Paris Week 3 16-22 September

16 September  Not the Louvre, Tuileries, Orangerie, Marais, Gare de Lyon, Monoprix

When we saw the queue at the opening hour of The Louvre, we abandoned our plan to visit – after all, we had both been there before, albeit many years ago.   It is so hard to really enjoy viewing exhibits when crammed in with many others, and we decided it simply was not worth the effort, sadly.

The queue at opening of the Louvre 16 September 2013

 

Instead, we wandered over to the Tuileries Gardens, enjoying some rare quiet and space in this busy city.  Because of the overnight rain we could not sit on the chairs that are provided, but simply strolled through towards the Orangerie museum of impressionist art.

On the way to the Tuileries

Tuileries 16 September 2013

Displayed brilliantly in a circular room lit with natural light are Monet’s Nympheas, huge paintings of his water gardens.  Paintings by Cézanne, Renoir, Picasso, Rousseau, Matisse, Derain, Modigliani, Soutine, Utrillo and Laurencin are also located here, so it was truly a feast of impressionist and post- impressionist art (photos not allowed).

 

We headed to the Marais to the Musee Carnavalet – the museum of the history of Paris, only to find it shut (of course – it was Monday!), so we enjoyed a lunch around the corner, sitting at first in the sunshine outside, then moving under the awning as it started to drizzle a little, then inside as the drizzle became a downpour! For once the food was quite good.  Perhaps we just haven’t found the right place to eat yet, despite paying what seems like lot of money (around $75 per lunch on average).
From the Marais we proceeded to Gare Lyon to see where would be leaving from to catch our train to Avignon on the 27th, and set off for home via the local Monoprix for supplies. 

Tuesday 17 September Chartres
Because the best light streaming in though the famous stained glass windows at Chartres Cathedral is from the west, we decided to leave our trip to Chartres for the afternoon and spent a quiet morning at home before setting out on the 90 km train journey. 

This was the morning we discovered that the MacDonald’s next door to our apartment has very good coffee and croissants.  An excellent start to our morning, albeit necessitating a late start to the morning as they don’t open until 8:30 officially, but don’t really get underway until almost 9:00.

McDonald’s next door

 

Chartres did not disappoint, despite the cold and drizzly weather, and the cold, cold wind on the hill where the cathedral stands.  The sheer scale and complexity not only of the design, but of the interior decorations is breath taking, and even more amazing when one realizes that it was built in the 13th century.  Apparently the city of Chartres was bombed by the Americans in WWII, but the cathedral was spared due to the US army officer, who refused to obey the order to destroy it. It is well deserving of its UNESCO World heritage listing.

Chartres interior

Chartres exterior

On the way home we ran into rush hour on the Paris Metro – the photo does not do justice to the squeeze we endured!

Rush hour Paris 17 September 2013

 
Wednesday 18 September 2013 Samaritaine and Galleries Lafayette

We decided it was time to do some shopping, so we set out for the Samaritaine Department store, famous for the views from its restaurant, with the intention of combining lunch with a shopping expedition.  We were terribly disappointed to arrive and learn that Samaritaine, a huge department store that had occupied an entire city block, was no more.  The building stood boarded up, the street empty.  A sign advised that the building was to be redeveloped, apparently as offices and apartments.

We enjoyed a Vietnamese lunch on our way as we headed across town in the rain to Galeries Lafayette, another famous department store, but the crowds in the women’s store were unbearable, so we explored the homewares store and the menswear/gourmet foods store. The gourmet foods department lived up to its reputation – everything imaginable on display.  We bought some foie gras for our hosts, sold with kindly advice on to how to eat it, and with which bread.  We paused there for a glass of champagne and a chance to rest our now weary feet before we once again found ourselves in the midst of the Paris rush hour!

Thursday 19 September 2013 Musee Guimet

Our friend Frank, who is currently house-sitting for us in Fremantle, told us of a “lovely little museum of Asian arts”, which we decided to visit.  Lovely it certainly was, but not by any means small.  The collection at Musee Guimet is the most extensive and comprehensive collection of Asian art we have seen, outside of the US.   In a recurring pattern from our visits to museums here,, it seemed that a large chunk of the collection was off limits as they set up for a new exhibition of Cambodian stone sculpture, but there was still much of it so see, and a truly wonderful array of art from all over Asia, beautifully displayed.  We were most impressed.  Here are just a few examples.

 

Friday 20 September  Musee Carnavalet and lunch with the Keelys
Once again back in the Marais, we spent several hours exploring the Musee Carnavalet, the museum of the history of Paris.  Despite half of it being closed for renovations, there was a great deal of interesting visual material to explore.  There was considerable material on the French Revolution, but our favourite has to be the reconstruction of an art nouveau jewellery shop from the late 19th/early 20th century.

Art Nouveau

 

Of particular interest to us was a 1933 painting of the Canal St Denis near our apartment.  From the painting we can recognize some of the few remaining industrial buildings.  Where we stay is very close to the foreground of the painting, but it certainly does not look anything like this now, as you will see in a subsequent entry.

Painting of Canal St Denis in 1933

 

Round the corner from the Musee Carnavalet we met my cousin Karen Keely and her husband Michael, two of their sons and their partners at a little restaurant called Page 35.  We enjoyed a delicious and lively lunch and farewelled the Keelys, who were off the following day to their cottage in Normandy for a week or so.

Saturday 21 September 2013 Margaret, the Marais

We met my sister Margaret as she arrived on the Eurostar from London, and once she had checked in to her hotel near Gare du Nord, we set off to show her some of our favourite places. 

Gare du Nord (note gypsy women in foreground)

 

We wandered through the Marais back to Les Enfants Rouges market for another Moroccan meal, followed by an ice cream work of art and a spell in the Place des Vosges before we took Margaret back to her hotel as she was fading after a long plane ride and little sleep.

Sunday 22 September 2013 Sacre Coeur Hotel de Ville, Mariage Freres, flea markets, Seine cruise,  Left Bank

Sacre Couer on a Sunday – we arrived relatively early, around 10:30 am, but the crowds were building, and fast. 

Sacre Couer early on Sunday morning 22 September 2013 

We decided to risk the queue and went inside, realizing after one circuit of the cathedral that a service was about to begin.  We took a pew and experienced a number of beautiful prayers sung by a nun as an introduction, then the organ weighed in behind us, and the service began.  The church was packed, the service involved at least five priests and incense – the whole production, with a choir of nuns.  We left just before communion in order to give some more devout followers our seats, but it had been a unique experience (no photos allowed inside).

From there we proceeded to brunch at Mariage Freres, a famous Parisian tea house.  The brunch was exquisite, although possibly a little too self-conscious for our taste, but the tea was divine, and the food even better.

Along the way there and back we encountered a number of brocade markets, basically these are Sunday flea markets which spring up along the streets.  Margaret bought a little red riding hood coat for her granddaughter for just 8 euros from the mother of the child who had outgrown it – we know that Rosie in Australia will just love it!

Red Riding Hood coat 22 September 2013

 

To save our feet, we took a ride on the boat along the Seine, doing almost a complete circuit before disembarking on the Left Bank and wandering around, enjoying a glass of wine at a sidewalk café and a cheap Greek meal before heading back to leave Margaret at her hotel and then to the apartment after a full and fun day.