La Belle France

Last Photos of Lovely Paris

2005-11-23T16:17:00.000-08:00

Well, this is it, my last posting in this blog dedicated to my wonderful four weeks in the City of Light, Paris. I am not the most traveled person in the world, but at least from what I have seen, by far Paris is the most beautiful city of them all. Having had this time to really explore the city, live in an actual apartment building in a real working neighborhood, interact with the French people -- buy that unparalleled fresh food in the Bastille market! -- I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat.

These last photos are from those taken once my lovely Carol joined me. Many of them will be from places I've already shown you on these pages -- but, hey, I at least can certainly stand seeing them all again! So please enjoy these last photos from this magical place:

Here's my sweetheart at the 18th century fountain on the Rue du Faubourgh St-Antoine, right across from where the Passage du Chantier opens onto the street. The fountains are still running here in mid-November, so you can tell it's not winter yet -- when it is, the fountains are turned off!

This was taken while wandering through the streets of the Marais district. The impressive church in the background is the Church of St. Paul on the Rue St-Antoine.

Hanging across the street here are the first Christmas decorations we saw. So even the French get a bit of an early start on the holidays since this was mid-November -- but, hey, nothing like the Christmas stuff on display in the stores in the States in September...

It's a little funny that we'd see the first decorations here since the Marais district is pretty much the Jewish quarter of Paris, eh?

This is taken in the courtyard of the Hotel Sully, one of the old palatial residences in the Marais district built in the 17th century distinguished by their courtyards and gardens.

We ended up going back to the St. Michel area on the Left Bank several times. We had spent quite a bit of time in this area when we first visited Paris in March, 2001, and it still remains a favorite part of town.

This is the fantastic fountain in the Place St-Michel. In spite of how it might look, this was built after World War II to commemorate the French who fought in that war and the ultimate defeat of the Nazi occupiers.

While the St. Michel and neighboring St. Germain des Prés areas are loaded with things to see, I have to admit that the main reason we kept coming back was for the food. The streets immediately adjacent to the Fountain of St. Michel are full of great little restaurants and food stands, all very moderately priced.

The menu board here is typical of how things are done in many restaurants in Paris. Every day there will be two or three set menus at different price ranges, each with three courses, and you pick your entrée (which is an appetizer -- an entry to the meal, yes? -- in France), plat (main dish) and désert (just what you think) from about four selections in each category. Yum!

Somebody couldn't resist the pastry shop...

And then somebody else had to try one of those gyros...

Gyros are French, aren't they?

This is on the Ile-St-Louis again just before you cross the bridge onto the Ile de la Cité.

Sure enough, the musicians were out there on the bridge playing that jazz again!

Parisians are such musical people. Even the beggars are musicians. When you ride the Métro, not infrequently all of a sudden someone (a beggar) will enter the car, in a loud voice "declare" themselves ("Mesdames et messieurs," and then state their name and their situation), and then sing or play an instrument for handouts. And they're all good! They're usually quite happily rewarded by their audiences.

Of course, we had to hit the big museums again. That's the Musée d'Orsay, the great Impressionist museum, seen from across the beautiful Seine River.

And of course the Grand Louvre. The glass pyramid is where visitors enter the museum (going below ground to the entrance level) and that peaked roof on the left is the end of one wing. You have to understand that there is another wing just like that one to the right, outside of the photo, and then there is a whole quadrangle of the building behind where this photo was taken. You have no idea how huge this complex is. But then, what would one expect of the complex that served as the royal palace for eight centuries, eh?

The French are not only all musical, they're all artistic. The very first night we stayed in Paris the first time we visited, the first thing I saw outside our hotel window was a man oil painting in his apartment across the way! The museums here are full of students like this one copying the Old Masters. And just like the singers in the trains are all good, so are the art students, as you can see!

On this run through the Louvre we actually saw several areas we'd not been able to get to before, including the apartments of Napoléon III. This is old Napster III's living room. Might do...

Here's the dining room.

I have a feeling that this is more where Carol would like to be while I'm whiling away eternity in that little brick house at The Bagatelle...

And then those phenomenal views from the Centre Georges Pompidou! Here's part of the Paris skyline seen from a "sculpure park" on the fifth floor.

Between the lighting and the viewpoint, I was able to get a whole series of photos like this that are absolutely surreal. For whatever reasons of optics, the whole series came out looking like magical paintings or drawings rather that photos -- but I swear these are photographs!

The large building in the center distance is the wonderful Church of St-Eustache I've mentioned before that is just now being restored from the devastation wreaked on it during the Revolution and the Commune period.

More natural surrealism. This is a photo of the Forum Les Halles, a great shopping center that extends three levels underground and totals 17 acres of shops and eateries. And right next door to that great old Church of St-Eustache and Napoléonic period buildings. Where else but Paris...

Of course, we visited that wonderful open-air market at the Place de la Bastille and bought our supplies for the last few dinners at the apartment. Oh, man, look at that seafood!

And we ran up to the butte of Montmartre our last day of sightseeing and got this nice photo of beautiful Paris under light just breaking through the clouds.

Just to go out in style, we spent our last two nights in a really lovely hotel called the Little Palace. This is the view to one side of our balcony window overlooking a cute little park and more of those majestic Parisian buildings.

And Carol enjoying the view on the balcony.

And looking to the right from our little balcony, the Rue Sebastopol as the sun began to set on our last evening in this lovely city.

And that's it, except maybe to leave you with a last photo of myself. Can you tell I'm in my element?

As the French say, Bonne journée!

Catching Up The Blog!

2005-11-22T12:35:00.000-08:00

Carol and I are back in the States after a last wonderful week in Paris. I thought I should probably get back on and make a start at catching up all the photos yet to post.

Before I do that, I want to again thank Jim Dietz of San Diego, CA for making his great little Parisian studio apartment available for rental. I can't tell you how much better my stay in this most beautiful city was because I was able to live in an actual neighborhood with wonderful French neighbors. Let alone that I was able to stay for four weeks for about what a week in hotels and restaurants would have cost. And then, if I'd stayed in hotels and eaten in restaurants, I never even would have ventured into those wonderful Parisian open-air markets and tasted all that fantastically fresh food! So thanks again to Jim for making all this possible, and I can't recommend him highly enough. If you think you'd like to spend a few weeks living like a real Parisian, contact Jim at: http://www.jimdietz.com/chantier.html

Anyway, on the the photos, this first batch from my wanderings in the Bois de Boulogne (see "Songs from the Wood" below):

It's really easy to forget that, in spite of 2100 acres of woodland and parkland, you're still right in city -- as the two photos below show. The photo below with the busy roadway is what's just to the right of the first photo!

A ways into the wood I came to The Bagatelle, which is the formal grounds surrounding an old estate (a minor estate, mind you). This next group of photos are from The Bagatelle grounds, comprising a rose garden and an Orangerie (a building sheltering various citrus trees -- yeah, the one that looks like the houses you see in 19th century American estates like the Huntington Garden in Southern California!).

Then I left this beautiful garden area through a pathway that was really more a tunnel through the dense, low-hanging foliage of the trees lining it and came upon this wonderful little house, which I assume was part (probably servants' quarters or something) of the original 18th century estate. This is the house I indicated below that I want to live in after I've died and gone to heaven (and, of course, been properly laid to rest in the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise):

Mon dieu...

And then across the lovely garden from the little house is what I believe was the "big house" of the original estate, which now houses the lovely Restaurant de Trianon:

Walking on from the "big house," I came to The Trianon, which is a later addition to the estate that is used for various art exhibits, with, again, its own lovely grounds:

They have so much artwork in France, they don't know what to do with it. Here are a bunch of sculptures just sitting around The Trianon in bubble-wrap. I don't know whethey they're from a recently closed exhibit, one coming up, new pieces for the garden... There were just as many more on the other side of the walkway, and then even more a bit further!

Leaving the Bois de Boulogne, I again walked along the edge of the wooded and park areas making my way to a different exit. Again, you can see how beautiful the fall foliage was even with all the traffic:

As I've said several times in these blog pages and undoubtedly will again, the great thing about Europe is you only have to walk a few steps and look in another direction to see some fabulous view. Another few paces along this road and this famous Parisian landmark came into view:

That's it for this posting on the Bois de Boulogne. Check back, because there'll be at least one more with photos from the last week as I tried to show Carol as much as I could of all the wonderful things I'd seen -- and as we discovered even more!

She's Here!

2005-11-12T09:31:00.000-08:00

Well, my beautiful Carol arrived right on time yesterday at Charles de Gaulle International Airport, so things have been busy between showing her "the neighborhood" and converting that little studio apartment into something suitable for two instead of one! Today begins the whirlwind of trying to show her as much of everything I've seen in the past three weeks, so I may get behind on blogging (and I know I still have Bois de Boulogne photos to post). Worse comes to worst, I'll catch up when we're home. But otherwise, stay posted!

Songs from the Wood

2005-11-10T17:10:00.000-08:00

Wasn't that an old Jethro Tull title?

Anyway, today I took the No. 1 Métro almost all the way to its most westerly stop and spent three magical hours wandering through the Bois de Boulogne. Another beautiful, beautiful day of exploration -- and, of course, lots of photos. The Internet seems to be running slowly at the moment, so uploading photos is difficult; as a result, I will post the Bois de Boulogne photos and commentary as soon as I have a sufficient block of time. For now I have to get back to the apartment and do a bit of cleaning up -- because my lovely Carol will be here tomorrow morning! It's going to be wonderful having my beautiful wife here for my last week here in Paris. I'll probably end up exhausting her entirely. After all, I'm going to have to show her almost everything I've already seen!

Check back soon for the Bois de Boulogne.

Père-Lachaise: The Final Chapter (As They Might Say in the Movies)

2005-11-10T09:23:00.000-08:00

Written the afternoon of Wednesday, 11/9. It's clear and beautiful again this morning (11/10).

Still rainy here in Paris, so a good afternoon to finish writing about the great Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.

Coming back up from the subterranean columbarium hallways, the next notable is the great modern writer Marcel Proust (1871-1922). The sickly son of wealthy parents, his writings are considered masterpieces at connecting one’s external world and actions to his internal consciousness. Proust was the lover of composer Maurice Ravel and wanted to be buried with him (apparently not in this cemetery; at least Ravel isn’t on the “A” list), but his parents wouldn’t allow it – and, obviously, here he lies with the family.

This is the gravesite of Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), who studied law at the Sorbonne, but decided he’d rather write – and spent all day and most of the night writing, sleeping for only a few hours in the late afternoon. Along with his noted works, and to avoid starvation, as is the case with many writers, he wrote pulp novels under a pseudonym. Living in a cold, spare room during his time of greatest poverty, he adorned his meager surroundings by writing on the walls – “Rosewood paneling with commode” in one spot, “Gobelin tapestry with Venetian mirror” in another – and “Picture by Raphael” above the fireplace. Along with him is buried Polish countess Evelina Hanska, who he married only a few months before his death after an exchange of love letters for 18 years.
Below the bust of Balzac, lying on a shelf, is a sculpted book with a quill pen lying on top of it. The title chiseled into the spine of the marble volume is, appropriately, “La Comédie Humaine” – “The Human Comedy.”

Here’s another bit of color and light along the pathway.

Here lies the man who was the greatest inspiration to many of the Impressionists, the great French painter Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863). Delacroix is one of the masters of the Romantic movement. He once said, “If you are not skillful enough to sketch a man falling out of a window during the time it takes him to get from the fifth story to the ground, then you will never produce a monumental work.” Delacroix must have been very, very skilled because he produced many monumental works, his entire output exceeding 9,000 paintings, drawings and pastels.

Ah, these temperamental artists! The next site on the list is the grave of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867). Ingres entered the studio of Louis David (coming up later, folks!) at the age of 17 and then won the Prix de Rome only four years later. His technique broke from the traditional and he was alienated from the Parisian art scene as a result, working in Rome until 1820 and in Florence until 1824. In spite of this disapproval, he was named the president of the École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Art) when he returned to Paris, which caused a great degree of animosity between he and Delacroix (above). In fact, there was so much animosity between the two that Ingres refused Delacroix’s handshake until well into his old age. Even if you don’t know it by name, you’d probably recognized what I think is Ingres’ most well-known work: Odalisque with the Slave.

This one puzzles me (the small tomb at the foot of the "towers"). Either the guidebook got the wrong Lalique or there is another tomb nearby which I was unable to find. The guidebook says this (or something in the area…) is the grave of René Lalique (1860-1945), the well-known glass artisan and jewelry designer from the Art Nouveau era. There are two individuals named Lalique buried here, the only one of which has a name at all similar to René Lalique is Georgette Renée Lalique, obviously a woman. Close, but no cigar.

Here’s the family plot of famous painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875). Corot didn’t start painting until age 30 and was regularly exhibiting at the Salon of the Barbizon School, primarily a group of landscape artists, only five years later. Corot was another artist greatly influential on the Impressionists, but he didn’t receive any real acclaim until well into his fifties. When he was forced to sell one of his paintings to get money, he exclaimed, “Alas, my collection has been so long complete, and now it is broken!”

Sculptor, painter and lithographer Honoré Daumier (1808-79) is just a few rows behind Corot’s plot (seen in the background of this shot). Daumier was known mainly for his satirical political work. An 1832 cartoon in which Daumier depicted Louis-Philippe as Gargantua swallowing bags of gold extracted from his subjects actually got him imprisoned for six months. Daumier was a member of the realist school and was much admired by other French artists. Balzac once said of him, “This boy has some Michelangelo under his skin.”

This is another incredibly evocative tomb along one of the pathways.

Tucked into a tight little corner among other small graves next to one really huge monument is the grave of Sarah Bernhardt (Henriette-Rosine Bernard, 1844-1923), one of the most famous stage actresses of all time. After being raised in a convent until age 13, she entered the Paris Conservatory and then made a badly received acting debut at age 17. She then went on to international acclaim by virtue simply of her perseverance and even became a silent film star in the last years of her life. An observer said, “For days after what seemed like Bernhardt’s last public performance, mourners stood in line in the cemetery to get a view of where she lay dead, just as they had made the box-office queue to see her alive on the stage.

In matching adjacent tombs surrounded by a fenced enclosure lie Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, 1622-73), the greatest of French playwrights, and writer of fables Jean La Fontaine (1621-95). In his attempts to promote this cemetery after its poor start, Frouchot bought these supposed remains to appeal to a better clientele. In his many satirical plays, Molière attacked church as well as state, so the Church refused him burial in consecrated ground, which was said to extend 14 feet deep. King Louis XIV then ordered his grave dug to 16 feet – but no one really knew where he was actually buried; in fact, there is a legend that he disappeared before he could be put into that 16-foot-deep grave. As a result, it’s considered likely that M. Frouchot was taken for a ride when he bought Molière’s bones. Most think that if Frouchot was duped regarding remains, he probably was with La Fontaine’s as well. La Fontaine’s 12 books of fables, by the way, were so popular that 137 editions were printed within his own lifetime.

And last on my guidebook's list of noted sites is the memorial of Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). David’s first attempt at the Prix de Rome failed and he attempted suicide. He was saved by some fellow art students who found him in his room before it was too late. He did win the Prix de Rome in 1774 and went to study painting in Italy. He returned to Paris in 1780 and became very involved in politics. David revolutionized art with huge, huge paintings that were often commentaries on current events. His Coronation of Napoléon takes up most of one wall in the extremely large exhibit rooms at the Louvre. He became so involved as a painter of Napoléon that he ended up exiled in Brussels when Napoléon fell.

I can’t tell you how affected I have been by this cemetery. 99 acres of headstones and monuments itself has a staggering effect. This is truly a city of the dead – and yet the sound of children at recess in a school just outside its walls ringing through the cemetery, the light of the morning sun, the colors of the many, many flowers as well as the natural beauty of the grounds and their plantings also make this a city of life. The artwork is so poignant, so fully conveys man’s deepest longing for the eternal – and his despair over the fragility and shortness of his span of years. Walking among these stones old and new, of rich and poor, of noted and unknown through so many centuries in just this one place puts both the position of the individual and the continuity of humankind in stark perspective. And I have been in few, if any, places that instilled so much of a sense of peace, and gratitude for precious life. I suspect that the memories and impressions gained from touring this wonderful place will be what stay with me longest from this beautiful city of Paris.

One last memorial. This one, of a young man named Valerio who died in 1988, probably struck me more than any. He would have been only eight years younger than I am, which I’m sure hit home. But I think what resonated most deeply was the inscription at its base: “Il aimait STENDHAL PAVAROTTI GAMINE les PINK FLOYD mais à 29 ans…” – “He loved Stendhal, Pavarotti, Gamine, the Pink Floyd; but at 29 years…”

What an incredible and beautiful gift -- however brief -- life is.

And in case you'd like to virtually walk along the actual pathways of this great place, try the incredible virtual tour at: http://www.pere-lachaise.com/perelachaise.php?lang=en (thanks, Linda!).

Père-Lachaise Part 2

2005-11-09T00:27:00.000-08:00

Bonjour! It’s a rainy day here in Paris (of course! The barometer on my wall says, “Sunny”…), so now’s a good time to continue on with the tour of the wonderful Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. Allons!

Moving on from paying homage to “The Lizard King,” we come to the very unimposing gravesite of Nadar behind a bench on the roadway and between two bushes. Nadar (Gaspard Félix Tournachon, 1820-1910) was perhaps the greatest photographer of the 19th century, remembered for stunning photographic portraits of such luminaries as Hugo, Baudelaire, Delacroix, Bernhardt – many of who are buried here – as well as the ever present George Sand. Nadar preferred not to photograph women (obviously, there were exceptions) because the photos were “too true to nature to please the sitter, even the most beautiful.” He eventually gave up photography and took up hot-air ballooning (what a guy!), but ended up taking his camera aloft and shot the first bird’s-eye photo of Paris.

Obviously still very much revered by Parisians, this is the tomb of the Little Sparrow, Edith Piaf (1915-63). Piaf was a very expressive and powerful singer who began her career on the streets of Paris and in the cafés at the age of 15. She became so well loved by her fans that Jean Cocteau, famous artist and film maker, wrote a play for her. She not only rates flowers and candles, but fans have even left photos of the noted chanteuse.

This is another along-the-way photo of an elderly man tending a gravesite.

This grave, one of many in the same style in this section, is that of noted painter and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920). Modigliani’s elongated forms, now so familiar and beloved, were neglected during his lifetime, and he did not gain notoriety until well after his death from tuberculosis – aggravated by drug and alcohol abuse. The primary inspiration for his very individualistically styled forms was African sculpture.

The following four photos are of some of the several monuments throughout the cemetery to those who died during World War II in Nazi concentration camps. These monuments, one for each of the camps and its inmates, are very, very poignant and remarkable works.

The grave to the left is that of Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), the writer who is best known for her line “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” (which I never knew was hers!). She was a friend of many, many notable writers and artists, and was the host of the most famous literary salon in Paris. With her brother Leo, she was a trendsetter in the art world and had one of the best private collections in Paris at the time. She claimed to have discovered Picasso; of the two Picasso works she displayed, she said that if her apartment ever burned down and she “could take only one picture, it would be those two.” Her writing was intended to be the literary counterpart of cubism – found unintelligible by most readers. Her most noted work is The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

By the way, that vacant looking grave next to Stein’s is not; it’s the grave of none other than Alice B. Toklas, Stein’s lover. Famous only because of her liaison with Stein, she takes second place even in death: the inscription for her grave is on the back of Stein’s headstone!

This very unique, Art Deco monument is the resting place of famous novelist, playwright, aesthete, dandy and humorist Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). His many works include The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest, and, interestingly, his fairy tale collections! Wilde was imprisoned in England for two years in the late 1890s for homosexual practices. One day while in prison, standing handcuffed in pouring rain, Wilde declared, “If this is the way Queen Victoria treats her prisoners, then she doesn’t deserve to have any.” So there! I believe I’ve mentioned before that his dying words in his Paris hotel room were, “Either this wallpaper goes or I do”…

You’ll notice what looks like pink polka dots all over the base of Wilde’s monument. Those are lip prints! You see those periodically around this cemetery on markers, but they are rampant here. Apparently, though, most of those have been left by gay men in homage to Wilde’s imprisonment.

The next part of my walk was into the columbarium, which comprises not only a square of sections like this one, but then goes on for several floors underground. This is the only place where I was unable to find particular markers indicated in my guidebook, those of Max Ernst and Richard Wright.

Max Ernst (1891-1976), originally a psychology student, took up painting psychotics and referred to himself as Dadamax. Having come to Paris in 1922, he lived in the U.S. from 1941 to 1949, where he was briefly married to Peggy Guggenheim of art museum fame, but then returned to France, where he remained until his death.

Richard Wright (1908-60) wrote the African-American classics Uncle Tom’s Children and Native Son. Wright was invited to come to Paris by the French government in 1945. Although he had great difficulty obtaining a passport from the U.S. State Department, he and his wife were greeted by the American ambassador when he finally did arrive – and by none other than Gertrude Stein, who had written him a letter saying, “Dear Richard: It is obvious that you and I are the only two geniuses of this era.” Wright died in Paris and was cremated with a copy of his novel Black Boy.

Although I was unable to find Ernst and Wright, I did find the niche containing the ashes of Isadora Duncan (Dora Gray Duncan, 1878-1927), the flamboyant dancer. Duncan is the one who wore a scanty Greek tunic, draped herself in flowing scarves, and then danced barefoot to music that was not written for dance. They hated her in the U.S., but loved her in Paris, where she came in 1922. Her fame spread throughout Europe. Duncan died in a gruesomely appropriate way: She drove off in her brand new Bugatti race car wearing her favorite long, flowing red scarf – which became entangled in one of the car’s wheels. Her last heard words, curiously, as she drove off in the Bugatti, were, “Je vais à la gloire!” – “I go to glory!”

Last for this installment (still about a third to go!) and last in the columbarium is the niche of Maria Callas (1923-1977), the famous operatic soprano and long-time mistress of Aristotle Onassis. Born in New York City, Callas moved to Greece at age 13, where she studied voice. She debutted in Verona in 1947, made her first Metropolitan Opera appearance in 1956, and went on to thrill the operatic world – mostly because she not only sang well, but was one of the very few (if not the first) operatic heroines who was slender and beautiful! I found Callas’ stone especially having just been to the museum at La Scala, which contained a number of paintings and photographs of her, as well as several of her costumers from La Scala productions.

The air in the columbarium space underground, being an enclosed space, is overwhelming with the scent from the thousands and thousands of flowers left there by visitors.

And then, just to leave off this segment with another of those amazingly poignant memorials found throughout this wonderful cemetery:

Check back for Part 3!

La Cimetière du Père-Lachaise

2005-11-08T18:34:00.000-08:00

What a wonderful day! The barometer on my apartment wall said it was supposed to rain all day -- and I've learned that reality is always exactly the opposite of what it says. Which it was: absolutely clear and glorious all day. Once the morning's work was done and feeling like getting out for a walk on such a nice day, I decided to head back to the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise and take the "celebrity tour."

I've posted comments and a few photos before from my previous brief visit to this amazing cemetery. This 99-acre piece of land was originally the country retreat of Père François de la Chaise d'Aix, the priest-confessor to Louis XIV. About 200 years ago the land was purchased by one Nicolas Frouchot, who promoted it as a cemetery for the rich and famous -- even though his first customer was an errand boy!

When I had finished my walk, which seemed to go by so quickly, it turned out that I'd been walking for three and a half hours and had taken 227 photos! This is going to be a major undertaking, so I may have to break it into more than one posting, but I'm going to take you on a hopefully less time-consuming version of that "celebrity tour," greatly indebted to a copy of Frommer's Walking Tours-Paris that I came across in a remainder house ages ago. Other than on one or two occasions, this book not only provided the necessary directions to all the "major" sites, but provided great information on those notables themselves. The gravesites are listed in the order I was directed to them.

Sidonie-Gabrielle-Claudine Colette (1873-1954), known as Colette, a writer who was the first woman president of Goncourt Academy and the second woman to be made a grand officer of the French Legion of Honor. Most of her writing was for and about women, the best known work being "Gigi" (1945). Colette attributed her success to her mother's constantly telling her "Look, look!" instilling her sense of wonder at life and keen sense of observation. During Paris' worst thunderstorm in nearly 75 years, Colette pointed to the sky from her deathbed and said, "Look, look!"

Look at the wonderful color and light on this beautiful fall day in Paris! This is the tomb of Giacchino Antonio Rossini (1792-1868), composer of such famous operas as The Barber of Seville and William Tell. Although he became wealthy, Rossini was a common man. A group of students tried to raise money to have a statue erected to him in his old age. Rossini is reported to have said, "Give me the twenty thousand and I'll stand on the pedestal myself."

Louis-Charles-Alfred de Musset (1810-570) was, I believe, a French writer. The Frommer's guide describes him simply as "infatuated with George Sand," who, of course, was the famous female novelist who wrote under that pen name in order to be published. Apparently there were quite a few men who were also "infatuated with George Sand."

The lady sitting immediately behind de Musset and to his left is de Musset's sister.

This touching effigy is next to that of the sister of de Musset, apparently unrelated.

Just a view along the way. I'll probably put in a few of these because it was just so pretty out.

This is the family sepulchre of the Rothschild family, the famous European financiers. The family fortunes began with Mayer Anselm in 1743, in Frankfurt, Germany, who became wealthy by lending large sums of money to various governments and princes. His five sons expanded the business to Vienna, London, Paris and Naples. The Paris branch was started by Jacob, whose money funded the building of the French railroad. Many of the works of art in the Louvre were donated by the French branch of the family.

The grave of Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), the oldest member of the Impressionist group. He moved to Paris in 1855, being born in the West Indies to a Jewish father and Créole mother. Because of his being older, Pissarro served as a sort of father figure to Monet, Renoir and Cézanne; although not the most noted of the Impressionists, he was the only one to be exhibited in all eight Impressionist exhibitions.

You've seen this one before: the tomb of Abelard and Heloise, the great medieval lovers, seen here in the beautiful morning light.

Abelard and Heloise rejoined finally in the tomb (as it says on the side of the monument).

According to the Frommer's guide, it wasn't until Frouchot obtained the bones of these two that business started picking up for the cemetery. Then, as the guidebook says, "Plots began selling like hotcakes."

Just more light and color along the way...

Obviously still held in high regard (all those flowers!), this is the resting place of composer Frédéric François Chopin (1810-49). Chopin gave his first Paris concert at the age of 21; by 29, had written 24 preludes, one in each major and minor key and none longer than five minutes in length; and is noted for introducing the piano as a solo instrument (believe it or not). He's also another of those who had a "turbulent affair" with apparent "femme fatale" George Sand.

Just a few sites away is another composer, Maria Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842). Cherubini was primarily a composer of sacred music, who had already completed several masses and choral pieces by age 16. He is said to have profounded influenced Beethoven's vocal compositions. Cherubini became the director of the Paris Conservatory at age 60.

Supposedly Cherubini hated flutes and said that the only thing worse than a flute was two flutes...

The tomb of painter Théodore Géricault (1791-1824). This is quite a remarkable tomb with a statue of the artist, palette in hand, reclining on top and reliefs of some of his works around the base. His most famous work, The Raft of the Medusa, depicted the 1816 shipwreck of the Medusa and was one of the first large-scale paintings to depict a newsworthy event. He was one of the first to break traditional painting technique and influenced the famous French master Delacroix.

The imposing tomb of Gaspard Monge, comte de Péluse (1746-1818). Monge was a friend of Napoléon instrumental in founding the École Polytechnique in 1794 who is best known for his research in geometry. His work was foundational to the mechanical drawings produced by today's architects. This large monument is one of several along a curving pathway in this part of the cemetery. Although not mentioned in the guidebook, I'm pretty sure many of the names I saw here were also associated with Napoléon.

At the base of what at first seems to be a statue of the Madonna a child is the grave of Auguste Comte (1798-1857), the founder of the positivist philosophy and humanism. Comte is credited with coining the term sociology, and indeed his work forms the basis for what has become modern sociology. The goal of his writings was to bring about a peaceful society in harmony; in fact, he believed in a society that made a religion out of worshiping humanity. Confronted with his death, Comte reportedly said, "What an irreparable loss!"

The statue, by the way, is entitled "Humanité."

And here, in a very small, out of the way grave is one James Douglas Morrison (1943-71), better known to those of us who grew up in the '60s as "The Lizard King" -- Jim Morrison of The Doors. The guidebook said the easiest way to find this obscure site is to look for the crowd of people that's always there -- and even at 11:00 a.m. on a Tuesday in the off-season, sure enough, I found it by sighting the small group of people there. Apparently the French aren't always happy Jim is here: the area around this grave is often very crowded and graffittied, but he qualified for "admission" because he died here in Paris -- of a drug overdose when he was already way down the road of alcoholism and drug abuse. Quel domage...

At this point I've been writing and uploading these photos for over an hour, so I'm getting a bit stiff. And I'm only about a third of the way through all the celebs! So, I will finish up this tour in installments over the next day or so. For now, it's time to head back to the little studio apartment and fix some dinner.

Well, one more "along the way photo" because it was just so beautiful out:

The inscription below the dancer says:

"Que devient le rève quand le rève est fini" -- "What becomes the dream when the dream is finished." Whether that is intended as question or statement is apparently left to the observer.

Check back for Part 2!

Milan Photos Part 3

2005-11-08T09:37:00.000-08:00

Okay, more photos from day 2 in Milan:

Walking toward the center of town from the Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio, I turned a corner into this huge piazza and look what I saw! You have no idea how gigantic this piazza is. That's the Duomo, the city cathedral, in the distance. Its front is mostly shrouded while repair work is going on.

This is the nave of the Duomo packed with people for mass on the feast of St. Charles Borromeo, the patron of the church.

I don't know if this was a special exhibition or always the case, but huge Renaissance paintings were hung between the columns on both sides of the nave. Pretty impressive!

The relics of St. Charles Borromeo in their crypt under the altar of the Duomo. The Duomo is built with a large ambulatory around the periphery of the church with all sorts of interesting side altars. Being a major church, that means, in this case, the complete remains of various saintly clergy from the past resting in full view in their glass cases.

Here's a detail photo of part of the exterior of the Duomo. You can imagine what the facade would be like without that construction shrouding!

Taking a stairway down from inside the Duomo, you can visit under the piazza the remains of a "Paleochristian" baptistry. The ruins below are actually from the 4th century and include this baptisty (many think it was here that St. Ambrose baptized St. Augustine) and parts of an early church dedicated to St. Thecla. The baptismal pool should settle the debate on whether early baptisms in the Catholic tradition were by immersion or sprinkling.

Here is the Galeria Vittorio Emanuelle, one of the world's first shopping malls. If you go back to the shot of the Duomo in the distance as I entered the piazza, this is what's to the left of the Duomo!

One of the exterior corridors of the Galeria with the Duomo right next door.

Inside the Galeria Vittorio Emanuelle.

Then, just outside the Galeria at the back was a nice small piazza with this statue of Leonardo da Vinci and, presumably, other notable artists (perhaps from Leonardo's studio?).

And across the street in the direction of Leonardo's gaze, the famous Teatro de la Scala.

And finally, the courtyard of the Brera, a very interesting compound that seems to include a school, a library, and, upstairs, the Pinacoteca di Brera, which houses a truly impressive art collection of Northern Italian work from the late Middle Ages to the present. What an interesting place to go to school!

And that's it for a sampling of photos from Milan.

A Quiet Day -- and a Peaceful Night in Paris

2005-11-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

After two weeks here, I seem to have transitioned from being a tourist to a resident. By that, I mean that, having returned from Milan, rather than hitting the streets here in Paris again, camera in hand and intent on seeing everything there could possibly be to see, I had absolutely no desire to do anything other than fix up the apartment a bit, get my laundry done, head to the Monoprix on the corner for groceries (Monday: the outdoor markets were all closed).

Once that was done, I headed over to the St-Michel area again – no camera – to hunt down an English-language bookstore and perhaps pick up something else to read. As it turned out, the morning overcast cleared up and it turned out to be a very pretty day, so I probably should have taken the camera…

Anyway, bookstores here in France are quite different than in the States, except in very, very small used bookstores at home. Rather than the large, open shops with orderly cases of books, bookstores here are tiny with barely enough room to walk between the stacks – which is literally what there are. The particular bookstore I found, called The Abbey Bookshop, is run by Canadians and reportedly has 20,000 books. Well, I’d say there were probably 40,000, and they were literally stacked from floor to ceiling. I ended up buying nothing; not having anything specific in mind, I find it way too difficult to browse when thousands of books are literally piled or shelved back to back in front of you. And I have to say it does get a bit claustrophobic in such tiny shops with nothing around you but piles and piles of books.

The St-Michel area and its adjacent area, St-Germain-des-Prés, are some of my favorite parts of Paris. St-Germain-des-Prés particularly is the Latin Quarter, the oldest part of Paris other than on the two islands in the Seine. The sun had come out, as mentioned, so I took a nice walk around. I came across the church of Saint-Séverin. St-Séverin is another beautiful gothic church from the 13th century, in that case a working parish church even today. While I was walking around, the organist was practicing up in the loft – and it really is a moving experience to walk through one of these wonderful old churches and hear the organ playing while doing so. I’m starting to find these gothic churches rather contemplative places, which I think is due to the fact that they’re built with an ambulatory around the central nave. The nave is the area facing the altar in which the parishioners sit during services. The ambulatory, as the name implies, encircles the nave and sanctuary, and are areas where you can walk and come across a multitude of side chapels, each usually with a particular theme or saint artistically portrayed, many with tombs of notable parishioners from times long past, memorial monuments, relics of saints, etc. I am starting to think that much of the contemplative nature of Christianity must have faded with the end of ambulatories being part of church design.

Next I walked along the Boulevard-St-Germain-des-Prés, which is lined with cafes, boutique stores, etc. Eventually I came to the church of St-Germain-des-Prés itself and, of course, went inside. This is actually the oldest church in Paris and was originally the church of a Benedictine abbey. Although modified from the time of the building of Nôtre Dame to adopt the new gothic style, the basic structure of the church is an 11th century Romanesque building. What can I say – another beautiful and ancient church. I then headed up Rue Bonaparte to the Seine, walked back to St-Michel and headed home.

This morning I’m writing before heading off to Starbucks to post and I’ve heard a couple of interesting reports on BBC radio. First off, the rioting in Paris and its suburbs finally abated last night. Thank God. While no one likes the violence at all, a poll shows that 70 percent of the French think that the complaints of the minority populations in the rioting neighborhoods are legitimate and that the government has not dealt seriously with those complaints. Let’s hope something productive comes from all this.

The other story relates to the movement of human populations and what often seem paradoxical results of those movements. This story had to do with a Muslim minority in China, the Uighurs, who are presently undergoing a lot of oppression in that country. Today’s Uighur population are related to the Turks and are considered foreign in China – but originally they were Mongol people who ended up in the area of Turkey (where they later adopted Islam) as part of the invading hordes of Genghis Khan that swept all the way into Europe. The Uighurs have always been a historical favorite of mine because they, among all those Mongol hordes, were so violent that the English word “ogre” was derived from their tribal name! So nowadays these originally Mongol people are being discriminated against as foreigners back in the same part of the world they originally came from. Just like Hinduism, which is probably considered the height of “heathenism” among monotheistic Caucasians, is the original religion of the Aryan people in India – yep, the same Aryans that we think of when we think of “white folk.” Or that Buddhist art, which is seen as being so distinctively “Eastern,” actually did not exist until Alexander the Great’s Greeks brought Hellenic esthetics to Buddhist lands, and Buddhist art then evolved from original statues of the Buddha and boddhisatvas (in the so-called Ghandharan style) made in the Greek style. Fascinating, at least to me.

Milan Photos Part 2

2005-11-07T16:58:00.000-08:00

It's been a nice leisurely day here in Paris getting things caught up since returning yesterday. I'm having a nice caffe latte at Starbucks with a bit of extra time before cooking dinner, so here are a few more photos. These are from day 2 in Milan.

This is Il Cenacolo (left) next to the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie. The Cenacolo is where Leonard da Vinci painted his famous "Last Supper" on one of the walls of the refectory (dining hall) of the Dominican convent attached to the church. You can tell there wasn't a huge crowd there at about 8:00 a.m. that Friday. By 8:10, when the door opened, there were about 40 -- but without a reservation, no entry for me...

The inside of Santa Maria delle Grazie, a very pretty church at one time intended to be the family mausoleum of the Sforza family.

The Basilica of Saint Ambrose (Sant'Ambrogio). This was a truly fantastic place to visit. It is considered the model for all Romanesque architecture in Italy, and the oldest portions of the church go back to the 4th century when Saint Ambrose was bishop here.

The corridors leading up to the doors of Sant'Ambrogio are lined with all sorts of old inscribed stones, sarcophagi, and even this old fresco, many of which are built right into the walls.

The interior of the Basilica di Sant'Ambrogio. Obviously, this style of architecture, which predates the gothic by centuries, is very different from it (also the case with Santa Maria delle Grazie). The "pulpit," the large white marbel "box" right of center in the photo, is actually considered the oldest thing in the church -- probably a sarcophagus of an ancient Christian martyr that was adapted to be the ambo (pulpit).

The skeletal remains in the white pontifical vestments above are the remains of St. Ambrose himself, flanked by two (there's one on his other side too) earlier martyr saints whose remains Ambrose had himself brought to the church for interment. The three saints rest in the crypt below the high altar of the basilica.

This is the little 11th century church right beside the basilica that was built when the canons and the monks got upset with each other and apparently decided they'd have nothing to do with each other -- in typical "Christian" fashion!

One more view of the basilica from its courtyard.

The monument here, a monument to Victory, is right next to the basilica complex. On the morning I was there, a whole variety of military types, band and all, in every sort of colorful dress uniform you can imagine was massing in front of this monument. I never did see or hear anything happen, so I have no idea what that was all about. But here are some of the "troops" collecting in front of the monument. Off to the left from where this photo is taken is a very large building which is now a Catholic university, but originally was the monastery attached to the basilica. Based on size alone, there must have been a lot more monks than canons when they got into it over at the basilica, so no wonder the canons ended up with the little church.

Have to run and start cooking at the moment, so check back for Milan Photos Part 3. There's still a lot to come!

Photos From Milan -- Part 1

2005-11-07T09:46:00.000-08:00

Here are some of those long-awaited photos from Milan that I was never able to upload using the wireless Internet connection I had there. These are from the first day there.

This is the Hotel Delle Nazioni, where I stayed. Great pizzas through room service and, overall, a nice place to stay. As is typical in Europe, the rooms are small -- maybe half of the room I have in my little Paris studio apartment.

Parking a la Milanese!

Street scenes, wandering around the first afternoon.

"Il Giorno" is one of the major magazines published in Milan.

The late afternoon sunlight sets off the pretty colors of the Natural History Museum. This first afternoon was the only time I was in Milan when it wasn't very overcast or heavily raining.

Here are a few shots of the very lovely public gardens (Giardini Pubblici) surrounding the Natural History Museum.

Back on the streets.

Promotional posters on the Via Afredo Capellini, the street my hotel was on. That's "Bob Dylan and His Band" coming November 12!

And that's a selection from my brief wanderings on the first afternoon. In Milan Photos Part 2, I'll put up many more photos from all the great sightseeing the second day. At the moment it's getting on in the morning, so I've got to get to my various chores for the day (laundry, groceries, etc.) after returning from Milan. Check back for the next installment!

Synchronicity

2005-11-07T09:23:00.000-08:00

NOTICE: The following is something I wrote last night reflecting on the "riots" here in Paris. It has definite political overtones; if you're here for my travel accounts and would rather not read my notoriously "left wing" interpretations of world events, please skip this posting!

Synchronicity

While Paris is undergoing its “riots” as, at least originally the expression of complete exasperation by its lowest socioeconomic (up to 75 percent unemployment!) community and while the so-called “Summit of the Americas” ended up being not at all what George Bush and the other advocates of the so-called “free market” system had hoped it would be (largely because the economy of its host country, Argentina, was completely ruined a few years ago precisely as the result of the implementation of an American-sponsored “free market” agreement), I just happen to have grabbed a book entitled “Bread & Hyacinths” off my bookshelf (one of only two brought with me) right before leaving the house to head here. This book, by Paul Greenstein, Nigey Lennon and Lionel Rolfe, is subtitled “The Rise and Fall of Utopian Los Angeles.”

Probably unbeknownst to most of you, not only did Los Angeles very nearly elect the first Socialist mayor of a major city in America in 1911, with the full support of a burgeoning labor movement, but after his defeat – the story of which is the stuff of legend – Job Harriman went on to establish the first non-denominational cooperative community (read Socialist community) in America right out in the Antelope Valley. Both Harriman’s last minute defeat in his mayoral race and the ultimate demise of the Llano del Rio Cooperative Community were due to the final crippling blows to the American labor movement in the wake of an important criminal case against two brothers named McNamara.

Having literally at the last moment chosen to take this book along on my trip while economic class warfare was to break out in Paris and while corporate America’s “free market” policy finally hit a bit of a bump in the road in Argentina seems an interesting bit of synchronicity – which Carl Jung defined as “meaningful coincidence.” Indeed.

In short, here’s what happened in “Utopian” Los Angeles. By the early 1910s, socialism and the workers’ movement in Los Angeles had grown to the point where Harriman’s election seemed a certainty. In the primary election, he had easily beaten his nearest competitor, incumbent mayor Alexander, by about 50 percent of the latter’s vote. At that time, Los Angeles was pretty much the last place in the country to become unionized; workers worked ten-hour days, six days a week, with absolutely no job security or benefits of any sort and for $1 to $3 a day – when unionized workers in San Francisco made $4 a day. L.A.’s labor movement up until this point had been held at bay by a group of local capitalists of whom the leader and most ruthless was Harrison Gray Otis, the publisher of the Los Angeles Times. Not only were workers kept economically at risk, but vocal support of the labor movement often brought physical violence upon its advocates by thugs hired by Otis and other capitalists – and we’ve always been brought up to think the labor guys (think Teamsters) were the thugs!

In any event, in January of 1910, in the very early morning hours, a bomb went off in “Ink Alley,” the alleyway next to the L.A. Times building. The resulting explosion not only destroyed most of the Times building and its equipment, but killed 20 of the employees who were inside working on the next morning’s edition. Ultimately, two men, John and James McNamara, highly active in the national labor movement, were arrested for the Times bombing. Originally Job Harriman was hired as the lawyer for the McNamaras, but Samuel Gompers, the leader of the American Federation of Labor, hired the famous Clarence Darrow to take over the defense of the two brothers – and Harriman announced his candidacy for major of Los Angeles.

As mentioned, by October, when the primary was held, Harriman had been essentially off the case for months while running his campaign, and the primary results, again, indicated he was virtually guaranteed to win the election. And the reason was because, from the get-go, almost everybody in Los Angeles suspected that not only did the McNamaras not plant the bomb, but that the explosion had been engineered by Otis himself! This was because Otis had been so rabidly anti-labor for such a long time – and because it turned out he’d ignored warnings from his employees for ages about the pervasive smell of leaking natural gas in the plant, had already started construction of a new plant, but still had upped the insurance on the old plant just days before (honest, folks…) – that nearly nobody put past him the idea that he’d destroy his own plant just to stop the movement.

Here’s where the McNamara trial comes in. Without anyone ever consulting Harriman, who was still technically counsel of record (Darrow later told Harriman it was because nobody wanted to tell him because they knew it would cost his election), Darrow and the prosecutors led the McNamaras to believe that unless they pled guilty, two other major labor leaders would be implicated and all would be convicted and get the death penalty. While all along the McNamaras had insisted on going to trial and proving their innocence, after being held in confinement for months without any other contact they relented and agreed to plead guilty, thus (they thought) sparing the two others – and, of course, saving themselves from hanging (which Darrow, of course, thought was his only concern as defense counsel).

What nobody ever told the McNamaras was that the only stipulation to the deal was that it would not be announced until the prosecutors chose to – which they did four days before the election. The public felt so strongly that the McNamaras were innocent – and, of course, Harriman’s campaign was associated with that sentiment – that it is said the next day there were literally thousands of “The McNamaras Are Innocent! Vote For Harriman!” buttons strewn in the streets of the city. And of course, Harriman was defeated four days later.

Now, the reason why I’m bothering to write all this at this particular point in time, and the reason I see a tie-in both to the Paris riots and this weekend’s Summit is because the book also had a quote in it from one John J. McNamara, the one of the two brothers who served his sentence and lived long enough to later comment on it (brother James died in Alcatraz during his). Here’s how John J. explained what he thought had happened:

“Before Franklin D. Roosevelt, in the days of so-called unrestricted private enterprise, it was almost impossible to organize the workers. Theywere so intimidated by their employers that they were afraid to be seen talking with a labor organizer, much less attend meetings. Most corporations hired spies to report organizational activity and professional thugs to beat up those who attempted to form a union. The enslavement of the worker in those days was nearly complete. Such conditions forced organizers to adopt methods which violated the law. On both sides it was war to the knife and knife to the hilt. Outrages were common, but they were justified by labor organizers as means to the end.

“Under Roosevelt workers were encouraged to organize. Labor organizations were legalized. As a result more than fifteen million men and women are union members. If these workers were intelligent and voted as a political unit, they and their friends could capture governmental power and with that power effect social and economic changes that would assure everybody a square deal. The opportunity to do this by organized labor, in my opinion, is the supreme good it has accomplished for the working class. Instead of demanding hours and wages, organized labor should demand economic education for its members. Every union should constitute a class to study and understand the social forces which govern and guide the social process. With that understanding will come intelligent action. If intelligence does not possess and direct the labor movement, it will disintegrate and its members will again revert to their old condition of industrial slavery (my emphasis).”

I emphasize that last section because, of course, that suggestion has never been adopted by American labor – or, really, labor even in countries (every industrial country other than the United States) where it has established a political presence – and here we are in the “free market” area. The divide between the Bush base of “haves and have-mores” and – well, everybody else is growing at home. France’s poorest are “rioting” because of an unemployment rate that is so high it is almost unbelievable – just months after the “leadership” of the European Union tried to push a constitution in which a more capitalistic, “free market” economic structure was featured. All but five of the national leaders at the Summit of the Americas voiced support for the American “free market” platform – in spite of the fact of the resulting collapse of Argentina’s economy after “buying in.”

After commenting as above, McNamara was then asked, “Suppose labor fails to avail itself of its opportunity?” See if McNamara’s response rings any bells in light of present-day circumstances:

“In that case reaction will set in, monopoly capital will seize complete power, either through the Democratic or Republican party, and what we will have in this country will be fascism. Then the worst fears of left wing labor will be realized. Corporation dictatorship will rule, labor enslavement will be complete, and the government of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt will no longer live.”

By the way, a number of investigations of the Times bombing have been undertaken in subsequent years. The overwhelming evidence from these investigations indicates that, indeed, General Harrison Gray Otis most likely did arrange for the destruction of his own plant to ensure the defeat of the Socialist-Labor cause in the 1911 election.

Back in Paris (thank God)!

2005-11-06T17:03:00.000-08:00

Well, this will be short. After a long, long day of waiting in Malpensa Airport (I arrived very early in hopes of catching an earlier flight; it turned out I had the super-duper discount rate that can't be changed, so I either waited for my flight -- which I did -- or shelled out about $600 for a new ticket), I'm finally back in beautiful -- and sunny! -- Paris. I think I mentioned it rained nearly the entire time I was in Milan. Isn't it supposed to be "sunny Italy"? Not this time around. It's already late afternoon, so pretty much the rest of today will be spent just catching up, buying food supplies for the next day or so, etc.

Here's my take, from over here, of the Paris "riots":

They're nowhere near the central city itself. I purposely took the public train back from the airport (feeling fairly secure in broad daylight on a Sunday) because the media has been warning people to stay off of it because it goes through "that part of town." I didn't see anything anywhere along the line that even remotely hinted of anger or violence, and certainly didn't see burnt-out cars, buildings, etc. In the city itself, everything is just as it was -- including the usual mix of every kind of people possible walking the streets, interacting as usual, etc.

Between what I've seen and what I watched on World CNN in Milan, it appears that there was an initial upset following the death (undetermined yet whether caused by police or accidental) of two North African (or possibly one North African and one Black African) teenagers that triggered the first riot in that specific neighborhood -- which I will quickly add is heavily immigrant, highly unemployed (up to 75 percent) and extremely poor. The problem then became that various gangs in the area (seems to go with the socioeconomic turf) took up the theme and have continued it at night -- only, because true cowards (like gang types seem to be) never face anyone face to face and in daylight). The flare-ups in surrounding towns seem to have been that and not continued. At this point what is going on seems to be gang-related, and that's about it.

This weekend, while I was gone, there were silent marches by thousands here in Paris to protest the rioting and noted religious leaders of all faiths were actively working toward stopping the violence. One of the extra sensitivities of the present situation, of course, is that those minorities in the area where the initial rioting occurred are Muslim -- and people here are as uncertain about Muslims these days as anybody (well, as anybody on this side of the Atlantic...).

That's the latest from here. I'll get back to posting photos and such when I've been able to catch my breath a bit from the past few days in Italy.

Strike-Out in Milan

2005-11-05T14:21:00.000-08:00

Well, I’ve had to give up on locating my relatives here in the Milan area, unfortunately. I headed over to Centrale station this morning to see if I could figure out how to get out to the Lonate Pozzolo/Cassano Magnago area, where everyone lives. I think I’ve said this before, but I’ll tell you, the railway stations here are much less user-friendly than those in Paris. In Paris there are maps everywhere, ticket counters everywhere; in Italy, they’re very few and far between. So I took the Metro down to Cadorna, where the major train hubs are, because it looked like the first leg of the trip would be on the Malpensa Express, the same train I took from the airport to here and will take back tomorrow.

Anyway, it turned out that the Malpensa Express makes a stop at a town called Busto Arsizio. That station has bus lines that go out to Lonate Pozzolo, where my great-grandfather was born, Ferno, where my great-grandmother was born, and Cassano Magnago, where all the relatives presently live – but it turns out that the train only stops at Busto Arsizio every few runs, and then the last train back is at 3:00 in the afternoon. Considering it was 10:00 a.m. already, it’s most of an hour’s ride, that would have left me a four-hour window to once again wander through cryptic stations trying to find the right bus lines, then trying to wind through towns I don’t know looking for addresses… Nope. Especially if I’d be out of luck getting back if I missed that 3:00 train.

So, that takes care of the relative hunting, at least for this trip. I’ve still never been able to get through to anybody at the phone number I have for one cousin and I’ve still never received a reply to my two e-mails to the others. Bummer.

Being back down in the area of the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio (the Cadorna station, where the Malpensa train depots), I figured I might as well take in one more sight, so I walked over to the National Museum of Science/Leonardo da Vinci and took that in. It’s actually an interesting museum, and it does have a great hall full of large models of Leonardo’s inventions, blow-ups of his many notebook drawings, etc. It was a great reminder of what a true “Renaissance man” Leonardo was: He did everything!

After that, it was back to Cadorna station, a hop on the Metro back to Centrale, and then back to the hotel room. It’s been raining ever since, so I’ve just been sitting in my hotel room doing my editing work – which I’ve now completely caught up! So, kind of a boring, but I guess productive, last day here in Milan. Tomorrow I leave Milan Malpensa at about 12:30 p.m. and head back to Paris. Actually, I can’t wait.

Wireless Schizy in Milan

2005-11-05T05:59:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been really difficult posting to this blog here in Milan. The wireless service here really varies in how well it works. While I can almost always get e-mail and look around on the Internet, anything sustained -- like trying to post on the blog (especially photos) -- gets interrupted. As a result, I'll have to wait to get back to France to put up photos. Sorry!

Meanwhile, here's the account of yesterday's adventures that I've just now been able to post:

Today (written Friday, 11/4) certainly had its ups and downs in Milan, but on the whole I really was able to see quite a lot – and walked quite a lot in the process! I have a really large-scale map of Milan (one for Paris that I’ve been using, too) which makes getting lost essentially impossible, but the good thing about all of these old European towns is that they’re circular and always have one major street or streets as a north/south axis and another major street or streets as an east/west axis – so eventually, no matter where you wind around the circle, you’ll eventually end up back on one of the major axes and you know where you’re heading!

Anyway, I headed out early today because I wanted to see Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” and my guidebooks all say there are always huge lines, even early in the morning (because they only let in 25 people at a time and then they have 15 minutes, and then the next group). The book I brought with me said it opens at 8:00 a.m., so I ran up to Centrale and took a Metro down to the area where Santa Maria della Grazie is (the church and old Dominican convent with which the da Vinci work is associated) and was the second person in line. Come 8:10 (the sign there said they open at 8:15) the doors opened – and guess what the book didn’t tell me: You’ve got to have a reservation. And they were sold out and there was no way I was going in. And this is Friday, so what do you think my chances would be for a Saturday or Sunday?

So, no “Last Supper,” but the old church itself was quite nice. Its dome was designed by another famous Italian artist, Bramante. Which makes you wonder how this little old convent church rated both da Vinci and Bramante. Well, that’s because Ludovico Sforza, the duke of Milan at the time, was planning on making that church his family mausoleum. That never came to pass, though, because, two years after da Vinci painted his “Last Supper,” Sforza ended up being beaten in battle and ended up in a French dungeon until he died eight years later...

Of course, not much else in Milan is open as early as 8:00 a.m. except churches, so I pulled out my map to find out where the next major church site was. This turned out to be the Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio (St. Ambrose) – which was fantastic! I’m so glad I went that way. This old, old church in the Romanesque style (early middle ages) dates back to 387 AD (well, parts of it) and was actually consecrated as a church by St. Ambrose himself. It’s just great. The walls of its front courtyard are filled with old carved stones, pieces of columns, gravestones and all sorts of antique pieces as you walk to the entry to the basilica, and then the church itself is great. In the crypt of the church are actually the remains of St. Ambrose himself, laid to rest between two martyr saints who were actually long gone even by Ambrose’s time and whose remains Ambrose had moved into the church! The Chapel of St. Victor off to the side of the church still remains from the 4th century.

Sant’Ambrogio has two towers, one for its monks and one for its canons (non-monastic clergy attached to a cathedral). Apparently at one point about the 11th century, the monks and the canons had some sort of falling-out and there’s a little bitty church sitting right next to the basilica where apparently the canons ended up being “banished.” Too cool!

About this point, it still being early, I had a croissant and another of those great double espressos at a sidewalk café somewhere along the way.

The next stop was the church of San Lorenzo Maggiore. San Lorenzo has 16 old Roman columns out in front of it in its piazza, which certainly have a striking effect. There’s also a statue of some Roman emperor (the inscription is long gone) out in front. The church itself is another great old church also with a 4th century chapel, that of St. Aquilino. There are supposed to be old 4th century mosaics in that chapel, but they charge admission to get in there – and whoever was supposed to be selling tickets wasn’t there. So, no “Last Supper,” no 4th century mosaics. Well, I did get to see another “Last Supper” inside San Lorenzo. So, no da Vinci, no 4th century mosaics!

Right up the street from San Lorenzo was a nice little park (also closed; give me a break!) with an interesting circular berm rising up across it. It turns out that the berm is what’s high enough that it’s what would still be above the modern-day ground level if the old Roman amphitheater right there were to be excavated!

More walking through the streets until I all of a sudden turn a corner and there’s this gigantic piazza and the Duomo – Milan’s major cathedral. Oh, man! Even with a draping over virtually all of its façade while repair work is going on (naturally…), it’s still amazingly impressive. The Duomo is huge: it’s estimated it can hold 40,000 people. Its construction began in 1386; it wasn’t even consecrated for use as the church until 1577 – and then it wasn’t until 1897 that it was finally completed! Some people consider it the greatest example of high gothic architecture ever built – others think it’s just sort of a “gothic” conglomeration as a result of it taking so long to build and its design being modified over time.

I will say this. Mass was being said while I was visiting the Duomo. And unlike every other church I’ve been in so far where mass was being said (either here or in Paris), there were tons of people attending. Apparently today was the feast day of St. Charles Borromeo, the patron of the Duomo and whose relics are enshrined in a gorgeous crypt under the high altar, so that may have increased the turnout, but all I can say is this is at least one church in Europe that still seems to have good attendance.

Next door to the Duomo is the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele, a huge cruciform building from the late 19th century which is actually one of the very first shopping malls on our planet! Very high end – to this day. Apparently there is a mall culture here just as there is in the States, and the Galleria is oftentimes referred to as “La Salotto” (the Living Room) because it’s a major meeting point, strolling point, etc.

And then, out the back side of the Galleria was none other than the renowned Teatro de la Scala, the famous opera house! There is a museum of La Scala which I went into; I may not have been able to seen an opera in La Scala, but the museum ticket gets you into one of the highest level boxes so you can look down and actually see the spectacular theater. When I was there they actually had the proscenium curtains drawn and appeared to be getting ready to set the stage for the next production. Very cool! The rest of the museum was fun with lots of paintings of composers and singers, some of the costumes from historic operas, other opera paraphernalia, libretti, etc., and an opening night poster for just about every famous opera you can think of (particularly of Verdi and Puccini). The opening night poster for Bizet’s “Carmen” still had the announcement pasted over it that the baritone scheduled to sing Escamillo was indisposed and would be replaced that night by another. Neat!

Further up the street. By now I’m back up one of the major streets. Next stop was the Museo Poldi-Pezzoli. This museum has lots and lots of Renaissance paintings, a collection of arms and armor, even a collection of very old timepieces (portable sundials before watches!), all housed in one of the old palazzi.

At this point I was starving, so I popped into what turned out to be really a cute little ristorante. Most of the little street side restaurants here have cases with lots of foods all ready to go, so I at first picked out a great croissant sandwich filled with what turned out to be wonderful cold cuts and cheese. Here as in Paris, it seems like almost everything you find staring at you is mostly meat – but I’ve got to say the one thing the Italians do better than anybody is cold cuts. Along with that I ordered a mineral water and a caffe americano (not as strong as the espresso, but still quite strong – and good). When I went upstairs to the dining area, though, I ran into the case with the pasta and the salads and… So I also ordered a great “mixed” salad – greens with mozzarella cheese, tuna, topped with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. And I’ve got to tell you, I couldn’t believe how much my body appreciated that salad. When you’ve got to have something, you’ve got to have it, and my body apparently really needed some good green veggies.

Anyway, the last stop for the day (before heading back to work some at the hotel) was the Pinacoteca di Brera, which is an absolutely incredible art museum on the top floor of the Brera, which appears to be both a school (looked like young adult level from the classes I saw in session) and a library as well. The art collection was just great. Everything from late medieval through Renaissance and all the way up to now, and every piece completely remarkable. This is definitely one of the best art museums I’ve been anywhere. They have a great website where you can look at the collections at: http://www.brera.beniculturali.it/

And that was it for today! So far I’m striking out in terms of getting ahold of my relatives here. I made numerous phone calls yesterday to one family with no answer; I’ve e-mailed the second family and had no reply there. I have one more day here (tomorrow, Saturday), so I may just try to get out that direction somehow (they’re all back by the airport) and see if I can find doors to knock on. We shall see!

Buona sera!

2005-11-03T09:51:00.000-08:00

Against all odds, folks, I made it to Milan. Let me tell you, if there’s anything more disorienting than trying to make your way around train stations and airports in one major city where you barely know the language, it’s trying to make your way around the same in two major cities with different languages in one day when you know the language of the second city even less. Yikes! Although it took from 6:30 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. and a bit of waiting to see what other people did in terms of buying Metro tickets, etc., in Milan (nowhere near as user-friendly as the Paris system, but still a good system) – and then I had to wait in the hotel lobby for another half-hour or so for my room to be ready (but during which I discovered the wireless Internet access right here in the hotel!) – I finally got settled into my room at the Hotel Delle Nazioni and all is well.

Having settled in and not having eaten all day, I set out onto the streets and wandered around Milan for a couple of hours, stopping at a small café on the way for a good bowl of penne with pesto and an espresso “doppio” (double). The hotel is to the northeast of what I suppose you’d call the “old city” of Milan, so my walks didn’t take me to any of the famous sites, but this city is just like every city in Europe: anywhere you walk you’ll run into something interesting.

Actually, I did happen upon the Giardini Pubblici (Public Gardens) as the light was beginning to dim – which is by 4:30 p.m. here. You have to remember that this is pretty far north in Italy, just south of the Alps, across which is Switzerland. And I’m pretty sure most of us think of Switzerland as a province of the “Frozen North.” The Giardini Pubblici also contain the city’s natural history museum, a cinema museum and the planetarium. It was a very, very beautiful, large public park.

I’m writing this as I’m letting the battery recharge on my computer from lots of remote use this morning (while waiting at Charles de Gaulle Airport). I’m probably going to settle for pizza by room service tonight and then head down to the lobby – the wireless hot spot in the hotel – to put this online. And then I plan to place a phone call to my Italian cousin Vittorio and see if I can orchestrate a family meeting by this weekend!

I just realized I have television in this room, which is the first time in two weeks. There are lots of Italian stations I can't understand, but also CNN. I'll have to watch some American news. I've sort of been keeping up with things (and actually finally found out what the "riot" in Paris are about: sort of a small uprising in one of the most run-down "ghetto" suburbs beset with unemployment and animosity since it's the poor Middle Eastern part of town -- gee, sounds just like home...) on BBC radio while in Paris. And I already miss the Paris apartment. This hotel room is tiny!

The blogger site is running slowly tonight, so I'll put up photos from my wanderings tomorrow -- along with whatever tomorrow brings!

Next Stop Milan!

2005-11-02T10:12:00.000-08:00

Zut alors!

It rained all day today. What an experience that was. You have to understand that Parisians never stop moving. I don’t know whether that is from all the smoking and/or the very strong coffee, but unless a Parisian is sitting down or otherwise occupied by something stationary, he or she never stops moving.

This includes driving and/or walking on the streets. If you’re walking, you keep on moving. If people start bunching up, you keep on moving. If it’s raining out, like it was today, and the sidewalks aren’t big enough for two umbrellas side by side (which is universally the case no matter how big or small the street itself may be), you keep on moving. And you do all this without ever making eye contact with anyone else on the street!

And then, if you’re driving, you keep on moving. Unless you come up to a red stop light directly in your path you keep on moving. If you’re a pedestrian, sure there are those little red and green walk/don’t walk lights; but unless there’s actually cars barreling down on you, you keep on moving. And if you’re driving and you have the light to turn and there are pedestrians crossing because the direct traffic coming at them is stopped, you keep on moving and just weave between pedestrians.

Mon dieu!

So add to that the element of rain and you can imagine how completely disoriented a stranger in Paris can be when out trying to do some purposeful shopping, as I was today. Since I’m heading for Milan tomorrow with hopes of meeting the descendants of the rest of the Arcontis who didn’t head for the New World with my great grandfather, I thought it might be nice to take a small present. At least in France, if you’re invited to someone’s home (for all I know the relatives will want to meet in a restaurant or someplace else – if they want to meet at all!), it’s customary to bring flowers or candies, something like that (but never wine, like we do in the States, unless it’s very good wine – they’re way to particular about wine here). So I thought, well, chocolates might be nice, found the name and address of La Maison du Chocolat, supposedly a great chocolate shop, and headed that way.

The area of Paris that corresponds to Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive back in the States is the area around the Champs Elysées (although that’s actually more like Melrose), the Boulevard Haussmann, the Rue du Faubourgh St-Honoré. This, of course, is where La Maison du Chocolat was supposed to be located. So I dutifully took the Métro out to the station at La Madeleine, which is a huge open place with many radiating streets (these Beverly Hills corresponding ones) and wound my way to Rue du Faubourgh St-Honoré. I took a photo of the Church of La Madeleine, in the center of the place, but didn’t go in since I was on a mission.

So here I am battling my way down St-Honoré looking for No. 225, the number for the Chocolate House. The numbers are descending as I’m walking from the 280s, I get to the 230s and see 221 at the corner – and no Maison du Chocolat anywhere. Luckily I’d passed a Godiva Chocolate store on the way; although I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of buying chocolates you could also get anywhere other than Paris, I thought I’d take a look. The chocolates were very pretty and looked appropriate for Paris, and then I came across a gift box with a cute Parisian looking picture on top and labeled “Paris,” so I figured, hey, looks like Parisian chocolate to me. I’m sure there’ll be a Godiva store in a city as fashion-centered as Milan, but…

I did have the chance to walk up another of those main streets and return to the art gallery I’d tried to go into the other day to pick up the Verlinde catalog for my son Andy. It was open today and they had a nice color catalog of his work, so there was another mission accomplished. In the course of walking back toward the Place de la Madeleine, I went past the Place Vendome, another big plaza with radiating streets, and shot a photo. That was it for trying to take photos in the rain.

Then it was back to the Métro, back home, drop off the stuff, then back onto the street and down to Monoprix to pick up some toiletries before the Milan trip – including some cologne. I very rarely wear cologne. Historically it’s given me allergy attacks; my recent prescription of Allegra seems to have relieved that, thankfully. It’s still once in a blue moon that I wear it, but, since it’s raining, it’s back to being as humid as it can possibly be here and I’ve been sweating rivers for so long now because of the humidity that I thought maybe I should take an extra precaution against being olfactorily offensive. I mean, Europeans already have a few bruised sensibilities about us américains these days...

I haven’t mentioned food for a bit, I don’t think. The last couple of days I’ve bought sandwiches for lunch at a place along the Rue du Faubourgh St-Antoine, the major street leading to my Passage. The sandwiches are great and not that expensive, so it saves some money on the prepared food end of things. Yesterday’s was curried chicken and very tasty. Came in a baguette-style roll, at least a foot long. Yum. Today I went back there and ordered another sandwich (chicken with caramelized onions – yum again) as well as a pasta salad – and without my even saying anything, both were immediately warmed up before packaging for me to take away. Interesting. I take it it’s just assumed you want a hot sandwich on a rainy day and a cold one otherwise. In any event: They were right. It was perfect for a rainy day. Tonight was the leftovers from the really good spaghetti I cooked last night (seriously!).

The rest of the day was pretty much spent getting ready for tomorrow’s trip, tying up loose ends, and just keeping dry. I’ll tell you, this is where having an apartment really pays off in Paris. The hotels are all pretty much tiny, barely bigger than the beds. You get cramped really quickly in Paris hotel rooms. With an apartment you can actually – well, live in Paris.

By the way, I should mention that so far two people have e-mailed me asking about "the riots" and one about "the attacks." I don't know how they'd say this in French, but I'd say, "Huh?" I haven't heard anything about anything like that and it's been as peaceful as ever here, at least in my district. Eh bien...

Next posting from Milan!

Oh, today's two photos:

This is the Church of La Madeleine. That's right, the church. What can I say? It was built by Napoleon -- you remember him, the guy who had himself depicted as a Roman emperor all the time...

This is the Place Vendome. The figure at the top of the monument is dressed as a Roman emperor. Any thoughts on who that might be?

Et Vive La Musique!

2005-11-01T17:26:00.000-08:00

Toussaint! Yes, All Saints’ Day, November 1, which is a legal holiday here in France – although not one greatly observed. Sort of like, oh, Columbus Day in the U.S. – no banks, no post offices, no school, but most everything else is open. It did seem like most stores opened a bit later than usual, though.

There’s also been a definite weather change today. Right with the 1st of the new month a light, but chilly wind has come up. It was gorgeous all day today – bright blue skies with big puffy clouds – but all the Parisians, I noticed, were all bundled up today. And here I am running around in my polo shirt, just about as happy as can be because the humidity (between the intermittent rain and warmth of the last several days) is finally gone and it’s the first day I haven’t started sweating rivers the moment I started moving! Sure it was a bit chilly, but, hey, I hate humidity. The Parisians probably I thought I was trés fou – but better than walking around with that apparent “touriste” sign on yesterday at Montmartre!

Not being sure what might or might not be open today, I first thought I’d see if either the open-air market at the Place d’Aligre was open or any of the supermarkets (just in case). The Aligre market is normally open every day except Mondays, and today turned out to be no exception. This market is not as upscale as the one at the Bastille on Thursdays and Sundays. Which I suppose means the prices are even better, but I didn’t really check that today (nor did I buy anything – quelle surprise!). Perhaps because it’s a bit déclassé, you hear other languages being spoken around this market than French, largely, it seems, Arabic. That may also be a function of the particular neighborhood because I noticed that the adjacent meat market sells halal meat (Muslim equivalent of kosher).

Don’t get me wrong, though: while there’s halal meat on one corner, there are butcher shops inside of the covered market also just adjacent that not only have all the usual gentile French fair, but even have baby pigs set up in roasters just like we have chickens roasting in the deli sections of our markets in the States – and a roasted pig (or any other) would definitely not be halal! The covered market also had stalls with beautiful flowers, gorgeous veggies, unbelievably fresh fish (with varieties we’ve never even heard of at home) and cheese, cheese, and more cheese. You have to understand that cheese is serious food in France: they make 300 varieties of it.

One thing I did notice on my walk is that some of the bakers had taken the day off. This causes somewhat of a concern in Paris because the normal ritual is to do all of one’s shopping each morning, normally in these open-air markets, including stopping off to buy one’s freshly baked breads. Remember, I told you that breakfast in France is coffee, maybe orange juice, and a croissant and, oftentimes, also a baguette. So you need to have bakers open in the morning or you may have an immediate serious problem. So the upshot of the “problem” I just mentioned is that there were lines out the doors of the open bakeries because the others had taken the day off. I wonder if they arrange between themselves who will take what days off and who will stay open so that life, although momentarily disrputed, can still go on in Paris!

After that, I hoped on the good old Métro for Parc La Villette, which is an interesting park with some old structures, some new in the northeast section of the city. I went out there to visit the Musée de la Musique, the Museum of Music. I told you there was a museum for everything here. It was actually a lot of fun. They presently have an exhibit called something like “John Lennon: Unfinished Music.” Rather than being about actual music never completed – although I don’t know that much about what may have been on his later solo records nor do I read enough French to be sure that in fact that wasn’t what was on display! – it was really, at least as I perceived it, about the unfinished music of his life itself. It was a great retrospective with lots of exhibits from just about every period of his life, everything from his birth certificate and grade school report cards, to the costumes he wore on the Sergeant Pepper’s album and in Magical Mystery Tour, to the crazy artwork he did with whacky old Yoko (sorry, but I still can’t quite get her). When John was shot, for a couple of weeks afterwards I couldn’t get his tune “In My Life” out of my head; so for me, the most touching exhibit was the manuscript of his lyrics for that wonderful, poignant song.

One of those things that never changes in life, apparently, is Yoko Ono. As you left the exhibit, the staff handed everyone a little key chain flashlight, imprinted “Onochord, Paris, Y.O. 2005” and a postcard with a picture of Yoko flashing the little light at you and a message on the back explaining that the idea is that Yoko wants everyone, everywhere, all over the world and at all times, to walk around flashing these little lights in the sequence of one flash, two flashes, then three flashes, signifying (one) I, (two) love, (three) you. It’s so corny I can’t stand it – but it’s also so John and Yoko that it makes me cry to remember.

The rest of the museum was amazing if you’re at all into music. There are over a thousand instruments on display, mostly European, although some very interesting non-Western as well. Of course, the entire history of Western music is represented, and some of the early instruments were just amazing. I, of course, was particularly intrigued by the incredible carving and inlaying on early guitars, from about the 1600s. I was also surprised to find out that the famous Antonio Stradivari not only made the world’s finest violins (of which two were on display), but also guitars (of which one was on display)! They also had such wonderful things as pianos owned by Haydn and Chopin, and the Hector Berlioz “signature model” guitar (a guitar that composer had owned on which he’d signed his name).

After taking in the music museum and taking quite a few photos of this interesting park (I didn’t go into the science and industry museum, which is the big children’s museum in Paris), I took the Métro back with an eye toward getting things ready for the trip to Milan on Thursday – called the hotel for directions from Malpensa Airport, bought my Métro tickets to and from Charles de Gaulle Airport, etc. And that’s pretty much it for my first holiday in Paris.

It turns out the day Carol arrives, November 11, is also a holiday here, and the same one as in the States: Armistice Day. Or at least used to be. Funny, I can’t remember now. Didn’t we end up dumping Armistice Day and wrap it into Veterans Day? Alors…

Of course, les photos:

Scenes from the market at the Place d'Aligre:

The meat market catty-corner to the open air market (with their sign about Halal meat over the door).

Cheese after cheese in the enclosed market next door.

Where else in the world would roast suckling pig be fast food?

And always beautiful, beautiful vegetables.

Morrison may be buried in Paris, but Jimi's still alive on the streets -- here he is at the Metro exit outside my Passage!

Here's a photo I was able to take of one of John Lennon's old guitar cases right before the museum docent advised me that photos were "interdite" (forbidden!) in the Lennon exhibit. Oops!

Look at the inlaying on these 17th century guitars! I still have a long, long way to go as a luthier.

And here are several photos from around Parc La Villette:

And last but not least, a little love from Yoko:

Vive l'Art!

2005-11-01T09:53:00.000-08:00

Bonjour!

It’s Tuesday morning here, November 1. I’m just now getting over to Starbucks for e-mailing, etc., so a bit late with this posting. Désolée!

Yesterday was a really enjoyable – although somewhat pricey – day. Now that I’m on my 11th day here in Paris (already!), I’ve begun to realize that the city will still be here tomorrow, so there’s not so much of a need to take in as much as possible at once. Not that that kept me from still doing a bit of traveling on the old Métro, but I took it at a bit slower pace yesterday than I have been.

Art ended up being the theme for the day, although unwittingly at first. I traveled out to Rue La Boétie to hunt down a gallery for one of my sons (the artist, Andy). He’d asked if I could go by this particular gallery because they have works by an artist he likes, Claude Verlinde, and see if I could pick up a color catalog of that artist’s works for him. Well, at least at 10:30 a.m. on a Monday, the Galerie Michelle Boulet is not open, so I’ll have to try again, Andy – sometime not in the morning and not on a Monday, just in case.

In the area, though, was a really impressive church, L’Église St-Augustin, in the Place St-Augustin, where the closest Métro stop was. Although built between 1860 and 1871, so relatively modern, this church was built in a very impressive gothic style, but without the flying buttresses and all those other architectural tricks that were necessary to keep the actual gothic churches standing. The reason St-Augustin was able to do this was because it was the first church structure built with a metal infrastructure clad with stone. It’s really quite impressive seeing this massive gothic building at one end of one of the large Parisian squares with multiple streets radiating into it and huge Empire style buildings otherwise. Joan of Arc was again present in a small place in front of the church. Very nice.

Since this abortive trip took me to pretty much the center of Paris but more northward than I generally have gone, I thought, well, I might as well go a bit further north and take a walk through Montmartre and see that famous Basilique de Sacré-Coeur up close that is ever present on the Paris skyline. The bright white Sacré-Coeur, whose multiple domes are visible all over Paris as it sits up on the Montmartre butte, is quite different from any other church in the city. It was built between 1876 and 1919, so very recently in terms of Parisian history, and, of course, is quite impressive inside.

What never ceases to amaze almost everywhere in Paris, is that every time you come across some fantastic thing to look at, it turns out there’s something else just as interesting right next to it. That turned out to be the case in Montmartre as well. Right next to the Basilica was the 12th century church of a Dominican abbey. Sacré-Coeur is very pretty, but, sorry, I like ‘em old – and I thought St-Pierre was very nice. Since it’s not a tourist biggie, it’s been left pretty much plain and simple, still serving as a simple parish church (right next to the Basilica, in which mass was being said; how many parishes can you have in one tiny hilltop village?).

As soon as you’ve made the turn to get to the entrance to St-Pierre, you’re into the village of Montmartre. This is where many of the famous Impressionist artists – Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Cézanne, Pissarro, Sisley – used to live and work, so, of course, the village still thrives on art. Including a lot of street artists. As I wandered through the village, it became obvious that not only was I wearing my backpack and carrying my camera, but I must have had a sign on my back that read “Trés rich touriste américain” because I ended up getting hit twice for street art – a silhouette and a charcoal portrait, in spite of my protests (but then, they’ve already done the work, so you’ve got to relent, don’t you…) – which I’m actually now, a bit later, glad I did. I actually like both pieces. And I really didn’t have much choice with the portrait: As I was sitting at one of the street side tables of Corcoran’s Irish Pub (I kid you not) ordering my lasagna, fries and salad lunch special (I kid you not again) in French (I kid you not yet again), the portraitist just walked up and started sketching away. What am I supposed to do with half a meal yet to finish, pick up and leave? Eh, bien…Like I say, I actually like both pieces and they will definitely bring back memories.

After descending the butte where Sacré-Coeur and the Basilica sit, on the funicular train (I walked up!), I walked back to the Métro stop Les Abbesses, which is kind of a cute little park-plaza area. There were a couple of interesting churches along that road as well, one of which I now find out from my tour book is the Martyrium of St-Denis. You’ll recall from my previous postings that the Basilica of St-Denis is where all the old kings and queens of France are buried, the basilica being consecrated to St. Denis, one of the patrons of France (there are several of those). St. Denis has an interesting story. He was beheaded as a martyr in something like the 4th century. After being beheaded, legend says he picked up his severed head and started walking down the road with it. I’m not sure where he finally dropped (possibly at the basilica of St-Denis – which is not a short walk away!), but the Martyrium supposedly marks the spot where he was beheaded. I tell you, the stories just never stop here. And of course, the city has been here so long and has so much history that few places only have one story: In 1534 at this same Martyrium, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier and six companions took their vows as the first Jesuits.

Lots of photos again. Here’s an assortment:

A side view of the Church of St-Augustin.

Joan of Arc in front of the Church of St-Augustin, as always ready to lead the defense. The next picture shows what she's defending against these days:

Traffic!

Here are a whole bunch of photos of Sacre-Coeur, St-Pierre, and the village of Montmartre:

And, finally, my original artwork purchased in Montmartre. I think the portrait is sort of reminiscent of portraits by Cezanne, and I kind of like it -- although the beard and moustache look somewhat darker than mine are; the artist said he drew me "two weeks ago"! And then, the silhouette is actually quite accurate, which is amazing because the artist cut it in no more than two minutes. Voila:

C'est tout pour maintenant!

A Day of Rest

2005-10-30T19:32:00.000-08:00

Well, it's Sunday evening. In spite of my intentions earlier, this ended up actually being a rest day. I seem to be locked in combat with Cronos here; I slept through until my alarm went off at 5:00 (my normal waking time), but seemed a bit reluctant to get up. I did, and applied myself to the morning's work (kept it short today; it's actually been a good work week). I had that finished in time to head over to Starbucks to send back the completed work -- and lo and behold, no one there to lock the door at 9:00, as supposed to be the case. So I wandered a bit; still no luck at 9:20 or so. I figured, oh, well, I'll go back and sit a bit and then try once again -- that being at 9:40, when the tables were being set out front, but the barrista telling me (in French) "No, monsieur, we're closed until 9:00"... At which point I realized that the time changed here last night just as at home, so I'd now gotten up earlier than felt quite right just to be even earlier than I thought. Eh, bien...

Anyway, I'd thought about taking one of the day trips I've been hoping on, thinking perhaps I'd take the train out to Chartres today. I packed my camera, cell phone, guidebook, light jacket, umbrella into my backpack, took the Metro to Bastille (one stop away), and then noticed my feet were just a bit more sore than usual, it seemed a bit more difficult to go up and down those stairs in the station than it had... and it hit me: I was tired. I don't know, but I suppose a week or whirlwind touring ending with that seven hours of walking yesterday might have had some effect, but...

So I decided to take the day off, so to speak, and pretty much stayed around the apartment. Dozed a little bit. Then I thought, well, I should at least get out a bit, so I walked over to the Bastille open-air market again -- which was about all there was to see because almost everything actually closes here on Sundays! I found a booth selling DVDs and thought, now, that's an idea, so I bought a couple (the remake of The Planet of the Apes from a couple of years ago and Simone, an Al Pacino movie I'd never seen).

While I didn't intend to buy any food items, I couldn't resist some home-cooked stuffed cabbage one stall displayed. I bought two pieces of the cabbage, which turned out, when I got home and ate it, to be absolutely delicious. It had a very delicate cabbage leaf wrapped around some finely ground meat concoction, wrapped in the French version of prosciutto, with a bit of tang like perhaps the cabbage had been slightly on its way to being sauerkraut (choucroute in French) -- yum. I'd thought of saving one piece, but I am weak.

The rest of the day was spent watching the DVDs (for which I had to reset my computer to something mysterious called "Region 2" -- apparently French DVD manufacturing has different technical specs than ours in America, which is "Region 1"), a bowl of that even better vegetable and wild mushroom stew I cooked the other night, and then here to Starbucks to post this message.

A quiet day, but, actually, quite welcome.

Since I have nothing more exciting to share, here are a few more photos from yesterday's wanderings around this beautiful city, in random order and without commentary. Enjoy the views!

Bonne nuit, tous le monde!

386 Photos Later

2005-10-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic day!

First of all, let me offer homage to whoever invented the cotton ball! I'll tell you, I went to bed last night with a couple of those guys plugging my ears and made it straight through to 5:00 a.m. (my normal wakeup time). Thank God -- who, now that I think about it, may be who invented the cotton ball since I think that's pretty much the way it comes off the plant. But in any event, it worked!

Being so refreshed, after getting a few hours' work done I decided to hit the streets and see more of this great city. I had read in one of my guidebooks that the Marché aux Fleurs (flower market) over by Nôtre Dame was pretty, so I thought I'd head that way again -- it's always nice to see Nôtre Dame anyway -- and eventually head for the Centre de Georges Pompidou as my highlight.

Paris before about 10:00 a.m. is virtually empty (see, I was right about the hours the neighbors keep and why!), so it's a great time to walk through quiet streets, take photos, etc. I had headed out at 8:30, so it was particularly quiet this morning. A small crowd was already massing in front of Nôtre Dame by about 9:00. I made it to the flower market only to find that it was a couple rows of stalls, only a couple of which were open -- in spite of the fact the books say they're open at 8:00. What can I say...

Now being way too early to head for the Centre Pompidou (which opens at 11:00), I figured I'd just wander around and see what I'd come across. What a great decision! I spent the next couple of hours just wandering literally from street to street heading away from Nôtre Dame across the right bank of the Seine and came across one charming street after another. One of the streets I found myself on was Rue St-Denis, which is sort of a funky little shop and cafe area. I broke down and had breakfast at one of the cafes that looked good. I had the Petit Déjeuner Express -- the Express Breakfast -- which was very good and very French: orange juice, a croissant, about half a baguette with butter (the French are some serious bread eaters -- but carbs in the morning make sense, eh?), and some of that really strong French coffee.

Across from the cafe was a plaza area, so I wandered over to take a few photos. Then I started milling through the streets again and ended up walking past Les Halles, which is a curvy, reflective glass, modern style shopping center, only to run into the most spectacular old gothic church right next to it: St. Eustace. St. Eustace is probably the most interesting church I've run into yet, probably because for a long time -- it wasn't! Although built in the 1600s (and apparently replacing an earlier church, because there is a monument inside commemorating the curés of of St. Eustace going back to 1223), it was one of many, many buildings, as it's turning out, that was commandeered during the Revolution and turned to other purposes. In this case, St. Eustace was made into a "temple of agriculture" and it's only now being restored, so many of the old side altars are dark with smoke and age, etc. It was absolutely glorious. When you see something like St. Eustace, you realize how complete and violent the French Revolution really was. It's taken us 200 years to separate church and state (well, up until our present government and where it seems to be taking us), but the French did it immediately -- by closing and oftentimes destroying the churches. They, obviously, have become a bit more mellow in more recent time!

At this point I found my way over to the Centre de Georges Pompidou, which is the city's modern art museum. What a great place to visit. Not only were the exhibits interesting -- and I am not a fan of modern art -- but the views of the city from the fifth and sixth stories were over the rooftops of Paris and were spectacular. Worth it just for that!

And then, as is always the case in this great city where old and new collide, right next to the Centre Pompidou was another old gothic church (actually, the Cloister of St. Merri, in which a pianist was practicing glorious music for a recital this evening, apparently) fronted by a public fountain area with multiple fountains, all very brightly colored and whimical. What a town!

I'd now been at it for a few hours so I thought I'd start heading back toward the Bastille area and wandered once again through Le Marais, but along other streets from where I'd walked a few days ago. More lovely streets, cute boutique shops, and more of those great old hôtels. By the time I got to the Bastille, I was definitely hungry and tired, so I broke down again and had lunch at one of those great cafes: quiche aux saumon (salmon quiche), une petite salade, a large glass of Bordeaux, and some mineral water. Délicieus!

I thought that would be it for the day, but then I remembered that the open-air market at the Bastille turns into an art market on Saturdays, so I walked through that. And then I thought, what the heck, I'm doing good -- and the weather was perfect -- why not head out to La Cimétiere du Père-Lachaise. Which is without a doubt the most incredible cemetery in the world!

I can't tell you how wonderful this cemetery is. It is literally a city of the dead, with monument after monument after monument -- covering 99 acres! And it is absolutely beautiful, and one of the most restful, contemplative places I've ever been. This cemetery is noted for the number of luminaries who are buried here -- as if one city could have more than the Napoleons, Hugos, Voltaires, etc., that I've already found buried in other places around town! But here they are, and they're a great collection, and not just from Paris. To be buried here, you must have either been born in Paris, lived in Paris (I sure hope my month counts!) or died in Paris; as a result, such figures as Oscar Wilde, Isadora Duncan, Maria Callas and even Jim Morrison of The Doors are here. I really didn't look for notables today; I was so struck by just the beauty of the place that I figured I'd save the searching for when Carol's here -- because this is a place we'll definitely have to come back to. And it's not just a museum of the celebrated dead: This is very much an active cemetery in which many were present laying flowers or other gifts on the tombs of their recently lost loved ones. Very, very poignant.

All in all, I was out walking and viewing for seven hours today -- and not a bit tired for all that exercise. I really can't imagine how I could have spent a more perfect day. And I really did take 386 photos. Here are a few:

The Seine with Notre Dame's towers and spire in the background.

The Rue St-Denis. The little cafe to the right, the Rive Droite, is where I stopped for breakfast.

The courtyard in the center of Les Halles, the very modern shopping mall.

Right to the side of Les Halles was a wonderful little garden, and beyond it the incredibly beautiful church of St-Eustace.

The tomb of Colbert, the benefactor of the church and builder in 1665.

The altar from the nave in St-Eustace.

The St. Joan in St-Eustace is so much more inspiring here than the one in Notre Dame as she lifts her eyes to God.

Always the old and new together. This is a reflection of one of the usual post-Revolutionary French buildings reflected in the glass of Les Halles.

The Centre de George Pompidou. The hamster runway along the outside is how you get up to the exhibits!

One of the fantastic views from the Centre Pompidou with the Basilique de Sacre-Coeur of Montmartre in the distance.

The ever-present Eiffel Tower over the rooftops of Paris, again from the Pompidou.

Notre Dame seen from "Georges," the restaurant at the top of the Pompidou.

And then, right across from the Pompidou the Cloitre de St-Merri with some of the whimsical fountains in the plaza area.

Heading back toward the Bastille on the Rue de Rivoli, the spectacular Hotel de Ville.

Lunch at the Cafe Bastille. Comment dit-on "yum" en francais?

The art mart at the Bastille.

A tiny, tiny section of the Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise.

Another section.

The only "celebrity" tomb I came across in my wanderings, the tomb of Abelard and Heloise. It may be the only one, but it couldn't have been better. Abelard was at one time (the Middle Ages) the most promising professor in France, which meant he was a clergyman and supposedly celibate. He took on the young Heloise as a student, the daughter of a minor nobleman, who was one of very few women who were educated at that time and was reputedly a very brilliant young lady. Of course, the two fell in love. When Heloise's father found out, he sent a group of relatives to hunt Abelard down -- and castrate him! Heloise, then, of course, was forced to enter a convent. Although the two never saw each other again, a series of letters still exists today, mostly letters by Heloise, in which it becomes obvious that their devotion never faltered. Centuries later they were brought together and buried here. They are certainly the most tragic figures in this wonderful place -- at least as opposed to Oscar Wilde, for instance, whose last words in his hotel room were "Either this wallpaper goes or I do." I kid you not. Oscar's grave will have to wait for the return visit.

The lipstick print on this bust serves as a reminder that Pere-Lachaise is a "living" cemetery and not just a museum. The dates on the tombs here go right up to the present day.

Trying to Catch Up -- Again

2005-10-28T17:48:00.000-07:00

Well, everyone, no photos today. And the reason being that not much other than very domestic sorts of things have gotten done. And the reason for that is… waking up at 2:00 a.m. again. Oh, man.

I thought, after that wonderful 11 hours of sleep the night before last, that I’d finally gotten synchronized with the Paris time zone. Well, last night I realized that while the time zone may have something to do with it, the biggest problem is the Parisians. These people hardly sleep at all!

The first night, of course, was the quarterly party, which was fine. I wasn’t so aware of anything specific the next couple of nights. But then, after that great, long night’s sleep, I was awakened again last night first by people coming home to the building at about 11:00 p.m. and then everybody gabbing in their apartments until finally hitting the sack at about 2:00. By which time, of course, I had been able to get more than a few moments’ snooze at once since about 12:00, so up I got and started in on my editing work for the day. Only to be wiped out by 8:30-ish, when I headed over to the local Starbucks for my first e-mail check and blog posting of the day.

Being again pretty much depleted of energy, I decided to attend to more of the domestic chores today. Vacuumed the apartment, ate the last of that paella from yesterday. In a Herculean effort to make myself do anything at all, I got on the Metro and went back to the Office de Tourisme on Rue des Pyramides and bought museum and Metro passes for when Carol will be here. Headed home. Other than that, I went to the local equivalent of Target – called Monoprix, a mini department store upstairs and food market downstairs – bought a few household items and staples, and that’s about it. I’m pretty sure the rest of the day will be taken up by cooking the rest of those veggies into some sort of stew, then cooking those veal chops, etc. And the laundry issue is still looming darkly overhead…

So, let me tell you about these Parisians. I have no idea where they get all their energy! Many, but not all, take that extended lunch from about 12:00 to 2:30; maybe that gives them a bit of a recharge. And then, not many of the businesses open before 10:00, so you don’t really see a lot of them on the street until toward that time; maybe they sleep until 8:00 or 9:00. But I’ll tell you this: Most of them don’t get home until about 11:00 p.m., and then, of course, they chat with the family. Kids, too! Amazing! As I said before, they finally get to sleep about 2:00 a.m. But I guess if you sleep until 8:00 or 9:00, that’s sufficient.

Well, I’m ready for them tonight. One of the things I bought at Monoprix this morning was cotton balls so I can plug up my ears. I’ll show ‘em!

Now watch me sleep through my alarm because of the cotton balls and end up working through half the day as a result and missing out on all that adventure time when I finally have the energy for it. Zut alors!

*****

5:00 P.M.: So what do we Americans do when the going gets tough? Geez, not shopping… When things are down and lackluster, as they kind of were today just from dragginess – we EAT! Of course! So by the time 3:00 o’clock ran around and I knew I didn’t have much gas left in the old tank, I figured, ah, I’ll just cook the rest of that good outdoor market food so I get it while it’s fresh.

And I did. The result: Côtes de veau avec ragôut aux legumes. Otherwise known as veal chops and vegetable stew. And once again, how do you say “yum” in French? I won’t go through all the play-by-play on this one, but I fried the chops and the stew was a blend of onions, garlic, fennel bulb, carrots, baby yellow potatoes, eggplant, the rest of that bag of assorted wild mushrooms, all stewed in a base of butter, olive oil, red wine, and then seasoned with more of that fresh Italian parsley, sea salt, freshly cracked black pepper, and some dried basil. I don’t know why we Americans don’t use more veal. Maybe we just don’t get it good enough, so it’s always breaded or heavily sauced. This veal was spectacular all by itself.

I was better about it this time: I wrapped up one of the chops for tomorrow, and there’s enough stew left for at least two more meals. Let’s see, tomorrow’s Saturday – and then Sunday is market day at the Bastille again. What timing!

I’m feeling a lot better now. It’s just about the time I’d walk over to Starbucks and check the e-mail, do the blog, etc. A nice coffee for desert would make it just about perfect.

It’ll be a decafe, though. I need to hedge my bet all I can for that midnight to 2:00 block tonight.

A Tale of Two Neighborhoods, and Un Repas Comme les Repas d'un Roi

2005-10-27T23:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, folks, here's the posting that was supposed to be up last night but my little freebie site wouldn't let me put on because I'd already used up all my space (who, moi?):

A Tale of Two Neighborhoods, and Un Repas Commes les Repas d'un Roi

After this morning’s shopping in the outdoor market at the Bastille, I wandered a bit around the neighborhood – or, actually, what turns out to be considered two neighborhoods.

A variety of streets radiate out from the Place de la Bastille. The one which would seem to be the continuation of my Rue du Faubourgh St-Antoine (and eventually ends up becoming the Rue de Rivoli over by the Louvre) becomes Rue St-Antoine, which is actually the entry into a neighborhood of Paris called Le Marais – as distinguished from my Faubourgh St-Antoine neighborhood, “faubourgh” actually meaning “suburb” or “area around,” which sort of makes sense because the actual St-Antoine, a church, rather than being over on Rue St-Antoine, is in my neighborhood, although not on either of those two streets, but on a cross street to my east, Avenue Ledru-Rollin. Have I gotten you confused enough yet? Eh, bien…

Anyway, Rue St-Antoine is another busy commercial street, one which is unusually wide for being one of the oldest streets in Paris. In fact, this Le Marais area around the Rue St-Antoine was the part of town in which the rich folk lived back in the late Middle Ages. Since Rue St-Antoine was so wide even in those days, it was sanded over and became the major jousting arena. In 1559, Henri II of France received what turned out to be a fatal blow to his eye (ouch!) in a tournament here, dying several days later – one of a number of events, incidentally, that seems to have been foretold by Nostradamus in one of his famous prophecies.

A block north of Rue St-Antoine on Rue de Brague is the Place des Vosges. The Place des Vosges is the oldest place, or square, in Paris, built by Henri IV in the early 1600s. This is a huge square surrounded by two story dwellings, all identical except for the Pavilion of the King on the south and the Pavilion of the Queen to the north. It’s really quite lovely with a nice park in the central area and a variety of interesting shops and galleries along the corridors.

The streets all around this district are lined with hôtels. The hôtels were literally the homes of the rich and famous in the early 17th century, each being a residence standing between and entrance court and a garden. Many notables in French history lived in these same hôtels still standing today, most now serving as museums of one sort or other (the French have museums for everything). Ultimately, the very rich moved out of Le Marais and went westward, ending up in the area of the Champs Elysées, and the area fell into decay until André Malraux, Charles de Gaulle’s culture minister, took an interest in it and revived the area. Today it’s the Jewish quarter and, apparently, Gay headquarters, and it’s a wonderful area of busy streets, charming boutique stores – and still those magnificent hôtels.

Also along my walk I came upon the Musée de Picasso, which is full of various pieces done by that famous artist ranging from sketches (even on the pages of an accounting ledger book!) to finished works and spanning four major periods. You really appreciate an artist like Picasso, who seems so individualistic, much more when you can see lots of pieces like this in so many different styles because you realize how incredibly skilled he was in virtually any style, not just his own. This museum came about, by the way, when his heirs donated all of the pieces in the collection to France as a way of escaping estate taxes!

At this point I returned to Rue du Faubourgh St-Antoine (my part of town) and made a stop at Ed. That’s right, Ed. Don’t ask me how it got that name (wouldn’t you expect something more French, like Pierre?), but Ed is a small supermarket. There are actually a few different supermarkets in the neighborhood, the biggest (almost a department store with food and household items downstairs and then you name it upstairs) being Monoprix. Ed’s the cheapest, which is why I went in – had to pick up laundry soap.

I then finished up my walk by turning down Avenue Ledru-Rollin, then onto Rue de Charenton, which crosses the back entrance to my Passage du Chantier, and then home.

As if it already couldn’t be any better, tonight I cooked my first meal from all that wonderful food I bought this morning – oh, man! Some of you may not know this, but I am a serious cook. At one time I actually had enrolled in the professional chef program at UCLA Extension – only to walk in the first night of class and find the program had been cancelled. Honestly! But while I may not have ended up a pro – you court reporters just don’t know how lucky you are to even have me as a scoper – I’m still pretty darned handy with a pan and spatula.

I’ll tell you this: In spite of all the technique you might learn, what makes cooking really great is the freshness of your ingredients. Which means virtually anything cooked here in France is going to be unbelievably good. And it was…

Tonight’s plat du jour was that wonderful piece of salmon topped with a mélange of wild mushrooms, and with those two beautiful artichokes alongside. Comment dit-on “yum” en français?

I started this one out by heating about an inch of water in a stew pot to boiling and then threw in the artichokes with their stems trimmed to about ¾ of an inch and the topmost leaves cut down about an inch. All you do then is keep the water simmering for about 40 minutes and the boiling water and steam do the trick. These European artichokes are great. Artichokes are related to thistles, and wild thistles, while they don’t have much “meat,” have a super rich artichoke flavor. These guys are sort of in between and with a nutty overtone – very, very good. And I’ll tell you, for what it’s worth, unlike the artichokes we have in the States where you’re left with a greenish coloring to your cooking water when you’re done, these guys are so fresh that – I kid you not – the water was dark green when they were done.

Next I put a couple tablespoons of butter and a couple tablespoons of oil – hey, this is France! – into a sauté pan and got that nice and hot. Then I added I chopped small onion, about a third of that great fennel bulb chopped, and a couple of cloves of garlic, minced, once the onions and fennel were translucent. Not many américains use fennel, but it adds a bit of sweetness as well as a great earthy, licoricey sort of taste. Mmmm. Once the garlic had been cooking for about a minute or two, I threw in the mushrooms (about half of what I bought) and about a half a cup of red wine – hey, this is France! – and then covered the pan to let everything sort of steam as well as sauté for a few minutes. Oh, and I added some of that great fresh flat-leaf (usually called Italian) parsley.

By the way, you know the secret to cooking with wine, don’t you (which you should)? Never use cooking wine! That’s right. Always use a wine that you would serve at the table – and best of all, because you won’t have a conflict in flavors, use the wine you will be serving at the table.

Eh bien… Once the mushroom mixture had begun to cook down a bit, I put in the salmon skin side up (meaning presentation side, as they say, down). The salmon here in France is really fatty – which means juicy and rich (ah, mon dieu…). Taking a trick from the Japanese, I liberally salted the skin (rather than making the fish salty, this causes the really thick fat layer under the skin to break down; again, mon dieu...) and added a nice amount of freshly ground pepper.

And that was pretty much it. Being a nice, thick piece of fish, the salmon took about seven minutes to cook to perfection (which for me is just opaque, still really moist) right alongside the mushroom mix in the pan, turning it so the skin side was down after about two minutes. Oh, and once the fish was removed from the pan, I added another couple of tablespoons to “finish” the mushroom “sauce” (hey, where did I say this is?). Then it was just a matter of plating, pouring that glass of great Cotes du Bourg wine (French wine is actually cheap in France), and settling down to a really good meal. I actually had enough for two people – but I left the bread alone (probably sacrilège here in France) and ate it all. I know, I know… Bet you didn’t think you’d get all those great photos and a cooking lesson, did you?

So, a bit more of a local and domestic sort of day here in this beautiful city of Paris that was just about as nice as it could be. Other than having my lovely Carol here with me to share it. But that, too, will come about two weeks from tomorrow. Trés bien!

Still haven’t gotten around to doing that laundry yet...

And now for the photos:

This is my Passage du Chantier from Rue du Faubourg St-Antoine. The entrance to the apartment courtyard is to the left right about where the two people are walking.

This is Rue du Faubourg St-Antoine heading west toward the Place de la Bastille.

This is the southern entrance to the Place des Vosges at the end of the street.

A couple of views of the inside of the square itself, the Place des Vosges. As with nearly everything else so far, this complex is so big that it can't be photographed in its entirety from anywhere within its perimeter!

The corridors on the ground level of the buildings around the Place des Vosges are now full of cute little shops and galleries like the one above.

This is a case with several large volumes of works by Victor Hugo in one of his rooms from the time he lived in the southwesternmost building in the Place des Vosges.

This palatial building in the Marais district is one of the old hôtels, presently the French National Archives.

Here's the Place de la Bastille again on the way home. From this direction you can see the new Bastille Opera behind it. My understanding is that this new opera house was built to be kind of the opera house for the masses -- tickets are only about 80 euros instead of the 120 or so at the Paris Opéra!

This is the approach to my Passage again from the "back entrance" off the Rue de Charenton.

Here are all the ingredients set out to prepare that wonderful first meal after this morning's shopping. This gives you an idea of how tiny the "kitchen" is in this apartment, but it works fine. And oddly enough, considering all the emphasis on food and cooking there is in France, even in large homes the kitchens are generally very, very small!

And, of course, the finished meal ready to be enjoyed. Bon appetit!

Welcome to my new blog site!

2005-10-27T08:12:00.000-07:00

After already running out of space on my little freebie Verizon pages, I've found this nice new service, blogger.com. Check here for postings from October 28 on!