Karen’s birthday is the day after Christmas. I thought it would be fun if we celebrated with dinner at Le Grand Colbert. This is the brasserie where Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson and Keanu Reeves dined in the movie, “Something’s Gotta Give.”
I phoned, made a reservation, 6 p.m. No problem. We like to eat earlier. Parisians as a rule don’t even think about finishing lunch until about 3, or going to dinner before 8 p.m., even on a Tuesday evening. We left the flat, hopped the Metro, got off at Le Bourse. We located Rue Vivienne and walked south, toward the Palais Royale.
It was just a couple of minutes before we saw the red neon sign down the street: “Le Grand Colbert.” We were ready for the weariness that is inevitable among hosts receiving ordinary Americans that stream to establishments made famous by movie stars. I was amazed, therefore, to see in the beautiful restaurant’s entryway windows a huge poster of self-commemoration: “Something’s Gotta Give” photos and publicity material. It was a level of tackiness that I believed, until that moment, was impossible for anyone French to achieve.
We pushed through the door. The café was large, deeper than it was wide, and beautifully appointed in brass rails, etched glass, and polished wood partitions, in the “belle époque” style. There was not a customer in the place. In front of us, mopping the floor, a young woman turned to us. We said we had a reservation. “You want to eat here? Now?” the woman said. Appearing behind her and brushing past was a most pleasant gentleman, the maitre ‘d, who welcomed us and showed us to a cozy booth in the very front of the café.
We ordered a carafe, or pichet, of bordeaux, munched bread, and studied the menu, which was in French and English. In the movie, Diane Keaton raved about the roast chicken, but we weren’t in Paris to go out for chicken. We took our time. I wanted oysters, but our waiter said the kitchen would not be prepared to serve seafood until 7 p.m. Karen chose a Caesar salad and rigatoni with three cheeses. I decided on escargots, oysters and a steak with marrow bone and French fries. You either like escargots, or you don’t. There is only one way to prepare them, in their shells, then packed with parsley and garlic butter. The meat is unremarkable; I think most people eat them for the green garlic butter, sopped up with bread.
Several kinds of oysters were on the menu. I had ordered the large ones and was not prepared for what arrived. These oysters were at least five inches long, larger than I would have dreamed an oyster could be. “They’re huge!” I said as they arrived. “Very American,” said our waiter, in an obligatory way. They were also great. Karen gave me the anchovies from her salad, and they were great too, very mild and fresh, compared to American service.
People were starting to arrive. Beginning at 7:30, Le Grand Colbert filled up like a stadium. An older couple was seated in the booth across from us and ordered in French. Presently her oysters arrived, same size as mine. My steak arrived. I had ordered it medium, having no idea how to order it Pittsburgh-style. But that’s how it arrived: charred on the outside, pink on the inside. With it, and the marrow and fries, was a whole head of roasted garlic. Le Grand Colbert was a really good experience.
Karen’s rigatoni was like the best macaroni and cheese you ever had in your life. But she couldn’t eat it all. At the end, she asked for a doggie bag. “We don’t do that,” said a new waiter, whose expression was most opinionated. He moved to take her plate, but she got a grip on it. For a couple of seconds, there was a small tug-of-war at our table. “I want to take it with me,” she said. “You can’t take it with you,” he said. “Just put it in something,” she said. “Non, madame,” he said. “Tinfoil?” “We don’t do that.” “Just do it. Wrap it up.”
He gave up, with a gassy shrug, and returned in a few moments with the tinfoil parcel of rigatoni and a wide load of disdain. He had a last laugh, though. I left the rigatoni on the table. As we were leaving, he said to me, “M’sieur, don’t you want your ‘doggie bag’?” I turned back, he went to our table, fetched the item and delivered it to me like he would never forget this and hoped I wouldn't either. He thought he had me, but he was wrong. There was the movie tackiness, leering at us again through the entryway windows. Let him shrug off THAT. And then we had Karen’s birthday rigatoni the next evening. It was really good.
January 29, 2007
January 20, 2007
Communion
We had visited Notre Dame, taken an hour-long train trip south to the town of Chartres to see the 12th-century cathedral there, and we had found a couple of smaller churches, near Notre Dame, that had been recommended by friends to Karen.
In each case, at the back of the churches, a crèche, or Nativity scene, had been laid out. In every case, Mary and Joseph were kneeling in hay, their attention focused on a place where the newborn infant would lay, but there was no infant there.
So it was at our neighborhood church, Sainte Elisabeth, on Christmas Eve. After “Silent Night,” the service continued, in French and Latin, an intriguing experience. Then a silence fell. The priest and acolytes left the altar and disappeared behind columns to the right. Then with a rustling of clothing and feet, people stood up, moved to the center aisle, and went forward, in otherwise hushed silence. Reaching the altar, they moved to the right, apparently to rendezvous with their priest somewhere.
Karen knew about this. The people were rising to escort the holy infant to his place in the crèche, and to attend him there. I had never heard of this ritual, but suddenly the other empty crèches made sense. The infant would not have arrived in the manger until Christmas. Worshippers escorting him to his starting place in their lives was a most appropriate, gentle and tender ritual. We could not see the crèche because of the columns, but it was easy to visualize the people attending him, and I could see the same thing happening at Chartres and Notre Dame, where the movement and the sound of the people moving toward the Nativity must have been stunning.
Just as quietly as they had gathered, people returned to their seats and pretty soon we arrived at Communion. My family, as I was growing up in Texas, attended the Methodist Church, where communion consisted of grape juice in little shot glasses nested in special trays being passed down the pews. Later, in California, I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church, so I learned of the more formal Communion, which recreates the original Communion in some detail, in a recognizable sequence, almost a cadence, that is recognizable in any language. So I knew that the Sainte Elisabeth priest was talking about the last night, and Jesus bestowing his symbolism to the bread, and to the wine. Sure enough, he lifted the wafer high, and then broke it, and I knew he was saying, “Take, eat, do this in remembrance of me.”
We didn’t take Communion. As the people started forward, we slipped out the back. They would have welcomed us, I know, but when I am a visitor, I always feel better observing their privacy, in the event’s intimacy. It was almost midnight when we climbed our tight spiral stairway to the cozy warmth of the flat, talking about how going to Sainte Elisabeth for Christmas Mass was one of the best things we had done in Paris.
In each case, at the back of the churches, a crèche, or Nativity scene, had been laid out. In every case, Mary and Joseph were kneeling in hay, their attention focused on a place where the newborn infant would lay, but there was no infant there.
So it was at our neighborhood church, Sainte Elisabeth, on Christmas Eve. After “Silent Night,” the service continued, in French and Latin, an intriguing experience. Then a silence fell. The priest and acolytes left the altar and disappeared behind columns to the right. Then with a rustling of clothing and feet, people stood up, moved to the center aisle, and went forward, in otherwise hushed silence. Reaching the altar, they moved to the right, apparently to rendezvous with their priest somewhere.
Karen knew about this. The people were rising to escort the holy infant to his place in the crèche, and to attend him there. I had never heard of this ritual, but suddenly the other empty crèches made sense. The infant would not have arrived in the manger until Christmas. Worshippers escorting him to his starting place in their lives was a most appropriate, gentle and tender ritual. We could not see the crèche because of the columns, but it was easy to visualize the people attending him, and I could see the same thing happening at Chartres and Notre Dame, where the movement and the sound of the people moving toward the Nativity must have been stunning.
Just as quietly as they had gathered, people returned to their seats and pretty soon we arrived at Communion. My family, as I was growing up in Texas, attended the Methodist Church, where communion consisted of grape juice in little shot glasses nested in special trays being passed down the pews. Later, in California, I was confirmed in the Episcopal Church, so I learned of the more formal Communion, which recreates the original Communion in some detail, in a recognizable sequence, almost a cadence, that is recognizable in any language. So I knew that the Sainte Elisabeth priest was talking about the last night, and Jesus bestowing his symbolism to the bread, and to the wine. Sure enough, he lifted the wafer high, and then broke it, and I knew he was saying, “Take, eat, do this in remembrance of me.”
We didn’t take Communion. As the people started forward, we slipped out the back. They would have welcomed us, I know, but when I am a visitor, I always feel better observing their privacy, in the event’s intimacy. It was almost midnight when we climbed our tight spiral stairway to the cozy warmth of the flat, talking about how going to Sainte Elisabeth for Christmas Mass was one of the best things we had done in Paris.
January 15, 2007
Christmas Eve
Paris has its Christmas traditions, but they don’t include very much of what Americans would call commercialism. A huge, modern department store across the street from the Hotel de Ville was closed on Christmas Eve. Nor did we see much of anything that would be described as Christmas lights or decoration – no trees, no Santas. The city was beautifully illuminated and festive, but it looks that way all the time.
Nevertheless, we had some last-minute shopping to do. On Christmas Eve morning, we strolled in cold, gray weather through the Tuileries, then crossed the bridge to the Musee d’Orsay and warmed ourselves in the Impressionists’ light: Manet, Monet, Seurat, Van Gogh, Renoir. Going home, we split up, Karen staying on the Left Bank with a couple of missions in the Latin Quarter, and I crossing the Seine to vendors’ stalls near the Chatelet.
We also wanted to attend a midnight Mass. The classic would have been Notre Dame, but Karen, walking past in the afternoon, reported throngs in the thousands already milling in the plaza. She had voiced another preference anyway, for a small church just around the corner from our flat, the Paroisse Sainte Elisabeth. Their Mass was to begin at 10:30 p.m.
My other errand was to our local supermarket, the Monoprix, very well stocked but very compact by American supermarket standards. We had decided on chicken for our Christmas dinner. A whole, four-pound chicken at the Monoprix was almost 20 Euros. I was not going to pay almost $25 for a chicken, and I wondered why chicken in France was so expensive. Later we learned that, on Christmas Eve, Parisians flock to Les Halles, a huge marketplace near the Louvre, where mountains of chicken and oysters are piled for holiday feasting. I wondered if the demand drove up the price of chicken. But two days after Christmas, I checked again, and Monoprix chicken was still hovering under 20 Euros.
They had a meager selection of cut chicken. I bought a packet of boneless, skinless breasts, some potatoes, onions, garlic, haricots verts (green beans), a couple of baguettes and a couple of bottles of wine, and figured we wouldn’t starve. I had learned a trick: In Paris, there is no supermarket parking lot with your car waiting just outside. Parisian shoppers bring a sturdy bag to the market with them if they have a lot to carry home. I stopped by the flat and got one of our carry-on bags and was glad I did. I was lugging it toward the Monoprix door when Karen walked in. On her ramble, she had gotten lost! Took a Metro train in the wrong direction, a moment of panic, then recovery and successful return.
The church was classic stone columns and high ceiling, an altar, brightly lit, at the front, and gloomy light in the back. No pews, no kneeling boards, only straightback chairs. In a dark balcony behind us was a substantial pipe organ and, for this occasion, other instruments – a couple of horns and strings, like a chamber orchestra. The sanctuary would seat probably 300, and about 250 were there. Maybe others were non-parishoners, or even Americans. No way to know. Coming in, we were given a program, four pages, presenting the liturgy, in Latin and French, for “Nativite du Seigneur, Messe de la nuit.”
After the entry of the priests and acolytes, and the processional march, the organ sounded a very quiet introduction to our opening music: “Silent Night,” or, in the program, “Douce Nuit.” The congregation sang the first two lines:
“Douce nuit, sainte nuit,
“Dans les cieux, l’astre luit.”
It was one of the most beautiful things I ever heard. We understood them perfectly. Language divides, music unites. Yet in our world, the speakers have evolved as the leaders, and singers only entertain.
Nevertheless, we had some last-minute shopping to do. On Christmas Eve morning, we strolled in cold, gray weather through the Tuileries, then crossed the bridge to the Musee d’Orsay and warmed ourselves in the Impressionists’ light: Manet, Monet, Seurat, Van Gogh, Renoir. Going home, we split up, Karen staying on the Left Bank with a couple of missions in the Latin Quarter, and I crossing the Seine to vendors’ stalls near the Chatelet.
We also wanted to attend a midnight Mass. The classic would have been Notre Dame, but Karen, walking past in the afternoon, reported throngs in the thousands already milling in the plaza. She had voiced another preference anyway, for a small church just around the corner from our flat, the Paroisse Sainte Elisabeth. Their Mass was to begin at 10:30 p.m.
My other errand was to our local supermarket, the Monoprix, very well stocked but very compact by American supermarket standards. We had decided on chicken for our Christmas dinner. A whole, four-pound chicken at the Monoprix was almost 20 Euros. I was not going to pay almost $25 for a chicken, and I wondered why chicken in France was so expensive. Later we learned that, on Christmas Eve, Parisians flock to Les Halles, a huge marketplace near the Louvre, where mountains of chicken and oysters are piled for holiday feasting. I wondered if the demand drove up the price of chicken. But two days after Christmas, I checked again, and Monoprix chicken was still hovering under 20 Euros.
They had a meager selection of cut chicken. I bought a packet of boneless, skinless breasts, some potatoes, onions, garlic, haricots verts (green beans), a couple of baguettes and a couple of bottles of wine, and figured we wouldn’t starve. I had learned a trick: In Paris, there is no supermarket parking lot with your car waiting just outside. Parisian shoppers bring a sturdy bag to the market with them if they have a lot to carry home. I stopped by the flat and got one of our carry-on bags and was glad I did. I was lugging it toward the Monoprix door when Karen walked in. On her ramble, she had gotten lost! Took a Metro train in the wrong direction, a moment of panic, then recovery and successful return.
The church was classic stone columns and high ceiling, an altar, brightly lit, at the front, and gloomy light in the back. No pews, no kneeling boards, only straightback chairs. In a dark balcony behind us was a substantial pipe organ and, for this occasion, other instruments – a couple of horns and strings, like a chamber orchestra. The sanctuary would seat probably 300, and about 250 were there. Maybe others were non-parishoners, or even Americans. No way to know. Coming in, we were given a program, four pages, presenting the liturgy, in Latin and French, for “Nativite du Seigneur, Messe de la nuit.”
After the entry of the priests and acolytes, and the processional march, the organ sounded a very quiet introduction to our opening music: “Silent Night,” or, in the program, “Douce Nuit.” The congregation sang the first two lines:
“Douce nuit, sainte nuit,
“Dans les cieux, l’astre luit.”
It was one of the most beautiful things I ever heard. We understood them perfectly. Language divides, music unites. Yet in our world, the speakers have evolved as the leaders, and singers only entertain.
January 11, 2007
Paris after dark
We had not seen Paris after dark until our exit from the Louvre. It was the end of our third full day, and we were starting to feel a comfort level in the city. We were developing a sense of where we were on the map at any given time, and we knew how to get home. We had heard the usual cautions about the city’s dark side, but they could not stand up to the appeal of the city’s bright side after dark. From the Louvre, we caught the Metro down to the Place de la Concorde.
The huge oval, with its signature obelisk, is the most open space in Paris. Views are wide open to the west, south and east. To the west, curving slightly uphill away from us, according to the rising arc of the street lights, was the Champs-Elysees. We had been at the other end, in daylight, at the Arc de Triomphe. Looking at it from this end, after dark, was a completely different experience.
Paris has a city official whose sole duty is to illuminate the city after dark. I read a feature story about him one morning in the International Herald Tribune. His busiest time is at the Christmas season, when the city’s illuminations are at their most extravagant. Karen was not at all happy that her camera battery had gone dead. South of the Arc de Triomphe was the Eiffel Tower. It is always lit at night, but at Christmastime, every hour on the hour, sparkling lights, like you see on a Christmas tree but much brighter, are fired off for 10 minutes. The tower looked like a fireworks sparkler.
Behind us in the distance, Notre Dame was illuminated. Directly behind us, on the east perimeter of the Place de la Concorde, was a huge ferris wheel, brightly lit. The view from the top must have been fantastic, but you would not have gotten me on that ferris wheel for all the Euros in Europe. I don’t remember seeing any airplanes while we were there. Small planes, I mean. On clear days to the north, airliners were visible on their ascent out of Charles de Gaulle, and if you were on an airliner departing at dusk, and you were sitting on the left-hand side on a clear night, the view of the Paris lights must have been worth the ticket.
But no small planes, no Cessnas so common above urban America. No helicopters. I Googled “Paris aerial tours.” No hits. Maybe there’s a ban. I Googled “Paris from space at night.” No hits. Somebody is missing a good bet. To our south were the buildings on the Left Bank, all illuminated. All the bridges across the Seine were illuminated. The river itself was illuminated by the reflections, the movement of the water slicing the light into strokes of color. It was truly modern art. None of the masters of light in the museums, none of the Impressionists, saw Paris like this.
Yet Paris makes such an impression in artificial light. Apparently the only artist working in that medium is the city official I read about. And Karen, smitten by Paris after dark, and a dead camera around her neck. Every night thereafter, when we got home, the battery went into the charger before the coat came off her back.
The huge oval, with its signature obelisk, is the most open space in Paris. Views are wide open to the west, south and east. To the west, curving slightly uphill away from us, according to the rising arc of the street lights, was the Champs-Elysees. We had been at the other end, in daylight, at the Arc de Triomphe. Looking at it from this end, after dark, was a completely different experience.
Paris has a city official whose sole duty is to illuminate the city after dark. I read a feature story about him one morning in the International Herald Tribune. His busiest time is at the Christmas season, when the city’s illuminations are at their most extravagant. Karen was not at all happy that her camera battery had gone dead. South of the Arc de Triomphe was the Eiffel Tower. It is always lit at night, but at Christmastime, every hour on the hour, sparkling lights, like you see on a Christmas tree but much brighter, are fired off for 10 minutes. The tower looked like a fireworks sparkler.
Behind us in the distance, Notre Dame was illuminated. Directly behind us, on the east perimeter of the Place de la Concorde, was a huge ferris wheel, brightly lit. The view from the top must have been fantastic, but you would not have gotten me on that ferris wheel for all the Euros in Europe. I don’t remember seeing any airplanes while we were there. Small planes, I mean. On clear days to the north, airliners were visible on their ascent out of Charles de Gaulle, and if you were on an airliner departing at dusk, and you were sitting on the left-hand side on a clear night, the view of the Paris lights must have been worth the ticket.
But no small planes, no Cessnas so common above urban America. No helicopters. I Googled “Paris aerial tours.” No hits. Maybe there’s a ban. I Googled “Paris from space at night.” No hits. Somebody is missing a good bet. To our south were the buildings on the Left Bank, all illuminated. All the bridges across the Seine were illuminated. The river itself was illuminated by the reflections, the movement of the water slicing the light into strokes of color. It was truly modern art. None of the masters of light in the museums, none of the Impressionists, saw Paris like this.
Yet Paris makes such an impression in artificial light. Apparently the only artist working in that medium is the city official I read about. And Karen, smitten by Paris after dark, and a dead camera around her neck. Every night thereafter, when we got home, the battery went into the charger before the coat came off her back.
January 10, 2007
The Louvre
I had seen the Mona Lisa before, in 1968, when I was in the Army, stationed in Germany. I remember entering a dark gallery in the Louvre, and there she was. Tiny. Not much bigger than a book cover, I thought. I was very surprised. Humans never seem to afford icons the possibility of being small. She had a lot of wall space to herself, befitting her station. In the gallery, in the dark, sat maybe a dozen people with easels or sketchbooks, painting the Mona Lisa.
This time, 38 years later, I was surprised again. She has her own wall, free-standing and well-lighted in the middle of one of the galleries. It made her look larger. I was surprised by how large she appeared, compared to my 1968 memory. Something about history is connected to the present, to the moment that the history is viewed. That history becomes the history of the viewer, and I now possess two histories of the Mona Lisa. If that is true, then da Vinci could only have painted the Mona Lisa once. A painting done 20 years earlier, or later, would have belonged to a separate history. The light would have been different, and the position, and the subject, but most of all the artist.
So now the Mona Lisa had caught me in two snapshots, one from 1968, one from 2006. She was the same, but not to me. Thinking about that brought me very much into the present. Karen was on that same intellectual track, but I didn’t know it yet. We had sought out the Big Three – Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, Venus de Milo – thinking that’s why we were there, and after that we would settle into contemplation of the lesser works. The lesser works of the Louvre. What does a masterpiece have to do? One of them may have been the Apollo of the Belvedere.
We spent a couple of hours with the lesser works, including a break for espresso and pastry. As we arrived back at the subterranean entry lobby, it was dusk. To get to the escalator up to ground level, we first had to take an escalator down. “We have to go down so we can go up,” I said, and something about that entered Karen’s thinking. In our stay, we had several long conversations in our cozy flat, and in one of them, we decided that between us, Karen is the true problem-solver, and I am one who may say something that helps someone else solve a problem (“Hey, Einstein, why don’t you take the streetcar home today?”). Going down to go up was one of those somethings.
On the escalator to ground level, rising into the middle of the glass pyramid, Karen saw something that changed her. Originally, the Louvre was a palace. From the escalator, she saw not the Louvre, but the Palace, through the brightly lit pyramid windows. “Mesmerizing,” she said. She took photo upon photo. Eventually we stepped outside, and when we did, into the cold evening air, she said the world changed. She said she had thought she had always been drawn to the Louvre by the art. Now she knew it was not the art. It was the Louvre itself. The Louvre was the same, but not to Karen. She saw a Palace, and in that moment, she came into possession of a second history of the Louvre. But she had not been here before. What was the first history? It made for a long and fascinating conversation that night, back home in our flat.
This time, 38 years later, I was surprised again. She has her own wall, free-standing and well-lighted in the middle of one of the galleries. It made her look larger. I was surprised by how large she appeared, compared to my 1968 memory. Something about history is connected to the present, to the moment that the history is viewed. That history becomes the history of the viewer, and I now possess two histories of the Mona Lisa. If that is true, then da Vinci could only have painted the Mona Lisa once. A painting done 20 years earlier, or later, would have belonged to a separate history. The light would have been different, and the position, and the subject, but most of all the artist.
So now the Mona Lisa had caught me in two snapshots, one from 1968, one from 2006. She was the same, but not to me. Thinking about that brought me very much into the present. Karen was on that same intellectual track, but I didn’t know it yet. We had sought out the Big Three – Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, Venus de Milo – thinking that’s why we were there, and after that we would settle into contemplation of the lesser works. The lesser works of the Louvre. What does a masterpiece have to do? One of them may have been the Apollo of the Belvedere.
We spent a couple of hours with the lesser works, including a break for espresso and pastry. As we arrived back at the subterranean entry lobby, it was dusk. To get to the escalator up to ground level, we first had to take an escalator down. “We have to go down so we can go up,” I said, and something about that entered Karen’s thinking. In our stay, we had several long conversations in our cozy flat, and in one of them, we decided that between us, Karen is the true problem-solver, and I am one who may say something that helps someone else solve a problem (“Hey, Einstein, why don’t you take the streetcar home today?”). Going down to go up was one of those somethings.
On the escalator to ground level, rising into the middle of the glass pyramid, Karen saw something that changed her. Originally, the Louvre was a palace. From the escalator, she saw not the Louvre, but the Palace, through the brightly lit pyramid windows. “Mesmerizing,” she said. She took photo upon photo. Eventually we stepped outside, and when we did, into the cold evening air, she said the world changed. She said she had thought she had always been drawn to the Louvre by the art. Now she knew it was not the art. It was the Louvre itself. The Louvre was the same, but not to Karen. She saw a Palace, and in that moment, she came into possession of a second history of the Louvre. But she had not been here before. What was the first history? It made for a long and fascinating conversation that night, back home in our flat.
January 09, 2007
History's custodians, at lunch
Ste-Chapelle is inside a walled compound it shares with the city’s Hall of Justice, and there is a common, narrow access from the street, through a hall, and some doors, and metal detectors. There are side-by-side lines to get in, and at one point an official walked down the line, announcing, “Ste-Chapelle,” and arm-motioning us to go to the right. Truants to the left, tourists to the right.
Within the compound, it was simply a matter of walking around the end of the chapel building to enter the courtyard of the Hall of Justice, an imposing structure with a columned portico at the top of a long, wide course of stone steps, like a smaller Supreme Court. It was lunchtime, with a considerable coming-and-going of people in the courtyard, working Parisians looking for a bite to eat. There was a café in the building’s basement, down some steps to the side. I walked down and peered through the window. Lots of people, but it looked amazingly like a lunchroom in an American courthouse.
We cast our fate elsewhere and landed in a bright brasserie, Le Soleil d’Or, across the street and down the block toward Notre Dame. The waiters can see us coming, because we always got the menus in French and English. At some point in our stay, I knew I was going to have cassoulet, and escargot. They didn’t have cassoulet, and it wasn’t the right time for escargot. So I had a ham and cheese sandwich called a Croque Monsieur, open-faced, the cheese (“Emmental,” our waiter grinned) broiled and bubbly. Karen had beef on a baguette and we split an order of fries. The French really do know how to make fries, and the diners eat a ton of them.
Some wine, some espresso, a flood of sunlight in the brasserie windows, equidistant from two reigning examples of medieval gothic architecture. I think you have to be a tourist to appreciate this position. I love to quote Sir Kenneth Clark, author of “Civilisation,” and host of that series on PBS in the 1970s (now available on DVD). Sir Clark is talking about a sculpture, “the head of the Apollo of Belvedere. For four hundred years after it was discovered, the Apollo was the most admired piece of sculpture in the world. It was Napoleon’s greatest boast to have looted it from the Vatican. Now it is completely forgotten except by the guides of coach parties, who have become the only surviving transmitters of traditional culture.”
Those words remind me of me, and Karen, lunching at Le Soleil d’Or, between the spiritual transport of Ste-Chapelle, and our intention to visit Notre Dame within the hour. It is the tourists who visit history. Our momentary Parisian friend at the Bus 69 stop on the Rue de Rivoli said she had never been to Notre Dame. In 11 days, Karen and I probably saw more Paris history than the average Parisian has in the past 20 years. That gains us no respect, in the streets and cafes of Paris, any more than San Diegans are thrilled to hear Ohioans at the next table saying they can’t wait to see the zoo.
The biggest thing about Notre Dame: It was huge. Ste-Chapelle lifts the human spirit; Notre Dame was built to impress God. At least that’s the feeling I got. Interesting, that they were being built at the same time. Ste-Chapelle enlarges space viscerally, Notre Dame is an enlargement of space visually. Here they were, two totally opposed, yet complementary, buildings being built 300 yards apart at the same time. Why? Maybe in the medieval mind, if God could touch humans with light, maybe humans could touch God with stone.
They sure as heck gave it a try. I looked down the length of the nave, then up at the ceiling, way up there, held up by massive columns, and wondered why people living in the 1200s decided they needed a building that big, unless it was to signal someone. I have a suspicion about ancient humans needing to make themselves appear bigger than they were, trying to signal the vast natural powers all around them, that they really weren’t so pitifully small, and vulnerable, and deserved some consideration when nature was thinking about blowing them away.
Within the compound, it was simply a matter of walking around the end of the chapel building to enter the courtyard of the Hall of Justice, an imposing structure with a columned portico at the top of a long, wide course of stone steps, like a smaller Supreme Court. It was lunchtime, with a considerable coming-and-going of people in the courtyard, working Parisians looking for a bite to eat. There was a café in the building’s basement, down some steps to the side. I walked down and peered through the window. Lots of people, but it looked amazingly like a lunchroom in an American courthouse.
We cast our fate elsewhere and landed in a bright brasserie, Le Soleil d’Or, across the street and down the block toward Notre Dame. The waiters can see us coming, because we always got the menus in French and English. At some point in our stay, I knew I was going to have cassoulet, and escargot. They didn’t have cassoulet, and it wasn’t the right time for escargot. So I had a ham and cheese sandwich called a Croque Monsieur, open-faced, the cheese (“Emmental,” our waiter grinned) broiled and bubbly. Karen had beef on a baguette and we split an order of fries. The French really do know how to make fries, and the diners eat a ton of them.
Some wine, some espresso, a flood of sunlight in the brasserie windows, equidistant from two reigning examples of medieval gothic architecture. I think you have to be a tourist to appreciate this position. I love to quote Sir Kenneth Clark, author of “Civilisation,” and host of that series on PBS in the 1970s (now available on DVD). Sir Clark is talking about a sculpture, “the head of the Apollo of Belvedere. For four hundred years after it was discovered, the Apollo was the most admired piece of sculpture in the world. It was Napoleon’s greatest boast to have looted it from the Vatican. Now it is completely forgotten except by the guides of coach parties, who have become the only surviving transmitters of traditional culture.”
Those words remind me of me, and Karen, lunching at Le Soleil d’Or, between the spiritual transport of Ste-Chapelle, and our intention to visit Notre Dame within the hour. It is the tourists who visit history. Our momentary Parisian friend at the Bus 69 stop on the Rue de Rivoli said she had never been to Notre Dame. In 11 days, Karen and I probably saw more Paris history than the average Parisian has in the past 20 years. That gains us no respect, in the streets and cafes of Paris, any more than San Diegans are thrilled to hear Ohioans at the next table saying they can’t wait to see the zoo.
The biggest thing about Notre Dame: It was huge. Ste-Chapelle lifts the human spirit; Notre Dame was built to impress God. At least that’s the feeling I got. Interesting, that they were being built at the same time. Ste-Chapelle enlarges space viscerally, Notre Dame is an enlargement of space visually. Here they were, two totally opposed, yet complementary, buildings being built 300 yards apart at the same time. Why? Maybe in the medieval mind, if God could touch humans with light, maybe humans could touch God with stone.
They sure as heck gave it a try. I looked down the length of the nave, then up at the ceiling, way up there, held up by massive columns, and wondered why people living in the 1200s decided they needed a building that big, unless it was to signal someone. I have a suspicion about ancient humans needing to make themselves appear bigger than they were, trying to signal the vast natural powers all around them, that they really weren’t so pitifully small, and vulnerable, and deserved some consideration when nature was thinking about blowing them away.
January 08, 2007
A brilliant daily double
A Carte Orange is a pass that provides unlimited use of the Paris Metro, including both subway and buses, for a week, for 16 Euros. To get one, we had to provide passport-sized photos. In major Metro stations could be found a take-your-own-photo booth exactly like the ones most of us remember from childhood.
But following instructions was tricky, and in French, and it cost 2 Euros a pop. Both of us managed to select novelty photos; mine was my mug with “FBI” below it, as you might see on a “Wanted” poster. The second time, Karen successfully obtained the correct photo and coached me through it. Proudly, we took our photos to the Metro ticket booth and passed them through the window to an amused, and very attractive, agent. In a couple of minutes, she passed back to us matchbook-sized gray plastic folders, with our mugs and names on an orange background (hence “Carte Orange”) inside, and a re-useable ticket, fed into a turnstile slot, and then returned, that passed us into corridors to the train platforms.
Our next quest was a Paris Museum Pass, good for five days, honored by most of the major museums and many minor ones, at a fraction of individual ticket prices. The best information we had was that a Museum Pass could be obtained at most of the museums. It was Tuesday, and the Louvre was closed. So we set out for Ste-Chapelle, on the Ile de la Cite, an island that splits the Seine, and whose main feature is the Cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris.
The island, less than a mile long and a third of a mile across, was the site of the city’s original settlement, by a tribe called the Parisii, discovered by Roman Emperor Julian when he arrived in the area in 358 A.D. The subsequent Roman presence is still visible, but not much bragged about, in the Ile de la Cite and just across the river on the Left Bank, in the neighborhood now called the Latin Quarter. The presence of the Catholic Church, also arriving from Rome, is stunningly visible, in Notre Dame, two hundred years in the building, completed in the mid-14th century.
Ste-Chapelle, completed a century earlier, 300 yards to the west, is much smaller, only a chapel commissioned by French royalty, but there is not a more stunning visual experience in Paris. “Go on a sunny day,” the guidebooks advised. Tuesday was sunny, so we went. The chapel is narrow and open, with no need for the support of central columns. Slender columns rise from the sides and curve inward in the vaulted ceiling, meeting in pointed arches as light and as delicate as wicker. All the space between the columns is filled with stained glass, 16 windows in all, depicting, the guidebook says, “the entire history of creation and redemption – to the medieval mind – in 1,134 different scenes, rendered in infinite shades of sapphire, emerald, ruby and topaz.”
The invitation is to sit on benches along the wall and simply look at these windows, that have been letting this light into the sanctuary every sunny day for the last 850 years. Hard-core visitors are invited to bring binoculars and “read” the stories in the windows, but this is a scene that begs not to be objectified. Even taking a photo places limits on the experience, though Karen, with her wide-angle lens, did her best to get it all. Several times, while we were in Paris, I thought how lucky it was, that war somehow had not destroyed Paris’s history. Her occupiers, in World War II, decided to let the buildings stand, even in retreat. Nowhere did I feel better about that than in Ste-Chapelle.
The Ste-Chapelle ticket office also had the Paris Museum Passes. Talk about hitting a daily double.
But following instructions was tricky, and in French, and it cost 2 Euros a pop. Both of us managed to select novelty photos; mine was my mug with “FBI” below it, as you might see on a “Wanted” poster. The second time, Karen successfully obtained the correct photo and coached me through it. Proudly, we took our photos to the Metro ticket booth and passed them through the window to an amused, and very attractive, agent. In a couple of minutes, she passed back to us matchbook-sized gray plastic folders, with our mugs and names on an orange background (hence “Carte Orange”) inside, and a re-useable ticket, fed into a turnstile slot, and then returned, that passed us into corridors to the train platforms.
Our next quest was a Paris Museum Pass, good for five days, honored by most of the major museums and many minor ones, at a fraction of individual ticket prices. The best information we had was that a Museum Pass could be obtained at most of the museums. It was Tuesday, and the Louvre was closed. So we set out for Ste-Chapelle, on the Ile de la Cite, an island that splits the Seine, and whose main feature is the Cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris.
The island, less than a mile long and a third of a mile across, was the site of the city’s original settlement, by a tribe called the Parisii, discovered by Roman Emperor Julian when he arrived in the area in 358 A.D. The subsequent Roman presence is still visible, but not much bragged about, in the Ile de la Cite and just across the river on the Left Bank, in the neighborhood now called the Latin Quarter. The presence of the Catholic Church, also arriving from Rome, is stunningly visible, in Notre Dame, two hundred years in the building, completed in the mid-14th century.
Ste-Chapelle, completed a century earlier, 300 yards to the west, is much smaller, only a chapel commissioned by French royalty, but there is not a more stunning visual experience in Paris. “Go on a sunny day,” the guidebooks advised. Tuesday was sunny, so we went. The chapel is narrow and open, with no need for the support of central columns. Slender columns rise from the sides and curve inward in the vaulted ceiling, meeting in pointed arches as light and as delicate as wicker. All the space between the columns is filled with stained glass, 16 windows in all, depicting, the guidebook says, “the entire history of creation and redemption – to the medieval mind – in 1,134 different scenes, rendered in infinite shades of sapphire, emerald, ruby and topaz.”
The invitation is to sit on benches along the wall and simply look at these windows, that have been letting this light into the sanctuary every sunny day for the last 850 years. Hard-core visitors are invited to bring binoculars and “read” the stories in the windows, but this is a scene that begs not to be objectified. Even taking a photo places limits on the experience, though Karen, with her wide-angle lens, did her best to get it all. Several times, while we were in Paris, I thought how lucky it was, that war somehow had not destroyed Paris’s history. Her occupiers, in World War II, decided to let the buildings stand, even in retreat. Nowhere did I feel better about that than in Ste-Chapelle.
The Ste-Chapelle ticket office also had the Paris Museum Passes. Talk about hitting a daily double.
January 07, 2007
NFL Europe
Sports fans along and east of the Mississippi River know what it is to wake up every morning without the late scores from the western half of the country. Newspaper deadlines in Kansas City passed while the games in San Francisco and L.A. were still under way.
Add another seven hours to that, and you see the situation facing a San Diegan vacationing in Paris in December. It was Tuesday morning before the Chargers results showed up in the International Herald Tribune. I walked to the newsstand a couple of blocks away, stopped by the boulangerie for our morning croissants and baguette, and opened the paper with a cup of strong coffee at our little table. (I had brought with us a pound of decaf, in case it was not available in Paris. Of course it was. Its reputation for history fools you; commerce-wise, Paris is very much into the 21st century.)
Our first Tuesday there, I learned that LaDanian Tomlinson had run 85 yards for a touchdown in the Chargers’ 20-9 verdict over the Kansas City Chiefs. The following Tuesday, Philip Rivers had hit Vincent Jackson with a 37-yard TD pass with 29 seconds left to defeat the Seahawks in Seattle, 20-17.
Yesterday, ironically, both these teams were on view in the NFL playoffs. Kansas City coach Herman Edwards last week became surly when questioned about his team’s presence in the playoffs, brought about when three other teams had to lose to give the Chiefs a chance. But that’s about how the Chiefs played yesterday, like water in a clogged bathroom vanity. The other three teams went down the drain one by one a week earlier, and the Chiefs simply swirled for another week before disappearing.
Seattle? What a hard Sunday this is for Tony Romo. The Chargers would not meet the Seahawks again until the Super Bowl, and after watching them last night, I don’t think the Seahawks will be the NFC team in Miami.
Add another seven hours to that, and you see the situation facing a San Diegan vacationing in Paris in December. It was Tuesday morning before the Chargers results showed up in the International Herald Tribune. I walked to the newsstand a couple of blocks away, stopped by the boulangerie for our morning croissants and baguette, and opened the paper with a cup of strong coffee at our little table. (I had brought with us a pound of decaf, in case it was not available in Paris. Of course it was. Its reputation for history fools you; commerce-wise, Paris is very much into the 21st century.)
Our first Tuesday there, I learned that LaDanian Tomlinson had run 85 yards for a touchdown in the Chargers’ 20-9 verdict over the Kansas City Chiefs. The following Tuesday, Philip Rivers had hit Vincent Jackson with a 37-yard TD pass with 29 seconds left to defeat the Seahawks in Seattle, 20-17.
Yesterday, ironically, both these teams were on view in the NFL playoffs. Kansas City coach Herman Edwards last week became surly when questioned about his team’s presence in the playoffs, brought about when three other teams had to lose to give the Chiefs a chance. But that’s about how the Chiefs played yesterday, like water in a clogged bathroom vanity. The other three teams went down the drain one by one a week earlier, and the Chiefs simply swirled for another week before disappearing.
Seattle? What a hard Sunday this is for Tony Romo. The Chargers would not meet the Seahawks again until the Super Bowl, and after watching them last night, I don’t think the Seahawks will be the NFC team in Miami.
January 06, 2007
The Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe, Napoleon’s monument to his battle victories, lies due north and across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower. In fact, a line drawn through the south and north piers of the tower points straight as a compass needle to the Arc, which was completed in 1802. Did Eiffel, in 1889, purposely locate his tower in its precise relation to the Arc? The guidebooks don’t say. But I wonder.
Our route to the Arc was more indirect. Sipping espresso and nibbling chocolate, we looked at the map and determined it would be a nice walk from the café Champs de Mars to the Arc de Triomphe. Of course it would. Paris is the city of nice walks. We had just enjoyed our first lunch in Paris, and I wondered just how much weight a man could gain, in 12 days in Paris. When we got home, I had lost two pounds. Paris is the city of nice walks, and we took many of them.
This one took us north on Avenue Rapp for half a mile, to the Seine at a point where the river begins a bend to the south. The bridge, Pont de l’Alma, was busier than most with vehicle traffic, and on the north end of the bridge we arrived at a bustling convergence of wide streets. This was the Place de l’Alma, the tip of an inverted triangle formed by Ave. George V, Ave. Montaigne, and the base, the Champs-Elysees. Within this triangle are many of the fashion establishments for which Paris is famous.
We did not go that way. We angled left, onto Ave. Margeau, which approached the Arc in a gentle dogleg left that kept the Arc from our view until we were only a block or so away. It is this rounding-the-corner experience that makes cities like Paris, with monumental structures scattered like jacks on the sidewalk, so interesting. Here’s a handsome street of five-story buildings, and then the view ahead opening up, and around the corner a glimpse of something that dwarfs the buildings, and it is the by God Arc de Triomphe.
The Arc reminded me of the Alamo. You can’t get to the Alamo by car; last time I was there, all the streets were one-way away from the mission. Too bad William Barrett Travis didn’t think of that in 1836. The Arc is surrounded by a traffic moat called the l’Etoile, basically a traffic circle at which 12 major avenues converge. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes enter l’Etoile and emerge again without collision or screeching noises. Italians would scoff, but it was damned impressive to us. The only way to get to the Arc itself is via an underground passage off the Champs-Elysees. We didn’t take it. We circled the circle, Karen taking photos. The light wasn’t very good; gray and flat.
Dusk, and the illumination of the Arc, was only half an hour away, but we were tired, still jet-lagged. We couldn’t find the Metro stop, and we had to go to the bathroom. Paris is dotted with public toilets, or toilettes, clearly marked, free, many of them below-ground. We descended stairs to one of the below-ground ones. It was tiled, clean, orderly, overseen by a woman attendant sitting in the doorway of a small office. She was in idle conversation with an older gentleman, slightly stooped, in a blue wool sweater, hearing aids in both ears. When we were ready to resume our Metro search, Karen approached them, smiled, engaged. Neither of them spoke a word of Anglais, but you know the rest. The gentleman escorted us back up to the street and across the Champs-Elysees toward another underground access with the familiar “Metro” sign.
He gestured cordially and said, “Linea un.” We waved good-bye, went down, caught a jam-packed Line 1 back to a stop two blocks from our flat. Heckuva transportation system in Paris.
Our route to the Arc was more indirect. Sipping espresso and nibbling chocolate, we looked at the map and determined it would be a nice walk from the café Champs de Mars to the Arc de Triomphe. Of course it would. Paris is the city of nice walks. We had just enjoyed our first lunch in Paris, and I wondered just how much weight a man could gain, in 12 days in Paris. When we got home, I had lost two pounds. Paris is the city of nice walks, and we took many of them.
This one took us north on Avenue Rapp for half a mile, to the Seine at a point where the river begins a bend to the south. The bridge, Pont de l’Alma, was busier than most with vehicle traffic, and on the north end of the bridge we arrived at a bustling convergence of wide streets. This was the Place de l’Alma, the tip of an inverted triangle formed by Ave. George V, Ave. Montaigne, and the base, the Champs-Elysees. Within this triangle are many of the fashion establishments for which Paris is famous.
We did not go that way. We angled left, onto Ave. Margeau, which approached the Arc in a gentle dogleg left that kept the Arc from our view until we were only a block or so away. It is this rounding-the-corner experience that makes cities like Paris, with monumental structures scattered like jacks on the sidewalk, so interesting. Here’s a handsome street of five-story buildings, and then the view ahead opening up, and around the corner a glimpse of something that dwarfs the buildings, and it is the by God Arc de Triomphe.
The Arc reminded me of the Alamo. You can’t get to the Alamo by car; last time I was there, all the streets were one-way away from the mission. Too bad William Barrett Travis didn’t think of that in 1836. The Arc is surrounded by a traffic moat called the l’Etoile, basically a traffic circle at which 12 major avenues converge. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes enter l’Etoile and emerge again without collision or screeching noises. Italians would scoff, but it was damned impressive to us. The only way to get to the Arc itself is via an underground passage off the Champs-Elysees. We didn’t take it. We circled the circle, Karen taking photos. The light wasn’t very good; gray and flat.
Dusk, and the illumination of the Arc, was only half an hour away, but we were tired, still jet-lagged. We couldn’t find the Metro stop, and we had to go to the bathroom. Paris is dotted with public toilets, or toilettes, clearly marked, free, many of them below-ground. We descended stairs to one of the below-ground ones. It was tiled, clean, orderly, overseen by a woman attendant sitting in the doorway of a small office. She was in idle conversation with an older gentleman, slightly stooped, in a blue wool sweater, hearing aids in both ears. When we were ready to resume our Metro search, Karen approached them, smiled, engaged. Neither of them spoke a word of Anglais, but you know the rest. The gentleman escorted us back up to the street and across the Champs-Elysees toward another underground access with the familiar “Metro” sign.
He gestured cordially and said, “Linea un.” We waved good-bye, went down, caught a jam-packed Line 1 back to a stop two blocks from our flat. Heckuva transportation system in Paris.
January 05, 2007
Monster in the trees
From the wide riverside avenue Quay d’Orsay, Bus 69 turned left and plunged into alley-streets. On bus routes in the city, cars, vans, and delivery vehicles parked along and on top of the left curb in the alley-streets, leaving a path on the right just wide enough for a bus to squeeze through. The Rick Steves guidebook had counseled us to sit on the right, ostensibly to have the best view of the sites, but also to let us window-shop through storefronts that, from the bus in these alley-streets, we could almost touch.
We had a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, as the bus traversed a broad esplanade adjacent to Les Invalides, but we didn’t see it again until we were almost at it, and exiting the bus in the Parc du Champs de Mars, a three-block park, not very scenic, that extends from the tower to the Ecole Militaire. The park had been the scene of some event involving booth-sized white tents with pointed tops, that now, on a Monday, were being taken down.
The tower was a couple of city-block lengths away, and we were looking at it through winter-bare trees, that provided scale. The base of the tower – its four piers and the first terrace – was mammoth. “It looks like Godzilla,” Karen said, sizing up photos. One of my pre-trip gifts to her was a second 1-gigabyte photo card. I knew that, for her, one card would not be enough. In our first hours in Paris, she had been taking pictures of anything – lamp posts, store fronts, building plaques – but now her eye for grand compositions snapped into place, and she wanted a photo not of the whole tower, but of how big the thing was, through the bare trees.
We walked toward it through the park. At a narrow street at the tower’s base, we encountered temporary chain-link fencing, and mounded refuse, from the weekend event, that we had to step around. It underlined the plainness of the tower’s setting. It just sat there, across from us, on an unremarkable square of bare, un-landscaped earth and pavement. We came upon three young workers, having a smoke, part of the crew taking down the tents. Karen saw a photo and, of course, engaged. She smiled, gestured with the camera, spoke in English, and motioned them into position, took the picture. In it, of course, they are smiling.
The tower’s four monster feet, or piers, were labeled: North, West, South, East; and in fact the North Pier was oriented precisely to due north. Something American about the tower stuck in my mind, and the guidebook told me: the tower’s creator, Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, also designed and built the steel skeleton for the Statue of Liberty. Lines of people were queued at entries to the East and South piers, but we didn’t go in. There were a couple of curio shops we didn’t visit. It was lunchtime, and we had seen an inviting café near the bus stop.
This café was the Champs de Mars, all windows and red trim on a corner opposite the park and the Ecole Militaire, an upscale district, judging by the pedestrians and café patrons. Dogs are sacred creatures in Paris, and the café proprietor’s red setter ambled among the small tables, nosing for treats, obviously known to several regulars. It was our first Paris lunch, and the service seemed slow; in time, we would discover it is merely unhurried. Our waitress, a young, slender, somewhat indifferent, woman, arrived. Karen smiled and inquired, “Parlez-vous Anglais?” I don’t mean to harp on Karen’s smile, and manner of engaging, but they are the best French-English dictionary an American in Paris could ever hope for. The waitress engaged her, and us, instantly.
We had glasses of vin rouge, and Karen had a chef’s salad, I had a sausage, a boudin-blanc, with French fries and fried apples, and of course a basket of sliced baguette. For dessert, espresso, which was served with squares of foil-wrapped dark bitter chocolate. The setter strolled past, didn’t stop to visit the strangers, but if we lived in Paris, anywhere near the Champs de Mars, that dog would know us very well.
We had a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, as the bus traversed a broad esplanade adjacent to Les Invalides, but we didn’t see it again until we were almost at it, and exiting the bus in the Parc du Champs de Mars, a three-block park, not very scenic, that extends from the tower to the Ecole Militaire. The park had been the scene of some event involving booth-sized white tents with pointed tops, that now, on a Monday, were being taken down.
The tower was a couple of city-block lengths away, and we were looking at it through winter-bare trees, that provided scale. The base of the tower – its four piers and the first terrace – was mammoth. “It looks like Godzilla,” Karen said, sizing up photos. One of my pre-trip gifts to her was a second 1-gigabyte photo card. I knew that, for her, one card would not be enough. In our first hours in Paris, she had been taking pictures of anything – lamp posts, store fronts, building plaques – but now her eye for grand compositions snapped into place, and she wanted a photo not of the whole tower, but of how big the thing was, through the bare trees.
We walked toward it through the park. At a narrow street at the tower’s base, we encountered temporary chain-link fencing, and mounded refuse, from the weekend event, that we had to step around. It underlined the plainness of the tower’s setting. It just sat there, across from us, on an unremarkable square of bare, un-landscaped earth and pavement. We came upon three young workers, having a smoke, part of the crew taking down the tents. Karen saw a photo and, of course, engaged. She smiled, gestured with the camera, spoke in English, and motioned them into position, took the picture. In it, of course, they are smiling.
The tower’s four monster feet, or piers, were labeled: North, West, South, East; and in fact the North Pier was oriented precisely to due north. Something American about the tower stuck in my mind, and the guidebook told me: the tower’s creator, Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, also designed and built the steel skeleton for the Statue of Liberty. Lines of people were queued at entries to the East and South piers, but we didn’t go in. There were a couple of curio shops we didn’t visit. It was lunchtime, and we had seen an inviting café near the bus stop.
This café was the Champs de Mars, all windows and red trim on a corner opposite the park and the Ecole Militaire, an upscale district, judging by the pedestrians and café patrons. Dogs are sacred creatures in Paris, and the café proprietor’s red setter ambled among the small tables, nosing for treats, obviously known to several regulars. It was our first Paris lunch, and the service seemed slow; in time, we would discover it is merely unhurried. Our waitress, a young, slender, somewhat indifferent, woman, arrived. Karen smiled and inquired, “Parlez-vous Anglais?” I don’t mean to harp on Karen’s smile, and manner of engaging, but they are the best French-English dictionary an American in Paris could ever hope for. The waitress engaged her, and us, instantly.
We had glasses of vin rouge, and Karen had a chef’s salad, I had a sausage, a boudin-blanc, with French fries and fried apples, and of course a basket of sliced baguette. For dessert, espresso, which was served with squares of foil-wrapped dark bitter chocolate. The setter strolled past, didn’t stop to visit the strangers, but if we lived in Paris, anywhere near the Champs de Mars, that dog would know us very well.
January 04, 2007
The Bus 69 tour
We had been planning this trip for a year, and the plans always started with the Louvre, to which Karen felt mysteriously drawn. “I want to spend three days at the Louvre,” she would say. But when we got up Monday morning, we decided to do the Bus 69 tour instead.
It wasn’t a tour, exactly. The 69 bus follows a regular route through Paris, but the route takes it from the Bastille in the east, down the Rue de Rivoli past the Louvre, then across the river and past the Musee d’Orsay, through the Rue Cler shopping and market district, past the Invalides to the Eiffel Tower. In other words, an ordinary Paris city bus, for a one-Euro ticket, could give you the same sights you’d pay a tour company 25 Euros for.
We learned this from our main guidebook, published by an American, Rick Steves, from which we also learned about museum passes and the Carte Orange. Five-day museum passes were good at most Paris museums, including the Louvre, for a fraction of individual ticket prices. The pass also let you bypass long single-ticket entry lines. The Carte Orange was a six-day Metro pass that paid for itself in 15 rides. But there was a catch: to buy a Carte Orange, you needed to present a passport-sized photo, which we didn’t have. So that first morning out, we descended the stairs into the Metro station two blocks from our flat and bought a “carnet” of 10 tickets at a 10-percent discount from the single-ticket price of Euro 1.40. (A Euro during our trip was about $1.33 American.)
We had a late start. Both of us were awake at 1 a.m., because in our heads, it was still 4 p.m. the previous day in San Diego. Then we woke up late, because at 8 a.m. the flat was still pitch-black. I went down to a boulangerie on the corner and from the vivacious blonde proprietress bought a baguette, two croissants, and an apricot-stuffed croissant. We had learned to count to 10 in French, and I knew what “bonjour” meant, and “s’il vous plait” and “oui,” and “merci,” so I was empowered to buy baguettes and croissants without too much fuss, except the smallest change I had was a 10-Euro bill, and I kept saying “Si” instead of “Oui.”
It was almost 11 before we were out the door. Karen carried her camera, a digital Nikon D50, and I had the camera bag slung across my shoulder. Our first Metro ride took us to the Chatelet stop, a square between Rue de Rivoli and the Seine. Up at the street, we looked for the Bus 69 stop and had to walk a couple of busy blocks to find it. As we waited on the bus stop bench, a young woman walked up and looked at the route map, above Karen, who looked up, smiled, and asked, “Parlez-vous Anglais?” The woman looked at Karen and smiled back. It is almost impossible to look at Karen smiling, and not smile back. In our stay, only one French person, a waiter, was able to pull it off.
“A little,” the woman said. There followed a five-minute chat between the two in which we obtained priceless information about Paris, all because Karen, in this huge, strange, intoxicating city, was willing to look up, smile, and engage. Our bus arrived and we got on, waving good-bye. I am sure that the woman, as she approaches that bus stop on the Rue de Rivoli, will sometimes remember Karen and smile. Our bus moved forward in the heavy traffic, then took a sweeping left-hand turn, squeezed through one of a series of arched portals, and entered a large plaza flanked by a huge building on the left. We cleared the corner of the building and into view came the distinctive glass pyramid entryway into the Louvre. I hate to say that the first image that came into my head was not the Mona Lisa, but Tom Hanks, but it was true. Karen swung her camera around and took picture after picture.
In the back of our bus was a group of 20 kids, school children, ages 10-12, talking and laughing loudly, taking no notice of the Louvre, which for them was another home-town attraction. We continued across the Louvre plaza, crossed the Seine and turned right, and at the Musee d’Orsay stop, the kids, and a couple of teachers, got off. So today the kids, being circled into formation on the sidewalk just like kids back home, were going to learn about Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, and Degas, from the originals. It was a very interesting thing to see.
It wasn’t a tour, exactly. The 69 bus follows a regular route through Paris, but the route takes it from the Bastille in the east, down the Rue de Rivoli past the Louvre, then across the river and past the Musee d’Orsay, through the Rue Cler shopping and market district, past the Invalides to the Eiffel Tower. In other words, an ordinary Paris city bus, for a one-Euro ticket, could give you the same sights you’d pay a tour company 25 Euros for.
We learned this from our main guidebook, published by an American, Rick Steves, from which we also learned about museum passes and the Carte Orange. Five-day museum passes were good at most Paris museums, including the Louvre, for a fraction of individual ticket prices. The pass also let you bypass long single-ticket entry lines. The Carte Orange was a six-day Metro pass that paid for itself in 15 rides. But there was a catch: to buy a Carte Orange, you needed to present a passport-sized photo, which we didn’t have. So that first morning out, we descended the stairs into the Metro station two blocks from our flat and bought a “carnet” of 10 tickets at a 10-percent discount from the single-ticket price of Euro 1.40. (A Euro during our trip was about $1.33 American.)
We had a late start. Both of us were awake at 1 a.m., because in our heads, it was still 4 p.m. the previous day in San Diego. Then we woke up late, because at 8 a.m. the flat was still pitch-black. I went down to a boulangerie on the corner and from the vivacious blonde proprietress bought a baguette, two croissants, and an apricot-stuffed croissant. We had learned to count to 10 in French, and I knew what “bonjour” meant, and “s’il vous plait” and “oui,” and “merci,” so I was empowered to buy baguettes and croissants without too much fuss, except the smallest change I had was a 10-Euro bill, and I kept saying “Si” instead of “Oui.”
It was almost 11 before we were out the door. Karen carried her camera, a digital Nikon D50, and I had the camera bag slung across my shoulder. Our first Metro ride took us to the Chatelet stop, a square between Rue de Rivoli and the Seine. Up at the street, we looked for the Bus 69 stop and had to walk a couple of busy blocks to find it. As we waited on the bus stop bench, a young woman walked up and looked at the route map, above Karen, who looked up, smiled, and asked, “Parlez-vous Anglais?” The woman looked at Karen and smiled back. It is almost impossible to look at Karen smiling, and not smile back. In our stay, only one French person, a waiter, was able to pull it off.
“A little,” the woman said. There followed a five-minute chat between the two in which we obtained priceless information about Paris, all because Karen, in this huge, strange, intoxicating city, was willing to look up, smile, and engage. Our bus arrived and we got on, waving good-bye. I am sure that the woman, as she approaches that bus stop on the Rue de Rivoli, will sometimes remember Karen and smile. Our bus moved forward in the heavy traffic, then took a sweeping left-hand turn, squeezed through one of a series of arched portals, and entered a large plaza flanked by a huge building on the left. We cleared the corner of the building and into view came the distinctive glass pyramid entryway into the Louvre. I hate to say that the first image that came into my head was not the Mona Lisa, but Tom Hanks, but it was true. Karen swung her camera around and took picture after picture.
In the back of our bus was a group of 20 kids, school children, ages 10-12, talking and laughing loudly, taking no notice of the Louvre, which for them was another home-town attraction. We continued across the Louvre plaza, crossed the Seine and turned right, and at the Musee d’Orsay stop, the kids, and a couple of teachers, got off. So today the kids, being circled into formation on the sidewalk just like kids back home, were going to learn about Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, and Degas, from the originals. It was a very interesting thing to see.
January 03, 2007
First walk
We had considered the strategy of staying awake, exploring our neighborhood, walking to the Seine, and waiting until the evening to retire, as a means to manage jet lag. But jet lag is like the flu. You don’t manage it; it manages you. So, with fatigue roaring in our heads, we napped until almost 3. Groggily, we hit a nearby market called the Monoprix for dinner fixings and wine, took those back to the flat, and then walked to the Seine.
The weather was about 40, cloudy, no wind. The only change in that weather, during our 12 days, was that some days were sunny. Our street, Rue des Fontaines du Temple, was the base of a triangle between two major streets, Rue Turbigo and Rue Temple, that converged at Place de la Republique, just to our north. Passports? Check. Maps? Check. Key? Check. We descended the spiral, walked toward Temple, and turned right toward the Seine.
Paris streets are typical of streets that follow the same routes and angles of their ancient cartpath predecessors. They bend, expand, contract. For two blocks, as we walked on broad sidewalks, Temple was as wide as a boulevard. Then, in the space of crossing a street, Temple contracted to alley size, and sidewalks not quite wide enough for two. It channeled our vision, narrowing it to a point beyond which lay our destination. We knew only from the map that we were walking toward the Hotel de Ville, and the Seine and Notre Dame beyond. The distance wasn’t far – a little over a kilometer – but the going was slow. Paris streets, broad or cramped, are always filled with people – their numbers seem to expand to fit the available space – and walking anywhere is a succession of jukes through a broken field.
Suddenly, in the last block, Temple expanded again slightly, and there we were, at a front corner of the palatial Hotel de Ville, that faced a wide plaza. The plaza was bright with lights, illuminating a low structure that turned out to be an ice rink teeming with skaters, mostly young, and a long line of others waiting their turn. The de Ville front was an amazing edifice, an appropriate introduction to Paris buildings, whose fronts are all edifices, and may house history, high culture, or a department of motor vehicles. The ornate Hotel de Ville is not a hotel at all, but the Paris city hall.
Beyond the plaza, at a busy avenue, we were introduced to pedestrian crosswalks, Parisian style, then walked onto one of the many stone bridges across the Seine. This one was the Pont d’Arcole. To our left front, we saw the towers of Notre Dame. In the middle of the bridge we stopped and looked downstream along the river, flanked by the great city. We could not see the distant Eiffel Tower, blocked by foreground buildings on the Left Bank, or distinguish the Louvre. It was starting to get dark, and we had the walk back. Crossing the plaza again, we saw a red “Metro” sign, above an entry to the famed Paris subway system. We would tackle that tomorrow.
At the flat Karen solved a problem with the CD player; put on some music, and made spaghetti and salad. The flat was warm now, and cozy with lamplight and candles placed on the table next to the passthrough. We had our first bites of baguette and our first sips of Bordeaux from a bottle that was under 4 Euros. We were in bed by 9, and asleep by 9 plus one second. Jet lag still had us, and wouldn’t let go for another day or so.
The weather was about 40, cloudy, no wind. The only change in that weather, during our 12 days, was that some days were sunny. Our street, Rue des Fontaines du Temple, was the base of a triangle between two major streets, Rue Turbigo and Rue Temple, that converged at Place de la Republique, just to our north. Passports? Check. Maps? Check. Key? Check. We descended the spiral, walked toward Temple, and turned right toward the Seine.
Paris streets are typical of streets that follow the same routes and angles of their ancient cartpath predecessors. They bend, expand, contract. For two blocks, as we walked on broad sidewalks, Temple was as wide as a boulevard. Then, in the space of crossing a street, Temple contracted to alley size, and sidewalks not quite wide enough for two. It channeled our vision, narrowing it to a point beyond which lay our destination. We knew only from the map that we were walking toward the Hotel de Ville, and the Seine and Notre Dame beyond. The distance wasn’t far – a little over a kilometer – but the going was slow. Paris streets, broad or cramped, are always filled with people – their numbers seem to expand to fit the available space – and walking anywhere is a succession of jukes through a broken field.
Suddenly, in the last block, Temple expanded again slightly, and there we were, at a front corner of the palatial Hotel de Ville, that faced a wide plaza. The plaza was bright with lights, illuminating a low structure that turned out to be an ice rink teeming with skaters, mostly young, and a long line of others waiting their turn. The de Ville front was an amazing edifice, an appropriate introduction to Paris buildings, whose fronts are all edifices, and may house history, high culture, or a department of motor vehicles. The ornate Hotel de Ville is not a hotel at all, but the Paris city hall.
Beyond the plaza, at a busy avenue, we were introduced to pedestrian crosswalks, Parisian style, then walked onto one of the many stone bridges across the Seine. This one was the Pont d’Arcole. To our left front, we saw the towers of Notre Dame. In the middle of the bridge we stopped and looked downstream along the river, flanked by the great city. We could not see the distant Eiffel Tower, blocked by foreground buildings on the Left Bank, or distinguish the Louvre. It was starting to get dark, and we had the walk back. Crossing the plaza again, we saw a red “Metro” sign, above an entry to the famed Paris subway system. We would tackle that tomorrow.
At the flat Karen solved a problem with the CD player; put on some music, and made spaghetti and salad. The flat was warm now, and cozy with lamplight and candles placed on the table next to the passthrough. We had our first bites of baguette and our first sips of Bordeaux from a bottle that was under 4 Euros. We were in bed by 9, and asleep by 9 plus one second. Jet lag still had us, and wouldn’t let go for another day or so.
January 02, 2007
Destination Paris
The first thing you notice about Paris in December is that it does not start to get light until about 8:30. Coming in from Chicago, we had already cleared the English mainland when I checked my watch: 8:30, Paris time, and still, in a black sky, had appeared only the first blue band shell of day.
At 9:30 we touched down at Charles de Gaulle in a gloomy, cold dawn and taxied forever to our parking place. Foreign airports regularly park American carriers away from the terminal. We descended tented stairs and walked through the dawn, which really was gloomy and cold, to buses that ferried us to the foot of the terminal, through double doors, up echoing stairs, into a queue at passport booths. Our clerk was young, beautiful, dark hair and eyes. Welcome to Paris. Sunday morning, Dec. 17.
We were on our own. We followed signs into an area, very plain, very institutional, of baggage carousels. Our bags were among the last to appear. It gave me plenty of time to wonder what to do next. We needed to find an ATM, to get some Euros. We needed to find a taxi. Our instructions said the bus would be far cheaper, then from the city terminal a taxi to our rented flat near the Marais district. But we had traveled all day and all night and I wasn’t in a mood for riding buses and humping luggage. Besides, it was our honeymoon.
We stacked the bags on a free cart and headed off in the only direction available, away from the sterile baggage area. Ahead lay more sterility, whose walls channeled us left, toward sets of blank, unpromising doors. The doors popped open, and on the other side, waiting like Wonderland, was a bustling terminal, bright with signage and potential. In no time we spotted an ATM and I was grateful when it accepted my card, gave me directions in English, dispensed 140 Euros into my hand and gave me my card back. Karen had the same success with her card, and we were in business.
The terminal was very crowded. We pulsed forward, found a sign pointing toward “Taxis” and followed it through glass doors outside, into the gloom, that had lifted somewhat, and the cold, that hadn’t. We walked up to a young uniformed woman who was dispatching taxis. “Deux?” She asked. “Qui,” we said. She motioned into the distance, and forward rolled a taxi, a compact Peugeot station wagon. The driver was young, black, with a musical accent in which he spoke a little English. I handed him the address of our flat, which I had written on a note card for this purpose before we left home. He looked at it, checked his Paris version of Thomas Brothers, shifted into first, and eased out into traffic. I settled back, thinking for the first time that things seemed to be going well.
It was Sunday morning, a 14-mile ride into the city, and enough traffic on the freeway to make it interesting. Paris drivers are nothing like Italy, but this man wasn’t bad. He could have made the Italian junior varsity. I had hoped for some countryside, but it was all suburban commercial as we sped forward in this lane or that. In less than half an hour, we were negotiating surface streets in the city of Paris, France. Our driver checked his maps again. “I know where it is,” he assured us. “I only need to see if it is one-way.”
It was. He missed a crucial turn too complicated to explain here, which obligated him to back up, the length of a long city block, in a street no wider than an American alley, lined with cars parked half on the sidewalk, half on the street. He stopped in front of a huge, brown door, like a barn door, set into an old building like all the other buildings looming four or five stories above the tiny street. We paid him, tipped him (rounding up, as the travel guides said), followed our instructions for getting through the door. Inside, we found a second door, as promised, and inside that, a very tightly spiraled stairway, very narrow and worn wood steps, ending at a small landing before continuing up. At the landing was a gray door. From my pocket I took a key that our landlord had given us back home, inserted it, and after some fumbling the door opened, lifting a considerable weight off our backs.
Inside was a kitchen, a living area, a bedroom alcoved off the living area, and off the entry area, a compact water closet. Across the living area from the kitchen, windows looked out onto the street. Crooked ceiling beams, a shiny wood floor, couch and stuffed armchair, a small table and chairs beneath the kitchen passthrough. A small flat, the right price, potential for coziness. At the moment, though, it was gray, cold, and uninhabited. We hoisted the luggage up the tight spiral of steps, got the heat and lights turned on, unpacked, poured drinks from our bottle of duty-free Johnny Walker, and wondered whether to go out right away – the Seine supposedly was a 15-minute walk away – or take a nap. The nap won. Paris had been there for centuries.
At 9:30 we touched down at Charles de Gaulle in a gloomy, cold dawn and taxied forever to our parking place. Foreign airports regularly park American carriers away from the terminal. We descended tented stairs and walked through the dawn, which really was gloomy and cold, to buses that ferried us to the foot of the terminal, through double doors, up echoing stairs, into a queue at passport booths. Our clerk was young, beautiful, dark hair and eyes. Welcome to Paris. Sunday morning, Dec. 17.
We were on our own. We followed signs into an area, very plain, very institutional, of baggage carousels. Our bags were among the last to appear. It gave me plenty of time to wonder what to do next. We needed to find an ATM, to get some Euros. We needed to find a taxi. Our instructions said the bus would be far cheaper, then from the city terminal a taxi to our rented flat near the Marais district. But we had traveled all day and all night and I wasn’t in a mood for riding buses and humping luggage. Besides, it was our honeymoon.
We stacked the bags on a free cart and headed off in the only direction available, away from the sterile baggage area. Ahead lay more sterility, whose walls channeled us left, toward sets of blank, unpromising doors. The doors popped open, and on the other side, waiting like Wonderland, was a bustling terminal, bright with signage and potential. In no time we spotted an ATM and I was grateful when it accepted my card, gave me directions in English, dispensed 140 Euros into my hand and gave me my card back. Karen had the same success with her card, and we were in business.
The terminal was very crowded. We pulsed forward, found a sign pointing toward “Taxis” and followed it through glass doors outside, into the gloom, that had lifted somewhat, and the cold, that hadn’t. We walked up to a young uniformed woman who was dispatching taxis. “Deux?” She asked. “Qui,” we said. She motioned into the distance, and forward rolled a taxi, a compact Peugeot station wagon. The driver was young, black, with a musical accent in which he spoke a little English. I handed him the address of our flat, which I had written on a note card for this purpose before we left home. He looked at it, checked his Paris version of Thomas Brothers, shifted into first, and eased out into traffic. I settled back, thinking for the first time that things seemed to be going well.
It was Sunday morning, a 14-mile ride into the city, and enough traffic on the freeway to make it interesting. Paris drivers are nothing like Italy, but this man wasn’t bad. He could have made the Italian junior varsity. I had hoped for some countryside, but it was all suburban commercial as we sped forward in this lane or that. In less than half an hour, we were negotiating surface streets in the city of Paris, France. Our driver checked his maps again. “I know where it is,” he assured us. “I only need to see if it is one-way.”
It was. He missed a crucial turn too complicated to explain here, which obligated him to back up, the length of a long city block, in a street no wider than an American alley, lined with cars parked half on the sidewalk, half on the street. He stopped in front of a huge, brown door, like a barn door, set into an old building like all the other buildings looming four or five stories above the tiny street. We paid him, tipped him (rounding up, as the travel guides said), followed our instructions for getting through the door. Inside, we found a second door, as promised, and inside that, a very tightly spiraled stairway, very narrow and worn wood steps, ending at a small landing before continuing up. At the landing was a gray door. From my pocket I took a key that our landlord had given us back home, inserted it, and after some fumbling the door opened, lifting a considerable weight off our backs.
Inside was a kitchen, a living area, a bedroom alcoved off the living area, and off the entry area, a compact water closet. Across the living area from the kitchen, windows looked out onto the street. Crooked ceiling beams, a shiny wood floor, couch and stuffed armchair, a small table and chairs beneath the kitchen passthrough. A small flat, the right price, potential for coziness. At the moment, though, it was gray, cold, and uninhabited. We hoisted the luggage up the tight spiral of steps, got the heat and lights turned on, unpacked, poured drinks from our bottle of duty-free Johnny Walker, and wondered whether to go out right away – the Seine supposedly was a 15-minute walk away – or take a nap. The nap won. Paris had been there for centuries.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)