Paris

Good morning, you magical city! Thank you for this week of great weather! 

 

[Honestly, in Paris I don't usually complain about the weather: even rain can be charming here. Nonetheless, I'm starved for the openness that good weather provides. Go anywhere. Walk until you drop. They've had lots of cool and wet days this year so I am especially grateful that this week is slated to be totally dry. Temps go up to 60-ish during the day -- that's 16C -- and drop down to a brisk low 40s -- that's 6C -- at night.]

Breakfast at the hotel. Very spaced tables! And oh, that bread product!

I've used my downtime in the past days to try to sketch out some daily goals for my time in Paris, but I'm failing horribly at this. I want to be everywhere! I want to walk the city. Should I shop just a little? I can't! Not much room in my wee carry-on! I could send it through... No! No shopping! I have a museum pass. Should I use it? No, I don't want the stress of crowds. So, walk to the Right Bank? Stay on the Left? I don't know!

I am a bit overwhelmed. 

It comes from not having done this for a while and frankly, from not knowing what my travel routines will be like in the next few years. Will they change? Will the pandemic change? Recede substantially so that we wont have to think and worry this much?

Okay, I go out. Just that. 

 

 

 

Turn left, then right and walk. 

 

 

 

No goals for today. Well, there is a beloved by Parisians cheese shop a mile or two to the west of me. I've never been to it, so maybe that. Why not. 

But of course, it's all in the journey. It's in the people you pass (lots of kids today because it's Wednesday -- no school for most), and the shop windows that catch your eye. (I'm not much of a shopper, except in Paris. The small stores here are so interesting that you find yourself thinking -- what's so great about online buying anyway?)

Occasionally, I go inside to explore further. There is this bookstore: I just love it to pieces! (The fights between Amazon and booksellers in France are legendary. So far, the booksellers are staying afloat.) And when I go inside -- sanitize your hands first, please! -- I lose myself in the wonderfulness of all those colorful, beautiful childrens' stories. I wont be able to resist picking up a few. The kids better hurry up and learn French, Hawaiian preferences notwithstanding! (One I'll definitely get for the grandgirls...)

I'm in the neighborhood of the department store, Le Bon Marche. Those of us who maintain tight budgets should stay away from its temptations. Did you know it's the first department store ever built (1852)? With the help of the design efforts of Gustave Eiffel? I don't go in today, but I can't resist popping into its food halls across the street. The French do food so well that you can have a visual feast by going into any number of little shops. But at the Bon Marche la Grande Epicerie, it's just one sensual overload.

I'm also in the neighborhood of the current mystery novel I'm reading (All the Devils are Here, by Louise Penny)! This is a real bonus for me: I'm saturated with Left Bank imagery.

Finally the cheese store. I go in, but only for a second. This place is really serious about selling cheese and I am obviously not buying. Still, a two minute peek leaves me thinking that perhaps there is no better food on this planet than crispy bread with stinky cheese!

I've walked quite a bit away from the river. Indeed, I haven't even seen the river, except from the car window on the drive into town. On the Left Bank, the further you are from the river, the fewer the tourists you'll see. Or, to put it another way -- nearly all tourists stick to the Left Bank sights that are close to the river. So I can't really tell if there are many tourists in Paris. I don't see them, but it could be a reflection of where I am walking today.

Noting that the cheese store is very close to the Avenue de Breteuil, I have this idea that I might stop at the terrace of Cafe de Breteuil for lunch. Very long ago, on my daughters' first trips to Paris, we used to stay not too far from there and the Cafe, which was actually a restaurant, had good food and a spacious outdoor terrace. It was off the beaten path and we always found a welcoming waitstaff. Sweet memories! (Except when one daughter sat down and happened to squash a bee resting on her chair. Bee stings can be painful, but the waiter was very solicitous!) As I approach the spot, I see that it is no longer a brasserie, but a place specializing in Neapolitan pizza. The name? Central Park Terrazza! Well okay, it's a terrace and there are heat lamps.

Lunch starts at noon, but I see that even at 12:30, there are  just a few diners. That's fine. Crowds these days are scary. I order an Italian truffle pizza and a freshly squeezed lemonade. And I have to say this -- it belongs to that handful of best pizzas ever! The thin crust, the herbs and spices, the delicious cheese, and truffle slices of course -- they all blend magnificently!

 

 

 

I eat the whole thing and I think -- why can't I find a great pizza at home?

Here, I have to insert a slight digression: when a traveling writer points out the fantastic small and large habits, foods, sights, inclinations in the country they're visiting, the reader may recoil after a while. Is it that I think that they do everything so splendidly in France?? So I have to clarify: I don't think that. (Though I do believe they do food awfully well!) But, just as at home, I tend not to pay much attention to mishaps, misbehaviors, and misdeeds (unless they are so serious that you must include them in the narrative to be authentic), so, too, here, I tend to shrug off the shortcomings and notice the wealth of awesomeness that I really do associate with Paris. An American living in Paris wrote recently that people always ask him if there's anything he prefers in the US over what he finds in France and he said -- oh, that's easy! Just in the food department alone, perfect avocados and mangos, and, too, the wealth of well priced, copious amounts of berries. In France, the avocados tend to be rotten, the mangos -- non existent, and the berries come in tiny containers and yes, they are perfect! But they are incredibly expensive. More like something you'd decorate a tart with rather than pouring a bunch over your oatmeal every morning.

I would add a number of things to this list, were I in the complaining mode: I dislike the cigarette smoking here and the fact that it is still is permitted on the terraces of cafes and restaurants. And too, there is the compliance with Covid restrictions: I've marveled at the way the French adapted to the president's vaccination order. They grumbled at first. The French, like so manyAmericans, hate to have the government tell them what to do. But the matter is not nearly as politicized as it is back home, so after a few days of grumbling and a handful of protests, they got their shots en masse and in return, they were given the freedom that comes with plummeting infection rates and a return to the obsessive dining and socializing that the French crave so much. Still, every twentieth person will flaunt mask wearing. It's required indoors and in crowded outdoor spaces, but there will be the occasional man or woman (even shopkeeper!) who will pull the mask below the nose. People have been warned that if the Covid rates go up, there will be limits on gatherings again. The French hate limits on gatherings even more than they hate government orders on masks and so for the most part, even the reluctant go along with the mandate. But again, there are exceptions. 

So just this note of reassurance: the French certainly are not without their pesky habits!

Back to my pizza place: by the time I'm done, the place is packed. Teen girls meeting up for lunch. A group of thirties something friends (don't they work? no one is in a hurry...), couples, a three generation family. Inside, outside -- it's all full.

Time for me to move on. 

This is my Eiffel Tower moment. I am so close, though still behind the Ecole Militaire, so at a somewhat different vantage point...

And now a close up of the Tower. Looks like they are still doing renovations. I understand they're wanting to be done with this in time for the Olympics here in 2024. (Mostly French speaking people here as well. I hear that many non-Parisians are taking advantage of the empty tourists spaces. Now's the time for that long deferred visit to the capital.)

It's time to turn back toward the hotel. It's such a lovely walk from the Tower to my corner of Paris! But while I'm in this neighborhood, I'm thinking I should pop into the Rodin Museum and take a stroll through its gardens. My mystery novel's opening scene  takes place in these gardens. And even without having just read that intense chapter, I would want to pause here. The quiet, the scattered sculptures -- it's a beautiful combination! Ah-- I remember. You need the French vaccination pass to get in. But this is a tourist place and so they're happy to work with our unique scribbled vaccination cards (and guess what! when I return to the hotel, I check my email and find that my passe sanitaire has been approved! It only took a month. With the bar code belonging only to the vaccinated, I can now move around like the rest of those living in the European Union).

I see that there is a special exhibition at the annex to the museum: Rodin and Picasso. Focusing on similarities. On their obsession with nature. And with naked bodies and sexuality. Here's an example: the pictures are Picasso's, the models are Rodin's.

And here is a photo from the gardens:

On the continued walk back to the hotel, I pass (deliberately) Cafe Varenne. Anyone who has traveled with me here, in person or on Ocean, will recognize this as a special place for me. I nearly always eat a lunch here, loving the classic food, the incredible crowdedness of the restaurant. Of course, on this trip I don't find crowds to be so wonderful at all, which means no Varenne lunch for me this time around. But how about a dessert in the late afternoon? There are tables outside, mostly empty at this late hour.

Do you have the (infamous) lemon tart?

No, but we have a tarte aux figues...

(The waiters here are flawless at customer service. Without a prompt, he brings her her drink and also a bowl of water for her dog.)

And finally, I turn toward home. I'd been out since 10 and now it's 6. My Fitbit thinks I'm cheating -- it's never seen numbers this high. But I have one more pause -- at this tiny store that sells colorful cutlery. Weirdly, it's been on my mind a lot these past two years. I had purchased some spoons here on the day my younger daughter went into the hospital to give birth. Now I'm thinking I need a couple of extra spoons for my growing family. So I go in. It's like a dream -- I'm back here again. I'm back to traveling and I'm in the cutlery store. Amazing.

(Another Rorschach test for you: what do you focus on -- the display, or the reflected buildings?)

A short hour later, I leave the hotel again. I've booked a dinner at the Sauvage and it's a bit of a walk (I booked it before looking at the map!). 

I arrive at 7:45 and it is empty. There are maybe 4 little tables outside, but clearly the eating takes place indoors. The waitstaff assures me it's safe -- there's plenty of spacing and again, there's maybe one other occupied table. So I go in and sit down. And then I regret it. A few people start coming in. This doesn't feel good for me.

I'm sure the staff thinks I'm nuts. The outside tables? Oh sure, you can eat there, but they're mostly occupied by a smokers lingering over a drink. No heat lamps. The French don't like to be cold. They are all eating inside. I should stay indoors.

But I don't stay. I come from a country where infection rates are four times those of France (and vaccinations are so politicized that they are significantly lower than here). So I live with anxiety. They don't any more. I do.

I eat my beautiful dinner of clams, then fish and both are utterly magnificent, and they know it! (The French are not modest about their cooking talents: last night I eavesdropped on a conversation between a French woman and her Italian friends. She said -- I love the English countryside, but their food is so terrible! The Italians laughed in the way you do when you're in total agreement.)

Home at last. Dinner took two hours, the cold notwithstanding so now it's late, and I still have to write, to work on the photos. Tomorrow I'll be gentler with myself. Today was ambitious, but so worth every last step and last bite!