Paris, France April 26 and 27, 2012

Exterior view of Georges Pompidou Center, Paris

Friday April 26

Six days to use our Museum Passes, so guess what we did today?  Another museum, you say?  Good guess!  Today it was the Centre Georges Pompidou, the museum of art of modern art housed in a then-radical 1977 building by Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano and Gianfranco Franchini which looks like it was turned inside out with it's skeleton and utilities all showing on the outside.  It makes for big, open, well-lit spaces inside for the contemporary art.  But because the museum didn't open until 11 am, we stopped to see a church (remember, at least one church and one museum a day, or as Dane would put it, NO MORE than one church and one museum a day). 

We got off the Metro at Les Halles, and visited Saint-Eustache once we found our way out from the underground maze of the new Forum des Halles shopping mall, (which was truly dreadful) built on the site of the wonderful old Les Halles market which was demolished in 1969 when the markets were moved to the suburbs. 


Saint-Eustache church interior with its soaring Gothic architecture.

St. Eustache has magnificent arches and pillars, a truly beautiful Gothic church built from1532 to 1637 and modeled after Notre-Dame.  The church was the religious focal point for the vendors of Les Halles, so we especially enjoyed the sculpture in a side chapel which recalled Les Halles' market days.


Homage to the departing fruit and vegetable vendors of Les Halles in a side chapel at St. Eustache.

Then it was off to the Pompidou, where we flashed our passes, bypassing the huge queue waiting to get inside, and took the escalator right up to the sixth floor, where we enjoyed the rooftop views of Paris, including another angle at "our" hilltop of Sacre Cour, and a view down to the Stravinski fountain. 

Stravinsky fountain with statues by Niki de Saint-Phalle & Eglise St. Merry.

After a few hours of soaking up art from the Favuists to Matisse, Braque and Piscaso, the Dadas and Cubists and Dali, Mondrian, Kandinsky and Brancusi on the fifth floor, we finished up with the Giacometti, Pollack, Pop Artists and the contemporary collection on the fourth floor.  Whew-our feet were tired and our brains full, but our stomachs were empty, so it was time to find a place to eat.

Which wasn't hard to do in the Les Halles neighborhood!  We found the rue Montorgueil, a colorful market-lined cobblestone street which is a reminder of the old Les Halles.  L'Escargot Montorgueil offered all manner of preparation of snails (curry or gorgonzola, anyone) in a grand 1830s setting.  We opted for the traditional escargots de Bourgogne in a parsley, garlic and butter sauce, and sopped it up with little toast "soldiers." 


Escargots in Parsley, Butter and Garlic sauce at L'Escargot Montorgueil.

The plats du jour were a filet of dorado with braised fennel with pastis  and veal liver in raspberry vinegar sauce. The potatoes looked like simple boiled potatoes, but instead were tender mashed potatoes shaped into ovals, great for soaking up the sauce.  Both delicious; we switched and each enjoyed half.


Foie de veau with vinaigre de framboise at L'Escargot Montorgueil

We passed on dessert because just up the rue Montorgueil we knew was Stohrer, one of the old-fashioned patisseries in Paris, founded in 1730 by a pastry chef who had worked for Louis XV!  We chose a couple of Portuguese pastel de nata pastries to munch as we walked along the street, and several breakfast pastries to enjoy tomorrow morning.


Stohrer patisserie on Rue Montorgueil, founded in 1730.

We walked from one end of the charming street to the other admiring the vegetable, fish, cheese and butcher shops, glad we had already enjoyed a delicious lunch. 


Fabulous selection of fromages on rue Montorgueil.

Unfortunately, the weather report was correct, and the day had turned from warm with blue skies to quite chilly with spitting rain.  We continued on our walk to find Duthilleul et Minart, a 100 year old shop selling clothes to the chefs and market workers of Les Halles and Dehillerin, the cooking supply store in business since 1820.  While we were tempted by the vast array of wonderful knives, we resisted, knowing we would have to pack them in our luggage for our return trip.  But all the fabulous copper, stainless steel and silicon baking pans sure were tempting for the inner pastry cook in us! 



Stohrer Patisserie Shop

We'll have visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads tonight! 

Saturday, April 27

In spite of a rainy forecast, the day dawned sorta sunny, which was good, since we planned to go park visiting today.  We walked down the mont of Montmartre as the hordes of tourists were walking up.  Finally saw Sacre Cour from the base of the mont, an imposing view:

Caught a new metro line to the Monceau stop,

where we enjoyed a stroll through Parc Monceau, a wonderful gem of a park in the 8th arrondissement. Dating from 1778, it was designed by the painter-writer Carmontelle as a land of dreams, scattered with follies keeping with the English landscaped garden of the period.  There's a pyramid, medieval ruins, beautiful statuary, a Roman colonnade, and an ornamental pond, all linked by a network of paths. 

Being Saturday morning in a posh neighborhood, the outer path was awash with joggers; we felt like sloths as we strolled along, finally finding the smaller inner paths for some peace. 

We enjoyed beautiful statuary, lovely flower beds planted primarily in blue and white, with some pink accents, and stately trees-some of the largest sycamores we've ever seen!

The pond and colonnade were lovely, but it was time to head to the Musee Nissim de Camondo,

which our friends Tom & Sue Carroll had recommended we visit.  Great advice!  The house was built in 1910 overlooking the Parc Monceau and contains an elegant Louis XVI interior with paneled salons and furniture made by the greatest French cabinetmakers, carpets and tapestries, gold and silver ornaments and porcelain from Sevres. 

The wealthy Count de Camondo presented the house and its contents to the nation in 1936 in memory of his son Nissim, who was killed in the WWI. His daughter and her children were arrested by the Germans and sent to Auschwitz.  A sad end for the family, but a legacy of a beautiful building and collection.   

Knowing us, you won't be surprised to learn we especially enjoyed being able to visit the original bathrooms and kitchen!

There was a very nice audio guide which made the visit most enjoyable.  Follow Tom & Sue's recommendation, and visit Musee Nissim de Camondo when you're next in Paris!

From there, we walked, even though Joan's knee was bothering her, to the Chaillot Quarter, crossing Boulevard Haussmann and the Champs Elysees, where we glimpsed the Arc de Triomphe in the near distance.  While we could have taken the metro, the walk wasn't much longer, and although it had clouded up, we still enjoyed the street views. 

Our destination was the museum Cite de l'Architecture et du Patrimoinee.  But first, a meal, of course.  Our usual schedule is a light breakfast in our apartment, a serious morning of sightseeing, then a nice early afternoon meal.  The French accommodate us with most restaurants serving lunch until 3 pm. Saturday is a bit different; we passed many many closed shops and restaurants on our walk-at home, Saturday would be one of the busiest days, but in Paris, many are closed on the weekend.  Luckily, we found a lovely restaurant near the museum; we were looking for a restaurant Dane and Elizabeth had enjoyed on their visit to Paris in 2001, which was no longer there, but next door was a brassiere called XVIeme Avenue on Avenue Raymond Poincare. 

Having a chill after the walk, Dane started with traditional Soupe a l'Oignon and Joan enjoyed a flavorful tartare of artichokes and tomatoes.  Continuing with the tartare theme, Joan had Boeuf Tartare and Dane had a wonderful Salade Nicoise.  The décor of the restaurant, with gunmetal grey walls, red velvet upholstery, and black lampshades on gold lamps was tres elegante!

From there it was a quick walk back to the architecture museum where we once again flashed our passes and strolled through the galleries in the east wing of the Palais de Chaillot, which contained casts and models of many French architectural monuments from the middle ages through the Renaissance. 

It was like a quick architectural history tour! 

On the second floor, in the modern and contemporary gallery was the reconstruction of a Le Corbusier-designed apartment and many models of contemporary French buildings and exhibits about contemporary French architectural design.  Dane wished his sister Betsey had been there with us to guide us.  For architectural junkies like us, it was a wonderful afternoon!

An extra bonus was the fact that the Palais de Chaillot has perhaps the best view of the Tour Eiffel of any location in Paris.  Although the sky was dark and cloudy, we still enjoyed a fabulous view of that great symbol of Paris, which we look forward to visiting later in our stay in Paris.