Diary of a Flâneur

Tags

13 prairial an 2, battaile de 13 prairial an 2, Canal Saint-Martin, Charlie Hebdo, Coulée verte, Coulée verte René-Dumont, flâneur, folie, folies, Gare Saint-Lazare, La Grande Canopée, mannikins, Nuit Debout, parc de la Villette, Parc Monceau, Paris, Promenade plantée, rue des petits carreaux, rue Richard Lenoir

While I’ve mostly posted on specific topics and visits this year I’ve continued to log my Paris walking average of seven miles a day. This post collects some of the interesting or attractive things I’ve run across in my wanderings (saving art for a later post).

One of my favorite walks in Paris is along the Promenade plantée (more properly called the Coulée verte René-Dumont), which transformed abandoned railroad infrastructure into a leafy linear park. It begins near the Place de la Bastille and runs several miles to the Parc Vincennes. The first section is elevated, connected with a short level stretch, through a tunnel, with a depressed section.

Even on a gray day the Promenade plantée is lovely

These Parisians know how to party!

This street sign for the “road of little square stones” is itself made up of little square stones.

The monument in the center of the Place de la Republique was totally renovated in 2010-13, then trashed after the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015 and during the Nuit Debout protests in 2016. It has now been restored, ready for the next popular uprising.

The statue of Marianne in the Place de la Republique

There’s a lot of history on the plaques around the base of the monument. This one commemorates the biggest naval victory of the First French Republic, over the British fleet. In our calendar it took place on June 1, 1794, but the Revolution established a new calendar starting at year 1, including new names for the months.

Plaque on the base of the monument in Place de la Republique commemorating the battle of 13 prairial an 2

There are officially sanctioned skateboard areas all around Paris. This one is right on the Place de la Republique.

A skateboard area in Place de la Republique

A nostalgic 2CV

A field of flowers (with a secret)

La Grande Canopée, almost empty

The Parc de la Villette in the northeast corner of Paris contains a dozen or more “folies.” Some have uses but many, like this one, are purely decorative.

A folie in the Parc de la Villette

There are a lot of ancient-looking ruins in Parc Monceau. The columns themselves are fairly old, but they have been repositioned for aesthetic effect much more recently: “The Naumachie of the Park was built with the columns of the ancient Rotunda of Valois, ordered by Catherine de Medicis to house Henry II tomb.” [Source]

Ancient-ish ruins in Parc Monceau

Gare Saint-Lazare from Europe

Mot du jour: 2CV. The Citroën 2CV, 1948-90. 2CV literally means deux chevaux, “two horsepower,” but the original version actually had nine.

Champagne

Tags

apartments, Brian, caves, champagne, Cheryl, lees, Moët et Chandon, Moët et Chandon Champagne, Montorgueil, Rick, rue des petits carreaux, Saints de Glace, Sheila, weather, wine cellars

My cousin Brian, his wife Sheila, and their friends Rick and Cheryl had organized a wine tasting trip for early this week. It was a guided tour of the Champagne region, an hour and a half east of Paris.

I had never been to Champagne in all my visits to France. As you might expect, it’s lovely, even on a rainy day.

I jumped at the invitation to join them, which included a cooked breakfast at Rick and Cheryl’s lovely three-bedroom apartment on rue des Petits Carreaux, just a couple of blocks from my place.

The living room of Rick and Cheryl’s gorgeous apartment on rue des Petits Carreaux. Not that I’m jealous or anything…

The five of us had met in Paris three years before, when we had gone on a memorable Alfred Sisley Pilgrimage. Both couples were then staying in hotels, and they were impressed by my one-bedroom apartment on rue des Jeûneurs, and by the petits séjours in Paris I had been making for a month or so each spring. Rick and Cheryl kindly credited me with having inspired them to rent their really beautiful apartment, with enough space to invite friends — such as Brian and Sheila — to stay with them.

Our first stop was at a small family winery, making six varieties of champagne, most of which we tasted and several of which we bought.

Our host was Sebastian, the fifth generation of the family of champagne makers

When I complimented our host on this label he said he is replacing it with a metal one to project an even more luxe image.

After paying our respects to Dom Perignon‘s grave we visited the impressive winery and caves of Moët et Chandon (you pronounce the t, I learned, because Moët is Dutch). The wine-aging caves are truly labyrinthine. A plaque says that Napoleon I visited in 1807!

Dom Perignon’s grave (on the left). He didn’t invent champagne but he made many improvements in the process.

Moët et Chandon’s winery exudes luxury

Moët et Chandon’s aging caves.

Moët et Chandon’s aging caves.

I had been aware that champagne had to be “disgorged” after aging to remove the lees (fermentation remnants). I didn’t appreciate, however, how complex and delicate this process is: Daily tilting and rotating process over a period of weeks works the lees from the side of the bottle into the neck. The lees then must be blown out of the bottle without losing too much champagne, the bottle must be topped up with replacement champagne and sugar water (for sweetness, not fermentation), then given the final cork, all within a matter of seconds to avoid losing too much carbonation. The traditional method is for a skilled vintner to do this, but large producers like Moët now typically freeze the neck of the bottle so the lees pop out in an ice cube rather than a gush. Most champagnes are capped during aging with a simple metal cap but Dom Perignon, which is aged for ten years, is aged with a cork because a metal cap might not last.

Bottles of Dom Perignon being aged with corks. Moët et Chandon makes Dom Perignon as a separate brand. They purchased the vineyards he traditionally used but otherwise have nothing to do with him.

The high point of a wine tasting is of course the tasting. Just one glass of Moët & Chandon, but it was delicious.

Sheila, Cheryl and Bob enjoying their taste of Moët & Chandon

Available in all sizes!

Update: Here’s a Google photo set with full-sized versions of all my photos from our Champagne day trip: Champagne Day Trip

Mot du jour: Saints de Glace (literally, “Saints of Ice”).  When we commented on the cold and wet weather we had been having for several days our guide said that it is common for there to be a cold snap of a few days in mid-May. Traditionally three saints with holy days in the period are asked to protect farmers from freezing temperatures that would kill their crops. There had been snow at high elevations in France a couple of days before but Champagne was mercifully free of ice during our visit.