Category: Uncategorized

Three weeks in Paris are never enough. But we have been here enough times to give us more general impressions this time around.

Tourists

As anyone who has been reading this blog knows, Paris is all but empty of tourists right now. Some of that is timing, of course; October is not prime tourist season. But some is also pandemic fear. Our friends who were supposed to come over to meet us bailed out on the trip back in August because they were concerned about travel restrictions, etc.

That’s a reasonable concern. We have to show our pass sanitaire virtually every time we enter any sort of restaurant, bar, museum or even some shops. And masking is ubiquitous. More about that below.

But the bottom line is that if you can, come over soon. I suspect that Paris and all the major European destinations will be inundated with Americans next summer, assuming the pandemic continues to decline to endemic status sometime early next year.

Masking

Everywhere indoors. In Metro stations, stores, museums, trains, boats and technically even restaurants until you actually sit at your table. For that reason, most restaurants have expanded their outdoor seating capacity, which in Paris was already pretty extensive.

Wearing a mask for hours is tantamount to torture. I have a particular problem early in the day when the air is cool and my glasses fog up completely until they adjust to the outside temperature and humidity. More than once, I have been forced to take them off as we enter a Metro station in the morning so I don’t trip down the stairs.

Outside on the streets, most people do not wear masks, although perhaps 25% do. I don’t question their choice, but it’s pretty well established that the virus is not transmitted in open air.

As a related item, the French take testing very seriously. There is a testing tent outside virtually every corner pharmacy giving out tests, vaccines and resigtration for the pass sanitaire.

Traffic and walking the streets

The New York Times published an article a couple of weeks ago (while we were here) describing the chaos on major streets caused by Paris’s efforts to increase bike ridership all over town. To be kind, the story was overwrought and overstated.

Bicycle riders have the right of way in most major European cities, and Paris is no exception. Pedestrians need to stay out of bike lanes or you can get run over.

On the other hand, bicyclists here also follow traffic laws. In other words, they stop at red lights like any other vehicle and they ride in the direction of their lanes. Try that in the U.S.

The trottinettes, on the other hand, are another story. They ride on the sidewalks, in the streets, anywhere they can fit their two wheels. And they most decidedly do not follow traffic laws. They have been popular for years here in Paris, but they seem to have proliferated since we were here last, as they are lined up on virtually every major corner available for rent. The electric models move along at a good 20 mph, which is about as fast as any traffic goes in Paris.

Because they are silent and they follow no lanes or laws, they are dangerous to pedestrians, and you have to be on guard at all times, even on the sidewalk. (Motorcycles are known to ride on the sidewalk in Paris too, just adding to the sensory element of adventure walking the streets of Paris.)

Green, so green

France wants so bad to be green. Easy for them–they generate most of their electricity by nuclear, the cheapest method in the world. Unfortunately for French residents, the country exports a lot of that cheap power to neighboring countries, preferring to gouge its residents with much more expensive “renewable” power from wind and sun. Except the sun doesn’t shine that much in northern France, and the wind only blows during storms. The result is that electricity is hideously expensive by U.S. standards. Not to mention the cost of gas for your little tiny car.

The climate change movement is apparent everywhere. You can’t get away from it, even in Metro stations.

Clean your plate! It helps the planet when food scraps don’t make it to the waste cycle.

But the garbage and recycling is picked up at least three times per week. Hmmmm…….

Traffic reports on TV give commute times by bike, e-bike, auto and transit. E-bikes are usually fastest, followed by transit. And private autos are always last and longest. Subtle message there.

Shops and restaurants

France has been called a nation of shopkeepers, and the streets of Paris confirm that. You are never more than a block or two from seafood, meat, vegetables, bread, sweets and of course wine.

Electronic repair stores are in every neighborhood, mostly owned and operated by South Asians, for whom English is their first language.

The battery in my phone was failing fast, so I popped into Mr. Phony around the corner on rue Monge, where the proprietor installed a new one in less than an hour. Cost was 70 euros, perhaps a bit more than in the States, but certainly not outrageous.

Dining in Paris

How can Uber Eats exist much less succeed in a place like France and Paris? There is a restaurant, patisserie, tabac, traiteur on every block and usually more than one. We generally split a baguette sandwich for lunch, and that’s plenty to hold us until cheese and pate with wine in the evening before dinner. The French chow down on an entire pizza or plat with dessert and cafe for dejeuner.

How they all don’t weigh 300 pounds or more is a mystery to us. But most French women are slender and beautiful, and it’s pretty rare to see fat French anywhere.

Perhaps they eat a big lunch and a small dinner, but you couldn’t tell by the looks of restaurants still open and busy at 10 p.m. We eat at the so-American time of 7:30 or so, usually all but alone until the French roll in about the time we leave the restaurant at 9 p.m.

This may have something too with the light of day. Paris is pretty far north at 49 degrees latitude. By comparison, New York is 41 degrees, and New Orleans is 30. Even in early autumn, the sun does not rise in Paris until about 8 a.m. By the first of winter, it will not rise until after 9 a.m.

So the streets of Paris are dark and all but deserted until at least 9 a.m. The patisserie and the markets don’t open until 8 and they are by far the first. Most stores don’t open until 10 a.m. but stay open until 9 or 10 p.m. Same with restaurants, except later.

We Americans don’t follow that schedule.

And the last lunch, the last dinner, the last of Paris.

For our last walk, we chose–what else?–the Tuileries, our favorite stroll in all of Paris. We took the Metro 7 to Palais Royale and the Louvre stop, crossed the street and walked right into the middle of the museum’s courtyard at the pyramid.

It’s open to the public and makes the perfect starting point for a glorious walk through the heart of Paris.

From the Louvre courtyard we crossed under the huge memorial arc honoring one of France’s other wars and into the Tuileries, where the late season flowers are still blooming. The lavender is also out in full display for another few weeks. It is the featured plant in the Tuileries gardens.

For us, the Tuileries tells the story of Paris. You walk out from the Louvre into a public park lined with flowers, manicured trees and statuary; four restaurants with outdoor seating; two large fountains ringed by chairs to watch the water and the people go by; and two major museums flanking the far end. It was designed by one of the Medici queens and Louis XIV had a palace there until he moved into his larger quarters next door.

The Tuileries is not a long walk and we emerged from the park to take a tour around Place de la Concorde, the traffic circle to end all traffic circles. The huge job fair tent that spanned the width of the Tuileries was already being disassembled, so the streets were accessible again. We crossed to take a close-up view of the Egyptian obelisk that had been carted across the Med in the 19th century and erected in the center of the Place with gilded illustrations of how it was all engineered onto the boat and erected in place.

Then we crossed again to the huge buildings that flank the Place de la Concorde, the Hotel du Carillon and the Hotel de la Marine, both legendary five-star establishments that we will never be able to afford. The U.S. Embassy is just to the left of those buildings, impressive in its own right.

Then it was back to rue de Rivoli, where the blocks alternate between highest end hotels like the Meurice and the uber expensive clothing and art stores with other blocks devoted to cheap Parisian souvenirs.

At that point we could have taken the Metro at the Concorde station or continued our walk down rue de Rivoli. We chose the latter, as we made a quick detour to Place Vendome and the Ritz Hotel of Paris, home of Hemingway’s bar and the most expensive Bloody Mary in the world.

Along the way, we spotted the clothing store where Lynn had bought a sweater a few years ago, so naturally we had to stop in again and she found another sweater to buy. It was hard to complain about the price at 29 euros and it fit, so it was an easy decision.

By the time we arrived back at the Palais Royale Metro station, our legs were giving out and our stomachs were telling us it was lunch time. So we jumped back on the M 7 to Place Monge and walked down to La Commedia, an Italian restaurant on rue Monge where we ordered a long-awaited pizza. As I studied the menu, I noticed they offered osso buco for 14 euros and I saw the dish came out to a table near ours. For that price, they also give you pasta. We will visit this place again next time we are in Paris.

We always find it remarkable that Europeans can eat an entire pizza on their own, and we can barely finish one to split. But Lynn marveled at French women downing an entire pie then ordering dessert to finish off a late lunch. Not these two Americans; we split the pizza, finished our beers and waddled back to the apartment for a quick afternoon nap and packing to leave the next day.

For dinner, what else but TourNbride, the restaurant on rue Mouffetard where we ate our first meal on this visit to Paris and our first the last time we visited. Without a reservation, they squeezed us into a tiny table between the front window and the bar, which was just fine for us. Lynn had her favorite crispy chicken and I ordered the duck confit, both delicious as always with a pichet of Bordeaux.

We had ended our Paris stay where we began. It was time to leave.

Our stays in our favorite cities like Paris, Nice, Florence and Barcelona follow a fairly predictable pattern. For the first couple of days we reacquaint ourselves with the neighborhoods and our old haunts. Then we plunge into the sights, experiences and places that we have missed for so long.

As the end of our stay approaches, we start on the glide path to departure by re-visiting some of our favorite spots. For Paris, that means the Eiffel Tower, the BatoBus, Pomme d’Eve and a walk through the Tuileries, weather permitting.

Sunday took care of the first three.

But first the most important stuff–Bloody Marys at Le Petit around the corner from our first apartment. The young bartender knew what to do and served our drinks with bottles of Worcestershire, Tabasco and celery salt on the side so we could flavor them to our taste. Very perceptive. As Le Petit filled with Sunday morning patrons sitting outside drinking coffee and enjoying petit dejeuner, we sat inside sipping our favorite breakfast beverage.

From Montagne St. Genevieve, it was closer to walk down to the Seine to catch the BatoBus at Notre Dame, so we indulged in another favorite walk down toward the river and through the Maubert-Mutualite market. The Sunday market there was normally teeming with food, clothing and household goods, but on this day, it was strictly a flea market. The permanent food shops lining the corner were busy with customers, but the market itself was mostly used clothing and “stuff” aka junk.

We walked on. The river and BatoBus beckoned.

Although the BatoBus stop opposite Notre Dame is very well marked, somehow I turned in the wrong direction until Lynn pointed to the sign behind us. Luckily we had not marched more than 50 yards or so and turned around quickly to buy our tickets and get on the boat. Tickets at the desk cost 19 euros for a day, when you can get them online for the same price for two days. Whatever, we knew this would be our last ride.

We disembarked at the Eiffel Tower to find the square, the bridge and the surrounding streets completely blocked off. It seemed that there was some festival with a road race that had taken over the area. We picked our way around the fencing, down the side street along the festival grounds and finally found the tower entrance. The line was only slightly longer on a Sunday than it had been earlier in our trip.

Once inside, we lunched at the little cafe and had our last gaze at the engineering marvel of M. Eiffel. If you look closely, you can see a frieze along the first upper level that lists the names of 72 prominent scientists, engineers and thinkers of Eiffel’s time. They all have three things in common: they are French, they are men and no one’s name is longer than 12 letters. More than that would not fit in the spaces.

By the time we walked around the park and bade our farewell to Eiffel, most of the fencing had been removed, so we walked unimpeded to catch the BatoBus just as it was leaving the dock. The boat this time was much more crowded, and I could hear a lot of Spanish spoken. The ride took nearly an hour to go from Eiffel Tower to the Jardin des Plantes, but on a beautiful Sunday, we couldn’t think of anything better to do than see Paris from the river.

We grabbed an early dinner of leftover tortellinis, sausage and peppers, duck breast and blue cheese to clean out the refrigerator and be ready for the walk to Pomme d’Eve where we would be able to watch the Saints game.

George was kind enough to pull up the Saints game while the big screes showed the France-Spains European soccer championship at the same time. Very kind of him. He explained that the game was being played in Milan and sponsored by Gazprom of Russia. Doesn’t get much more international than that.

Soccer to us is unfathomable, but I twisted my head between the American NFL football and the “real” football for the evening. Spain went ahead briefly, then France scored a goal within seconds and surged ahead as we walked out of the bar with the comfort of both our home teams winning. We bade farewell to George and promised to return next year, hopefully in time for the rugby championships in the spring.

As we walked back to the apartment thorough the familiar streets and plazas, all the bars and bistros were filled with customers and we could tell the outcome of the match by the cheers. By the time we arrived home, France had won the match and the championship and the singing of the Marseillaise ensued all along the streets.

Overall, a fitting way to spend our last night at Pomme d’Eve for a while.

Our cousins Mel and Irene returned from their genealogy trip to Normandy, so we made arrangements to meet for lunch again before we all depart Paris for points in the south of France. This time, we chose La Forge, our favorite restaurant in Paris across rue Claude Bernard from the end of rue Mouffetard.

We had some time to kill after a quick trip to the wine shop on rue Mouffetard after we deposited the bottles of juice back home, so we walked down Monge to the apartment I had found, then back up rue Mouffetard again before heading down the street to La Forge, where Mel and Irene had just sat down.

Over entrecote for them and canard confit for us (plus a pichet of Bergerac for each of us), they related the news of the trip. Irene reported she was able to trace our family ties all the way back to Rollo, a Viking who was one of the precursors of William the Conqueror in his successful invasion of Britain.

Mel and Irene expanded on the adventures of their trip by bus through rain for 35 people, none of whom (except for them) had ever been in Europe before. Apparently some members of the group complained about the food in France. Go figure.

After bidding our au revoirs to our gracious host at La Forge, we walked up to rue Mouffetard to show the street to Mel and Irene, who were amazed at the scene. The crowds filled the street lined with shops and markets of every kind. It was our third trip there this same day but their first ever. They were appropriately impressed.

The afternoon was beautiful, so we parted ways with the cousins so they could return to their hotel and prepare for their trip to Provence and Nice. We returned to our apartment for a short nap followed by a walk to Arenes de Lutece.

Constructed in the first century A.D. by the Romans, Arenes de Lutece once sat 15,000 spectators to watch gladiatorial battles. It is the most important Roman ruin in Paris, along with Cluny, which is not far away on blvd St. Germaine. Lutetia was the Roman name for the city of Paris, which even two thousand years ago was a major metropolis in the empire.

Today the arena is a park for Parisians, and on a gorgeous autumn day, they turned out in throngs. No fewer than four boules games were being played on the ground level, as a group of younger kids kicked the ubiquitous soccer ball all over. On the upper decks, people young and old were catching the last rays of the setting sun, knowing that cold, gray Parisian winter is not that far away.

An hour later, we retired home as the sun set to enjoy a Saturday night dinner of escargot from Picard and authentic Peruvian empanadas from PicaFlor next door. Certainly not the gourmet lunch we had enjoyed earlier at La Forge, but tasty in its own right for a quiet Saturday evening.

This is a crusade of mine. Pere Lachaise is the greatest cemetery in the world, and for those who follow this little commentary, cemeteries are some of my favorite places.

We chickened out earlier in the week at Pere Lachaise because we spied a dark ominous cloud coming over and we had no rain gear. This time there was not a cloud in the sky and we took a long, circuitous Metro route to the fabled city of the dead. This time, for a particular reason.

My Spring Hill College class of ’71 is hosting our Golden Reunion in about a week, and we will miss it. No one’s fault. It should have been in April but was postponed due to Covid. We were supposed to be in Europe in spring but were forced to postpone that too for the same reason.

Someone on the Spring Hill Google list made a comment about Jim Morrison dying the same year we graduated, so the least I could contribute is a photo of his burial spot in Pere Lachaise. We have been there enough times to have a good idea of where it is–just follow the American accents.

Sure enough, there we were. With a bunch of American and English-speaking French who were fans. Most had not even been conceived of being conceived when Jim Morrison met his tragic alcohol and drug induced end. But there we were, contemporaries to take a photo for our Spring Hill Class of ’71.

The sacrifices I make for posterity and my Class of ’71.

Unlike most times we visit Pere Lachaise, the weather this particular day was nothing short of Paris early fall spectacular. We could have spent the entire day climbing up and down the hills of Pere Lachaise, but my work was done. Edith Piaf and the others will wait for another visit.

We walked out past the block looking for a place to have lunch and decided on Aux Tables de Pere Lachaise. What better place to eat than a bistro named after the cemetery?

It turned out to be just fine. Lynn had a small tartine of goat cheese, and I had a generous boeuf confit, aka a debris burger. They now call them smash burgers. With a bit of gravy and some French bread, we could have been at Domilese’s. But it wasn’t that good. Dom’s has nothing to fear.

Then it was back home, this time on a somewhat different route on the Metro, quicker and more direct. I’m not sure why we went to Pere Lachaise the way we did, but the Maps app sometimes sends you on strange routes.

Once back to the apartment, we took a walk through the Jardin to the paleontology museum to buy a dinosaur game for our faithful mail attendant, Gabriel, who lives upstairs and loves his prehistoric animals. He is more dependable than the USPS and lots more personable, especially at the advanced age of seven.

Dinner was at home. Lynn cooked up the four-cheese tortellinis she had bought at the Monge market in the morning. Cooked down with a rich tomato sauce, they were wonderful. We enjoyed some stinky blue cheese for appetizers in advance, polished off our last bottle of wine and enjoyed a fine French-Italian dinner. What could be better?

For us, no trip to Paris is complete without a visit to Giverny, Monet’s home and gardens where he lived and painted for the last 40 years of his life.

Visiting Giverny is no small undertaking. It is located some 40 miles northwest of Paris in the first part of Normandy. It takes just about the entire day and more than $100 for tickets on the train to get there and back, tickets for the garden, tickets for the little tram that transports visitors from the Vernon station to the Giverny village, and of course lunch. All this for about an hour in the garden and another hour in the house and shop. But it’s worth it.

This is the end of the year for Giverny. The gardens will close November 1. And you can see why. The riot of color is gone for the most part. Some of the lush greenery has turned brown already.

The lily pads on the Japanese ponds are flat, lifeless and turning brown. You can sense that the place is about to hibernate for the winter.

But even at this time, it was well worth seeing. For one thing, as usual these days, there were no lines or crowds. When we once stood for hours in May to get a ticket, we walked right up to the counter with our pre-arranged tickets, showed our pass sanitaire and marched right in. Just for once, we were able to enjoy the stroll through the village on the way to Monet’s gardens without feeling like we were on St. Charles Avenue on Mardi Gras.

Inside the gardens, we walked uninhibited through the paths, which still show a lot of color, just not the full display of the spring and summer. When normally we would take one small step at the time to move with the teeming crowds, on this day we could walk at our own pace, stop, start, stare, photograph and walk again at will. That’s one reason we were able to get through the gardens so quickly.

Monet’s house was the same. The last time we visited, the line stretched so long and the crowds were so thick in the house that we skipped it entirely after suffering through the snaking lines in the garden. This time, we walked in by ourselves and were able to spend time in the empty rooms to gaze at the paintings (reproductions–otherwise, the home would be Musee d’Orsay); examine the utensils and dinnerware in the dining room; marvel at the expansive kitchen (if you look at photos of Monet late in life, you can see he was an enthusiastic diner); and remark at the small beds in the chambers.

Even the shop was wide open and expansive, so we availed ourselves of a 2022 Monet wall calendar for home and walked out for lunch.

We had discovered during our last visit that the little take-out place offers a mighty fine hot dog.

They have since improved the breed considerably–the dog now consists of a crusty, crunchy baguette at least 15 inches long stuffed with two nearly-as-long franks with a slice of cheese and some spicy mustard. It was all we could do to share the monstrous thing. And it cost all of 5.60 euros.

Full of a Giverny dog and a Kronenburg beer, we wandered back to the bus and tram lot with an hour to kill. While we were waiting there, we walked over to Monet’s bust, which for some reason is stuck out by itself in a muddy field behind the bus and tram parking lot. Why it is not on the grounds or at least in the village is a mystery. If it weren’t for Monet, no one would give Giverny the slightest bit of attention.

The tram and train schedules are coordinated. Unfortunately, there is no 3 p.m. train back to Paris. The trains run more or less every hour except at 3. So the choice is 2 p.m. (too early) or 4 p.m. (the commuter special). I had booked the 4 p.m. to make sure we had enough time. As it turned out, we had plenty of that, so we walked around Vernon a few blocks in the quiet center of the little historic town.

The train only makes one stop between Vernon and Paris, but that one stop in Mantes la Jolie loaded up the cars with workers returning to Paris in the evening. We quickly went from nearly empty to all but full, but after taking the Metro for the last couple of weeks, that was no big deal.

Gare St. Lazare was a madhouse of commuters hustling in and out of town both ways. It was a struggle to get through the crowds to the Metro stations beneath the legendary train station made famous in some of Monet’s most renowned masterpieces.

After Gare St. Lazare, the Metro stations and cars were quiet. When we finally reached our Place Monge stop, it was well after the beginning of cocktail hour. We walked around the corner to make a reservation at Lilane, the decidedly anti-Parisian bistro we had discovered a week ago.

We are able to make a reservation after a momentary delay, and when we showed up, we understood the reason for the hesitation. The restaurant was nearly full, with a table of four incredibly pretentious Americans sitting nearest our little two-top.

I had the skate, which is fairly common around these parts, and Lynn had the duck breast with a canneloni. We found an absolutely delicious cabernet franc from Loire and enjoyed every last drop. Lilane, as I said, is not your average Parisian bistro, and the prices reflect that. For the first time in Paris, our bill exceeded 100 euros. Thankfully, the euro has depreciated against the dollar. Gotta love world economics.

Musee des Arts et Métiers is not well known but it is one of our off-the-path favorites. It is located near the Marais in a huge building that was once a priory and given over to create this museum in 1794. Its theme is the history of machines and instruments with a focus on the French. We find it fascinating.

The place is divided into seven themed sections: scientific instruments (starting with ancient maritime navigational astrolabes and primitive sextants); materials; construction; communication (from the earliest telegraphs to contemporary computers); energy; mechanical equipment; and transportation, the most spectacular display of the place.

The last display includes some the earliest French aircraft, including Bleriot’s plane that was the first to cross the English Channel in 1910. The great hall also includes Foucault’s original pendulum, originally installed in the Pantheon until it was replaced by the larger one that swings there today. The original was moved to Arts et Métiers in the 19th century.

Also on display are several automobiles from the birth of the car, including a few that have been cut away to reveal their internal operation. You just don’t see that very often.

The place is just chock full of models, explanatory displays, artifacts and interactive screens displaying the history of, well, “stuff.” We find it fascinating and well worth eight euros each for seniors.

Two and a half hours later, we emerged, hungry and ready to enjoy a late lunch. Lynn decided that she wanted a good old French pizza, so off we went in search throughout the neighborhood.

What we found was that we were in the middle of a little Parisian Chinatown. Every single restaurant was Chinese for blocks around. No pizza there or anywhere we could find.

So it was back to the Metro, back to our neighborhood for delicious cheeseburgers at Bistro du Marche across the street from Place Monge. It wasn’t pizza but it was almost 3 p.m., so we chose what was convenient. Hamburgers in France are very good, because they use a better cut of meat for the burger. That”s my theory anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

Dinner was most of the last of Lynn’s sausage and peppers. They get better with each eating, as the flavors somehow blend together in the fridge.

Lynn had spied a photography exhibition at a museum in the Tuileries named Jeu de Paume, which is loosely translated to tennis game.

The building is located at the northwest corner of the Tuileries, exactly opposite l’Orangerie. So off we went on a rainy Tuesday morning, taking the M 7 from Place Monge transferring to the M 1 at Palais Royale-Louvre to finish at the Concorde stop and walk right into the museum.

Except the Concorde stop was closed.

So, changing plans on the run, so to speak, we got off the Metro but decided to keep riding the M 1 to the Arc de Triomphe to see the progress in taking down Christo’s wrap, then return to the museum. When we arrived at the Etoile De Gaulle, it was remarkable at how much progress had been made in just two days to remove the thousands of square yards of fabric and rigging from the monument. Auto traffic was back in full force, and the venerable landmark was almost back to its original stone face.

This was no day to stroll down Champs Elysee in the rain and the wind, so we beat a hasty retreat back to the Metro to alight at the rue de Rivoli stop and walk under the arcade down the street to the museum. (Remember, our Concorde stop that let out at the museum’s door was closed for some unspecified reason.)

This part of the rue de Rivoli is a bit more upscale than the section closer to the Louvre. This is where the five-star hotels and high-end shops are located. The “French beanies” along here are more like 27 euros, rather than the tourist selections for 3-5. And the restaurant menus include tastings starting at 250 euros at the Hotel Meurice. We decided not to wander back there for lunch.

When we reached Jeu de Paume, we encountered the customary no line to enter, so we showed our obligatory pass sanitaire and walked in to pay 7.50 euros each for senior tickets. Regrettably something was wrong with the ticket printouts, because the scanner at the exhibition entrance said “Stop.” It always amazes me how often the word “Stop” appears in countries that speak other languages. If there is a universal word in the world, it must be “Stop.”

Clearly, something had gone wrong with our printed tickets, but the person who sold them to us quickly marched up to the exhibition entrance and waved us through, Stop or no Stop on the scanner. In we went.

The exhibit was the collection of Thomas Walther, hundreds of photographs from the early 20th century that are part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. To use a kind expression, they are eclectic. Another word might be experimental, as photography in post WW I years in Europe was just beginning to emerge as an art form. Some were extremely interesting, especially considering their times. Other seemed to be just plain weird experiments in a new medium.

We rolled through, then walked out as the sky cleared to cross the bridge at Place de la Concorde. By now, we were ready for a bit of lunch, as it was well past 2 p.m. So we decided to take the 63 bus down blvd. St. Germaine toward our neighborhood to get the more scenic route rather than hunt for a Metro. We alighted from the bus not too far from rue Monge and now definitely on the hunt for a quick late lunch.

And there we found Cafe El Sur, an Argentine restaurant where the waitresses spoke either French or Spanish but very, very little English. No matter–hunger is the best translator of all. We ordered four empanadas–curry chicken, spicy beef, aubergine and artichoke–to go down with two bottles of Argentine beer. All were delicious. All cost 22 euros total. The empanadas are 6 euros for two, and the beers were 5 a piece.

And wouldn’t you know–it started raining again.

The shower thankfully did not last too long so we finished our late lunch and walked out into diminishing raindrops. Nonetheless, it was a wet walk up rue Monge to our ‘hood. But we were motivated–it was time for large afternoon naps before dinner at La Forge.

We entered La Forge precisely at our reservation time of 7:30 p.m. to find ourselves the only people in the restaurant. It was Tuesday, it was rainy and it was early by French standards. But just a few minutes after we arrived, Jeff and Wendy, a couple we had met much earlier, walked in.

They had remembered our recommendation of La Forge and decided to go there on their second to last night in Paris. This was the third time we had run into them, and it turned out for a good reason–they had spent the last three weeks in the Christopher Hotel just down the street from our apartment. They have been getting their coffee and croissants from the patisserie on the opposite corner, just as we have.

We enjoyed conversing in English, and three of us ordered the delicious, warming cassoulet. Lynn had the beef cheeks that had been cooked seven hours in a rich, thick sauce. We spent the evening comparing notes on Paris, our respective homes in Napa and New Orleans and European travel in general.

We walked back home together, then exchanged contact information via iPhones. For us, we are nearing the end of Paris; for them, Wednesday is their last day. By now, the rain had finally ended for good. ‘Bout time.

We had tried to get up to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur the week before with the Harrisons before they left for Normandy, but rain and wind kept us from completing the last climb up the hill. But this Monday was beautiful, so our ambition was to head up that way again, reach the funicular and go up into the famous church.

We emerged from the Anvers Metro stop as we had before and started up the butte. Unfortunately for us, we were on the opposite side of the hill from the funicular without realizing it, so we had to climb 150 stairs (Lynn counted every last one of them) to get to the top of the hill where Sacre Coeur stands.

Once once you reach that summit, there are still more stairs to climb to get into the church itself. At that point, Lynn had had enough of stairs, so I trudged up the last fews for a walk through the church.

Once again, my personal opinion of Sacre Coeur was confirmed–it is an impressive, vast space, but there are at least 10-20 other churches in Paris that are more awe-inspiring. It’s the highest point in the city and the second most visited monument in Paris. As Parisian churches go, it’s a relative newcomer, celebrating the centennial of it consecration just a couple of years ago.

Sacre Coeur’s architecture (to me, anyway) is sort of a mishmash of Byzantine and classical elements that are piled up on top of each other to create something of a wedding cake look. The interior is beautiful though vast and mostly empty. The mosaic inside the main dome is one of the largest in the world and truly beautiful. But the total effect does nothing to me.

Sacre Coeur actually began in 1875 as national penance for the defeat of France in the 1870 for France’s humiliating loss in the Franco-Prussian War and for the actions of the subsequent Paris Commune in 1871 that destroyed a number of landmarks, including the Tuileries Palace. For the rest of the century and well into the new 20th century, legislation was passed, canceled and passed again to stop construction, but by 1914, the structure was essentially completed. World War I delayed consecration until 1919.

I walked through while Lynn waited below, not willing to take any more stairs. The guard at the entrance of the church instructed me to don my mask, when I thought he would ask for my pass sanitaire. He didn’t care about the latter, only the former.

I walked the circuit through the basilica, then emerged to locate Lynn and take the funicular down. No more stairs for her or for us.

The funicular deposited us back down to the main street and the Metro stop. We decided to have lunch in the same place as we had the week before, Marcel & Clementine, just off the main street where the Metro station is located. Our lunch included a mammoth Caesar salad with chicken tenders for Lynn and duck magret over sweet potatoes for me, with a huge brownie for dessert. And this is considered a normal lunch in Europe.

Since the day was so nice and we were on that side of town, we decided to light out for Pere Lachaise, perhaps the greatest cemetery in the world. This is not Lynn’s favorite, but she agreed to go. This may have something to do with previous visits in rain and cold, when I traipsed around seeking the grave sites of Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde while Lynn waited patiently on a bench.

We arose from the Metro stop right at the corner entrance to the cemetery and walked all the way down the block to find the main entrance blocked off for construction. So back we went. It’s a long block, flanked by a huge panel of names of the French victims of WW I.

I have mentioned this on many occasions, but the Great War is very immediate in France because most of what we know of the Western Front was fought on these grounds. The Eastern Front near Austria and Italy where Hemingway served is not as well known or was not as bloody. France was a killing field, and the French have not forgotten.

The huge panel lines the entire block filled with names by year of those who died in the Great War, including those who died after the Armistice in 1918. It’s pretty sobering in the same way that the Viet Nam wall is in Washington DC.

But as we walked through the small corner entrance, we could see a dark cloud gathering, and the wind changed. It would have been a fairly long, uncovered walk and we were just no longer in the mood to be caught in the rain without an umbrella or two. So we beat a hasty retreat back to the Metro and on to home to run a couple of errands and buy extra socks at the dry goods store across from Place Monge.

Dinner was Lynn’s excellent sautéed dorade with salad and fresh mushrooms from the market. Dorade is a medium sized, very flavorful, almost meaty, fish that comes from the Mediterranean and is often farmed now due to overfishing the wild stock. Lynn’s preparation was as delicious as any restaurant meal.

We woke to light rain Sunday, when I was scheduled to meet with Viviane Launer, owner of another apartment in the Fifth Arrondisement . I had found her apartment on VRBO and contacted her because we were seriously considering moving.

This was no trivial matter. The reason was that Phanette, our current owner, nearly doubled the rate on us from two years ago, and never told us until we were already here. I faulted myself for not asking, but I certainly did not expect an 80% increase in the rent.

She is charging more than the hotel down the street. If she had gone up 20 or even 30%, I would have understood, but 80% is nothing less than greedy.

So I tracked down Viviane’s apartment, contacted her, and we agreed to meet at the St. Medard church down near the end of rue Monge, just a few blocks away.

Viviane turned out to be delightful, while we had coffee and discussed our common love for Paris and how long we plan to stay next time we visit. Incredibly, she also has an apartment near Barcelona. She is both Spanish and French, and was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. As she said, she has many nationalities, loves both cities, so splits time between Paris and Barcelona.

She has no fewer than two apartments here in Paris, one she lives in while she renovates it (alas, no WiFi yet!) and another on the ground level that is currently rented for another few days. She toured me through her apartment, which is fully contemporary, including a natural gas stove, the first I have ever seen in Europe. She also has a washer-dryer combination for clothes, which is also pretty rare in these parts. That would mean no more drying racks in the living room.

We could move into her ground level unit, when it becomes available later in the week. But after some discussion, Lynn and I decided that the price differential for less than a week was not worth the hassle of packing up, moving and unpacking.

Phanette wins this time, but there won’t be another. And I will let her know that. In the meantime, I have to hit up ATMs heavily to pay nearly twice as much cash as I had planned. We won’t go broke, but it’s a pretty big hit to the budget. And Big Brother is likely watching my large cash withdrawals wondering if I am laundering money.

Viviane and I walked back up rue Monge to the Censier-Daubeton Metro stop, where she crossed over to head to Madeleine on the Right Bank. We agreed we will stay in touch and plan to rent her place next spring. We exchanged contact information, and if anyone is looking for an apartment in Paris, I can refer them to Viviane. I plan to do exactly that, so if any if you dear readers might be looking for a nice, fully equipped apartment in a wonderful neighborhood in Paris, let me know.

Lynn had stayed behind in the apartment, so I walked back to meet her to head to the Sunday Monge market for fish, chicken and vegetables to cook at home. By now the rain was coming down harder, sometimes in short downpour bursts, then lighter.

But the effect was a soggy, drippy, wet market. By the time we arrived, the two fish stalls were out of dorado.

So we walked down a block to the permanent poissonerie, where they filleted a whole fish into two beautiful pieces for about 87 cents more than the market was charging for pre-cut slices. The rain kept falling but began to slack right as we walked back to the apartment.

By midday, as forecast, the rain moved off and the sky began to clear, so we ventured forth in search of a late Sunday Bloody Mary. Near the end of rue Monge not far from Viviane’s apartment, we found Malena, an Argentine bistro that advertises cocktails for 5 euros. I eagerly ordered one.

It was perhaps one of the worst I have ever consumed. Lynn blessed her good fortune for ordering a glass of white wine.

Our big event of the day was to watch the Saints game from Pomme d’Eve. Our South African friend and proprietor George had told Lynn via e-mail that he would have the game on. So we ate an early dinner and walked up the hill to spend an evening with a honeymooning couple from Modesto who were there to watch the late 49ers game and a group of young French guys who spent their time laughing loudly but not watching American football.

We all know that the Saints game sucked. The Saints choked it away to a team that had not not won a game yet this season. Nevertheless we enjoyed the Pomme d’Eve atmosphere and George’s hospitality. We’ll plan to return next Sunday. Maybe the game outcome will be better.