A Day Trip! Nemours 6-10-15

Got a good reason for taking the easy way out.  Ours is due to our visitors, for the month we purchased our travel cards for zones 1-5 which covers a reasonably large portion of the Ile-de-France around Paris.  This means we can travel pretty far out on the trains and still have our Metro Passes work, an easy way out.
So we jumped on the train out to the town of Nemours to see the  Musee de Prehistoire D'Ile-de-France, located about 90 minutes south of Paris, in the southern fringes of the Forest of Fontainebleau.  Upon arrival we jumped on a bus and headed into the town center to find a place for lunch.  Where we got off seemed to be the town square where there was a small market just ending, with the vendors packing up.   We walked through the market and down one of the side streets further into the area without much luck in our hunt.  (Though interestingly I located a building I'd seen in Google Earth street view, that's no big deal but what was interesting was that this building was at an intersection where Google had stopped recording at one point and started it again quite some time later.   In the first scan the building was decked out in Christmas decorations with holly wreaths at each side of the door with a low winter sun and in the later scan all the decorations were gone and it was quite sunny, but I digress.)

With no immediate prospect for food we turned back and took another street and found ourselves at the edge of the Loing River, a tributary of the Seine.  Here we got a better idea of why someone described it as a "Venice" of the area, the river runs both around and through the town.  It was likely built here for defensive and waterpower purposes, but now it provides a pretty highlight.



We visited the town cathedral, built in the 17th century but looking quite gothic. To me it's interesting feature is the melding of different elements into a single structue.  For instance the vaulting is all stone in the altar and ambulatory while it changes to plaster and wood in the nave.  Additionally, the pillars in the nave are not mirror imaged on one side engaged columns with pointed arches and smooth round columns on the other with more rounded arches interesting.



So we had lunch, pretty good,


Then we boarded a bus again for the trip out to the museum of Prehistory.   About 10 minutes out on the east side of the town, we alighted from the bus and had a 5 minute walk further on to the museum.  It's set the middle of a heavily forested area and the building was designed by an award-winning student of Corbusier, quite striking in varying elevation blocks of concrete and glass, almost like Frank Lloyd Wrights prairie houses.   A basically horizontal front with with continuous windows, punctuated by a vertical entry counterpoint that echos the Menhirs that feature so distinctly in the archeology of prehistoric France.  And being built on a slight hillside, internally it is on several levels as well with inclines that take one between rooms of artifacts and fossils.  We were the only visitors in the museum today so it was a leisurely stroll between rooms.  It was interesting to see skeletons, tool, utensils, etc from the early stone age up through the Gallo-Roman era.  Neanderthal skulls, Wooly Mammoth bones, Bronze and Iron age weapons and tools, Roman glass, a little bit of everything.  The docents mentioned that we were really lucky because tomorrow the place would be filled with school children on field trips and the place would be as noisy as the hollering vendors in the market.  It was a fun visit and equally fun to see such a nice little town.  I nearly forgot to mention that it was free as a result of our membership to the Louvre.

A crowded train back into Paris and we were home by about 8:45pm, a long day. We plan other trips like this in future so stay tuned.

A second visit to the Musee D'Orsay 6-9-15

Today I've got a bit of a cough, perhaps due to the winds yesterday and a throat tickle, but no matter. We headed off to the Musee D'Orsay for our second visit.  We sailed right in, bypassing the line out front since I have the membership.  It will take us about 2 trips to pay off the cost of the membership because we got a discount by being members of the Louvre.  We took a new bus route to get to the museum and interestingly just as we got to the stop where we would cross the Seine we intersected one of our regular routes meaning that we could have just taken the regular route and then transferred to the new route.

Today we focused on the mid-19th century painters such as Daumier and the Fontainebleau school, Millet, Bougereau, a beautiful Bonheur, early Degas, several good James Tissots, and other lesser knowns.  Not my cup of tea generally but still interesting to see, and some were quite compelling.





The people watching is also very interesting due to the museum floorplan, yes selfies.











After our visit we walked down on the quai along the Seine from the D'Orsay up to the Louvre and got the first pictures here of the Pont des Arts with all the "love locks" removed.  We speculated on all of the unfortunates who will have to figure out some other way to publically declare their infatuation. Personally I wonder what all the street vendors will come up with to sell to tourists, because they're never out of business very long. Finally we caught the bus back home.

A day in the next hood 6-8-15

Today Deb wanted to get out for a little recuperation time in the sun so we planned a little trip over to the Parc de Belleville.   It is a small park to the south of the much larger Buttes des Chaumont that lies in our arrondissement.  We wanted a little time to sit in the park and read and let the world go by. We took the tram over to Porte des Lilas, then jumped on the bus which takes us through the heart of Belleville, the working class section in the east of Paris.  It is now home to scores of artists due to the lower rents and each year sponsors an event where one can tour their ateliers, sort of like RINO in Denver but of course Parisian.
On the way we stopped at a Thai restaurant that we have taken a fancy to due to it's really good food and the fact that the location feels as if you are in a small town in the countryside, little traffic and quite laid back.  After lunch it was a 10 minute walk to the park.  Where as we arrived we noticed one of the Phillipe Starck historical markers, stating that this spot at the bottom of the park was the location of a tavern frequented by Cartouche.  In the late 17th century the tavern was the hangout for a notorious highwayman with the alias Cartouche, he would drift into Paris creating trouble by robbing rich aristocrats and then beat it back up into the village at this spot.   He is reputed to have given much of his ill-gotten gains to the poor.  At that time it would have been a few miles outside Paris and pretty remote so he was pretty safe.   Alas they caught him and broke him on the wheel in the early 18th Century, a shattered cartouche if ever there was one.


But into the park we went and I must say it is quite a pretty place, built on the side of a hill it is full of stairs and paths from top to bottom.  They surround little grass enclosures where the locals hang out eating picnics and sunbathing.  The borders in the lower part are rose hedges and they are in full bloom right now so it is both beautiful and fragrant.  The upper part of the park are paths through heavily treed hillside affording many benches where one can sit an read in a pleasant dappled shade.  That's what we did for a few hours, after which we ascended to the top of the park and had a commanding view of Paris from the observation deck renovated in 2013.  

I had read about the view some years ago but had forgotten about it until we were there, it's quite lovely.

Later we started heading home and came across a wall fountain, possibly inspired by the Wallace model, which supplies drinking water to users of the park.   So another 15 minute walk and we were at one of the bus stops that would take us back to our neighborhood and apartment.  Just a quick stop to pick up our daily bread and a quiet evening at home.

Le Weekend 6-6 & 6-7-15

Deb managed to get a little bit of a croup going and was kinda down and out for the weekend, so she stayed in and rested.  This evening she seems to be a little better and we're hoping that tomorrow will have her up and about again.  We're wondering if perhaps the change in temperature from cool to hot may have triggered something.

Anyway, since she was trying to sleep most of the day, I left for the day to visit a couple brocante/vide greniers sales and to purchase our annual pass to the Musee D'Orsay.  It's the museum that displays the large proportion of the mid-19th into the mid 20th century of French artwork, i.e. the impressionist and post-impressionist collection.   We made a visit with our niece, Elizabeth, and realized that we will be going back with other visitors so the annual pass makes sense.   So I got out and haunted the 3 sales in our neighborhood for a couple hours, and made a little purchase which I then took back to the apartment to amuse Deb.   After that I headed down to the museum and got there about 5 minutes too late to be able to buy them as they closed the ticket office.

So I headed up into the 8th arr. to find a store that originally sold the steak knives I bought earlier, but no luck they were no longer in business.  So I headed back to the apartment where in the evening we watched Barcelona, Debs favorite soccer team, beat Juventus in the European Championship match.

Sunday was a sort of a replay of Saturday, except I bought nothing, but I did make it to the Musee D'Orsay to get the annual pass and spent an hour at the museum.  Ironically, it's a free day meaning that my pass is not needed to get in, c'est la vie.  Very busy with lots of people visiting and enjoying the artworks.   After the visit I walked back to the bus stop along the Seine, with the nice weather it is just packed with people out taking advantage of the sun along the river.  Then I headed back to the apartment for a quiet evening.

Hot yesterday but blazing today 6-5-15

Almost since we arrived it has been cool and breezy here with intermittent periods of warm sunny days.   Yesterday it was hot and today it's blazing, around 92 degrees, so we've curtailed our outdoor time to some food shopping around noon and a return to our cheese vendor to pick up our purchases from this morning.  We bought them but couldn't go back to the apartment immediately so they said they would hold our purchases for an hour.   When we went back 45 minutes later they were closed for the afternoon siesta time and not opened again until 4:00.   We must have misunderstood but c'est la vie it's Paris.   So I'm out again in the heat to pick up our cheese, and maybe a cold beer?, then back again to loll in the shady apartment.   We'll fight again another day.


Deb's comments: Whoa - summer arrived with a vengeance today, but will revert to spring-like temperatures tomorrow. Meanwhile, we're keeping a low profile and letting the breezes blow through the apartment. We lowered the volets (roll down screens that allow ventilation but keep out heat and light, and probably 8th floor burglars) on the south side and that kept things markedly cooler. I wish I could get similar volets for security on the Guffey cabin, but they're prohibitively expensive in the US. Of course, maybe they are here, too.
***We needed to shop as the cupboard was nearly bare. We've been trying dedicatedly to do a better job of eating what we've bought and not letting things go bad. But that also means when we're out, we're really out. So today it was fruit, veg, meat, fish, cheese, olives, honey, jam, wine and, as always, bread.  It's apricot, cherry, fig, strawberry season at the moment. The trusty little red shopping caddy was groaning on the way home.
***Our cheese monger had introduced us to a whipped cream-like thing called Fontainebleau. It's not sweet and is a favorite served with smoked salmon or similar savories for a sort of mousse-y presentation. Anyway, we got hooked and asked for some today, having bought the salmon specially. Alas, none to be had, as they hadn't made it yet for the day. But, heavens to Betsy, they leapt into action and mixed up a batch and processed it in a little machine that I dubbed the Cheese Expresso Machine, much to their amusement. However, they then asked if we had further shopping to do, and offered to keep our purchases as the Fountainebleau was "fragile" and didn't like heat. That's where we got messed up on what the time frame was. All worked out well, but poor Warren had to go back out in the heat a second time to retrieve our bag of cheese. We just make ongoing mistakes in understanding what we're told. One word makes such a difference! (Something Lee Patton and Susan Noll have been trying to drum into my hard head for ages on my John Thompson writings...)
***Actually the whole conversation had gotten off with my misunderstanding. I thought they were asking about our recent trips to the chateau of Fontainebleau, and then realized that they were asking how we'd liked the cheese Fontainebleau that they'd recommended. They were also wanting to know if our visitors (Terry and Gina and Scott and Jennifer Jefferson) had like the cheeses that they had recommended. Fortunately, it was easy to give a happy report on the dinner.
***We're still adapting to the long days of sunshine here in the north (Terry tells us that Paris is roughly the same as Vancouver). But it's ~8 PM here now and feels like it should be about 4 PM. The aforementioned volets are a big help in getting our bedroom dark enough to get to sleep at a vaguely reasonable hour. I keep struggling to get dinner done before 9.
***We were happy to see the little "Scourge of the Courtyard" back out again today. He's a Jack Russell terrier we've dubbed "Sparky" who lives in a ground floor apartment and is giving the run of the courtyard (probably illegally.) He's a doughty little soul whose person uses an atl-atl to throw his toy far out into the courtyard. Sparky motors after it like a crazed road-runner cartoon. He also attempts, with frenzied barks, to intimidate several cats who also live on the ground floor and populate the courtyard with an act markedly more graceful than his. They ignore him loftily and one, whom we think lives with Sparky, actually attacks him when he gets too irritating. We, who miss our cat-person dreadfully, enjoy seeing the animal neighbors.
***And lastly, speaking of animal neighbors, the cat-food stealing crow was back this morning. He glides over to a higher neighbor's patio and carefully chooses among the boxes on a storage shelf there. He then throws in down on the terrace floor and dines at leisure on the dry cat food. We've seen crows all over town, ripping open the suspended trash bags that mark most street corners. Crows are not the most popular of birds in Paris, or France. But we love them for their impudence and insouciance, not to mention, wit.

Two new sites 6-4-15

Today we tried two totally new to us sites and visited a third for a picture.   We decided that we would focus on the 6th arr. for a few days and towards that end we decided that we should finally visit the Pantheon.   We've visited Paris quite a number of times in the past and have passed the Pantheon very many times without going in so today we remedied that situation.
We got an 11:00 start and jumped on the bus down to Gare du Nord, where we transferred over to another bus which goes almost exactly where we want to go.   We decided to have lunch at the Italian restaurant we discovered when Elizabeth was visiting because, frankly, it's too good to pass up. We've been reading that Italian food in Paris is by and large bad, so I guess the restaurant must have a teleport to Italy because it is really good.  It's right next to Boulevard St. Michele, and in the heart of tourist central, but it's down a sort of hidden alley so I think only people who know it's there stop for lunch.   I had pasta with artichokes while Deb had raviolis  with 3 types of mushrooms; a little Sicilian wine and we had Lunch! It's called L'Osteria Del Passe Partout if you're in Paris and want Italian, we'll provide directions.
After lunch we walked over to the Pantheon with a brief stop at the Sorbonne to take a quick picture of the chapel there, containing the remains of Cardinal Richelieu who was a major patron and donor. We finagled our way in by going to the gift shop and then wandering a bit, since it's a university they won't let people in unless they are students.  So a quick pic and on our way.  The public is admitted to the chapel several times during the year on specified days, so we'll angle for the next one.
We got to the Pantheon around 3:00 and spent the next 2 and a half hours going through the building. It is a very interesting building having been alternately a church and site of great French citizens off and on for over 200 years before finally settling as the latter in the late 19th century.  There are many tombs of great French thinkers, writers, and scientists.  Notably for me, were Rousseau, Voltaire, and the Curies, Pierre and Marie, but also there were the writers, Zola, Hugo, and Dumas,
We found murals created by artists that were active in the art education of John Edward Thompson about whom Deb is writing.   Also as predictable politicians but we'll leave them.
After our visit there we headed across the street to the Bibliotheque St. Genevieve, one of the first buildings in Europe built with both stone and cast iron.  It is very beautiful and quite fully utilized by students of the surrounding universities.   Reminded me of the libraries in Madrid, where you must get in early and then set up camp for the day.  To get in to the reading room you must have a membership card and flash it at an automated gate because due to it's size the number of people are strictly limited.
After leaving library we walked to Boul St. Mich and caught busses back to the apartment, the finish of a lovely day.

Deb's comments 6-3-15

***This windy Wednesday morning, Terry and Gina packed the last of their bags and grabbed the trusty Blacklane van for the airport. Their email sounded like they had made it through all the challenges of Charles de Gaulle airport unscathed if not untouched, and were getting ready to board. We wish them a good and uneventful ride home. They were lovely, good-sport guests who put up uncomplainingly with all our eccentricities and a markedly cramped guest bedroom. Thanks for coming, dears! Hope all the wine makes it home without turning your clothes maroon.

***Warren had some little housekeeping chores in mind today - he wanted to fix a drop-front desk that is built into our guest bedroom. Apparently, it has been a problem since it was installed since the screws that held up the drop front pulled through the wood. Warren's carpenter-senses were offended and he decided to fix it. It took several trips to Castorama, our neighborhood do-it-yourself Home Depot equivalent, but bedarned if it doesn't look like he succeeded. Kudos to the resident handyman, and to his perseverance, not to mention his determination to ask for weird stuff in French. (cheese is one thing, strange hardware fittings are another...)



***The flowers on our terraces are loving the warmth and the longer days (we're up to about 16 hours of daylight per day.) A pretty pale pink rose bloomed joyously on the pagoda terrace, contrasting nicely with all the red latticework. On the bigger terrace, the hydrangeas knocked themselves out, covering themselves with purple-red blooms. I've never had hydrangeas before, so particularly enjoyed them. Currently, I've got two kinds of blooming lavender and a few pots of petunias, pansies, violas, ivies, balloon flower, little carnation-cousins, and lots of the sturdy geraniums that like the terrace heat. Plants are so inexpensive here that I'm forcing myself to show some restraint, just because of space issues. But I keep losing my resolve when I walk by the charming fleuristes ...

***It's going to be nearly ninety degrees here in the next few days. It'll be a shakedown cruise for us to see how we handle the summer heat. I don't do all that well with heat, so have some trepidation. An encouraging thing is that we can open terrace and bedroom doors to get a crosswind through the apartment. It is truly a blessing and one that many Parisians don't have since many apartments only have windows on one side. Not only does that limit ventilation, but severely limits incoming light, a particular concern in the short, short winter days. We keep counting our blessings to have gotten this well thought-out apartment.

***We were delighted to hear that Elizabeth made it home without any major adventures, despite her complex train to airport itinerary. Well done, lady-person! She emailed that she has a cat glued to her leg, Velcro-style. Mapie really missed her, despite loving and dedicated care from Don and Walt, the expert cat-sitters. Our gratitude to all who care for that priceless, worthless cat of ours.