all the Pomp of Dou - modern art lesson - 13Sept

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September 13th 2010

Published: September 16th 2010

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mr mink

Square Montsouris

one short perfect street nr hotel

from a Milk net cqfe nr
This was mostly all about relocating myself from Montparnasse to Montmartre which was the Monday exercise. As usual I went down to the corner bakery and had my normal pastry and café au lait breakfast. The owner of the Hotel gave me a tip as to where there was a really good piece of Montmartre which was only a couple of minutes away. Although I had been in this general direction I had not been to this actual location which was a simple sidestreet called Square Montsouris - the Parc Montsouris is at the end of it. However the street is completely full of very atmospheric 3 storey houses with ivy growing all over them and that sort of thing. It is so full of character and the whole street is rather unique that I am sure that it is very rare to be able to buy a property there, and it would also cost millions of euros. It was interesting that the very next parallel street, which was a dead end, was called Rue Braque and was completely unremarkable.

After that I got myself and

Square Montsouris

must be sorta Art Nouveau?

my bag down to the Porte d'Orleans metro station at the end of line 4 -- I have previously said that this is my favourite line mainly because it runs through the relatively most interesting places or places I have been. The other advantage is that the next stop, where I found myself a cheap Hotel on Saturday, was at Metro stop Barbe Rochechouart, just happens to be on line 4, and almost as important is only two stops away from Gare de l'Est which is where I get the TGV to Switzerland on Saturday morning. When I got to Hotel Angleterre there was almost the same situation as on Saturday -- I can certainly give you a room for one night but I have to wait for the boss to see whether five nights is okay. I do not know how they run a hotel like this but maybe there are a lot of people who only stay one night or whatever. It is convenient for me and it is also way cheaper (50E) than the other place (79E) although saving money is not the prime thing - convenience certainly is. The room is also a double room so

Square Montsouris

bigger. Anyway it was finally sorted out while I updated my iPod on their WiFi in the "lounge" downstairs.

I was considering going to Sainte Chapelle today on the basis that as it faces east the light through the stained glass was probably best viewed in the morning. So I went down instead to the Beauborg area which is where the Centre Pompidou is. The best thing is that it is open until 10 PM every day so I thought I could have a long enough session in there and simply go and sample some fine cuisine in the Marais area around after. I went first to the Atelier Brancusi, which is like an annex of the Pompidou, which preserves the workshop of Brancusi the sculptor. That was only open between 2 PM and 6 PM so that was definitely first stop. This was now free anyway - then into the Pompidou where the tickets are €10 a pop (apparently they are €12 in the peak season of July -- August or something). There was absolutely no queue whatsoever despite what the Rough Guide says (unlike the Louvre). There was a collection of female artists generally raging against the

the Obama phone

in Barbes _ so many phone shops, yes we can!

patriarchy on level IV, then it was up to level V for the true history of 20th-century art, largely invented by the French of course. This runs up 25 rooms which group the various artists and movements together. Great selection of Kandisnsky and Leger, 2 of my faves. It was just so nice being able to wander around with a camera and simply take a picture of whatever you want, which is so much more civilised than the paranoia or outright prohibition of photographs in such exhibitions in Australia. Mind you the Pompidou does of course own almost all of these works. I had seen some of them strangely enough at a visiting Pompidou Centre exhibition in Hong Kong last time I was there -- certainly including the Picasso Harlequin painting but not the Woman with the Green Eye or whatever it is called by whoever. I spent about four hours there altogether which was pretty much enough, although I did see everything.

Out of there and struggled into the streets of the Marais and trying to find the latest hot pick restaurant according to the Rough Guide, called Le Pamphlet. This is hardly the first time that their

Atelier Brancusi

map or location had been off. I even found one of the big lit up maps of the neighbourhood and even using the alphabetical index could not find the street in question. So I did then manage to find the Yellow Taxi resto. Sometimes it is worth relying on recommendations as there are plenty of just ordinary restaurants around -- such as the Savoyard restaurant the other night. Anyway the food : carpaccio de canard en tapenade it said (12E). Carpaccio is normally raw and I was perhaps not entirely sure of this in relation to duck. Anyway it was incredibly thinly sliced on the plate and had what seemed to be more of a balsamic sort of dressing on top rather than tapenade. Similar to eating very thinly sliced ham. Although I realised later that one of their four main plates was "cheval" (horse) - which I should have tried really for the experience, and given this restaurant generally I am sure would have been very good. However I went instead for a lamb dish, but this was soldout so substituted a large chunk of pork (20E) which was virtually the best pork I have ever had in a

Pompidou Ctr

where you enter

restaurant (mind you do not get pork that much in Australia anyway). With this I had un quart (250ml) of red wine which was more than okay and was only nine euros. Then I had the cheese plate which had six small slices of some superb room temperature cheeses (13E). Rather than attempting my luck with a coffee (not at 11pm!) I instead asked for a sweet wine and got a glass of Singla (French whatever that is and wherever it comes from, but it was nice and it was only four euros). So all up the bill was 58 euros which was pretty reasonable and the quality was certainly up there.

I am actually dictating this on Tuesday at my table on the third floor of the Angleterre - over the Rue Bervic, which is a side street and relatively quiet ust off a main street about 200m from Metro station, although one can certainly hear the aboveground metro line running past 200 m or so. The sun is streaming in which is nice -- served to hang my washed shirt out on a hanger on my little balcony

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