Tuesday, Paris

Good morning from Paris. After a beautiful, sunny day yesterday, today dawned cold and rainy. Surprising cold! I'm not really prepared for it, so I'll have to buy a umbrella.

I tried to get to Gobelins, but their tours only start in mid-afternoon. They in fact may tapistries, not fabrics, and have been in the business for centuries. After checking that out, a pastry and juice set me up for the morning.

After the long treks yesterday (I don't dare calculate the kilometers, because they would surely be foolish), the metro looked really good. The tentative schedule was to go to the Opera House for a tour, then check out la Bilbioteque Nationale, then the Musee d'Orsay. This seemed to make sense since the metro Gobelins is on the same line as the Opera.

The Opera House is magnificent, and occupies its own city block -- really a diamond shaped block. There was a long line-up for the self-guided tour which only gets you into the main public spaces anyways. I noticed that there is a show "Hommage a Jerome Robbins" on the repertoire, and lo-and-behold, it is playing this evening. Gawd, how much can tickets be?? Well, there is only one price for tickets this evening, 7 euros with 'tres mauvaise vues.' But, it sounds like it could be fun, there will be good music, and it will get me in to see the opera house as well, so that's my plan. The other option for this evening was to go see The Magnificent Ambersons in English with french subtitles, but this seemed better.

The Biblioteque National is huge, but only for selected topics, and even using the reading room is not allowed without much registration and hoopla. So much for that.

The musee d'orsay is in the former Orleans-Paris railways station, with the main gallery in the train shed. Built in the 1870's it's right on the banks of the Seine. It specializes in mid-19th - early 20th century art, so has lots of Victoriana (they don't call it that here), neo classicalism, art nouveau, and impressionism. Big space, lots of good stuff, but nothing totally outstanding. It does have some of Rodin's sculptures. I didn't know that 'The Thinker' was actually only a figure in a proposal that Rodin made for massive sculptural doors for an art gallery in Paris (he got the commission, but the doors, like the museum itself, were never built). Rodin took many items, including Thinker, and The Kiss from these panels. Nothing like recycling!

I've come back to the hotel to rest. Tired after lugging the damned computer all over paris (with the expectation of maybe doing some writing in the library). A bit of a rest, then find something to eat (it's always difficult when travelling alone -- the temptation is to eat on the run, and that isn't good). Then off to the Opera. Damn! I left my black cape at home. And the opera glasses, too!

Monday, September 29th

Arrived in Paris after a very smooth flight. The only strange thing was, that when we landing, it was so foggy that you couldn’t see the ground. It actually felt more like we hit something, than landing; and only when the other wheels hit and the engines kicked into reverse, was it clear we weren’t flying anymore.

Unlike most of my trips (and Grant will attest to this!) I did not go barreling out into the day, but decided to have a nap right away. The hotel is in the 5th Arrondissement, the immediate neighbourhood is les Gobelins, named after a family of the area who makes fabrics and wall-papers. The factory is close by and has tours daily, so I may go and take a look tomorrow. Like the hotels on my last trip to France, this one has a beautiful view of the air-shaft, although the walls of the air-shaft this time are not painted sky-blue with clouds, unfortunately. The room is unique, though, in that it is pie-shaped. The narrow point end of the pie is about three feet wide – the width of the window. The rest of the room is small, but clean and bright, and the bed (obviously, from the nap-time) is comfy.

I napped longer than I intended (I should’ve slept more on the flight, but I got hooked into the Iron Man movie –which wasn’t that good!). Set out to walk around the city and just enjoy the sunshine and the ambience. It took me all over, with a walk near the Pantheon (remember Foucault’s pendulum there?), down into Boulevard St. Michel, across to the Cite, and a bit of time in Notre Dame and the gardens there. On the way I picked up the Parisien street meat – crepes to go. It was amazingly good!

I then decided, rather foolishly to walk up to the Gare d’Est. It’s where I need to catch the train to Strasbourg on Wednesday, and I thought I might as well explore the area along the way. Well, it was a bit of a foolish idea, since it was much farther than I expected. Nevertheless, it was a fascinating walk. I diverged from the main street to one street over – Faubourg de St. Denis – which is very ethnically diverse, with lots of C. aribbean, Turkish, and African shops and restaurants. And lots of hookers! I was pretty naïve at first, until I noticed that there seemed to be a lot of over-dressed women just standing about. Some is rather extravagant outfits. Big hats and big hair and big boobs. And, it was only about 4:30 in the afternoon.

The visit to Gare d’Est was a total waste of time. After attempting to book my seat about a dozen times on the automatic machines and it refusing my credit card (which, in itself was starting to make me panic!), I finally read the small notice that it only accepted credit cards with ‘chips’ in them, and not the typical north-american card with a magnetic strip. So, off to the real ticket office, where there was a queue about thirty people long. Not ideal.

I abandoned the ticket office, thinking I’ll get the tickets later (having quelled my panic over the cards not working), and walked down through the Marais back toward the city, where I picked up a sandwich and a drink before heading into the Church of St. Ephraim for a music concert.

There is so much music here, being held in old churches, that you can hear something every night. It’s not particularly cheap – 23 euros – but it was good. It was a solo for a selection of Bach pieces for cello. The church was really small, so the acoustics were amazing. It was almost too loud, and I was sitting about five rows back. There was only about 25 people there, and the whole space would only seat about 75, so it was a bit like a private concert.


It’s late, I’m bagged, and the I can’t send this tonight because the hotels’ wifi is down. I’ll sent it early on Tuesday.