a bedroom to be a peaceful place, but then again I've never held court from my bed, either, so what do I know. And the poor queens had to give birth in public, years before anyone knew about epidurals.

What's more, most of the good stuff in the interior was at first sold to finance France's endless wars (if only Bush and Cheney had to use their personal wealth to finance wars), and then the Revolution wiped out what was left. Nonetheless, the Sun King left his mark on the place.

The recently restored Hall of Mirrors also impresses, all glitter and length, oh, and tourists. The mob came in 1789 and we've never quite left.

We also gape at the great salons, the chapel, but alas the opera is closed for restoration. Much of France seems closed for restoration; they're going to have some lovely country someday, unless they got the person who did Melanie Griffiths' plastic surgery to freshen the country up. We also spend a lot of time outside, where I'm suddenly remembering I'm missing Spring Training (this was taken on March 25 after all).

Now there'd be a uniform for oldtimers' day. Oddly while it's suburbs on the front of the "house," out in the gardens you're in country--much of it super-manicured, but even some pastureland with sheep and cows. This is a shot taken not out by the livestock; after all, three cows in the fountain is Rome.

Does it look cold in that picture? it should. There were flurries that morning, and it was a bad foot day for both of us, which didn't stop up, just made us really slow. Still we got to Marie Antoinette's compound, toured the Grand Triannon, and found out the Petite Triannon (enough triannon to fill the appetite of most hungry for triannon, to tell you the truth) was getting restored. Still, its gardens, complete with a Temple of Love (say that with a lascivious accent, please) and grotto and redwood tree (!) is lovely if reminiscent of Bouvard and Pecuchet (something for you Flaubert scholars).

To get back we wander through more gardens and are a bit delirious, worrying the statues are talking to us. This one said take my picture.

We said we'd had enough, and the tourists just kept piling in, as the line at 2 when we left was longer than when we arrived at 10. We wandered into town and a chain-type place (but this is France and even the chains are competent) selling crepes, and a bite and sit is very comforting, especially with a biere a pression each of some unidentified brand, but it was a Belgiany, malty, yeasty relief. And so we trained back to Paris and rested a bit at the hotel.

Till it was cocktail time. We went to La Lenox in the hotel of the same name not too far from our hotel. It's totally Deco'ed out to the point you expect Fred Astaire to tap his way in and banter with Edward Everett Horton over champagne. The cocktails are lovely, too: Amy had La Lenox their house champagne cocktail and I had an Americano because I never had had one. And I keep wanting to convince myself I like Campari as I desire to be that contintental.

We then strolled through St. Germain to Le Gorille Blanc, which was open this time. The waiter was an odd mix, physically resembling a character Peter Sellers might play but his voice sounded like T Bone Burnett's. He kindly guided us through the menu in the candelight of this romantic bistro. Amy went all specials all the time with the seafood farfalle to start, complete with perfect little cuttlefish, and then a pork with a mashed vegetable we never quite ID'd--maybe turnip and apple? Still, a lovely dish. I had a mushroom terrine that was rich and earthy and the restaurant's signature cuttlefish with risotto made with the ink from the cuttlefish. It was a bit too ripe with garlic for me but certainly tasty. For a wine we had a 2005 Domaine Auchere Sancerre, as I love saying Sancerre with an airy French accent (that I no doubt didn't use in Paris, for fear of being kicked out of the country as a mocking fool). Dessert we shared a fine hot apple pastry, all flake and super-thinly shaved apple, with pain d' epices ice cream adding a spicy sweet kick.

This was a long day, so we Metro'ed back to the Muguet and slept the sleep of those not in gaudy princely rooms.

Paree Is for You and Me--Day Ten

It's lundi de Paques, and if you don't know what that means it's probably because the French-English dictionary, along with everything else, seems closed on the Monday after Easter. Unfortunately we don't learn this until we're out and about, hoping to see Place Madeleine in action with its markets and lively food shops. They are all closed, and even the church, which looks oddly like our Supreme Court building, has a mass going on, so you can't get close enough to the altar to see where the banners head up, and it's as if they've risen heavenward along with the lord.

Of course it simply all means the French are wise in holidays--why close on Sunday, when most places are already closed? Have the holiday on Monday and get that extra day off. So we walk about, trying to figure out our next move as our first has been thwarted. Along the way we find the store where my Republican parents mistakenly purchased me.

After a walk through H&M (the only store open in the row with Galleries Lafayette and Au Bon Printemps) to discover their prices are low as their quality sort of is also, we get to l'Opera by Garnier, and feel hungry for wedding cake turned into building. It is spectacular, the kind of place made for society's best to make grand entrances on grander staircases.

In the Opera's library they also have intricate models of the stage designs for some classic operas, doll houses for the melodramatic.

And in the ultimate expression of bronzing the orchid (remember, use this phrase to replace the cliche gilding the lily) , the ceiling of the actual theater is covered with a Chagall painting. Since, of course, you go there to sit in the dark and stare at the stage and not the ceiling.

All this considering of culture we both don't quite get (although we are tempted by the opera version of Cronenberg's The Fly in LA soon) , builds up our appetite so we are off in search of a quick sandwich. It takes awhile but we get a couple of "it's all about the baguette" sandwiches and go sit in Jardin Tuliere by the big fountain where kids rent model sailboats from a very Michel Simon character and somehow don't fall in. Now this is Paris. Fortified, we head to the Orangerie, only to discover it's damn cold. We have to wait, a not-so-good 45 minutes, to enter, and fortunately get in the door right as it starts to rain/sleet. Still, we're quite chilled, and that takes a bit of the fun out of two rooms encircled by Monet's water lillies. Laid out like that, it's one of the few times a painting captures the play of light over time, a place you could easily hang out in for hours.

Downstairs there's a small but choice collection--once all owned by one much too lucky person. Cezanne, Renoir, Picasso, etcetera. Outside, we take in obelisks and towers and get in that Metro pronto.

Back at the hotel we rest, plan Tuesday's Versailles trip, and I iron, which means going into the hotel's basement where one wall is covered by deer skull trophies and the dates the buck got bagged. A tad creepy, but I emerge unwrinkled. We opt to aperitif at La Tourville, and Amy gets what we joke is 20 cocktails, something called a Mary Tartini that is vodka, chambord, and strawberry puree that comes still in a shaker. I order a mint julep because it's supposed to be spring, dammit. And we take in Paris cafe culture, from the young chatting, flirting, to what looks like a mom and her mom having a spat (the younger woman leaves in a huff). We hope to have dinner at Le Gorille Blanc and Metro there only to find that it, and my two back-ups (I did try to plan, I did!) all were closed for the post-holiday holiday. We do get to see Le Bon Marche's sign look like a cross from the El Rancho in Citizen Kane and something from a horror film, though.

We end up subwaying (mode of transport, not for dinner) back to our area and hoof it up to Fontaine de Mars, which is exquisite as its mosaic tile doorway.

The place is renowned as perhaps the home of Paris' best cassoulet, and it's a dish of French homeyness we cannot refuse. But to start we share a terrine de gibier, a bit mild but when you add in the crusty bread and fig chutney, sort of mild-manneredly exquisite, and we begin to drink a Lagrazette Cahors, which is deeper than your average philosopher, or red wine, or philosopher after a deep red wine. Then the stew. Simply the beans would be enough, perfectly plumped yet still firm and happily napped in a tomato sauce cooked long enough to get down to essences. But of course there's duck, so much you can have a second helping from the Staub pot if you're as big a pig as I am. And speaking of pig, there's two kinds of sausage, both distinct and brilliantly tasty. All together, this is a pot you want to lick clean.

We opt to share dessert, all cassouleted out, and choose the tourtiere landaise. This might not mean much to you, and might even scare you if I tell you it's prune based, for the poor, maligned dried plum has become merely a punchline for grandpa's bowels (and what are you doing punching grandpa in the bowels?). But as with most things culinary, the French elevate the prune to something sublime (can you elevate something sub-anything?). The pastry is about a half inch thick, all flake and layer top and bottom with something distinctly custardy between, plus those chopped prunes. Atop sits a mound of Berthillon (ahhh) prune and Armagnac ice cream, and you add all this creaminess and flakiness and richness together and you get, well, this unbelievable treat.

Sometimes it's good not to get to eat where you thought you wanted to.

Paree Is for You and Me--Day Eight

It's Easter Sunday, so we're a bit worried things might be closed as there are hints, Notre Dame-sized hints, the country might be a tad Catholic. Oddly enough, though, all the things usually opened on Sunday seem open. We even get a glorious morning, before things turn gray as the day wears on, enough to capture photos like this one as we walk from the hotel, where we have breakfast for the first time (very nice, there are no Costco croissants in France, but no Secco), to the relatively nearby Rodin Museum.

Seems it was a big thing in France to pay off your debt to the state as an artist by leaving them your estate (Picasso did the same). Rodin lived in one fine house, and now it houses his terrific stuff. His statues have those deep, deep eyes, and they completely draw you in. And pretty much all of his greatest work is here--inside the chateau are the studies, and outside in the gardens the actual Gates of Hell, to pick one example. There are also mirrors everywhere in the house, giving you wonderful odd views and nifty camera opportunities.

I also get to see more of those "emerging from the stone" sculpture I find so mesmerizing (see Michelangelo's The Slaves) here, in particular this impossibly balanced, and what better metaphor for its subject, statue of Icarus.

The gardens of the museum are marvelous; what a refuge they must be when the city is sticky with summer, but even on a late winter day they enchant, full of wonder and art that redeems itself from being overly famous like this guy....

Afterward we head back to the hotel to make our decision about going to Rich's funeral or not. After a night's sleep and some more chatting/emailing with my family I opt not to, as even my poor now-widowed sister says don't come. Mostly it seems as if going would be a grand gesture that was mostly gesture--and indeed we hear so many people come that there's a line out the funeral home door. I would be just one more person, but one much poorer, to be there. So I decide it's best to see her later, when she might not have as much support but no doubt still need it, if not more.

I also hope that this Metro poster is meant not for me.

We decided to hit the Pompidou Center that afternoon, especially as it's quite close to St. Eustache, where there's a free organ concert at 5:30. At the Pompidou we hit our third (one and two are coming up later in the trip) longest line, but finally get in and soak up the 20th Century in art. The elevators do make you feel like gerbils with some technology, yes. Oh, but before you go in, there's the a bit rundown fountain/sculpture by Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely. We're suckers for Phalle, as she did the perfectly playful Queen Califia's Magic Circle down by Amy's folks in Escondido.

Oh, so I posted out of order, but modern art does that to you, especially when you can look out the full glass doors and see through the stormy looking clouds to Sacre Coeur.

Or you can get lost in a room hung with Calder.

But every artist in the hit parade is here, often with a room for him or herself. And the wall informational plaques are very helpful, too, not just historical/biographical but interpretative. We do begin to tire when we get to the second half of the 20th century. I mean, Phillippe Starcke is fine, but when I see a whole room of his stuff I start wondering if I'm at Target (pronounce that tar-zhey, s'il vous plaît). We then have to hustle to get from the museum to the church, especially as we want to check emails as the decision I said was decided earlier we sort of kicked around the whole day. (Such a decision I don't make quickly, as it kicks back.) Luckily, Paris is a city that offers free wi-fi in some of its parks, so we find the hot spot, log in, and our iPhones do the rest.

The concert, Liszt, is transporting, if not as much to me as for one guy who clearly attends all such concerts and listens, head down, near-to-tears, often conducting key shifts with a wave of his hand. But to be in a Gothic church and have a magnificent old organ let notes fly towards its butresses--very impressive, even for a rock and roll loving fool like me (and actually, you can't tell me massive bass notes on a pipe organ aren't rock 'n' roll).

From there we Metro to the Bastille to say let us eat dinner. We find Bofinger, often called the first brasserie, which is grand but without reservation you get whisked upstairs and barely have time to snap a photo of its lovely dome.

We have a solid meal of oysters for Amy, foie gras pate for me, salmon and haddock choucrote for Amy, civet de biche (yes, doe stew) for me, a 2004 Guigal Tavel rose, an incredible apple clafoutis with hazelnuts for Amy, and something chocolate but I can't read my handwriting so I don't remember what for me. Amy probably got the best all through the meal, but I forgive her. Alas, on the way out two kinds of misfortunes--I forget my umbrella (I hope it's still enjoying Paris) and as we head down the stairs a waitress loses an entire tray of meals, food and plates flying everywhere. Very dramatic, but we escape unstained.