Thanksgiving in Paris

This seems like a good time to stop, catch our breath and give thanks for our good fortune to be alive and especially to be alive in Paris.

It’s a little after 8 am; Susan left at a quarter to 6 to go to school since her class has a big outing this morning to the Rungis wholesale food market on the outskirts of the city. The market is for the trade only (restaurants, grocers, etc) and so this should be quite an experience. After that she’s in class all day so we won’t see each other until after 7 tonight. (photo: Pantheon.)

And it’s raining. In fact it’s been raining here off and on (mostly on) for the past several days. The last of the leaves should be pretty much off the trees by now and we can only wonder when we’ll see the first snowflakes.

After a less than spectacular dinner Tuesday night at a place called “Pied au Cochon” (“Pig’s foot”), near Les Halles in central Paris, we said good-bye to Anna Maria and Guy. They were off to Venice on Wednesday for a few days and then back home to New Jersey. The company was great that night even if the food less so.

It was grand to spend time with them this past week and we had a blast showing them some of our favorite places – the few we’ve been lucky enough to get to at any rate. And we appreciated seeing one or two new places as well.

On Saturday we met them in front of the Paris Mosque near our apartment and then strolled over to the Rue Mouffetard, where an antique show/flea market was underway in addition to the regular food vendors of course. (photo: Anna Maria and Susan.)

From there we strolled past the Pantheon and then through the Luxembourg gardens and I wanted to show them the woman's profile on its side in the water at of the Medici Fountain but it was gone! For the winter maybe? Who knows. Anyway after we strolled out of the gardens we stopped at a cafe next to the Sorbonne for a bite of lunch. (We sat across from the statue of Auguste Comte, the father of Sociology. Exciting, huh?)


After lunch we walked down Boulevard Saint Michel to the Cluny museum of the Middle Ages (located very close to Blvd. St. Germain), in the Latin Quarter. Anna Maria had suggested we stop and we were thankful we did. (photo above: Guy with camera, in the Jardin du Luxembourg.)

Located on the site of the baths of ancient Roman “Lutetia” (you can still see the 40-foot high vaults of the frigidarium), the Cluny eventually became the residence of the abbots of Cluny around the 13th century. It now houses some spectacular artwork from the Middle Ages: gorgeous stained glass, delicate leadwork, powerful stonework, and numerous wooden statues which look almost brand-new, nearly all of which came from buildings and locations now long lost in the city of Paris.




For example there were large fragments of tombstones dating from the Middle Ages, which had once been in the Parisian burying grounds, now lost beneath the city.

There were also sarcophagus covers:


It was an amazing museum indeed and well worth our time; and yours too if you get over this way. (Entrance is actually on rue Paul-Painleve, just off of Blvd San Michel, in the 5th Arrondisment. Admission fee. Hours: 8 or 9 (depending on the day) to 5:30 pm (winter) or 6:30 pm (summer). (photo below: interior of one of the rooms in the Cluny.)


It was late in the afternoon by the time we finished the museum. We planned to meet up again that evening for dinner and then headed off in opposite directions, Am & G to the right bank, Susan and I toward the southeast corner of the 5th arrondisement.

At a few minutes before 8 that evening we met up with Anna Maria and Guy on the Pont Neuf to watch the lights on the Eiffel tower (“tour”) kick into twinkle mode, which they do for ten minutes every hour on the hour as long as the lights stay on. After that bit of visual rush we strolled across the bridge to the left bank, up rue Dauphine toward Blvd. Saint German and eventually ended up at "L’Entrecote" for a dinner of “beef and frites.” We had eaten here once before back in September with Stan & Margie and wanted to go back again so this seemed a perfect time to do just that.

After a delicious dinner we started strolling back in the direction of their hotel when it began to rain. They hailed a cab and we said au revoir as we headed off to the Metro stop and 20 minutes later we were drying off in our apartment.

Sunday was a quiet day for us here in the 5th. Susan ran a few errands and I met up with my “friends from Pere Lachaise”, Philippe and Marie. We had hoped to spend some time out in the cemetery to begin our podcast taping but the weather pretty much put the kibosh on that.

So we met up instead at a trendy bar across from the Pompidou Center to talk about the first podcast: structure, outline and exactly whom we wanted to focus on. We decided to focusour first podcast in just three divisions for the first show (there are overall 97 divisions), 8, 9 and 10. We chose these three because they have a fairly large number of people buried there about whom my colleagues know quite a bit. Also the physical layout of those divisions lends itself to some truly spectacular photos, it's very chaotic, wityh lots of upturned and overturned old stones covered with overgrowth, a very ruined look.

After coffee and some lively discussion, mostly about Parisian history, the three of us strolled a couple of blocks to the Les Halles area where I was given a tour of the original, and the oldest cemetery in Paris (dating back to the 8th century): Les Innocents, located directly beneath our feet.

I was also shown some truly fascinating architectural remnants dating back to the Middle Ages and of course the very spot where a Catholic fanatic assassinated Henry IV. In fact there is a marker there on the ground as well as one on the wall, which used to be the outside wall of the cemetery. Oh, and in case youn wondered, it’s Henry’s statue that sits midway across the Pont Neuf bridge.

As the shadows began to lengthen it was only natural that the sky began to clear. Paris has been the way a lot lately it seems – beautiful sun turning to rain then to overcast back to rain and back to sun. But there was no time for Pere Lachaise now so I said au revoir to Philippe and Marie and headed home.

Susan had to be in school most of Monday and Guy wanted to just relax and take a breather. Since Anna Maria wanted to see Pere Lachaise -- and I couldn’t pass an opportunity to show her my favorite folks who are forever stuck in that place – so it would just be the two of us. I picked her up about 11 in the morning and off we went: Metro line no. 11 to Republique where we transferred to the no. 3 and then off at Pere Lachaise.

We spent the next hour and a half or so walking around the cemetery, chatting, mostly about the people around us. Anna Maria’s interests are profoundly broad and deep and her genuine interest in the cemetery as a repository of Parisian history, culture and art was truly amazing.

Before long the rain caught up with us so after time spent under the umbrella – me not her. She seemed unfazed by it all, intent on what was all around her. So we headed back to the city center where I said au revoir. We planned to meet up the following evening for a final dinner before they left Paris.

Tuesday was pretty much rain again, but that didn’t dampen the huge contingent firemen who took to the streets to protest low wages and I don’t know what else. They clashed with police just a block from our apartment.

I was working on the computer and kept hearing this incessant siren – not that it’s terribly unusual to hear sirens around here, in fact we hear them all the time – but this just wouldn’t stop. I look outside and saw that traffic just below our window was being rerouted away from Blvd. Saint Marcel and as I looked up to toward boulevard I could see smoke and wave after wave of firemen – in their outfits mind you – marching, waving flags, chanting, yelling, shooting off fireworks, setting flare fires along the ground. There was plenty of smoke, and apparently plenty of police as well.

Ah Paris.

Wish you were here,

Steve