“Parc de Monceau”. and other Paris, France Things to Do Tips

The walking map we used showed us how to get to a wonderful central park like setting over in the 8th District. This was a whole new area of Paris to discover. Finally we came upon the In contrast to the splendid formal gardens one sees in Paris, there is absolutely no order in the Parc de Monceau: the trees are allowed to grow naturally with the walks curving around in the most unexpected manner, and all over the park the lawn areas seem to be littered with remnants of broken Roman columns, archways, parts of ancient ruins, and forgotten statuary. And yet, all this seeming naturalness seems to be the result of some arrangement of care and good taste.

It was full of joggers, ponds, little walking bridges, flowers, and statues. Surrounding this very lush and tree filled Parc were very nice apartment complexes much like in Central Park West in NYC. While there we took a rest and watched many privileged little school kids playing in their school uniforms, under their nanny’s or a well-dressed mother’s eyes.
we saw a quaint little place called the Musee Jacquemart-Andre, which became another unplanned stop. What a kick it was to go through this place. It is the ancient home of Edouard Andre and Nellie Jacquemart who were big collectors, especially of Italian art, who traveled all around Europe to acquire the works you can see here. For years it was considered as one highest quality places for ‘vision art’. It is an old mansion that this wealthy and eccentric old couple donated to the “state”. The story is that they collected various treasures from all over and filled their Paris home with them, and now it is a wonderful museum open to the public. There were a lot of fun and interesting stories about this couple, including how they ended up in separate bedrooms. The masterpiece is a giant spiraling staircase which is spectacular.

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Address: Rue St. Denis Here we find a neighborhood
Directions: of young hip hop kids, plenty of blacks, Goth and grungy whites with baggy pants down on their butts, many tattoos, spiky hair, etc. This is where I told Joan that the “official pickpocket alert” just went up to a ‘level orange’.

Traffic in Paris always seems to be in a big mess. Parking was also seen as a creative challenge for the locals, for we never had a rental car in the city. If we needed one, we got it on the last day and picked it up on the way out of town. This was the way we did it in most other large cities we visited.

Once we were walking by the National Assembly (in session), there was massive grid lock with not a car able to move, and here comes a fleet of sirens and military vehicles trying to get through and around this mess. Somehow they did and it all works. Not a place for having a rental car by any means. Walking across a bridge one evening, we come upon an area where the gendarmes are stationed on every corner, in groups of three with heavy vest, riot helmets, and carrying armed rifles. The guys are standing about laughing and joking. We are told that there might some kind of routine social disruption (protest) happening later and these guys always appear. For a while, I thought we were getting ready to go to war.

While the main crowds jam the Louvre museum, across the Seine about two blocks away is the wonderful Musee d’Orsay. We found it to be a great place to wander about for a few hours that has sometime of interest for everyone. Even if visiting museums is not your thing normally, somehow we always ended visiting a museum or two on most of our trips, and really enjoyed them. This museum started out as the Orsay train station and was later converted into the museum with one of the leading collections of Impressionist art in the world. It has also been used as a setting in several films. The d’Orsay is nice for you can stand inside the big clock window that everyone sees from across the Seine River, and you are right inside the glass area where the clock hands mechanically move. It felt like a Alfred Hitchcock movie. We went up on the roof top of the d’Orsay, we are not sure we were allowed to, but had a nice view overlooking the Louvre complex on the other side of the river.

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One evening at a street side restaurant, Joan is feeling pretty content now in Paris and tells me that she got this French menu stuff all figured out now. She tells me she is ordering the crepe that she found on the menu. So she orders it by pointing to it. When her meal arrives, she finds out that now she will be having the ½ duck breast over some sort of cauliflower mash concoction. Nice going, Joan! You can order for me next time too.

An evening boat ride along the Seine produced many different views of the same places we saw while walking earlier in the day. A very pleasant thing to do for it lasts about an hour and always feels romantic. We see a spot where many teens gather each evening and hang out, do some dancing to music, and generally have a good time on the edge of the water. If you didn’t see this from the boat, you would never know it was happening below street level sidewalks.

Somehow on one of our walk wanderings around, we end up in the old Cimetière de Montmartre (Montmartre Cemetery). We must have spent a couple of hours roaming around this place. There are many famous authors and historical figures laid to rest there. Some of the crypts are mighty spectacular – being miniature reproductions of basilicas etc. Some of these being about 8-15 feet tall with elaborate spires. We found all kind of ancient monuments, and since the roadway was build near the cemetery, some of the sections have the 6 foot crypts actually build under the raised bridge of the road. You hear the traffic buzzing by up above you. This was a quite bizarre picture. One grave site was that of Dalida, who was a popular and beautiful French cabaret singer. Her gilded life-size statue one of the most outstanding of the many sculpted works in this famous cemetery. This full body statue of her standing has giant golden rays shooting up from her head in a halo scene. Her grave site is quite spectacular and elaborate having carefully manicured flowers complete with a hedge of bushes. Some one is really taking care of her.

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Before we got to the cemetery, we were walking the neighborhoods close by the famous Moulin Rouge. We were told over and over not to go there; for the audience is full of Chinese (or was it Japanese) businessmen tourists all loaded with cameras, and the place has over-priced meals, and is full of smoke. With a recommendation like that, we had no interest in seeing it live. We just walked by on the way to see the area around it. Oh, the notorious Pigalle Place, an epicenter of sex shops, peep shows, strip clubs, cabarets and general adults-only, X-rated adventures. Such fun places with signs such as ‘homo, transsexual, and lesbienne welcome’, etc. It seemed like our kind of area. We walked quickly to get away from the hard core stuff. Joan tried hard to persuade me to purchase some underwear briefs being displayed in the windows, but we eventually overcame that urge. Thank God.

For a special treat one night, we secured tickets for a performance at the National Ballet of Paris. A local hero and world famous dance choreographer Maurice Béjart had produced some special performances. We read where Béjart's productions were notable for their flamboyant and innovative material. We were kind of expecting some nice Swan Lake type ballet performance, what we got was something like Rocky Horror meets West Side Story at the Moulin Rouge! In one ballet, the leading lady was a man; in another, one male dancer in all red tights danced around 4 ladies dressed all in black who were sitting in a circle of chairs next to the side curtains knitting with red yarn the whole time. This is all they did. Joan looks at me and says “We’re not in Kansas anymore”

This trip had the best food ever: Salad Nicoise for the first time; duck medallions in a cinnamon sauce; scallops in bright yellow saffron sauce; baguettes with brie, tomato and cucumber (several times); omelet with champignons;
hamburger du oeuf (poached egg on top) served over lettuce; lamb chops and chicken in mint sauce at a Libanais place

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Directions: in the Latin Quarter served with rice, long finger radishes, turnips, lentils, peppers, olives; and a very nice St Emilion Grand Cru 1999 Bordeaux from the shelf of a deli store.

There is our ‘Hospitel Hotel Dieu’. Founded in the 7th Century by the Bishop of Paris, it more recently was the old welfare hospital of Paris and is located right alone the Seine on the Notre Dame Island. Actually the hospital is right next to the famous Notre Dame! The hospital has a high tech updated interior, with a beautiful garden area for patients and family to talk and mostly smoke in. Our room was on the 6W wing of this oldest hospital in Paris, which is a grand old palace type building. The hospital is still an operating facility and they have dedicated one wing for families and other guests which was converted into a hotel.

They sold snacks, sodas, beer, and even wine on our floor of the hospital. Every day, as we walked the halls we would see patients on carts being wheeled by us on their way to various surgeries and exams. There were a lot of white coats as we walked around in our shorts. They served food in your room if you so wished. One guest family was a group of 300 pound Samoans, who filled the room so much, that the hospital put a table in the hallway and they sat out there eating their meal each night. They weren’t really tourist guests, but family members of some patient getting a special treatment that was brought from the island of Samoa. Imagine our interest (fear?) as we come back to our room after an early evening out and about, and find a gathering of large Samoans sitting and eating in the hallway to your hotel room. That was just one of the many laugh episodes we encountered by staying at this bargain spot.

The hotel room was the smallest of any we’ve had encountered so far, but it was very freshly redone. It had a power roof skylight with a shade, and if you stood on the end of the bed with one foot on the desk chair and stretched up, you could actually see the towers from Notre Dame.

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Directions: While the shower tub had a clothesline retractor installed, there was no shower curtain. Towel racks were there, but there was no toilet paper holder. By the way, the toilet paper in France was so much better than that in Croatia.

Paris Again

How is it that each visit to Paris can be better than the previous ones? We took a one and one-half hour flight from Dublin to CDG, arriving in Paris in the late morning. By the time we got to the baggage claim area, our bags were waiting. We walked directly to the Air France Coach shuttle going to the city center and were at our hotel in record time for Paris. Never smoother.

We stayed at Hotel Relais Bosquet, a three-star hotel in the 7th district. You can really see the difference a few dollars makes when upgrading to a three-star from our usual two-star hotel. Our room was a record setting size, complete with electric shutters to block out the street noise and lights. Wow! We had a view of the Eiffel Tower from our room. Three blocks left from the hotel is the Champ de Mars Parc, with the Ecole Militaire complex on one end and Le Tour Eiffel at the other. One block right of the hotel is the Rue Cler, once a bustling street market and now just as full of trendy cafes. Breakfast was 13 Euros extra, so we went down two doors to the Boulangerie Artisanale, where we were well satisfied with quiches, chocolate croissants and baguettes.

We toured the Le Orangerie museum, which has recently reopened with an entire floor of Monet’s water lilies painted on circular walls. While we were in Paris, the city had fans from all over the world for World Cup Rugby (Coupe du Monde 2007). The best group was the Scotsman, who all wore their kilts to show their national pride. Friday after dinner we walked through the Champ de Mars Parc under the colorful lights of the Eiffel tower, where dozens of folks were having picnics with lots of wine bottles on the grass. Very nice scene we will do next time.

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Phone: 01 44 77 80 07
Address: Jardin des Tuileries, 75001 Paris
Directions: End of Tuileries gardens, adjacent to Seine end of Place de la Concorde.
Website: http://www.musee-orangerie.fr