Paris, France May 4 and 5

Monday, May 6

Because so many museums are closed on Monday in Paris, we decided to take a day trip to Vaux-le-Vicomte.  What a great day.  Our advice to any traveler to Paris who wants to see a lovely chateau and a fabulous garden in a manageable trip without the crowds is to go to Vaux! Such a contrast from our experience at Versailles!   We caught the RER train from
Gare du Nord to the town of Melun.  Loved the double-decker commuter train-we had great views from the upper level.

We took a 10-minute taxi ride into the countryside to Vaux, so we were there shortly after it opened.  We had to pinch ourselves when we realized we were almost the only people there-three busses and a few cars were in the parking lot. The busses were all French school children-nary a tourist bus in sight!

Vaux-le-Vicomte was the architectural inspiration for Versailles and set the standard for European chateaux for centuries.  Its owner, Nicolas Fouquet was Louis XIV's finance minister.  When he threw a party to show Louis XIV his new chateau and garden, the young king was so jealous that he arrested Fouquet and took his architect, Louis Le Vau, artist Charles Le Brun and landscape designer Andre Le Notre to his hunting villa at Versailles and had them transform it into the splendid palace we know today. 

Because it is the 400th birthday of Andre LeNotre, there were special exhibits about his revolutionary garden design at Vaux le Vicomte, which made the visit extra special. 















But we enjoyed the entire day, starting with the charming carriage display in the original stables,

 showing well-restored luxurious carriages and charming children's pony carriages with background music and sound effects to get us in the mood.

Then we walked over the stone bridge across the moat and up the front steps of the chateau, nary a tourist in sight, and just opened the front door as if we were going to visit a friend.  Totally cool.  We wandered around Fouquet's dream house with the audio guide which explained in detail his relationship with Louis XIV, Colbert and the other main characters of 17thC France.  There was little original furniture left; Louis XIV took it all to Versailles! 

First came the comfortable bedrooms on the second floor, which had the best views of the LeNotre's gardens,

 then the grand library, card room, dining room (with it's interesting video presentation)

and grand salons including the "King's Bedroom" where no king ever slept. 

Finally the wine cellar and restored kitchen in the basement.

Before we tackled the gardens (saving the best for last?) we thought it best to have a bite to eat, since the garden walk was estimated to take 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Glad we did; the café at the entrance to the chateau provided a perfectly adequate meal of duck in peppercorn sauce with mashed potatoes and haricots vert for Joan and a charcuterie plate for Dane.  Floating island dessert was good for Joan, but Dane's dark chocolate mousse was fabulous. 

Then it was off to the gardens.  Be sure to read the article in Wikipedia about the gardens and Le Notre's revolutionary design, especially the optical illusions he utilized.  Our photographs hardly do the garden justice.  We were delighted to enjoy the clearing skies and warm sun for our stroll through such a remarkable landscape.

We walked all the way to the far end of the garden, climbing the hill to get a close up of the Hercules statue, and to enjoy the view back towards the chateau, the picture at the top of this blog entry.  Le Notre's garden design is exceptional.

Privately owned by the same family that bought the dilapidated chateaux and overgrown gardens in 1875 at public auction, Vaux le Vicomte is certainly worth a visit.

We asked our taxi driver back to Melun to drop us in the center of town, which we were told had a small medieval center. 

We strolled around the old church, had a warming hot chocolate

at a very quiet neighborhood cafe, then walked back to the gare, where we caught a fast train back to Paris with its hustle and bustle.  It was nice to be home relatively early, where we enjoyed another of our evening snacks of wine and beer, cheese and pate and delicious gazpacho straight from the shelf of the Carrefour grocery store down the street!

 

Tuesday, May 7

A long day today!   Long day because we stayed out late to see the Eiffel Tower at night.  Here's a picture just at dusk, about 9 pm, as the lights went on.  Beautiful, and it got better as it got darker.

We started the day at Pere Lachaise cemetery. Explored it for two hours, finding graves of some notables, but barely scratching the surface.  Click on this link for a fabulous virtual tour of the cemetery.  We found Jim Morrison's grave after some searching, by all the graffiti around it. 




Oscar Wilde's tomb was interesting, Sarah Bernhardt's was small and unremarkable, Edith Piaf's had fresh roses on it! 

Edith Piaf's grave at Pere Lachaise cemetery

Oscar Wilde's Tomb, surrounded by guardrails!

Sarah Bernhardt's Tomb at Pere Lachaise cemetery


The most remarkable and moving were the many monuments to the victims of the Nazis at the various concentration camps. 

Next, caught a bus, a first for us, as we've been doing the Metro exclusively so far, but enjoyed the bus ride very much, as it took us all the way across town so we saw many sights and recognized many neighborhoods we'd already visited.  Our destination was the Bon Marche department store:

We especially enjoyed the food hall.  Dane always gravitates to the cheese displays.

Wisely, we'd already stopped for lunch at Chez Graff, a charming bistro we encountered on the walk to the Bon Marche.  Joan's spring pea soup was as delicious as it was colorful, and Dane's tuna and avocado salad was also great.

Dane's swordfish and Joan's prawns were delicious too! 

We walked to the Musee Rodin and toured the beautiful gardens.  Although Philadelphia has a remarkable collection of Rodin sculptures, it was great fun to see our favorites in a Parisian setting. Balzac with the golden dome of Les Invalides behind him:  we're definitely not in Philadelphia!

From there, we explored Rue Cler, a small pedestrian street of two blocks with a few interesting shops and bistros. Rick Steves raved about it, but after we'd spent some time on Rue Montorgueil in the Les Halles area, we found Rue Cler was disappointing.  We an unremarkable dinner at a Rick Steves-recommended restaurant, Café du Marche, with the weirdest Cobb Salad ever.  Yep, those fried slices of ham and chicken are the Cobb Salad. Dane's salad was slightly better.  Thank heavens we'd had such a lovely lunch at Chez Graff! Not so impressed with Rick Steves' recommendations...

The only redeeming feature was that it was warm enough for a mojito made with Havana Club, the Cuban rum we'd enjoyed on our recent trip to Cuba. 

Then it was off to the Quai Branley Museum, which was closed, but we went to see the gardens and green wall. 

On the way, we stumbled on the most remarkable Art Nouveau building.

Just as dusk was settling in, we arrived at the Tour Eiffel, found a seat on the grass, and watched the sky get dark and the tower light up.  While we had no desire to stand in the snaking lines to go up the tour, we enjoyed a relaxing hour wait until 10 pm when the twinkling lights began. Nice show to end a nice day.