France is on my mind. It is nice to be home, but Paris was truly amazing. With help from my friend Anita, Margaret and I met some very nice people and and had quite an adventure. Our first 4 nights in Montmartre was an incredible experience; kind of European, kind of proletarian and extremely French. Our hotel was very nice and being on an intersecting street with two other streets, it was lively in the area at all hours. The one block walk to the Metro was enough of a hill to leave you breathless as are the sights. Only a short walk to Le Sacre Coeur and the fun more touristy area of the neighborhood, but the real fun is in the heart of the district where we stayed and the area around the Montmartre Cemetery was lovely as was the tomb of Zola. We had a nice time with Jerome, Therese and little Innis at an apparently one man restaurant near the cemetery which serve wonderful CousCous on Friday nights. A delightful evening with interesting people. I was amazed at how many restaurants and other small businesses appeared to be labors of love with the proprietor working alone or with a single helper and each appeared to take a personal interest in their patrons happiness. Turns out that scheduling a walking tour our first morning was a good decision in that it allowed us to become well oriented for the rest of the stay. The WEGO three hour tour is free (a nice tip is in order at the end)and lasts about 3 1/2 hours. It covers the areas between Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, thus including most of the major attractions and the museums. Our guide, Paul was totally professional and lots of fun. The tour is outdoors and its sole purpose is to get you oriented to explore on your own. Paris is beautiful, period! Most things are in fact all they have been cracked up to be. Of course travel being hard work, some things are easier than others. The Louvre is hard work and it is important to understand that it can not be simply visited a single time to even get a feel for the collection. 30 seconds in front of each exhibit would require six months to just see everything and only a small percentage of the collection is on exhibit at any given time. On the other hand Musee de Orsay is no work at all and maybe the emotional high point of our trip for me. Confronted with the Impressionist Art that I grew up with was amazing. To see in a single room Van Gogh self portraits, Dr. Gachet and Cezannes Card Players in a single small room was incredible. To think that at the Met or the Modern in New York each room is filled with guards while at the Louvre and de Orsay you can go through a number of rooms without even running across a guards is amazing. When we moved from Montmartre to the Latin Quarter we were delighted to find ourselves on Rue Moufftard , a narrow cobblestone street that could be right out of a scene from Irma La Douce. Small Bistros, markets and trinkets of a high quality everywhere. Luxembourg Gardens, the Garden of Plants at the Natural History Museum and The Pantheon were quite a sight. The French approach to nature is quite different than ours, and being the French, they make great attempts to control its wild side with some degree of success. I normally do not post facebook, but what the heck. We had an exciting trip and everyone in France was wonderful. Do not believe the nonsense. They have much to be proud of and they are. Japan is next.
Posted on: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 20:55:23 +0000
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