Paris Journal 2012 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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The skies were blue, the air was a perfect 78 degrees F with almost no wind – what a great day for walking! We strolled arm-in-arm up the rue du Commerce and the avenue de la Motte-Picquet until we were right in the Champ de Mars, that glorious space that is home to the Eiffel Tower. Throngs of tourists everywhere; beautiful flowerbeds; dozens of enormous tourist buses parked, waiting for their people to return; cameras snapping; the Tower towering. All was as it should be, so we left it there and went on to one of our favorite green spaces, the garden of the Musée du Quai Branly. After a pause there, we naturally were drawn across the Quai to the banks of the Seine, to begin our walk on the highway that is closed to autos on Sundays. Ah, there were the glistening, magnificent gold statues of the Pont Alexandre III against a blue, blue sky. It takes your breath away. By the time we reached our destination, the café in the beautiful garden at the center of the Petit Palais, the city of Paris’ Beaux Arts museum, we were ready to rest our feet. This is the most chic and intimate cafeteria you’ll find in Paris. We selected a club sandwich with salad and a little apricot tart to share, and then Tom also had ice cream. A table on the edge of the garden became available to us at just the right time. When we finally left, we gave up our little table to a young woman who looked just like Chelsea Clinton does when she’s wearing eyeglasses. We both wanted to see the big, grand paintings in the main gallery of the museum’s permanent collection. I told Tom that I wasn’t that interested in seeing the rest of the permanent collection in the back galleries again. That turned out to be a good thing, because those galleries were closed yesterday! In the grand gallery, Tom’s favorite painting has two names: Grimaces et misère, or Les Saltimbanques, by Fernand Pelez. The faces of the children, in their misery, are enough to make you cry. I have a hard time saying which is my favorite of the Petit Palais’ permanent collection. But I must point out that there is a Monet at the Petit Palais, titled Sunset on the Seine at Lavacourt, which will remind you very much of the painting that is at the Marmottan museum, Impression, Sunrise, which gave the Impressionist movement its name. Sunset on the Seine at Lavacourt is one of those things you simply must see sometime. Also at the Petit Palais are some wonderful, large canvases by Courbet that depict dramatic subjects as different as two women sleeping and a large number of firemen responding to a fire on a Parisian street at night. I guess if I had to pick a favorite painting in this collection, it would be Steinlen’s depiction of a Bastille Day ball on the streets of Paris, because of its exuberance. What a party that must have been! As much as, or maybe even more than, the paintings, Tom and I love the building itself, the Petit Palais, which was built for the Universal Exposition of 1900. You can read more about the building on this web site for the museum. Upon leaving the Petit Palais, we crossed the avenue Winston Churchill to the Grand Palais, where we climbed the steps and took a look at the restaurant called the Mini Palais. The interior is cleverly designed to take full advantage of the Grand Palais’ vast mechanical style. It has a terrasse, and the dining room is a grand space with a soaring ceiling. Prices are reasonable, and the Mini Palais is open 7 days a week, even in August. The location is an area that is a bit restaurant deprived, so we will check it out sometime. Stay tuned. The staff was very nice about letting us just look around a bit; it was that strange time between lunch and dinner, and it looked like they weren’t serving. But the menu indicates that there are a limited number of items that are served straight through, from noon to midnight. That’s also useful to know. To enter the restaurant, find the corner of the Grand Palais that is where the Cours de la Reine and the avenue Winston Churchill intersect. If you look at the English language version of the Mini Palais web site [link above], beware: it is a lousy translation. Really lousy. I mean, it is so lousy it is a real insult to the English language. It is, quite simply, terrible! Bad, bad, very bad!!! There is so much to choose from, but I will take a stab at giving you an example. Take this, from the “menu” page of the English version of the web site: It is with great pleasure and enthusiasm that Eric Frechon, three-star Chef, took the challenge. He created
a cuisine that resembles him, a cuisine based on the product, which he loves
to sublimate as always, a genuine, generous and friendly cuisine. It is also
a cuisine without any superfluous or any flourishes, which corresponds to
this place, with all its elegance and sobriety. Oh my. I’ll leave it at that. So we left the Mini Palais and meandered back home, along the Seine again. Instead of walking back through the Champ de Mars, we strolled down the avenue de la Bourdonnais. One of those tourist buggies pulled by a handsome horse clattered past us. I noticed that the Hotel de la Bourdonnais offers cooking classes in its Salons 113. Turning to the right on the avenue de la Motte Picquet, we soon were back in our neighborhood, soon back in “our” apartment, soon resting after four hours of walking. When we ventured out again in the evening, it was only to go to the neighborhood pub, the Commerce Café, where Tom had his usual carpaccio of beef, but I discovered the pizza Parma, which comes with a generous amount of that great delicacy, Parma ham, plus gorgonzola cheese mixed in with the mozzarella. Yum! This being the week of the Feast of the Assumption (Wednesday), there is a lot of partying going on around us. Last night, especially, neighbors across the street and across the courtyard were partying and feasting into the wee hours of the morning. I’m sure every night this week will be like that. But on the whole, this side of Paris is far more civilized than the other side, because the other side of Paris is where most of the college students are located. The rowdiness of college students has been a legendary problem in that part of Paris since the 1200s. Of course, it was a problem we had to live with for 15 years when we resided in a historic district near the main campus of The Ohio State University. I’m happy right now to be over here, in the western half of Paris, where life is a bit more orderly. But also we’re looking forward to being over in the 6th, in that ancient part of Paris, because it is so interesting – students or no. Speaking of students and their proclivities, there was a sad story in Le Parisien the other day. I wrote several days ago about the Cité de la Mode et du Design in Les Docks area of the Quai d’Austerlitz. The deck that I mentioned, where a DJ was setting up his equipment, is a part of a restaurant called Wanderlust. It turns into a night club for the young 20-somethings after dark. In the wee hours of the morning on Friday, one of the drunk male 22-year-olds at Wanderlust wandered out onto the deck to pee into the Seine. One of the female 22-year-olds in the group he was with thought it would be funny to knock him over the railing, as he was peeing, into the Seine. So she did that, for a laugh. Not so funny. The police were called right away, and they promptly pulled the young man out of the river. He was taken immediately to the Hôpital Salpetrière, which is nearby. But the water of the Seine is cold enough, and the young man was drunk enough, with enough dilated blood vessels that he lost body heat quickly – so much so that the hospital staff could not save him. He died at Salpetrière. The lives of two 22-year olds were ruined, because of irresponsible behavior. How do you teach young people that if they’re going to go out and get irresponsibly drunk, they better take extra special care not to do anything stupid because stupidity can result in death, especially where inhibitions are drowned in alcohol? You want them not to get irresponsibly drunk at all; but if they do anyway, can you get them to understand that they must then be extra careful? We’ll have to think about that as our 11-year old granddaughters become teenagers. We do still take care of college students, via Tom’s textbooks. On Friday, he managed to move ahead of the publisher in New York in the process of finalizing the 8th edition of The Norton Sampler. So while Paris is ahead of New York, we’ve been enjoying the city of lights. We also have been enjoying the summer fruits in France – starting with the strawberries, and now the heavenly peaches. I just included a delicious pêche blanche with our breakfast. So good! On that sweet note, I’ll say goodbye for today. A demain.
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Monday, August 13, 2012
Figures
on the Pont Alexandre III.
The
Pont Alexandre III and the Grand Palais.
The
Petit Palais, above, and below.
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