Paris Blog and Lots of Tips for Visitors

Ed had a better night than I did for a change. My sore throat is back with a vengeance and a cough has appeared. Phooey! We debated Poissy and St. Germain-en-Laye for today and decided St. Germain would be the easier trip. I checked the RATP web site and there were no scheduled strikes or works on those lines so we set off on #12 Metro to Concorde where we changed to line #1 to CDG-Etoile and hopped on the RER-A for a pleasant ride to the end of the line. It's a really pretty trip. The Seine wanders so you go over it three times and once out of central Paris, you are above ground and can look out the train window.

As you exit the RER via escalator, you see the massive château and gardens on one side and on the other, the Eglise St. Germain. We found a café for tea and coffee to stop the interminable coughing and then set out to locate the tourist office for a map. The very nice tourist lady recommended La Manège on rue St. Louis for lunch so we walked over. It was cold and windy enough that we chose inside seating and both ordered the menu du jour. Ed got the steak and I got the best veal I’ve ever had. It was perfect and accompanied by spring potatoes and vegetables. Ed’s steak was a perfect medium-rare with excellent Dauphinois potatoes. He got a crème brûlée and I got the chocolate Moelleux for dessert. It was a great meal, served very well in a lovely old building. [5 Rue Saint-Louis, 78100 Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France; tel: +33 (0)1 3973-2212; La Manège web site]

We walked back to the tourist office where you enter the small Claude Debussy Museum. The museum is free but you do have to get tickets so we got our free tickets, climbed up a set of stairs and entered. It is literally two rooms but nevertheless interesting.

Then in a cold breeze, we walked back to the Château gardens and out to the viewing table with great views of Paris in the distance. Very impressive. This was the main reason we made the trip and we were glad it was a clear day. You see all the tall buildings of La Défense including the Grande Arch de la Défense. You can't see the Eiffel Tower; it's actually too small if you are on this side of Paris.

Returned to the town the long way around the back of the Château and found a wonderful restaurant. Of course we had already eaten so we just noted it for a return trip in the future. We managed to arrive back at the RER station just as our train arrived so forty-five minutes and three trains later, we were home.

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Night of coughing. When my alarm went off, I turned it off and slept for a full half hour. Had to put in my eye drops so got up and put them in and we ate breakfast. Then I went back to sleep again. Awoke coughing at lunch time so we walked down to Café L’Empire for another great meal. The daily special was pork with couscous . . . and odd combination but delicious. Neither of us could finish our meal and we skipped dessert. Returned to the pharmacy and got tabs for my sore throat. Can’t say much for this pharmacy. The one in Cenac-et-Saint-Julien down in the Dordogne cured Ed in one visit a few years ago.

Went home and tried a tab and it helped the sore throat but not the cough. When I stopped coughing, I got back into bed and slept until dinner. Ed had some cheese and wine; I had orange juice and Perrier which really does help.

Read a little Ina Caro and will soon try sleeping again. This seems unending . . .

Thursday, June 29, 2014

I actually slept six consecutive hours at one point last night. Wow, that felt great. We decided to be brave and try the Carnavalet Museum today so after breakfast, we packed up and headed to our currently unperturbé Metro #12. We rode to Place de la Concorde on a near-empty Metro and changed to line #1, also sparsely populated, where we got off at St. Paul and walked the few blocks to the Carnavalet. It’s free and it’s huge. We got the walking guide in French (no choice) and started to explore. There were two men carefully trimming the very intricate hedges in the courtyard garden. It looked nearly impossible but they were smiling so it must be very satisfying work. They surely did a beautiful job.

The first room you enter is full of wrought iron shop signs, stained glass and a few other things. We went upstairs and it’s a historic labyrinth but the rooms are well staffed with helpful docents. They have an amazing art collection including one Picasso, but not much of fame. The collection is of historic interest and great fun to review. The city of Paris has 14 municipal museums and all have been free since 2001. If you are on a budget or in Paris for an extended time, these are great places to visit. [Carnavalet Museum, 16 Rue des Francs Bourgeois, Paris; tel: +33 (0)1 4459-5858; Carnavalet Museum web site] I note the web site states, "The Carnavalet Museum is closed for renovation until the end of 2019."

We found our way out looking for lunch and headed to the Place des Vosges. We continued on to find Dorothy and Joe Kitchen’s favorite restaurant but it’s only open evenings so we returned to The Nectarine on Place des Vosges where we had eaten with the girls on a previous trip. We both got coq au vin and it was very good. I finished with a Chocolate Liegeois and Ed had the Carmel Liegois. Food and service were great; facilities not so great. [The Nectarine, 16 Place des Vosges, 75004 Paris, tel: +33 (0)1 4277-2378]

We had a “Paris Walk” card (#8 le Marais) so set off on another adventure. The Place des Vosges was full of people on a gorgeous day, We walked through it to the Hôtel de Sully where we cut through stopping in their wonderful book store and photographing their ceiling. This is the home of the headquarters of the Centre des Monuments Nationaux so only the courtyard and the wonderful library are open to the public. [Hôtel de Sully, 62 Rue Saint-Antoine, 75004 Paris; tel: +33 (0)1 4461-2150; Hôtel de Sully web site]

The “Paris Walk” took us to the lovely little Place du Marché Ste. Catherine and then back out to reality. Returned to rue de Turenne to rue des Francs-Bourgeois that we followed past cute shops that had kept their old signs over new, and different, businesses. Quaint and a nice touch. The street became rue Rambuteau and took us to the Pompidou Center. That was the end of the walk so we walked down to my favorite Place Igor Stravinsky to take fountain pictures. Perfect day for it!

We wound our way to the Hotel de Ville Metro stop and entered it as we heard a demonstration heading our way. We reversed our morning journey and got home to discover we had just missed perturbations on both Metro lines. Whew! Luck . . .

Up all night coughing again. I turned off my alarm and we slept late. Kind of wasted the morning reading, checking e-mail, etc. and headed out noonish. We wanted to see the “Josephine” exhibit at the Luxembourg so headed in that general direction. We found ourselves in the Irish Pub across from Hotel Clement and ordered sandwiches. Ed got a chicken Coolin and I got the agneau seché, an excellent substitute for a BLT for those who don’t eat pork. The sandwiches were fine but served with a massive amount of fries that we both skipped. Ed got a Kilkenny beer and I got a Perrier, and that was plenty.

Walked on over to the Luxembourg and got our tickets. We were surprised to discover I could take pictures. Joy! I almost hadn’t brought my camera. Napoleon’s first wife, Josephine, was the subject and it featured her, her home, clothes, furniture and jewelry and then her art collection. There was a marvelous tapestry portrait of her and earlier in this trip at Fontainebleau we had seen the Gerard painting that inspired this tapestry. The painting and the tapestry are mirror images for some reason. If you put them beside each other, they would be facing each other. I have no idea why this is nor could I find any answer online. It was interesting and the portrait is well done. The whole exhibit was very well done . . . as the Luxembourg exhibits always are. [Luxembourg Museum, 9 Rue de Vaugirard, 75006 Paris; tel: +33 (0)1 4013-6200; Luxembourg Museum web site]

Actually got some sleep last night and we both felt better. After breakfast, we walked a few blocks to the Musée Maillol, paid and entered. The special exhibit is “The Treasures of Naples” (Le Tresor de Naples, les joyaux de San Gennaro) and it was stunning. Of course photos were not allowed. Most of the permanent collection was not on display because of renovations in the museum. It should reopen in September but we’ll be in Provence then. Link to my blog Provence in September

The museum restaurant themes its meals to the current temporary exhibit so we had a lovely Neapolitan lunch at La Cortigiana, ending with a baba au limoncello that came with a shot glass of limoncello. Wow! Ed had the lasagna Bolognese and I had a ravioli aubergine with a wonderful buffalo mozzarella. Great fun. [The Maillol Museum, 59-61 Rue de Grenelle, Paris 75005; tel: +33 (0)1 4222-5958; Maillol Museum web site]

Update: The last time I checked their web site, the Italian restaurant had been replaced with Café des Frères Prévert that was offering dishes named after the French artists in the current exhibit.

Then we made a tactical error. We decided to visit the Museum of Modern Art at the Palais de Tokyo. It was a lot farther than we thought but we saw a lot of Paris on the way, including some very happy families using the new Berges of the Seine. A ring scammer accosted us (unsuccessfully) and then we couldn’t find the museum entrance. We climbed the dramatic white staircase of the Palais to discover huge chunks of missing stairs (skateboard damage), ugly graffiti on the lovely white statues and a veritable gang of scruffy, shirtless 20 to 30-something young men on skateboards we had to dodge. We got past them and found a homeless encampment with tents on the terrace with more graffiti and vandalism to the once-lovely Palais de Tokyo. This brought us to the back of the Palais on Place de Tokyo and we went in the first entrance we saw. Wrong entrance. There were two entrances and we’d picked the wrong one so we got a couple Perriers and rested our feet, then went to the other entrance. We had walked into the Palais de Tokyo, Contemporary Art and Exhibition Space (which charges) and wanted the Paris Museum of Modern Art (free). Paris Museum of Modern web site

It’s another free Paris museum and we didn’t need tickets so wandered the massive collection of the Museum of Modern Art. They have some Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Vuillard that I enjoy and a lot of Derain, Dufy, Roualt and Soutine that I don’t particularly like. We waded through most of it in relative peace and then, exhausted, headed for the Pont d’Alma RER station vowing to ride home.

Getting to the RER station involved climbing down a very long staircase from ave. du President Wilson to rue de la Manutention where we found lovely community gardens growing by the Palais. What a neat idea.

We crossed on the Pont Passerelle Debilly to the left bank and set out for the Pont de l'Alma RER station. When we arrived, we were accosted by nearly a dozen petition scammers. I was so shocked I yelled at one in English immediately identifying myself as a tourist. Dumb. They just kept coming at us as we waved them off. We wanted to check the RER map on the wall to get our direction. As Ed looked at the map, a young woman reached for his pocket. I yelled at her and she left, but so did we. We crossed the street and started down Quai d’Orsay leaving the touts behind. One young man was stupidly reading a “petition” and I told him to watch his wallet. I hope he did.

I’ve never seen so much of this in Paris. I guess we usually come off season. All in all, it seemed easier to just walk home.

Walking home proved interesting as walks usually do in Paris. On the way we met a small demonstration (3 people) against North Korean Communism on the Champs Elysées on July 14. We have no idea what is planned for Bastille Day in July, but at least three people object to some part of it. Farther on we were stopped by a very lost Chinese family. They were looking for Bir-Hakim Metro station and had turned the wrong way. I showed them where we were on my map and they decided Invalides Metro would be okay so we directed them and then followed to make sure they didn’t get lost again.

Eventually we got home after stopping for a half baguette at Eric Kayser and Sunday supplies at Proxi. We are in for the night and hope it’s not too noisy here. Quite a few groups are vowing to boycott the Fête de la Musique in protest over the Paris Police enforcement of the quiet laws so it may be quieter than usual. My sore throat has returned with a vengeance. Can’t throw this cold . . . but I'd rather have a cold in Paris than anywhere else in the world.

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.