the same, or maybe not the same

Here's what I learned from Claude Simon (a XX c. French novelist): for a writer, only the act of putting ink to paper puts a definition to an experience. Before that, all you have is (in his words) "a formless mass of sensations, more or less confused, of memories, more or less accumulated, and a vague, very vague project. It is only in the process of writing that something happens."

*****

I talked to Ed just a short while ago. He tells me that all my travel posts are the same: a bit like consistent, warm comfort food, he says. I think her reads things differently than I do. My writing has another meaning for me and probably still another for you, the Ocean reader.


*****

I'm undecided about breakfast. It's such a quick meal here: a croissant or a pain au chocolat, coffee. It's better if the setting compensates for the brevity of it all. So I look for that -- the good setting. I go to the cafe by the Buci market and I sit down outside and I last only about two minutes. No, not because it's cold. There is too much smoke. Everyone of these occupied tables has a pack of Malboros on it. I know that smokers are free to do their thing at outdoor tables here, but it is rather sad that they have inherited that coveted space and someone who doesn't want to smoke secondarily with them has to go inside.





I don't in the end go inside, I go across the street and stay inside at Paul's -- because though it is painfully dull inside Paul's (it's a bakery, not a cafe hangout and it shows) at least the pain is terrific and the coffee is pretty good too.





*****

Where to go today? Oh, no dilemma there. It's so obvious: if I'm in this city for more than a day or so, I'll go to the old but very up and coming (and perhaps you can say that it already upped and came) Marais district. But I do it backwards this time: instead of walking, as usual, first to Notre Dame, then to Marais, then Pompidou, then les Halles, I go first to Les Halles, reversing, in effect, the loop.

(So, I cross the river. Two photos from the Ile de la Cite to move us along.)



quiet square on an otherwise busy river island




looking back to the left bank, across the Pont Neuf


It makes sense to get rid of Les Halles early on. If you're not a Paris person, maybe you don't know that this is a major reconstruction zone for the city (completion date: some infinitely distant time). It's terribly unpleasant to walk through it, even though they try to excite you by posting historic signs of progress. Well, I was here last in October and it looks pretty much the same as it did then.

As always, when I'm in this (at present, horrible) area, I visit the two restaurant supply stores. And as always these years, I buy nothing. I suppose I just like the feel of places that sell kitchen utensils. It takes me back to when I was a (more) serious cook.





*****

I have a clear destination today: the art exhibitions at the Centre Georges Pompidou. There are two special exhibitions and both are exciting.

But first, let's look at the views from the top of the Centre building. On a day like this, they're... over the top, so to speak. (yes, there is a bit of a haze, but less than what you see in the photos, which were taken through somewhat streaked glass).











Now, let's get to the two special exhibitions. The first -- "Surrealism and the Object." Completely dedicated to Surrealist sculpture. And not sculpted from raw material, but sculpture that uses everyday objects. As always, the exhibit comes with a terrific description of the context (including the relationship between surrealism and communist philosophy) and I spend far more time on looking and reading here than I had intended.



S, Dali


So the second exhibit gets shortchanged. And perhaps that's a shame, because I may have gotten even more involved in the essence of it than my already huge involvement with the surrealists.

The second exhibit is about Claude Simone. And it is a massive undertaking. I can't even describe it -- it's huge: it has materials, and manuscripts. and since he was also an artist and a photographer -- it has the visual elements as well, and commentary by others, and places for lectures on his work, and really, I've never seen anything quite like it. (It also has quite the number of university students making use of this massively accumulated treasure trove of Simon work.)







But, after a while, I move on. It was in a way too much for someone who had intended to just "visit an interesting exhibition."


*****


My daughter had sent me a clip from the NYTimes last month about a place in Paris that is doing a wonderful job of promoting different Brittany ciders. She knew Ed liked cider and thought on a next Paris visit he might like to go there.

There is no Ed in Paris right now (and who knows when he will next grace the sidewalks of this city) but in reading the article, I learned that it is a place with the best Breton buckwheat crepes in all of Paris (and there are a lot of creperies in Paris!). I have a deep love of a good buckwheat crepe and so I thought I'd do a late lunch there and see if it would pull me all the way through the dinner hour, in the Marseille way. (An opportunity to spend less on food and still eat well! Win win!)

Of course, a November NYTimes review means December crowds, but since I am a solo diner, they squeezed me into the overflow table for strays over at their little Breton store.

It is a superb crepe meal. I order the Brittany artichoke special (Brittany supplies 90% of France's artichokes... I don't know how I know this, but it's true!). The crepe has an egg, cheese, ham and artichokes. Heaven on earth. Oh, of course, with delicious (gently  alcoholic) cider on the side.





*****


The walk back is down familiar paths. You'll recognize the Place des Vosges (the moon shines brightly...)






And even if you don't, I imagine you're now quite familiar with that gold of all the sunsets I've experienced while in France this month.





















Though I bet this guy's gold will come as a surprise: he is juggling (on one of the bridges over the River Seine,) while placing a bowl of goldfish on his head. And, concurrently, he dances and sings songs from his native country. Raw talent.





*****


So, can I skip dinner? No, I need a little more food. And I need to go out. When I travel alone, I don't want to eat in the quiet of home. Tonight, I go out in search of something light and cheap and tasty. And that's a tall order to fill: if one of the prongs misfires, well now, that's life. But it's all too easy to miss the boat on all three and then you just kick yourself for not doing the conventional dinner out in a restaurant, like normal people.

On the upside, none of the three prongs exactly misfired. But, too, I have to admit, it wasn't a win win either. I decided to go to the little place up in the Buci area-- a few blocks from where I'm staying. It's called Da Rosa and it's vaguely Italian and it's somewhere between a food store and a cafe and a brasserie. I look over at my table neighbor, like the looks of his pasta and order the same. Or so I thought. I got rigatoni with a spicy tomato sauce which I could probably make at home with my eyes half closed.

But, it was good and it wasn't outrageous and on my walk home, on my lovely walk home, I'm thinking how superbly nice it is to have had an exceptional meal today, even if that meal happened to have been lunch.

*****


Out of order, but, on the theory that there is no order to life, you will, I'm sure, be fine with this:  I caught sight of the moon again today while I was passing a church. Same as yesterday, only different church. (Notre Dame.)





*****


Not out of order and in fact ending my post for today is the last stretch of the walk home. I 'live' just a block up from here.

the attic

 I have the address memorized. Easy: it's on a block within the heart of the 6th Arondissiment. I've walked these streets so often. I'll find it!

And I do: it's an imposing painted door with the usual old key holes.





Except I don't have a key. I have a code. Mailed to me by Patrick, the owner of an apartment inside.

In recent times, I've finally stopped searching for the perfect room on my trips to Paris. I like my little hotel and over the years, they have come to like me back (or at least recognize my existence). If I book reasonably early, the rates are exquisitely discounted. The room is tiny, but clean, pretty and relatively inexpensive. And so I was not happy to see that the hotel was closing for half a year for yet another renovation.

I searched all the left bank hotels. All of them. Nothing gave me the value I was used to for the price. And so I turned to my new friend: AirBnB -- the site where people post their own places to let.

I was willing to pay as much as my discounted hotel room, but not more. And because this is a private transaction, I was really good about reading every last review. People are sometimes over the top generous or sometimes unnecessarily negative, but read enough reviews and you get a good enough picture of what you're in for (and unlike, say, Tripadvisor reviews, you cannot review an AirBnB place unless you've actually stayed there).

Still, I have been warned that renting privately is risky. Fine. Consider me warned.


Inside the door, there is a dark hall of sorts and then an iron gate. I have another code for that. So far so good. The numbers work.

Then come the stairs. I knew that it was a walk up. I'd forgotten it was on the 6th floor and that I would have my suitcase. Well now, up I go.





Nearly at the top. What's this? The stairs are narrower now. The apartment is in the attic -- yes, I knew that. The photos showed a sloping roof. Alright. Here's a door. A small door. I'm to meet the owner's assistant inside. No doorbell. I knock. Nothing. I check my watch. The train was on time and I estimated well enough. It's 2:30. We were to meet at 2:30. I wait. Nothing happens.

Airbnb has a great policy: you pay up front, the full amount, but the organization holds on to your money until you've had 24 hours in the rental. In that time, if something is not as it should be, you can contact them and they will withhold payment to the owner until the issues are resolved.

I'm thinking -- this is a scam. Someone has figured out how to put fake photos and fake reviews on the site. But no -- I do have access codes.

It felt like I was waiting for a very long time. In reality, it's no more than ten minutes before I hear the sound of footsteps on the stairs. It's Patrick. With apologies. And since Patrick really does look like a French speaking George Clooney only with a scarf, I am very forgiving.

He tells me he lives downstairs, on the second floor, but his maid usually opens and shows the apartment. She just had a baby and so he dashed from his office to take her place.

I am very relieved.

We step inside and it is a beautiful studio-like apartment! I mean, really stunning! Not large by any means, but possibly five times the size of my little hotel room.










As he shows me how to work the lights, the heat, etc, we hear an unnerving high pitched squeal. He's puzzled. He checks the appliances. No, not that. He shuts down the electricity and restarts everything. Not that either. We open windows to see if the noise is from the outside. It isn't. I can see that he is without any idea. We try to focus on where it's coming from. It's a hot/cold guessing game, but finally we are in the small kitchen area.
Here. It's somewhere here, he says. He's standing right next to my suitcase.

Oh shit! It's my alarm clock: some jiggle set it off.
I unpack it apologizing profusely. Patrick is kind and forgiving and I'm sure much relieved that he did not call plumbers, engineers, etc. to search out the source of the disturbance.

We chat a little about things that are taking place in Paris right now and after telling me that my French is perfect and my timing is sublime and a bunch of other things that I'm sure George Clooney would never think to say, he takes off for work and I am left to examine my new surroundings.

But not for long. Let me catch those last rays of sun now. Ah the sun...

I'm remembering how difficult it always is to pick a place to visit in Europe in December. If you mind the cold, well then -- stay south. Unless you mind the wind. Because then you would steer clear of France. Maybe go southeast? Sicily? Greece? Good chance of rain there!

For me, it was a given that I should pick France. Even though I wasn't sure yet if I would be retiring, this is the trip that I really treasure -- the one that comes at the end of a hard semester and just before the holidays are fully upon us. The south was almost certainly going to be sunny. But Paris? That's iffy. You tell yourself bravely that Paris is Paris and the weather really does not matter all that much.

For the most part, that's true. But I have to say -- I don't think I have ever been so lucky here in December. A string of warm and sunny days in Marseille and now a string of not too cold and very sunny days in Paris.



 (people are still eating outside, but unlike in Marseille, the outdoor heaters are on)


I catch the last golden tones of the sun as I walk past St Sulpice. Oh, there's that same moon that chased me around in Marseille!






My walk is conventional. It's nearly always the same on my first day here. I canvas the neighborhood, from one end to the next.

It's dark now and I continue walking. I am really susrprised how bike sharing just keeps growing and growing here!





It all seems crazily dangerous, but somehow, it does not surprise me that Parisians should take to the streets in this way. Parisians manifest a certain amount of bravado that comes with knowing you live in a place that is nearly universally acknowledged as insanely beautiful.





A few hours of strolling and some light holiday shopping and now it is nearly 7 and I make my way to Le Timbre, for an incredibly early dinner reservation there.


 


I found this place on my last visit here and loved it to death and so here I am again, ordering wild mushrooms (why don't we eat more wild mushrooms back home? They're so good and surely we have bigger better forests than the French do!), and duck with endive and chestnuts (taste-wise, chestnuts add only a mild flavor, but their crunch against the braised endive is sublime!) and a poached pear in a spiced honey sauce (which is so perfect that you want to take it home and have it again and again -- for breakfast, lunch and dinner).















I watch as people come in to fill the tiny eatery. Pairs, of course. Foursomes. Another single woman. Many order the same things I do. Maybe this is the season to eat duck with chestnuts, or wild mushrooms. I ask the chef (who cooks just on the other side of the counter) if wild mushrooms are a year round thing in France.
No, it's the end of the season for these (chantrelles -- orange and gray, trumpets -- served in a meat jus).
Ah, so we're savoring what little remains.

Savoring foods. Yes, everyone is doing just that. Come to think of it, have I ever seen a French person grimace or complain about a meal? Or send back something imperfectly prepared? Back home, we're always so dissatisfied! Too rare, too well done, too this too that -- something about life leads us to complain constantly about how imperfect it all is.

I leave my dinner and I have no complaints.

At night, those clear skies produce a dip in the temperature. It must be near freezing now and for once I'm glad I packed a scarf. I pull it tightly around my neck and make my way past the Jardins Luxembourg and through the heart of the 6th to my attic apartment in Paris.

the sea wins

Some of the best lessons are ones learned from mistakes. In travel, the opportunities for both -- lessons and mistakes -- abound. But here's something even better -- when a mistake leads to a better outcome.

I had all those on this day. I'm still reeling from it all.

Ed will say repeatedly that I travel without risk. Nonsense! I push boundaries all the time, though not his kind of boundaries. I like to know I have a clean bed at the end of the day. I see that as a very basic requirement. He sees it as unnecessary. He likes the challenge of managing an untamed environment. I like the challenge of finding something unexpected, fleeting, beautiful. For example, standing quite suddenly before a gorgeous sky...




(in Cassis)



...or watching an adult delight in a newborn...



(in La Ciotat)



...or looking out the window of a bus and seeing unexpectedly the winery where years ago I purchased a bottle of wine. I carried it home with me and it still sits in the cooler, because I cannot get myself to open something so special (even as its price is less than 10 Euros).  Or, here's another surprise moment -- I am by the port and here is a man selling sea urchins and I really do remember that I saw him here with his rickety table years ago!








So let me tell you about this particular day and you decide if it's tame (Ed's position) or adventurous (my position).


I'm alone at breakfast this morning. The Canadian couple has left and Odile tells me she'll be having a quiet week before the madness of the holidays.






You're open for the holidays?
Oh yes! French people come to Marseille to visit family -- I'm always busy then.
Her dogs are barking at something imagined outside.







Quiet down! She says with a shake of her head. I have to smile. Her three dogs coexist beautifully with her two cats and it sure seems to me that her dogs have taken on a bit of a cat personality, while her cats are, in some ways, dog-like.







Even though most of the buses are now running, Odile says that the strike is still on. But only 20% of the employees are on strike and whereas they blocked the movement of buses thus far, they've now been pushed back and so the buses are in circulation, albeit somewhat off schedule.

No matter. I had already decided to use the trains and go up the coast. Initially, I had wanted to simply spend the day in Cassis (the small seaside town just a short distance east of Marseille), but Odile tells me that the next fishing port -- La Ciotat -- is also very pretty and so I decide to do a spin through both: take the train to La Ciotat, poke around there for a while, then come back to Cassis and maybe do a meal and a hike there.

Good plan!

Not so easy in the execution.

I take the 11:05 out of Marseille. That should put me in La Ciotat by 11:45. It's a comfortable commuter train and the views are fine...







...though do take note that they are not views of the coast. Had I reread my own Ocean posts from five years back,  I would have recalled that this particular train line runs a couple of kilometers inland.

And there is construction along the line so that it's closer to noon by time I get off at La Ciotat. Well no matter. Surely I can catch the 12:52 back to Cassis.

I step outside the station. Hmmm. I can't even see the sea. Or the town. I go up to a waiting bus. Are you going to the city center?
No. I'm not going anywhere. Missing from this short exchange is any suggestion that another bus might offer service soon. Are they striking here as well?

I ask a young woman who seems to be hurrying in the way that locals do when the late train has put them behind schedule: Is it far to town? To the sea?
No no. Maybe twenty minutes. Just follow the road.

I do that. Briskly. It looks like it's going to be one of those very brief visits. Twenty minute walk, ten minute look, then back on the train for Cassis. That really is one dumb plan. It will not have been worth it: I robbed myself of more time hiking around Cassis (daylight hours are precious! The sun sets at 4:30) for a postcard view of another port town.

After twenty minutes of a fast pace (and I do notice that I am going downhill all the time, meaning that the return trip will be completely uphill) I just begin to recognize the outskirts of a town and I get a first glimpse of the sea -- still some distance away. People who use cars all the time lose their sense of walking distances.

In the end, it takes me a solid forty minutes to get to the sea. Ah well, I'm thinking. At least I get this lovely view of the colors of the Mediterranean.



 



But how is it that I'm going to catch my soon to be departing train to Cassis?

If a taxi had passed by then, I would have hailed it and that would have been that. But no bus nor taxi went by and I know now I have to rethink my options. I walk toward the center of town.



 








And as I round the corner, I come across the protected harbor of La Ciotat.







Odile was right! It is lovely! An perhaps because to the side it has the cranes and equipment of a shipping industry, it doesn't seem to be a big tourist destination. Not in December anyway. By contrast, Cassis is a beloved day trip for the more gentrified French. You need only look at those who dine at the numerous eateries that line the harbor in both places. One calls out -- local! We're taking a lunch break from work! (Scarf's there, just in case.)




La Ciotat



The other -- we're enjoying a moment of leisure before we head home to... wherever it is that we live.




Cassis


So I'm thinking -- scratch the plan to eat lunch in Cassis. I'll eat here and grab a taxi back to the station.

It is an absolutely heavenly moment in the sun. I go easy on the meal: I need to be out of here in a half hour or even a taxi wont help me make a connection. A seafood salad. Perfect: octopus, scallop, shrimp, snails, tomatoes, lettuce -- all heavily flavored with a wonderful olive oil and lemons. (All the countries of the Mediterranean are very liberal with their use of olive oil, whereas we're so restrained and so committed to a good dose of vinegar that no one ever tastes the magnificence of the oil.)







Well now that was wonderful! I'll try not to mind the money spent on a cab now. 10 Euros. Uff. That hurt. (Almost as much as losing my 3 Euro roundtrip metro ticket earlier today.) Retirement puts you in a different mindset. Suddenly you have what you have and you must make do with it. I don't want to have to go back and look for work just so that I can travel. I must keep it simple. And that means limiting taxis to the times when it's absolutely necessary.

I suppose this was one such time.

The train ride back to Cassis is brief - ten minutes. And lo! There is a bus waiting at the station to shuttle us to town! 80 cents! I exhale.

Cassis. What can I say -- it is such a lovely little place! I'd forgotten how stunning the cliffs are to the side, and how colorful the houses are along the seafront -- especially now in the late afternoon sun!







I stop at the tourist office to get a map. No time for mistakes now. I only have two hours of daylight left.

If I had wanted to hike both in the vienyards and along the coast, it was not to be. In the end, I chose the sea. I am very much in its embrace here and I've not spent that much time taking it in. And so I do a calanque hike -- the land between Cassis and Marseille is riddled with fjord-like inlets (called calanques) and I remember how impressive they were when Ed I hiked here. Now, in the light of the receding sun, they are beyond beautiful.

First, I leave Cassis behind me...







...and I hug the coast (noting that the sun is quite low now)...



 



And then I come to the inlet -- the calanque.







I think how this day has had everything going for it and that I am here right now in that rare state -- very rare state -- of being without any load on my shoulder. It almost never happens that you can be somewhere this beautiful and neither you and more importantly, no one you love is hurting. And where the excitement about the next week, month, year -- is mounting, where you think that all the tricky parts of life did not knock you down and now here you are, still breathing, still scheming, still loving the beauty of a bunch of sailboats moored by the white cliffs of the calanque.







Needless to say, it is a good moment.


The walk back to Cassis is brilliant: cliffs, buildings, everything reflecting the last rays of the setting sun.






Back in town I have a few minutes left before the bus for the station is to depart. I use them to go to the Cassis Christmas market. Just a few steps from the shore and the vibe changes. Here, it feels local. Unlike the other holiday markets I had visited (Marseille, Aix), this one is heavier on eating and drinking than on purchasing things.

I don't linger and I don't eat or drink -- I haven't quite figured out dinner yet and so I spend my time people watching and then I retreat to my bus, and my train, to Marseille.

It's 6:30 and I am again cursing myself for losing my metro ticket. My penance -- I walk to the Old Port. It's only a half hour, and it gives me another chance to walk through the gritty market (which I really like, because it feels unapologetically real), but I had really hustled on those white cliffs of Cassis and, too, I have to admit that I am in need of more sleep. I could not stop nodding off on the last train segment. I know already that there will be no long post tonight.

But what to do about dinner? Yes, restaurants will open at around 7. But do I really want to be that one person who comes in to eat at an ridiculously early hour? How hungry am I anyway?

I go back to my last eating place among all those wonderful old books. I thought they served continuous foods in one form or another. They do not. (But they have a sweet little gift shop and several kinfolk back home will profit from my stopping there.)

Alright. I've decided. Time to skip dinner again. And since an early afternoon seafood salad is really not enough food to carry me through a day of hiking and running and doing God knows what else, I stop at a nearby bakery to pick up... something. A sandwiich maybe? No: the stuffed baguettes look like they've been sitting in the fridge all day long. In France, the bread is good, so good, so great in fact, but not after it's been in the cooler for hours. So... okay: here's a salad with goat cheese. That'll do. She throws in a chunk of fresh bread. Pretty good! And a container of Heinz "salad sauce." Oh well. I remind myself that it's good to spend 3.5 Euro on dinner occasionally.


Back at Odile's house, I am greeted in the usual warm way. Pierre, her 'friend' is there as well. They want to hear about my day. I tell them I have my salad to eat and they set the table for me as I were to enjoy a feast -- fine china, beautiful silverware and the best olive oil. Suddenly, my salad is transformed!

And Pierre, who understands my love of the local white wines, takes out a bottle that he purchased for me to try. We stay there at the table exchanging stories of life (they are forgiving of my grammatical impurities) -- in the way that you can do once you pass sixty. The three of us were born in such different places: Poland, France, Morocco. And we have visited each others' countries and we have memories and impressions that bear telling and perhaps bear slight adjustments now with new information.

It is a grand moment. I only took one photo, of Odile, with her dogs. There are times where no camera will provide an adequate image and so it all has to stay within the heart.






The next morning, I eat breakfast quickly. I have a 10:36 to catch for Paris.

I say my goodbyes, promising to return. I know many people throw out such promises. But Odile shows me the little apartment she wants me to have next time I'm here. I'll be back, I tell her. And I mean it.