Paris, back in the groove

After a rainy Friday Saturday came on us with a determination to be beautiful -- and it did not disappoint. We got a slow start on the day -- leaving the apartment about 10-ish or so. (Lots of sleep to catch up on from the previous two days apparently.) Leaving the apartment we walked down Avenue Parmentier to Place Leon Blum -- one of my most favorite statues in all of Paris sits smack in the middle of the small garden running next to Parmentier: Mr. Blum himself, dressed in a greatcoat with scarf blowing in the wind and looking hard to his right. Understandably since he was a devout socialist (politics being a religion of great depth in France after all. By the way that is him on the right, standing in front of the Mairie for the 11th arrondissement).

We stopped at our favorite little patisserie wedged between an Asian takeout restaurant and a wonderful little boucherie (meatshop) where we each had an oranais, a scrumptious croissant dough pastry filled with pastry cream and topped with apricot. As we ate our oranais we strolled east up rue de la Roquette, passing the site of a former women's prison and now a lovely little garden, walking on to Pere Lachaise.

Once inside the cemetery grounds we walked straight to division 13 to pay our respects to Sophie Blanchard and then to Jane Avril in division 19.

(Jane is most famous for being one Toulouse-Latrec's most-reproduced model. You can find her everywhere in Paris tourist shops, from place mats to posters, napkins to drink coasters and playing cards. Sophie, on the other hand is largely forgotten although she was one of the first women ballooning barnstormers whose husband was the first man to cross the English channel in a balloon -- which he did with an American. Sophie was a widow who had to make ends meet and for the last ten years or so of her life toured the countryside putting on ballooning shows. It was during one of these "spectacles" that she fell out of her basket onto the roof a house and then to the ground, breaking her neck.)

We could've spent hours strolling Pere Lachaise -- well I could have anyway. But we had so many other things we wanted to see and do before meeting up with our friend Marie later in the afternoon. So after paying our respects to two of Paris's most forgotten and yet incredibly interesting women, we left Pere by the main entrance and browsed through the antiques market laid out in front of the cemetery along Blvd. Menilmontant. I did find several old postcards of Pere Lachaise for my collection, and one in particular, showing a statue of an aged couple in "Square Pere Lachaise" that is long gone now, has me most intrigued. But more of that on my Paris cemeteries blog.

Anyway, after passing through the "brocante" we strolled down Rue Chemin Vert to Blvd. Richard-Lenoir where the artists' market was in full swing. We were here a year ago and Susie came across a young woman (Christianne) doing unique designs on T-shirts. She was there again and we had a chance to chat and see how the past year has gone (not terribly well; T-shirts are out and she's focusing now on photography).

From the Bastille, where Blvd. Richard-Lenoir terminates, we hopped on the Metro and got off two stops later at Gare Austerlitz.

From there we strolled through the Jardin des Plantes, probably one of Susie's most favorite spots in all of Paris. The flowers were in full bloom and the gardens were incredible -- much more so than the last time we walked through there when many of the beds were already stripped for replanting. But not this time. We walked past Buffon's statue (where reportedly his heart is interred) and then on past the beautiful and stunning Paris mosque to Pascal's patisserie on Rue Monge. (photo above: artists' market on Richard-Lenoir.)

After a short visit with Pascal and his brother Jean-Marc we said au revoir and headed off for the Rue Mouffetard, one of our favorite little strolls in the city. Susie stopped at "Sherpa", her one and only shopping vice of note, but admittedly she has found some wonderful bits of clothing over the years. And hey, we have to have clothes and there's nothing like finding great clothes at an incredible price in Paris. (photo below: strolling the "Mouff.")

From the "Mouff" we strolled passed the Place Contrescarpe, just a few meters from where Hemingway hung out and thought about life in Paris some eighty years ago. I led us to the church of St. Etienne-du-Mont, just a few hundred meters north and across from its more famous neighbor, the Pantheon. The church houses the remains of St. Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, who was allegedly responsible for stopping Attila the Hun from sacking Paris. Also located nearby are the remains of Jean Racine the playwright and Blaise Pascal, a man given to much thought on the foibles of human nature.

From the church and the Pantheon it was only a short walk to the Luxembourg gardens -- but on the way we had another Clotilde stop to make. A restaurant on the rue Gay Lussac, Les Papilles, was given high marks by our trusty guide and we stopped in to see if we could have dinner that evening. They were full ("complet") as it turned out, but we made reservations for next Wednesday, the only reservations we've made so far -- and the only we will probably make. The restaurant has a fixed four-course menu and is also a wine shop so you can purchase your wine and for a small corkage fee have it served for your dinner. Voila!

We'll have a fuller report next week.

So we strolled through the Luxembourg gardens, one of the most fantastic spots in a city filled with places to pique your imagination and spirit. These gardens do both. The gardens were packed with people of all ages, shapes, sizes and probably from every corner of the globe. Under the cover of one corner, as we strolled through one of the entrances we passed several couples sitting welded together on benches kissing and saying sweet nothings to each other. Paris indeed. We grabbed a couple chairs near the sailboat pond facing the Paris Senate (in the old medici palace in fact) and sat in the sun and watched people stroll by and kids chasing their sailboats (which you can rent by the way).


Eventually we had to leave, a refrain heard all too often here I'm sure, and we started to wend our way in the direction of the Seine and toward the church of St. Germain des Pres where we were to meet up with Marie. We took a number of very cool back streets curving this way and that around St. Sulpice -- still clothed in a horrible construction outfit, until we found our way to rue Bonapartre and a quick walk to the church.

In the middle ages the abbey and church of St. Germain des Pres once dominated this entire neighborhood, its gardens and fields now covered by large boulevards, all reduced to a tiny bit of stone where people come from near and far to peer inside and imagine about the wonders of this place. While the wonders are long gone, the legends and feel of the place live on. Just across the street is the Cafe Deux Magots where de Beauvoir and Sartre once held court. Now tourists come to sit and wonder what all the fuss is about I suppose.

Not letting history or culture stand in our way, we strolled up to the steps of the church and quickly discovered a wedding was in progress and the bride was due to come out at any moment. It was at that point that Marie came out of the crowd lining the entrance to the church -- she obviously realized how clueless we must have looked and so found us first. After a few moments waiting to see if the bride was in fact going to come out or not, we decided we would let her go about her own life in peace and the three of us headed off to the Odeon and the haunts of Danton, Murat, and so other many other revolutionary greats and near-greats. we found a place to sit and have an aperitif while we caught up on all the news that fits to print.

The three of us spent the next couple of hours chatting about one thing or another -- Susan and I remarking to Marie at one point how similar her struggles were in teaching today with those we hear form family in friends in the US.

Marie had to leave and join friends for dinner -- we had to walk across the street and try another Clotilde recommendation: Le Comptoir des Relais. apparently part of the Relais St. Germain hotel next door. Le Comptoir is the down-scaled version of it's next door neighbor, a restaurant booked months in advance (and whose name escapes me for good reason). Frankly, I don't see what the fuss is about. Good food is good food. Why should I have to wait weeks or months for it? But that's just me.

In our case, we ended up standing in line anyway, waiting more than an hour to be seated -- first come first served. The woman maitre'd (or is it "maitress'd"?) was a study in tension and movement, working several parts of her body at the same time she was watching in three directions and talking to two different people. Fascinating.

At last we found ourselves seated -- outside but under heater lamps. I had conveniently forgotten to bring a jacket so I spent the evening focusing on the red wine for warmth. A successful achievement I might add.

The service was smooth, even and very good. The food even better. Susie and I both had beef -- I had a steak very rare and very good and Susie had a slow-cooked piece of beef like mom used to make for Sunday roasts, in a delicious beef sauce. Very straightforward and very much to the point: if the point is being delicious of course. (Susie's beef below.)

Our neighbors on one side were French and helped us figure through the beef issue while on our on the other side was a Danish woman in town for the annual furniture fair -- some thirty years she's been coming to these things and her English is very good indeed.

The line of people waiting to be seated continued throughout the evening -- and one older gentleman became quite perturbed when he discovered that a "friend" of the restaurant or some such thing thing had been seated ahead of him. One has to love the bistro experience -- you become fast friends with total strangers.

After dinner we strolled back to the Metro, just around the corner at the Odeon Metro stop and after switching trains at Austerlitz worked our way back to the Bastille. from there we walked home, climbing into bed sometime around half past 12 (British time) or about 12:30 (American time).

What a grand way to get back in the groove, the Paris groove. Of course we overdid it.

Wish you had been there,

Steve