Bread. It was time. Rather than head to the internet cafe to start the day and prend le petit dejeuner after, we started out at the world’s best bread bakery, Poilane. We bought a few apple tarts to go, then headed to the little cafe next door, Cuisine de Bar. The guy who runs that has a good thing going…no inventory of baked goods. You order, he starts your coffee and then runs next door to Poilane to grab slices of the giant loaves, or a croissant, or paume de chausseur. Molly finally got her tartine au chocolat, which was amazing. Rich and I shared the Poilane toast with buerre et confiture…strawberry and apricot. Yummy.
After the blog update we headed back to Place de la Concorde to commence our day with the Impressionists, amongst others. CNN’s fine weather crew said rain was coming, so we had plannned a day at the museums. They were dead wrong, but it was time anyway. We strolled to the entrance of the l’Orangerie. There waw a vertibale swamp of lavendar amongst the scuplted boxwoods. No line to speak of to get in this museum or the Orsay later in the day – I think we absolutely picked the right week to be here. The good news was Molly’s free at all these places, so she spent her admission ticket money on the headset and took off on her own. First on the itinerary is Monet’s gorgeous paintings of the lily ponds from his garden at Giverny in the oval rooms, which have been moved upstairs since my first visit in the late 80’s. They are more beautiful than I remember…the richness of the colors used and how they so …. show the plants growing up through the water, the flowers sitting on the surface and the reflections of the clouds in the sky. Downstairs is a wonderful collection from Paul Guillaume – Renoir, Cezanne, Gaugin, Picasso, Matisse – the list goes
on. I had never heard of Guillaume before, but apparently he was the formost art collector of that period when all these amazing artists burst on the scene at the turn of the century and after. His widow donated the collection to the museum and I think it was quite impressive. Molly found a set of paintings that were here favorites and I was pleased to see she had enjoyed herself rather
than just tolerating the experience.
We strolled across the river, past the Assemblee Nationale, and grabbed a quick lunch at a cafe called Le Dauphine…des croques et des frites. They really struggle here with the no meat concept. I ordered a croque provencal, which was billed as tomatoes and goat cheese. No mention of ham, but the jambon must just be an assumption. Rich ordered a classic croque madame. When Molly ordered, first we asked about the pizza (which she seems to be craving) and whether or not it had meat on it. He said yes, it had ham and they couldn’t make one without it. So then she ordered the sandwich instead. The waiter thought she said the madame, but I explained no, she wanted the provencal because she didn’t eat meat. He never explained that it had the ham too! But…fortunately, the way it was made we were able to salvage the lunch for both of us. We all shared a nice bottle of rose from provence, which was pleasant for the warm, but breezy, afternoon.
Post lunch we headed to the Musee d’Orsay. The setting of the art in the old train station remains stunning. Lots of French schoolchildren here, learning their artists. Molly did the same thing…took her headset and went off on her own, meeting us at the room with the Guimard an hour and a quarter later. Much to my surprise, she was late! I expected her to be there tapping her foot, wondering how much longer we were going to make her suffer through this museum stuff. In reality, it was me who was tired. My hip was hurting from all the walking of the last few days and I really wanted a break, which we took on the Champs- Elysees.
Took the RER over to the Tour Eiffel and then went above ground to the Bir-Hakeim metro station, where the train crosses the river above ground with a faboulous view of the Tour. When we got to the Etoile, there was some parade (what’s the Champs without a parade?) making its way to the Arc de Triomphe…flags and brass instruments and drums and all. It was the first time since I’ve been here this week that I felt overwhelmed by tourists. At this point, I was half limping down the grande boulevard and just couldn’t wait to find a cafe. I decided that I wasn’t up for another 30 euro cup of coffee, so we stopped at one of the fast food places, who’s sitting area was just as nice as any other. After a bit, Molly ran over to fnac to check out the music while we lets our feet rest.
Of course, she found some French rap and hip-hop she had to have, so we made our way over there to make purchases. Next door was the biggest Sephora I’ve ever seen, or smelled. After 15 minutes, we had to leave with a headache. She’d gone in looking for some perfume, Fracas, which one apparently can’t find anywhere else. In the end she liked Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle and the Lacoste’s A Touch of Pink better, but we didn’t need to buy it there. Then it was off to dinner at Alain Ducasse’s Spoon.
