A Thing for Paris . . .



Quintessential Paris = A mime who sang nonsense operatic arias beneath the Eiffel Tower.

 I seem to have a thing for Paris.  This summer I'll go again, for a week.  I'm accompanying my friend Barbara and her daughter Debby and granddaughter Ashley.  The trip is a reward to Ashley who's just finishing high school and has been accepted to a good college.  This will be interesting.  I'm virtually a stranger to two of us, and a good friend to their relative.  But the three of them have such close ties.  I may well be just a kind of tour guide/translator. 

But it's time to be spent in Paris - a place I've come to really really enjoy.  To me the city is not one of glamour but of grace.  Architecturally, with its wide boulevards and mid-size 19th-century buildings,

and its many parks, both large and handkerchief size, and trees that line so many streets, it is calming and graceful.  Despite the awful traffic. 

Nearly rush hours on the Champs Elysees (viewed from the top of the Arc de Triomphe).

And the many cafe tables and chairs lining the sidewalks make the city seem so much more friendly - - seeing folks enjoying conversation and drinks, or perusing a newspaper, or just watching the passing scene.  Taking possession of one of those tables for a long afternoon, sipping at a glass of lemonade.

La Rotonde is a famous cafe a few blocks from our favorite hotel.

One afternoon several years ago, Joe and I met his internet friend Per Thomas and Per's wife Elodie at a cafe near our hotel.  We sat outside for perhaps two hours.


Rachel and Per in conversation

 When the waiter began putting tablecloths and dinnerware out, we moved to an inside table for several hours more, dining and talking and having a wonderful evening.  No waiter hovered over us urging us to have more to drink or eat or asking if we wished to have the check.  That might be customary in the USA but we did not experience that in any of the cafes.  Of course, we don't dine in expensive places favored by gourmands - - not our style or preference.

The first time I went to Paris was sometime in the 1980s, in February - - because Air France offered a fare so cheap that one would be foolish to refuse it.  Off I went, on my own.  My seatmate was a female employee of the US federal government of business travel.  We compared ticket prices - because her visit was on business for the USA, she was obligated to fly on US flag carriers - - in her case it was Delta Airlines.  Same plane, same flight, two radically different prices.  Mine was under $300; her's was over $800.  What a strange world.  The airline I will take this summer is again Air France, but the round-trip fare is $1,702!  But the return flight is on the gigantic A380 airplane - so big that boarding is done from two gates (it's a double-decked plane).

Reflection of a massive A-380 at Charles DeGaulle Airport

I stayed in a hotel recommended by Sam, the travel agent at Universal Travel.  It was near the Arc de Triomphe in a quiet residential neighborhood.  In the breakfast room, I heard spoken English, German, Spanish, French, and Italian.  The breakfast choices were equally varied:  Croissants and pastries, yes; but also eggs soft- and hard-boiled; cold cuts and sliced cheese; coffee, tea, milk, juices; muesli and oatmeal; and no American cereals.  I recall that after eating a variety of things, I made myself a sandwich and wrapped it in my bandanna scarf for lunch.  Was there also fresh fruit?  Probably.  And probably also yogurt - it's been available in every breakfast room I've visited.

A more modest breakfast at Hotel Atelier Montparnasse.

On that first visit, I was introduced to the underground Metro and the RATP buses that criss-cross Paris.  The Metro might be quick, but the buses gave me windows for watching the passing scene.  Of course, I visited the big attractions in my brief time:  the massive and confusing Louvre (trying to find Mona Lisa and certain paintings was daunting); the astoundingly huge (to me) and impressive Notre Dame (I had researched French gothic church architecture for my high school term paper); the Musee de Cluny, which celebrated medieval art and, surprising to me, featured Roman antiquities as well.   I also learned that Parisian restaurants (not cafes) open for dinner around 7:30 pm - - I probably showed up before 7 and remember wandering around in the cold and dark February evening for a while.

Best of all, I discovered French parks, especially the large, tree-filled Luxembourg Gardens, with its many and varied parts.  There are quiet paths lined with chairs.

And conversation over something to drink or eat or both, in the cafe next to the Senate building.

comfortable chair, umbrella for shade, quiet & efficient waiter







And, who could ignore the summertime joy of a small sailboat on the pond behind the palace.

 

Rent the little boat, put it in the water, give it a push with the long stick, hope for a good wind, and run around the pond for another push, to continue the sailing fun.   As a mother, I wonder how many children fall in.


I'll end with a recent (2007) photo of my husband enjoying the sun's warmth on a June afternoon in the beautiful Luxembourg Gardens.




June 6 and 7, Paris and Avignon

By the time we left the Orangerie, Joe was very tired so we started to walk back to the Asian soup place on Rue Buci.  It's a pretty long walk, but we did it and had noodle soup with ravioli crevette - very very good.  Finally started walking back to the hotel but detoured to visit Saint-Sulpice Church, which still has part of the exterior covered with scaffolding for more cleaning.  Since 2000, I have not seen this building uncovered - it must be very dirty.  Saint-Sulpice was built over the course of about 100 years beginning in the 1630s.  The interior is huge; of Paris' churches, it is second in size only to Notre-Dame, very dark and sooty from centuries of candlelight.  Joe looked for the brass line on the floor, so-called "the rose line", and discovered from a plaque that it is not called that; it was installed with the Parisian Observatory to mark noon on the Spring Equinox.

Crowded Luxembourg Gardens

Joe stayed at the hotel after we took a brief nap, but I went out wandering and window shopping.   The darned camera has a problem and will not work. So I took the Olympus.  Got sort of lost, found the Luxembourg Gardens again.  It was very very crowded at 5:00 pm.   The playground was full of loud happy kids except one who left sobbing, hugged her mom/nanny, and then re-entered.  Saw tiny tots with their noir nannies at a big circular sandlot.  Sat in the Lalique Cafe with a decaf expresso (3.5 euro).  In Orangerie du Senat, an art exhibit of women by women, and as I waited to buy a t-shirt for Lorelei, we were all suddenly shooed out so I didn't pay for it.

The Olympus battery needed recharging but I could not make the converter work.  Binetta at the hotel desk gave me an adapter plug and it worked!  Made me most happy because I thought I'd be stuck with not one but two non-working cameras.  It was 9:10 pm and the sky was still bright and many people were out and about.  Joe had been sleeping - his legs were hurting from walking all over Paris.  We talked about his friendship with Per Thomas and how only through the internet was it possible, especially thanks to Per's videos posted on YouTube.

June 7  Leaving Paris for Avignon.  Hotel bill was 254 euro, charged on my MasterCard.  We have a reservation to return June 27.  Being very frugal about some things, we took the no. 91 bus (2.8 euro total) to Gare de Lyon, a big elegant 19th century iron and glass train station with the very fast modern TGV train to the South and East.   Armed soldiers patrolled the Gare in trios - I've seen that also at Heathrow and at CDG airports.

Gare de Lyon

TGV (stands for "tres grand vitesse") is smoothriding, quiet, and fast, took only 2 hours 37 minutes.   Then a navette (shuttle bus) to Avignon Ville, and then walk uphill.  And go the wrong way  until Joe straightened us out.  A very commercial town between the city wall and the center - Joe compared it to Gatlinburg, TN.  Our Hotel de Garlande is on a car-free street, second floor above a popular walkway, in a very nice, very spacious room with a HUGE bathroom.

no room for cars

I set out for the Palais de Papes.  I bought a ticket at the hotel for 11.5 euro that's good for both the Palais and the famous bridge.

The Palais is huge, absolutely huge - and ancient.  Thirteenth century?  A good acoustiguide comes with the admission price.  Eighteen or so different rooms are open and described,  with papal history in the 1300s and 1400s, ending in the Great Schism, with a pope in Avignon and a pope in Rome.  Some great enormous rooms, like the "Grande Tinel," a dining room, with a place next door for the concave that elects a new pope, and a very large "chapel" (which is about half the size of Saint-Sulpice).  There were several large tour groups, both French and German, with very loud guides, and a polite Japanese group who wore headsets and thus were very quiet.  I saw mason's marks on stones in the chapel, climbed up many stairs to a terrace cafe on the ramparts, with a huge view.  

Palais des Papes

 

Avignon is on a high place above the Rhone River, where a large island sits mid-river.  From the terrace I could barely see the famous Pont d'Avignon.

The roofs of Avignon and its famous bridge

When I was ready to leave, I could not find my ticket.  I asked a guide what to do, and he kindly phoned ahead to the bridge with my description. I was to ask for Nicole.  It was difficult finding my way down the the river, and I asked some construction workers.  After many narrow lanes and alleyways, some with flights of steps, I arrived at the river and a very heavily trafficked road.  But there at the entry to the famous Pont d'Avignon was Nicole - with another acoustiguide.  I was a bit nervous on the elevated walk to the bridge (don't like open heights), but I walked out to where it ends mid-stream.  The bridge was constructed in the 12th century and abandoned in 1633 because a flood washed away most of the bridge.  It originally had perhaps 22 semicircular arches.  Now it has only four.  There's something about these very ancient medieval structures that I find really appealing.  Perhaps only because everything else from 800 years ago has deteriorated and disintegrated, but stone and brick and mortar have not.

Avignon has way too many stores selling postcards and nougat and "cigales" (crickets) and Provencal ceramics and closing.  A little depressing.  But the center of town is full of restaurants and cafes, even in the town square, and it's famous for a theatre festival in July/August.  Some of the buildings have tromp-l'oeil paintings of well-known French actors and actresses leaning out of tromp-l'oeil windows.

These are not real people!

After all that, I went back to the hotel.  While I was out, Joe did a bit of exploring - for food.  He found a McDonalds! and ate there.  Not for me.  I went in search of dinner.  Not hard.  Salade nicoise and vin du pays blanc at an open-air cafe in the Place d'Horloge (that's the Clock Square, a/k/a the town square).  The Hotel de Ville (city hall) has the clock tower with two figures that did not do anything while I was watching.  There was some sort of meeting in the city hall because I heard cheering and applause, followed by singing of the French national anthem.  The legislative elections were soon, and the new president, Sarkozy, hoped for a large majority so his programs would pass.  Also, in the nearby Theatre was a concert by the local orchestra with a violin soloist.  I was tempted, but had not enough time to race back to hotel, tell Joe, and race back to theatre.  So I skipped it. 

We slept better than the last night in Paris - Joe closed the windows against the noise and the curtains against the light.

France and Italy in June 2007

My husband (Joe Stewart) and I  spent nearly a month away from home in 2007.  I'll continue this travelogue day by day - - more or less.

We left the US on June 4, 2007 from BWI airport on Icelandair, which meant changing planes at Rekjavik airport, but that was no problem.  It appears that no other airlines went there.  No problems either at DCG airport, or finding the Roissybus - other than trying to foind a toilet before getting on the bus.  The  Roissybus is a non-stop half hour ride from the airport to a place just at the back of the Opera Garnier, and cost about 9 euro each. 


June 5 - Paris.  From the Roissybus, we took a taxi at 2:30 to Hotel Atelier Montparnasse in much traffic.  The hotel looks the same - this is the 3d or 4th visit in 6 years.  Joe checked each available room, finally chose "Matisse" on the 4th floor, street side; newly decorated plus airconditioning - it was nice.  While I happed, he went off to Luxenbourg Gardens to explore and then to meet Per Thomas, his Danish internet friend, at 5 pm.  Around 5 pm, Joe came back to get me because Per was already there and they changed the venue to La Rotonde, just around the corner.

Per and I outside La Rotonde

We sat outside in the late afternoon sun, chatting and drinking Kronenbourg beer and snacking on green and black olives.  Per is very nice, very sweet - almost naive - and handsome with light brown hair (receding a bit), lovely smile, blue-green eyes.  His wife, Elodie  Telemaque, is darkhaired, a bit plump, smart and very articulate, and funny, too; she laughs just like my niece Natasha.

La Rotonde, ready for dinner

As the afternoon moved into evening, we moved to the white tablecloths, inside - - doors were all open to the outside.  Joe and I split very good salmon and salty spinach, for dessert Rhum Baba and cherries - - quite tasty.  We were at La Rotonde from 5 pm until 11 pm; walked them down the street to their motorscooter; and said goodby.  There were so very nice - it's amazing that Joe and Per met via the internet 1 year ago.  I think they could be friends for life. 

We set the airconditioning and closed the window against the street noise and slept well.


June 6 - Paris.  Slept until about 8 am!  The hotel has a nice bathtub and handheld shower, good for washing hair.  Breakfast is included in the room cost, so we had as much as we could stuff ourselves with:  bread, croissant, granola, yogurt, OJ, coffee.  We set out down Rue Vavin to Luxembourg Gardens - LG for short - which was empty but for walkers through and some folks practicing tai chi.  I set my chair to face the sun and waited for Joe to finish visiting his favorite spots - - again.  We went down the Rue de Seine and Rue  Buci to revisit them, looked at Hotel LaLousiane where he stayed in 1964 - very little changes.   The sock store has sox for 11 euro - rather much more than last time!

And on we walked, me walking very slowly and looking in shop windows at linen clothes, old prints, fancy flat shoes, antique statues.  We visited the  Citadines Hotel by the river for its restroom and crossed over the beautiful Pont Neuf.  We strolled along under the great trees by the Louvre and considered visting, but the line at the Pyramid was too long.  So on to the pond in the Tuileries Garden - alas, they've added white plastic chair that we see everywhere in the States.  Quel horreur!. Some German teens sat nearby - they were pretty quiet for teenaged girls, and sunned themselves with bared feet and pants pulled above knees.  Six or seven baby ducks, with mommy quacking them along, were very cute, very fuzzy, very very tiny.

At Cafe Diane in that park, where I'd had tuna and salad in Dec. 2002, Joe talked and talked with a waiter about rats in the park - we'd seen a dead one on that December visit.  Finally we arrived at the Orangerie Museum a half-hour before opening time to find nearly three dozen others already in line.  I found one of the traditional green metal chairs and brought it over beneath a tree and sat while Joe stood in line.  A street vendor sold me bottled water for 2 euro.


The Orangerie has Money's large waterlily paintings in two large oval rooms.  I understand that he designed the way they are displayed.  They were a gift from him to the French Nation in the name of everlasting peace after the Great War.  Such forlorn hope brought tears to my eyes.  The only way to appreciate these paintings completely is in person - - no photo or video can appreciate the impact of their size, and the curving way they are displayed approximates reality.

"Waterlilies"

I'll finish this day in another post.