The Way of the Tao

Tags

Bouillon Chartier, Marais, meals, Tao, Taoism

Cloudy and drizzly, but not too cold.  I went first to an exhibition at the Grand Palais on “The Way of the Tao.”  My reaction was similar to the way I feel about some other religions (Buddhism, Christianity):  I find the original ideas rather interesting, and of possible application in my own life; I am left completely cold by the baroque cosmologies, doctrines and rituals that subsequently arise; but I can still really enjoy the resulting art, even though I reject the beliefs that inspired it.

Then I had lunch at Bouillon Chartier, which Hugo had shown me on Wednesday.  Like Durgin-Park in Boston they seat you with other people when it’s busy; I was next to two French topers who were pleasant enough but absorbed in their own conversation.  The food was good and cheap, the service was so-so, the space was cavernous and bright.  While most of the patrons were tourists it seemed to me that the establishment has maintained its integrity, and provided an authentic-seeming experience.

I walked home via my former Montorgueil neighborhood, and bought the last tradition (traditional baguette) of the trip.  My stay is coming to a graceful and satisfying end, but I’m still getting quite nostalgic!

After catching up with Lisa for our last farewells I met up with my first Parisian friend, Jacques.

Jacques, my first Parisian friend.

We had kirs at Café Beaubourg, a stylish bar overlooking the plaza in front of the Pompidou Center, then a very sweet farewell dinner at L’Eglantine, in the Marais.  The decor was pretty basic but the waitress was extremely sweet and the food was delicious.  Jacques has been very kind to me throughout my stay even though he has a Parisian boyfriend and has been flat out studying for an accounting exam.  I will miss him, but this was a great way to say au revoir.

Mot du jour:  “couvre-feu” (Le Parisien).  Literally, “cover-fire” but actually “curfew”, referring to the lifting of same in Bangkok.  The English word derives from the French phrase.

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Practicalities (Updated through 2016)

This post discusses some of the practical aspects of the trip, for those who might be interested in following more or less in my footsteps.

• Air Travel.  I used kayak.com to get the best fares, applying constraints about time, number of legs, etc.
  • Round trip tickets on British Airways (ugh!), connecting through Heathrow terminal 5 (which is fine), cost me just under $600. Intermittent strikes by BA flight attendants caused anxiety: My flight over just missed the (pre-scheduled) strike; my flight back will be during a strike but BA intends to subcontract so as to run the flight; in both cases hot meals aren’t available on board. The Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull and its siblings are a wild card for European travel, potentially for years. Jason was held up for four days; Jaime took off as scheduled but arrived a few hours late because his flight path was re-routed; we’ll see about my return flight on May 31.
  • I booked my Prague flight on EasyJet for 240 Euros. Although I booked as a round trip the airline treated it as two one-way fares, which proved convenient when I missed the first leg and had to buy a new ticket to Prague, since I was still able to use the return leg from the initial ticket.
  • 2011 update: I booked direct flights on American this year even though they were a couple hundred dollars more.  On the outbound flight I was bumped up to business class, which was delightful!  But on the return flight I sat in the back and it was suitably miserable, but for 7-1/2 hours you can more or less put up with anything.
  • Getting into Paris from the airport can be a bit tricky, so I’ve just added a post on this topic.
• Apartments.  I got my April 2010 apartment through an online service, PARIStay.com (one of dozens of similar sites, including lodgis.com), and my May apartment through a friend of a friend.   The online service included a non-refundable fee payable to the agency before the papers were signed with the owner, and required the entire rental to be paid in advance. For April, including agency fees, I paid $2,700 (and it would have been a bit more except the landlord waived insurance).  In May, for a much better apartment I paid $1,600 direct to the owner, plus $160 insurance, for a total of $1,760.  There were no problems with either place, except very minor glitches and information gaps that were quickly resolved, although there might have been an advantage to using an agency if there had been a serious problem.  I gather that vrbo.com (Vacation Rental by Owner) is pretty good but I haven’t used it myself.  Both apartments were non-smoking sixth-floor walk-ups; another time I might pay for more convenience but the exercise was good for me and I loved the light and views that go along with being at the top of the building.  I used Google Street View and consultations with friends to get comfortable with the locations, which were both fabulous. One issue that only became clear after I got here is the fact that some Métro lines — 13 in particular — are jammed at rush hour; you wouldn’t want to depend on one of those lines to get around.  Legal Update:  The New York Times just reported that Paris is cracking down on illegal short-term apartment rentals, and that almost all Paris rentals for less than a year are illegal, under a 2005 law intended to make more rentals available to residents!  The problem is mostly a risk for the owners, but it could invalidate a lease and leave the tenant — you or me! — with nowhere to live.  2011 update: There has been no change I know of in the Parisian law, but nobody seemed troubled about it.  I used Paris Attitude this year, just because they had the apartments I liked.  They performed — expensively — but I was very underwhelmed with the attitude of the agent with whom I corresponded.  I did get a coupon which I can give to a friend for a 10% discount on their fees so let me know if you plan to use them.  The apartment itself more than measured up to the description on the site — there were several pleasant surprises and no significant disappointment.  2012 update:  I rented the same apartment this year, after some drama.  The owner said they had an exclusive deal with Paris Attitude, so I had to go back through their web site.  Paris Attitude told me, despite apparent availability on their site, that this apartment wasn’t available for September, and then proposed several alternatives.  Only after I contacted the owner — who complained to them — did Paris Attitude allow me to rent the apartment.  The rate had gone up 10% over last year, which more or less corresponded to the fall in the euro relative to the dollar. 2014 update: Used lodgis.com this year. 2016 update: Used Paris Attitude in both 2015 and 2016; the apartments were very good but in 2016 the process was extremely frustrating, including the discovery that their email system was unable to accept messages with attachments!
• Currency Exchange.  I paid for my April apartment in advance with a wire transfer from Fidelity.  Including their exorbitant fees the rate was more than $1.50 per Euro!  I did a little better with the May apartment deposit by wiring through Bank of America.  Once I got to Paris I could pull out spending money at much better rates, both because exchange rates had improved and because I had an exceptional credit card through my alumni association that charges no foreign transaction fee (usually 3%, except for CapitalOne) and no cash advance fee (usually another 3%).  All I had to do was occasionally transfer money to the card to minimize  interest on the advanced amount.  Getting larger amounts of cash to pay for my May apartment was a project, however.  Most banks won’t advance against a credit card and even BNP Paribas, when I finally got to the exchange desk at their home office, would only advance 1,000 Euros per day.  This could have been a problem if I hadn’t started early or if I weren’t in Paris.  Due to the Greece crisis exchange rates have now plummeted to below $1.25 per Euro but this doesn’t benefit me much since I’ve already paid the rent; in fact it hurts because my May deposit, paid in Euros at a higher rate, will be worth many less dollars when I reconvert it.  2011 update: I learned a useful idea, too late to help me this year, which is that it may be possible to make the deposit in dollars instead of euros, since normally it is returned as submitted.  This would save a bundle on conversion fees.  I recommend not stressing over all these issues, however.  Apart from getting a good credit card, just internalize an approximate currency relationship (e.g. “everything is about 1/4 more than it looks like”), then pay no attention to daily fluctuations. 2012 update: And this year, because the owner and agent already knew me, they accepted a credit card sheet in lieu of any cash deposit.  Live and learn! 2015 update: Credit cards were accepted for everything, which was so easy. 2016 update: This year’s owner required wire transfers for the rent and cash for the deposit, but did allow me to deposit an equivalent amount in dollars to avoid a couple of exchange fees.
• Cash, Credit Cards, Passport.
  • I always bring three or four credit cards, since I’ve had several experiences where a card was cut off, or eaten by an overseas ATM machine.  Two of my visiting friends had trouble with their sole credit card, in both cases involving considerable hassle.  2012 update:  My Citi debit card was eaten by an ATM machine.  I put in the card but it never acknowledged it.  This was a problem since I was afraid it would return the card to someone else!  I called Citi (expensively) on my U.S. phone to cancel it.  They couriered me a replacement card but I never got it, presumably because someone in my building trashed the envelope.  Fortunately I had an alternate card for low-fee ATM withdrawals, but the whole thing was a bit of a hassle.  Like the Harvard card that had been eaten in New Zealand this was a translucent card; I suspect that overseas ATMs don’t like cards they can see through.
  • French credit cards universally have a “chip” with metal contacts (colloquially puce, which means “flea”), which you can’t get in the U.S. 2011 update:  I gather that Chase and Wells Fargo are finally making chip cards available to U.S. customers.  This happened too late to help with this trip, and I don’t know what they will cost, but I will certainly look into this another year.  Our cards don’t work in many machines — most notably those for trains, the Métro and gas stations — so you have to find a clerk to swipe the card in those cases. Our cards work fine (with no fee) in many ATM machines (I preferred those of BRED because they give out all 20s) but they don’t work when there’s a little symbol that looks like the metal contacts. Our cards are accepted by most — but not all! — restaurants. 2012 update:  By dint of extreme persistence over a six-week period I got a chip-and-pin card from Andrews Federal Credit Union (of all places).  The chip is accepted everywhere, but I was disappointed to find that in most places (including gas stations and the métro) you still have to sign a slip.  Both chip and pin work, however, in the most critical place: for train tickets.  It’s often quicker to use the machine in a big station, and in small rural stations there may be no people, in which case it’s either coins, chip-and-pin, or walking. 2016 update: Barclays also now offers a true chip-and-pin card, which works in train stations, gas stations, etc. All U.S. cards now have the chip, but most are chip-and-signature (even if you also have a pin) so will not work in train and gas stations.
  • When I’m in transit or staying somewhere insecure (e.g. a sketchy hotel) I carry my cash, credit cards and passport in a travel belt around my waist under my shirt.  I’m actually even a bit more cautious than that — I also put an envelope in my luggage with a photocopy of my passport, $100, an extra credit card and cancellation information for the credit cards around my waist, in case of a stickup (that doesn’t also take my luggage).  I usually switch to a wallet in my front pocket once I get settled someplace secure.  This trip, however, I found myself stressing about pickpockets in the sometimes-crowded métro — even though I never worry about this in Boston — so I just went back to the travel belt, plus a 5 or 10 Euro note and some coins loose in a pocket.  There’s some awkwardness when I need to go into the belt, but it was worth it to completely eliminate stress about having my pocket picked (which did happen to me once in Barcelona).  Up to this point I’ve left my passport in the waist belt by habit.  While this was essential to pull money from my credit card at a bank, it’s overkill otherwise so I’m going to leave it at home from now on and just bring my driver’s license for id.  You do need an original id to give people as security, e.g. for taking a museum’s audio guide. (In the last couple of weeks [and in 2011] I eased up and carried a wallet with my driver’s license in a front pocket instead of the waist belt.)  2011 update:  It turns out that French law requires everyone to carry their identity papers on their person. For us that would be our passport. I compromised, however, by carrying an original driver’s license and a photocopy of the main page of my passport. I was never challenged to produce papers but my impression is that this wouldn’t be a problem.
  • And here’s a clever trick:  If you’re like me you will inevitably end up with a huge pile of tiny coins.  I hate carrying around small change.  I discipline myself to put euro and 50 cent coins back in my pocket but I can’t stand the small stuff.  I don’t have the guts to take a pocket-full of change to a clerk but grocery stores have started adding self-checkout machines that accept coins as well as bills.  So long as nobody is breathing down your neck you can get rid of any amount of small change in a single purchase.
• Telephone. I bought an Orange SIM card for my quad-band GSM Blackberry and that worked perfectly for telephone service. It was fun having and using my own French phone number. The total cost for telephone service, including SMS messages, will be around 100 Euros for the two months, including a few days in Prague. This wouldn’t have worked with a CDMA phone like Verizon. 2011 update: I did the same thing this year and it worked well.  Another year, however, I will look again at the possibility of purchasing data services in France because I found it tedious to be unable to pull up an interactive map or do a web search (or access social networking sites) when I was away from the apartment. 2014 update: T-Mobile has changed everything. Their standard plan includes unlimited texting and 3G data, plus calls at 20 cents per minute, just about anywhere in the world, including France. I’m just using my regular iPhone, with roaming turned on, and all functions work normally. I’m slightly nostalgic about not having a Paris phone number but nobody here seems to care.
• Internet. I had great broadband access at both apartments, which was really essential to being away for so long. I was able to get copies of my bills and pay them remotely on my laptop with no difficulties. The only hassle was a check someone mailed me that has been languishing at home — not such an issue in these days of zero interest, but it would be annoying in a different interest-rate environment. I also had WiFi at both apartments, which was helpful to guests, and allowed me to set up my Blackberry to jump on the Internet when I was home. Internet access on the Blackberries elsewhere was very expensive, however, so I mostly went without.  2011 update: The proliferation of wifi-enabled gadgets has really made wifi essential.  I had it in the 2011 apartment but it was flaky on the Blackberry, which was a minor annoyance.  There’s free Internet in parks in Paris but I was never able to link my Blackberry to this service. For the most part I used SMS messages, which worked fine.  2012 update:  I now use my iPhone for wifi, which works fine, and the BlackBerry curve as my French cell phone (mainly for texts).  While this works it’s still annoying to carry around two devices.  Happily, the iPhone has no problem with the free wifi in Paris parks; just select Orange and register once.  One thing I learned this year is that if you have a Free modem (which I do in the apartment) you can get a Free username and password that works against an incomplete but pretty good network of wifi hotspots all around Paris. 2014 update: This is all ancient history for me, per the previous post.
• 2011 Toys.  This year I brought along a Kindle 3 and an iPad 2.  The Kindle was great for reading books, and saved a lot of weight and bulk in packing. I took it to cafés fairly often, or just read in my apartment. Without its case it is a tight fit in a pants pocket, and with or without it easily fits in my new French man-purse (or “murse”).  One great feature of the Kindle was the fact that I could easily download new books, including one in French that Antoine recommended and a selection in English by my Book Club that I didn’t learn about until I was already in Paris. The Kindle also has a rather klunky browser with free more-or-less worldwide Internet access but I didn’t use it.  I used the iPad mostly to read the French and U.S. daily newspapers and magazines like the Economist.  I had such good information access that I didn’t buy paper newspapers at all this trip (except Pariscope).  I rarely took the iPad out of the apartment because it needed wifi, and was just that much heavier and bulkier than the Kindle. I can’t say I needed all my toys, but they all got a good deal of use and I’m not sure which I would dispense with another time.
• There’s An App For That (2012).  The wonderful and free RATP app finds the fastest route, by métro, bus and/or RER train from your starting address to your destination address, either within Paris or anywhere in the suburban rail network.  The only drawbacks are that it requires data access to work, and it only gives you a single best option. Even if you don’t have data in France you should still download this app for when you are at a WiFi (pronounced “wee-fee”) hotspot.There are also a bunch of very good iPhone apps that do not require data access to work.  You need data to download them of course, but they load everything on your phone (or iPad), and then they use GPS to find and display your location on a map even when data is turned off.  They work only within or very close to Paris, since those are the maps they download, but that’s perfect for me.  My favorites are:
  • Paris Métro (99 cents) – Not as powerful as RATP, since you have to specify your starting métro station, it doesn’t include busses, and it’s limited to Paris and immediate suburbs.  Beginners may, however, prefer its relatively simple map and the fact that the index includes only Paris métro and RER stations.
  • TripAdvisor City Guides – Paris
  • The TimeOut city apps are no longer being maintained, which I found out by going to the first two “Editor’s Choice” galleries, both of which had been closed for years! But you can change the city in the main TimeOut app to Paris and the information is pretty good.
  • Google Maps will navigate you through the métro, but it doesn’t seem to know about busses, which are often the fastest way to get around.
• Printer. One extravagant purchase I made each of my first two years was buying an inkjet printer on amazon.fr. It came in handy on various occasions, most notably printing maps and boarding passes. I gave them both away when I left; the major cost of printing is ink cartridges and so it was very good that I didn’t have to buy a new one. 2012 update:  Paper is so passé! I can take an iPhone photo of anything I need remotely.  No more printers for me!
• Métro. I got a monthly passe Navigo découverte when I first arrived, then recharged it for May. I highly recommend this if you are here for one or more calendar months, both because it makes financial sense and because it makes travel quicker and easier. You need a photo but you can get these in photo booths in all the major métro stations. The pass includes busses as well as trains. You will be asked what zones you want; unless you are living out in the suburbs the answer will be “une et deux” (one and two). There are also weekly passes, which might or might not be worth the effort, depending on whether your visit corresponds to calendar weeks and how often you expect to use the Métro.  2012 update:  This took about two minutes to renew for September (tho my chip-and-pin card didn’t work so I had to talk to an actual person). 2016 update: I’ve just been using tickets this year. While tickets are slightly less cool they’re easy enough and probably cheaper. One benefit you only get with a monthly (or annual) Navigo card, however, is full access to Île-de-France on weekends and holidays, and from July 15 to August 15.
• Peanut Butter. Tiny bottles of Skippy or the like are available in the local grocery stores but are very expensive. Natural peanut butter (and almond butter!) isn’t in the groceries but can be found at fairly reasonable prices in health food stores like Naturalia.
• Weather. Spring in Paris is a lot like Spring in Boston — mostly chilly, often cloudy or rainy, but also often sunny and with a few truly gorgeous days. Another time I might try May and June instead of April and May. April has tulips and flowering trees, and arguably fewer tourists. June has more tourists but is warmer and gets a lot less rain. Paris on average gets much less rain than Boston — five times less in June! Weather forecasting is just as unreliable here as in Boston; they have a pretty good handle on the temperature, and occasionally there’s a settled weather system that they get right, but more often it’s been some mix of sun, clouds and showers that has no particular correlation to the always-changing forecast.
  • 2011 update: April and May this year were exceptionally fine – the warmest since 1900.  June, however, was exceptionally cloudy and rainy, though it didn’t much crimp my style. My conclusion is that Parisian weather is as unpredictable as Boston weather. The only difference is that weather patterns in Paris seem to set in for several or many weeks while in Boston they rarely last more than a few days.
  • 2012 update:  September in Paris was lovely for the first few weeks, then turned cloudy, cooler and drizzly towards the end of the month; much like the fall in Boston that I’m missing.
  • 2014 update: I gather that April was warm and lovely here but May was mostly chilly and wet, although with several lovely days.
  • 2015 update: It was cold in May! Reasonable in June. Then really hot in July, just after I left.
  • 2016 update: It has been cold and rainy from mid-May, when I arrived, through the last week of June. Still fun to be here but the weather has been awful.
• Maps and Guides.
  • I used to strongly recommend the Rough Guide map of Paris. It has great detail and is very readable; one side focuses on central Paris and the other opens out to a broader view, although not all the way to the city boundaries; it includes recommended shopping, eating, drinking and venues, with phone and price information; it’s made of durable polyethylene so you don’t have to worry about water or tearing. There was a complaint about the accuracy of this map on Amazon but the only errors I’ve found are on the Père Lachaise inset map (esp. Balzac!); I recommend that you instead print out (or photo) these two versions: Popular Gravesites and Street Map.
  • You may want a Plan de Poche of the métro and bus system, unless you have the same information in another format. This is available free from the clerk at any métro station. (There are other free métro maps that you might also like.) On the other hand, the métro stations are everywhere and they all have wall maps.
  • In the old days I used to carry one of the little books that show all of Paris in a series of smaller maps, available at any news stand. This would be especially relevant for areas that are off the edge of the Rough Guide map: North of Sacré Coeur, Parc de la Villette, east of Père Lachaise, south of Place d’Italie. Because I had a printer in 2010 I instead printed Google maps for those areas, as well as for les Bois.  2011 update: This year I bought and loved a pocket-sized book of Paris maps, published by Blay-Foldex, which covers the entire city and lists every street. Quite necessary since I spent much of my time this year beyond the pale of the Rough Guide map! For an extra couple of euros I got one in a red cover that didn’t blare “tourist” as loudly as the paperbound version:
    

    Blay-Foldex Paris

    Arrondisements

    4eme

    The only problem I encountered with my little red book is the fact that it is sometimes difficult to match up streets that cross the lines between arrondisements, since the name often isn’t repeated on the second sheet. This is really just a matter of being careful, however. Since this book has a Métro map and all the streets I didn’t use a paper map this year. I would go this route another year, unless it were superseded by getting data on my Blackberry. Update 2016: I haven’t used books or maps for years, and especially not in the last two years when I’ve not only had Google Maps but data to support route finding.

  • As I’ve mentioned several times, I’m a big fan of the CityWalks series, and I strongly recommend the Paris CityWalks deck. Each deck has fifty suggested walks, each on a pocket-sized card. There’s a map on one side and on the other side the walk is described, including suggested places to eat or drink. There are occasional errors on these cards, which sometimes cause a moment of confusion, but their usefulness overshadows this minor issue. Most walks take an hour or so, depending on how fast you go. They got me into many interesting areas that I wouldn’t otherwise have thought to explore.
  • I bought the Rough Guide Paris Guidebook, which was quite good, especially for restaurant recommendations. I consulted it before starting out rather than lugging it around, although on a few occasions I copied a couple of pages. I also bought the Rick Steves Paris guidebook, but in the end I only used the section on trips outside of Paris.  2011 update: I didn’t use either guidebook this year, but I did enjoy a few more obscure guidebooks, such as Paris méconnu : Promenade hors des sentiers battus (“Little Known Paris: Off the beaten track”).
  • 2011 update:  This year I bought a guidebook of full and half-day trips entitled An Hour from Paris.  I took three of the trips and I found them all interesting and non-touristy.  I would plan to go on other trips from this book another year. 2013 update: Still loving this.
  • 2012 update:  I don’t carry maps around any more.  In part this reflects the excellent apps mentioned above, and in part the fact that I have a pretty good mental map of Paris at this point.  In a pinch, there are maps at any métro station.
• Translation
  • I carried around a pocket French dictionary but I was frustrated with it because it didn’t have good coverage of food terms, and when I had to look up a word it was usually not there. Another time I would bring a travel-oriented phrase book with a good food section, like the Rick Steves French phrasebook.
  • 2011 update: I didn’t carry a dictionary or phrasebook this year and I never missed it, except for some obscure menu terms (like “stomach”!)
  • 2012 update:  I forgot to even bring it this year.  Whenever there’s wifi it’s easier to look stuff up on line, and I’m not anxious about inability to communicate any more.  The fact is that I rarely or never used the dictionary in a crunch situation anyway.
  • 2014 update: Two words: Google Translate. Oh, and one more word: data!
  • 2016 update: I also got the Larousse dictionary app. It only translates words and simple phrases but it’s downloaded to your phone so doesn’t need data to work.
• Crossing the Street.
  • There will are walk lights at most intersections. Usually you will see a little box like the one below, with a button on the bottom.
    

    Blind Person’s Walk Button.

    This works great — almost immediately! But if you see it you shouldn’t use it, since it’s for blind people! When there’s a box like this one the light will change automatically; you don’t have to push anything.

  • On the other hand, you do need to push the button to change the light if the box looks like this:
    

    These are fairly rare, but you would wait indefinitely if you didn’t push the button.

    Another type of regular walk button. You need to push this!

    • Most vehicles stop for a red light, although bicycles and motor bikes are a law unto themselves (including driving on the sidewalk). Watch out for situations where traffic is only given some sort of “pedestrians have right of way” signal instead of a red light. These seem to be less reliably respected.
    • If there’s no walk light be extra careful. Cabs and police cars normally stop at crosswalks, but with other vehicles it’s hit or miss — literally!

La Défense and Musée Marmottan Monet

Tags

Grande Arche, Grande Arche de la Défense, La Défense, La Gare, meals, Monet, Musée Marmottan, Musée Marmottan Monet, Open Café

Cloudy today, with occasional rain showers. I read for a while, then headed out to La Défense, just because I keep seeing the Grande Arche de La Défense down the Champs Elysée but have never been there. It’s a rather sterile collection of office buildings, with a few interesting perspectives.  (Like St. Denis it’s in another city, but on the Métro.)

Grande Arche de la Défense.

More photos of St. Denis and La Défense are up at Paris-18.

After a picnic lunch I read Illusions Perdues for an hour or so at La Gare at La Muette (16e), then met up with Nick, a friend from Boston who is spending the summer in Paris.

Nick (taken by another friend)

We first went to the Musée Marmottan Monet in the 16e. It’s a beautiful old house and there are some interesting exhibitions: paintings from the turn of the century, with particular reference to Proust’s world, and a quite good collection of illuminated Medieval manuscripts. I was disappointed, however, with the fairly small collection of actual Monets that they have on display. I prefer the Monets in the Musée d’Orsay, or even Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts!

Nick and I went back to my place and killed a bottle of red wine (is a theme appearing here?). Then we had dinner in the Marais. His stipulation was that we choose some place where neither of us had been, so I picked Le Coude Fou (“crazy elbow?”) from the Rough Guide. We both liked the atmosphere, food and service, although it was a bit on the touristy side for my refined Parisian taste. We walked back via Open Cafe but Nick has a partner here so was only curious to see what it looked like.

St. Denis and Farewells

Tags

Basilica of St. Denis, Basilique St. Denis, St. Denis

Another beautiful day so I went out to Saint Denis this morning. It’s a separate city but still on the RER (though not within the inner zones covered by a normal métro ticket). There was a permanent food market and an intermittent market was also open. They were good but I preferred the Ménilmontant Market I visited on Tuesday. The basilica dates back to the 11th and 12th centuries, and is in many respects the model for the more famous medieval cathedrals that followed it.

Rose window at the Basilica of St. Denis.

The basilica is the burial place for most of France’s kings and queens, but after Père Lachaise my appetite for tombs wasn’t too keen. (Though I was impressed by Louis XVII’s heart in a bottle!)

After a forgettable lunch I met up with Hugo at L’Opéra. We started with a drink on the terrace of the Café de la Paix, which I suggested because it was close to our rendezvous and looked nice enough. I was stunned by the check however — six euros for an expresso! Hugo then said rather cryptically that I should look inside. When I did I understood!

Café de la Paix at l’Opéra, where an expresso costs 6 euros!

After I recovered from sticker shock we went for a walk. Our destination was the Sorbonne in the Latin Quarter but Hugo detoured us past a couple of Paris institutions. Bouillon Chartier is a restaurant whose stated aim is “to satisfy the belly without hurting the wallet.” It reminded me of Restaurant Flicoteaux described by Balzac in Illusions Perdues. Our other stop was at Drouot, an auction house where we looked in on four simultaneous auctions and perused some upcoming items. Hugo will be working on a master’s in finance next year in Paris, and I will certainly look him up if I return.

After dinner I met Daniel for a short tour of his favorite Italian paintings in the Louvre. He’s a graduate student in the history of art so he had an illuminating perspective. We then killed a bottle of wine talking on the quai of the Ile de la Cité — very pleasant except for the floodlights of the occasional bateaux mouches — and another bottle back at my studio. There was no stress when he headed home around 2 am however because of Paris’ excellent system of night busses. Dan will be studying at “the other Cambridge” next year, which affords another reason to plan a trip to England.

L’Ejumeau

Tags

L'Ejumeau, meals, Sologne, Sophie Sirot

I just got back from an overnight trip with my cousin Lisa and her partner Ali to L’Ejumeau, Lisa’s family’s estate in the Sologne.

L'Ejumeau, a farmhouse that sleeps 14 people on a 250-acre estate in the Sologne.

I expected L’Ejumeau to be nice, but I was blown away by the spectacular farmhouse — which sleeps 14 people! — and the 250 acres of fields, ponds and trails that surround it. My photos from our trip are at http://picasaweb.google.com/rwmack/2010FranceLEjumeau# and there is information about renting L’Ejumeau at http://www.lejumeau.fr/.

We had lunch along the road at a tavern not far from L’Ejumeau, then we bought food for a few meals. It was rainy when we arrived so Ali started a fire and we spent a cozy afternoon reading. Lisa then whipped up a nice meal of salmon and white asparagus, with tomatoes and whole-wheat bread.

Dinner was salmon and white asparagus with tomatoes.

The next morning was cloudy but not rainy, so after breakfast Lisa and I set out to explore some of the many sentiers (trails) on the estate. These took us through forests and fields and along the shores of three étangs (shallow ponds) that were full of bird life.

The back of the house from the étang.

After returning home to refuel we set off again to visit Lisa’s aunt Sophie, who lives nearby. She wasn’t home when we visited but we left a message and she got back to us later to invite us all to lunch with her two house guests. The food was authentic French country cuisine: boudin (blood sausage), lentils, locally-made goat cheese and fresh strawberries. I was slightly daunted by the sausage, which was black as night, but it actually tasted good, as did the rest of the meal. The conversation was almost entirely in French. I followed some of the talk and joined in a few times but mostly I just enjoyed the repartee without fully understanding what was going on. At the end of the meal Sophie was kind enough to give me an autographed copy of a book of her artwork — you can see a sample at this link.

Ménilmontant Market, Père Lachaise and Absinthe

Tags

Absinthe, Gambetta, Jim Morrison, Ménilmontant, meals, Oscar Wilde, Père Lachaise

Another nice day, although the weather is supposed to turn rainy the next few days. I started out at the Ménilmontant market. In addition to the full range of fruits and vegetables it also has a little of everything — clothing, plastic goods, etc. After I snapped a photo of this fellow’s stall he asked me to take his portrait, which of course I was happy to do.

This handsome vendor asked me to take his photo at Ménilmontant Market.

I was impressed by the diversity of vendors and shoppers, many of whom seemed to speak Arabic rather than French. There were no other tourists as far as I could tell.

I then met up with Taline and we explored Père Lachaise cemetery together. It’s a lovely place but I confess that I was in a somewhat irreverent mood.

Oscar Wilde's tomb is covered with kisses.

If you go it’s important to have a good map, as I learned with my nephew in 2008. I recommend that you print out these two maps: Popular Gravesites and Street Map.

There are more photos from Ménilmontant Market and Père Lachaise on Picasa at Paris-17.

Taline and I had lunch at a non-touristy bistrot in Gambetta (20e). The waiter gave us a little attitude but was fine in the end. There was a funny moment after the main course when I asked for “la carte“. The waiter said “une ou deux?” and I said “deux,” thinking that he was busting my chops. He then arrived with two “tartes (du jour)”! After we sorted things out, and got our menus, Taline and I ended up sharing one very tasty apricot tart.

Dinner was at my old favorite, L’Absinthe Café‎, with my high school classmate Ingrid and her husband Mike. After dessert we decided to share our first absinthe. It was quite a production! After the liqueur was poured into a glass a lump of sugar was placed in a special spoon, then ice water was drizzled from a special container through the sugar into the glass. It had a strong licorice scent and anise taste, which I rather liked.

Ingrid, my high school classmate, and her husband, Mike, with desserts at L'Absinthe Café.

Ingrid and Mike with our first (shared) absinthe, at L'Absinthe Café.

Parisiens and Les Batignolles

Tags

Les Batignolles, Marais, meals

Yet another beautiful day, not only warm but actually rather hot. Needless to say, I loved it after the long, chilly spring! My first stop was an agricultural fair along the Champs-Élysée. After fifteen minutes or so I was ready to continue with my day, but then I realized that this presented a great opportunity for candid photos, since there were a lot of interesting folks and everyone was snapping pictures anyway. So I went to town.

"Young Farmer" at the agricultural fair. (I suspect that he was posing to show off his diamond ear stud!)

Candid at the agricultural fair.

More candids are in the latest Picasa set, along with flowers, friends and buildings: Paris-16

Lunch was with my HGLC friend Steve Rivera and his partner Israel at La Chaise au Plafond in the Marais. It was great to catch up with Steve and to meet Israel.

Israel and Steve at lunch in the Marais.

Bob at lunch in the Marais with Steve and Israel.

After a little nap I headed out to do one of the last of my fifty Paris CityWalks, Les Batignolles. It turned out to be a somewhat mixed but ultimately quite charming and domestic neighborhood, with hardly any tourists. I had a nice dinner there at Terrasse 17. It wasn’t haute cuisine but it was creative, tasty and moderately priced. The Square des Batignolles was a pleasant place to write postcards in the late afternoon.

Square des Batignolles, and sleepy duck, late afternoon.

I mentioned on the first warm day in Montorgueil that the privacy level suddenly dropped because everyone opened all their windows, since they have neither air-conditioning nor venetian blinds. I can now report on the first hot evening in the Marais that they also take off (almost) all their clothes. My closest neighbors on both streets are quite well-built so this isn’t unpleasant, but I’m not used to such a high level of neighborly intimacy. You can’t help seeing when you look out your window but I presume that there’s a social taboo on peeping intentionally. This apartment is comfortable when you open it up, since it’s among the rooftops and has windows on three sides.

Friends and Family on a Perfect Sunday

Tags

Bastille, Café de l'Industrie, Canal Saint-Martin, meals

Another perfect, warm day. I changed my flight home to a later time on March 31. The flight attendants are striking against British Airways during that period. My flight was marked uncertain but the later one was marked definite, so I decided to go with the better bet even though it gets me in a few hours later.

Lunch was with Taline, a friend from Boston, at Café de l’Industrie.

Taline at Café de l'Industrie.

Their brunch last week was so-so but I had a bass filet that was delicious.

Filet de Bar at Café de l'Industrie.

The service was spectacular — attentive, friendly, yet not intrusive — especially surprising since we made pests of ourselves by sitting alone near the window in the back room.

After that I walked around the Bastille area, which is growing on me more and more, then along the Promenade Plantée to Reuilly, then down to the Parc de Bercy which Cort and Julien had introduced me to yesterday. After a gelato I Métro-ed up to Canal Saint-Martin to meet Lisa at Chez Prune. We had a good catch-up, then met up for dinner at the Hotel du Nôrd with her partner Ali, and her mom and dad, Jackie and J.F.

J.F., Jackie and Lisa at the Hôtel du Nord on the Canal Saint-Martin.

It was good to see them again, in the case of J.F. for the first time in some years.

The scene along the Canal was very convivial, a happy apéro geant without even needing Facebook.

Canal Saint-Martin on a late spring evening.

I strolled home through the Marais, enjoying the crowds spilling out onto the sidewalks from the many gay bars.

Château and Bois de Vincennes

Tags

Bercy Village, Bois de Vincennes, Château de Vincennes, Cour Saint-Émilion, crepes, gallettes, Montparnasse, Pagoda, Parc Bercy, Parc Floral

I slept in a bit after the late night last evening, then did my Prague blog. Today’s weather was just about perfect, the first short pants day, as well as short sleeves. I only have a few parks to go in my pack of Paris CityWalks so I packed a picnic lunch and headed out to the Bois de Vincennes, on the eastern outskirts. While the Bois is owned by Paris, and is on the Métro, Vincennes is a separate city. The first thing you see when you arrive there is the Château de Vincennes. I particularly liked the dungeon.

The dungeon of the Château de Vincennes.

I started my visit to the Bois de Vincennes with the Parc Floral. It had some of the most impressive masses of flowering shrubs that I have seen anywhere.

Parc Floral, Bois de Vincennes.

After the Parc Floral I walked around the Lac des Minimes, where you can rent a rowboat, as many Parisians had done. Overall the daytime visitors to the Bois seemed very domestic but I gather that it can be cruisy and dangerous at night.

I went home, changed, then met Colt and Julien at the Bibliothèque nationale, site François-Mitterrand. We walked across the bridge to Parc de Bercy (where there was a huge line for a Lady GaGa concert), then over to Bercy Village at Métro Cour Saint-Émilion, a posh shopping center in a former warehouse district. There we had a convivial cool drink in the sun and caught up on the past week.

After that I scrambled through three Métro lines and a minor misunderstanding to meet Alexis for a movie at the gorgeous old Pagoda theater on rue de Babylone. The movie, Copie Conform, was beautiful and emotionally powerful although (as usual) I followed it more closely when it was in English or subtitled (in this case the portions that were in Italian). We then had an authentic and delicious Breton meal of gallette (salty) and crêpe (sweet, and using a different batter), washed down with hard cider. We ate at Alexis’ favorite crêperie, La Crêperie de Bretonne on rue de Montparnasse. On an earlier visit I was horrified by how touristy it seemed, with at least twenty crêperies, but Alexis explained that Gare Montparnasse was the station where Bretons first arrived in Paris so his people naturally settled the area. Indeed, most of the diners seemed to be French.

I’m really going to miss my new Parisian friends when I return home!

Prague and Novy Bor

Tags

contemporary photography, photography, Prague

Just got back (very late on Friday the 21st) from a whirlwind trip to Prague to see my old friend David Ayres. It was great seeing him, meeting Marek, his partner of fifteen years, and visiting the house they are building in Novy Bor, a town about 1-1/2 hours north of Prague.  I stayed in David’s terrific condo in Mala Strana, a few steps from the Charles Bridge. Prague is even more beautiful than I remembered, which is saying something, and I also got a chance to see some of the Bohemian countryside near Novy Bor. Here’s a glimpse of Prague:

Prague's Old Town and Charles Bridge from Mala Strana.

And here’s a photo of David and Marek:

David and Marek

My twenty best photos from the visit are up at http://picasaweb.google.com/rwmack/2010PragueTwentyBest#

There was a travel snafu at Charles de Gaulle airport when my flight from Prague arrived, just before midnight.  The regional train (RER) wasn’t running to the airport stops so you had to figure out that you needed to take a shuttle to “Roissyport”, then a free bus to “Aulny sur Bois”, then the RER from there.  The only explanation of all this was a cryptic notice on a screen that left even native Parisians baffled.  The upshot was there was lots of running around and sharing of information with fellow travelers, but there was a happy ending (for my group at least).  I ended up shepherding a cute couple from Cornell through the daunting labyrinth of Châtelet-Les Halles, out to Rue to Rivoli and into a taxi. Then it was home to bed for me, well after 1 am.

Addendum: The morning of my trip to Prague I strolled down my street, the whole length of the Marais. At 23, rue du Roi de Sicile (the street name changes) I happened on a very enjoyable gallery of contemporary photography, Galerie Wanted. I was impressed by the quality of the images on the main floor but when I went downstairs I was amazed by the gallery’s size — the Louvre of contemporary photography! They had interesting images by dozens of photographers, often in a relatively affordable price range. Welll worth a visit.