Monday we continued to look for interesting food and
drink, focusing on new, rather than traditional places. We’re just not finding mid-range, traditional
French food that’s compelling on this trip.
Instead, we’ve continued to pursue new avenues in the northeast corner
of Paris, a cheaper area where younger chefs seem to be experimenting. So, tonight we went to Le Mary Celeste, another
place recommended by Parisbymouth.com.
They labeled it one of their top cocktail bars, but they also gave it
very good reviews for small portion (tapas-like) food items. That sold us.
The food was international fusion. Nice spice and interesting flavors. The drinks were interesting, with intriguing
ingredients, but I felt that the place I went to 1 ½ weeks ago, Sherry Butt,
was better. So, for a nightcap after
dinner, we headed over there.
Everything works easily if the metros are with you. They were and it was only 15 minutes to the
Bastille stop. But, as the photo shows
(the other blog entry) it’s a big metro stop (the photo is of the Bastille area
above ground). So, with the bigger metro
stops, the trick is to exit nearest to the direction you want to go. Here if we’d have flubbed it the walk just to
get to the correct starting point (around the radius of a circle) would
probably be over ½ mile! We got it
right, but when we got close to Sherry Butt (PS, it’s the name for a storage
vehicle, that’s all), I couldn’t actually find it. Fairly non-descrip entrance, and there’s a
photo in the other blog entry. But, I
recognized the bartender outside finishing a cigarette. He remembered me, we shook hands, then went
inside. I told he that we’d come from Le
Mary Celeste and that the drinks weren’t up to his level of taste or craftsmanship. Interestingly, he praised them and mentioned
that he was friends with their bartender.
Tuesday was the first night of Chanukah. Maxine and I went shopping for her
present. She found a small store (in the
northeast) with nice scarves and sweaters when she was out exploring a couple
weeks ago. While she was trying things
on, I spoke to the owner (the only person in the store). Turned out that she had been General Manager
of Woolmark’s French operations, until “the crisis” 4 years ago. “The crisis” is the term several people have used
to refer to the economic hit the world took a few years ago. In France, the hit remains, unemployment is
high, and people are worried. The owner
was, as you’d expect, extremely knowledgeable about fabrics. It seems to have forced a level of
entrepreneurship onto the fabric of the city.
After checking things out there, I prevailed on Maxine to
try “one more place” that had nice scarves, and was a short bus ride away. This worked out conveniently for us since it
put us adjacent to the core Marais district.
We were able to have falafel once more at L’As du Falafel for
lunch. The scarves at this other place
were pieces of art, but not compelling enough, so we went back to La Boutique
Extraordinaire and I was happy to get Maxine her presents! Maxine’s
note: Tom bought me a beautiful,
lightweight, reversible cashmere scarf and a very soft merino wool
tunic/sweater. I love both!
From there, Maxine went home to take care of Emmy, who’s
really gotten used to being alone for 6-9 hours at a shot, which isn’t
something she ever had to deal with in LA.
I went over to the “Grand Magasins” and made my way to the roof deck at
Galeries Lafayette. The weather had
cleared up and it was amazing to be outside.
The shopping, however, was discouraging.
Two things. First, French
department stores all seem to be organized by brand. So, if you want to buy a shirt and aren’t
sure which brand, you have to walk to each of the different sections of the
store and check out the different manufacturers. Tedious.
The second reason is that shopping is awfully, discouragingly
international. In other words, if it’s
popular here, it’s also popular in the US.
So, not much unique shopping. And
crowded, so I headed home. We had reservations
for a special dinner at Spring as part of our Chanukah celebration. Maxine will describe the dinner in a separate
post with photos.
Wednesday was a quiet day for Maxine since some part of
last night’s dinner didn’t agree with her.
We did make one excursion, to do this month’s renewal of our cell
phones. Recall that last month we
couldn’t renew online because Bouygues’s website wasn’t working. Still not…
So, we made the 15 minute walk to the store and had them do it in
person. This time, humorously(!), their credit
card processing systems weren’t working either.
So, we paid cash. And no, this
wasn’t a scam. It’s just ironic that
cell phones, certainly reasonably high tech, are supported with such wobbly
technology.
In the evening with Maxine resting at home, I decided to
do a wander of the city. We did this a
bit in London 2 years ago, pick a bus and let it show us the city. That, however, worked better for us in
London. We’re just too familiar with
Paris for the bus to show us very much new and interesting. Plus, the busses are designed more for
transport and less for sightseeing. I
hopped off at the Hotel de Ville (picture of ice skating and penguins) then
tried to get ice cream at Berthillon, but they were closing. So, I made my way across the Seine and walked
over to Shakespeare & Co.
I’ve written before about the special place that
bookstore has for me, based on memories from 20 years ago. And while it always will, it’s a bit
diminished now. Unless my memory is
*really* failing me, they’ve done two things that trouble me. First, cut the number of rooms dedicated to
being “the store”. Second, they’re much
more new book sellers now than used books. But, it’s still a great experience
for me in this city. So, after wandering
the stacks for a while I found a leather chair to sit in upstairs, pulled out
my iPad, and read 50 pages from the novel I was currently reading. [Maxine’s
note: yes this is ironic!] Lovely place to do it! And, I’ll always have fond memories of the
way George Whitman inspired me.
Thursday was tourist day for us! Eiffel Tower.
Rodin Museum. Montparnasse. A drink at a café. La Defense Christmas Market. We can’t recall the last time we were up at
the top of the Eiffel Tower, but today was a good day for it. So close to
Christmas and early in the day – we had no line other than at security. Little in the way of crowds so we felt like
we could stay up top as long as we liked and enjoy the views over the city. We
probably were a bit silly as we kept trying to identify from a distance sights that
we knew. But, it was fun.
And only a short bus ride to the Rodin Museum. And we do know when we were here last,
1998. A huge sculpture garden. But again, I suspect this was the sort of
place that could get very crowded in good weather. The mud was a deterrent for us, but gave us
private time in front of just about every sculpture casting except The
Thinker. Interestingly, we found a half
dozen lounge chairs and 2 dozen more Luxembourg Garden-style chairs at the far
side of the gardens. We felt a small bit
of dismay that we missed coming over earlier in the trip when better weather
would have invited us to hang there for a while.
Lunch at one of the many restaurants along Blvd
Montparnasse. It’s an area we don’t know
well, but fairly well developed. There
are a number of “famous” restaurants there, but they were all very
expensive. So, we ended up sharing a
salad and a croque monsieur at a no-name place instead. Home for a short break, then we had to take
Emmy out for her mid day walk. Usually
we take turns, but one of my remaining trip To Do’s is to take her out for more
than just bathroom breaks. So, we went
back to the café down the street. As
before, they were almost surprised that we asked permission to bring Emmy
inside. And literally not one of the
20-30 other patrons who passed our table gave her even the slightest look. In other words, common place.
This day was, as I said, a full and touristic one. We dropped Emmy at the apartment and caught
the metro out to La Defense to check out their Christmas market. We made some friends in Paris who recommended
it over the Champs Elysees one and they were right. Much more interesting stuff to look at and to
snack on. The decorations were also
beautiful along the La Defense Esplanade.
A long day!
P.S. One other
thing. With all the ways Paris has
changed, WHY do so many people still smoke cigarettes???
No comments:
Post a Comment