Paris: the last hurrah before Avoir
Ah, the power of Monet. Here I am in the grassy park near the Musee Marmottan. The museum has an astonishing collection of Monet's works. A lot of the later pieces reside here including some of the weeping willows and the Japanese bridge pieces. Having seen the original in Giverny these meant just that much more. They are displayed downstairs in what is now a gallery in art historian Paul Marottan's beautiful home in Paris. The work was so amazing and powerful it was like eating or drinking too much. We literally were ill afterwards. We had to get a bottle of Perrier and share it and come back to earth. Wow, what an experience....there are so many amazing museums in Paris. We also visited the Cluny aka, the museum of the middle ages, which has the Unicorn tapestries on display. How stunning in person, after seeing their picture so many times to see them was like coming home.
Barbie finds COFFEE
Today, we strolled the heart of Paris at Sunset. The Place de la Concorde, the Luxembourg gardens, the Pont Alexandrine bridge, the Palais Royale, the Egyptian Obelisk, the Seine and the Eiffel Tower romantically sitting off in the distance. Wow, we really are in Paris...
In the Luxembourg gardens we found these amazing sculptures scattered around one side of the garden. We could sit and watch the sunset from here overlooking the busy Place de la Concorde. Notice the pond behind me? When Rocket was a kid her mom brought her here on a Sunday morning to watch all the little French boys sail their wooden sailboats. She was pretty happy to see nothing had changed, the city is timeless. Old and new just rub along great. I thought these hands were amazing, there were several sets from baby to old age. Like Goldilocks and the three bears, it was Barbie and the three hads. These hands were too big.
And this baby hand was too small, but the view behind me is pretty great!
Here I am on the Seine, the party boats and barges ply the water all day and all night. What a view!
Ah, home away from home. Starbucks....at Sunset in Paris. Life doesn't get much better than this.
More plastic tourist
Check out this traffic--this is roundabout around the Arc du Triomphe--insane drivers and motorcycles. It's called the Etoile which means star because a bunch of different roads ray out in every direction. You just jump in and go until you are shot out the other side--like a rocket breaking free of gravity. We saw very few new cars in Paris. Everyone drives dinged up mangled beaters because the combination of narrow streets and traffic causes uncounted fender benders daily.
I love this view from the red bus. An idiot had parked on top of the crosswalk at the corner and the red bus couldn't get around him. It took three helpers and about ten adjustments to finally squeak by. We all hoped the bus would just clobber the moron but he didn't. Merde.
Check out the gothic towers on the cathedral, they look like lace. And here I am by the Arc due Triomphe just trying to flag a taxi. Hey! Monsieur! Over here...
Plastic tourist in Paris!
Here is the Champs Elysee right near the metro stop for the Arc du Triomphe, even at 9:00 a.m. it's starting to fill up with tourists--and of course dogs.
Check out the seething mass of humanity underneath the Eiffel Tower! EWWW. We just took a picture from the bus and on foot while walking away from it.
Got to love this ugly baby head fountain in the gardens near the Eiffel Tower, there were two of them spitting at each other and a big Golden Retriever in the middle enjoying the water.
And here I am at the Arc du Triomphe, Napoleon's masterpiece that was built in what was pretty much an empty field at the time. It was never finished--it was supposed to have one of those huge horse and hero statues the French do so well, but no one could agree on what it should be. It wasn't finished until quite some time after Napoleon died either.
Diary of a plastic tourist
Here is a shot of the Red Bus, also known as Les Cars Rouges. You pay a flat fee, get a 'passport' and a pair of earphones to plug into the canned travelogue and then you can ride all over Paris and take in the major landmarks.
Of course we had to ride upstairs. It was sunny and warm and great fun. We admired the hordes of tourists around the monuments--like the Eiffel Tower but avoided the huge crowds this way. You can get on and off the bus for two days with a pass, but one day was sufficient for us to kick back and leave the driving to them.
This is a picture of the bus as it goes by the Galleries Lafayette, a huge French department store. A very odd experience that was, in the jewelry department there were absoloute swarms of heavily swathed and thoroughly covered up middle eastern ladies just shopping their little hearts out. My fellow travelers mentioned that many of them smelled rather like they'd been left out in the sun too long with no deodorant, but what do I know? Everything smells like plastic to me. But boy, could those girls ever shop!
Here I am on the bus going down the Champs Elysee. The street was packed with foreign tourists all looking for the rich shops--Cartier being number one.
You could spot the French, they were well dressed and wore absolutely appalled expressions when confronted by the heaving mass of shorts and backpacks, Japanese, American, Arab, English and other assorted tourists "doing Paris". We lasted about ten minutes on the street before we had enough pushing and shoving shoppers. Heck, you can do that at any big mall in America any day of the week.
Hello from Paris
Believe it or not this bridal fashion shoot is at a Metro stop in Paris. A lot of them are decorated in art nouveau style and this one is all done up in something that features some pretty odd but fascinating metal and glass.
Here I am on the metro with my metro pass, going from Vincennes to the Rue de Rivoli to explore.
Dinner in our condo in Vincennes. There I am decorating the butter dish, behind me are some fresh figs and we had a fantastic omelette with fresh cheese and a salad of avocado and tomatoes. Of course a glass of wine and a little Perrier went along with the whole meal too.
Hello Paris!
We are staying in a condo hotel sort of thing in a suburb of Paris. We are now in Vincennes, we left the dreadful miniature car at Orly airport and took the train back to the city. The public transporation system with trains, buses and the metro (subway) is pretty amazing. Speedy, fairly clean--with the exception of occaisonal halls where homeless guys believe they are in the urinal. Yuck. We got a pass for a week that works in 7 zones and lets us takes trains, buses and the metro anywhere in the Paris area. We also have at least two metro maps which we spend a lot of time plotting our routes on. The first few days we walked a few miles to the metro stop until it dawned on us we could walk two blocks and take the bus to the subway. Much better when arms are full of shopping bags and I am stuck in a pocket somewhere upside down.
Dogs are allowed on the metro--big ones and little ones. They can go on a bus if they'll fit in your purse. There are people of all colors, shapes and sizes on the metro. It can start out empty and then get so full you can't breathe and I am glad to have a plastic Barbie nose because a lot of these folks don't know about deodorant or don't care about it. Still it's a wonderful fast way to get around.
I love Paris, even with having to watch your feet for lumpy cobblestones and lumpy dog poo at all times. It's a lively city and a beautiful one.
PS
There is our bed and breakfast on the right up the street.
Okay, we loved giverny so much I showed up twice in my journal. Oh well. Here is a picture of the main street of the village and one of the stove that was so amazing at Hotel Baudy--On to Paris! It should be an insane drive in our tiny car which we have named the esCARgot because it's a big as a snail and goes about as fast as one. We get rid of the car today and take on public transporation, c'est la guerre or in this case c'est la metro! We'll be driving through Paris craziness to Orly. I'm crossing my plastic fingers.
Cher Journal,
I love French bakeries. Patisseries and Boulangeries both. Every town has at least one and some have several. They all open early and most close for the long lunch break from 11:30 to 2:30 so you'd better have your bread before you go home for lunch! They are usually open Sunday morning but close at noon. The Patisseries sell pastries and oh, how heavenly they are. We discovered giant meringues, big enough for me to sleep on and not hang over the edge although they'd be a bit on the crunchy side for a mattress. There are cakes and chocolate stuff and whipped cream and on and on and on. I'm surprised we didn't gain a bunch of cookie and pastry weight, must be all the walking that kept it off. We loved the fact that when you go to a bakery or pastry shop your purchase was wrapped and tied up like a present for you. This is not isolated. It happened every time we bought pastries all over France. On Sunday's you see entire families heading to dinner at someone's house with a cake in a pretty box all tied up with string and a string handle tied on too. The little tissue house I am posing with had a gigantic chocolate chip meringue inside and something called a Polonaise which was gooey and rich and good. They came home tied up in this package that was almost too cool to rip open!
I seem to be getting more French as I approach Paris, must be because I get lots of practice speaking French, like ordering my coffee. "Je voudrais un gran creme sil vous plait", I have the "I would like a coffee please", down pat by now.
Today we are in Giverny at Monet's home and gardens. The house is enchanting and has been restored to look much as it was when Monet left. His son let if fall to rack and ruin and for forty years the gardens just pretty much rotted. The Monet foundation has put it all back together. I'm sure it helps that there were so many paintings and photographs of the place.
The lily ponds were stunning and so were the gardens. Of course there had to be a black and white cat relaxing in the sun and having a cat bath on one of the paths. Monet loved cats, smoking, Japanese prints and his gardens, so the cat was a sort of fey touch to the experience. My favorite thing? In the bright blue kitchen there was a porcelain cat, life size, on a pink pillow on a counter. Monet's Japanese friends had given it to him and it was exquisite. His home was hung with tons of wonderful Japanese wood block prints. Amazing to see and amazing to think so many of these things have been recovered and are back in the home.
We also love our landlady, Lawrence. That, so help me, is her first name. She is just the coolest person ever and speaks great English. She is charming and patient with our slow French and a delight to be around. We are staying at Au Coin Des Artistes right down the road from Monet's place. It is on the tiny main drag and we look over the street from our second story room. This place is full of wonderful art. It is airy and bright and sunny and we never want to leave. It seems the house was at one time the boarding house of the artists who buzzed around Monet and wanted to work with him. We read he couldn't stand them but that didn't stop them coming and working here. The place is still full of galleries, it's small so about four constitutes full.
There is a restaurant down the road about three houses, where we had a phenomenal dinner, the place is called the Anciennce Hotel Baudy. We love being in the country, all the tourists leave at dark and when the buses pull away the place is real again. The locals come in for a drink at the bar and we inhabit a table at the other end in the dining room because it's cooling off a lot outside. The decor is very unassuming country French.
They don't think anything here of four hundred year old tables and bits of amazing china American decorators would kill for. We are in love with the pieces on the mantel. The fireplace is faced with glowing brown tiles, all decorated with what looks like a lace pattern. It is a marvel, a focal point and we stare at it through dinner as we consume an entire bottle of local wine. Everything in our world is wonderful and we are ready to cry with just the joy of being here, in Giverny.
Dear Diary,
The picture on the right is me hanging out in
Honfleur. Our room was on the fourth floor of a very old 15th century house. It was two rooms deep and one room wide and had an ancient and beautiful wooden staircase running up through the center of the house. Not a lot of fun to drag luggage up and down but the view was great once we got there. It was magical at night with all the lights on and the streets empty of all but local folks. I really wondered how on earth they built bathroom plumbing into these ancient places. It was wonderful to see a place so old and so continuously inhabited. It actually looked like something from Disneyland--I guess they'd call it King Arthurland or something equally silly, but this place is absolutely real and every apartment is full of humans going about their daily lives. There was a restaurant on the first and second floors across the street and the kitchen full of copper pots and bustling chefs was on the second floor. The dining room and the sidewalk tables were below and we could watch diners come and go.
For our dinner we found shops and got a wonderful saucisson with nuts in it (saucisson are French sausages, very like thin salamis but much nicer and in different flavors)some fresh bread and a fantastic little soft fresh cheese and picknicked while looking out our window on the first night we were there. We hated to leave but...
Giverny called and we answered, two days in Monet's 'hometown'. We stayed at Au Coin des Artistes, which was where--back in the day, a bunch of the artists who came with hopes to work with Monet or like Monet, stayed. It was very special and again we were lucky and our room looked out on the quiet main street of Giverny which looks much like it did when Monet lived there--especially in the evening after the tour buses all left. This is me in Monet's garden. The gardens have been restored completely after they fell into rack and ruin for about forty years. It was amazing to see the lily ponds where he painted so many of his most famous works.
We went through Rouen on the way and saw the great cathedral which he also painted several times. In Rouen's narrow medieval streets we saw a stone marker which said basically: this is where Joan of Arc recanted her claims to be touched by God, but she was burned at the stake anyway. There is almost a cult of Joan of Arc here, she is much beloved and one of the patron saints of France and in every church there are statues of her.
We stayed in the area for two days and drove everywhere including to Les Andelys and Vernon. We hiked up to the fortress that Richard Lionheart built to guard the Seine from his arch rival Philippe August. Richard Couer de Leon, as he is known in France, loved Normandy and when he died his heart remained here. Literally, his heart is buried in the great cathedral in Rouen. There is a really beautiful stone casket with his likeness carved fullsized in stone in the cathedral and his feet rest on a very lovely little lion.
The returning crusaders were assigned here and they were fairly isolated and lonely up on this hilltop. They planted the seeds of flowers they had brought back from the crusades and to this day there are astonishing wildflowers in the meadows around the ruins and so many butterflies! The place was torn apart and the stones were taken to build monasteries but a lot of it remains and it is an absolute marvel to see and wonder how on earth they built it in just two years. And what a view! We saw barges and boats slowly and majestically moving to and from Paris and working their way around a hairpin bend below. The beautiful fields spread out on each side and you could see a little town below and hear the church bells and even conversations that drifted up the steep hillside to where we stood.
Next we head to Paris. After seeing the gardens we are off to see the paintings.
Dear Diary,
Here I am in Honfleur posing with some new friends.... This is a wonderful town, very old, very vibrant. We are in Normandy in a 'flower town'. They make a really big deal out of being part of the flower coast and there are flower beds everywhere. It's quite beautiful and full of holidaying people, bustling all up and down the streets.
We got the car stuck trying to go around a corner of a T intersection when we got to town. Some moron in a plumbing truck parked smack on the corner and even a car as tiny as ours wouldn't go. All the neighbors were hanging out on the balcony watching to see the drama unfold. S. was in a panic and ready to cry or scream when a young Frenchman came up and offered to get the car around the corner. Bing bang boom, three back ups and go forwards and there we were. We had to park about three miles away from the hotel--literally. Finding the b & b was horrible. We couldn't find the street and the helper from the gallery/bed and breakfast couldn't come to show us the way. Rocket finally got out and went hunting for the street. It was right there in front of us all the time, it just changed names after a block.
Everyone was ready to scream and we all required a bath and a glass of wine. I just decided to go hang out the window.
It is right on the water so there is a sort of square boat port for lack of a better word that is right smack in the middle of town. You can walk all the way around it and look at the elegant sailing boats tied up there. One side is a drawbridge, a very small drawbridge, that goes up to let the boats out. There is a charming church that is quite old. The steeple has flying buttresses--of wood. The whole town looks like it fell intact out of an Elizabethan novel. Half timbered houses leaning over the narrow twisty cobblestoned streets. Flowers in pots and windowboxes everywhere. Shops on the first floor of the buildings in the center of town and homes up above. This wine shop is just down the street from our bed and breakfast, we bought the most amazing tire bouchon (tiray booshawn), aka wine bottle opener. When we asked the proprietress if she had one for sale she hauled out this thing made of cast iron that looks like a medieval implement of torture. For five euros we'll take it home and torture American wine bottles with it. I'm sitting in a basket full of cidre (cider) the local brew and boy is it serious cider. It's the stuff with the wired down corks, it's somewhat explosive and great to drink.
This is the street in front of our b & b, it is just down the road on the left, the building with the blue looking roof. We are staying on the fourth floor and at night it is magical because all the tourists go home and the shops close and then you really can believe it is about 500 years ago. This is a candle store and those odd yellow things are candles on sticks. Go figure. Very nice stores here. Rocket bought a handmade leather purse from a tiny store around the corner. The owner popped up out of a trap door in the floor to greet us, she was holding a lavender dyed piece cowhide to make a custom purse in her hand. An entire workshop was down a tiny staircase under the ancient floor. I love the purse because it has a special Barbie pocket in the side, no more being squashed by the camera for me.
Here I am waiting for dinner in Honfleur. There is a table full of obnoxious Americans behind us. Thereis a blonde girl about 25 years old, loud and somewhat drunk. We all wish she would go away and take her friends with her.
We spent time reading and studying before we came here. Our goal was to fit in and not look like Americans for the most part. If you dress French, speak French, have French manners and eat like a French person, you will see a lot more of the country than the usual American tourist ever will. I can't exactly hide my nationality though, that green apron gives me away every time--and my tattoo. We haven't seen any tattoos here and it would seem they are not as socially acceptable here.
We had a fantastic pizza here with fresh tomatoes, capers and anchovies. And of course, a salad with vinagrette dressing--there is only type of dressing here. It varies a little but not much, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and a tiny bit of dry mustard. We love it. We were surprised how nice the anchovies on the pizza tasted. Yummy. This was a tiny little hole in the wall in Honfleur, painted bright colors and full of delicious smells. We had a window table and that place across the street has a sign in it welcoming American visitiors coming back to visit Normandy and the beaches.
Cher Journal,
Here I am in Brittany just hanging out. I love the name of the bar tabac in the background--Du Loup which is basically the Wolf. Very old and charming towns here, lots of stone walls and slate roofs. No more tile roofs as we are now in the north. Each town seems to have a pharmacy, a bakery, a bar tabac for smoking and getting a drink and a newspaper, a town hall and maybe a butcher shop and other assorted small shops. All the small villages have narrow streets where the doors of the houses open right on the sidewalk and all the houses have adjoining walls so you have a block of houses, a street and then another block or the countryside--depending on the size of the village.
Coffee, I do love my coffee. Today I brought my own cup. In France you don't see coffee to go in paper cups. You sit down and take a time out to enjoy the world going by while you sip your excellent coffee with hot milk and two tubes of sugar. Yes, sugar comes in long tubes for the most part, paper tubes that you rip the end off of and dump into your coffee for that milky sweet wonderful taste. Almost everyone also serves a little treat with the coffee, a chocolate or a little cookie. I could get to to like this lifestyle...
Ah, the pig of Yolanda and Charlick. The Wolf bar and tabac was at the top of this diary entry, so it seems fitting the pig would be here too. This is not one of the three little pigs as there were five of them in the pen. This was a farm that had sheep, a goat, mules and pigs. The pigs are raised to feed guests in the restaurant. We had pork pate one night from one of this guy's ancestors and it was great stuff.
The pigs were having breakfast the day I visited them and they were having it all over them as they were basically up to their hocks in their trough while they shoveled in the food. It reminded me of a certain fast food restaurant in America which has a clown hanging around most of the time. The clown is making inroads here in France but I stayed as far away as possible from chez hamburger and frites.
Frites are what we call French fries and boy are they ever good here. You see moules and frites at every restaurant. Moules are steamed mussels and they seem to be almost a national dish. Tasty little morsels and we ate our fair share of them from Bordeaux to Paris. I loved watch ing French people eat them. Moule eating is a science I think. They use one empty shell as pincers to pull the meat of out the mussels. This is about the only time I saw French people touch food with their hands. Most everything is eaten very tidily with a knife and fork--including fruit and cheese.
On to Honfleur tomorrow, I can't wait.
Dear Diary,
Here I am in Brittany, the churches here are amazing. They are old and full of spectacular carvings and cavalries. A cavalry is like a big carved story of Jesus in stone, they are almost like a stone picture book. The gargoyles on the churches are pretty wonderful too, goofy rather than scary.
That's me posing with a lion carved on choir pew in a church in Saint Thegonnec. Breton is a whole separate language and signposts are in Breton and French both. Breton has the same roots as Welsh but there the languages part ways.
Here I am in front of Yolanda and Charlick's house which we just loved. It was the coolest farm and one night we had dinner in their restaurant. The reservations are made months ahead because it is such an amazing place. Charlick was pretty crazy--he looks like an artist--roaming around in a white poets shirt with this head of wildly curly hair that was out of control. Yolanda is an amazing chef. We had one of the best meals ever--the best part was the local hard cider. It comes in those bottles with a reclosable top? It is made by all the farmers in the region and man was it ever good--had just enough kick to make us smile--a lot.
The other picture is a dolmen/menhir/monolith at Carnac. There are fields of standing stones all over Brittany. One of the weirdest moments ever in my short barista life was seeing these. Row after row of stones about four feet high, 2000 of them in one field we saw. In tidy rows they looked like they were planted to grow more stones. Some fields had great big ones scattered around, I'm sitting on a bigger one catching a few rays. They are neolithic and no one knows why they were put here. Oooh. Creepy.
This is the door to the Ossuary in St Thegonnec. There I am at the bottom of the door-enlarge it to see me better. The top of it has a face carved in it. This is inside the parish close. Apparently in the old, old days Churches and grave yards were put together and fenced in probably to keep the devils out? But now, the devils are teenagers who break in and steal from the churches and sell what they take or just break it. Sad, after a 1000 years of being open a lot of churches are now kept locked.
au revoir for now,
BB
Cher Journal,
Here I am taking a dip in the Atlantic ocean. Of course I took my apron off first. The water was cold and the air was hot and humid.
This is the first guest house, that is bed and breakfast ,we stayed in. It was in a tiny town called Le Tablier, finding the town was easy, finding the B& B was a nightmare. We got good at stopping and asking where people and things were. There was an English couple there on holiday ensconced upstairs. They were complaining about no fresh vegetables and I couldn't figure out where they were eating??? We had salads coming out our ears--and tomatoes and radishes and fruit. Hmmm. Look at me in the middle fork of the tree, there was a black cat living there who liked me way too much.
Our land lady was a very proper and correct bourgeoisie person who absolutely insisted NO food in the room! A refrigerator and table in our room but no food allowed. Luckily, the rain stopped so we had a picnic in the garden, as usual I relaxed with the wine.
Here I am ringing the bell at Le Tablier, it was a beautiful old stone farm in the middle of the countryside. Sunflowers, cows, wheatfields and pocket sized towns abounded.
And this is the beach in Le Sables de Olonne.
Sable means sand--I looked it up. Today I'm hanging out with a bottle of Perrier. Always have to ask for ice--glacon--(say glass-own) and they bring two cubes. I think the ice makers must be as tiny as the refrigerators are. Le Sable is on the Atlantic and I just had to go get wet....
Cher Diary,
Here I am in Coulon, aka the Green Venice. The whole town is laced with canals--mostly green because of the algae. Pretty to look at but I sure wouldn't want to fall in! My friend S. is holding me up on top of this beautiful blue bridge as boatloads of French families out for a day of fun are poled in flatboats up and down the many canals in the town.
Today we went to Chateau Gaillard. A beautiful old home and grounds that are now a museum. Pretty neat because you can actually touch things if you want too--but no one does. The French have a greater respect than Americans for other's possessions and their museums. I do like that, and the French ducks at the Chateau respected me too--either that or they won't eat plastic.
As if the ducks at the Chateau weren't enough now I have to put with geese. John Michael, our host in Bordeaux has a big goose pond full of fish and these snotty geese. Glad we were all on the other side of the fence! Bordeaux was lovely, warm weather and good wine.
Dear Diary,
July 22nd. Arrived in Toulouse, had to ride in her carry on luggage and got stuck in the side pocket with the spare camera batteries. A rough ride, but hey, I made it here and joined Marie Claude and Christine for dinner. We had confit of duck, a great cassoulet, a tasty salad and a chocolate ganache cake. I relaxed in a nice glass of wine while my friends worked on dinner.
The other picture is our trip to the market in Palmiers on Saturday morning. I had a nice cup of coffee, a grand creme, while She wrote in her journal and watched the world go by.
