Paris Journal 2011 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

Photos and thoughts about Paris

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After the morning’s work at our computers, we took the metro line 10 from the Émile Zola station to the Mabillon station, six stops away. There we strolled through our September neighborhood around Saint Sulpice to the apartment of our friends, Ron and Elisabeth. These two clever people, both of them designers, have done a fabulous job with the two apartments she owns in a building built in the 1640s. Off we went to Café Tournon for lunch on the terrace. It was great fun – we laughed and talked about taxes and politics and other interesting things. I ordered the wrong thing – I should have stayed with my initial inclination and ordered the swordfish special of the day. Ron did, and it looked great. He is a smart guy. I ordered the terrine, which is not homemade and not one of the daily specials. What was I thinking? It didn’t matter. We laughed and talked for a long time, and then three of us each ordered a Baba au Rhum for dessert. Like at the Café du Commerce, the entire bottle of rum was plunked down on our table before the desserts even arrived. Tournon’s Baba is probably a bit more authentic than the Café du Commerce’s, because the pound cake has that fluffier, more French texture. But I probably slightly prefer the Baba at Café du Commerce, just because the pound cake is more like what I think a pound cake should be. However, I’m probably wrong since I’m American, not French. What would I know about what a Baba should be? One of the proprietors arrived at Tournon while we were finishing our lunch. He recognized Tom and me from the past couple of summers. We had a nice little chat with him. Café Tournon, as I’ve mentioned in prior years, is historic in part because it is the first place in Paris that Duke Ellington’s band performed. We walked with Ron and Elisabeth back to their apartment building, and then Tom and I had a pleasant, long stroll home through the 7^th arrondissement. I noticed that this route, the shortest one between the two apartments, has no fewer than three of those free toilet “sanisettes” spaced at even intervals along the way. How convenient! We made use of the one situated outside the Bon Marché department store, in a corner of the Square Boucicaut, a green space that is also a nice place to rest on a park bench and admire the flowers. The first sanisettes installed in Paris, beginning in around 2002, cost 40 centimes or so to use. They were converted to free operation beginning in 2003-04. The initial free sanisettes of Paris are being replaced in a program that began in 2009. I think there were some technical problems with the first round of the sanisettes. At any rate, the new sanisettes are impressively clean, well-designed, well-maintained and useful. As I suspected, judging from their design, the new sanisettes are made by the French company, JCDecaux, the same people who bring us the Velib’ almost-free bicycle rental system in Paris. The British like to call a sanisette a “super loo.” I prefer sanisette. It sounds prettier. When we were almost home, we stopped at a news shop on the rue de la Croix Nivert to buy a French newspaper. Tom became aware of this shop on his most recent visit to the barbershop, Look Coiffure, where every summer he has his hair cut by men who come from North Africa. Look Coiffure’s price for a haircut, 13 euros, is a bargain for Paris. And Tom likes the guys who work at Look. We also like the man who runs the news shop across the street. He was very friendly – of Vietnamese or Cambodian descent, I’d guess. We only spent a euro buying one paper, but the way he treated us, you’d think we just spent 25 euros buying an armload of papers and magazines. I’m behind on reading the French newspaper because I’ve been reading a novel on my Kindle. Recently, I discovered a mother lode of free and very inexpensive Kindle books. Among the ones I’ve downloaded are several about Paris. Now that I finished the novel last night (Falling Star, by Diana Dempsey), maybe I’ll get around to the books about Paris. So our evening was a quiet one of reading and listening to our jazz cd’s. No dinner out – lunch was enough. And that feast we had at Banani on Monday is a tough act to follow. Sign my guestbook. View my guestbook. Note: For addresses & phone numbers of restaurants in this journal, click here.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011 The Louvre, as seen from the left bank. Below, a jetliner in the sky above the Louvre. This is not a common sight over the city of Paris. ← Previous Next →