Monday, April 28

Our friends Eric and Susan drove us in the rain to Newark airport. It was the first time that we were flying with the French all business class airline L'Avion. We liked it very much, except that there was a lot of turbulence (which wasn't their fault). I slept practically the whole flight.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

We landed at Orly airport and it was very simple and uncomplicated. The lines went very quickly, the customs people practically ignored us and waved us through. The driver, that the hotel had sent, was waiting for us with a sign. He quickly drove us directly to the hotel. On the way, I had a conversation with him in French about Paris and about New York.

The hotel Millésime on rue Jacob and the staff were very charming, as we had remembered them from last year when we were looking at hotels. We liked our room on the 5th floor, which was high enough to have a view of the rooftops and the sky. Because of the skylights and the glass elevator doors, there was sunlight everywhere in the hotel: in the lobby, in the elevator and in our room.

We had a little bit of jetlag, but after unpacking, we walked in a light rain to café Rouquet at the corner of rue des Saint Pères and boulevard Saint Germain for lunch. Al had eggs over easy with ham and a coffee and I had a ham and cheese omelette with herbal tea. While we were eating it started to rain very heavily, so after lunch we walked back to the hotel and put on more water resistant and warmer jackets.

We walked to the Bon Marché department store and it's Grande Épicerie (a gourmet food store) and by the time we got there, the rain had let up. After we left there, the sun was out and we rested for a while on a bench in the park at square Boucicaut, surrounded by beautiful flowers.

We went then walked back to the hotel and had a short nap.

That evening we had dinner at a restaurant called ‘Le Temps Perdu’ (lost time) on rue de Seine, very close to the hotel, which had been recommended to us by our friend Muriel. It was perfect for our first dinner. The ambiance pleased us as well as the service and the food. Al had his favorite dish, veal liver with mashed potatoes and I had ‘confit de canard’ (a braised duck dish), with a large potato pancake. We drank a carafe of Bordeaux wine with the meal and had coffees after.

We didn’t have dessert at the restaurant because we knew that a complimentary half bottle of champagne and basket of ‘macarons’ (the French version of macaroons, only much better) were waiting for us in our hotel room. They were part of the ‘Tête à Tête Paris' package from the hotel, which also included the ride from the airport, buffet breakfast for two daily, a half bottle of Chablis, a boat ride on the Seine, two unlimited transit cards for one day and a drink in a jazz club. We enjoyed the champagne and the ‘macarons’ immensely.

Wednesday, April 29, 2008

We woke up at 8:00 AM with no trace of jetlag. We went down to the pretty basement of the hotel for the buffet breakfast. There were many choices. We ate yogurt, cold cuts, cheese, fresh French breads and pastries. Al had a pot of coffee and I had a pot of herbal tea. Also available were all sorts of fresh fruit and cold cereals. The waitress was very pleasant and efficient. As all the staff, she spoke English, but I spoke to her in French.

It was still raining, chilly and windy out. We put on our raincoats and crossed the Pont (bridge) Des Arts. Then we cut through the courtyard of the Louvre to get to rue de Rivoli and to find the museum of Decorative Arts, which is all the way at the other end of the Louvre building, near the Tuilleries garden. The rain and wind were so strong that it was a bit of a struggle to make it that far.

When we entered the museum we found out that the Publicity museum part was closed, but there was a special exhibit about Napoleon and the symbols of power under the empire. We bought combination tickets to both the permanent collection and the Napoleon exhibit.

There was more than enough to see in permanent collection, despite the absence of the Publicity part. It covered decorative arts from the middle ages through the 20th century, a little like the Victoria and Albert museum in London. My favorite rooms were the ones with art nouveau and art deco items.

We were exhausted and hungry, so we went outside for a quick lunch break. It had stopped raining and was even sunny and warm. We found a fast-food sandwich shop across the street called ‘Les Pains Perdus’, which literally means ‘lost bread or stale bread’, but is also the name for what we call French toast. The seating inside the restaurant was all high stools, which is not at all a comfortable option for me and all the normal tables and chairs were outside on the sidewalk. A youngish, black employee, who had noticed my cane, asked me, in perfect, vernacular New York English, if I wanted him to bring a table and chairs inside. I thanked him profusely and asked him where he learned English. He told us that he had lived in Brooklyn for a few years - small world indeed. We ate our sandwiches and cold drinks at the table that he had moved for us.

Refreshed, we returned to the museum to see the Napoleon exhibit. The first thing that I found interesting was a metric sundial from right after the revolution. It divided the day into 10 hours with 100 minutes each hour. We also learned that the two main symbols that Napoleon used for himself (and the Empire) were the bee and the eagle. He often used a (rather strange looking) merged symbol which was part bee and part eagle.

After we left the museum, we went to look at the bargain souvenir stores on the other side of rue de Rivoli. We weren’t looking for souvenirs per se, but I needed a new backpack because the zipper broke on the one I brought with me and I had also forgotten to pack a hat. We had to look through a lot of junk in a lot of stores, but I eventually found a tasteful backpack where the word Paris was discretely embroidered in black on black for only 15 euros and a comfortable grey canvas hat with a chin strap for only 5 euros. The hat had a small word Paris on the front, so I put the hat on backwards.

After resting in our hotel room, we had dinner in the closet café, right on the corner of rue Bonaparte, called ‘Le Prè aux Clercs' (the field of clerks). The service was horrible and the food wasn’t that much better. Al had sausages and mashed potatoes with a glass of Bordeaux and I had swordfish shish-kabob with grilled vegetables and a glass of Chablis.

We went to bed early.

Thursday, May 1st

We had breakfast in the hotel.

The weather was much better than the day before and we walked to the Pont Neuf (new bridge) and took a short tour boat ride (part of the hotel package) on the Seine. It was very similar to the boat ride we taken a few years ago, covering the same area of the river, but this time there was a narration alternating between French and English. I was able to understand the French much better than the English because the young French woman doing the narration had such a strong French accent in English that it was almost unintelligible. Al couldn’t even tell when she switched languages.

After the boat ride, we rested on a bench in the ‘Square du Vert Galant’ (square of the lusty gentleman – Henri IV) where the chestnut trees were in full bloom. We had never noticed before how many chestnut trees there are in Paris, but being there when they were in bloom, made their presence very obvious. They’re all over the place.

We ate some terrible croque-monsieurs (grilled cheese and ham sandwiches) at a tiny café on rue St. André des Arts with hot drinks. After that we walked a few blocks to rue de Buci and bought (and ate) two large, delicious shortbread cookies at a patisserie. Then we bought a bouquet of roses for our friends Susan and Michel at a terrific open-air florist across the street.

After freshening up in the hotel room, we took the metro to the St. Lazare train station and then took the suburban train to the town of Louveciennes, where our friends live. Susan picked us up at the station and drove us to their house. Then the four of us (Michel, Susan, Al and I) took a walk around their village. After the walk, Michel drove us to the town of Bougival on the banks of the Seine. It was a little chilly and windy, but at least it was sunny. We walked out to an island in the river and saw the locks there. We also saw some signs with images of paintings by Alfred Sisley, which were positioned in front of the scenes depicted in the paintings.

Michel drove us back to their house and we had a long, leisurely, French dinner. First we had some tasty hors-d'oeuvres consisting of tiny open-faced sandwiches, some with cucumber slices and Boursin cheese and others with tapanade (a black olive spread) and drank Baileys Cream mint chocolate. Then for the main course, we had salmon and spinach in a pastry shell shaped like a fish, with rice, which was accompanied by Sancerre wine. We had a plate of cheeses (also with Sancere) and finally the desserts, Tropézienne cake with Tiramisu ice cream. It was all delicious!

Michel drove us back to Paris and our hotel and we went to bed at midnight.

Friday, May 2, 2008

This morning there was a surprisingly large number of people in the breakfast room of the hotel. We had to wait about ten minutes for a table. There seemed to be a group of young foreign (neither English nor French speaking) adults who all knew each other. We assumed that they were in Paris for the long weekend as May 1st is a holiday all over Europe.

It was a warm, sunny day and we took the metro to the museum of Jaquemart-André, which is an art museum in a former private mansion in the 8th arrondisement (a wealthy area), somewhat similar to the Frick museum in New York. It was difficult to spot from the street because it’s hidden behind a high wall. The only way to see it at street level is from the other side of the street. While we were searching for the address, a flamboyantly dressed, older woman approached us and asked (in accented English) if we were looking for the museum and showed us the entryway. She also went on to ask us a lot of questions about ourselves, New York and the Metropolitan museum. When she found out that I had been a computer programmer, she offered me to hire me to make a website for her and I declined. What a strange woman!

We went into the museum, which is housed in a beautiful building and has some very interesting paintings and decorative object. There were hardly any people there. The art was wonderful, despite the fact that there was a persistent, disagreeable, musty odor in most of the rooms. There were paintings by Jacques Louis David, Van Dyke, Rembrandt and Fragonard, but the ones that I liked the best were the Canalettos.

When we left the museum, the weather was wonderful and we walked a few blocks to Monceau Park. I had seen this park in quite a few French films and wanted to see it in person. It didn’t disappoint me: it’s quite picturesque and charming. It’s more like a British park, than a French formal garden. There was a small pond with ducks, weeping willows and a bridge, large lawns (on which you’re allowed to sit), and chestnut trees and flower beds in full blossom. We bought sandwiches and drinks at a stand there and sat on a bench facing the pond. Despite the fact that there were a lot of people in the park, it was very calm and relaxing to be there. When we left, we saw some large, mansion-like houses whose backs faced the park. We should have stayed longer in the park and skipped the next stop, which was the exact opposite of relaxing.

We took the metro two stops to the Arc de Triomphe: what chaos! The sidewalk outside the exit from the metro was jam-packed with tourists of all nationalities taking photos. We were able to find the entrance to the underground tunnel that leads to the arc itself, which sits in the middle of gigantic traffic circle. The tunnel was dark and very, very crowded with tourists going in both directions. There was a long, long line waiting to pay for the privilege of climbing up the 284 steps to the top: no thanks! We hung around the Arc long enough for Al to take some pictures and then headed back through the long, dark tunnel.

We emerged into the sunlight on the Champs-Elysées and walked for a few blocks on this highly overrated boulevard. Apparently the two sides of the street are different. We were on the more honky-tonk side. It was like a cross between the more crowded parts of 34th and 42nd streets with a bit of Coney Island thrown in. There were too many tourists, too much noise, too much of everything: we absolutely hated it. We crossed the street and it did improve (much less crowded), but we still were searching for a metro entrance so we could get out of there. In the other parts of Paris that we’ve visited, the metro entrances are very clearly (and decoratively) marked. All we saw were unmarked cement entryways that could have been either underground parking or tunnels to cross the street. I saw a group of uniformed doormen (and one woman) standing in front a fancy looking hotel on a side street, so I approached the woman and asked her in French if she could please tell us where to find the nearest metro entrance. She smiled and showed me where it was: it was one of those unmarked entryways. I thanked her profusely and we took the metro back to the hotel.

After resting for a while, we walked to the area surrounding the St. Germain indoor food market (not a supermarket, but a collection of small stalls selling fresh meats, fish, produce and pre-made gourmet dishes). I had a list of 6 possible restaurants out of more than a dozen possibilities in this 4 block area. We looked at a lot of menus and chose Bistro d’Henri, which turned out to be a very good choice. It’s really small inside, but it was almost empty when we entered. We were shown to a corner table and we ordered.

Before our food was served, the tables next to us filled up, one after the other, with three other couples (essentially blocking us in the corner). The couple right next to us tried to make sense of the all French menu: the woman read each item on the menu out loud in French; the man looked it up in his dictionary and told her the name in whatever language it was that they were speaking. As we were all right on top of each other, we could all hear this translation going on and as it went on and on, our smiling turned to shared laughter. The eight of us found out that the only language we had in common was English and we each introduced ourselves and our country of origin; the nearest couple (the translating ones) were from Hungary, the next couple from Brazil and the furthest couple from the German part of Switzerland. It was very friendly and enjoyable.

The food was also very enjoyable. Al had lamb chops and potatoes and I had medallions of pork with pasta and we drank a carafe of red wine. The pork was the most tender I’d ever eaten. For dessert Al had a slice of chocolate cake and I had crème caramel. It was a quite pleasant evening.

Saturday, May 3

We had breakfast in the hotel breakfast room, this time it wasn’t crowded.

The weather was great and we took the metro and the suburban train to Louveciennes, where Susan picked us up at the train station and drove us to their house. Michel then drove us all to Giverny, where Monet’s home and garden are located. On the way we passed some beautiful, hilly countryside. We saw many cows, horses and also some ostriches in the fields.

When we arrived at the gardens, there was a long, line waiting to buy tickets, which made sense on a beautiful Saturday in early May. We waited for more than an hour to enter, but it was worth the wait. The gardens were wonderful and everything was in bloom. The water garden (with the famous lily pond) was separated from the rest of the gardens and was only accessible through a tunnel that passed under a road. We saw the bridges and the pond that Monet painted so many times and almost all of the many visitors (including us) were taking pictures of themselves in front of these iconic locations.

After seeing the gardens we were able to walk around the inside of Monet’s house, which was even more crowded than the gardens. The walls of his studio were covered with copies of his paintings. I enjoyed the kitchen the best, but I was too tired to climb the stairs to the bedrooms with everyone else. We looked through the items in the gift shop and then returned to the car. By that time it was too late in the day to visit the museum of American Art in Giverny. I was disappointed, but we had recently seen many of these paintings at the ‘Americans in Paris’ (and the outskirts of Paris, including Giverny) exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Michel drove us to an Alsacien restaurant in their area called Brasserie de Malmaison. Michel and I had choucroute (sauerkraut and sausages) and Al and Susan had chicken with pasta au gratin. Michel drank beer, I drank white wine and Al and Susan drank red wine. Then Michel drove us back to our hotel in Paris, but not by the usual route. This time we took a road that went under the buildings of la Défense (the area outside Paris with high-rise office buildings), through the town of Neuilly-sur-Seine (the richest area in France), which is continuous with (and indistinguishable from) the 8th arrondisement of Paris, around the traffic circle surrounding the Arc de Triomphe, and then down the Champs Elysées. We could see the Eiffel Tower all lit up and we got to sleep at midnight.

Sunday, May 4

After breakfast, we hurried to arrive at Père-Lachaise cemetery in time for the guided walking tour given by Peter Caine, the owner of ‘Paris Walks’. There were at least twenty people (most of them Americans). The information that the guide gave us about the history of the cemetery and it’s inhabitants was very interesting. Al and I would never have been able to find the tombs of the famous people on our own. Peter showed us the tombs of Rossini, Chopin, Molière, La Fontaine, Edith Piaf, Gertrude Stein, Isadora Duncan, Balzac, Oscar Wilde and many others. At the end of the visit he showed us the tomb of (what he described as the ‘pièce de résistance’) Jim Morrison, but I would much rather have seen the tombs of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret. Later, Al and I tried to find them by ourselves, but it was too difficult and would have involved climbing back up the hill again. We were however able to find the tomb of Camille Pissarro and several generations of his family.

We had salads in a café, Brasserie du Père-Lachaise, on the corner, across the street from the cemetery and then took the metro back to the hotel to rest.

I used the computer in the lobby of the hotel to send some emails and then Al and I walked to the café des Beaux Arts on the quai Malaquai, at the corner of rue Bonaparte. The young waitress spoke perfect English with an American accent. I asked here where she learned English and she said that her mother was American. I forget what we had to eat, but obviously it wasn’t memorable.

After dinner we walked along the quais to boulevard Saint-Michel. We looked for comic books (hard covered ‘bandes dessinées’) on the top floor of Bolinger bookstore and I bought one of ‘The Simpsons’ books (in French, naturally).

We went to bed at 11:30.

Monday, May 5

After breakfast, we took the metro to the ‘Foire de Paris’ (the Paris Fair), which is a cross between a World’s fair, an industry show at the Javitz Center and a flea market. Part of the fair each year is the ‘Concours Lépine’ (an inventions competition). I had seen it on French television news each year and had always wanted to see it person. The fair was easy to get to, just one metro ride to the end of the line (and the outer limits of Paris) and there it was.

The ticket lines weren’t too long and there was a map of the grounds right near the entrance. There were seven buildings and an outdoor plaza with an entertainment tent. The three main areas were Home (furniture, decoration and appliances), Health and Leisure (cars, camping, cooking and the inventions competition) and World Cultures (food, wine, beer and crafts from around the world).

We headed straight for the ‘Concours Lépine’ and went up and down every aisle and looked at every ‘invention’, The large majority of them were pretty ordinary things that we had already seen before, but every once in a while we saw something exciting. I enjoyed the ‘Doctor Fold’, a plastic device for folding laundry into uniform sizes, the ‘Stop-Bouchon’ for tethering the champagne cork to the bottle (to prevent injuries from flying corks) and the best for me was the shiatsu massage cushion – it felt so good that I didn’t want to stop. Al’s favorite was the hand powered chainsaw with a self righting device attached.

We bought sandwiches and drinks at a stand and sat under the entertainment tent to eat our lunch. The entertainment was provided by students from the ‘Lycée Centres des Arts de la Scène de Paris’ (High School for Performing Arts). They were very talented, but not yet at a professional level. They sang, danced and acted in short sketches in French. Some of the songs were in English, but they had very strong accents. The song and dance number that we liked the best was ‘J’aime les filles’ (I love girls) which was very amusing.

After lunch, we went to the building called ‘Terres de France et d'Europe’ (Lands of France and Europe), where there were all kinds of food stands, wine and beer tastings and European crafts for sale. We sampled a few French wines from the different regions and as they weren’t at all busy, I was able to have some nice chats in French with the vineyard representatives. After that we had ice cream and then took the metro back to the hotel and rested.

For the second time we had dinner at Le Temps Perdu. We both had duck shish-kabobs with ratatouille and rice and shared a carafe of red wine. I had chocolate mousse and coffee and Al had yogurt with fruit and coffee.

We went to bed early.

Tuesday, May 6

We woke up early. After breakfast we crossed the river and walked around the Tuileries garden, where we admired some wonderful statues of women by Aristide Maillol. We had coffee in one of the outdoor cafés in the garden, which had a very relaxing view of a pond with ducks.

We continued our stroll through the garden, crossed the place de la Concorde and eventually reached the ‘Petit Palais’ (small palace), which is across the street from the ‘Grand Palais’ (large palace). The main entrance was a grand staircase up to the second floor, but I spotted the handicapped entrance on the ground floor. The entry was locked, but I was able to talk to a guard on the intercom and explain that I walk with a cane. He let us in and escorted us to the start of the permanent exhibits. What a wonderful permanent collection of art in the Petit Palais. The Dutch and Flemish paintings alone are worth a few hours visit and the highlight of the ground floor was the art nouveau room by Hector Guimard.

We had lunch in the museum café, which faces the central garden. They were all out of the reasonably priced sandwiches listed on the menu (or so they said) and we were forced to have the 12 euro (18 dollar) club sandwiches with drinks. Actually, the food was delicious, but we resented having to pay so much. After lunch we looked at the 19th and 20th century paintings, sculptures and other objets d’art on the second floor. The building itself is grandiose and quite impressive. There were many romantic, impressionist and post-impressionist works, including those of Monet, Sisley, Pissarro and Cezanne.

After leaving the museum, we went around the corner to the gardens of the Champs Elysées and sat on a bench to rest and relax for a while. Then we walked a few more blocks to the W.H. Smith bookstore on the place de la Condorde and each bought a few British books that we hadn’t been able to find in the U.S. We took the metro back to the hotel.

We had dinner in an Italian restaurant, Del Papa on rue de Buci, between rue de Seine and boulevard Saint Germain, where we’ve eaten before on previous visits to Paris. Al had veal bolognaise and I had veal piccata. We drank red wine. For dessert Al had a chocolate tart with raspberry syrup and I had vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries.

We were very tired and went to bed even earlier than the night before.

Wednesday, May 7

After breakfast, we took the metro to the Marais district (orthodox Jewish area) to go to the museum Carnavalet, which is the museum of the history of the city of Paris. It was a little difficult to find, but it was wonderful! On the ground floor there are objects from the Middle Ages, including wooden store signs. My favorite things were the three-dimensional models of the streets in various neighborhoods in ancient Paris. I loved being able to find the building of the hotel where we stayed the previous time on rue Git-le-Coeur and all the building on rue de Buci.

On the second floor, we found room after room of absolutely amazingly beautiful French paintings by artists of the 18th, 19th and 20th century, who were largely unknown to us. Each room we entered was better than the one before. Other highlights were Marcel Proust’s bedroom and the Fouquet boutique and café.

We left the museum and walked two blocks to the place des Voges, a square with a park in the center surrounded on all sides by beautiful identical buildings. There are arcades on the street level all the around the square, with art galleries, antique shops, restaurants and cafés. After sitting on a bench in the park, we had grilled sandwiches and orange juices at one of the cafés. We returned to the hotel by metro and took a nap.

We had dinner at one of the few Greek cafés on rue Saint André des Arts. Al had a lamb chop platter and I had a gyro platter. Then we walked around the Latin quarter, crossing the place Saint Michel (and the crowd of young people around the fountain) and then to the noisy, even more crowded, rue de la Huchette with many Greek cafés, bars and night clubs. We had ice cream there and then walked back to the hotel.

Thursday, May 8

This was our last full day in Paris. I decided that I didn’t want to wait for hours in a long line of tourists in order to get to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Therefore we took the metro straight to the Montparnasse Tower, an ugly, modern skyscraper on the edge of old Paris. It was a very good decision; it costs 10 euros to go up in the elevator to the observatory at the top, on the 56th floor and it was so simple. There was practically no line (one family in front of us) to buy tickets and we arrived at the observatory in a few minutes. (What a contrast with the crowds waiting to go to the top of the Empire State building – 86th floor) The best thing was that once we got there, there were only a few people looking out the windows taking pictures of the city, which was spread out below like a map of Paris. We were able to take all the photos we wanted to, in all directions.

We took the elevator back down to the shopping mall at the base of the building and found a chain pizzeria called ‘Del Arte Pizza et Pasta’, where we had pizzas and drinks. On leaving the building, a middled-aged American woman with luggage approached us and asked if we spoke English. She wanted to know where rue Bonaparte was and we gave her directions. She told us that she was from the island of Manhattan.

We walked along the boulevard de Montparnasse, where there are an amazing number of multiplex movie houses. Then we turned off onto rue Vavin, which led us directly, through a very pleasant area, to the Luxembourg gardens. It was a holiday (Armistice day) and the weather was sunny and warm, therefore the park was jam-packed with Parisians. Most of the lawns were off limits to people, so a lot of people were sitting on park chairs that were strung like beads on a necklace around the edges of the lawns. We waited for two chairs to be freed up and then moved them into the shade and sat for a while, people watching. We saw two police officers chasing some picnickers off the forbidden grass directing them to the small, grassy areas set aside for picnics and lounging, under the rows of squarely shaped chestnut trees. It seemed funny to us that all the other grass areas were empty and that on this small space, the people were crowded in on their blankets like a summer day in Coney Island. There were people of all ages and races and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

When we were walking back to the hotel from the park, I came face to face with Catherine Deneuve and her grandson (who was on a scooter) on rue de Condé. I knew that he was her grandson because he called her ‘mamie’ (grandma). She looked just the way she did in her more recent films. What a wonderful ending to our last day in Paris!

We packed our suitcases and then had our last dinner at Temps Perdu. Al had the ‘confit de canard’ and I had the ‘coq au vin’. We drank a carafe of Bordeaux. For dessert Al had chocolate mousse and I had a perfect crème brûlée. We took a last leisurely walk along the quays of the Seine and we saw small groups of people picnicking on the banks of the river.

Friday, May 9

We woke up very early (5:30) and after breakfast, we took a walk around the neighborhood.

The driver that the hotel had arranged for, arrived right on time and drove us to Orly airport. He was a good driver and the route was very direct and quick. On the way I had a conversation with him in French. He was very young (22) and was planning his first airplane trip, which was going to be to Australia to visit a friend. He had no idea how long the flight would be and he didn’t even know in which part of Australia his friend lived.

The airport lounge for L’Avion at Orly was very nice and the flight was pleasant (no turbulence). For lunch we were served foie gras and a salad, which we assumed was the whole meal, but we were mistaken. We were then served ‘confit de canard’ with potatoes and string beans with glasses of Bordeaux wine, plates of cheese and chocolate mousse with coffee. A few hours later we were served club sandwiches with coffee. Everything was delicious.

Our friends Eric and Susan were waiting for us at Newark airport and drove us home (in the rain again).