Lundi le 14 Septembre
On the train now going to Chartres.
We missed the planned-for 9:33 train due to sleeping in until 8:00 (Dommage) and confusion about where to buy the actual tickets. On the bright side this meant we had plenty of time for café crèmes and pain au chocolat, so not entirely a bad thing. I’m thinking we will probably be too late to join the noon tour with Malcolm Miller, but I have the guidebook pages from Rick Steves so…here’s hoping this day trip is off the Chartres.
So we alighted the train and made our way to the cathedral in plenty of time to catch the noon tour. The spire was visible from the train station and the way was pretty obvious. On the way we noted a large ferris wheel in a plaza and made a note to return later and perhaps have a go-round. Our first view of the cathedral was a bit disappointing if I’m being honest, as the entire front was obscured by scaffolding due to extensive restoration being undertaken. Now I understand that these things cannot be left to simply crumble and fall apart and become blackened with the passage of time, but this type of thing is really starting to be a regular feature of our trips abroad! Anyhow, we went inside and awaited Mr. Miller.
The main focus of the tour was one of the rose windows and Mr. Miller was amusing, erudite and clearly in love with the cathedral. The nave had been cleaned recently and was sparkling white in the distance as we sat in some chairs placed over the labyrinth design. Among other things, we learned that in the early history of the cathedral pilgrims would regularly sleep in the building and the floor is actually on a tilt in order to facilitate the washing out of the grime associated with such activities. The chairs are removed from the floor on Fridays so as to expose the labyrinth. Christ’s halo, when sculpted, always has a cross in relief. You generally read stained glass windows from bottom to top and from left to right. The word cathedral comes from the Greek cathedra meaning throne, as in the throne of a bishop. During the war, the people of Chartres painstakingly removed all of the stained glass windows and hid them. In short, many tidbits to stow away for Final Jeopardy!
Absolutely famished by the time the tour ended, instead of tracking down the planned restaurant, Les Feuillantines, we committed the cardinal tooreest sin of eating right by the tooreest attraction. We had wonderful café crèmes and quiche Lorraine avec salade. It really was delicious and we sat in the sun but under a lovely umbrella and just soaked it all in. Reyn had originally ordered the plat du jour but it never did arrive. When questioned, the server seemed to have no recollection of the request at all, saying that there was no more left. So Reyn had to settle for the quiche as well. When the bill came, we were comped one café crème and I protested that is was not necessary, but alas he insisted. Score one for out-of-Paris dining.
During lunch we tried to phone Philip a number of times but did not get through to arrange meeting for dinner back in the city. We determined to try again throughout the day.
After lunch we thought it might be amusing to wander and try to find – oh I don’t know – say a pâtisserie or something…and so we did, and we did find one, but it was after 14:00 and so nothing was opening again until 15:00. Had to kill some time, so we strolled through the narrow little streets of old Chartres. Absolutement charmant. Also we walked to the rear of the cathedral to look over across the river what was once, according to Malcolm Miller, a German airfield. Below us stretched the rest of Chartres, and immediately in front of us was laid out a charming little labyrinth.
We decided that we would take the guided tour of the crypt, but somehow never thought to question what language it would be conducted in. Unfortunately, it was entirely in French. There was a printed sheet of information that was provided when we purchased the tickets, but it didn’t really have a lot of information and from the length of time the guide spent explaining various things, could only have been the bare bones. We ended up not finishing the tour in order to get back to the train station in time to catch the train back to Paris.
Before going back to the hotel we stopped at a café to take some refreshment, tried numerous times to reach Philip and watched any number of what to our eyes seemed like sure collisions between scooters and cars, but to Parisians would probably just be rush hour as usual.
We made our way back to the hotel and debated what to do about dinner. It was getting on 19:30 or so and still not a word from Philip, so we decided Reyn would go down the street to the local McDoo and get take out. We would rest our tootsies, eat, relax and watch at least some of the US Open men’s final that had been delayed due to rain on Sunday.
We also chowed down on more of the pâte, camembert, cornichons and crackers that we had stockpiled for noshing, and finished the bottle of vin rouge we had purchased Saturday afternoon.
After turning out the light I slept for about 2 hours, then woke up at 2:30 or so, had some yogourt and Advil, then tossed again until finally falling asleep and sleeping until around 9:00.
Mardi le 14 Septembre
In the morning we went down to Café Cordial (ironically named naturellement) for café crèmes and crepes. The lady on the corner where we had purchased the crepe on Saturday afternoon, at the Select Haussmann, was not yet open so we had to settle for a Nutella crepe (me) and a chocolate and banana crepe (Reyn) even though I am pretty sure I ordered a Nutella and banana and a chocolate. They were good, but the crepes were not freshly made and so lacked the heat that would have made the fillings truly unctuous and really yummy. The cafés were really good though, and we had a second round as we watched people rushing off to work.
There were three main places that I wanted to get to on this day. The Musée Jacquemart Andre, Parc Monceau, and a little oasis in the 8th Arr. that had been posted on the Paris Daily Photo blog to which I subscribe. The rest of the day was wide open.
We hopped on to the métro and reached the musée in good time, shortly after 10:30 or so. Located in an amazing former private home the musée displays the collection of the Jaquemart Andre couple, who acquired a stunning collection over the course of their lives. Unfortunately photography was not allowed, but we were able to purchase the guidebook, in English, that details the most stunning of the items and showcases the interiors of the rooms very well. I have to say that this place surpassed the Nissim de Camondo that we saw last year. Much larger, more sumptuous. The Winter Garden was the most stunning room to me, with its skylight and tour de force double staircase situated, oddly, at the end of the room. I had to look quite closely to notice that much of the marble in the room was in fact trompe l’oeil. It kind of inspired me to try it myself, although I don’t think it would quite fit our slightly less grand décor.
The paintings of course were magnificent throughout, but my favourite was the one of the Marquise D’Antin at the age of 14, posed along with her bird and dog and wearing an exquisite silk dress that you could almost hear rustling. We later found a poster on display in the gift shop of this very painting, but alas it was not actually for sale. Dommage!
I had hoped to have a snack or even lunch in the café located in the former dining room of the mansion, but after looking at the menu and the prices, decided against it.
Next item up for bids was Parc Monceau.
It might have been Trip Advisor that gave me the heads-up on this place, but I can’t be certain. At any rate, I am so glad to have been able to go to this park. This was a little corner of paradise for me. Mercifully few tooreests and many actual Parisians doing what Parisians do. Eating their lunches, walking their chiens, jogging, rendezvous-ing…
We sat for a spell near the duck pond that has the ‘ruin’ of a wall behind it and I have to say it was one of the most romantic spots I had been in the whole city.
Elsewhere in the park is a monument to Chopin, where he is seated playing a piano with a swooning muse at his feet, and it was a particular mission of mine to find it and photograph it for posterity. Eventually I asked the attendant at the WCs (an elegant little building by the way) for directions and we meandered down the path.
Completely by chance I happened to be wearing a rather large scarf/shawl and I was able to mimic the muse’s pose quite well. Reyn took several shots as we giggled about how very silly we were being; a few passersby looked quite amused as well.
We exited the park after running the gauntlet of a positive bevy of young schoolchildren who were being herded into lines by their minders. All in navy blue and white, clothes still surprisingly starched after an energetic play session, they were in various stages of disarray and disobedience as we walked among them.
We were quite near the Charles de Gaulle étoile and decided to look for someplace to have some lunch. The proximity to the étoile and the Champs was definitely working against us though, as the menu prices were nearly as high as the musée café! We finally settled on a cute little sort-of cafeteria place that had some yummy and fresh looking wraps on offer. It wasn’t fancy but it was good.
After lunch we wandered over to a little garden in behind a former-Rothschild hotel particulier in the 8th on av Friedland. It had been posted on the Paris Daily Photo only a couple of days prior, but since we had brought a laptop along with us I was able to keep up with those posts and so voila, there we were!
It was a nice little park where we could have even sat on the grass (!) had we wanted to do so. The day was sunny and warm and perfect for park-hopping. We plotted our next adventure as we sat on a bench in the middle of Paris enjoying this little oasis.
We decided to get the métro to Pigalle and then walk up to Place du Tertre in Montmartre. We passed by Place des Abbesses, site of le mûr de je t’aime that I had adored seeing in person last year, and started climbing the steps up the butte.
We made several rounds of the artists’ displays and tried to decide which would make the best wedding gift for a couple at home who were marrying later in the week. Due to some bad planning we were going to miss the wedding, but had determined to find something in Paris to give them as a gift. The people buying the paintings are tooreests, and they are really just buying an expensive postcard and that is understandable, we did it last time…but this would be a present for people who had never been to Paris, so it was a bit trickier to find something suitable.
At length we made a decision, and decided to reward ourselves with a nice glass of liquid refreshment. We sat down opposite a column of easels and watched the tooreests go by. After a while one of the artists began throwing a tennis ball for his chien to fetch, and this was the cause of much mirth at the café.
We returned to the same artist, bought another painting, this one for us, and then headed for Sacre Coeur.
It has become a bit of a ritual for me to make wishes and throw coins in a fountain when we are on holiday, and last year I had done so at Sacre Coeur. Reyn and I spoke of it as we walked and he asked me what I had wished for, and as it had come true already I saw no harm in telling him my wish had been, “To return, in good health.” I have to say that I was quite caught up in the emotion of that moment, realizing how very, very fortunate I had been, to be able to go to Paris not just once, but twice. A few big, juicy, grateful tears rolled down my cheeks.
Reyn said, “Well then we have to go back there, to honour that wish.” I agreed wholeheartedly and when we got there I made another wish and I can’t tell you what it was, although you can probably guess.
We descended the steps in front of the church and made our way back to the hotel, which was a much longer walk than it looked on the map. We found a pâtisserie along the way though, so the promise of a sweetie when we got back to the room was just enough to keep us going.
We got back to the hotel in plenty of time to relax a bit and get changed before going down the street to Café Zephyr for dinner. Afterwards we took the métro (changing lines 3 times) to get to Moulin Rouge for the show at 19:00. Once we were on the métro we rapidly reached the conclusion that it had been a bad decision. It was stifling hot, crowded and made me rather grumpy in my towering heels and silk dress. I could feel streamlets of sweat running down my spine and it made me feel less than chic.
We did manage to arrive in good time being greeted professionally if perfunctorily and promptly relieved of our camera. After declining to purchase the program for the show we were whisked off to Siberia, also known as table 188 and seated with an American couple, from you guessed it, Florida. We exchanged pleasantries and chatted amicably until the show began. The sextet at our table was completed by a French couple who alternately talked and necked through the whole show.
Anyway, the dancers came out in progressively more elaborate/stranger garb, there were gendarmes in silver, glittering uniforms, there were pirates and wenches, there were Kabuki masks, there were American GIs swing dancing with pin-up girls, there were Russian dancers and Cambodian dancers and the two main characters dangled out over the audience and sang a song…and then just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse/more painful/ stranger/more over the top, they brought out the miniature horses and the girl in the clear water tank swimming with an anaconda. I seriously regretted not buying the program because any commentary that could have tied all of this together in any semblance of a plot would have been invaluable.
The best description I can come up with to describe the Moulin Rouge is that it is kind of like the movie Victor/Victoria except instead of a woman impersonating a man impersonating a woman, it is Paris impersonating Las Vegas impersonating Paris. There are two types of visitors to Paris I think, the tooreests who think that Moulin Rouge is the real deal, and the tourists who understand that the whole thing is meant to be ironic.
Now having said that, it was spectacular and the production values were high, the dancers did what they did very well, and the champagne was compris. And who wouldn’t like that?
After the show we collected our camera, took some pictures of ourselves with the lights of the Moulin Rouge in the background, flagged down a taxi (which is actually a competitive sport in Paris) and went back to the hotel. We snacked on pâté, crackers, cornichons and camembert as we packed up as much as possible before turning in for the night.
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