Sunday was a quiet day for us, catching up on household chores and the like. Susie felt the need for a true day of rest and what better day for that than Sunday, eh?We did rally ourselves that evening so that we could meet up with our friend Valerie at her apartment for dinner. She and Susie were in Basic together at Le Cordon Bleu and she lives here in Paris, over the by Eiffel tower in fact.
Susie made up one of her rustic fruit tarts, I stuck a bottle of wine in my jacket pocket and we headed off for the Metro: line 5 to Gare Austerlitz and then took the RER to the Eiffel tower; we were lucky indeed since we go onto the platform just a couple of minutes before the train arrived. (Otherwise we would have had to wait a half hour for the next train, which meant we would have had to dash back to the Metro, head downstairs to an even lower level -- the lower colon of the Metro -- in order to catch the no. 10, which would have taken us to La Motte-Picquet, but that station is below ground and we would need to walk up not just to the surface but then to one of the stations raised above ground and take the no. 6 to Dupleix and walk five minutes to the apartment. See why it was important not to miss the RER?)
Four stops later and we were off the train, and soon staring at the underside of the Eiffel tower. Anyway, after a ten-minute walk we were standing in front of Valerie's building, ringing her buzzer pleading to let us in. Which she did.
We had a grand evening, the conversation was lively and warm, catching up on all her news (she is studying Finnish for her work, she's an engineer) and we of course talked of Paris but of the importance of travel in general. (Valerie had recently been to Sicily and also had her first mountaineering adventure in the French Alps, and she had the photos to prove it.) Since Valerie is not only French but Parisian the food was delicious: sausage and lentils with rice, followed by a perfect green salad, simple yes, great yes, in fact it was incredible! Eeen-kray-dee-bee-lay!
Monday was another gorgeous day, lots of Parisian sunshine that needed to be consumed. We walked up to Pere Lachaise where we got on the no. 2 line and took it all the way to the other side of the city, getting off at Monceau, which is right at Parc Monceau, one of our main objectives for the day.
The park is small, but tres cool, and it was filled with people in search of what we are all looking for I suppose: a little peace, quiet and time to just relax. Several intriguing statues are scattered throughout the park. The one of Guy de Maupassant had his bust on a pedestal while on the bottom was a woman reclining, perhaps contemplating his writing.
Another curious piece of stone is found at one end of the parc that was devoted to children plaing, a statue marked A Chopin, "To Chopin." an intriguing piece of work we thought: a man, presumably Fred himself, playing a keyboard instrument while seemingly unfazed by his permanent audience of one, a woman covering her eyes with her right hand, as if to say "Oh what exquisite music!" Or is she hinting, "Not THAT piece again!".
From the Parc Monceau we headed off in the direction of Place Madelaine, stopping briefly to check out the enormous spiritual bulk of St. Augustin church which stood squarely in our path. The church is large, no doubt about it, but a quite unremarkable interior and other than its sheer size has little to recommend it (for non-Catholics).We strolled passed the Chapelle Expiatoire, which is presently closed until the middle of November while work is being done on the gardens. The chapelle is built over what was originally the Madelaine cemetery, a place that would otherwise have become just another part of paved-over pre-Hausmann Paris had it not been for the fact that the bodies of King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, along with hundreds of others who had been executed on the nearby Place de la Concorde, were dumped into a mass grave on this very spot.
During the brief restoration of the monarchy in the early 19th century the land was acquired by Louis XVIII who had the bones of the king and queen removed to St. Denis for reburial with the other kings and queens of France, and the other remains were placed in two rows of small half-moon-shaped vaults flanking a small garden, the chapelle as it exists today.
From the chapelle we made our way to Detou for baking supplies -- Susie is stocking up on a few hard-to-find ingredients in the US before we leave next week. We then had lunch at the Cafe Etienne Marcel just a few doors down from Detou on Boulevard, that's right, Etienne Marcel (at the corner of rue Montmartre in fact).
After a late lunch we returned to the Metro and headed home, another day in Paris, exploring the wonders of the human spirit in the bright light of the day.
For additional photos click here!
Wish you had been there,
Steve
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