Paris, From East to West

---

The First Full Day

Hotel

Let me start with a note on our hotel. We are staying at Hotel de Champ Mars, a small hotel off the famed Rue Cler and approximately 8 blocks from the Eifel Tower. It is reasonably priced at a 115 Euros a night for a double room with private bath. The room is actually larger than most we have had in Europe and much larger than those we have had for much more in New York. For an extra 8 € a day (each) you can have breakfast, either in the breakfast room downstairs, or brought to your room, by one of the lovely French maids, in full maid dress, and yes I mean black dress, white apron, you might think you were in Downton Abby. The location is excellent 3 blocks from the number 8 metro. Once you are on the Metro, all of Paris awaits you. It is efficient, relatively clean, and with our Paris Visite pass, we have unlimited travel for 6 days.

Day 2

After our introductory first day upon arrival, today we set out with an itinerary very full, including a couple of items that we did not get to yesterday.

Jerry awoke a 5am, now those of you that know Jerry, 5am is unheard for him, in fact getting up before me is unheard of, but none the less he was up and ready for the day. Even though we got up early, we were quite leisurely about getting ready. We finally headed for the breakfast room at 9:30. Breakfast in France, or at least Paris, is not what American’s (US Americans, not our friends to the north or south) would call breakfast, there are no eggs, bacon, waffles, etc. But what there is, well who needs eggs or bacon, when you have the best croissant you will ever eat in your life, a banquette to spread your brie on. Real yogurt not Yoplait, apple sauce or as we say here in France Compote Pomme. And the coffee, well it’s real not Starbucks, real coffee and strong, they even serve the milk hot so as to not cool down your café. Finally, a class of fresh squeezed orange juice.

While at breakfast one of the owners sat down and chatted with us. Inquired of our day and made some suggestions for off the path sites. It was good talking with her as she corrected our very bad pronunciation on every single word.

After breakfast we were off. The metro, two transfers, to Place de l’ena. This is a roundabout in eastern Paris; one direction is the Tracadero, one the Arc de Triomphe, another Embassy row. We headed towards Embassy row, well after 20 minutes of trying to figure out which way to go. Again, a very friendly and helpful Parisian, pointed us in the right direction. We walked by many embassies, mostly Arabic. Our destination was the Baccarat Museum. We found the museum with out much trouble. It is a three room museum with more crystal than you can really even dream of. Some of the pieces were enormous, like the 9 foot what I can only call, chandelier floor lamp. It was not on the museum pass, but was only 5€. I would recommend it if you appreciate crystal at all, it only takes 20 minutes or so to see and the neighborhood is interesting.

From there we walked to the Tracadero. Is an area named after a battle between French and the Spanish near Cadiz. Today it houses several museums, the two largest are the Musee de Architectural Heritage (1000 years of architecture, Jerry will visit this on a return trip as it will take an entire day itself) the other is the Maritime Museum. The Tracadero is directly across the Seine from the Eifel Tower. We took several pictures here and then headed across the river on our way to the Art Nouvau Door built in 1901 (just after the Eifel Tower) by Jules Lavirotte, it is one of the most ornate doors in all of Paris. From there we walked back to our hotel to get directions to Cole Porter’s Paris home.

Cole Porter lived in Paris during the First World War, it is where he met his wife (yes a marriage of convenience everyone knew of his homosexuality). While here he composed many of are great standards and the first classical jazz piece. It was released 4 months before Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The house in Paris was famed for numerous parties to indulge Cole’s sexual appetites. There is no picture of the house as, it was not much to look at from the street, but it was a must to at least walk the same street of the man who wrote the song we danced to at our wedding Night and Day. The house is located close to the Rodin Museum, but that is for another day.

After our visit with Mr. Porter, we headed to La Concorde and the L'Orangrie, our first real museum stop of the trip. Since it was lunch time we first spent some time finding a restaurant. This led us to walk down the St. Honre. The Madison Avenue of Paris. Every designer you can name had a store on this street and the people shopping had money to burn. This is a good opportunity to talk about how people dress in Paris. First, let me say how they don’t dress. The men, even the teenagers, do not wear their jeans around their ankles; the women do not wear what Jerry calls ass smashers. The women are all coifed, dress immaculately and can walk anywhere in their heels, even the hills of Montmartre or the numerous cobble stone streets, I can barely walk them in my orthopedic shoes. The men are all smartly dressed, few jeans, mostly slacks, and of curse they are not fat so they all have form fitting shirts if they are young. The older set is possibly the most fashionable, with their scarves, hats and jackets.

We walked longer than my feet could really bare, but finally came what turned out to be a local haunt for the boys. By that I mean it appeared to be a local hangout of younger French men, who lived near by. The food was ok, (if I don’t mention what we ate it is not because I don’t remember, it is more that it isn’t worthy of commenting about). That said, I will say I had a Nicoise Salad, not nearly as good as what we have had in Nice and the anchovies were quite strong.

After lunch, we continued on towards the L'Orangrie. Walking through the park that runs along the lower portion of the Champs-Elysees. At the end of this walk and before the beginning of the Tuileries (the gardens of the Louvre) is a famed or shall I say infamous location marked by an Obelisque. It is the location of the Guillotines of the French Revolution. So we were basically standing where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had their heads removed. To the other extreme the Champs is also the street that Hitler rolled in to Paris on, The Eisenhower and De Gaulle rolled down to liberate France. It is a location of overwhelming history.

The L'Orangrie (included in the Paris Pass) is located just inside the walls of the Tuelleries. The museum is primarily dedicated to impressionists, such as Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Derain, and Picasso. The highlight of the museum, for me, is the two rooms dedicated to Monet’s Water Lilies. The first time, in 1994, when I visited this museum, it was simply visual overload. This time, it was a wonderful moment of reflection. I spent about 25 minutes here while Jerry took is time through the rest of the museum. I saw the rest as well, but I tend to do museums on a much faster pace than most. In addition to the normal exhibits there was a special exhibition on Debussy and the art that influenced his music.

We spent about 90 minutes here, which was the perfect amount of time for both of us; it can truly be sensory overload experience art at this level. It was about 6 pm at this time. Our plan was to next take a boat cruise on the Seine (Paris Pass), to get there we used our hop on hop off bus tour (Paris pass). This is something that if not included in the Paris Pass we would never do, but it is a very good way to see most of the major attractions of Paris in 2 hours. We only road it to the Grand Palais and then got off. There are 9 stops and you can get on and off as often as you like for a 2 day period. It is one of those double Decker busses, the top deck being al fresco. I with no coat was a little cold by the end, but it really is a great way to see the sights at something other than street level. In addition, there are headsets that give the history of each location you drive by.

During our bus tour we decided to do the boat cruise another day, when I might have a jacket, the top deck of the boats are also outside and at night with no coat, I would not have survived. As I said we got off at the Grand Palais, which was built for the 1900 worlds exhibition, the same time as the Eifel Tower, and walked a crossed my favorite bridge, Alexander the Third Bridge, it directly faces the Invalides (napoleon’s tomb). From there we got on the Metro and back to our hotel, wine and to get ready for dinner.

The Search For Dinner.

We had decided to head for Montmartre for dinner, to find a place we ate and loved the last time we were here. Montmartre is a very confusing part of Paris, many winding streets often dead ends. It is also extremely hilly. Sacre-Coeur is on the stop of the hill. We took the metro to a stop not far from the Funicular, which takes up you the hill to Sacre-Coeur (way to many steps to walk these days, in years past would have just walked up the hill) From there we started our search, trying best we could to recreate our footsteps from 6 years ago. We started off well, found the park with the statute of a man half in and half out of the wall. However, from there it was somewhat less lucky. We walked for about 30 minutes (fortunately downhill). When we were just about to give up, we turned our heads and up the street there it was. Relais de la Butte. It is worth the walk, and we now know that it is in fact only 5 blocks from the metro stop, we took the long way.

We sat outside, yes even in winter the French enjoy their outside seating. The waiter from 6 years ago still worked there, this proved to our benefit at the end of the evening when we were given a complimentary after dinner drink.

We both had had the prie fixe menu. Three course, a class of champagne and coffer, for 31.50€. We both started with the roasted Camembert. A small entire wheel (each) of cheese roasted with pine nuts, garlic and a bit of honey. It was very good. The entrees were Duck with potatoes with an onion confit for Jerry and Roasted Chicken with pasta (it was across between a Chinese noodle and spaghetti. Both were very good. The meal ended with what at Trader Joes is called a Lave Cake, but in France is just called heaven. A warm chocolate cake filled with gooey chocolate sauce, and a side of vanilla bean ice cream.

After dinner, we simply returned to the hotel and crashed, feet aching, stomachs full and exhausted. The next day will be cooking school for me and the Flea Market for Jerry.

---

Comments

[LaVena]

WOW
Really enjoy the blog and photos! Sounds so amazing. You really bring Paris to life. Love it!