Classic Paris and Something New

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We woke up at 6:30 and started getting ready for our first full day in Paris. It was a beautiful Pairs morning, just a bit of chill in the air, but not cold with clear blue skies. The shop keepers were busy getting ready for the day ahead. Restaurants were preparing for the day and making the switch from winter to summer seating. The collapsible walls were coming down to make way for the famous sidewalk seating. Most of Paris seem still asleep, a few business men were making there way to the office, tourist that had earlier morning arrivals were arriving at the hotel across the street.

When you get up with the workers you can see why Paris is 100 times cleaner than the streets of New York. Each shop owner sweeps the sidewalk not only in front of his store front but often his neighbors should they be opening latter. The owner of the cheese shop not only washed his sidewalks he washed his windows, cleaned his tables outside and made everything perfect for the day’s customers. It was a perfect start to a wonderful day in Paris.

The morning continued as we made our way down to the breakfast room in the basement, what I am sure was once a wine cellar. A traditional French breakfast is served, starting with hot coffee and milk that has been heated so as to not cool down your coffee. Each of us got our own mini pot or about three cups of coffee. A perfect croissant is of course part of the breakfast, along with a baguette, pound cake, jams, yogurt, fruit cup and freshly squeezed orange juice.

As we ate breakfast, we discussed our game plan for the day ahead. At the table behind us was three retired women also planning their day in Paris, which was their last before whey were off to Provence to take a couple of days of watercolor classes.

Classic Paris

The first half of our day was devoted to classic Paris sites, Sainte-Chapelle and the Louvre. First stop Sainte-Chapelle. The best time to visit this chapel is during the week and in the morning. Otherwise the lines are just to long. We were a bit behind schedule, but the only line we needed to wait in was the security line which took less than 30 minutes. The Paris Pass does not allow you to take cuts for the security check, but you don’t have to wait in line to buy a ticket once you get past security.

Sainte-Chapelle

The chapel is on the Ile de Cite. This is one of two small islands in the middle of the Seine, the second being Ile St. Louis. Ile de Cite was actually the center of Paris during most of the time up until Louis XIV. The island is also the home of Notre Dame and many other historic buildings. Sainte-Chapelle is about 2 blocks form Notre Dame, which we did not see today, other than the towers, and yes, they are both still standing.

The chapel was built in the early 13^th century under commission of Louis IX. It is a small chapel and the claim to fame is the 6,458 square feet of the oldest stained-glass windows in Paris. If you just go in and stay on the first floor you will miss the actual beauty of this chapel. You must take the 32 steps up the narrow spiral staircase to get to the second floor where the splendor of the stained-glass windows come to life. It was a beautifully sunny day, so we got the full affect of the sun through the brightly colored glass.

We admired the beauty of the small chapel for a few minutes then walked along the Seine to our next stop, the Louvre.

The Louvre in Under 90 Minutes

It was a great day for a walk along the Seine. We walked Across Pont Neuf to get to the right bank, then strolled down the tree line quai. The Louvre is about a mile from Sainte-Chapelle, but as I said it was a beautiful day with a light breeze. The night before we had mapped out what we wanted to see to this visit of the Louvre. We have already done the big things, Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and The Winged Victory, so this time we decided to pick very different areas of the museum.

The Louvre, as I am sure you know, was originally the palace for the kings of France. It remained the main palace until Louis XIV built Versailles. He hated the Louvre as a child and felt like a prisoner so as soon as he was of age, he moved out and had Versailles built. The Louvre is huge, not nearly as grand as Versailles but a large palace none the less. The museum that it now contains would take at least 3 days to fully explore, but we can barely take 3 hours in a museum before we are overwhelmed. So, for this visit we have a very definite battle plan.

There are three main sections of the Louvre, the Richelieu, the Sully and the Denon (where the Mona Lisa and the crowds are located). With the Paris Pass, we skipped the line and walked right in to the main entrance located under the pyramid. Our first stop was a court yard on the sub ground floor. This contained several statutes of horses that were originally on the grounds of Louis XIV hunting lodge called Marly. From there we were off to the second floor to visit the apartments of Napoléon III, unfortunately they were closed for renovation. Next, we headed to the Rubens room that contained 24 pictures commissioned by Marie de Medici, queen of France in early 17^th century.

From there we headed to the Sully Wing to view the only impressionist paintings in the entire museum, I would say there were less than 40 in all. A couple of Monet’s, Cezanne, Renoir, etc. The Orsay and the Orangerie have much better collections. From there we headed to the Denon to find the Wrath of the Medusa, however it was in same section as the Mona Lisa, so we opted out of that. We did run across the Winged Victory on our way out, so we saw one of the big-ticket items.

With that, we were done and out and headed towards lunch. There is much more to see, much of which we have seen on previous visits. I highly recommend it, but it is very important to plan your visit and limit how much time you spend in the museum. There is just too much of Paris to see to spend an entire day in the Louvre, unless of course art is 100%!y(MISSING)our thing.

Something New

The Louvre is now connected directly to a metro station, so you don’t even have to go back up to street level. We walked through an underground mall to the metro station, hopped on the 1 which we took to the Bastille and then transferred to the 5. We were headed to the Oberkampf area in the 11^th. We have not previously been to this section of Paris; it is a very residential neighborhood much like the Belmont area in Portland or a much less modern Williamsburg in New York. The only reason we stop here was to have lunch at a off the beaten bath sandwich shop called L’Epicerie le Verre. It was on our way to our next stop, so a perfect place for lunch. Many trips in the past we have made the enjoyable mistake of having a big lunch, this trip we are tying to keep our lunches simple yet uniquely French. L’Epicerie was perfect choice, it is a small gourmet food shop with a wonderful sandwich counter. The selection of cheeses alone will make your mouth water. We went with the two special sandwiches of the day; for me it was the Saucisse Fraiche, mayo au curry, caruties and Radis. (Freshly made house sausage with a curry aioli with herbs and radishes on a fresh mini baguette. Jerry had the Saucisson a L’ail, moutarde de Dijon and piguillos (salami, with artichokes, olive oil, Dijon mustard and piquillo peppers.) Both sandwiches were possibly the best sandwich we have ever had.

The Museum of Music

Our last site for the day was deep in the 19^th in a section called La Villette. This is a huge area comprised of a museum, the philharmonic music hall, an equestrian center and several other buildings some still being built. There was a large building for special exhibits, which was currently housing the King Tut collection. Our destination here was the Musee de La Musique. This is a relative new comer to the Paris museum scene opening in 1997. It houses over 7000 musical instruments and is devoted to the history and evolution of musical instruments from the 17^th century on. There is even a musician present daily performing and demonstrating one of the various instruments in the collection. The museum covers 5 floors and is pretty easy to navigate. The headset that comes with your entrance fee, only adds to your experience as you cannot only learn about the instrument on display, but hear it in action.

We spent roughly 90 minutes in the museum. You could spend much longer if you listened to every instrument on display, but you might be there for hours.

That concluded the site seeing portion of the day and we headed back to the hotel for wine-thirty. Once back on Rue Cler, Jerry went to the pharmacy to purchase some ear plugs (mornings can be a bit loud with all of the morning deliveries to the restaurants and shops) and I headed to the store to purchase some wine and water.

We were both still pretty tired from the flight, not to mention a full day of sites. We relaxed with some wine in our room and I began this post (which I am now finishing the next morning as after dinner was just to tired to complete it).

Hugo & Co

Speaking of dinner, I was very much looking forward to tonight’s dinner as it was at a restaurant owned by Constance (whom I met several years back in my first Paris cooking class, she was the instructor) and her Husband. It is located just on the edge of the Latin Quarter. It is a small bistro with both outside and inside seating, the front windows can be completely opened so even if you are inside you are outside if sitting in the first section of tables. It was a very nice night so we ate outside. In fact, it was about 70 degrees and very comfortable for al fresco eating. The menu is very updated French. Meaning it is not what most people think of when they think French, no heavy sauces, or meat centric dishes. Instead it was more like French Tapas, small plates to share and larger plates to share or not.

We started of course with our champagne while we reviewed the menu. It was a very simple menu with some very eclectic offerings (no kale or beets). After narrowing down the small plate options to 4, we choose to that we wanted to start with, Ossau Iraty and Poulet Frit. Ossau Iraty is a sheep milks chees from the Pyrenees and was served with black cherry jam and chili. The poulet frit was deep fried boneless chicken, with olive oil sauce, red radish and chili mayonnaise sauce. Both were very good, could have used a side ramekin of the chili mayonnaise sauce as it was the star of that plate.

First Aside: You may have noticed that the French very much love their mayonnaise. To be clear this is not your standard Hellmans (Best Foods for my West Coast readers) mayo, this is the real deal, even Jerry can eat it and he hates mayonnaise.

We are tying to broaden our wine experience this trip, we typically stay with what we know, Chateau neuf de Pape, St. Emillion, etc., so tonight I ordered a Burgundy. These wines are pretty untouchable price wise back home, but here they are very reasonable. Tonight’s wine was a 2014 J. Claude Bachelet AOP Chassagne Montrachet. A red burgundy, which this was, is basically a Pinot Noir, most are not blended some are. This wine was quite nice, light and went well with our starters and the main dish to come.

Our mains were Saumon Grille and Porc et Poulpe. Jerry ordered the salmon, full English menu description: Organic Salmon, crispy chickpeas panisse with a horseradish cream and caper buds. The chickpeas were transformed to a tasty chickpea fry for lack of better description and again the star of the dish was the horseradish cream (definitely needed more of that). My main was a bit more adventuresome. The dish was a braised pork check with deep fried octopus over a barbeque sauce. The octopus was crispy by the cooking method caused it to be a bit overcooked and a little chewy. The pork cheek was very tasty, but again, a little try and tough by the last few bits.

Overall it was a very good meal and very different from what we normally eat while in France. The restaurant itself was full of mostly locals with a scattering of tourists. Two tables worth noting, both actually the same one just different seatings. The first was the American family, the oldest daughter spoke French the youngest was spoiled and temperamental. When the father first sat down, he was in a very foul mood (tragic uber experience evidently, I have an easy fix, just take the metro). My first thought was oh no here are the ugly American’s but dad mellowed (with wine) and they turned out to be fine. The second round was a group of young Paris Business men. Had this been any place in New York, these young men would have been arrogant and obnoxious, these men, while loud did not really give the appearance of arrogance, but then I am not French so maybe they were. In any event, they obviously knew the chef as they were having things clearly not on the menu, roasted potatoes and lamb, both smelled and looked great.

To finish off the meal Jerry had a baba rum (cake soaked in rum) and I had caramelized apples with Brittany biscuits served with a thyme sour cream. Both were very good and also very light. Overall the meal was pleasant and very light, we didn’t walk away feeling stuffed or loaded down with butter.

With our dinner over we headed to the Metro and back to the hotel. I tried to finish this blog post last night, but at 11, I basically turned into a pumpkin.

All most for got, dish of the day was definitely the two sandwiches at lunch.

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Photos

Oops, where is the art
Frames saved from the Nazi during WWII

Pork & Octopus
Yes even the coleslaw was good