Viewing the Boneyard 12-20-15

Over the week we've made a few mid-course adjustments due to any number of factors, which shall remain un-revisited.  Today we got to the boneyard, also known as the Museum of Natural History located in the Jardin de Plantes.

But first because it was a pretty day we went down to the brocante market at Porte de Vanves, for a couple hours.  It was really hopping today with loads of people selling and even more out looking for the next treasure.  I mentioned in an earlier post about the freelance sellers who set up to sell things just outside the market boundaries without paying the required fees, and how when the police show up they rapidly gather up all their stuff and try to look like just another shopper with a bag full of stuff.  Today the charade was playing out again with the police car just sitting there idling, and all the freelancers were "just hanging around" hoping that the cop car would decide to leave, but alas today they just sat there, very regrettable right before christmas.
After our visit we took the tram east to the Porte d'Italie and got off to walk up to where we get a bus or Metro stop which would take us to the Jardin des Plantes.  But the day was so nice that we ended up walking all the way up to Place d'Italie before we caught the bus and we only did that to make sure that we had time to see the museum.  So it was a 3-4 stop ride.
The sky was beginning to cloud up by the time we went into the museum so it was kind of dark inside but since we were looking at bones, which are basically white, no problem.   This hall is really overwhelming, it so crowded with skeletons that it's difficult to single out any one to look at, they seem to have specimens as varied as Noah's Ark, seriously.  It's just case after case of groups of things like skulls for a specific animal like foxes, cats, dogs, or bears.  Or humans.  They also have amphibians, fish, snakes, birds, you name it they likely have it.  We spent over an hour looking at all the bones and then went up to the second floor to look at the fossils,
They have a very good selection of dinosaur bones too.  What I was particularly taken with was the display of a cast of the skeleton of "Lucy" representing about 40% of a 3.5 million year old hominid.  At the time she was our oldest ancestor but she has since been overtaken by even older members of the family.  After seeing two floors we decided to head back to the apartment.
Our friends Georgia and Woody Garnsey have come over for a Christmas holiday with their children and grandchildren and we're planning to get together with them a couple of times while they're visiting.

Lunch in the Country 12-19-15

Deb wanted to go to the barge museum in Conflans-St. Honorine and today looked to be a perfect day for it because the museum is open on Saturdays, only Saturdays.  To get there requires a series of trains; both Metro and RER which end up leaving Paris by Gare St. Lazare in the northwest corner. Everything worked great and we got out to Conflans St. Honorine about noon, so since the museum is closed for lunch we decided to stay on the train and go down another two stops to Andresy.
There is an auberge in Andresy that I wanted to try the last time I came out to the barge museum, but they were booked with a large party that day and I couldn't get in.
So today we went right to Andresy and walked down the hill to the Seine, the auberge is situated on an island in the middle of the Seine and the only way to get there, if you don't have your own boat, is by the speedboat ferry.   They keep a speedboat specifically to pick up diners who ring the restaurant from the bell button placed at the jetty.  So we rang and very soon a man comes out, fires up the boat, and cruises across to pick us up. So within a few minutes we're on the island and going into the restaurant.  It is a little bar area and two additional rooms facing the water, today there was a little party going on of the owner and some friends in the bar area.  Deb and I were the first diners there and were seated in the first room, followed shortly thereafter by a table of two couples and another couple at another table.
They have around a 3 page menu, with a chalkboard of daily items, with lots of seafood and a few meat based entries.  Then they have a 50 page wine list, with two pages devoted just to vintage Armagnacs dating back to 1950.  They also have a dumbwaiter completely loaded with Scotch whiskey.  I think winters must get cold here on the island.
For starters Deb ordered grilled Cepes (mushrooms) and I had a cassoulet of escargot and lentils in a cream/butter sauce, so rich.
Deb followed up with St. Jacques (coquilles) grilled with mashed potatoes accompanied by a dry Sancerre while I had lamb ribs with a root vegetable coulee and a savory flan accompanied by a Gevrey-Chambertin.
Both of us had the house apple tarte for dessert and then we finished with a bit of Armagnac, Deb opted for a 1991 and I went for the 1972, the year we were married.
It was after 2:00 when we finished but the sun was still out so we walked back towards Conflans St. Honorine along the river, or should I say dawdled because when we got back the museum was closed for the week.  So we took the train back to Paris congratulating ourselves for one of the most memorable meals we've had since arriving.  The barge museum will be open next week and most other Saturdays for a visit, and if I'm not mistaken, so will the Auberge La Goelette.

A Few Holbeins a Few Rembrandts, Ho Hum 12-18-15

We took a short trip to the Louvre today, we wanted to catch up on a couple areas that we sort of glossed over this summer.  There is an area on the third floor northwest and it turned out that the areas we missed on our first visit contained most of the Northern European paintings and within the rooms were paintings by Hans Holbein the younger and Rembrandt.  The problem with most of the maps and the like is that they don't really tell where any but the most popular works are shown on the maps so one is condemned to "wandering around" to find specific things.  
A bit frustratingly, paintings like the Holbeins are located in little dead end rooms and unless you really ferret out each corner they are easily missed.  Holbein was a court painter for Henry VIII of England and was in my opinion the premier portraitist of the that era.
Finding the Holbein paintings was tremendous but in the same room was a self-portrait by Albrecht Durer that is very famous.  It could be noted on a map and never draw any criticism whatsoever, and this is just in a small room off to the side of a main room.
We stopped at this point and decided on a little afternoon break, so we went to a small cafe inside the museum associated with Angelina, a restaurant noted for the most decadent hot chocolate in Paris. Deb ordered a little pastry and San Pellegrino, but I held out and ordered the hot chocolate.  It's almost like drinking hot chocolate syrup, so thick and delicious.
That break picked up both up and got us revved up for seeing the rest of the Northern European section where we came across the Rembrandt room.  It's so fun to see four Rembrandt self-portraits all in the same room and there are a further 10 or 12 paintings that fill the room with another feast for the eyes.
Both Deb and I were taken by the painting of "Bathsheba bathing in preparation for her meeting with King David", it is really moving to see the pensiveness in her face as she contemplates the coming liaison.
In sum we felt quite elated in finding so many world art treasures within such a compressed area. And the topping on the cake was walking into an extremely large room and find perhaps 20 gargantuan Rubens murals created for the De Medici family celebrating the marriage of Marie De Medici to Henri IV.

Large Shopping Day 12-18-15

Well what we've been putting off for the last few days came home to roost.  We had to do a large shopping day.  Usually we can get by with one of our little pull along carts to get our next few days provisions but today we had to use both of them, so it pretty much took up the hours right around mid-day when do our shopping.  After a big shopping we then have a big lunch so by 2:30 we were finishing lunch.  The sun goes down at 4:30 so you get the picture, the day was pretty much gone. We got some goodies from the butcher though, a slice of house made goose liver pate, and a duck breast liberally spiced with espelette. A special cheese, Mont D'Or, only made at this time of year and wrapped in spruce bark, there are only 8 producers in all of France.  Very tasty.

Chartres 12-17-15

Today we went out to Chartres, we've been once before when we had a house exchange with a family down in Antony, a suburb of Paris.  As I mentioned, we bought tickets yesterday so all we had to do was get to the train on time.  Since the sun rises after 08:00 getting to a 09:00 train meant leaving in the dark since the station was Montparnasse and it's clear across the city from us.
The trip out was interesting because it's all built up clear out to Versailles and then all country the rest of the way.  It's about an hour's duration and the countryside was a bit foggy this morning.   But the sun brightened up a bit when we arrived so our walk over to the cathedral was pleasant, and we were almost the only tourists to be seen.   But that bit of sun was almost the only hint we had all day and it was just a brief flirting gesture.
We spent the first bit of time on the outside of the North Portal admiring the Gothic doorway, so much over the top gothic carving, many figural representations.  Interestingly Chartres survived the French Revolution almost untouched.  Rather than destroying images, the revolutionists decided to blow it up and had procured the necessary powder.  But they were dissuaded by an engineer of the time who told them that it would create a pile of rubble that would take years to clean up and the streets of the city would be impassible for that period, so they rethought that plan.  Most of the damage occurred to the carvings that were readily accessible to people on the ground.  I wonder if this is the origin of the term to "deface" something?
Next we went inside and truth to tell it was much colder inside than outside, we could actually see our breaths inside, but not outside.  One of our major interests in coming today was the controversy surrounding the restoration and cleaning of the cathedral.  It began several years ago and involved the cleaning and repainting of what were originally polychromed surfaces.  The interior was so dark from the nearly 1000 years of accumulated layers of smoke from candle and incense burning as to be a mottled black, brown, and grey, quite sombre.  So they have cleaned off the grime, whitewashed the walls and columns and where they found previous polychrome, analyzed the paints and repainted in a manner that was supported by research.  What an uproar!  My personal opinion is that the restored part is very lovely and so what if the specific color is not exactly the correct hue.  Purists would want to outlaw any restoration whatsoever, while flaming revisionist would have gone for the Peter Max effect.  At any rate cleaning it up really lightens up the interior and lets its intrinsic beauty come through.
I climbed the bell tower to have a view of the city because it is far and away the highest point in the landscape, and the views are magnificent of the town and surrounding countryside.  Plus you get to see up close the stonework that is only imagined with binoculars or the naked eye.  Clear up the parapet next to the bells are carved vines with dragons and lions and other imaginary beasties, but the vines are carved out in full relief and twine up the indented flutes of the columns.  Clearly the dedication of the stone carvers to their metier is fully realized up here away from anything a pilgrim of yesterday, or today for that matter, would ever likely see.
After our visit we had a very nice lunch at a little restaurant away from the center (small town) where there seemed to be many locals and it was quite good.
For the afternoon we spent our time wandering through the old commercial center and observing several old medieval and middle age buildings.  At the end of the day we visited the museum of stained glass where they create new stained glass and restore very old stained glass creations before catching the train back to Paris.

A Missing Teahouse Found 12-15-15

Today was a day to find the missing teahouse we had wanted to see a few months ago.  It's the teahouse associated with the Grand Mosque down in the 5th arr.  The first time we went we were unable to find it, even though the description had it in the "corner" of the mosque.  However not long back we were on a bus and we spotted it, it was ON the corner of the mosque not IN the corner of the Mosque.
Our bus took us right to Gare d'Austerlitz which is next to the Jardin des Plantes, and the National Museum of Natural History (more on that later).  The jardin is right across the street from the teahouse.
So our plan was to go to the Museum of Natural History and then stop in at the teahouse for a late lunch.  We got off the bus and walked over to the museum only to find out that it's closed on Tuesdays, Deb has been having a problem with her translation of days lately, so we walked over to the teahouse and had a very good lunch.  Our walk through the jardin was very pleasant as the sun was out and there were a number of plants blooming.
At the teahouse we both had tagines for lunch, Deb's was kefta (meatballs) and I had chicken with plums and almonds, both delicious.  After lunch we walked around the neighborhood and found Tuile a Loup, which is a very famous shop selling hand thrown pottery. Deb read about it 15 years ago in Gourmet when it was still in print and had always wanted to see it.
We also purchased tickets for our field trip to Chartres tomorrow.

A Dry Run and Good Idea 12-14-15

I mentioned a few posts back that we are going to Sicily for a week after the end of the year and given my proven track record for a somewhat half-assed approach to maneuvering around we felt that a dry run out to Orly from the apartment would be a good idea.   I've never been to Orly and as usual it's completely simple on paper.
But nothing is simple when you have side issues, and ours are that we have our Navigo passes which allow us to travel throughout the Parisian network of trains, buses, and subways.  Our stated goal was to see how long it actually takes to get out there so that we can plan to be there before our plane leaves.  Also it will allow us to plan for little quirks that are never explicitly stated anywhere but exist in all their glory and will bite you in the tush if you don't know about them.
So the goal was to take the Metro down to connect with the RER (train) that connects to the OrlyVal which is the tram that branches off of the RER directly to the airport.  My electronic planner says that it should take around an hour and we wanted to test it.  Everything proceeded like clockwork right up to the point that we got off the train at Antony and went to get on the OrlyVal.  Turns out that they are not part of the system and require a separate ticket, which is as expensive as the ticket out to Charles De Gaulle airport on the north side.  So that means an additional 50 euros to get the last couple miles.
However the agent at the ticket window mentioned that our passes were completely good on the OrlyBus, a parallel bus connection that branches off the RER.  So that was our first gotcha sort of avoided, but we still weren't at the airport, in fact we had to go back into Paris several stops to Denfert-Rochereau where we could catch the bus.  So we had to time ourselves back to that stop and deduct that time and recommence from there.   We got back to Denfert and found the bus, it was just leaving as we came out of the train station.  So we have a potential up to 15 minute additional wait for the next bus.
We took the next bus and it seems to be very efficient, but there is a potential for heavy traffic congestion, and we were there in 20 minutes.  When we got to the airport we found the gates where our airline loads passengers.  So in about 2 hours we were able to get a pretty good idea of how we need to prepare for the trip.  So we took the bus back to Denfert and determined to walk over to our favorite Italian restaurant for lunch.
The sun had come out and burned off the heavy fog of the morning so it was a pleasant walk.  As we walked along we happened to look across the street and noticed a sign for "convent" created products, when we were in Madrid these little shops turned out to be a great source for cookies baked by the sisters.
So we crossed the street and went in and found quite a large shop selling any number of things that were created by monasteries from around France.  So there were food items, including cookies, liquor, beer, meats, and cheeses among other things.  There were hand made papers, preserves, perfumes (odor of sanctity?), painted porcelains, lots of things.  At the back of the shop there was a sign pointing down the stairs which just had to be explored.  My goodness there were another 4 or 5 rooms in the basement and each was filled with other offerings.
There was even one room with brocante like items that had been donated.  I bought a copper pan-lid really cheaply!  But they also had handmade leather goods, hand woven shawls, hand thrown pottery, and a room of antique linen and handmade lace, which were incredibly inexpensive, beautiful stuff.   So we bought a little bag of pasta as well.
When we finally made it to our restaurant (L'Osteria del Passepartout)  it was late for lunch but they were just as welcoming as if we had showed up precisely at noon.  We have developed quite a warm relationship with the owners and so it's always a treat to have a meal here.  The owner noticed that we had pasta and Deb explained buying it at the shop.  He responded, "Oh, the one down near Porte Royal" so he knew exactly where it was.  He also gave Deb a couple tips on cooking it properly. We mentioned that we were planning to go to Sicily and could they give us any favorite places, but alas nothing was forthcoming.  Ah well, the lunch was just as good as ever.
After lunch we walked over to Place Bastille to catch the Metro back for the apartment.