Paris, France May 2 and 3

Thursday, May 2

 

We decided to spend the day in the Marais section of Paris today, so took the Metro to the St. Paul stop, walked a couple of blocks to the Musee Carnavalet in the heart of the Marais, where two townhouses are combined into a museum of the history of Paris. 

We got to see most of the museum, including some great period rooms, but missed some of the interesting art as galleries were closed at certain hours.  It was a free museum, so we couldn't complain!  Gave us a nice introduction to the city we've been enjoying for a week.

 

The exhibits about the French Revolution were particularly interesting, and the garden was particularly charming.

   

We walked along the boutique-filled Rue des Francs Bourgeois, passing Amorino, a tempting gelateria.  Well, not passing, but stopping in for a snack.  Salted caramel gelato-yum! 

Through the Place des Vosges, Paris's oldest square, a perfect urban space with 36 red brick townhouses and a colonnade with shops.  It was a sunny day and many were enjoying the change in weather in the beautiful park.

We crossed the Place de la Bastille with it's monumental Colonne de Julliet (Column of July) commemorating the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 and the impressive Opera de Paris Bastille, which was at one time the largest opera house in the world.

We found Le Bistrot du Peintre on Avenue Ledru Rollin, a recommended restaurant with an attractive Art Nouveau interior, and an intriguing menu, including a starter of leek tart which we shared, followed by salad with smoked duck for Dane and tripe sausage called andouillette for Joan. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. As in once, but never again.  The French hot mustard helped.

 

To walk off lunch, we found some Passages then the Marche d'Aligre, where we stocked up on pates and cheeses for our evening snacks.

Our afternoon destination was the Promenade Plante, a three-mile park on an abandoned rail line with charming art stores and studios called Viaduc des Artes in the spaces underneath the abandoned 1850 Paris Viaduct, and a linear park on top, which inspired the High Line which we enjoyed on a visit to New York City last summer. 

 

Finally, we walked back down Rue St.-Antoine and Rue de Rivoli, making detours when we looked for some interesting shops on Rue Vielle du Temple.  After a break for an afternoon coffee at a sidewalk café, we strolled through the plaza in front of the Hotel de Ville before catching a Metro back to our comfy abode on Montmartre, where we enjoyed our snacks of pate and cheese with a baguette from our neighborhood boulangerie and gazpacho from the grocery store.  Yum!

 

 

Friday, May 3

You may have noticed that yesterday, which Joan planned, there was only one museum, one garden and no churches. Today, which Dane planned, there were, depending on how you count them, three churches and two museums or two churches, two museums and one gigantic garden.  He did plan lunch at a place called Academie de Biere, and rewarded himself with two beers for lunch.



The neighborhood Dane decided to explore today was St. Germain and the Luxembourg Gardens area.  Our first stop was St. Germain-de-Pres, the oldest church in Paris, dating from the 11th century, with its Romanesque round arches and medieval painted interior. 

 

Across the square from it's entrance we noted Les Deux Magots Café, where the likes of Oscar Wilde, Picasso, Hemingway, Camus and Jim Morrison once hung out, though not all at the same time.  We didn't hang out there, but headed for our second church, St. Sulpice, with its impressive neoclassical arcaded façade and elegant interior.

 

The interior included handsome Delacroix murals and an interesting Egyptian-style obelisk used as a gnomon or part of a sundial, which featured in the Da Vinci Code novel by Dan Brown.



 

From there, it was on to Joan's requested stop, the Luxembourg Gardens, one of Paris' most beautiful and enjoyable garden/parks. 

 

We strolled through huge garden dotted with beautiful flower beds and statues that was once the garden of the palace begun in 1615 by Marie de Medici, the Italian wife of French king Henry IV. 

 

We enjoyed watching the children play with their sailboats on the large pond in front of the Luxembourg Palace, where the French Senate now meets. 

 

 

 

It was a short stroll to Dane's chosen lunch spot, which specializes in Belgian beers.  We enjoyed moules and quenelles de poisson (delicate, light fish mousse shaped in ovals and poached, which we really enjoyed on our visit to Lyon a few years ago) with a fabulous tarragon sauce, as well as the beer!  (Joan made the recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking-a difficult recipe, but with fabulous results!)

 

 

 

A walk back down Rue St. Jacques brought us to the Pantheon, the neo-classical domed mausoleum of great Frenchmen, including Voltaire and Rousseau. 

 

Was it was church or a museum?  Designed as a church, but converted to a mausoleum before it was finished-Dane couldn't decide.  Call it half and half. 

 

So, not having visited a "real" museum yet, but two and a "half" churches, we finished the day at the Cluny Museum, the Musee National du Moyen Age. 

 

We were disappointed that the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries were on travelling display in Japan, but there were plenty of other fascinating tapestries, stone heads from Notre-Dame, charming statuettes from a  medieval sarcophagus,  altars, Byzantine ivories, and even a Roman bath. 

 

The guards kicked us out at 6 pm when the museum closed, and we were delighted that the forecast rain did not appear, so that we were able to stop at our neighborhood boulangerie for a demi-baguette to have with our pate and cheese again this evening.