Au revoir Paris, bonjour Claude Monet

It's funny using the internet here.  The ads are in french, so if I'm translating them correctly I've just won 1 million euros, and there are lots of eligible bachelors wanting to meet me!

We can't believe our time in Paris is at an end.  I had a list of 20 other things I hoped we could do in the 6 days we've been here.  All it means is that we need to come back!

The only downside of renting an apartment is that we don't have a desk clerk to help us with the little stuff, like calling a cab.  I checked with the property manager Fernando the night before we departed and got a number to call just before we needed the cab.  There's a phone in the apartment we can use to make the call.  We're all packed and it's time to go.  I try to make the call and the phone doesn't seem to be working.  I try and try and try.  (I'm such an optimist.)  I can't believe the phone wouldn't be working!  No luck.  The minutes are ticking by, and we need to get going.  Linda and I run downstairs and out to the street hoping to see a cab going by, but this isn't the kind of street where you'd just happen to see an empty cab.  I flag down two cabs, but both have passengers. 

Back in our building we see a gentleman coming down the stairs.  He speaks english well enough to tell us that his phone is working fine.  He says the problem must be with our line, and we probably need to talk to the post office about it.  Really?  The post office?

There are two guys working on a deck in the courtyard of our building, and Linda suggests asking them if we can use one of their cellphones.  They're actually on the other side of an ironwork fence, about 4 feet lower than where we have access to the courtyard.  I ask if they speak english.  They speak a little, so I ask if they have a cellphone we can borrow.  Cellphone?  One guy says to the other, telephon mobilé.  Ah, yes.  He hands me his phone through the bars of the fence.  Of course I can't figure out how to dial the number!  I hand him back the phone and show him the number, which he dials for us, and then I request the cab.  Merci!  I love these guys!  Note to ourselves:  Next time figure out how to get a cellphone to use while we're in Europe!

A cab pulls up within a few minutes and we're off to Versailles to pick up our rental car.  We tried to get the car as close as possible to Monet's garden at Giverny, since we figured we'd see the garden on the way out of town.  Versailles isn't really that close, but it was closer than anything else, and the drive wasn't too bad between the two places.

We get to Giverny, which is in the town of  Vernon, and stop for lunch at a restaurant very close to the garden.  The owner and chef are like characters out of a movie.  The owner is in his 60's, disheveled, 4-day stubble, top 4 buttons of his wrinkled shirt open, like Humphrey Bogart toward the end of African Queen.   The chef is working at an open wood-fired grill, and is a short, chubby lady, with pumpkin orange hair under her white chef's hat, and eye shadow like Mimi on the Drew Carey show.  

Mimi photo courtesy of ShareTV.org



I have to say I was a little worried about what the food would be like.  Our grilled sausages were good, but Linda's chicken skewer wasn't quite done.  They gladly put it back on the grill for a few minutes.  All-in-all it was a pretty good lunch, and some nice desserts were being served around us, but we couldn't linger.  The beautiful gardens beckoned.  The day was overcast and sometimes misty, plus it was September, so the crowds weren't as bad as in summer.

I wondered what the flowers would be like at this time of year.  I've visited here in May and in July, and both times the gardens were an explosion of color.  Amazingly, they were almost as beautiful in September.  I'll let the photos tell the story.

Rowboats on the pond

Bridge over the lily pond

Fall crocuses in the lawn

Monet's house

Next time:  Bayeux, Normandy

Sighing at Versailles

We're headed to Versailles today, and have eaten a hearty breakfast, as the kings and queens would have in the best of times.   When told of our forthcoming trip, granddaughter Ophelia, a 5-year-old lover of all things royal, asked if we would see any fancy people in France.  We said we'd probably see some castles, but all of the fancy people had their heads cut off long ago.  She was shocked and disappointed, although she's not opposed to a little violence in her stories.  I wonder what her friends in kindergarten will think when she adds this detail to one of her "once upon a time" stories.

The train from Paris out to Versailles takes only about 35 minutes, but makes me think about the long, long march of the housewives of Paris out to the palace before the revolution.  They were marching to complain about the price of bread, a staple of the french diet - now and then.  This was the beginning of the end for the naive king and queen.

The palace is a 15-minute walk from the train station, and quite impressive on approach.  Our Museum Pass got us in, with a free audio guide, to the palace and some of the rooms of the royal apartments.  The place was full of visitors and tour groups, so it was slow going through the rooms on display.  The Hall of Mirrors is big enough that the crowds weren't a problem, and is one of the most spectacular areas in the palace.  There was a temporary exhibit in the palace when we were there, which seemed a little out of place. 

Tim and Rick approaching the palace

The Hall of Mirrors

Art from the temporary exhibit changes the feel of the great hall full of battle scenes

The gardens are beautiful, and free except on weekends when the fountains are turned on.  The grounds are immense, so we took the shuttle out as far as we could to see Marie Antoinette's hamlet.  It's about a mile from the main palace.  The little cluster of thatched-roof cottages was her refuge from the crowds at the palace, and a place where she could pretend she was just a plain country girl.  Of course the sheep were perfumed, and many servants made sure everything was perfect for the queen and her children.  Even though the sheep aren't perfumed today, it was our favorite part of Versailles.

l'Orangerie where Louis XIV proved that he could control nature by growing fruit out of season.  In reality all of the trees were put into greenhouses each night. 

Some of the cute buildings in Marie Antoinette's hamlet

We had lunch at one of the cafes on the Grand Canal, and marveled at the miles of trim hedges and manicured gardens.

We hopped the train back into Paris early enough for Chef Rick to start preparing a wonderful dinner of duck breast with blueberry sauce.  It was a contender for best meal of the trip so far.  Pastries from the local bakery finished the meal.  We felt as close to kings and queens as we possibly could while still keeping our heads.

Breast of duck with blueberry sauce

C'est what? at Ste. Chappelle

This morning Rick made another run to the bakery for more croissants, baguettes and bread.  We'll be ready to run a marathon after breakfast.

Our first stop was Sainte Chapelle, on the Ile de la Cité near Notre Dame cathedral.  We waited in the long security line, made even more serious because there is a high court of law sharing the entrance with the chapel.  After 30 minutes or so in line, we saw a sign saying that any unlawful items in our possession during the security check would be confiscated and not returned to the owner.  I said I didn't think that was true, that they held your knife, corkscrew, etc. at the desk until you came back out, as they had last time I was here.  That's not what the sign said though.  Rick always carries his swiss army knife and corkscrew in the event of a wine, baguette and cheese emergency.   When we finally got to the head of the line, Rick took the offending items out of his pack.  I asked if we could check them while we toured the church. Non, madame.  Then what should we do?  I asked.  You can take them across the street to the bar and check them there.  C'est what?  Now that is an interesting security system!  Needless to say, Rick was disgusted that we had no warning about this until we waited in line for 1/2 an hour.  He elected to wait outside while the rest of us toured the chapel.  If it wasn't 10:30 in the morning, he might have checked himself into the bar along with his knife!

Sainte Chapelle is a beautiful church on the inside, but nothing special on the outside.  The whole thing was built between 1242 and 1248, in just 6 years, as compared to Notre Dame, which took over 200 years to build.  The inside of Sainte Chapelle consists of two floors - the walls and ceiling of the lower floor painted in blue and red with gold fleurs de lis, and the upper floor walls almost completely covered with stained glass windows. 

The ground floor of Ste. Chapelle.  Every inch is painted.

Each circle in the stained glass contains one of 1100 scenes upstairs in the chapel

Then we were off to Notre Dame cathedral.  There was a Mass going on, but we were able to walk the perimeter along with hundreds of other tourists.  It's an imposing church, and lots of side chapels allow for a more intimate conversation with God or your favorite saint.  The architecture on the outside of the church is more beautiful than the inside, really, with the flying buttress design that revolutionized cathedral building.

Flying buttresses hold the church up

Behind Notre Dame there is a somber reminder of the deportation of French jews during World War II.  You walk down the stairs in the Deportation Memorial into a stark concrete chamber.  It's only decoration is a sharp and jagged iron sculpture on one wall.  Iron bars block the view of the Seine.  There is a hallway with walls set with 200,000 lighted crystals, each one representing a French Jew who never returned from the concentration camps.

Lighted crystals depict French Jews killed during WWII

On the square in front of Notre Dame is the Paris Archaeological Crypt.  It's a small subterranean exhibit of excavated Roman ruins, and shows the footprint of Paris in Roman times and in the middle ages.  It's worth a quick visit, and comes free with the Museum Pass.

We had lunch on Ile St. Louis and hopped on the Metro to get down the road to l'Arc du Triomphe.  The skies had cleared by then, so we thought a hike to the top of the Arc was in order.  Actually, we hoped the elevator would take us up, rather than walking the 284 stairs, but we were told it was only for people with "disease".

We had a beautiful view of the city from the top, and a fascinating look at traffic in the circle around the base of the monument.  It was impossible to tell how many actual lanes there were, but cars were circling around, switching lanes and peeling off to the surrounding streets at a smart pace.  It looked terrifying to us.

View of the Champs Elysees from the top of the Arc

L'Arc du Triomphe from the Champs Elysees

When it was time to descend the stairs we happened to walk by the elevator, and the operator looked bored so I asked if we could ride down.  She said, oui!  Our legs were saved.

We walked down the Champs Elysees for a bit, just enjoying the craziness of it all.  We went into the McDonald's to see if they served wine.  I remembered having wine at a McD's in France years ago, but it wasn't on the menu here.  They did have a lovely display case full of pastries that also served espresso, called McCafé. 

Even the pastries at McDonald's are above average!

On the way back to the apartment, we stopped at the Rodin Museum, which is right in our neighborhood.  Rodin's famous sculpture, The Thinker, is outside in the garden here, and there are also some of his other great sculptures outside.  The museum is actually in his home, and contains more of his work.  It also meets my criteria of a museum that you can see completely in less than an hour!

Rodin's Thinker

Dinner was rabbit cooked with a mustard sauce.  It's easy to find rabbit in the markets here, and Rick loves to try exotic foods.  He found a recipe on the internet for the sauce, and of course it was a winner, as always.  I don't know.  I hate to go out on a limb too often because I don't like to fail, but it's nice to have a cook in the family who'll try anything!

Clouds over Rue Cler

Pain au chocolat

Our day started with pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants) fresh from the bakery.  Rick loves going to the bakery in the morning and picking up breads and croissants for the day.  There are usually other customers in the bakeries first thing, which adds some extra pressure to the interchange.  I think for Rick it's the thrill of the hunt.  If he actually comes home with what he wanted it's a successful outing.  That's lucky for the rest of us, lounging around in our pajamas. 

The weather today was cloudy and rainy, so a trip to the outdoor market at Rue Cler might not have been the best option, but we need groceries!  The Rue Cler neighborhood is bustling with tourists, but it's the locals who buy their meat and fish there.   It seemed that the tourist-frequented businesses were used to dealing with Americans, and the merchants and clerks spoke english very well.  The clerks in other places, not so used to Americans, didn't speak english at all.  To me, that means it'll be a fun exchange of pantomime and plunking french nouns into english sentences.  I wish I could conjugate french verbs, but wishing doesn't make it so!  

We managed to buy some fruits and vegetables, rabbit and duck for dinners, and wine.  At the fish store Rick explained that he wanted to make a bouillabaisse for dinner.  The fish merchant pointed out a few fish that would work well.  We didn't recognize the fish, or the names of the fish.  They were displayed whole, on ice.  The merchant asked if we would like him to prepare them for us.  We said, oui!  Merci!! 

Cheeses and sausages at a market on Rue Cler

The fish market on Rue Cler

Back to the apartment we went with our groceries.  Lunch was leftovers from the night before, with some bread and cheese, and then we were off to d'Orsay. 

OK, so it's raining, right?  And there are thousands of tourists in town looking for something to do inside, right?  And the Louvre is closed because it's Tuesday, right?  So almost everyone decided to come to d'Orsay, with us!

Our Museum Pass gets us past the ticket lines at lots of museums in Paris, but the security lines are sometimes daunting.  It took us about 45 minutes to get through the line, but of course there were plenty of people to talk to while we inched along under umbrellas.

Orsay used to be a train station, so it has a wonderful, open gallery just as you walk in.  There are lots of smaller galleries off the main central one.  The most popular areas here are the Impressionist galleries, and they were packed with visitors.  We dutifully marched along with everyone else.  We recognized some of the paintings, and discovered some Impressionists we hadn't heard of before.

This clock is original from the train station days.  I love the view of the city through it.

Back to the apartment we went, since Rick needed some time to make the bouillabaisse.  He unwrapped the fish, and discovered the head and tail still intact.  We guess Parisians use the whole fish in their stew!   We had also bought some large prawns to use in the stew.  After cooking and simmering, we did pick out all of the heads, tails and bones.  It  was delicious!

Fish heads in our stew.  It may not look that great right now, but the finished product was wonderful!

The weather had improved by the time we were done with dinner, so we headed out for a walk around the neighborhood.  We stopped at Café Varenne for dessert or a nightcap.  I had read about a french dessert called café gourmand, which is an espresso served with 3 tiny desserts.  What's not to like about that?  Of course that's what I ordered, and it was very fun - a little brownie, a little slice of cake, and whipped cream in a little glass.  They may have been one dessert short, but it was plenty.

Back at the apartment I had an e-mail from the library saying that an e-book I had requested was ready for download.  I'm old enough to doubt that it's possible to do this from thousands of miles away!  It took about 5 seconds to download the book onto my Nook from Camano Island, Washington.  Amazing.

Louvre-y Tuesday, er, Monday

Today we tackle the Louvre.  We figured we could make good use of a 4-day Paris Museum Pass this week, but thought it might be a mistake to buy it at the Louvre.  We feared long lines at the ticket counter.  We took  the Metro to the Palais Royal - Musee du Louvre stop, which lets you off underground in a shopping mall attached to the museum.   We discovered that they have a special office just to sell the museum pass, and it wasn't crowded in the least.

The Louvre is so overwhelming that the only way to make it through alive is to prioritize what you'd like to see.  We had a few things on our list, culled from various travel guides and also from previous visits.   The "big four" for us were the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, Venus de Milo, and The Coronation of Emperor Napoleon.  There were signs on almost every wall pointing to the Mona Lisa, where every visitor to Paris can be found at one time or another.  She's a bit disappointing in that the painting is smaller than you expect.

Venus de Milo - a gorgeous size 14

A few other displays are fun to see, and aren't just more long galleries of paintings (beautiful though they may be!)  One is the Medieval Louvre, uncovered at the foundation of the current palace, showing the footprint of the castle or fortress in its first incarnation.  The other is the apartment of Napoleon III, which is very elegant and honestly very reminiscent of the opulence that the common folk resented prior to the revolution.  The Egyptian wing is also very nice, although Rick is insistent that the treasures should be sent back to Egypt, from whence they were looted long ago. 

Me, in front of a model of the Medieval Louvre

Our entire foray through the gigantic Louvre took only about 2-1/2 hours.  That was enough time to get a feel for the immensity of the place and to see more than a few of the treasures.

The pyramid entry to the Louvre

We headed out to the Tuilleries, which is a park and garden area in front of the Louvre.  We found a cafe in the park and stopped for lunch.  The food was simple and probably a bit expensive, but quick.  One of our favorite lunches is a croque monsieur, which is an open-faced grilled cheese and ham sandwich.

We were on our way to l'Orangerie, a small museum at the far end of the Tuilleries.  This fits my idea of a great museum.  It has some wonderful paintings, most notably Monet's circular water lilies, and the whole thing takes less than an hour to see.  Monet's water lily paintings completely fill two rooms of the little museum that have been built with circular walls to hang the paintings.

By now our "dogs are barking"!  That's enough museum-hopping for one day.

Back at the apartment we try to decipher the washer/dryer combination machine.  It's in the small kitchen, and there's some laundry detergent (we think) for us to use.  It's so hard to determine what a product is for by the label or by its proximity to a certain appliance.  Could it be that it makes your dishes sparkle?  Or does it make the floor shine?  Or is it to shine your shoes with?  Or is it to clean your clothes?  It seems our dictionaries just don't contain all of the words that a good advertising campaign might include for these wonderful products.  On past trips we've put floor cleaner in the dishwasher, laundry soap in the dishwasher, and hoped that our clothes were clean after using just fabric softener in the washing machine.  And this doesn't even include the world of personal hygiene, where a shower using moisturizer makes you feel "kind of" clean, and liquid laundry detergent does just an OK job on your hair.  Of course, our mistakes don't come clear until after each process is completed.  It all makes for a lifetime of memories.

So we start the complicated washing machine, and a load takes about 2 hours.  We're unclear if we've requested the drying feature correctly, so after another hour or so we take our very wet, yet very hot, clothes out and hang them on a drying rack in the living room.  This neighborhood is too classy for clothes hanging out the windows. 

Easy-to-use washing machine?

After the stress of laundry day, we have some wine, a baguette and cheese for happy hour.  Rick and Linda collaborate on a great dinner of chicken and mushrooms cooked in a creamy sauce, using some of the herb Boursin cheese we had for happy hour yesterday.   Some pastries from the local bakery finish up the meal.  The food doesn't make our feet hurt any less, but the stress of the day disappears.

Paris and All That Junk

Our first day in Paris.  The nice part about having an apartment is that we can fix our own breakfast that includes some protein.  It seems like some of the little hotels serve just baguettes, croissants and coffee or tea, and the charge for that is usually about 7 euros.  That's about $10.  Think of the breakfast you can get at Denny's for that!   Of course the baguettes and croissants in France are the best ever, so we have to consider that in the equation.

Breakfast at the apartment is coffee and tea with croissants and eggs and ham.  After that we're ready for a full day of sightseeing.

My absolute must-see, must-do, not-going-home-until-I-do-it goal, after being in Paris 7 times and never accomplishing this, is to visit a flea market in Paris.  I chose the Porte de Vanves market, since it has about 200 vendors, as opposed to the Clingancourt and Montreil markets which have over 2,000 vendors.    My fellow travellers aren't really into pawing through old junk looking for treasures, so I thought this would be a good choice all around.

The Porte de Vanves was an easy Metro ride from our neighborhood.  At the station we purchased a packet of 10 tickets (a carnet) for each couple at a ticket machine.  Rick Steves suggests buying packets of tickets (for a stay of less than a week) as opposed to the Passe Navigo, which sounds similar to the Oyster card in London, but requires a photo and isn't quite as user-friendly as the Oyster card.

So off on the Metro we went to the Porte of Vanves, and found the street of vendors.  After yearning to be here for oh-so-many years I couldn't believe I wasn't buying lots of great treasures.  In reality, there was lots of silver, lots of china and crystal, and lots of junky junk.  My soul was fed just walking through it all and watching the other shoppers.  I'll go back again someday for sure, and maybe find some special things to buy. 

Linda at the Porte of Vanves flea market

I'm happy just looking at all of this wonderful stuff!

We had lunch at a nearby cafe and headed back toward our neighborhood on the Metro.  We decided to get off nearer the Seine and walk along it for a bit. We passed by a few bridges, each unique in decoration.

I had read about the custom of attaching padlocks to the bridges in my friend Cheryl's blog Paris and Beyond 2012.  She talked about couples attaching a padlock to the metalwork on the bridge and tossing the key into the Seine to seal their love for each other.  There is one bridge known for lovers and one bridge known for committed love.  She said the lovers' bridge was loaded with locks, whereas the one pledging a commitment wasn't so crowded with locks.  I thought this sounded like a fun idea, so I bought two padlocks at home and had them in my day pack as we were out and about.  I couldn't remember which bridge was which, but when we came to a bridge with padlocks attached, I got out the locks so Linda and I could show the guys how much they meant to us.  And since we didn't really know which bridge we were locking our feelings to, we decided for us it would be a reflection of a lifetime commitment that still felt like a passionate love affair.  They were both touched by the sentiment. 

Tim and Linda pledging to stay together for another 40 years!

I'm not sure, but this might be the hot love affair bridge!

After the bridges we decided to hop on bus #69, which Rick Steves touts as a great way to see the city without paying for a bus tour.   He cautions against taking the bus on a hot day however, since the buses aren't air-conditioned, so we were foolish to do it!  We did see a lot of the city though, and enjoyed the ride, aside from the heat.  Maybe we wouldn't go on such a hot day again.  

Back at our apartment dinner was nice little beef filets wrapped in bacon from the local boucherie.  And lots of great wine, of course! 

London in the rearview mirror

Today we leave London with promises to return.  It's been a fun visit, and there's so much more to see!

We decided to get to Paris by way of the Eurostar train through the Chunnel.  The train travels at high speeds, and actual time under the channel is only 20 minutes.  Thank goodness.  The whole trip was just 2 hours and 15 minutes.  People go to Paris from London, and to London from Paris, just for the day.

I purchased the tickets for the train months in advance, and paid only about $55 U.S. per person.  The price goes up the nearer you get to departure.  I checked to see what the price would be to book a week ahead, and for the same train, same seats, it would cost $181.00 per person.  Same day sales were even higher - $220 for seats.  It's definitely worth booking well in advance.  I think they allowed tickets sales for dates 4 months out.

We cashed in the remaining balance on our Oyster cards at the train station while we waited.
Lunch was purchased on the train, almost always an expensive and not very tasty option.

We took a cab to the apartment we're renting for the next 6 nights in the 7th arrondisement. 

Map courtesy of  PlanetWare.com

The map isn't very clear, but the river cuts through the middle of the city, and the neighborhood is on the lower side - the left bank, and includes the Eiffel Tower, Les Invalides, Ecole Militaire, and the Rodin museum. 

I found the apartment on vrbo.com.  It met our criteria of two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and two bathrooms aren't necessarily the norm in Europe, so that narrowed our choices considerably.  It's in a mostly residential area, although there seem to be a few foreign embassies and government offices in the neighborhood.  There are police guarding the gates, so we feel super-safe here!  Our place is on the second floor, and decorated in an elaborate french provincial style.  There are murals on the walls, mirrors everywhere, velvet couches and gilt framed paintings.  Luckily the kitchen has all of the appliances we need for cooking, because that's the plan - we'll be eating "in" as much as we can while in Paris.

The first order of business was to secure groceries, including wine, for dinner.  We don't have a big supermarket very near, but we have a few convenience stores, which seem to carry most everything.  There is also a butcher shop (boucherie) and a bakery (boulangerie).   The convenience stores will be open on Sunday, but not the specialty stores, so we bought food with two dinners in mind.

Dinner was chicken, garlic, onion and sausage cooked in a tomato sauce, and served over rice.  Rick loves to cook, so dinners are sometimes more involved on vacation than they are at home.  We're buying inexpensive wines in the neighborhood, mostly from the Cotes du Rhone and Bordeaux regions, and finding that a good wine can be bought here for about $10, sometimes less.  We'll be doing some extensive comparisons over the next few weeks!

After dinner we decided to walk over to the Eiffel Tower.  It was still light, so it should have been an easy hike.  The streets in this neighborhood are not laid out in straight lines.  They seem to bend and wind around at some lunatic traffic engineer's whim.  It took far longer to get to the tower than we thought it would, and it was very dark by the time we got to the park in front of it.  The park lawn was filled with couples, groups of friends or families having picnics or just drinking wine in the nice weather.  At the stroke of 9 the lights of the tower started twinkling, and kept twinkling for 10 minutes.  It was a magical sight.