Looking Back on the Trip

This trip was far better than last year when we battled bad weather.  And we had son Jeff & his family with us for the first week.  Thankfully the weather was good, we ran around a lot.  They mastered the Metro, toured Versailles, & got to know Paris & French food firsthand.

The following week the weather turned a bit rainy, we mostly chilled.  The last week and a half the weather was great.  We met up with old friends who were back in town.

Paris is the city that is always changing yet remains the same in many ways.

What's different this year:

1.)  Black was the "in" summer color.  Mademoiselles Noires were everywhere.

2.) The French are having a love affair with the American hamburger.  There are dedicated burger joints (Frogburger is one, Jeff reported that the burgers are great). They're also on lots of other menus.  But they're pricey...$18-$20 for a burger & fries.

3.) The meal portions seem larger or...our appetites are smaller.  We parteger'd alot & not to save money but that's all the food we wanted.  OTOH, we did see a FLOL (French little old lady) chow down an appetizer, a full order of moules et frites and a waffle dessert while we shared the moules et frites & were satisfied.  BTW, it's all-you-can-eat frites & ketchup so there's no reason to walk away hungry.

4.) Not all eating places appreciated our parteger.  But the ones we know & love did.

5.) With clothes in general, anything goes these days.  Even on this trip, we chose earth colors & tried to stay conservatively dressed.  Wow!  Were we square!  That's out the window now.  Bold colors, bermuda shorts for the guys & short shorts for the ladies are all in.  Those neon colored sneakers...all over.

It is now four years in a row that we've been to Paris.  And while it remains our first love, we've decided not to return next year.  We have an informal goal to meet up with New Zealand friends somewhere in the world in 2015.  And South Africa is beckoning, last time there in 1999.

I'm about to sign off but I just can't have a post without some photos.  So here are a few.  I didn't have an easy time choosing them because you've already seen the best.

 

At the Trocadero with the girls.

Sort of a still life.  Our wine while waiting for the parteger'd burger previously posted.  Burgers & wine...only in Paris.

How's this for a hands-on hug?

Lunch on rue Cler.  I'm about to do my own hands-on with steak tartare.  Nora has a salad, Elise has a chicken thingy & Jeff is waiting for his to arrive.


OK, so now I'm truly signing off for our 2014 overseas travel.  Thank you for stopping by.  Hope you'll be back with us next year wherever that will be.


 
Au revoir!!

@ Home, Catching Up

We’re back, long but uneventful return trip.  Air travel ceased being enjoyable years ago.  It is now becoming less & less endurable.  We pay extra for more legroom but the seat recline is still inadequate.  The number of toilets per filled plane is inadequate.  The food...well, it probably meets the caloric minimum but that’s all.

OK, returning to the blog.  I went to the Carnavalet Museum again looking for Napoleon & finally found him.  The room devoted to this hero of the early 19^th century had shrunk to the bare minimum.  Yes, there was a grand portrait of him but Josephine was nowhere and my favorite portrait of him after all his defeats was put back into storage.

Here's Napoleon in 1809, a very good year for him (read...he won a bunch of battles).  All 5'6" of him.

The only other item related to him was his armor, not very interesting so I didn't shoot it.

However, if you want to have a peek at a very attractive early 19th century lady, 16 years old but already a favorite among the big shot men of the time (Napoleon among them), I give you Juliette Recamier.

Elsewhere in the museum, this painting struck me because of the fineness of the detail.  It was as if I was looking at a photo, not a painting.

It's difficult to see that with this photo, but I took a second shot by zooming in on the lady in the white bonnet.

As I went nose to nose with her, I saw the cracks were larger than some of he brush strokes.  Doing an entire painting this way had to be a long, difficult process.

I have come very late to appreciate history, only in the last five years or so.  French history is fascinating because so much happens, especially in the 19th century.  There were constant revolutions (1789 was just the start), leaders being deposed, sieges, uprisings, the lot.  Two paintings caught my eye only because of the subject matter and the date they were painted.

I've taken many photos of the Bastille Column...the French refer to it as Colonne de Juilliet, the July Column commemorating a three day uprising on July 28, 29, 30, 1830 and the people who died, each of their names on the column by day.

Here's a painting from 1851, another uprising.  This event took place on rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine, a street we walk down often in Paris.  Notice the July Column in the upper left.

I got three of the dimensions right, probably walking through the very place where this event happened.  It's only the time dimension that's off by about 163 years.

Another painting fascinating to me (and maybe me alone, but you're stuck seeing it).  I've mentioned many times that the Paris City Hall, L'Hotel de Ville, is my favorite, favorite Paris landmark of all time.

Here is a portion of a painting of L'Hotel de Ville done in 1851.

It's hard to see so I'm going to zoom in on a piece:

Note the statues, something that fascinates me about the HdeV seen today.  EXCEPT, today's HdeV was built from 1873 - 1892 to replace this one that was destroyed by the Paris Commune in 1871, also wiping out records from the 1789 revolution.

(As an aside, history portrays the Paris Commune as bad, bad news.   An uprising of vandals that set about ravaging everything, killing indiscriminately, & finally defeated.  Not all revolutions are good.)

Anyhow, what this painting revealed to me for the first time is that the statues I love so much now are an attempt to re-create the earlier HdeV.

OK, one more painting, then we move on.  Musical history-wise the years 1825 - 1850 were glorious ones for Paris.  Two of the world's finest composers, Frederic Chopin & Franz Liszt were hard at work.  They were colleagues, held "salons" together.  This is where the rich would have a gathering of friends & these two young fellas gaining in musical popularity would play for the small crowd.  It is known that they would also play together, four hands on the piano.  (If I had a time machine, this is one place/time I'd like to be.)

Liszt was not only a composer, but one of the finest (according to present day Jeffrey Siegal...THE very finest) piano soloists around.

Chopin lived a short life, 1810-1849, a chronic lung disorder got him early.  Liszt lived much longer, 1811-1886.  Liszt was the rock star of his time.  Women swooned.  Think The Beatles.

Here's an undated painting from when he was young, you can see why the swooning regardless of his musical talent.

 ======

OK, back to present day reality.  We saw school kids being marched around probably to see some of the local landmarks,  Here is a grand idea of a safety precaution, put a vest on each youngster.

Exploring a new street on our last day in Paris, as we walked down Rue Bretagne we passed by this floral display, a riot of colors.

And finally, three of Susanne's shots showing the Paris edition of a worldwide phenomena, cell phones everywhere.

I'm convinced that 90% of all mobile phone calls are made not because they're necessary but because you can.

Last dinner in Paris; at Le Petit Bofinger (that's "bo fan jay" but swallow the 'n', not "bo finger").  Food good, service OK, wouldn't go back cuz of lots of other unexplored places.

One more post coming, a looking back on the trip.

Down to the Wire

Leaving is getting close. I will try to finish once we get home but often there's lots to catch up on and when we're back to life in AZ, Paris becomes a wonderful memory.

Blog fatigue (BF) is setting in but fortunately as I write this I'm two completed posts ahead.

How do I know that BF is here?  It's when I see pics I've recently taken but am losing the wherewithal to do all that it takes to write about & post them, that's BF.  Example...today we went to the Museé Carnavalet...the museum of the history of Paris.  For years I avoided it.  I went last year & liked it.  I'm decidedly not enthusiastic about posting a blog about it, photos & all.

The permanent collection is a collection of art (in a way, it is an art museum) & artifacts about Paris thru the centuries.  Its exhibits are divided into the various eras of Paris' past.  The only periods that interest me are the Revolution & its aftermath (as messy as it was) and the Napoleonic period that soon followed, IOW from about 1788 to 1830 or 1840.  That's also the time when Chopin & Liszt were doing their thing.

We learned today that the Napoleon section is closed.  Bummer!

Right now there is a temporary photographic exhibition of the liberation of Paris.  There's been lots of commemoration of that event 70 years ago last month.

We did the liberation thing first.  It was very good, learned alot but after awhile, the hundreds of B&W photos & movie clips zone you out.  We were not allowed to take photos, so here is a description of what we saw.

It turns out, very soon after Paris was liberated, the then curator of the Carnavalet put a call out to everyone & anyone who took pics & in anyway recorded the occupation & the liberation.  There was an exhibition in November 1944 & this is an attempt to take those resources, add more, then show what they have.

The occupation was not pretty, neither was the liberation.  The occupation lasted from June, 1940 until August, 1944.  The German Army, instead of simply putting forth, "OK, we're in charge now...just go about your business; you don't bother us & we won't bother you", they started actively implementing the Nazi ideology...persecution & deportation of Jews, gypsies, gays & any other opposition.  And of course, the systematic looting of art treasures from museums & private collections alike.

This exhibition was less concerned with the occupation; attempting only to show what it was like shortly before the liberation began.  The scenes of German officers dining at the Meurice & other Parisian fineries.  The French language street signs replaced with German language signs.  They had to...the locals took down all their signs.  Paris, a city of 3 million before the occupation shrunk down to 800 thousand by liberation.

But once the street fighting started, the cameras clicked & we are there.  The exhibit has perspective...informed us that the recorded liberation history was glamorized.  The only fighting photos published showed armed men but in reality, the liberation fighters were poorly armed...only about 500 rifles & 800 pistols at the start plus whatever they could take from the dead.

There's a short film clip of a German soldier wounded in the street, the section when he was killed removed, then we see partisan fighters, a man & a woman stripping his body of weapons & ammunition. 

Finally we get thru the fighting & we see Allied soldiers (the Allies saw to it de Gaulle & his men went first) entering the city to the joy & affection of the citizens.  We see German officers & soldiers being marched away.  Here you have partisan fighters who have an obligation to protect the surrendered Germans but occasionally a citizen breaks thru and klops a prisoner in the head.  It's wrong but how can you blame them?

Then the scene shifts to the celebration.  I'm telling you, Times Square on New Year's Eve has nothing on Place de la Concorde that day.  Even through the graininess of those old B&W movies, the throngs of people...the sheer joy & relief that the horrendous, long, dark night is finally over...comes thru.  I kinda had tears in my eyes.

Gen. de Gaulle goes to the Hotel de Ville (the same one that stands there today) and gives a stirring victory speech.  At that point, Susanne & I were photographed out so we went to see the rest of the museum.

This is my last post from Paris.  Today/Monday we have both lunch & dinner with friends, tomorrow it's Pack Day & Wednesday we leave.  When I originally planned the trip, I wanted to stay til Thursday.  Call me superstitious but I didn't want to fly on Sept. 11.

 ======

As we left the museum we came upon the Victor Hugo School with this plaque next to the entrance.

 

With the some assist from Google Translate, here's what it says:

"From 1942 - 1944 more than 11,000 children were deported from France by the Nazis
with the active participation of the Vichy French Government.

They were murdered in the death camps because they were born as Jews.

More than 500 of these children lived in the 3^rd Arrondissement. 

Many of them attended the Lycee Victor Hugo."

How's THAT for tying the past to the present!!!  (Notice there is no apology for the French who participated.)

 =======

The rest of the Carnavalet Museum had many, many works of art & history.  Here are a few.

If you're wondering about the root causes of the French Revolution, consider this.  Here you are, poor.  Dirt poor, living in a city that's a mess.  No sanitation, garbage everywhere, stinking open sewers.  You struggle every meal to feed your family.  Your housing is appalling, no heat, leaking roof, too many people crammed into too few rooms.  And no way to improve your lot.

Then there is your King-dude.  All fancied up, fabulous clothes, the finest food, living like a well, king.

And why him, not me?  (Because he picked his father more carefully, that's why.)

Let's have a Revolution!!!

OTOH, think of ole Louis XVI.  "Why are they so mad at me?  I'm just doin' what my father did & his father before him.  I mean, I'm number 16, for gawd's sake!!"

Back to reality...here's what the Bastille looked like before.

Let's not forget Marie-Antoinette.  Last year I posted paintings of their beheadings.  I'll not repeat them here.

And if you want to have a gander at the facilitator, here's the man who invented the guillotine.  It's named after him...surprise!!!!!

May I present the happy, somewhat smiling le docteur Joseph-Ignace Guillotin.

Shhhhh.  Photographer at work.

====

Lunch at the Foyer de Madeleine, in the basement of the Madeleine Church.  Here's a LINK to explain what it's all about,
 
Father McCarthy couldn't make it this year so it was just the three of us, Susanne, Laurie & me.

Here are our wonderful, kind, eager volunteer servers & photographer, but reluctant photographic subjects.  The lady on the right had a decidedly British accent.

You purchase a one year membership in the association for 5 euros per person.  The lunch then costs 8.50 euros each.  Our membership from last year was still good.  Our lunch would cost double to triple the price anywhere else in Paris.  The room is a very long corridor.  The food is basic French, nothing fancy but plentiful & quite good.

We saw Laurie our first evening at the vegetarian restaurant but sat at opposite ends of the table so this was our chance to really catch up.  After the meal, there's a place for coffee at the far end of the corridor where it makes a right turn, unbelievably inexpensive (two espressos & a tea for 2.60 euros).  All in all, we were together two hours & it seemed to go like a flash.

 =====

After saying our good-byes, Susanne & I strolled over to Place de l'Opera with Opera Garnier as its centerpiece, my 2nd favorite building in Paris,

Modern operas have such large casts that a new opera house had to be built & this one now houses ballet.

The Place is busy, busy.  Below it is a major Metro station & behind it is a shuttle that runs to/from both Orly & de Gaulle Airports.

Here's a vid.

OK....TBF, total blog fatigue.  I'm publishing this shortly, then hopefully I'll do at least one more post from home.  Thanks for tuning in.

SZ