Thursday 30 March

It is now Friday afternoon and I am struggling to remember what happened yesterday. 

When i was in Paris, it was my custom , and that of many others, to go to a corner bar for  my morning cup of coffee and a croissant. On Wednesday i had problems.  Yesterday i went to the bar about 5 doors away. Again they had coffee but no croissants. I had coffee and then went to a place about 500m away that had been suggested to me. It was run by 2 women and felt more like a tearoom than a local bar, but clearly, I decided while watching the people come and go, served the same purpose. Lots of glass, nice tables, fresh flowers, locals greeting locals and others. The lunch menu lunch looks interesting too. The coffee and croissant were  good. Then I went back to my apartment. My 3 kids ( and the odd grandchild or 3) and me often get together on Thursday night on Zoom. I had not spoken to Wendy since she finished about 3 1/2 weeks of army boot camp.

I have felt for the last day or so that i have been coming down with a cold ( quite common for me when i go away on holiday). I was not feeling great when i set off looking for lunch. I went to a street with lots of restaurants.  The first 2 were over full. No thanks. The third's menu outside looked fancier than i had planned but i thought why not?  It was almost full, but quiet. In a sort of  cave like room with exposed light coloured brick walls. I had the set menu. Like the day before, there were lots of unfamiliar terms . The first course was a sort of savoury creme brulee, then the second was a piece of a sting ray. Quite nice. Slightly funny texture. Then i had a mini bombe Alaska. A hollow hemisphere of meringue filled with berries topped with a matching dome of icecream. All quite small , the size of a small apple.

The main thing I wanted to do in the day was go to the Cathedral of Saint Pierre. It is a lovely Gothic building. The inside was interesting. The buttresses formed the dividers between the side chapels. There was a huge ornate set of organ pipes. I might go to the main church service on easter day . Hopefully they will use the organ. There are not many obvious tourists around . There were 2 couples in the church when I was there ( it is only open to visitors in the afternoon) and they were all French. 

. 

I spent a lot of time through the day sifting through the information I had got from the tourism bureau and trying to sort out why I couldnot get onto the internet with my tablet but could sometimes with my phone. Dinner was rice crackers and an avocado hummus mixture. Very nice.

Wednesday . Random people

Today's  aim was to have a wander , go to the tourist bureau, finish the ends of yesterday and vaguely outline my  weeks)  About half achieved. The great thing is that I have had a smile on my face and the right attitude, well most of the day , right up to a few hours or so ago when for some reason I could not post the blog entry about the rest of Tuesday properly. I had to type it on my tablet, emai it  to myself, published it on my phone, where it appears to have worked, but it doesnot appear on my tablet as being published, so who knows.

There is a bar/Cafe about 5 doors away from me. It supposedly opens at 7.0 each day. Not this morning.  There is no thing else obvious near me. I looked at Google maps and decided I could not be bothered and just walked in the general direction of some shops along a mainish, but not too big, road.  This is unusual for me. I don't do ' random' very well.  I past several butchers, quite a few pastry shops selling delicious looking croissants but not the corner local French bar style. Quite a few fruit and veg shops. Finally I found a bar, with some tables inide and out and 2 men talking to the barman. I went in but saw no sign of croissants. I asked and then followed a lovely conversation that started with the fact that my eyes were watering from the cold, I was not crying ( they were lovely and quickly got the hang of talking slowly to me.)  . They said I should go to a pastry shop, I said i wanted a coffee with my croissant. After a quick interchange between the 3 of them which I could not follow, the barman told me to go and buy a croissant and bring it back and eat it there with my coffee. Which I did. I watched the news ( I can usually get the gist of the subtitles. I have no TV)  replied bonjour to several locals who came in and greeted me. Then I can back here. I got almost back to my apartment door and I stopped to say goodmorning to a guy who was opening the door to a restaurant 2 doors away from my apartment. I had looked at the menu while I was waiting for the guy who met me yesterday afternoon to let me into the apartment. The guy was quite chatty and I asked him some questions about some of the food. 

Soon after, i set off after to walk through the old town ( the usual narrow, twisty cobbled streets, but not as high a proportion aimed at tourists as is often the case). In I the direction of the tourist bureau. I stopped to look at a lovely display of little sweet cakes and was just taking a photo of an inscription in the window. It said " le gout du sucre sans les inconvenients"  ( I cannot be bothered with accents) . The taste of sugar without the inconvenience .  As I was taking the photo a lady came up and started opening the door. She was the owner. We had a lovely chat about sugar for 5 minutes or so. Again, I found enough words in my brain to communicate. . I pottered on, got to the tourist bureau and spent a while getting information about all sorts of things from a lovely  Japonese lady. At the end of the conversation we did talk about where I ahd been in Japan. I ambled back here, again going through the middle of the old town. I stopped and looked at a  beautifully  scuptured chocolate koala in a  chocolate shops window. I was surrounded by Easter rabbits. Why a koala?  Along came a similar aged  to me local and saw the koala and smiled. We were still talking 15 or 20 minutes later.She ahd been to Australia but never seen a real kangaroo or koala.  My level of French was fairly equal to her English I think  so we got on quite OK. Like the men in the bar and the koala lady,  she said complementary things to me about me trying to speak and practising  French.  So, without trying, that was the forth  time I 'talked'  to someone ., excluding Tamiko. By the time I got home it was time for me to go to the restaurant  2 doors away. I was only going to have 2 courses, but I ended up having 4 courses of delicious food. When I went in I was ushered to a table by a pleasant young man. I talked briefly to him and the other wait staff and they asked fairly early where I was from . Apparently the guy I spoke to in the morning was the chef and he had said I might come in ( I don't actually remember saying that I would today but I certainly said I wanted to try there one day). But they all wanted to know where I came from.  I asked all sorts of questions during and after my meal. 

I have been in my apartment  since, pottering.

Some notes to self  based on events of this morning:

Walk on the right side of the footpath, not the left as is my custom.

When crossing a road look left,right, left , not right,left, right.

When walking down a one way street, do not assume cyclists follow the one way directive.

If a cyclist is approaching on a footpath, do not instinctively move left, move right, otherwise  cyclist may get very wobbly trying to avoid a head on collision.

Beware trams, they are almost silent as they slow down and easily blend in with the background. 

When walking along cobbled streets, if I need to look at phone directions stop, don't try cobblestones without looking.

Take more careful note of the morning temperatures not just the maximum. Look at the  morning temps and decide if thermals are required ( they certainly would have helped this morning.

 It is now 6.45 and I havenot started my planning . Too bad.

rest of Tuesday

So... somehow in transit in Frankfurt we had to go through at least

 2 bag checks. My memory is a bit hazy. We went in and out of several terminals!  My super dooper new light weight bag  is rigid when it is  full but a bit floppy when open . One half has a zippered mesh covering enclosing the contents , the other just an elastic strap, hence big things eg rolled shirts and trouser in the open section.When I was hurriedly trying to get my liquids out ( no time before had they wanted liquids out, but I had always taken then out, this time i had not) I got bumped and the unzipped section where the liquids were was sort of uppended and some contents- some small things -  were scattered everywhere,  as in 'smalls'. Maybe that is an English term, but you get my drift. I remember thinking that   I was too tired to care but them telling myself to get over it because I had 2 more flights to go. 

So next was Paris. Again I had to change terminals,   but the signs were excellent and easy to follow and the train between the terminals was fun. Finding the right gate was OK, but I had to walk a long way, again, not a problem, but they changed the gate number at the last minute and I had to walk more - back the way I ahd come.  Never mind. But I didn't want the extra. We waited, waited for ages in a small space. Only seats for about 2/3 of the people. Then it was announced that montpellier airport was still shut but they hoped it would be open in time for us to get to MPL that night. Great, I thought. That day the transport unions in france were striking. The guy from Paris told me about it the previous day. Apparently there had been trouble  in MPL early in the day and the previous AIR france  plane to MPL , in the morning, had been cancelled when the airport was closed. About an hour later it was announced that MPl was open and the flight would board. The flight was completely  ful and they  asked for volunteers to put their cabin bags into the hold. I doubted my ability to manage putting my case into the overhead locker if at the same time I had to try and make space for it .beside, I figured they wouldnot loose it.  So i decided to volunteer my bag. (An aside - I was pleased that up to then I had had no difficulty putting my bag into the overhead locker. It only weighed  6.8kg. A couple of times I nearly came undone  when someone came to help, put their arm up and hand onto the bag and I almost lost my balance. )   -   I also thought that those bags put on last would come off first. So when the bags started to come out , and they were definitely  larger than cabin bags I started thinking - does a strike of transport workers include taxi drivers .? . Will they know the plane is chokers.?  Then my bag came. No other cabin bags with it. Maybe I might get there tonight?   So i went outside with my bag. Saw the taxi rank. Saw about 10 people near the rank chatting. Thought , Oh dear, not a taxi for me.. Got closer to the people. Asked , in English, no hope of getting any French out,  said " Is there a queue or anything. " Go right ahead " said one of them. For once in my life i didn't say Are you sure? I just quickly went to the nearest Taxi, threw my bag in the boot just as the driver was getting out and breathed a sigh of relief. I had managed , using my new esimm to message the owner's partner ( as instructed) that I was delayed, then later that I was boarding, then later that I had arrived. He arrived at the apartment soon after I did, showed me around. Soon after he left I went to the big supermarket around the corner. The apartment is lovely, small, but with lots of pot plants and a small balcony ◇ 2nd floor) overlooking a sort of un used ( i think) lane way.  It is lovely  in the sun in the afternoon.

Good sleep but not long enough.

Got here, very tired but happy.

The trip started off well, but got worse as the terminals got bigger  and the officials got more aggressive and then strike issues in France. It could have been a lot worse.

Sunday's  bus trip to Sydney was straight forward, bit of a walk, pleasant dinner, good sleep.  I had planned to go for a longish  walk on Monday morning around the nearby parks and  Wolli creek, but it was raining. I was at the airport when check in opened, I walked straight up to the counter, then straight through all the security stuff.  8 hour flight to Singapore was OK. Seat an older one with only 3 positions. Straight up, flat and half  way in between. There are some seats that have far more ways of making you comfortable. I was trying to stay awake. A few hours in Singapore lounge from 12.20 is to 2.ish was made bearable when I got talking to the lady  sitting next to me from the  sunshine coast. As soon as I got onto the plane to Frankfurt at about 3am I went straight to 'bed'. Skipped dinner, but all night my stomach wasn't happy during and I slept only in dribs and draws ( funny expression,  where dies it come from?) . Near the end of that leg, I got talking to the guy next to me who was from Paris but had been through  Frankfurt many times. He also was booked on the same flight as me to Paris.  I thought , if he knows the way, why not walk  with him. Why do more than necessary when i still ahd 2 flights to go. He clearly thought it was the gentleman thing to do, show me the way. Trouble was, the way he knew was blocked off and there was very little signage to where we wanted to go. It turned out that he didn't know which way to go and I was quicker and more observant picking up signs than he was.  This made for a few interesting  moments!  We stopped and asked a few people whose directions were wrong. We walked far, far further than we needed to, but it was OK. But then we were bussed to the smaller plane for the trip to Paris, but had to stand or sit in the bus, sardine stlye, for a long time while something was still being done to the plane.  I had to go from  1terminal to another in Charles de Gaul,  and went in a little train that went fast, stopped suddenly and did not appear to have a driver. Quite fun. But I was getting  tired.  At some point during our trek around Frankfurt airport we went out and then had to go back in through the whole bag check thing again. The officials were strcter than some,   people , including me, were getting frazzled, then the machine stopped with our bags and another man's waiting to go through but we had walked through the body check place and they, very crossly,  wouldnot less us back in . Some of the staff carried our trays , all muddled, to the neighbouring machine........ I am now happy and in my lovely little apartment  and need to go to bed. I will  fill in the dots tomorrow. 

To be continued 

19 sleeps to go

 This is a trial post to make sure it still works. I am getting excited. In 19 sleeps I will start my next journey to France.

Home

I arrived home on  schedule on Saturday evening.

My trial of Vietnam Airlines was a success. They were on time and their service was good. I donot think the service was quite as good as some of the European Airlines I have flown with in the past few years, but the price difference ( My business class  fare was about 2./3 the next cheapest reasonable airline) was significant.   The timing of their  return flights from Europe  leave you with a day in Hanoi. I was met at the airport, taken to a hotel, fed ( very average food) ( b, l and d) and taken on a tour of Hanoi by a delightful young lady who quickly came up with an alternative when I told her I did not want to go to the mainsites - I have seen HCM's mausoleum etc . We spent a very pleasant few hours wandering around the Museum of Ethnology. This housed many exhibitions of various ethnic groups living in Vietnam and in the grounds examples of many different houses. The guide offered to take a photo of me climbing the steps of the house below. I declined the photo but did climb the steps. You can just see 2 people underneath the house to give you an idea of scale. It is a Bahnar communal house.

Last day in Paris

Last day for this trip.

I just wandered  the streets around here. I had a few errands. I sat for an hour over my coffee and croissant, then an hour over my beef bouguignon,  then an hour over my cup of tea and little pastry.

Tomorrow I leave in the morning for the airport. 

Odds and ends in the 7th.

This morning I went by train to Neuilly, a suburb just outside the Periferique to the west of central Paris.  I walked around a bit then caught a bus to the Champs de Mars, another of the big open spaces in Paris. I walked aound for  a bit, then walked along Rue de Grenelle to see if I could decide where the elegant hedgehog lived. I stopped for a bit in a cafe in Rue Cler, a street full of cafes and nice food shops, a bit like rue Montorgueil. I walked on to an old Lutheran church that had a nice little garden that I had read about. Trouble was the gate was locked.

I continued along rue de Grenelle  and then stopped a little way off it at a shop called Dreyolle. I have never been anywhere like it. It is a taxidermy shop. My favourite was a lion, for 32,000 Euros. They get dead animals from zoos and other places, stuff them and sell them.  There were all sorts of things for sale. There was a giraffe for 20,000, down to some ants for E5. I saw people buying butterflies and beetles. No red-back spiders for sale.

 I walked  to a place for lunch. I wasnot going to have desert but realised I had had no icecream this trip. A few weekends ago, when it first warmed up, before it got cold again a few days ago, all the cafes had their icecream freezers out on the pavement and were doing a brisk trade in icecream cones. I could not go home without havig some icecream.

I walked home by a rather more circuitous route than I had planned, but did not care.

Bon Dimanche and windy, rainy Monday

About 12 years ago when I was in Italy on my own I first heard ocassionally , in the back streets, and mainly the elderly, wishing each other ' buon domenica' i.e good Sunday. - both as a greeting and a parting. How nice, I thought, OK, maybe in our secular society a bit out-dated but so what. I have never heard it in Frnace.

Yesterday, as I was leaving the bar after sitting over my coffee and a croissant for an hour, the lady wished me 'Bon dimanche'.  I was delighteed and tried to explain that I had heard it in Italy ( she and her husband know I sometime use Italian words instead of French. He certaily understands Italian, I have heard him talking to other customers in Italian)  I think they undertand.

Next I knew  when  I gave the guy who stands near my front door  a coin, as I usually do each day, he wished me 'bon dimanche' .

In the evening I went to an organ recital in a church 1 km away. The big church was  almost  packed.  For 45 min I just sat and listened to the music.

Today was very very windy and intermittently rainy.  I think the wind rattled my brain. I could not settle to much so didnot try.  I did explore the route I would take to get to the train station to get to the airport on Thursday. The reverse of my arrival will not work because there was an up escalator from the below ground train line to the ground, but there is no down escalator. I did find  a pokey lift which rattled and wheezed, but it worked. Plan B is not attractive. 

Saturday - doing very little...

...of interest to anyone.

I walked to the wool shop where I bought the 109 small balls, all different colours , several weeks ago.  I have decided what I will make and need more of 1 colour. Then I wandered up and down Montorgueil Street - known for its cafes and food shops, chose somewhere for lunch, ate and came back here.

Tomorrow, who knows, but I will not bore anyone if I have no details.

Pompidou centre

On my third attempt at visiting this building I went in.  I decided last night to buy a ticket on line to save time in the queue, but the system got confused with where I was from and wanted me to pay in English pounds and would not let me pay in Euros. Never mind.  It was a cold drizzly day which may have put some people off. I did not wait long and what is more impressive, I was quite calm and not agitated in the queue. The holiday must be doing me some good.

The blurb claims that they have the largest collection of modern ( 1905 to 1965) art in Europe which may be true.  I enjoyed seeing many of my favourite painters. There were several interesting Chagalls, a Pollock which had some recognisable forms in it and several Mondrians.  Plus others. The blurb also claims to have the largest collection of contemporary art ( 1960's to prsent) .  A cynic might say that is because no one else wants it. Most of the stuff I did not get at all.  Why watch a video in a small room of someone wrapping fishing line around their nose? There was one interesting installation in a room made up of  a sort of large net at head height  made out of hundreds and hundreds of personal headphones. There were interesting shadows on the floor. As you moved around, there was an eerie sound. But why?

It was an easy decision to stop for lunch. I dined in style in the fancy restaurant at the top of the building with a lovely view over Paris. Mainly because I was there and I could not be bothered finding my way downstairs to the other place. It was a no alcohol and no desert day!   My salmon, one of the cheaper dishes, was delicious.

There is currently an exhibition of Vasarely's work. I did not recognise his name, but recognised some of the works. He makes all sorts of graphic patterns with different colours.  I enjoyed looking at them, but some , mainly the circular ones, bothered me  - disturbed my vision and made me feel vaguely queasy, so I didnot stay long.

Because I knew that the yarn  I bought  several weeks ago would not fit into my suitcase, I bought another bag.  So I had no qualms today about buying myself a jigsaw - a stylised map of Paris. Not the brand I saw before that was hand made of wood with a price which reflected the craftmanship.

I was going to walk to another area to potter but decided I could not be bothered and made my way back to my apartment , without reference  to a map, just waking in the rough direction and making a few corrections - not all the streets are in a rectangular grid.

I forgot - The Pompidou centre is new - built in the 1970's it was quite contraversial because it built as an inside-out bulding. Its structural system, mechanical systems, and circulation stuff are exposed on the outside of the building. All the pipes are colour coded = green for plumbing, blue for climate control etc. Renzo Piano was one of the team that designed it.  You got good views from the escalator on the outside of the building.

Pottering on Thursday

Today is the beginning of my last week so I spent some time this morning going through my lists and working out what I did not want to miss.

I went  for lunch to another place on my list of traditional, interestingly decorated cafes with reliably good food.  Seated next to me were 2 gentlemen from NY. One could speak French and grew up in England. We talked about all sorts of things. As part of my entrance ticket to the Louvre I could get into a small museum where Delacroix spent his last days. It was in a house in Place Furstemburg in the 6th , a little quiet corner of Paris.  The best part of the museum was the quiet garden in the back where I sat for a bit. Then I wandered the streets in the direction of the church in St Germain-des-Pres where I had been before.

I came across the 2 iconic cafes of literary Paris - Les Deux Margots and Cafe de Flore.  Ages ago I had decided that I would not bother - they would be overpriced and full of tourists.  I walked slowly past one, yes, full of tourists then slowly past the second and  thought , a hot chocolate would be nice, saw that there were a few spare tables and that there were some French people so went in.   Different authors preferred different cafes, apparently. I had not looked up which cafe Simone de Beauvoir spent her time talking to Jean-Paul Satre in, but it didnot matter. I ploughed through a few more pages of her book that I am reading while I drank my very delicious hot chocolate. Yes, it was expensive, but there were French people on one side of me.

Then I sat in the church for a while and then  wandered my way back through a few more of the quaint passgeways and narrow streets filled with  interesting things.

Louvre

I spent a while yesterday trying to find out how to join the shortest queue into the Louvre.  Wasted time.  I tried to buy my tickets on line. No success.  This morning I thought I was on track to avoiding the main queue, but no, I must have been following the wrong signs. Never mind, I only waited about 20 minutes, and I was reading my book and it is significantly warmer than when I arrived in Paris.

The Louvre used to be the King's palace and became a museum during the French revolution. There are 5 floors in 3 interconnecting wings - though they donot, as I found out, connect on every level. The plan is very hard to follow because it does not have all the rooms marked, and only about half the rooms have any identifying number displayed. I walked up and down many many steps. Given that I was a bit ambivalent about going in the first place it was a bit hard to maintain my enthusiasm. I went first to the Italian masters and spent some there looking at artists I was familiar with. There were 3 interesting Caravaggios.  After wandering aimlessly in the same wing for a while I thought a coffee and/or food was needed.  I found a French looking cafeteria place , next to a crowded Starbucks. I went into the French place, and was politely told  they didnot open for 15 minutes.   I said "  But I donot want to go to an American chain in Paris." , forgetting to make any attempt to speak in French. A very British voice , 1 of the staff, replied " I agree, Madam". However, needs must, but my remaining interest was rapidly decreasing. I tried another wing but gave up after a while and went to the Islamic art. I pottered peacefully for a while looking at interesting patterns on tiles, decorated bowls, etc etc  There was some interesting writing on signs but it was too dark to conveniently read. Not that I was grumpy or anything.  I gave up because it was lunchtime.

Marmottan Museum and 16th

This morning I went to a place on my list in the 16th arrondissement for a good coffee. I have now had coffee in all of the 20 arrondissements. I also have documentary evidence that I have been to all 20 in the form of the typical Parisien street sign which includes the arrondissement number.

After coffee I walked to the Marmottan Museum. The building , originally a hunting lodge, was passed down to different people and organisations,  aquiring assorted collections along the way.  Now mainly Empire and Restoration furniture and impressionist paintings. In 1966 the museum inherited the largest collection of Monet's paintings in the world from Monet's son Michel.

I have never been a big fan of Monet. Today, though , I went round this large room - on my own - and found the one I liked the best. I sat in front of it for a while and quite enjoyed it, imagining myself on a nearby park bench looking at the pond and the relections. Afer I looked at the rest of the paintings - I quite liked one by Renoir of Manet, quite relaxed, smoking a pipe, reading a newspaper - I went to the shop, but my favourite Manet was clearly not one of the popular ones. I bought a postcard of it, but that was all there was. I bought myself a small jigsaw of my second favourite .

This afternoon I went to a nearby hotel that had been recommended and sat in their very quiet and interestingly decorated lounge for a peaceful cup of coffee for an hour reading the New York Times.  I felt justified in reading that newspaper because yesterday morning I had puzzled over a French newspaper about what Macron and Le Pen were up to.

This sign, a bit hard to read, is in the first and I have just finished reading a book by Colette.

This is in the 17th on the wall of a library.

Sunday and 17th on today

Yesterday was good. I thought I would be adventurous and go somewhere different within 200m different for coffee. ( Sunday many places are open late). I asked Ms Google who said there was a place that was open. Clearly she had not told them. So I went back to my ususal. It is run by a man and his wife.  Yesterday morning she was there. I was sitting next to another regular and another was at the bar. The man came in, shook both their hands in a morning greeting, got to me and shook my hand too.  I am not going to bother going anywhere else.

For lunch I went to a different  nearby place and had a delicious meal. I had chestnut soup, which I had never had before an a chicken dish. Turned out it was mainly Corsican food.

In the afternoon I went to a concert at the American Cathedral. There was a violin, oboe, soprano and 2 pianists. A Handel sonata, Gounod's Ave Maria, an extract from La Traviata, John Williams'  music for Schindler's List and , my favourite Saint-Saens " Dance Macabre" with violin, oboe and piano with 4 hands.  Not everybody played in everything, obviously.

Yesterday I had made a plan for the rest of the week after looking up what was open when. Today I decided to change my mind.  After my coffee - I did a few admin type things e.g. more money required, then caught the train to the 17th arrondissement.  The coffee shop was a pleasant walk away - nice area, nice houses, nice shops without being over-the-top, but was not open on Mondays .  Should have stuck with the plan. Never mind, there was a pleasant nearby bistro and then a pleasant park for a stroll, but all the seats were taken up with young mothers or old people.

I had read of a bistro at St Lazare railway station, but it was full, so I walked on and had a pleasant cheaper lunch. Then walked to the Palace Garnier. I had seen a model of the inside at the Musee d'Orsay and that was as fas  as i will get. I did not feel like queuing up to get into the foyer, which I hd read you can do. The outside was very ornate.

Saturday and 20th arrondissement

There is a football match on today between Scotland and France. If I had not known that I would have wondered at the 3 different groups of stout no-longer-young men going around dressed in kilts that I have seen.

I caught the bus to its terminus in the 20th arrondissment - only about 4 km from where I am in the centre. The central part of Paris is really quite small. The main reason visitors go to the 20th is the famous cemetery, Pere Lachaise.  Me, I was looking for good coffee.  Plan A was closed ( despite the hours on the website), so was plan B, again,despite what it said on the website. So I took pot luck and did well. It has been on my list to sit outside at a cafe and take an hour over my coffee. The weather, or the circumstances or the outside smokers, have meant that until today I have not done this. This morning I found a  cafe, slightly receased from the road that had a free table.  I was not worried about outstaying my welcome because the lady next to me was there when I arrived and when I left.  The cafe was OK for ordinary French coffee. The only problem was that I was reading a book on my phone and the relections were a bit tricky. Holding it under the table seemed a bit wrong , as though I was reading something furtive - a book on neuroplasticity?

I walked back to my apartment via another body of water , the Arsenal Basin , with a bridge and houseboats.  It joins up with the Canal St Martin, but underground. My plan was to have lunch where I have eaten before, but it was closed, again, despite what it said on its website. In this case plan B worked. I went to a place on Ile saint Louis where I had been before. About half visitors and half locals.  Next to me sat a lady and man who were Italian but had lived in London for 15 years and also spoke French and German as well as English.  Mind you, she used some Italian words in the French she was speaking to the wait staff. She had said French was her worst language.

Tomorrow I will not be doing anything travel related - so no blog. I will go to a concert in a church in the afternoon.

Arsenal Basin with the Bastille statue in the distance. A funny bridge - people walk in an enclosed tunnel.

Picasso and Alexander Calder

This was an exhibition that I enjoyed. I tried to understand the blurb about how they both use space and the lack of space. There were lots of rooms with different sorts of their work. I think my favourite was entitled '4 leaves and 3 petals'.

It was as tall as me. 

Then I had yet another nice lunch and talked to a guy from Tasmania.

Brief today, emails to write.

Canal St Martin, 19th and museum of musical instruments

This morning I didnot go to my normal bar for a coffee and croissant but walked  through the 3rd arrondissemnt to the 10th to another place on my list - and many other peoples  judging by how full it was 5 mintes after opening time ( at least, what their website says). I had poached eggs and mushrooms, not that I'm homesick or anything, but it was delicious.  Then I walked alongthe canal St Martin - very pleasant .  Nice cafes and shops inerspersed with apartment buildings along the route. It felt a bit more relaxed than other parts of Paris. It widened out when it got into the 19th arrondissement. Still very pleasant, but fewer cafes.  There was a small 'marina' - more like a pontoon with 20 houseboats  tied up.  See photo below. As I got nearer the end- or rather when the canal goes into a big park, there were loud noises which turned out to be a very noisy food market.  I had a quick look in. The signs were all in French but I donot think what the spruikers were calling out was French.  It was not Asian. I had not seen many people wandering around so I have no idea.

Just  before I left the canal, I stopped for another cup of coffee at another of the places on my list (only 3 arrondissement to go) . Then I walked to a place that looks on the map like it was a green park, but now is a huge musical complex with several auditoriums, musical instrument shops, practise rooms, meeting rooms, an exhibition space and a museum of musical instruments - why I was there.  Lots of very peculiar looking things - a good audio guide which often had muic played by the instrument, interesting bits and pieces. It was very hard to take photos  of individual instruments - other instruments in the way and many reflections.

Then I walked a few more kilometers south though the streets of the 19th. It was predominantly a Jewish area until I got to a large park , the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, which reminded me a bit of Central Park in NY. It was nice to walk through and see so many people wandering around.  I got to the place I was heading for, again on my list, whose website said it was open for lunch. Not so today. So I went to another place and the queue was out the door ( by this stage it was 1.30). So I went further on and stopped at the first non-Asian, non-northern African restaurant that had at least 1 or 2 women sitting with the predominantly male customers. I walked for a while! I had an OK lunch. Cheap and tasty enough, though I have no idea what the entree was . Of the 5 words in the description I only recognised one - the generic word for poultry.  It was a fried meatball of minced poultry - but which bit? I rather think it might be something I would not have chosen, however it was the only one on the menu of the day.  I caught a train back after lunch.

There is a boulangerie around the corner from me which has excellent salads. One does me for 2 days.  The lady recognises me,. She knows I am learning French, she always addresses me in French, though I know she speaks English . I normally get the money right, except I always stumble on 80 - in French quatre vingt - 4 20.  Specially at the end of the day.  I usually only buy the salad - 6.50 , but today bought a small macaroon, so it was 7.80, except I go out 7.40. She just looked at me , smiling, and waggled her finger, no no, in a friendly manner. Not the first time she has done that.  I said I would definitely get it right next time. I had better because she will remember.

I do ike the same bare trees that are everywhere. Trouble is, I am coming to the opinion that I need to see them with leaves on.

This was the smallest of the houseboats. Just right for 2 people. You may have to blow the photo up to see its name  -' La Decadence' and the other sign that says ' A vendre'. Buying a box of 106 tiny balls of cotton is one thing, but this is way off the scale. But I did smile and daydream.

Parc des Buttes Chumont. There is grass on the left and the other green stuff on the right is water.

 

An archiluth  ( early 17th century) with 28 strings on the left  and a basoon russe ( early 18th century)  on the right. I could not get a photo with the creatures eyes, but they looked quite fierce.

Saint Chapelle plus photos

This morning I went to Saint Chapelle, the chapel built by Louis IX to house the relics of Jesus that he bought from the emperor of a new Frankish empire for a huge amount of money - more than the cost of the building.  Buying the bits, most notably the crown of thorns, was a religious and a political act.  There is a lower chapel and built on top the main chapel , 33 m long, 11m wide and very tall ,completely surrounded by stained glass windows , starting with the Genesis story and ending in the apocalypse. It is quite awe inspiring and would have been more so on a sunny day. Most of the bits have disappeared . The crown of thorns is now in Notre Dame and on display once a month.

I had lunch at a place that is more a winebar with food. The food was delicious and the wine list was only about half comprehensible. Luckily, one of the cheaper wines was one I had never heard of -- petit manseng, so I tried it. Grown mainly in hot dry areas , SW France and , as I have since found out, in the Riverland area of Australia.

On the walk back to my appartment I saw a fleet - well, about 6- of motor bikes specially fitted with an enclosed shaped box on the back of  each bike to carry hanging, drycleaned clothes. Maybe they exist in Sydney.

Another thing- there are lots of beggars, like any city, but especially around here with lots of people coming and going. There is one man who I regularly see, just standing there, quietly holding his bowl out, asking politely. I smile at him as I pass and gently shake my head.  This morning I put a coin in his bowl which he very politely thanked me for. When I retuned after lunch, he started to ask, realised who I was, immediately pulled his bowl away and apologised profusely for asking me again. Several days ago I thought to myself - he has been in the same clothes for 3 weeks. But then I realised it would appear that I have been too. Same black pants , purple jacket and scarf. Mine get washed and dried overnight.

Inside Saint Chapelle

(Russian) Orthodox Cathedral of the All-Holy Trinity

 

Place de Vosges from Victor Hugo's 2nd floor apartment

Tues Place de Vosges, Russian cathedral

I have read  the  Place des Vosges described as the  nicest square  in Paris in several books. It is largish, has the obligatory few statues,  flower beds, lots of seats, rows of trees,  corner area with children's play equipment - all normal.  What makes it stand out is the uniformity of the buildings surounding it. - All the same height, style, design, colour.  It really is very attractive. I  visited Victor Hugo's appartment in one of the buildings overlooking the square. It was his actual appartment that he lived in in his latter years and it had been done up , partly in the manner it would have been.

After more wondering and sitting in some more squares, I had another nice lunch and wandered back.

I visited the new Russian Orthodox Cathedral in the afternoon. It was consecrated in December 2016. It was an interesting building. Another adjacent building had an exhibition space showing a Russian painter's work. Apparently there are classrooms, a cafeteria, living accomodation for the priests etc.  The 5 domes all have a matt silvery colour. In the main church there are a lot of icons around the walls and  different saints are painted on the wall the separates the nave from the sanctuary . There was a uniformity of colours - blue and light brown that looked good.