Day 5 - ericksonsinparis

Day 5 – ericksonsinparis
Another picture perfect day. I wore my jacket just in case, but it was not needed within an hour. Morning began slowly with breakfast at the hotel. We had avoided that because it was not included with our room. In fact, it seemed a little pricey. However, we thought that if we had a good breakfast this morning, we might be able to skip lunch and have an early dinner since we were not positive where we would be at any given time during the day. It was delightful. I had my first muesli for a long time, a regular size, non-bitter cup of coffee, assorted dried fruits, assorted breads and pastries, ham, a hard-boiled egg and yogurt. That should have held me for awhile, and it did. Rich had something similar minus the yogurt and egg. Then we were off on our Paris adventure.
We double checked our understanding of the Metro system with our receptionist, and headed to the Billencourt station. We had already purchased several tickets on our first day, so we went straight through the turnstiles. The Paris Metro is very well designed. Lines are identified by their last stop, and if you just follow the signs, you will end up in the right place. Even when changing lines, there is no need to exit and re-enter; just follow the signs. We had to change lines at Franklin Roosevelt Station (most of the Station names are French, of course) and head for the Tuilleries. We emerged, found the entrance to the Gardens, used our map and “wits” (HA!) to find the Musee D’Orsay, and joined the queue. The wait was made less onerous by a man who was selling bottled water for one euro and our recently acquired Kindle. We have been reading a draft of our son’s mystery novel to each other during our down time. Actually, the line moved rather fast even without our distractions. We had come to this museum primarily to see the Manet exhibit as well as the other impressionist paintings that are there. We think we saw something called Manet and the Sea in Philadelphia (or was it Monet); this one was heavy populated with portraiture although it was historically and chronologically organized to show his journey into impressionism. Some of his early women looked decidedly masculine. Don’t know way. Also, all of this people were very pale, with stark contrasts between dark and light in the paintings. At one point when we were resting, I “interviewed” Rich about his views of the exhibit. He said that he was interested to notice that the sketches of had much more detail than the final painting. Some of my favorites were “La Lecture,” the “Negresse” (for some reason Manet’s Negro faces had much more personality than his white ones) and “Claire de Lune au Bologne.” He also had a lovely painting of St. Francis and an interesting assemblage of the great artists of the time, including himself.
After Manet we explored several of the small galleries on either side of the main hall. The Van Gogh’s were so bright that the paintings looked about to leap out of the frames. We saw the Monet whose print we had purchased in Amsterdam so many years ago, and we rediscovered Sisley. I also appreciated a painting of Christ called “Christe aux limbes – Christ in Limbo” by Paul Cezanne because the Christ was so physically strong. We searched quite awhile for a map of the museum, but when we finally found one it was not much use. It included the numbered locations of each gallery, but included no key to identify what the numbers referred to. When questioned, the information lady said that because of the renovation, the content of the galleries was constantly changing. No one knew clearly where anything was from week to week. One special area was devoted to Gustav Mahler. It included background music from Symphony No. 4 in G Major (which was listed as “Sol Major”) and many musical manuscripts under glass. There were also some paintings and sculpted busts of the composer. Very classy.
After over three hours in the museum, with time at the end to answer a questioner about our impressions, we emerged into the sunshine, consulted our map once more and started walking along the Seine. Our destination was St. Chapelle on Ile de la Cite. We took our time, strolled past the artists and booksellers, descended to the path along the river, sat on a bench, ascended again to cross the river, and eventually found ourselves in another queue. St. Chapelle was once the chapel of the Kings of France, before they moved out to the relative safety of Versailles. The stained glass windows are beautiful, but so high that coupled with our failing eyesight we could not make out clearly many of the details. We tried to enjoy mostly the aura of the place, and it had plenty of aura. They are restoring and renovating and had an interesting display about exactly how they were going about repairing the windows when necessary. It is painstaking work. How wonderful that the beauty has been preserved. Near St. Chapelle is the Palace of Justice sporting the ideals Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. Before we left America, I had been listening to Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. I think the Palace of Justice is where the revolutionaries “tried” and condemned their enemies. It was not always justice that was dispensed, probablement.
We were a little turned around when we exited St. Chapelle and therefore retraced our steps unintentionally for about ten minutes, but we soon discovered our error. Our next destination was a second island called Saint Louis en L’ile, but we had a couple of detours along the way. The first was a stop for French Onion Soup. As we passed Notre Dame, Rich began to stop at restaurants and ask if they had French Onion Soup, a special treat on our last visit to Paris 40 years ago. At first, everyone was saying that it was the wrong time of day, or their supply was exhausted, but eventually he was successful. The search reminded me of the day in China early in our tour when I followed him up a street as he searched for jiaozi. There too he finally succeeded. The soup was fine and we topped it off with an order of French fries/ pomme frites with mayonnaise. Delicious. Then we were off again. Our destination was 31 Rue St. Louis en L’ile, the site of the best ice cream in the world, according to our sources Lynne Crew and her daughter, Tessa. Before we could get there, however, we and many others were stopped by a film crew and made to vacate the street. I can’t imagine how they actually put a movie together because the scene they shot, which seemed first to be just a scene of people walking in the street and second a scene of the hero walking down the street only took a few seconds. At last, we found the ice cream shop, ordered a double dip (quite a bit smaller than double dips in the USA, but nonetheless very tasty), walked back to a bridge that would take us over the Seine to the Rue de Rivoli, to a Metro stop, and finally we arrived at our hotel. It was a big, beautiful day; just as Paris is a big, beautiful city. We are so lucky to be here.

p.s. The shampoo felt great, but the hair is in about the same condition. I guess it needs a bit more nourishing and repairing.