Europe 2001: A Travelogue
We'll Always Have Paris
finally posted on 1 October 2001, 10:30 a.m.
I know we haven't yet written about Leiden (14 September) or Delft (15 September), which were quite nice, or Haarlem (16 September), which wasn't, and of course this weekend we took a day trip to Brugge (30 September), but I figure you deserve to know that we had a great weekend in Paris last weekend (21-23 September).
We arrived very late (11:30 p.m. or so) on Thursday and checked into the Hotel LaSerre, the same place I'd stayed when I went with Michelle Buzgon five years ago. I highly recommend it. The place costs about $100 a night for a double (queen bed) with a full, albeit small bathroom. It's on rue Cler in the 7eme arrondissement, a very short walk from the Eiffrl Tower to the west and the Hotel Invalides to the east. Rue Cler is a terrific pedestrian street with lots of local boucheries, charcouteries, boulangeries, vendanges, and, most importantly, patisseries! There's one patisserie/boulangerie on the corner of rue Cler and rue Grenelle, just to the left as you exit the hotel, but my favorite is the Boulangerie Artisane, about a block down rue Cler to the right of the hotel. Also not to be ignored is the little Asian food shop just one door to the right of the hotel -- it has an orange juicer and the juice is almost always sweet. Unless one is silly enough to drink it right after having brushed one's teeth, or just after eating one of the Artisane's magnificent "pain au chocolate" pastries.
So you have an idea of where we stayed.
As for what we did... well, on Friday we awoke at about 8:30, had breakfast, and went to Montmartre to explore. We saw a vinyard that's still in use, the famous Lapin Agile restaurant/club, the Sacre Coeur, and a museum devoted to the bizarre works of Salvador Dali. We also went into the Musee de Montmartre, which told the history of the area quite nicely, and we had a superb lunch at a brasserie just off the main tourist square in Montmartre, near the Dali museum.
After that we walked down the hill to the Moulin Rouge, which is in a truly sketchy area called Pigalle. I'd never seen the club, nor had Adam, and we were highly amused to see a huge billboard mural for the movie about a half-block away, across the street. We couln't tell if life was imitating art or vice versa. Luckily, my wide-angle lens was able to capture both the club and the ad in one picture.
It was then about 3:45 and we decided to head to the Orangerie, which I've never visited, and which has a great Monet section. So we walked through Pigalle to the Metro, passing the Musee d'Eroticisme and refusing many offers, and took the train to a much more reputable part of town, the Place de la Concorde. Unfortunately, the Orangerie is closed for renovation until 2004, so I guess I'll have to wait a few more years.
Fortunately, right outside the entrance to the Tuileries was a huge ferris wheel, or "roue," and the weather was perfect. So we decided to go for a ride, and with any luck the photos will give some indication of what a great view we had. It truly was a glorious afternoon, with puffy clouds in a bright blue sky. After a few spins, Adam humored me and we walked around the Concorde taking photos. Then we headed over the bridge toward the Assemblee Nationale and began to walk back to the hotel. We passed an interesting outdoor photo exhibit on families worldwide, with 1000 photos of and short blurbs about different families, taken for the millennium.
That night we decided to pick a restaurant from Fodors for dinner, but the first two we looked at didn't seem to have decent menus (the prix fixe kind), so we settled on a third -- Cafe Max -- that Fodors described as eclectic and good value for the price. Eclectic it was, but I think I'll let Adam describe the evening, as he's so good with the detail.
After bidding adieu to Max we went back to the hotel and picked up the camera and tripod in the hope of getting some nice Eiffel pix. I had been told that there was a light show on the tower every hour on the hour, but perhaps it's only weekend nights -- in any case, it was beautiful without any extra spectacle. (We also considered that they may have cancelled it after the 11th...)
On Saturday, after a decent night's sleep, we decided to go to the Musee d'Orsay -- even though it was again a gorgeous day. We got a bit of a late start, so we took a break in the museum and had a small snack (while we rested our feet). At about 2 we headed out and walked through the 6eme and its many art galleries before we found a nice Asian place for dim sum lunch.
Our next stop was the Jardin du Luxembourg, a beautiful park near the Latin Quarter. We strolled (and took pictures, of course) and relaxed. Then we headed up through St Germain toward Notre Dame, where -- despite our sore feet -- we decided to climb the towers! Neither of us had ever done so, and although it was quite a climb, the view was great.
After that we had to hightail it back to the hotel, because it was already 6:30 and we had dinner reservations at Brasserie Bofinger ("Bow-fawn-JHAY"), by the Place Bastille, at 8:00. We still had to change clothes into something a little nicer, and the metro was running a bit slow. Luckily, we got there by 8:15, and they had a table waiting for us, even though there was a line of people waiting.
But perhaps I should qualify that term "luckily." If there's one thing I should have learned in my various visits it's that, unless you have been to the restaurant before, you're better off finding a local bistro that has a reasonably priced menu with dishes that sound appetizing. As it is, Bofinger's specialties turned out to be fresh, raw shellfish and "choucroute," which is basically sausages and sauerkraut. Neither of which sounded particularly appetizing. So we settled on an onion soup appetizer (for me) and vegetables in truffle sauce (for Adam). Had we stopped there, the meal would have been a success. The surroundings were certainly wonderful -- Bofinger has been around since 1864 and has authentic art deco lamps and design from the turn of the century. And unusual for Europe, it also has a salle a non-fumeurs -- a non-smoking section. And the onion soup as like nothing we'd ever tasted: imagine a soup crock that holds somewhat more than a pint, fill the bottom half with slices of a baguette, and pour a tasty onion-beef bouillon over the bread, just covering it. Then top this with another layer of baguette slices -- just enough for them to soak up some of the soup -- and then a full inch of grated gruyere cheese, which practically overflows the crock. Bake this in the oven until the cheese on top is slightly toasted, and serve. It was divine!
But, unfortunately, my lamb was so-so, and Adam's salmon entree didn't hold a candle to the (much less expensive) salmon I'd ordered at the brasserie in Montmartre the day before. C'est la vie. It was also roasting hot in the restaurant, so we decided to skip dessert and go out into the cooler night air to find a nice patisserie or something. In the end we found ourselves back at the rue Cler area in the 7eme, having a strawberry tart and a chocolate mousse at one of the local restaurants that happened to be open late. Neither of us was feeling that great -- I was dehydrated and a bit cranky, and Adam's stomach wasn't feeling too hot. Only the next day did we realize he had the flu.
But the next day was Sunday, and a sunny day it was, so we were damned if we were going to let some flu get in the way of our trip to Versailles. (Only in retrospect did we realize we should have…)
We awoke a bit later, packed, had our morning breakfast at the closer of the two patisseries/boulangeries (the Artisane was closed on Sunday), and then decided to take our bags to the train station to check them there. Adam was looking ever more visibly ill, with chills one moment and sweats the next, but he said he'd be fine. After getting our bags in a locker on the other side of town (Gare du Nord) and having to return to central Paris for the local train to Versailles, we didn't get to the Chateau until after noon, by which point we almost turned right back around and headed home, Adam looked so bad. Moreover, our sunny day had gotten all cloudy and chilly. But we made it to a café in the gardens and Adam was able to stomach some tea and plain pasta, and at 3 p.m. the "Musical Waters" spectacular began. The classical music and occasional brief appearances of the sun at the Sun King's home brightened our spirits, and Adam began to feel better. If he had had a fever, it had apparently broken by then, as he was weakened but otherwise almost back to normal, and even willing to pose for some photos.
I had been to Versailles a few times, but it was Adam's first visit, and he was amazed by the grandeur and audacity of the place, and we were both amused by the irony that Louis XIV's royal palace -- built to sequester his nobility from the rabble of Paris -- would today be the tourist destination of all that same rabble.
On the train back to Paris, we remembered we had post cards to write, so we wrote them (we already had the stamps), but the train was late and the Metro was slow, and we arrived at Gare du Nord with 10 minutes to retrieve our bags and get on the train. I suddenly felt like I was back at Gare du Lyon with Janine in the late summer of 1993, as we ran with all of our luggage for the train to Nice after a day of bicycling through the Loire Valley. This time, I had almost a full five minutes to spare, but once again the reservation we had was all the way at the other end of the platform, and when Adam ran ahead to find car #14 (and passed it), I once again had to convince myself that this couldn't happen twice.
We finally did get on the right car (Adam said he was confused since he was looking for car #14, but all the cars said "1" or "2" on them -- only later did he realize those referred to what class of service the cars were) and made it to Brussels, where we had to change trains, but the exhaustion of the preceding two hours seemed to have caused a relapse, and Adam was in a walking stupor by the time we made it there. It didn't help that, now as ten years ago, Brussels has no ATMs within the train station, but this time I thought to ask if any of the quick cafes and fast food places took credit cards (nearly all of them did). (Re: ten years ago -- when I was studying in London, I took a week-long trip to the continent in February, and after Berlin had planned to go to Brussels, but I wasn't feeling too great, so I thought I'd just grab a bite to eat before heading back to the coast for the ferry back to Dover. But although the waffles looked highly enticing, I didn't have any Belgian francs, and I couldn't exchange any to save my stomach! Needless to say, I am quite looking forward to the introduction of the euro.)
So, that was our weekend. We do now have photos, and with any luck I'll get some online by the end of the week. This weekend we're heading to Colmar -- in Alsace Lorraine , France -- so to those of you to whom we intended to mail postcards from Paris, I hope you'll understand when they arrive two weeks late with an Alsace postmark instead…
A bientot, or ciao for now.