Saying Goodbye To Paris - Au Revoir!

Au revoir Paris!

Paris Notes 0809 #7

February has turned out to be a pleasant time to spend time in Paris. At least this February. It has been much milder than January with no snow, daily highs mostly in the upper forties or higher, and more sunshine.



January and February are supposed to be similar weather-wise but that has not been the case this year. Also, I have noticed an appreciable drop-off in tourists at the major sites since mid January. While there are still enough tourists to go around, it isn’t overly crowded. There were no lines at Versailles last week and only a relatively short one at Musée D’Orsay. Part of the reason is many of the special exhibitions ended early this month and the new ones start in March.

Highlights have been visits from Chris and Marcella, friends from Vermont, and Colleen and Lisa, my daughter and stepdaughter. Chris and Marcella came early in the month and stayed with us for several days before the four of us took the TGV south to Mougins, a small and ancient hill town in Province just a few minutes bus ride north of Cannes.

Before Chris and Marcella arrived we anticipated them getting to our apartment around 9:30 am based on their flight schedule. Imagine our surprise when we were awakened by the doorbell. The alarm glowed 8:30. I rushed to push the button that opened the entryway door, then quickly dressed. Still, nice to see their tired faces when we opened the door. Their plane was early and they avoided the time-consuming baggage claim by having only carry-on. And there was no waiting time for the Air France bus to Place Etoile.

While here the four of us walked around some neighborhoods, saw the rue d’Aligre street market





and a few museums, ate some good food, and enjoyed some fun and stimulating conversation. Marcella was a French major and had spent a year in Paris studying so we didn’t need to be tour guides all of the time.


After three days in Paris the four of us took the TGV to Cannes. It was a pleasant 5½-hour trip with a quick, non-stop portion to Aix-en-Province and a slower part with more stops along the coast to Cannes.


The trip to Mougins from Cannes was more trying since we picked the wrong bus to take. We ended up being deposited beside a road that wasn’t on the Mougins area map that we had. We followed the bus driver’s instructions as to how to walk to the timeshare but it soon became apparent we weren’t headed in the right direction. We finally stopped at a restaurant and called a taxi. The cab was more than a half hour coming and took more than a half hour to find the time share because the GPS system she used did not account for a one way street required to get where we needed to go. Mougins is spilled all over a hill filled with a maze of narrow, mostly one-way roads and it took her time to sort it out. When we finally arrived it was well after dark and we were lucky to get something to eat at the development’s restaurant that was in the process of closing.

The next day we walked up the hill to the old town. High scale touristy.
This is where Picasso once lived as did other notables.



Lots of narrow streets limited to pedestrians only. Plenty of art galleries and nice shops.



After asking, we found a small plaza filled with enticing restaurants where we had a very nice lunch in one of them, Le Petit Fouet. Cassoulet is a southwestern French dish of beans (usually white) and meat (duck in this case) and occasionally other ingredients slowly baked together and served in individual crocks. Ours was excellent. As was the wine.

The following day we took the bus to nearby Grasse. This is a much larger city spilling all over a ridge. It has a rather large and lively old town but the place is mainly known for the Fraganard Perfume Factory. Wendy and Marcella toured it while Chris and I walked the streets of the old town.



Interesting place to wander around. Not dominated by tourists but a vital city of and by itself.

On our last day we were scheduled to leave from Cannes at 5:30 so the four of us took the bus into town around noon. By the way, all of these local bus trips cost only one euro or about $1.30 and they were heavily used. We underwent a thorough security check (locked doors, detectors for both us and our baggage, interview with the caged attendant, lockers with numeric keypad locks) and left our small bags at the train station. The Mediterranean was only a short walk away and we watched some teenagers playing on the beach.



And a further walk down the beach was the walkway where the handprints of numerous movie stars were embedded in concrete. Interesting.



From there we walked around the old town and up into the hill section and had a nice lunch. Again not crowded.



Sunshine and high fifties during the day the whole time we were in the south of France.

A few days after returning to Paris Colleen and Lisa arrived. This time we were awake and dressed. Lisa had never been to Europe and it had been over twenty years since Colleen had spent a few days in Paris. Both had studied French in high school and Colleen in college and they did remember some of it so they weren’t totally lost. They had spent some time planning what they wanted to do and asked me to put it together for them - and for us to be with them and show them around as much as we wanted. It turned out to be a busy week.


Petit arc in front of the Louvre. The Arc de Triomphe.


Day 1 (arrival day) – the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs Elysée, and a crèperie for dinner.


Day 2 – St Chapelle, the Conciergerie,


Notre Dame,



a walk through the Marais,
then dinner at a café on Place du Maréchal Juin near our apartment.

Day 3 – the Louvre,



sipping the heavenly thick hot chocolate at the nearby Angelina’s , dinner at another nice restaurant on Place du Maréchal Juin.
Day 4 – the Musée D’Orsay,



coffee and beer and the Sartre/Hemmingway hangout Café de Flore, and a nice dinner at a restaurant nearby.
Day 5 – easy trip to an uncrowded Versailles via the RER (the metropolitan Paris short distance train system).


Then a special dinner at Le Petit Troquet



followed by a short walk to the Tour Eiffel which looks spectacular lit up at night, especially up close.
Day 6 – a Day for the Dead; the Pierre Lachaise cemetery



and the Catacombs with its ossuary of one to two hundred year old bones lining the underground passageways. Plus walking through several different areas, watching a long line of protesters waiving signs and singing while passing by, shopping, and dinner at Peperoni where we had fun interacting with the members of the Bigoti trio.
Day 7 – l’Orangerie with its massive Monet water lily paintings that cover the walls,
another dessert treat at Ladurée,



a shopping walk for them, and a very nice dinner at M comme Martine near our apartment.
Day 8 – the BluVan picks them up at 5:30am, Ugh! Wendy and I go back to bed.

Some other scenes:

• While out walking by myself early one morning in Mougins a three legged black cat sauntered across my path. What does that mean?
• One night in Mougins looking up a stairs framed on either side by walls and seeing in the street above two large orange iron beams lit from beneath by a pulsing red light. On climbing the stairs the beams turned into a cherry picker being used to remove the very last Christmas decoration spanning the street. Very Felliniesque.
• At Peperoni Café one night watching the bearded male drummer playfully dance with an older man while an attractive black woman from the audience courageously tried to sing "Killing Me Softly" a la Roberta Flack, in an entertaining Karaoke kind of way.
  
• Passing the window front of a closed upscale women’s shoe store and seeing a blond woman in her late forties singing with two men slightly older, one of which was playing the guitar. She gave me a very embarrassed smile when she caught my eye.
• Coming back to the apartment by myself after a very long day walking around with Colleen and Lisa and saying very clearly to a seated Wendy, “UNCLE!”
• Having a thoroughly enjoyable teatime at Collette’s with her sister Jeannine. It was early in the month and we all still had the inauguration on our minds. They both had watched it on TV. Wendy said she was particularly taken with Aretha Franklin singing “God Bless America”. Collette mentioned the tune was the same as the British “God Save the Queen”. Wendy sang a little of the American version, then they sang the British version. And, yes, the tune was the same.
• Having Inda over to the apartment one afternoon. She was back in Paris for a few days and was very excited that some musical possibilities might be opening up.
• Peter and Duffy coming to our apartment for dinner the night before they were to leave for their home in California. Again good conversation and a good time all around. Two interesting guys.
• Passing in front of the salon a few days ago where we recently had our hair cut. The people in the shop that trimmed our hair waved to us. We waved back and Wendy
• fluffed her hair. The man that trimmed it gave her two thumbs up. Nice to be noticed.

We leave Paris on Saturday, but before we leave, we are looking forward to dinner with Véronique and Frèdérique one last time tomorrow night. Then off to Vermont and our new house!

Dan and Wendy
2/27/09

P.S. For "Adventures of Heartman in Paris", check out www.sveltie.blogspot.com - W.P.

Around The Town..err...Ville

Paris Notes 0809 #6

(For those of you who see this first in your "Inbox", for the FULL experience, click on
http://www.parisimpressions.blogspot.com) and read it there.
Comments welcome!

Barack Obama’s inauguration was a big deal in Paris. The mayor of the city sponsored a major shindig at the ornate Hotel de Ville, or City Hall, that accommodated only 800 hundred lucky people. Demand far exceeded space available. In addition to private residences about a dozen bars and cafés with giant screens also sponsored gatherings, the feature being the large TVs and just being in a crowd of people sharing similar ideals. We opted for Carr’s Irish Pub on rue Mont Thabor not too far from the Louvre.

We reached the pub more than an hour before swearing in time and managed to get the last available table in the place. A few minutes later Steve and Sue (www.parishomeshares.com ) joined us. As 6:00 p.m. approached (Paris is 6 hours ahead of Washington) the place was crammed with people standing elbow to elbow in the aisles to get a glimpse of one of the four giant screens showing CNN International.

Those of us seated had to stand for a decent view.

The crowd was reasonably young with the average age probably in the thirties and from all over the world.
In our immediate area Steve and Sue were from the Denver area, two men next to us were from California. A guy behind us was from Louisiana while the two women he was with were from Bosnia and Turkey. To my right was a man from New York City, two from England, and one from Australia. Not to mention that this is an Irish bar in a French city. And it was a partisan crowd. When Obama first appeared the crowd cheered. Bush was booed and Cheney even more so. A few people booed Rick Warren when he began his invocation.

When Obama started to speak the place fell silent. Tears flowed freely. I peeked outside and noticed a crowd three deep peering through the pub’s windows to see the action on the screens. Wendy and I were very moved.

And the Guinness on tap was great.

Some of you probably have heard about the big strike, or grève, in France this past Thursday. People here are referring to it as Black Thursday. One to two million French workers mainly from the public sector were on strike. We didn’t use public transportation that day and felt no impact. We only learned of the massive demonstrations in other areas of Paris later. The only thing that inconvenienced me personally was the newsstands were closed the following day as a consequence of the strike and I couldn’t get my favorite paper for two days. People who were dependent on the metro, buses or trains to get into the city had more problems, as did those traveling by air.

In the last note I mentioned the biannual sales, or soldes, which are currently being held all over Paris. As the end of the month approached we noticed more and more signs posted in storefronts advertising the dernier démarque, or final reduction. Because prices are so much more reasonable, I can understand why many stores seem to be as busy or more so than before Christmas. We also are noticing the dark colors of winter fashions

fading into the brighter hues of spring as the storefronts undergo their seasonal turnover.

Some impressions (with some emphasis on food as requested):

• We went to the restaurant Le Soufflé with Steve and Sue after experiencing the inauguration. Wendy and I both had a special three-course meal consisting of three very light and fluffy soufflés washed down with an excellent wine. Imagine working through a tasty cheese soufflé only to find your empty dish replaced with one overflowing with the fluffy mixture floating on a succulent meat sauce. And following that was an intense citrus flavored Grand Marnier soufflé. Delicious even for one who isn’t addicted to soufflés?
  Le Soufflé is "dining on a cloud."
  
  
  Le Soufflé-Restaurants Paris 75001 - France5
  Le Soufflé-Restaurants Paris 75001 Situé entre les places Vendôme, Madeleine et Concorde, le restaurant Le Soufflé est fidèle à sa cuisine française traditionnelle, complétée et est teintée d'originalité par ses nombreux soufflés.
  
  
  The atmosphere and service matched the food.

• We invited Fréderic and Véronique to our apartment for tea and they brought a bottle of champagne. Rosé champagne! I had never heard of it. They buy it by the case at the Bigard winery in the Champagne district. It was brut and very easy to drink. We spent a pleasant time chatting away the afternoon with our French friends.
  

• To get to the Bibliothèque Nationale to see a photo exhibition we took the Metro to the Bourse stop.
  

Upon exiting the station we found ourselves facing that old stock market with its massive pillars



We found ourselves standing in a small street market in the square in front of the building.

• Wendy was hungry and bought some kind of Middle Eastern sandwich I had never heard of from one of the stalls. The bread was similar to thick pita dough and the filling was veggie mixed with a spicey chicken mixture in some kind of sauce. We waited a few minutes while the man behind the counter grilled it. Very, very tasty.

• Embedded in a corner of the Louvre is the separate Musée des Arts Décoratifs. We went there to see a special exhibition devoted to the fashion designer Sonia Rykeil. She is famous for innovations such as ready-to-wear, horizontal stripes, and the wide use of knits in high fashion. Interesting show. Afterwards, we crossed the rue de Rivoli and had a light lunch at Angelina’s. This place is renown for its hot chocolate and we soon discovered why. We each were served our own pot of chocolat chaud along with separate bowls of slightly sweetened whipped cream for us to mix in as desired.
  

This thick dark chocolate beverage came close to moving out of the liquid category to syrup. But not quite. And it was supremely delicious, even to those of us who aren’t quite chocoholics.

• We had a delightful luncheon with Colette, Inda's aunt, at our apartment one afternoon. It was enjoyable to connect with her once again and engage in our free-flowing conversations ranging from her travels in Bhutan to a discussion of the use of the Celtic language that is enjoying resurgence in Brittany.
  

• After going to the Highlander Pub near Pont Neuf for a political discussion on the economic crisis we stopped at a Mexican restaurant called Fajitas just down the street. I occasionally like to eat Mexican and after more than four months it was time. We had a decent plate of nachos and a good conversation with our waitress. She is from Western Massachusetts and owns the place along with her Mexican husband. She came here for college over ten years ago and liked the city so much she stayed. The place is not upscale at all but the food was good and we very much enjoyed our meal.

• Duck is very popular in Paris, appearing in some form on most French restaurant menus in the city. One of the more common forms is as confit de carnard. This is duck that is cured in salt then poached, sealed and stored in duck or goose fat. There is an art to preparing it just right, frying it lightly until the outside reaches the right degree of crispness. At Peter and Duffy’s apartment near Place de la Republic for dinner one night Duffy had the duck preparation down to perfection. Excellent meal and conversation with these two men we met at Carr’s Pub while watching the inauguration. We are awakened to the fact that not everyone flies on an airplane to get to Paris. Duffy and Peter often enjoy the leisure of traveling on the Queen Mary when crossing the Atlantic.
  

• Wednesday we went to a panel discussion on US/Russian relations at the American University of Paris (or AUP) sponsored by Democrats Abroad and the AUP. It was a very engrossing and educational discussion moderated by a professor in the Russian Department. The panel consisted of a Counselor from the Russian Embassy, a political science professor specializing in Russian relations, and a homeland security specialist who had worked for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and later Obama’s. I left with a deeper understanding of some of the problems and the feeling that with time and intelligent diplomacy most of them can be resolved adequately. OK, I can’t leave out the food. Later, we ate at a very nice Thai restaurant near our apartment. It was a tasty meal in a cozy atmosphere. Most notable was the three-tiered tower of various appetizers we shared.

Yesterday we went over to where the side-by-side department stores Printemps and
Galeries Lafayette are located.

It was the last day of the January sales and we wanted to check out the scene. And it was just as crowded as before Christmas, both inside and out. Inside Galeries Lafayette is a humongous upscale food gallery – from chocolates to cheeses to fresh cherries.

And in the middle of this store is an immense, intricate stained glass dome.

People come to gape.

Dan and Wendy
1/31/09

Paris in January

Paris Notes 0809 #5

You probably heard that Europe suffered a cold wave this Winter. All things are relative, though. On Christmas Day temperatures dropped to slightly below freezing and the daily highs remained around that level until a few days ago. And one night we had a dusting of snow that accumulated on car tops and park grass and other thin surfaces but quickly melted on the streets. On the plus side it was consistently sunny throughout this cold spell. But now that the temps have returned to the mid to high forties, the clouds have returned and there has been a sprinkling or two of rain.

The nice scarf and black cashmere sweater Wendy gave me for the Holidays helped to keep me warm, and fashionable, too, I might add.The second day of the New Year we moved back to our fractional ownership apartment on Villa Monceau. And we looked forward to it. While our place in the Marais for December was OK, our Villa Monceau apartment is more comfy and the neighborhood much quieter. We both feel that while being in the thick of the action is convenient for a short stay, when you are here for a month or longer, being in a more serene neighborhood is preferable.

Some impressions:

• A delicious galette (buckwheat crepes) dinner on New Years Day while looking at the ice on Stravinsky Fountain.

• The view of the Eiffel tower a few days into the New Year where its nightly display of colors changed from a deep blue back to its usual off white. The blue lights were used only for 2008 to symbolize France having the presidency of the European Union for last year. The EU and goings on around it are a big deal here and, I would suspect, in much of the rest of Europe. Much more than in the US.
• Tea with Inda at her very nice Parisian apartment near Place de la Républic and looking at the great view of Sacré Coeur out her window. Lots of interesting conversation as usual.
• A classical concert (two trumpets and an organ) at the very modern Cathedral St. Marchel near Place d’Italie. The musicians were in a balcony above and behind us while we watched their performance on a giant screen.

• Coffee and conversation after the concert at the nearby and very comfortable Café La Manufacture on rue Gobelins. We talked for well over an hour which led to us having a pleasant dinner there. With the mixed old/new décor, interesting people watching, good food at very reasonable prices, and the relaxing atmosphere I would be a frequent customer if it were closer to our apartment.
• The various versions of SALE signs (SOLDES). Lots of creative window displays. By law stores are limited to the months of January and July for having sales. Prices can be discounted anytime but advertising sales for other than these two months is forbidden by law. And today we saw several signs advertising le deuxième démarque, or the second markdown. I am a poor estimator of value but with 50% off some of the prices are approaching rationality.

• Musée d’Orsay on the free, first Sunday of January only to find the mob scene from Hell just to get in. We bagged our plans and wandered around the area. We ended up going to the delightful Musée Maillol, a place we had visited on earlier trips. Glass stairwell in Musée Maillol

No lines to enter to see the fabulous paintings and sculptures of the standard exhibition as well as several special showings.
• Musée d’Orsay a few days later. The lines were shorter to see the special “Picasso and Le Dejeuner sur l’Herb” exhibition. This work by Édouard Manet marks the transition from more tradition painting to impressionism and is a very, very interesting painting in it’s own right. Alongside this large canvas was displayed about a hundred of Picasso’s paintings and sketches that were inspired by Manet’s work. This showing along with a special exhibition of pastels that took this medium to a totally new level took up most of our time at the museum.

We also had a very nice late lunch at the museum restaurant with its classy and graceful décor.

• The marching band we heard one night parading up the Champs Elysée. The band was followed by three teenagers carrying a large floral spray, then a large number of older veterans covered in medals. They were walking in formation and many were carrying flags. Bringing up the rear was an ensemble of family members of veterans. They marched up to the Arc de Triomphe,
apparently for a wreath laying ceremony to commemorate some occasion of note. It was moving and we both felt a wave of sadness.

• Eating dinner and listening to live music by Le Trio Bugatti (keyboard and vocals, sax, and drums,) at the café Peperoni just a few minutes from our apartment on Avenue Wagram. Entertaining pop/jazz (about half American music), ok food, good service and people watching made for a nice evening.
• Small Christmas trees lined up along the sidewalk of Villa Monceau awaiting garbage pickup. Our stairwell was littered with needles for a few days until the routine vacuuming picked them up. One couple in a third floor apartment next door avoided this problem by tying a strap to their larger than normal tree and pushing it through a front room window. As Wendy and I left our apartment, we noticed the tree dangling from the strap that was held by the husband. The young wife outside was there to help place the tree on the street. But the strap wasn’t long enough so she could barely reach the tree. Being the good guy I am, I helped her get the tree onto the pavement and then we went merrily on our way.
• A talk sponsored by Democrats Abroad, on the current economic crisis. The speaker, Paul Horn, is past equities management director for Smith-Barney/Citygroup Europe and now a private equities advisor. My net was that the situation is beginning to show some signs of stabilizing but we are in new territory and don’t know for sure what’s going to happen. He considered himself an optimist but still thought there would be a three years plus recovery time.
• A nice late night dinner after the talk at a Korean restaurant we passed on our way to the Metro stop at Place de la Républic. We had a good feel about the place as we had passed a number of almost empty establishments before spotting this crowded restaurant. The specialty was Korean barbeque and each table had a grill in the center. We opted for some miso soup, two unique and tasty appetizers, pork barbeque (accompanied by several sauces), some special Korean wines, and two prepackaged desserts typically found in Asian restaurants in Paris. Good service and décor and reasonable prices. Wendy is ready to go back.
• Yesterday Steve and Sue Navaro stopped by the apartment. Steve was the developer of our Villa Monceau LLC. He has developed two other apartments and is now in the finishing stages of his fourth fractional ownership apartment. Check out his site at http://parishomeshares.com You too can make your Paris dream come true! We had a nice lunch at a nearby restaurant that lasted several hours. Good conversation with interesting people.

As most of you likely know we sold our house in Hinesburg before we came to France. While here we are having a house built for us in the same village that will be ready for us upon our return in March. We have been following the construction closely via the pictures and commentary on the web site provided to us by our builder and have been happy with what we’ve seen. This is turning out to be a satisfactory process and our house-to-be is essentially complete. We hope to close within a week of returning to Vermont and move in a few days later.

Dan and Wendy
1/16/09

PS On the first Sunday after the first Saturday of January, or Twelfth Night, a special cake is eaten to celebrate this night of Epipheny. This yummy traditional sweet is seen in the windows of almost all of the patisseries these days. The "galette du roi", or "Kings Cake", is a sweet flakey pastry cake filled with almond cream and baked inside is a "fève", or bean. Nowadays the bean is replaced by a little ceramic trinket.Heartman had another adventure recently! He got the FÈVE, a little ceramic square with the French "fleur de lis," in his piece of galette du roi! So he gets to wear the little paper crown that came with the cake. Yay, Heartman!
Wendy