Barbara Joy Cooley's Paris Journal

Paris Journal 2015 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

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The day was blustery and cool – a good day for walking, we thought. So we took off for the 8^th arrondissement and the Parc Monceau.

To begin our trek, I showed Tom my new favorite way of walking up to the market or the Champ de Mars. We walked over to the rue Violet via the rue Fondary, where we paused to look at a new, large shop that sells harps.

The shop carries two main brands, it seems: Lyon & Healy, harps made in Chicago; and Salvi, harps made in Italy. Peering through the window, I noticed a long row of bins with sheet music at the rear of the showroom, behind the ranks of beautiful harps and beneath an exotic tapestry.

Patrick Healy, one of the co-founders of Lyon & Healy, said, “Let us build a harp that will no longer worry its owner because of its liability to get out of order easily; let us build a harp that will go around the world without loosening a screw.” The idea was to “practice old world craftsmanship while embracing new innovations,” according to Lyon & Healy’s web site.

How many harp stores could there be in the world, I wondered? Probably not too many.

When we’d crossed the Champ de Mars and walked the length of the avenue Rapp, we traversed the Seine on the Pont de l’Alma. The wind over the river was wild; my hair blew all around, creating a Medusa effect. I hope I didn’t frighten any small children.

I meant for us to take the avenue George V up to the Champs Élysées, but somehow we started out on the avenue Marceau as we left the Place de l’Alma. That was a good thing, because I don’t think we’ve ever walked along the avenue Marceau, and because we noticed and visited the church of Saint-Pierre-de-Chaillot. I don’t think we’d ever seen that church before.

The church was built in 1938, according to the design of architect Emile Bois. It has Romanesque- and Byzantine-inspired features, and sculptures by Henri Bouchard. The stained glass windows, designed by Maumejean, and frescoes by Nicolas Untersteller also contribute to the unity of design.

There weren’t many important structures built in the 1930s in Paris, and this is certainly one of them. By the way, the church has a relatively new organ, by Birouste (1993).

(Pictured below, the façade of the church and a view from the sanctuary, looking toward the altar.)

Inside the church, I found a bilingual (French/English) booklet about Paris churches, published by Art, Culture et Foi/Paris (Art, Culture and Faith – Paris). I picked one up, and then searched around until I found a box where I could make a small donation to the church. The booklet is published annually, in January.

The Art, Culture and Faith organization provides volunteers who serve as guides in certain churches on certain days of the week, and during Patrimony Days in September and other special events. It also sponsors sacred music concerts at the College des Benardins, as well as meetings with artists, especially at the Galerie Saint-Severin where avant-garde works are shown.

The organization receives funding from the Fondation Notre Dame and the City of Paris. It was founded in 1989 by Cardinal Lustiger, and has a network of 40 branches.

I took a few photos in the church. As always, I did not use a flash; I don’t think camera flashes are appropriate in churches. One other person was present in the sanctuary: a woman who was praying.

After visiting the church, we took the avenue Pierre Premier de la Serbie over to the avenue George V, and soon we were about to cross the Champs Élysées.

That’s when I fell. I was looking ahead, not at my feet, and I missed a 2 and a half inch curb in just the wrong way. I fell hard on my left hip, and the camera in my right hand hit my right knee fairly hard. But I was okay, and I said so, then pulled myself up on my feet again. Fortunately, people didn’t stare too much. I was truly okay, but the fall had knocked the wind out of me for a few minutes. It was a shock.

I was wearing sturdy shoes, so that wasn’t the problem. I just didn’t expect a small curb to be right there, in the middle of the pedestrian way.

We walked slowly up the rue Washington. I was amused to see a brasserie named the Washington Poste (the newspaper I read online every morning), and another named Chez BarBara. After crossing the place where the avenue de Friedland becomes the avenue Haussmann, we were on the rue de Monceau, nearing our destination.

We crossed the Place Rio de Janeiro and entered the Parc Monceau via the avenue Ruysdaë.

The park was gorgeous, as always. There is no shortage of park benches at Monceau, and so we immediately took one while we rested for several minutes, admiring the view. We walked around the park, enjoying the statues, follies, and flowerbeds.

Finally, we decided to exit the park on the avenue Velasquez, where the Musée Cernuschi is located. Soon after, we turned right on the boulevard Malesherbes.

“Do you recognize this place?” I called out to Tom. He looked around, and after a minute he said, “Oh, yes!”

There was the radiology lab (see Tom at the entrance, below) that we visited several years ago when Tom had a medical adventure in Paris. It was an amusing visit, as it turned out, and afterwards we’d gone to the café two doors down the boulevard.

As it happens, we wanted to stop at a café for refreshment yesterday afternon, so what better place than this, by the lab we will never forget.

At about 3:45PM, we were seated at a round table with a semi-round banquette, and we were ordering a bottle of Perrier, a glass of wine, and a jar of terrine from the Basque country. That, plus a basket of good bread, made for a hearty snack. The place is called the Grand Café de la Poste, because a post office is across the street on rue de Monceau and the boulevard Malesherbes.

I had not associated that boulevard with the Parc Monceau before, but now I will. It is also near the grand church of Saint Augustin, whose dome we could admire as we continued down the boulevard.

We turned on the rue Miromesnil. At the rue La Boetie, we decided to take the metro home. This meant changing from the line 13 to the line 8 at the Invalides station. When the line 8 train arrived, however, it was so jam-packed with people that we decided to wait four minutes for the next train.

That was a good decision. The next train was simply reasonably full, but not packed.

It was after 5 when we arrived at home, so after a rest we decided to dine simply at the neighborhood brasserie, Le Commerce Café.

Knowing that the servings at Le Commerce Café can be large, Tom took a Ziploc bag with him. He used it to surreptitiously take much of his dinner (tagliatelles carbonara) home. He deposited the Ziploc bag in the compact fabric shopping bag that I handed over to him. I keep it tucked into my handbag most of the time, because you never know when you’ll need a shopping bag. The server didn’t seem to notice that Tom left the restaurant with a shopping bag that he didn’t have when he’d arrived.

That reminded me that at Tandoori Nights, when we could not finish our dinners, the server from the Punjab asked if we wanted to take the rest home. This is something that almost never happens in Paris!

We told him yes, enthusiastically, and so we had a little Biryani with our breakfasts for the next two days.

And carbonara was the menu for breakfast today. That’s perfect for a chilly morning, with temperatures only in the 50s and 60s F.

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Tuesday, July 28, 2015