Letter from Paris 27 April

Late morning we took the Metro "downtown" heading for rue Sainte-Anne and a dish of noodles for lunch.

After exiting the Metro we walked through the Palais Royale heading in a rather roundabout way for "Japantown" and the score of noodle bars in the area.

The two of us ate lunch at Noodle (54 rue Sainte-Anne 75002) after which we walked to Opéra Garnier where Susie got on the Metro line 8 to go to school and I got on the 3 to head east for an afternoon of "working" at Père-Lachaise.

Later that afternoon while in the cemetery I received a message from Verizon saying I was being charged $25 for overages on my data usage. Our plans, we each had one for our phones, allowed us 100 minutes of talk, 100 outgoing texts and 100mb of data. Apparently I had eaten through the 100mb of my data plan for the month already (and Susie would too soon after).  I failed to notice that we had always used iMessage for texting (thus using data).

Anyway,  I assumed that Susie was receiving my texts (I had turned off my cellular data at this point). I sent her a note saying I was exploring the environs of Place de la Concorde and would come to LCB and pick her up after school. But no response. Hmmmm.

When I exited the Metro at the Tuileries on rue de Rivoli walked up the street to W. H. Smith bookstore to browse a bit.

Afterwards, I walked across the street and near the western end of the Tuileries came across a curious group of plaques along the wall beneath the Jeu de Paume and close to Place de la Concorde: They were memorials to nine men and one woman who died near the corner of rue de Rivoli and the Place during the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944.

I then made my way into the Place de la Concorde to look for another piece of French history: the location of the guillotine used to execute Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Princess Élisabeth of France, Charlotte Corday, Madame du Barry, Georges Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Antoine Lavoisier, Maximilien Robespierre, Louis de Saint-Just, and Olympe de Gouges.

Place de la Concorde

execution of Louix XVI

same view today

Internet rumor had it there was a marker somewhere near the statue dedicated to the city of Brest and close to the Hotel Grillon. I found the statue of Brest -- it's one of 8 placed at the corners of the Place. But no marker.

Oh, and in front of the Hotel Crillon I saw this bit of French automotive history (thinking of Richard Horsman now):

Leaving the Place I walked up the Champs d'Élysées to the metro at Champs-Élysées–Clemenceau and headed off to Le Cordon Bleu.  I arrived at the school right about 8pm and sent her another text saying I was in the lobby. Twenty minutes later no Susie and no other students either and ominously no response to my texts.  Hmmmm. So I called her.

Turns out they had been let out early and she was already home! She had tried to text me but I wasn't receiving her iMessages (of course). So it was back to Metro (10) to Austerlitz and then we met on the street soon after and went in search of a late dinner. (OK pizza but great atmosphere at Café d'Italie, 76 Avenue des Gobelins, 75013, off Place d'Italie).

The upshot is now we use "text message" only and leave iMessage off. Cellular data is still turned off until we need it for the highway. That's right kids, we're renting a car to drive to the Netherlands. But more about that next week.

Letter from Paris 26 April

Thursday 26 April was a low-key day for us.

Mid-morning -- our favorite time of day to leave home -- we walked down Boulevard d'Hôpital to the Monoprix grocery store near the Saint-Marcel Metro stop; back in 2006-2007 we frequented the store often and we found it was pretty much the same layout with an upstairs area for dry groceries and household goods. After leaving the store we walked across the street to La Chocolatine for a jambon sandwich for a quick lunch before heading out for the day.

In early afternoon the two of us went our separate ways on line 6 at Nationale: Susie headed west to school and I headed east to Père-Lachaise.

That evening I fixed a medley of sautéed vegetables which turned out rather good. With Susan in school until 8pm (2000) and then another 30- or 40-minute commute home, we've come to enjoy eating fashionably late.

Letter from Paris 25 April

Wednesday 25 April was the 70th anniversary of my birth, a day that began like any other except, of course, I was in Paris.

view from our terrace

One of our two nearby Metro stops: line 6 at Nationale (the other is the 5 at Campo Formio):

Around mid-morning we left home and we made our way to the 8th arrondissement and the Musée Jacquemart-André  (158 Boulevard Haussmann).

One of the few things on our short to-do list was see the Mary Cassatt exhibition at the J-A, a museum we had never visited. The exhibition consisted of paintings from collections around the world and was indeed impressive in both number, scope and intensity of color. Our singular complaint was the absence of bi-lingual signage; all the interpretative narrative was in French only.

Leaving the museum we walked out into a light drizzle which soon developed into warm sunshine. We made our way to the Metro and got off at Bir Hakeim (near the Eiffel Tower).

From there we walked down the Quai de Grenelle to Le Cordon Bleu where Susie was to begin her first day of a four-day bread course at 2pm (1400).

After I dropped Susie off I walked to the Charles Michel Metro (line 10) to the Le Motte-Picquet (6) and then to Nation (2) which took me to Père-Lachaise. Not only was I in Paris for my birthday but I was back in one of most favorite spots: the city of the not-quite-so-dead. I say that because there are so many living creatures walking around in search of ghosts, understanding, solitude, anything that brings them peace of mind.

After spending nearly three hours it came time to leave — I draw the line at being locked inside the cemetery since it is virtually impossible to get out once the gates are shut — so I made my way home. A little before 8pm I left the apartment and headed for the Metro and a return to Iovine for my birthday dinner; Susie would meet me there after her class finished at 8pm. After getting off the Metro at Republique I stopped at a bar for to treat myself to a glass of Suze.

Susie arrived at the restaurant shortly after me and we spent the next couple of hours enjoying good food and great company. We struck up conversations with our neighbors on both sides of the table putting to rest the notion that Parisians are snooty, finicky and reluctant to speak to Americans, a fact we’ve known for some years now through our friends Val & Hubert and Marie.

A perfect ending to a wonderful birthday.

Letter from Paris 24 April

Today there was no plan, no itinerary nothing special but just BE in Paris, strolling, taking in the space and feeling the energy of this incredible city. In local terms, a flâneur and a flâneuse undertaking together flânerie of the city.

It was a day like many others in the past and yet utterly different in the things we observed, the places we experienced as we wound ourselves through the city.

don't let the entrance fool you

After a leisurely morning we made our way to the Marché des Enfant Rouges. Opened in 1628 it is reportedly the oldest covered market in Paris and was named after the children who were clothed in red and lived at a nearby orphanage.

We were in search of Miam Miam, a food vendor specializing in sandwiches and located inside the market, a suggestion we found while watching "Alice in Paris," a series streaming on Amazon Prime. It took us a few minutes to find the entrance to the market — right under our noses at 39 rue de Bretagne. Once inside it was controlled chaos — few actual food purveyors it was mostly a collection of food stalls with seating scattered here and there. Since it was lunchtime it was crowded and with narrow aisles it was rather claustrophobic.

Anyway, our vendor, as it turned out, was closed Tuesdays. So we opted to leave the Marché and go in search of something a little less hectic.

Once back onto rue Bretagne we passed a common sight in the city:

Back onto rue Bretagne we strolled a block or so looking for just the right place for lunch; we tend to operate on hunches; the kind of hunch that says "you'll know it when you see it." And we saw Iovine.

We walked inside and were met by an amiable young man who motioned us to a small table; okay they were all small tables where with one sitting along a banquette facing the other. After ordering a brace of cocktails we settled in for a leisurely and, as it turned out, delicious lunch. Susie’s salad came with wonderful toasted bread with melted stracchino cheese; my salad came with large chunks of tuna and olives with a side of small slices of thin crust pizza. All washed down with two glasses of the house rosé.

Both of us were so taken with the friendly atmosphere, the wonderful people — it was small, very small — and the chance to speak Italian that we immediately decided to return for my birthday dinner.

look at those chunks of tuna!

pear ricotta custard for dessert/dolce

After lunch we made our way to our favorite department store: BHV (Bazaar Hôtel de Ville). After using the bathrooms (5th floor) we browsed through their book section and I found two books on Paris Cemeteries to add to my collection. Since we got a discount coupon with our purchase Susie will most likely return to browse the baking and women's clothing sections before we leave.

From BHV we walked past the Hôtel across the Seine, skirted the crowds at Notre Dame and made our way past Musée Cluny and one of my favorite statues, of Montaigne, turning up Boulevard Saint-Michel to the Jardin de Luxembourg.

Hôtel e Ville

history is literally right on the street

Near the Musée de Cluny we came the ubiquitous signs of the far past and the present in sight of one another:

charging stations are becoming more prevalent

Montaigne smirking at all passersby who think they don't have the time to meditate on life's quirks.

a fascinating sculpture near the rue Soufflot entrance to the jardin

Leaving the Jardin we walked up rue Gay-Lussac looking for another restaurant, Les Papilles thinking we might make reservations for an upcoming dinner but it was closed that day. So we meandered past the Institut Curie on rue d'Ulm, over to the rue Mouffetard, picking up some rotisserie potatoes along the way. From the "Mouff" we made our way to Avenue des Gobelins and then took back streets over to our apartment, both of us feeling the fatigue in our legs from a good day of flânerie in Paris.

Once back home and still full from our wonderful lunch we had a light dinner of rotisserie potatoes.

Next: a birthday wish come true and fascinating Parisians.

Letter from Paris 23 April

Our landlady, Brigitte, gave us a quick tour of the apartment and everything we needed to know about such household tasks as how the various entry locks worked to get into the building, where the garbage was and how the outside shutters worked.

It was a comfortable space and while we would've liked to return to Ann's lovely apartment in 20th arrondissement, the fact that the rue Pinel apartment had an elevator and was ideally located close to metro lines 6 and 5 and thus much closer to Le Cordon Bleu for Susan's 4-day bread class, two key selling points.

Brigitte soon took her leave and set off to visit friends in the country and we began the process of settling in for the next couple of weeks.

living room

from the terrace

looking out across rue Pinel over the rooftops of the Ecole des Arts et Metiers

Once unpacked we set off to explore the neighborhood, get lunch, stroll and pick up a few staples. We stopped for lunch at Le Ménagerie, a nearby brasserie located on Boulevard de l'Hôpital, straddling the 5th and 13th arrondissements, 5 minutes from our apartment. We sat outside and opted for the plat du jour, filet de bar (sea bass) with crispy julienned carrots, zucchini and sweet onion sticks all in a beurre blanc sauce. It was, in a word, delicious.

filet de bar (sea bass) at Le Ménagerie

After a leisurely lunch (we're in Paris now), we strolled down the boulevard in the direction of the Jardin des Plantes. On the way we stopped off at La Chocolatine, the Boulangerie Patisserie de Mme et Mr Hubert, a place we frequented back in 2006 when we lived in an apartment nearby on rue Poliveau. Nothing had changed and the quality was still spectacular. We'll be going back Located just off the boulevard on rue des Wallons the pastries are exquisite. Susie and I snacked on a scrumptious apple tart as we walked over past our old apartment and then on up the short block or so to the jardin.

apple tart

La Chocolatine

From the Jardin we took the Metro just a couple of short stops to Place d’Italie and Carrefour grocery store where we bought just a few things; major grocery shopping would come later.

 We turned in early that evening; both of us were tired, not dog tired mind you but the tiredness that comes with dramatically changing your sense of time and space. an odd thing this “lag,” it doesn’t seem to affect us when gong in the other direction. Nor did it ever affect us when traveling during the day nonstop from Boston to London, a trip we’ve made a couple of times.

 With all that, and aside from the whining about jet lag or the occasional hiccup along the way, we are in Paris. What a birthday treat!

 Next: our first full day of exploration.