Saturday in Paris

Got a late start today. Felt great. Musée d'Orsay, and its great great collection of Impressionists paintings is on today's list. Stopped on the way to the Metro for lunch at the Hope Cafe (not the one in Hope, Arkansas... the one in the Montmartre arrondissement of Paris). 

The Hope Cafe. I had a hamburger. Very very good. Maybe just a half-notch below Santa Fe's famous Bobcat Bite. I hope they open another location in Uxbridge (where our London apartment is). 

Some of those massive-looking apartment building aren't quite as large as they look from the sidewalk.

Lots of cool looking buildings everywhere.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we got to Musée d'Orsay and the admission line was long. Fortunately it moved fairly quickly.

The Musée d'Orsay was originally a train station.

A giant clock looks out on the Paris landscape.

Back to the Metro to work our back to Montmartre where we hope to grab a snack and relax before returning to our 7th floor walk-up apartment.

We decided to stop at Le Consulate, right in the heart of Montmartre. It's down this street where the street curves.

Le Consulate in the daylight.

Robin at Le Consulate.

Relaxing at Le Consulate.

Robin again, a view looking toward the front door. When Robin ordered paté, she asked the young waiter if bread came with it. He said "Mademoiselle, if I serve paté in France without bread, I will be killed." After a snack and a long break, we walked back to the apartment.

I hope to have time tomorrow morning to post some remaining photos that I missed, before we leave for the train station at noon. 

Au revoir.

Catching Up On Photos

After Friday's visit to the Cézanne exhibit, we walked to the Louvre Museum. Not to go to the Louvre, but to find the Apple Store that's supposed to be nearby. 

As long as we're at the Louvre, we might as well go in the gift shop since I'm looking for another sketchpad. This place is amazing even if you don't buy a ticket to go in. Just enter thru the glass pyramid and wander around the public areas. Or hang out in the vast courtyard outside... if it's not 17° like it was Friday afternoon.

Back at the apartment, with a wee fee connection, Google told us the Apple Store was on the north side of the Louvre. We went there, searched to the right, then to the left. Nothing. We finally asked a sidewalk vendor and it seems there's an upscale mall under the Louvre, and that's where the Apple shrine, I mean store, is.

This inverted pyramid is a skylight that mirrors the shape of the main entrance glass pyramid. Lots of people have their photo taken here. pretending they're holding up the inverted pyramid.

Is this spot special or what?

The iconic pyramid entrance and a tiny fraction of the Louvre courtyard.

When you walk through one of the passages that connect the courtyard with the streets on north and south sides of the complex, giant glass windows let you see some of the exhibit space inside.

The mall beneath the Louvre. 

Stopped in the mall's Starbucks for a latte, a rest break and to use their wee fee connection.

Inside the main entrance pyramid.

As we walked across town we saw another smiley cat painting on the side of a building. Turns out he's Mr. Cat and he's famous. He shows up here, New York, Amsterdam. The creator was anonymous for a long time, but finally was outed. The whole store is at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Chat

There are 60 Mr Cats in Paris, mostly on chimneys. 

Dinner At Chez Francis

Two Americans at an undisclosed location.

The view above is outside of Chez Fancis where dinner was included as part of our Crazy Horse show tickets. The dinner was pretty darn awesome. 

The food was as good as the ambience.

Chez Francis. The Metro entrance is just a few steps away. Crazy Horse is a couple of doors down the sidewalk.

The view from Chez Francis.

Smoked salmon starter. A full meal already. Hope the main dish is small.

After dinner we went to the Crazy Horse show. It was fun, the dancers were beautiful, but the stage and venue is much smaller than the Moulin Rouge show we saw some years ago. The show went for a cutting edge techno feel in choreography, lighting, and music. 

We enjoyed the show, and I'm not one to complain when almost-naked women are running around onstage, but the Moulin Rouge show and venue is more the classic Parisian cabaret experience you might be looking for.

Lunch With A Hollywood Star

After the Cezanne exhibit, Robin and I made our way over to the Cafe de Flore, one of the most famous cafes in Paris since the 1800s.

As we enjoyed our quiches, wine, and hot tea, I recognized someone a couple of tables away having lunch with a couple of women. A Hollywood movie/TV star. I was going to post his name, then thought "What if he's here on a secret project, what if he's enjoying anonymity and doesn't want to be outed?" Oh well, it's not like he's the top of the A list, so it's not that big a deal. But still...

 Cafe de Flore reeks of Paris Cafe-ness. Still popular, good food, and great service (older men who seem to have been here for decades, or longer.

On the walk from the Cezanne exhibit, we passed another street artist painting of the very cool smiley kitty.

The Two Magots has been the rival cafe to Cafe de Flore for a hundred years plus. The two cafes are just a half block apart.

Hot tea and wine on the cafe placemats. 

That was the first half of the day. 

Part 2 coming soon. Headin' to Crazy Horse.

An Exciting Early Morning Friday Start

We set our alarms for 7 a.m. so we could catch the Metro to the part of town where we have tickets to a Cezanne exhibit at 10 a.m. Things were going smoothly until we got to the elevator on our floor (7th floor) and pushed the button. No elevator. We take the stairwell, get down one flight and run into a woman with a small kid and a baby in a heavy stroller coming into the small, circular stairwell, trying to get down the stairs. Robin convinces her to take the baby out of the stroller and carry it, and I carry the stroller down. Halfway down the stairwell lights go off (on a timer and don't stay on long). Fortunately I was near a stairwell door and found another light switch and turned them back on.

We got back to the apartment late afternoon, elevator still broken. No sign of elevator repairmen. Our apartment is now a 7th floor walk-up. For that kind of real Paris experience, you usually have to pay extra, I hear.

The early morning train was just what I hoped for: standing room only and get to watch people try to force their way through the crowd and get to the subway doors before they close again. Great entertainment. Unfortunateley, most people got off the stop before ours and we just walked off the train without having to wedge thru or even say "pardon, pardon."

When we got off the Metro and got above ground, we were at a nice street market. The meat vendor was obviously from a long line of salesmen. I almost bought some raw meat on the way to the Cezanne exhibit. 

The museum was a relatively short walk from here. We got there early enough to go to a nearby cafe and have coffee.

The exhibit was great. Got to see some famous paintings up close and learned a lot about the artist. Didn't know he died in his late 60s because he was painting outside, got caught in a rain storm, caught pneumonia and died. 

We soon leave for the trek to the Crazy Horse show and dinner.

Too Many Photos Already

When we arrived at the Paris train station, Gare du Nord, we followed the directions we'd been given to get to the apartment. The signage in the Paris subway is not nearly as fool-proof as in the London Underground. After taking a couple of wrong turns in the tunnels when we had to change trains, we found our way and ended up in the correct general neighborhood, Montmartre. 

We started walking, the wrong direction, but figured that out after a few blocks and turned around. Finally we found the building and as we tried to figure out how to get in, a doorman let us in. There was nothing in the lobby, nobody, no desk. While we stood there with question marks floating over our heads, the landlord, Pascal, happened to walk through the lobby. Our eyes meet... the music crescendos and he figures we must be the Americans who are looking for his apartment.

The apartment is on the 7th floor and faces north. We're already on the north side of the city, so our view doesn't  include anything spectacular, since the main part of the city is in the other direction. But we're close to lots of stuff that we wanted to be close to. 

View from our apartment.

The balcony. It's freezing cold outside, and the glass door is very drafty. And the bed, a fold-up couch, is in this room. Now that I think of it, this is the only room, besides the bathroom. It contains the world's smallest kitchen.

Walked by Au Lapin Agile (The Agile Rabbit) on the to Place du Tertre ("tert," for all practical purposes) where artists hangout, paint portraits, and badger tourists to buy portraits. The Lapin Agile is also one of the best known night spots in Paris. Place du Tertre is also the highest elevation in Paris.

There's lots of these steps in Montmartre. This is one of the shorter ones.

After spending the afternoon in Montmarte, and then down the hill to the Pigalle area (the main area for prostitutes and sex shops). Forgot to mention, I'm a student of Parisian culture. At least now I am. So it's OK. We didn't start the walk back to the apartment until after dark. That's Robin under a street lamp in Montmartre, not Pigalle, so it's OK.

For you phone app fans, I downloaded a great app, Paris2Go, to my iPhone that's worth every cent of the 99¢ price. It's a map of Paris, downloaded to the phone (so you don't need Wi-Fi or a mobile phone connection) and it uses the phone's GPS to show where you are and what direction you're heading. It made very easy for us to go where ever and find our way back.

Today we had an afternoon meal at La Maison Rose (the two previous blog articles). The lone employee saw me with my iPhone, came over and said "Do you want wee fee?" I look at Robin. She looked at me, looked at him, back at me, then a light bulb appeared over her head as she laughed and said "Yes, we'd like Wi-Fi." He gave us a card with the Wi-Fi password on it.

La Maison Rose is a tiny place. As soon as we paid the tab, the guy ran outside, grabbed the signboards, brought them inside and started closing up.

A Toast To Oliver and Roland

College pals. Continued speedy recoveries to you, from Montmartre.