Notre Dame and the Cluny Museum Gardens

The Fête de la Musique was amazingly quiet last night. I know this because I was up all night coughing. At a couple points I got on Virtual Tourist to help a Chinese family arrange a visit to Fontainebleau. I’m sure they’ll get there but as I discovered later, they were not staying at the given address in Paris. They were in an entirely separate town near Paris Disneyland. These hotels advertise they’re in Paris but if you check their postal code, they are not. This fellow gave his address but not the postal code and he said Paris because he didn’t know any better. These hotels count on that. Talk about misleading advertising . . . You can find the same prices in the center of town so you don't need to stay in a distant suburb and spend time riding back and forth on a bus or Metro and spending that much more on transportation. The outer districts cost more for travel so I can't imagine anyone saves money staying way out of town and it wouldn't be nearly as much fun. Central Paris is so beautiful and there is so much to do.

When our alarm went off, we got ready and walked to our Eric Kayser for breakfast. It’s not Paul’s, but it works. Then we took the Metro to Hotel de Ville and walked to Notre Dame for Mass. The Metro was crowded which surprised us on a Sunday morning, and the square in front of Notre Dame was packed including a very long line to get into the church. We found two ushers letting church goers in separately and then we fought our way through tourists to seats in a very crowded church. The Mass section was full . . . another surprise . . . and the rest of the church was crammed with flash-popping, video-taping tourists, all talking. It was not a religious experience.

There were men in bermuda shorts and girls and women in short shorts and spaghetti-strap blouses. These people were at Mass, not tourists! In Italy they would not be allowed into the church. After the Gregorian Mass, we tried to wait until the crowd cleared a little and make a circuit of the church. Bad decision. There was literally a mob slowly shuffling around the church mostly taking pictures with cell phones. No one seemed to be looking at anything in particular nor be even faintly impressed. Many teens were stopping and taking “selfies” with nothing special in the background, just pictures of themselves. When they get home, they will have no idea where they took the photos. Once into the shuffling, mindless mass of humanity, there was no escape and for the very first time, I found myself wanting to escape the beautiful church because the beauty was lost in the mob.

We finally escaped Notre Dame and may never return . . . certainly not in high tourist season. If it had been like that on our first trip, I’m not sure we would have returned to Paris. I feel sorry for all these people if it is their first trip. It is not the Paris we have come to love and perhaps it no longer exists. (We did return in December of 2015 and it was much nicer. Perhaps all the hoopla was the 70th anniversary of D-Day.)

We walked around the side of Notre Dame looking for the old bells and noted in passing that there was a two-block line to climb the tower. People had babies and strollers! Are they hauling those up 387 steps? I'm sure they can store the strollers someplace, but they have to haul the infants up all those stairs and the toddlers may need a bit of help too. Think I'd wait until they were at least eight or nine. What a weird world.

Since Notre Dame got new bells for their 850th anniversary, they have the old bells on display behind the church so we looked for them. We found them and photographed them through the fence.

At this point we wanted to escape the crowds so we crossed the Pont l’Archevêché which is completely covered by the tacky “love locks” and people were adding more and photographing the unsightly mess. The bouquinistes even sell them!

We wandered along the Seine where the bouquinistes now sell pink glittering Eiffel Towers and love locks instead of books. It is all so sad. Paris is gone. . .

At Place St. Michel where the fountain was off, we turned up rue de la Huchette and started checking menus. We looked at a lot of menus and finally decided for old time’s sake to try Le Petite Hostellerie on rue de la Harpe. It’s much cleaner, a bit fancier, has much the same menu and good service, but the food, while okay, was nothing too exciting. My lamb was very tender as was Ed’s pork filet but the flavor was mediocre at best. It’s no better nor worse than it used to be, but our tastes have changed. Their fondant au chocolat was really a moelleux . . . no surprise. Fun memories there and a great place to stop for coffee before visiting the Cluny Museum up the street, but there are much better places to eat.

Afterwards we walked up to the Cluny Gardens and grabbed a couple seats in the shade. They’ve added a larger play-ground and the kids were having a grand time. We watched them and envied their energy. We also walked through the gardens and noted lots of nearly ripe cherries. The grapes were tiny but the cherries should soon be ready for eager hands to pluck them.

Our night of coughing finally caught up with us so we headed for the Cluny Metro and home for naps . . . a lazy Sunday.