guillotines and sunshine

Brittany was for sleeping in late. For being tickled at the luxury of not getting up with dawn.

That was Brittany. I'm not in Brittany anymore.

I look at the clock. 6:50. Hmmm, in Paris, sunrise is at 7:10... It wouldn't strike me to get up and search for the sun among the chou fields and stone houses. But here... Wouldn't it be nice to greet the morning in the Luxembourg Gardens? Doesn't the park open at sunrise?

I'm up, out, peering in. No sign of anyone. I walk over to the main entrance. Damn. Opening hours -- 7:30am to 6:30 pm.

Surely I did not run out with hair flying, boots unzipped to miss the sunrise?

[Insert answer to commenter question here: one way to pack lightly and move seamlessly between city and country is to wear cool ankle boots in the city and on the plane and pack good trekking shoes in the bag. They take up half the case, but for muddy hikes, you need 'em.]

I walk briskly to the river -- some 10 minutes away -- and sure enough. I am rewarded.






This is why I am in such a rut and stay in the same set of blocks again and again: I have my river and I have my park.

The sun is up, the park will be opening now. I walk back to it, thinking how curiously French it is to have a city remain so quiet (except for the garbage trucks) in these morning hours.



(lots of ocean author, not many others)




(still rare, but not unusual anymore)


In the park, I encounter the joggers. And one or two people using it as a way to cross from one corner to the next. The spring flowers are voluminous! Of course, they were planted for a tougher season. I can hear them, through their petaled grins -- sixties and sunshine? We can handle worse! 








(just a touch of mist)








Okay. My appetite for that sinfully unhealthy French breakfast is aroused. Unfortunately, my hotel is pushing its own breakfast by offering it at a 50% discount. That makes it the cheapest croissant and coffee (and egg and yogurt and cereal...) in town. So I take it, even if it lacks one essential element -- the feeling of eating breakfast in a Paris cafe.






The day is so beautiful that I surely must spend it outdoors. It's tempting to just take a book to the park and not do much else. But, my back feels great when I'm walking, not sitting.






And I have some small goals. On my list is the exposition that starts today at the Luxembourg Museum, right at the gardens -- it's all about Josephine. Napoleon's love interest, for a while, until she could give him no offspring and so he dumped her for his next woman -- Marie Louise. The exhibition is all about Josephine -- paintings of her, and of her children by her first husband whose head got whacked off at the guillotine, and of the flowers and birds that were so her thing. (As were fashion and luxury -- all proper hobbies for an empress.)







After the exhibition,  I 'm back in the park. And now it is lunchtime and everyone had descended on the Gardens and that's just fine! Its beauty is that it very much is a great public space. Benches, chairs, green grass -- they all beckon and on a spring day like this one, Parisians flock (foreigners too, especially student types, as we really are close to the major colleges of Paris, but unlike in the Tuileries Gardens, the dominant language here is French).








(on the designated picnic green: must refresh lipstick)


I exit from the other end of the Gardens -- the part that faces the Montparnasse district.



('tweens on lunchbreak)




(rosy tones preferred)


I have another gallery in mind. The Henri Cartier Bresson Gallery. It's obscure, but I'm determined to find it. I cut through the Montparnasse Cemetery, thinking it should throw me out right by the gallery, but I get lost among all those densly packed family tombstones. I know some people love cemeteries but I am not one of them, especially when I come across the occasional grieving person or an inscription of someone's years and they seem so unfairly short.






I pick up the pace. Eventually a helpful type steers me out and I do find the gallery and it is currently housing the exhibit of the Italian photographer Guido Guidi. I love photography exhibits, but his take on everyday life is such that you're saddened by what you see. None of this bourgeois stuff off beautiful cities! He takes us to a housing development in a coastal Polish city. Or to a concrete slab in a suburb of a decaying Italian town.






And so this will have been my hour of more somber reflections. And let me bring in the gallery's inscription here for you: the photograph is the guillotine [!] blade that seizes one dazzling instant within eternity. But reading about Guidi's work, I see that this photographer's art wasn't meant to dazzle. Well now, he surely succeeded. I am happy to be done with it.

Sunshine again! More walking. Moving closer again to the center of the city.



(alone)





(again a glimpse)













I am now again in the more familiar neighborhoods, closer to the river. Shopping isn't really on my agenda, but I do have some things to check off in this department (hair tie anyone? how about a spring skirt?) and I attempt to do this now, more or less successfully and good grief, how the time has flown --  it is nearly 4 and I have been on my feet since 10 and surely I have earned a cup of coffee and a slice of an apple tart?



(watching the world from behind a table)


My day doesn't end yet, but I do pause at the hotel to catch up with my world on the other side of the ocean. It's been two weeks. I miss the farmette. I miss my daughters, Ed -- the whole package that is home.

Never mind, there's a meal to be had still and I go out once more. Paris is always an eating challenge and this time I did some advanced selection so I wouldn't be bothered with the whole process of searching. I picked Nonna Ines for tonight. I know -- it sounds Italian. It is Italian. I thought I'd be ready for a change and in any case, a French Italian restaurant will place a foreign layer on food that will be unique and if you're still not convinced -- well, Italian food is almost always cheaper.

The place is on the fringes of the city center, but a long walk is pleasant both before and after a meal. And the moon shines brightly...






At the Nonna Ines, I am one of the earliest diners and I comment to the guy who runs the show there that I can't help it -- I'm hungry by 7:30 (especially when I skip lunch). He reassures me that his Italian parents (from the Lake Garda!) eat by 6:30 and I settle in to my glass of Prosecco Peche, with the biggest capers ever to nibble on, and I do some people watching.





An American threesome (two at the table are portrayed above) is by far the most interesting. He writes for the Paris Review. I hear him talk about his interview of Seamus Heaney for the Review and so now I know he is Henri Cole, a poet himself and indeed, I see on the web that he is now the poetry editor of the New Republic.

Oh, if you could hear their intellectual conversation! The woman, with long gray hair, neatly pulled back, the guy at her side -- husband I presume, who adds the fewest number of words, and Henri who still reflects on that published interview, even though it appeared in the Review nearly twenty years ago.

They none of them speak French, or at least they choose not to do so with the waiter and as they move delicately (laboriously?) through their first course and then the next, I think how liberating it is to be now very much at the periphery of (nay, removed from) academic life.

I eat a very well prepared sea bass and some mush that the Italians get away with calling vegetables and it's all very fine, except the price is still Parisian and as usual I feel like there is a hole in my wallet at the end of the evening. 

The day ends. The sun continues tomorrow. And so do my Paris rambles.

to Paris

Part 1: Brittany

With each day that you stay (live?) in a place, you add another layer of information. So often day two will correct the hasty impressions of day one. And then day three will make new adjustments. You think you got it right. And some things remain just so, no matter how long you stay. But, on day four subtle (or even not so subtle) adjustments will again be made.

On my last morning in Brittany, I wake up, as usual, late. I've been in such a hurry all these years, but in Brittany, I stopped being in a hurry and I make up in sleep for all the hours that I should have slept, but didn't. Years and years of missing sleep, indulged in here.

I had the morning programmed. You do that when you get older. Leaving things to the last minute inevitably means that you'll have left your passport on the nightstand and half your underwear hanging in the bathroom. So I tick off my list of essential tasks: pack suitcase, clean out the kitchen, take shower and ... what's this? The doorbell?

Ah, Madame Jo, mother of my original Airbnb home owners, is here -- presumably to pick up the key which I still hold, but also to pass on a satchel of fruit and a box of macarons. She hopes that when I come back to St Pol de Leon I'll give them another chance. Oh, I don't know. I've grown fond of the little house by the cauliflower fields, with the heat coming from the floors and the little pastry magnets all over the refrigerator. But, one never knows. The family of the original Airbnb surely has been supremely decent.






And now, with most things packed, put away, cleaned, I set out downtown.

It's market day again! I've had a week here and it's Tuesday once more. How long ago last Tuesday seems! This time,  I give the market only a fleeting glance.



(looking through used books)





(always time for a few words)





(crepes, of course)





(oranges look good on a cloudy Breton day)





(leeks -- so many dishes here call for them)


No buying, no lingering even. That ocean mist that again hides the sun makes for a cool day and the wind is whipping things around some. I head for my favorite bakery.

And I set up shop there. Meaning I take out my computer, intending to finish yesterday's post. It's a pleasant routine. It is my one "social" time of the day, in that I watch the comings and going of people who know each other, greet each other, and otherwise show their humanity by being concerned about the fate of the other and of the larger world out there.




(the newspaper is passed around all morning long; his mrs. is off chatting with others while he reads)


As I half listen, half stare at my screen and of course munch on the absolutely perfect pain au chocolat...






...I hear the owner, the terrifically nice Madame who gifted me the pastechou that first morning here, talking to one of the locals. Did I get that right? No, it can't be!

Yes, she is Polish. Her history is a variation of so many of our histories: she goes to England as an au pair, meets handsome Frenchman, they fall in love, move back to France and they buy this bakery-cafe in the town not too far from where his parents live. Their children are bilingual even as their dad doesn't speak Polish. She maintains ties to her family back home.

Like other Poles living abroad, she feels the pull toward her home country. None of the ambivalence that I've felt all my life: she feels solidly Polish.

We spend a good number of minutes chatting because, of course, we move from the status of stranger to friend instantly when we find that our paths have been so similar (even as they are in many ways completely different). I ask her about doing business in this town and eventually, as M. Pecheur comes in, I ask her about him too.
Oh, he's been coming here for years! Before we bought the place.
So, is he a fisherman?
No, not really. A farmer. Grows carrots, I think.
Lonely?
Well maybe, but a bully too. Insists on things his way. The paper, coffee, right away. A difficult guy.
And so I was wrong about him. Or at least I have this new layer of information, a different perspective.

Of course, I had been wrong about the owner of the bakery, too. She appeared to know everyone and be on friendly terms with the whole lot of them. And I heard her roll her "r" in the way that Poles do, but I heard other Bretons do the same. Bonjour here is often spoken with a tiny roll at the end. I attributed her accent to Breton rather than Polish.

So this is travel for you. People say that you learn a lot by being somewhere. Well yes, but I have to remind myself (and I've said this on Ocean before) that much of what you see and hear is not any less free of bias than if you were reading a book about a place. Your impressions may correct themselves the longer you stay or the more often you visit, but at the end of the day, they are only your impressions.


As I tell Madame Baker's Wife that I have to get going, she gives me a fresh loaf of pastechou. Oh, how I would love to eat it all day long, but I decline the gift. I know I wouldn't be able to finish it and so it seems a waste.  I buy instead a baguette with cheese and tomato for the train trip and we say our goodbyes. The cafe is busy now in any event. She needs to get back to her work.



Pani Agnieszka


On the way back to my little house, I run into my landlord. She is just driving to see me. She is a woman of many words, spoken rapid fire and without interruption, but finally she does accept the fact that I am in a hurry. But can she take me just really quickly to her other little house that she rents out? This one is older and I gather that it once belonged to her daughter. In any case, she thinks I might like it for the future. It's a little less modern and therefore even less expensive. And the view! -- she tells me. Right to the bay! Well, maybe not so pretty today with the mist... She pouts a little. But a nice garden! And privacy. Your neighbor only comes here in the summer. He's a doctor from America.

So he lives his Brittany dream in this way? By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea... And does he miss home when he is here? His loved ones? Or do they come with him for the summer?

I thank Madame for all her help, tell her I'll leave the key under the mat and hurry back to pick up my suitcase and head for the station...



(one last look at the cauliflower fields)


.... where I hope a bus will come to take me to Morlaix...



(he waves to the train engineer)


.... from where I catch the TGV to Paris.


Part 2: Paris

I wrap my heating pad around my back, slip on my jacket and roll my little case along toward the station. My, but the pad is warm! The instructions warned that those over 55 (that's me!) should not put it right next to the skin. Well fine, it's over my shirt. Toasty warm nonetheless!

The connections to Paris are seamless. Bus only a minute late, plenty of time for the transfer, train punctually arriving at Montparnasse (station in Paris) four hours and seven minutes later.

And the metro ride is without issue. The heating pad and magic French pill do their job and carrying a suitcase up and down stairs is, if not easy, then certainly doable.

My hotel of choice is still closed for renovation but a sister hotel -- de la Sorbonne (so named because it is across the street from that university) has a good priced room and I settle in for a four night stay.



(the moon shines brightly over the Sorbonne)





(the hotel)





(mirror in tiny room)





(the vibe here is definitely of the university)



Initially I was to be in Paris only one day and so I was sure to reserve dinner at my restaurant of choice (Pouic Pouic) for this evening. And even though I am now here a bit longer, I keep the dinner in place. I like that I am coming back to a familiar world. I'm not much in the mood for anything new right now.

By now, they recognize me here -- probably because I always dine alone. Ah, here comes Madame Camic who can never find anyone to dine with in all of Paris! At Pouic Pouic (which may be the only restaurant I know here where no one uses restaurant voices) that's rare.

I eat their pumpkin soup, an escalop de veau, a lemon tart -- they're always well prepared. Always with clever twists but not fussy. The chef -- a guy with a thick, beautiful pony tail -- is visible from the dining room. Watching him prepare food for 32 people (the place is always full) is gratifying.








(lemon tart with blood orange ice cream)


And so passes my first evening back in the city that has never once disappointed me. And that's saying a lot.

a week later...

Someone once said that looking forward to travel is even better than the real thing.

I don't really agree, but I would add that looking back on a trip is also gratifying. At the end of it all, you smile at your naivete when you first arrived. You learned many things about a place and you learned not a few things about yourself in that place and it all seems now so rich and rewarding in retrospect.

Even if there were bits and pieces that you'd like to rewrite if you could.

I would like, for instance, to rewrite that bike ride on the Isle de Batz where I jolted my back so that it now is impossible for me to get up from a sitting position. (I can do it, but I let out such a howl that it surely scares anyone nearby).

So maybe I should take it easy today? Especially since a cool mist, as promised, has settled in over the peninsula.






I eat a prebreakfast...






And then, still undecided, I go downtown to the bakery (passing the ever delightful spring flowers growing against the walls of the stark Brittany houses)...






...and as it happens, M. Pecheur is walking in at the same time. But I'm used to him by now. I know what to expect. As he sits at the table next to mine, I give our multiple handshakes and pleasantries a few minutes and then I take out my computer and excuse myself to work. He's doubtful, but peering at my screen and seeing the blogger text, he recedes and looks around for other social possibilities.

Eventually, when he leaves, an older woman sitting to the side tells me: he is so lonely. So maybe that's another "should have:" more time, more handshakes and arm pats. Because I know that being alone has its tough moments. (This story to be continued tomorrow.)






As I try to get up from the bakery table, my back is protesting so much that I wonder how on earth I am to manage a suitcase, a bus, a train and a metro on the next day. I go the pharmacy next door and I explain my issues. (In France, a pharmacist truly does act like a doctor for a spot check and a treatment recommendation.) The very chatty pharmacist explains that warmth works magic (I look out at the cool misty sky and I nod my head: yes, warm would be better than the current cold air that has come in from the seas). He points me to a wrap that sends the needed relaxing heat to the back and I think -- okay. I can sit with that thing on the train the next day. (It's a one-use only item.) A little strange, but anything to keep me mobile.

He also tells me that a pill will lessen the pain. I buy a pack, though being pill averse, I save it for the evening.

And now it's past noon and there is a hint of sunshine. Just a hint. I walk the streets of St Pol de Leon, noting that children here are on their second week of spring break (two weeks! eat your hearts out, kids back home!). I see a family that seems from out of town, doing the tourist thing here too. (It's rare to see tourists in this working town and it is rare these days to see French families of seven.)






And as I walk, the sky changes from faintly gray to faintly blue and the feeling of spring comes back to Brittany.






So I have a plan: eat a warm meal in the early afternoon, and go for a hike across the fat bottom of the peninsula. From St Pol de Leon to the sea to the west.

I go to the one restaurant that mainly caters to the locals. (It closes for the high season.) It's not the best eatery in town, but I've maxed out on my eating budget and I'm going for simple and inexpensive now. I order scallops gratinee (baked in a pot, with cheese sauce, inexpensive because there are only two scallops in that little pot, but the sauce is rich and the dish is very satisfying).






And by the time I'm done, the sun is out again and I am happy as anything to set out on my hike to the sea. (My back does not bother me when I am walking. It's the sitting and especially the getting up that's at issue.)


Sunshine! My last day here will have sunshine after all!






I'm in good spirits. True, the tourist office person could not identify a good walking route west, but I know from my hikes to Roscoff that staying on the smallest roads is a wonderful way to move from one point to the next.

Skies are blue, flowers are budding, I'm off!






The good weather means that the work continues in the fields. This is the time of cauliflower harvest and onion planting. I've seen it before, I see it again now. In full force.






I'm not really sure of my bearings -- I don't have a good map of the region, but it's not hard to simply aim west and keep to the quiet roads. I come to a small hamlet. No one is around. It's a work day of course. In the fields or in town. No one appears to be at home.





Except for a dog.

As I come to the last homestead in the village, a wolf dog runs straight at me snarling and barking angrily.

This isn't the same as a pack of wild dogs in Turkey. This guy belongs to the farm. Still, he is not used to strangers walking by his home and he doesn't like it. With each growl he comes closer and I'm thinking -- there's a good chance he may bite. There is no one around to call him off. He is protecting his turf.

I talk quietly and back away. He retreats, but changes his mind and comes at me again. I don't want to turn my back to him. He may take a victorious nip then. So I keep facing him, backing off, backing off and finally he is satisfied that I pose no threat and he goes back to his farmyard.

Well now, that kind of changes things for me.

The plan to walk to the sea morphs into a plan to stick to the medium-sized roads. With the occasional tractor or car passing through. Safety in the presence of others.




cauliflower harvest




a forgotten artichoke


But, I can't quite connect to the sea. I'm off track. And so this is all you get: in the distance, the ocean. And Isle de Batz! I've come full circle.






It's time to go home.





At the little house by the cauliflower fields, I eat all leftover pieces of cheese, of pastechoux. I pop the pill for my back and let me tell you, whatever is in that little number zonks me out solid. Or is it the ocean air? Maybe. I surely have recovered here. I'm sleeping well again.