The Hotel Soclo, among its many virtues, is small. Only four rooms to a floor -- each one occupying its own corner, so there is little likelihood of ever hearing your neighbor. I don't know that I even have neighbors. The whole place is very quiet. Rest is possible.
Since one purpose of this trip is to take things slowly, I have scheduled no early morning activities or travels. I'm to leave on a train for Paris, but it doesn't depart until 10:38. The hotel people tell me I should book a taxi for 9:50. Nice and late in the morning!
I get up and glance out the window to greet the day. Dark. This next photo was taken just before I go down to breakfast. Europe changes its clocks this coming weekend. Toulouse may be south by French standards, but it's still quite north, by American standards. Right now the sun rises at 8:22. Paris will be even later (8:28), so dark mornings are the norm here in late October.
... then I check that eye. Hmmm... Do you suppose I could get away with simply being one who favors purple eye shadow, for a youthful goth look?
I decide to leave it alone for now, but I pack my nifty (and probably useless) powder into my backpack for further consideration. [And of course, the first thing that my adorable cab drive asks me is -- what happened to your eye?? Did you fall? I guess my gray hairs imply that I may suffer from balance issues. In fact, I have zero problem with balance. Just with paying attention to where I'm heading. Haha!]
Breakfast at the hotel. I may as well fill up, I wont be picking up lunch today.
It's hard to decide on which cake would be best. I realize that the variety they offer is not necessarily a good thing. I stare at their display, only part of which is visible here, cut myself a piece of one, and another...
... and then feel certain that I made the wrong choices. The lesson? Next time just stick with the baguettes. I love them here and you cannot find anything comparable back in Madison.
After a very leisurely meal, I still have enough time for a short walk.
There's a high school across the street and as I watch students filing into the school yard, I can only think -- they probably never once had to practice for active shooter events. Lucky them. Shame on us. Really, shame on all who refuse to place limits on gun ownership in America. Sigh... Lucky them. Scarred and scared us.
With only some twenty minutes left, I turn toward the river. So many great ways to enjoy its beauty! Oh, I know this bridge well!
(Riverside bike ride)
(Takes talent to ride in the city, while talking on the phone, with hands off the handlebars...)
There is a canal here, and I take a few minutes to follow its path. It's not du Midi, it's de Brienne. It''s a bit more narrow than du Midi, but the images are still similar...
(you can tell I'm in the south...)
Okay, I'm in the cab now, chatting to the driver about her large family from Algiers, about her husband from Morocco, about food. Honestly, for Toulusians, the buck seems to stop right there at the table. ("Did you try the cassoulet? But with a sausage! No? You didn't go to Castelnaudary -- where they say cassoulet came from?" Shock and disbelief.)
I arrive at the station in plenty of time, but this is not a bad thing, because the TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse) for Paris originates in Toulouse, so it is there and waiting for us to board at our leisure.
(man with scarf has long replaced the man with beret in France as a fashion statement)
I haven't taken a French TGV since the pandemic and I am surprised to see that they have become even more comfortable. My seat now has several charging portals and the WiFi is solid. The views out the window haven't changed though! Lovely as ever.
(another canal!)
[The trip is actually a bit of a surprise to me. It takes two hours to reach our first and only stop -- Bordeaux, which of course is on the Atlantic coast. So we veer west, before then shooting north to Paris. From Bordeaux to Paris the ride is less than two and a half hours. I mean, why would you ever fly locally when the trains are so excellent!]
(vineyards, because, well, we're approaching Bordeaux)
And now Paris.
I'm to spend four nights here before returning home on Saturday (just as Ed takes off for his sailing trip; we will have missed each other by several hours). My plan was to actually make no plans at all (remember -- I am on a de-scheduling kick on this trip!), but a few weeks ago, two of my Polish friends, Piotr and his wife Gosia, told me this was a great chance for them to also visit Paris, especially since one of them has never been there and, well, you know, we're getting old(er). And so we will be coordinating our days with I expect some overlap.
My first task though is to get myself from the train station (Gare Montparnasse) to my hotel without bumping into any metal poles! Normally, this is a 27 minute walk, but I have a pack and a post-shopping-full suitcase. (I would have taken a cab or an Uber, but I like the walk and I have learned the hard way that walking from the station in the direction of the hotel is a downhill event, so I'm game!)
(leaving Montparnasse behind me)
I pause along the way: to pick up a cool pair of reading glasses, then at a cafe for a quick coffee at an outside table. The coffee is terrible, reminding me that for all the attention they pay to food, Parisians are perfectly capable of downing horrible espressos.
And then I continue, right past hugely exquisite little grocery stores (I always notice the fruits and mushrooms that I cannot easily have back home) ...
... past familiar blocks sloping down from the park...
... one such street running down just exactly to my hotel.
My hotel. Le Baume. How I love this little place! I'm not sure how much they love me back at the moment, since this is my third visit in the last two years and all have been without charge. I'm still working off of a cancelled family trip that had been timed for May, 2020. How well you and I remember all that got cancelled in May, 2020! I promised them that I would try to use up all my credits this year.
As always, I feel at home here. Typically I get the same room, but this time I was late to the game so I have, instead, one that faces the street, yes, that...
... but also has a window out to the courtyard. There is a lovely balcony here, but in Paris, this is no bonus at all for me because I will always prefer going to a cafe and watching a Parisian street scene than sitting on the balcony of my hotel room during the day.
(I picked up flowers for the room because, well, I love flowers.)
I unpack and go right out again. To the park. Because to me, this is the best meditative retreat. The serenity you look for in your everyday? I surely have it at the farmette, but there, I also see the work tasks that await me. At the Luxembourg Gardens, I face none of that. Only the beauty of this vast public space.
(heaven for someone who loves flowers!)
(girls, engaged in serious conversation)
(girls, engaged in serious conversation)
And toward evening I meet up with the traveling duo (they arrived yesterday) and we catch up over supper at Cafe Breizh. Eating here always reminds me of eating in Brittany. I would readily return to those coastal villages, but they really do require a car. It's too hard to move around otherwise. So I put it off and choose, instead, to indulge in a meal of Brittany's favorite savory crepes at the Breizh, which happily is only two minutes from my beloved hotel. No car required!
We start with shrimp: you have to peel your own!
Next come the buckwheat crepes -- mine is with an egg, veggies and cheese.
And yes, we do finish with dessert crepes. And ice cream.
It is, of course, wonderful to see these guys again and we aren't going to be satisfied with a conversation over dinner, so we head out once more, this time in search of a place where we can linger over a drink. There are so many to choose from!
In the end we go to the rue de Bucci, where we sit down at a cafe outside, among the thousands eating and drinking there late into the night, and we make inroads into our own carafe of wine (or, is that a Cosmo I see in Gosia's hand?) and it is all supremely wonderful.
And that is my day! Beautiful on both ends and calm and pleasant in the middle. How good is that!!
