Sunday, August 6 was our one-week anniversary in Paris and coincidentally our 23rd anniversary of marriage. Standing out on the Berry’s terrace that warm August afternoon 23 years ago, in between the spitting rain showers, as the jazz trio set up in the house after the ceremony and while everyone got ready for the reception, who would have thought that 23 years later we would be living in a small apartment Paris, setting out on new and unknown adventures?
Certainly not us. But here we are. And, as someone has often remarked, “we’re just happy to be here.”
Sunday was a lazy day for us, probably the last for some time. Susan begins pastry school at Le Cordon Bleu in earnest Monday morning and I head off to Pere Lachaise cemetery for the first of many days I hope, of photographing, blogging, videotaping, the some of the city’s finest outdoor sculpture – not to mention the final resting places of some of the worlds most famous people. This should be very interesting indeed.
So we spent the morning in and just enjoying life. Shortly after midday we packed up a lunch – baguettes and cheese and a couple of oranges and strolled over to the Jardin du Luxembourg, west of us and just across the 6th arr. line. (For a selection of photos click here!)
When we were first in Paris this past May to check out the school we wandered by accident into this huge, beautiful garden, and were immediately struck by how comfortable it seemed. This, like so much of the other green space in Paris is not only free but is in fact specifically designed today for the public: the huge number of chairs scattered throughout the park where people just plop down with a book, a newspaper or lunch, or with nothing at all and just doze away sitting in the afternoon sun, certainly attest to that fact.
Moreover, the islands of flowers, usually at the base of a bit of sculpture, draw the eye to a flood of color and are themselves canvases on which someone has struggled to lay out a purpose of design or imagined some idea made manifest in a floral arrangement. (Unlike the Boboli Gardens in Florence, which are not free, not user friendly and, well, have virtually now flowers.)
Aside from the sheer imagination at work in the extent and design of the flowers throughout the city gardens, another thing that makes Paris truly unique is an attitude of tolerance, such as the sign that walking on the grass is permitted. Although there was a gendarme strolling near the large fountain warning folks away from moving their chairs to the edge of the fountain – thus blocking the way for the kids to run their rented toy sailboats I suppose – there are really very few signs that say “don’t do this” or “this is prohibited”. And yet not a handful of meters away, looming over the gardens is the Palace du Luxembourg, the home of the French Senate. One would hardly realize there was any security at all there were it not for the two gendarmes standing the gorgeous flowerbeds at the edge of the palace.
Now that’s civilized.
After sitting for a while and then strolling through the park – we came across a small orchard where each piece of fruit is protected with paper or in some cases plastic wrap. From there we continued our walk, just sort of drifting with sweep of the pathways. Eventually we came to one of the entrances/exists, where there was plenty of chess activity going on. (Also a WC by the way; 20 cents to go in please note.) From the gardens we headed north through the Place d’Odeon to the Place St. Sulpice, dominated by a church whose bulk seems oddly out of place smack in the middle of a very trendy neighborhood of upscale shops. A curiously but typically french contrast I suppose.
From there we strolled just a few short blocks up Rue Napoleon to the church (“eglise”) of St. Germain-des-Pres. Formerly an enormous Benedictine abbey this once sprawling estate covered much of the surrounding left bank, but today is reduced to a fraction of it’s original size. It is also one of the oldest bits of spaces extant in the city and worth a stop, just to catch your breath and try and appreciate what life must have been like right where you’re standing 500 years ago, and while you’re at it also try and appreciate how much has changed since then, altering our perspectives dramatically of what is and is not important.
We walked back out of the church into the hot sun – welcome perhaps but we’re trusting the gods would be carried away with this heat thing. This city doesn’t need a replay of the killer heat wave of 2003. So we just walked along and found a café, sat and had an aperitif (Kir royal for our anniversary), talking about Monday morning. Needless to say Susan is one excited young woman.
After we left the café we found our way to the nearest metro stop and headed back to the apartment.
I fixed a pork roast slathered in olive oil and herbes de provence, surrounded by chunks of fennel. We had the standard haricot verts and mashed potatoes with butter, juice from the roast and fennel and mustard vinaigrette, accompanied by a young Pommard.
All in all not a bad anniversary.
Wish you were here,
Steve
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