Categories: friends, france, postcards
Date: 30 July 2008 17:39:25
No trip to Paris would be complete without reference to Culture and Food.
Let's start with the food. In retrospect, it feels like I ate a lot of salad. That doesn't mean I ate salad a lot of times - I just ate a lot of salad. The first evening meal was a Goat's Cheese and Chicken Salad. The next day at lunchtime I had a Salade Nordique which the Aussies christened the salad bucket. It was an appropriate enough name. The salad came in a massive plastic yellow bucket-like looking bowl. Lots of salad (I guess you're getting the idea now, are you?) with salmon, crab, prawns and a bit more lettuce for good measure.
We also ate at Le Bistrot du Pientre recommended to the Aussies where we all ordered the confit du canard. It, with the potatoes roasted in garlic, melted in your mouth. Mr Aussie wanted me to teach him the French for “this is the best confit du canard I have ever had” so that he could say it to the waiter. It turned out to be a bit of a mouthful for a one-minute lesson so we settled on the less complicated “C'était magnifique!” instead. The restaurant itself was an experience - lots of art nouveau furnishings, mirrors and lamps. It was fabulous.
The Aussies then introduced me to the salon du thé at a mosque. Although quite a small area, it was like stepping into another world with its oriental tiles, olive and fig trees in the courtyard, the sparrows hopping about and people smoking shisha (hubba-bubba) pipes. (There is also a hammam - but for gentlemen customers only....) We drank sweet mint tea and ate pastries there. We soon discovered the disadvantage of those sweet little sparrows as they nearly managed on two occasions to add a little extra to our pastries.
We did not spend the whole time eating and drinking and we certainly earned our refreshments. We walked nearly everywhere - and visited Sainte-Chapelle - which incredibly had the glass in its windows first restored in 1485 (that is the same date of the Battle of Bosworth Field and the death of Richard “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse” the Third...). We bypassed the charms of Notre Dame as the queue to get in stretched half way to Marseilles. We walked through the Jardin des Tuileries to the Orangerie where we looked at the massive Nymphéas by Monet and post post-impressionist works.
We also spent hours in the Musée d'Orsay which was just stunning. [Note to self: next time go for a whole day]. I thought I had seen quite a lot of French impressionist and post-impressionist paintings “in the flesh”, but clearly, I had only scratched the surface. This museum was packed full of treasures (I dread to think of the insurance premiums!) and was a joy; it would be worth visiting Paris for this one museum alone.
At one point we were resting our feet. Mr Aussie gestured towards a room and asked what was in there. Mrs Aussie and I weren't sure. From his vantage point, Mr Aussie could see the door of a wardrobe and said “Huh. Just a whole load of old door furniture, I suppose.” Luckily, we decided to investigate further - and it turned out to be “just a whole load” of the most exquisite wooden art nouveau doors, mirrors and household furniture! (In fact, these were very much like the furnishings in the Bistrot du Pientre - another good reason to go there.)
We climbed to the top of Montparnasse. Most of this was achieved by getting in a lift - Europe's fastest, apparently. The final two storeys were done on foot. I do not have a head for heights and was more than happy to see the view over Paris from the centre of the helipad. Mr and Mrs Aussie, meanwhile, were leaning against the railings, taking photos and generally behaving with what seemed to me to be a reckless devil-may-care attitude to their safety. When I commented on this, they revealed that it was not a sheer drop down from the railings to the street 208 metres below. With this information, I managed to pluck up enough courage to have my photo taken also leaning against the railings but I don't mind admitting my hands were nevertheless a bit sweaty.
We had fabulous weather, I had fabulous company and a fantastic time. Mr and Mrs Aussie have threatened to visit my blog, so I'd just like to publicly thank them for inviting me to share their apartment and a couple of days of their precious Parisian adventure with them. Merci beaucoup, maties!