Tuesday

To paraphrase Adam Gopnik -- a writer who lived in Paris for a number of years -- it's the everyday that's so beautiful here. I so agree. The parks. The boulangeries. The cafes where people eat lunch or merely pick up a quick espresso. These are the pieces that make up a day in Paris and you could bypass all the art and ignore the architecture and you would still walk away satisfied.

But I didn't ignore the art or architecture today. I packed it in. The sun made me do it!


Morning

Just as predicted, Paris wakes up to a beautiful, sunlit day.



(St Sulpice, as seen outside my window)


That does put a bit of pressure though. I can tell you right now, I'm not going to waste the morning reading the NYTimes on line.

I'm thinking, too, that I need to free myself to go out at night for dinners. Too many evenings of eating bits and pieces of stuff at home. On the one hand, it saves money, but on the other hand, I'm missing Paris at night. So, dinner out tonight and henceforth.

But that has consequences. I can't hang in there on one croissant until the ungodly hour the French open up the kitchens for their night time meal.  Maybe it's time to have a quintessential lunch omelet to tide me over. I google where in heavens I can get an excellent, best ever omelet here.

You may find this to be a ridiculous exercise!  But it's not a given that this classic French dish should be good. I've had many that were not. At the same time, I do think that when it's good, the French omelet is the best of the best.

The initial search points me to expensive hotels. No. I wont do that. But I then find an interview with Ina Garten (do you know her? The Silver Palate cook book person). She appears to have an apartment in Paris (don't they all...) and she proclaims that an exquisite omelet can be had at Cafe de Flore, which, coincidentally is a block from where I am staying.

Working backwards, breakfast will have to be cheap. How about here -- standing,  at a brass bar along with the locals?






It's the Cafe Raspail, right next to the Tuesday farmers market on the Blvd Raspail. It's a fine market, an interesting market, but I think I've given you enough market photos to last a while. You don't need to see more chanterelle mushrooms and root vegetables. I read somewhere that Catherine Deneuve is a regular at this particular market, but I can only remember her face from the movie The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which dates back to1964. She's probably changed some. In any case, if she was there, I did not know it. I'll post, instead, a photo of this happy couple, going shopping together, hand in hand.






After, I allow myself another poke into the Luxembourg Gardens, from the southern end...





And then I take a peaceful little walk along the Rue Madame. I regard the street name as particularly lovely. It's the street of the Mrs. (I believe this particular mrs. was the wife of one of the Louis kings, but I'm not sure which one.)

I do encounter two animated madames.






And, too, I pass a preschool joined to an elementary school. So I pause to look at the posted lunches for the week. Here they are:






I wont translate the whole thing, but the ministry has proclaimed that today, for example ("Mardi"), children from age 3 through 10 shall eat: a salad of chopped endive for starters, along with chinese cabbage with an herbal vinaigrette, then they will proceed to roast veal with a puree of butternut squash (which shall be organic), this will be followed by two cheeses -- emmental and mimolette (the latter, btw, was banned by our FDA because of the way it is manufactured -- the rind depends on some mite activity and the FDA appears not to like that), and finally, there seems to be a choice of two desserts -- a flan, either chocolate, or vanilla with caramel sauce. This is the main meal of the day for French kids. Supper at home is a light and simple affair.

As I make my way home, I pass my beloved bakery. Which pastry do you think I picked for myself for tonight?






Ha, it's a trick question! None of the above! As I'll be eating out, I limit myself to a few choice macarons. Four, to be precise. Selected from this bunch:






Afternoon

Well now, how about my own lunch? At the Flore, I really have to stick to just the omelet. It's expensive enough.






And it is excellent. Thin, rolled, with fresh herbs. And I have a first row seat allowing me to admire the comings and goings of the waitstaff which here is 100% male. (This is not unusual: the higher you go in the price category, the fewer women you'll find in the kitchen and among the waitstaff, both here and in the States.)



(a bevy of waiters)





(my waiter)


Okay, but lunch is not the sole afternoon activity. Today, I want to visit the second (and last) museum exhibition on my "I absolutely want to do this" list. It's a bit of a walk, so follow along, taking in some of the street scenes.


















The exhibit is at the Jeu de Paume -- right at the corner of Place de la Concorde and the Tuileries Gardens. So I am on the Right Bank of Paris now.











And you may regard this exhibition as an odd choice. But I'll say it right up front: I loved it! If you're in Paris between now and February 8th, do not hesitate!

But here's the real oddity: the exhibit is of an American photographer (Garry Winogrand) who took photos of people in street scenes, all around the U.S. (Well, actually in select cities: New York and L.A., but deliberately not San Francisco. He explains, in a documentary I watched at the exhibit -- people in S.F. are too obsessed with being regarded as cultured. In NY, LA -- they go about their business and do their own thing, not worrying about how they may appear.)

One consequence of going to an exhibition of an American is that the audience will be entirely French. The museum was quite crowded and it surely was fascinating to listen to the comments by the French on the depictions of America in the the 60s and 70s.

There is so much that I want say about both the photographer and his work! But I do understand that I can't raise your enthusiasm with words alone and unfortunately, this was the more common exhibit where I am not allowed to use my camera inside the museum walls.

I do sneak one photo, feeling that I didn't dishonor the exhibition, as the photo does not include any of the displayed art. Here it is -- a group of school kids. Maybe 14 yrs old. Their leader asks questions on what's different about the period in the photographs (the 60s) and now.


 


The kids throw out possibilities (car models! more cigarettes! hair styles! no cell phones!) and those of us who lived through those times have to smile at the way we appear to kids, looking back.

After, I walk back to my Left Bank apartment just as the sun sets to the west of the Eiffel Tower.






Evening


It took a lot of self prodding, convincing and chastising to get myself out yet again in the evening. Too, I had picked a place to eat that is easily a 45 minute walk from where I'm staying. (Though it is a pretty walk.)






But I need to branch out beyond my neighborhood in terms of eating choices. So I select a place that has a reputation for being market driven and affordable. The food here (Au Bon Accueil) is very good. It's seems odd that it should be so -- the eatery is right at the toes of the Tour Eiffel -- but it's tucked away from full view and it clearly does care a lot about ingredients and preparation so I'm very glad to have made the effort.

I am way too tired to give you more detail. Nor do I think you need it. I'll leave you with just a couple of nighttime classics, from my walk back home. On a day to day basis, I don't really think of Paris as the "city of lights." In my quiet neighborhoods, nighttime comes and the street lamps are illuminated as they would be anywhere else -- enough to keep you safe. But along the Champs Elysees, at this holiday season, all hell breaks loose and Paris does, indeed, sparkle over and beyond what you would regard as reasonable or conventional. Here we go then -- Paris, city of lights:

Monday

This evening, I walked over to the Luxembourg Gardens. In the Museum, located to the front of the park, there is a special exhibitions. These are nearly always outstanding. But the one there right now is the outstandingest of them all -- it brings together Impressionist paintings from all over the world to demonstrate the role played by the art dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel in supporting and pushing the art movement forward at the turn of the centuries.

It's just a sublime display and if you're in London this spring, or Philadelphia this fall, it will be there then. I highly recommend it! (Caveat -- the Impressionists make me happy and so I tend to enthuse about them, given a chance.)

There was a funny photo policy at the exhibit: each painting had its singular instruction as to whether photos were permitted. Well alright then, but I happen to know that some of those paintings come from Paris's Musee d'Orsay, where the recent policy is that no photos are permitted of ANY work there. So here I was, photographing paintings that, in their true homes, remain off-camera. Go figure.

I wont bore you with my enthusiasm. But I will sprinkle a few paintings from the exhibition throughout today's post. Just for fun.






I wake up to a pretty day. I know it is supposed to rain in the afternoon (and it does do that), but for now, the skies look promising. I can tell! Right outside my window!






Breakfast. You know I eat quite the un-nutritional breakfasts in Paris. It's just the way it is. A pain au chocolat or a croissant and coffee. If I feel I can splurge -- then I'll add an orange juice.  I do consider buying groceries for a breakfast in the apartment, but that's just no fun. I'd much rather people watch!

Luck has it that right next to my apartment building there is a splendid cafe with a fixed price breakfast menu which gets me a coffee, a croissant and a juice. It's heaven! Especially since I remind myself that it's December and that Madison (back home) is in the middle of an sleet and ice storm and in this particular cafe they have the heat lamps going strong and so I can luxuriously eat my breakfast outside on the porch. The reason for the red glow over the croissant? It's right under the heat lamp.






Time to go somewhere. Anywhere, just go.

Shopping. That really has to come first because if I don't pick up the holiday items on my list, I'll feel sad. And so I spend more than two hours in just one department store, which is a total photo white-out for you as I take no pictures there at all. (Though here's one on the walk over -- with the Montparnasse tower in full view. It's the last skyscraper to have gone up in central Paris. People wizened up after it.)






Oh, I did want to add that if I got a dime for every woman in a fancy hat that I saw today, I would more than cover the cost of this trip. (Maybe.)











And then I am done shopping and it's time for lunch.

That is, if I'm to eat lunch. I could just eat bread and cheese at home but it is always more expensive to eat dinners out and so of the two, I choose lunch at a cafe. And bread and cheese later, at home.

I go to my favorite cafe in this whole complicated food-wise city. There's too much pressure to do food well here. There are phenomenal places and there are the usual indifferent places and you don't want to be so unlucky as to hit all the indifferent ones. So it requires work. If you don't do research (and I don't, because people are all over the place with their opinions about Paris), you can go by the crowdedness factor (unreliable in this city), or you can just keep going back to places that treated you well in the past. I choose the latter.






The Cafe Varenne is crowded and spirited and if ever you go there when you are in Paris, I promise you, you will have the best waiters, wishing you good cheer no matter who you are. I have gone there pretty much every time I am in this city and it is always like this.






And so I eat my big meal now. Broccoli soup that is the best broccoli soup ever, a piece of veal smothered in mushroom sauce. And for dessert, I ask for their most special lemon tart.
















Ten years ago, I would get a whole dinner in Paris for what I spend now on lunch. The prices are climbing and though it's not New York or London yet, it's gettin' there.

I walk home and it's raining a little. I put away the camera.

And now comes a frustrating pause where I go back to the apartment and notice that the WiFi isn't working. I do eventually track down the owners and I learn how to reboot it and it's fine now, but it took a chunk of time and poor Ed had to listen to me howl afterwards. I really am dependent on WiFi when I travel. It's far too lonely for me to be without it.






And this is when I set out for the Luxembourg Gardens. I go to the park before I go to the museum. (For one thing, the park closes at 4:30 in the winter months). Mostly, I need to pick up my calmness there.






A morning of shopping and an afternoon of WiFi troubles is enough to make me twitch. A stroll through this most wonderful park will always have me smiling again. Always.


















And now I'm at the museum. This is where it doesn't matter that the days end early now. An evening glow of outdoor lamps makes the visit to an exposition all the more special. As if you're playing grown up and are doing something so extremely decadent and mature as going to look at art at night. I even put on lipstick for the occasion.

The evening rolls to a close for me. I go to two stores - the grocer and the baker. I need to add cheese and an endive to my salads back home. And of course, bread...


 



...and pastry. From this tray, which one do you think I picked?






Maybe that's too easy. And if the perceptive reader noticed that it's my second pastry today -- well now, that's right. And yes, I know that I wrote once that I no longer have a pastry craving when in Paris. It's cool how our moods and desires can change, isn't it?






Here's my supper plate tonight. Yes, of course: I like pistachios, I like raspberries and I like meringue. Together, they create this pastry:






It's time to retire for the day. I'm enough sleepy that I will doze off on the couch if I don't watch it. Until tomorrow then!

misty thoughts

The fog rolled in with the first morning light and hid the Chateau from view.





My immediate thought is -- wouldn't the park, fanning out from behind the Chateau be beautiful on such a morning?

But first, breakfast.






And, too, the market. In Fontainebleau, Sunday is the big market day and the stalls went up overnight right next to my hotel. I walk through it, noting that our collective breath is leaving puffs of mist in the cold air.



(bundled)





(do you see his steamy breath?)





(winter produce)





(always the greeting)



I want to detour to the park now, while the fog is thick enough to hide anything that is jarring or excessive.






And though I haven't much time, I pause again and again to take in the sheer beauty of this majestic landscape.









(can your eyes see through the mist?)









But the clock moves forward. I want to catch the 11:30 to Paris, so that I can have my big meal of the day there, in the narrow window the French allow for eating. The books say it's a 45 minute hike to the station. Madame at the tourist office said it's a 45 minute hike. I'm thinking -- they're both wrong! I'm sportif! I studied the map and found the shortcut through the park. I can do it in 30!

I leave my sweet and very proper little hotel, I turn my back to the town of Fontainebleau...


 


... and I wheel the suitcase, clattering on the cobbled stones of the Chateau courtyard, all the way to the back and to the park that stretches almost to the train station.

The fog is lifting now and I pause for the occasional photo.






Wouldn't you?









(like a Seurat canvas)



The park is stunning here, in this section! How can a bare forest be this beautiful?






But I walk briskly. And  glance at my phone clock. I'm no fool! But what good is a glance at the time? It is what it is. (For future reference, the "shortcut"  through the park is also 45 minutes.)

Finally, I arrive at the station and like a bullet, do the ticket purchase and come out to the platform, just as the train pulls in. Hey, it was one minute early! Not fair!

[In any case, the drama is missing today. Had I been late for the train, I simply would have had to wait two hours for the next one and forgo my lunch in Paris. The rail strike ended this morning. The trains are on schedule, or in my case ahead of schedule.]



(train station in Fontainebleau)


And now I'm ready for Paris.



(train station in Paris)


Ask me now what I want from the city this time and I'll mention three imperatives: two exhibitions that I really want to see and one holiday shopping moment that I want to experience. But truly, I'm not bound to an agenda. As surely Fontainebleau had shown me, royal history if viewed under proper circumstances can shake you to the core. As can a walk through a park. It all depends. Moods change with the season and for quirky reason we don't fully understand.

Alright. But today is Sunday and I do want my big meal. (You can tell: there are lots of families out and about.)


 


I wheel my suitcase all the way from the station -- the Gare de Lyon --  to the Left Bank neighborhood where I always stay -- that's a good hour's worth of wheeling! -- and I head for Le Procope Restaurant. Maybe you'll remember my writing here, on Ocean, a long time ago, when I was passing through Paris exhausted and flustered after an especially difficult December visit to Poland: I said then -- when you don't want to think about where to eat in Paris, just go to le Procope. And so I settle in to this reliably congenial and efficient place for this French main meal of this day.

I eat vegetable soup and coq au vin and it's good that I'm in Paris, because here, you'll always find the odd assortment of diners, whereas in the provinces most Sunday meals in restaurants are shared with family and so you can feel a bit lonely sitting there by yourself pretending that your own company is the very best thing imaginable, while everyone is in groups spanning the generations.

Not that le Procope lacked its family gatherings: these three adult siblings came together (with a partner and child of the woman) to celebrate their dad's something or other. I'm guessing birthday, but what do I know. Notable is the fact that the young boy (age about 9) really loved his snails and was a pro at fishing them out of their shells.






This was a larger familial gathering: ages varied from two upwards.





And then it's time for my 3pm appointment at the apartment that I'll be renting through AirBnB this week. I can't tell you whether these rentals are legal or not. Opinions vary. But I do know that finding a nice, affordable hotel room in Paris is getting to be harder each time I come here and this is the third time that a private rental has saved me from running from the city altogether.

The place isn't ready yet when I get there and so I leave my bags and go out to get some groceries. Not so lucky there: the two neighborhood stores are already closed. Ah well, must make do with the exquisite prepared foods at a bakery a couple of blocks from me: a few salads and a pastry will do for tonight. (Which pastry do you think I chose from this tray?)






And now I am back at the apartment -- on the 6th floor, with commanding views of the street below and of St Sulpice church in the background. I'm sure I'll photograph them plenty in the days to come. For now, I just want to post a few photos of the rooms. They're lovely and fresh and comfortable and honestly, it is by far the best accommodation I've had in Paris.
















I know the discussion rages about the future of AirBnB rentals (the claim is that they undermine the hotel industry). Honestly, I'm okay if the regulators impose some more stringent requirements and perhaps taxes (and inevitably prices will go up), but for now, they are gloriously inexpensive (or at least less expensive) and so here I am, pretending that I have my own little place in the city. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a pastry to consume.