Paris Journal 2010 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

Photos and thoughts about Paris

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There is no more perfect day than yesterday in Paris. The sky was blue. No clouds whatsoever. The temperatures were no higher than 80 degrees F, I think, with very low humidity. The air was calm and clean. And it was Sunday, the day when cars are not allowed to be on the highways on the banks of the Seine in central Paris. So we went out for a 6-hour walk, much of it on cobblestones. Well, we did have an hour break on the Six-Huit, a café boat in the Seine across from Notre Dame – a boat we’ve visited for many years. We started up through the Champ de Mars and were almost smashed by a tour bus that suddenly started up and began to back up into the crosswalk where we were crossing, very legally. Ironically, the driver was moving his bus to the other side of the street to get out of the crosswalk, where he was very illegally. When he finished parking, I went over and chewed him out. He pretended not to understand me, and I learned that when I’m angry, my French escapes me somewhat. But in the end I made myself clear, and made it clear that he needs to be more careful. I felt good about this later, after I was calm again, because I know that he will now be more careful as a result of my daring to scold him. We walked through the garden at the Musée du Quai Branly – always a lovely place, if you like wetlands, and we do. And then we reached the river, where we strolled for hours, until we reached the Six-Huit. I recommend the Six-Huit only for its view of Notre Dame. I must say that the food is nothing to crow about at all, and the service was laughably bad – the worst it has ever been. But the slow service allowed us to keep our table longer, and therefore we kept the beautiful view. We were in the mood for some entertainment after our break, so we walked over to the Pont Saint-Louis, the bridge that connects the Ȋle de la Cité to the Ȋle Saint-Louis, the oldest parts of Paris. On this bridge on Sundays, there are no cars, and there is always entertainment in the afternoon. I was hoping the entertainer would be a cyclist/clown whom we’ve seen there a few times before. I was not disappointed. When we arrived, he was there, setting up for his act. He always selects a young female tourist from the crowd as his “volunteer assistant.” He seems to prefer English speaking tourists, because that affords him the opportunity to “use” his crazily bad English here and there. I think he can really probably speak English quite well, but he pretends to be very bad at it because he is so funny that way. He selected Cindy, from California, who looked every inch the California girl. She was the perfect choice, especially because she doesn’t speak French at all and she has a very pretty smile. I took lots of photos of the cyclist clown, and when his charming act was over, Tom put some money in his hat and we went on through the Ȋle de la Cité, encountering more entertainment next to Notre Dame. This was a four-piece British band of somewhat older guys. We only heard them play two tunes, and then it was time for them to go. So we went on, back to the Seine, walking on the murderous cobblestones again for a while, until I decided that we should go up and walk along the elevated allée of trees called the Terrasse du Bord de l’Eau, which runs along the south-west edge of the Tuileries garden. Mid-way down the allée, we decided to cross back over to the left bank on the Passerelle Solferino. As we descended the steps to get there, we heard the great sound of the remarkable one-man-band, Bernard Constant. We’ve seen and heard Bernard play under this bridge at one of the entrances to the Tuileries on many Sunday afternoons. We even purchased a couple of his CDs. Last year, he did not look well at all. This year, he looks much healthier. We didn’t stay too long this time because Tom wanted to be home to see the end of the day’s stage of the Tour de France. It was a very important stage. So we walked along the left bank until we reached my favorite bridge, the overdecorated Pont Alexandre III, where we climbed the steps back up to Paris’ street level to walk down the sunny length of the Esplanade des Invalides until we reached the leafy avenue de la Motte-Picquet. Did I mention that Paris is much leafier this year, because there is no drought and no heat wave? Well, it’s true. Walking home seemed to take forever, but somehow we made it. My feet were in pain. We barely made it in time to see the end of the day’s stage of the Tour. But we saw the last 3 to 4 kilometers. It was exciting, but I’m afraid that the American, Levi Leipheimer, lost his place of 6^th in the overall standings. Tant pis. A French rider won the day’s stage, so the French sportscasters were so very happy. We spent some time cleaning up and recovering from our walk, and then we went out to what is becoming our regular Sunday dinner at Le Tipaza. This time we both ordered the Chateaubriand au Poivre, and it was divine. The pepper sauce is definitely the one to order at Le Tipaza, especially if you like pepper sauce to be very peppery. We shared a green salad, and we could have shared just one order of fries, because we didn’t finish our fries. I noticed that the mousse au chocolat is made in house, so I ordered that for us to share, but the super nice, friendly tall middle-aged server came back immediately to tell us, apologetically, that there was no more mousse. So I ordered the crème caramel, which is also made in house. It was very light, fresh and full of flavor, and the caramel sauce was perfect – not too heavy at all. Speaking of food, I meant to mention the other day that when we passed a certain restaurant between the Square Saint-Lambert and the town hall of the 15^th arrondissement, I was reminded that they seem to have beautiful seafood platters there, which we’ve been meaning to try. I checked out the menu when we walked by the other day. I was dismayed to see that they serve turtle meat. This bothers me a lot, for some reason. You can imagine my shock this past week when I was leafing through the TV Magazine that come with Le Parisien on Fridays, and I saw that Alain Ducasse’s regular weekly recipe feature was for turtle cannelloni. Those who dislike beets will be especially appalled, because the outsides of the cannelloni are not pasta or pastry in this recipe, but instead they are thinly sliced beets. The idea of veal does not bother me because cows are raised to be eaten. Foie gras doesn’t bother me because I believe it is true that the geese do not have the same kind of nervous system that we do, and that they do not have a gag reflex. I don’t think that turtles are raised on farms, for the purpose of being eaten. They’re caught in the wild, aren’t they? And in Florida, they are protected. We don’t eat dolphin, and we don’t eat turtle. So there, Alain. The TV Magazine redeemed itself, however, when I turned a couple more pages and saw an article condemning those awful plastic grocery/shopping bags that are taking over the planet. Here’s a rough translation: Twenty minutes of use on average; between 400 and 1200 years for their disintegration. Voila a ratio that should be imprinted on the approximately 1.6 billion plastic bags still distributed in France every year. Even though this is a decrease, this number shows that efforts must be pursued to put this pollution, which first appeared in the 70s, in check. The Leclerc supermarkets took a first step by eliminating their distribution at the cash registers. Others have followed, some creating recyclable bags. July 3 has been designated as the International Day Against Plastic Bags; we hope that it will be followed by effective initiatives. Another interesting item on the same page of the TV Magazine is about a dynamo you can put on your bicycle so that you can recharge your cell phone by attaching it to a bracket mounted on the handlebars. The device is made by Nokia. Supposedly, ten minutes of pedaling at ten kilometers per hour is enough to provide 30 minutes of communication or 37 hours of standby without making any CO2 emissions. The device is compatible with Nokia phones, and will be available at the end of the year for about 15 euros. I wonder if these will be available in the U.S., and if other phone manufacturers will follow suit? Sign my guestbook. View my guestbook. Note: For addresses & phone numbers of restaurants in this journal, click here.

Monday, July 19, 2010 Bernard Constant, the amazing one-man-band at the Passerelle Solferino, on the right bank of the Seine. Notre Dame, from the back. Notre Dame, as seen from the Six-Huit café boat. ← Previous Next →