Ah, Paris!

Hotel Atlanta Frochot

Thursday, August 12, 2004 - Paris

We grab a taxi outside the station.  We will be staying at the Hotel Atlanta Frochot, which is described as being ideally located between Montmartre and the Paris Opera House and within walking distance of a major Metro Station.  The taxi driver has some difficulty figuring out where Rue Frochot is but we finally get rolling.  It’s a long ride from the station.  As we near the hotel, the neighborhood becomes tackier and tackier.  When we finally arrive, Tom and I realize we are in the center of the Pigalle red light district or, as it was lovingly referred to by WW II GIs, Pig Alley.

Entrance Napoleon's Tomb.  Eiffel Tower in Background

It’s too early to check into the hotel so, leaving our bags, we wander over to a nearby brasserie for coffee and croissants.  We are served by a woman in her mid-fifties.  She has a cigarette dangling from her lips and owns a huge German Shepard that goes wherever he wishes.   I’m having a hard time imagining a U.S. eating establishment with a similar ambience.

We finally check in.  Our rooms are small and without air-conditioning.  I have a beautiful view of three other walls that surround the air shaft outside my window.  The hotel staff people are very friendly and helpful.  The young female desk clerk gives me a lecture on how to protect my belongings and warns us of the dangers in the neighborhood.  So here are Tom, aged 69 and myself aged 67 being cautioned by a 25 year old.  I suspect the only real danger we are in, since we don’t stay out late and are highly unlikely to sample the wares being offered on the street corners, is to drop dead of shock if we were ever propositioned. 

We scope out how to ride the Metro to Les Invalides to see Napoleon’s Tomb.  The tomb and its setting in the Eglise du Dome are awesome.  You can find pictures of it and other Paris venues on my personal  photo site titled “Paris“.  We visit the Musee de L'Armee behind the tomb.  The largest section of the museum covers French military history from Medieval times to 1871 when the Prussians captured Paris in the Franco-Prussian War.  Next to Napoleon’s retreat from Russia and Hitler’s Blitzkrieg it is one of the worst defeats the French have ever endured.   

I try to locate the WW I section but instead end up in the WW II exhibit.  It has been re-furbished recently and is very well done in spite of all the attention given to Charles DeGaulle.  I never do find the WW I exhibit.  This gives me another excuse to return to Paris.  My energy is flagging badly so I head for the museum restaurant for beers and baguettes.  Tom soon joins me and we take a well-deserved break.

Next stop is Rodin Museum which is a short distance away in what was once the Hotel Biron, where Rodin lived and had his studio when he was in Paris.  Tom, who prefers sculpture to paintings, is blown away, particularly by the gardens where so many of Rodin’s works are placed.  While I am wandering the Gardens, the skies open wide with a steady and heavy downpour.  I take shelter under the eaves of an outbuilding where I meet a very interesting British couple on a long weekend in Paris.  She’s from Hexham which I had visited while walking Hadrian’s Wall.  I decide to make a run for the main building.  He offers to cover me with his umbrella but our effort fails miserably and we both get soaked.

As you can imagine, the museum is packed with steamy people staying out of the rain.  The museum itself is interesting but stuffy and humid.  I’m now so tired I don’t enjoy it as much as I could.  I find Tom and we leave as soon as the rain lets up. 

We first try to get a beer at a nearby cafe but the place is seriously overcrowded and understaffed.  We decide to move on when the lone waitress drops a tray full of wine and beer.

We get back to our “neighborhood” and visit a French pub complete with dart boards and warm beer.  It doesn’t work very well, though, because the bartenders are not playing their roles as pub owners.  Tom and I decide to play a game to try to coax them out of their Gallic indifference.  We finally see a smile around the ever present burning cigarette hanging from the lips of one of them.  I love people who fit my stereotypes.  That way I can feel smart about my ability to read people no matter where I am.  By the way, on the indifference scale, Parisians are no better or worse than New Yorkers.

We ask the night clerk, an expatriate Brit, for a restaurant recommendation.  All he wants to do is tell us really bad jokes.  Lucky for you, I can’t remember any of them so I can’t repeat them here.  He does come up with a great recommendation, though, The Rose Blue (That’s in translation, obviously).

Rodin's Burghers of Calais

It’s a very inviting, warm place with great food.  We have a nice conversation with the owner, a transplanted Tunisian who’s been in Paris for a long time.  He started as a waiter, saved his money and now has two places of his own.  The only ordinary thing about the meal was the house wine but as I pointed out to Tom, “What can we expect from a Muslim?  They forbid alcohol.”  The owner asks us to check his other place out on our way back to our hotel.  Turns out, it’s almost empty so we don’t stop.  Besides we are both exhausted.  It’s been a long day.

I want to go to sleep but a couple one floor below me decide to have a marathon love-making session with the window open.  The air shaft is a great sound conductor.  I can hear everything.  Since there is no air conditioning, I’m loathe to close my window and try as I might; I can’t see what they are doing.  At some point they realize they are not alone in the air shaft and shut their window.  I can now only hear indistinctly so I fall asleep, hoping they won’t start up again.  I sleep through the night so I can assume they either kept the window closed or I was so exhausted even their noisy exertions couldn’t wake me.  No way, I’m sharing my dreams, though.

Front Courtyard, The Louvre

Friday, August 13, 2004 - Paris

It's Friday the 13th but we are undaunted.  We are up in plenty of time for breakfast, not a gourmet adventure but satisfying, nevertheless.  We are in a hurry to get to the Louvre.

Whenever I think of the Louvre, I am always reminded of a Thai friend who was in Paris on a five day tour.  This was her first trip so the next time I saw her, my first question was, "What did you think of The Louvre?"  She replied that she hadn't visited the Louvre.  I was aghast.

"Why not?" I blurted out. "How could you not visit the world's greatest art museum?"

She explained that the group she was with had limited time and had to choose between shopping and visiting the Louvre.  They chose shopping.  Maybe I don't get it because I'm a man but shopping over visiting the Louvre?  Incroyable!!!

We ride the Metro and surface near the Palais Royale, home of the Cultural Ministry.  As usual, we get confused and can’t find an entrance into the museum.  We finally discover a side entrance used by school groups and such and enter the courtyard.  We are impressed.  The exterior of what was once the home of the Kings of France blows us away.  We rush in without waiting in line, thanks to our Museum Pass.  Since we have different agendas, we agree to meet in four hours.  Four hours?  Not enough time to see one-fifth of what’s available.  I take off to see the History of the Louvre but the exhibit is closed.  I then decide to do the three biggies first, Mona Lisa,  Winged Victory of Samothhrace and Venus de Milo.  I walk past more masterpieces on my way to the Mona Lisa than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.  What a place?

The queue is quite long and at best I get two or three minutes in front of the painting.  I read recently that the museum now has a refurbished, special room, the Salle des Etats, for the Mona Lisa, so I’m sure things are better and the viewing is less troublesome.  At least I get to see the painting.  When it was on exhibit in the early 70’s at the National Galleries in Washington, I tried to view it and the crush was so great that I never got close enough to actually see any detail.  I would have needed binoculars to study it.  This experience is a definite improvement.

Interior, Musee d'Orsay

I next find the Winged Victory of Samothrace, sometimes called Nike of Samothrace.  Huge crowds surround the statue.  Everyone is trying to position themselves for a good camera shot.  I’m just trying to get any kind of a shot,  when I overhear a woman tell her husband to wait until there aren’t any people around to take her picture next to the statue.  I almost break up laughing.  Hundreds of people in a small space and he‘s supposed to wait until they all disappear.  I think to myself, “I hope he‘s brought food and water.”

The last of the three, Venus de Milo, is also surrounded by hundreds of people.  It occurs to me that I have no reason to be surprised.  It’s August.  It’s the Louvre.  What did I expect, leisurely viewing?  I take my photos and move on.  I next visit the “monster gallery.”  This series of rooms has most of the huge paintings by Eugene Delacroix, Paolo Caliari (Sometimes known as Veronese), Jacque-Louis David, and Teodore Gericault among many others. They seem to mostly focus on Classical, Biblical or Military themes. 

With my limited time, I must pick and choose.  I skip the Italian paintings, even though they are considered “the core” of the museum.  I’ve just spent 10 days in Italy.  Instead I visit the basement to look at exhibits covering the period the Louvre was a castle rather than a palace. 

I only have time for one wing so I choose the Richelieu which seems to be the “French” wing.  I quickly visit the sculpture area in the Cour Marly followed by a visit to the apartments of Napoleon III.  It demonstrates 19th century luxury at its best.  I decide, because we will be visiting the Musee d’Orsay after this, to look at French painting from the 14th to the mid 19th century, that is everything before the Impressionists.  It’s quite a task, sixty rooms of paintings extending into the Denon Wing.  I don’t know if I make it to every room but I am able to see just about every painting I want to see, finishing up with Corot’s “Souvenir of Mortefontaine."

It’s already 2:30 PM and I’m late meeting Tom.  We are both very hungry and decide to grab a baguette in the ground floor café.  The place is incredibly crowded but the waiter is very efficient and “cool” so we get our food and are on our way by 3:00 PM.

We walk the length of the Jardin des Tuileries.  I take many photos.  Tom and I are both impressed with the beauty and the views as we stroll along.  We cross the Seine on the Pont de la Concorde and backtrack to the Musee d’Orsay, passing the Assemblee Nationale on the way.

The Musee d'Orsay was once the main train station serving Paris has been totally redone to house late 19th and early 20th century painting and sculpture including the Impressionists.  The building could be considered a work of art in itself and is appropriate to house its collections since so many of the artists used the convenience of the train system to visit places outside Paris and make painting on site an accepted method, as opposed to working in a studio from sketches. 

The queue to get in is very long even for Museum Pass holders.  They are trying to keep the place from being overloaded, an impossible task since almost every tourist visits this museum because of the Impressionists.  We finally enter.  We’re tired but manage to find an elevator to the upper floors where the most popular exhibits are housed, including the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists.  The quality and the quantity of the exhibits are overwhelming.  It’s almost too much. 

Rodin's Victor Hugo

I need time to sort out what I’ve seen.  I try to visit the beautiful museum restaurant but I’m too late to get a snack.  I meet up with Tom, who has been able to grab a beer, and we stroll around the sculpture gallery.   It contains many Rodin pieces including a bust of Victor Hugo that Tom cannot resist touching.  A guard sees him and gives him a bit of a hard time but he apologizes.  Only he and I know he’s really not that repentant.  I totally understand.  It is such a compelling piece.

When we exit, street musicians are entertaining on the Plaza outside the museum.  It’s an ad-hoc party.  We have trouble finding the nearest Metro Station.  We finally get directions from a gendarme after unsuccessfully trying to get them from passers-by.  I always suspect that many Parisians can understand and speak better English than they are willing to admit.  Am I paranoid or what?

After a beer at our Pigalle neighborhood pub, we make arrangements to meet an old Hong Kong friend, Gregg Hoffman, and his girl friend Kim de Roos.  She has a fascinating background.  Born in Indonesia and adopted at two months by a Dutch couple, she was raised in Holland, speaks four languages and has an excellent sense of humor, a quality not always easily found in either Holland or Paris.  When Tom said he was going to buy a lottery ticket, he asked her if she wished him luck.  Without missing a beat, she said, “No way.”  When he asked why, she replied, “Because the taxes you would have to pay would support the war in Iraq.”

We have dinner in a regional restaurant in the Boulevard St Michel area.  Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten the name.  We were introduced to a great red wine served chilled, Brouilly, fruity without being sweet.  The food is terrific, the conversation spirited as Tom does his best imitation of a naïve tourist, which instigates disagreement and fun.  Some of our neighboring diners who speak English seem to be enjoying the conversation, also.

After dinner we have an unnecessary nightcap at a local bar.  We grab a taxi back to our hotel.  The driver pulls an old New York City trick on us and drives in a huge circle so we come at Pigalle in the opposite direction from St Michel.  It is such a beautiful evening and I am feeling so mellow that I can’t get upset at his little ruse.  We roll the windows down and drink in the cool night air.  Back at the hotel, I discover the previous night’s lovers are missing so I easily fall asleep.  We are moving on to Normandy, tomorrow.