đ«đ· The Great France Art Tour of 2017
There are times when I feel I have a pretty good handle on where I am in Paris and others when I admit that I have no clue. Itâs the places in-between that prove the most difficult. Where I am neither confident that I know, but believe I have some vague idea that canât be too far off, but which may ultimately prove to be delusional. The afternoon of our longest day was like that.
The afternoon was waning when we found a Metro stop at the bottom of the mont. We popped out as intended on the Left Bank at St. Germain Des Pres. Here Boulevard St. Germain skirts along a few blocks from the Seine. We walked North in search of a café or bistro where we could catch a late lunch.
I had on a previous trip explored the Boulevard St. Germain for a few blocks behind MusĂ©e DâOrsay, and found the area a delightâfull of small cheese shops, patisseries, and such. I also harbored the vague notion that many of the famous cafĂ©s were either nearby or situated on Boulevard St. Germain. Early that same morning, while still on our coach, we had zoomed past one of these âfamousâ cafes, the ones mentioned too frequently in Hemingwayâs âA Moveable Feastâ. Was it the La Closerie dâLilas? Or Les Deux Magots? Or some other? Who knows? Honestly, I donât. (By the way, the Magots? What a name. What does it mean? It means, “The two stocky figures from the Far East“. I know. Weird. It’s about these two statues that are still inside. You read about it.) I read about them, I flash by in a bus, and of course I think, âCool! Wouldnât it be great to sit there where Hemingway did, watching while some minor literary acquaintance blithely and foolishly cuts Aleister Crowley, âthe most evil diabolist in all of Parisâ.â Well, maybe. But the guidebooks say these places are overpriced due to their fascinating histories, not for the quality of their fare. And in the end, itâs never the right time or convenient situation to sit âthereâ, and so I settle for something or somewhere else.
My memories of Paris when I first visited as a teen are so dim. I wish I had written a journal of that trip! Blogs didnât exist then. Nor did personal computers or cell phones. It would have been a paper journal. Nevertheless, some images remainâold ladies sweeping the sidewalks of the ChampsâdâElyses with wooden brooms the brush ends of which consisted of tightly bound twigs. Men stood, unself-consciously relieving themselves at open public urinals built into the street-facing sides of buildings. Luxembourg Garden, which in my memory, that July, did not have any flowers to make it seem like a âgardenâ. At that tender age, in my mind, this was clearly more a âparkâ than a garden, and should have been called âLuxembourg Parkâ. Or maybe it was? In memory the street names remainâtwo especially, Boulevard St. Michel and Boulevard St. Germain, both of which must have been quite close to the hostel where we lodged for those final nights at the end of our Grand Scandinavian Tour. (Yes, I know, France is not part of Scandinavia. The tour started in England. We traveled by ship from Newcastle to Bergen, Norway, and a month later ended up in Paris.)
Looking at the Paris map now I wonderâdid we stay at some residence in or near the Sorbonne? If nothing else I must have walked past it, the grand traditional Paris Art school, home of the Academy, that so many times rejected the brilliant innovations of Paul Cezanne. Unlike Van Gogh, he lived long enough to see some success and recognition from the traditional arts community. But without the sponsorship of his friend, the writer, Emile Zola, he might have never survived. Certainly not as an artist.
In any case, you may observe that I was wandering down Blvd. St. Germaine with Deb, guided roughly West and North as if in a dream, one touched slightly by pain, one consisting of Paris memories separated as they were by years and decades and all the life in between, with the purpose of finding some decent and possibly memorable place to sit, relax, and consume a meal. Boulevard St. Germaine ended and we moved unexpectedly onto the Quai dâOrsay, next to the Seine again. We intended to walk over to the other bank afterwards, where we would take the sunset boat tour, highly recommended by our French guide Christine, who had armed us that morning with the necessary passes. But before that we still needed to find a place to eat. It was a long march.
Walking away from the Seine, we turned onto boulevard la Tour Maubourg and settled at last at âLe Recrutementâ, a pleasant, if not historical, cafĂ© at the intersection of Rue Saint-Dominique. We recovered there with a couple of beers and the perhaps clichĂ©, but definitely fortifying tourist fare of French Onion Soup for Deb and Croque Monsieur for me. We sat facing the street in the black and tan weaved pseudo-wicker plastic chairs apparently required by law, or tradition, or both, at every small Paris eatery.
The travel and sleep deprivation headache dissolved as we chatted, my eyes slightly glazed by alcohol and jet lag, reviewing our amazing long Paris day and the plans we had for the rest of it. The street grew dark and groups of women, young, and French issued forth from offices and apartments, sometimes alone, sometimes followed by young men, presumably on their way to evening social activities of some French nature that I could not discern. It occurred to me that these were three powerful image-conjuring words, worthy of a story, novel, or film, âWomen, Young, Frenchâ. But it wouldnât be my story, novel, or film. Not that evening anyway.
We finished our drinks and made the long walk across the Seine, and then along the Quai in search of the loading ramp for our particular tour. Which we located, and where we discovered that although several large and noisy tour groups were queued at certain points, for us, there was no wait.
Yes, still to come, more of that one day.
âChristo
I didnât know when to expect Richard.
The afternoon has grown quiet as the sun stepped behind the buildings. Fluffy white clouds are passing rapidly overhead, moving against a grey, blue. Ally is lying on my leg now, beneath the picnic table. She stirs, and the deep dusty smell of leaves fills my head.
!["Windmills on Montmartre", 1886, Vincent van Gogh [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](https://christoplummer.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/vincent_van_gogh_-_windmills_on_montmartre_-_google_art_project.jpg?w=276&h=342)
We left the MusĂ©e Marmottan Monet fully sated and strolled with satisfaction along our previous route. It rained of course, but it was not an ugly downpour and that longest of Paris days was still young. The Muette Metro station was all tangled up with construction and pedestrian detours. Deb wanted to see Montmartre, and that was clearly our next destination. By Metro it was fairly straightforward, really, take Number 9 (yellow Metro) to some giant underground knot beneath Paris where many of the routes collided. Somewhere there we would switch to the Number 12 (dark green Metro) with the endpoint of Aubervilliers Front Populaire, whatever that is, (for us, meaning roughly âNorthâ).
And so we wound our way down, tripping down the cobblestone, stopping now and then to peek in little shops and absorb the changing views. To Deb, I mentioned that the Moulin Rouge was in the vicinity, and which from my last visit seemed almost like a wax museumâunless you took in the live burlesque I guess. No need to see that. We tried not to look at any maps, hoping that we would sooner or later come upon a metro stop. And it was later, later and many steps down before we, that is, I, resorted to Google maps to be sure I was taking us in the right direction.
This time, I was in no hurry to enter the Louvre. If I were to pass through a time portal it would be at my choosing, and with opportunity to process the odyssey. MusĂ©e DâOrsay, was a possibility, although on yet another Paris trip, a redeeming one, alone, and only a few years before, I had made a thorough survey and with great satisfaction sought and found the Van Goghs, and so, even Orsay I could forego for something previously unseen, perhaps the gardens of Giverny? Or MusĂ©e Marmottan Monet?
The Bois de Boulogne, as research has now revealed, is the second largest public park in Paris â bordering the west side of the 16th Arrondissement and containing not one, but two horse tracks. And yes, the Chateau de Versailles is in fact the one and same âPalace of Versaillesâ to us Americans. No, like the Louvre before it, and to the dismay and puzzlement of some, the Chateau de Versailles was rapidly discarded as a destination for âThe Great Art Tourâ â we had no interest. Been there, stood in line for hours, inside and out, and agreed with myself to never return. Never. Lavish, extravagant furnishings and homes of the royals and super-wealthy, past or present, do not do much for me, nor warrant a second visit.
