We are an adventurous couple in our 70s who love to travel, meet new folks, take lots of pictures, eat great food, drink delicious wine, and enjoy the outdoors.
We’re back now, back in Montpellier from our excursion to Paris. Four days, what a difference! The trees fronting our terrace that held off the fierce rays of the sun all summer long have few leaves now, and none of them are green.
Ah, but this blog is about Paris, where we’ve just spent four days feting our birthdays, Paula’s this month, mine a few months ago (August). We had no clear idea of what we’d do, but we’ve been to Paris any number of times so that didn’t matter, as there is always something interesting going on!
Window display at a Paris shop selling pétanque balls; the "tree" is made of the small cochonnet balls.
We took the train; it’s 3-1/2 hours from Montpellier to Gare de Lyon. (We’ll note here that there are five train stations in Paris, each serving a different part of the country, so where, exactly, you arrive in Paris depends on where you’re coming from.) Arriving in the rain (yes, it rained!) was not pleasant, but we found the right bus and were soon at our cozy apartment, home for the next few days.
A rainy day: boats in the Bassin de l'Arsenal, where the Canal Saint-Martin meets the Seine.
A Visit to the Cemetery
Our apartment was in a quiet neighborhood, close to the famous Père-Lachaise cemetery; and that was our first stop. A cemetery? Yes! We enjoy wandering along the wooded alleyways, appreciating the finest in 19th-century funerary architecture, and examining the names and dates on the tombs. We missed Edith Piaf (well, her tomb), but I always make it a point to find Oscar Wilde. (I remember visiting it in the early 70s, where my friend from high school and I marveled at the wild stone angel, and the many lipstick kisses that covered it. It has been cleaned, and these days is protected by a high glass barrier. Wilde—or at least his tomb—seems to be very popular with young ladies.)
Scenes in Père-Lachaise
It's very quiet at Père-Lachaise...
The tomb of Oscar Wilde with it's strange angel; now protected from random lipstick kisses by a glass shield.
Inscrutable face of the angel.
Christmas in Paris
This being the start of the Christmas season, we expected the major department stores—Au Printemps, Galleries Lafayette—to have their windows decorated. So that afternoon we headed there to see them.
Au Printemps at night.
The metro exits in front of the Palais Garnier, the classic opera building built in 1804. And as we came up the steps to street level there were some German tourists looking very excited (as well they might! It’s a magnificent building.) But when we turned towards the building itself… scaffolding! Oh dear. Some of the finest sights we’ve gone to see on our travels have been covered in scaffolding. But this was, er, different. The screen covering the construction was painted to look like rock, but open in the middle, suggesting a… cave?
Opéra Garnier on a sunny day (not when we were there!) (From Wikipedia)
Opéra Garnier with scaffolding.
It was only later that we found what this was about, thanks to a blog posting by Chris O’Brian, an American journalist living in France. It was a stage setting for a dance routine ("Chiroptéra") that, apparently, was done only once. For the full, interesting story, including a video of the routine, here’s a link to Chris’ blog:
As for the store windows… well, they weren’t ready, the big unveiling would be at 6PM. So we took the many escalators to the roof of Galleries Lafayette for the fine views of the city. Along the way we enjoyed the wonderful decorations of the huge interior space under the Galleries Lafayette dome.
The magnificent tree under the dome at Galleries Lafayette.
The tree-topping angel.
The, er, nut cracker?
A... flower?
Sound and Lights at the Atelier des Lumières
Some years ago we visited a truly remarkable light show experience at an abandoned quarry a few hours from Montpellier, the Carrières de Lumières near the historic town of Les Baux. (Read about that trip here Carrières de Lumières at Les Baux.)
Huge interior space at the Atelier des Lumières, a former foundry in Paris.
Thanks to its success, other such shows have opened, including in… yes. Paris: the Atelier des Lumières. Which happened to be just a few blocks from our lodgings. There were two shows; we opted for a morning with Chagall.
Title page for the show.
Yeah. That's a real guy sitting on a cable spool; the show is projected on the wall behind him.
You've gotta show the Tower if you are in Paris!
We can’t say we really know more about Chagall now than we did before, but we sure did like being immersed in the lights and colors of his works! Our preference remains the much vaster space at the quarry near Les Baux, but the show in Paris was well worthwhile.
For a more dynamic view of the show, check this brief video sampler:
Classic Paris: Concert in a Church
L'église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine on a normal sunny day. (Again, from Wikipedia)
La Madeleine as we saw it, at night in the rain (and from the back... at least, no scaffolding on this side!)
To celebrate the Christmas season we wanted to attend a concert in a church, of which there are a great many in Paris. We were particularly drawn to revisit L'église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine (or simply La Madeleine). From the exterior it resembles a Greek temple, with 52 massive columns, each 66 feet high, surrounding the building. This night, though, it was dark and rainy, and the front was covered in… yes, scaffolding. But the concert was wonderful, five women violinists and a cellist playing Vivaldi’s "The Four Seasons." The acoustics in these huge stone churches is fantastic, and we really appreciated the event.
Interior of La Madeleine, ready for the concert.
The altar, and the musicians.
And Finally, a Church on a Hill
A distant shot of Montmartre and Sacré Cœur from the roof of Galleries Lafayette.
From the roof of Galleries Lafayette we had caught a glimpse of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, the huge white cathedral topping the hill of Montmartre. It had been a good long while since we’d been there, and that became the goal of our final outing.
It was stunning...!
...as were the crowds!
It was stunning to come around the corner and see the basilica, huge and white and gleaming in the sunlight. It was also stunning to encounter all the tourists! The neighborhood around our apartment is pretty low key; most of the people we saw were locals going about their business. We hadn’t visited any of the usual tourist locales, and, after all, it was November, cold and rainy.
The wet but still crowded Place du Tertre, behind Sacré Cœur.
And if there's crowds, there's artists selling their work!
The domes of Sacré Cœur seen from the Place de Tertre.
But Montmartre seems to be a draw all year round. We wandered through the crowds on Montmartre, reminiscing of our last visit when we’d run into an excellent pizza restaurant (it was a great find then, as we were hungry and everything seemed to be closed!). Was it still there? Could we find it again?
Wandering through Montmartre.
And it's still there!
Yes it was, and thanks to Paula’s excellent memory and unerring sense of direction, yes we could. And, just as we paused to congratulate ourselves on having found it, the sun vanished and raindrops began to fall, instantly answering the question if we should eat there or not. No sooner where we settled at a table inside than the rain began in earnest, and the few people outside popped out umbrellas and hurried for shelter.
So very glad we were sitting inside!
We were very pleased to… well, first, to be out of the rain! But also to have found this same restaurant, so many years later. Talking to the server I learned that while the place had a new owner, the head cook had been apprenticing under the former chef. As our waiter put it, it’s all the same food!
And...same place, same food, different name: December of 2015.
Our final view of Sacré Cœur.
Our train back to Montpellier left the next afternoon; the day dawned overcast and wet. I braced the elements and brought back croissants and pain au chocolat (by now we’d found the best boulangerie in the neighborhood), made some coffee, and spent the morning reminiscing about the last few days
The bus ride back to the Gare du Lyon train station was now familiar and simpler. Being a bit early we snuggled into the café at the station for a coffee (bad, overpriced coffee! But the seats were comfortable...).
Before long, though, we were settled on the train and speeding through the overcast but still very pleasant French countryside. And I do mean “speeding:” for long stretches we were moving at 300 km/hr (185 MPH!). Our trip was a bit over three hours; it takes a good seven hours in a car!
And after a quick walk, we were settled back home in our apartment in Montpellier.
Up next: our daughter Nina is visiting us later this month; we are very excited to welcome here here!And after that we will be flying to Sevilla for our usual end-of-the- year stay.
