Versallie, August 30 2007

We went to Versailles today. Following the suggestion of our tour book, we bought the Versailles one day pass at the RER station ahead of time. It took a while for us to figure out the platform and train number. But there were many tourists like us waiting for the same train. It was a double deckered train. We sat on the upper deck and had a good view as the train zoomed by the suburbs. It was a nice and sunny day. Only took about 30 min to arrive. It was very busy as we got out of the station. As we tried to get lunch before getting into the palace, we headed toward the closest and convenient, McDonalds, right across the street. French McDonalds actually have better menu than we do. Many more varieties. Portions were definitely smaller. We quickly ate our lunch and started a long afternoon of walks. Versailles covers miles of grounds besides the palace itself. As ambitious as I wanted to be, we didn't see the whole thing. When we turned from the main road, the chateau was right in front of us, though far away. The gate was removed, so was the statue of Louis XIV. Versailles was apparently under major renovation, so half of the front of the Chateau was covered up. That was disappointing. Still the enormous courtyard and buildings that surround it was very impressive. We entered the chateau thru a side door, and simply followed the crowd. There were 21 rooms in this tour, we saw the royal chapel where Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI got married, various rooms with potrait paintings of French aristocracy. The rooms that were set for public functions were all decorated lavishly with tapestries and paintings. Each room has it's own functions and themes, and was painted accordingly. The rooms were not very big in modern standard, but the details that went into each room was amazing. It definitely shows that the king didn't spare anything in furnishing his favorite chateau. After passing all these rooms that were named after the Roman gods: Hercules, Dianna, Apollo, Mars and Venus, we finally get to the Hall of Mirror. It was very crowded at this room, but what a place. Mirrors were expensive in 17th century, so to be able to furnish a entire gallery with mirrors showed your wealth and status. With the gilded candelabras, thematically painted ceiling glorifying the sun king,and the French windows that open to the gardens, this feels like the ultimate party room! It's got a great view of the gardens of Versailles, one can see almost the end of the canal that's about one mile away. From this room, we definitely can feel the epic scale of the place.



Then we entered the private apartments of the kings and queens. i overhead the tour guide who said the bed chamber of Louis XIV has about 45 kg of gold in various decorative items, paint, threads, statues, and furniture. Marie Antoinette's room was very cheery, with flowers on almost everything, from bedding, curtains and wall papers, all perfectly cooredinatd. It was nice that photography was allowed indoors, so we took pictures of all these rooms. We were not allowed to do so in many English palaces. After viewing these rooms, we went to the wings where the dauphin and his siblings reside. These rooms were relatively modest, compare to the grand style of the main chateau. Many rooms had original furniture still, so not difficult to imagine how they live back then.




We existed the dauphins apartments and walked into the garden. The view from the top of the stairs was just stunning. It was very well planned, with the chateau on the elevated ground, looking down to the basin with more gardens, the pond and the canal beyond. It's so big that the gardens seems to go on forever. By this time we were all very tired, but the tour must go on. Megan and Laurie got some soft ice cream alongside the garden, that seemed to energize them a bit. I imagined the kings and queens would have horse drawn carriages to take them to our next destinations.



The Grand Trianon was a retreat from Versailles. Even though Versailles was originally a retreat as well. It got too busy even for the kings that they needed to escape. It was a nice little place, with pink marbles and yellow and white facade. We quickly look inside the place, with more baroque furnishing, though more casually styled. A very nice geometric garden in the back with lots of flower. Then we walked toward the Petite Trianon. This the Marie Antoinette domain. This building was indeed very tiny, with only 7 rooms in two floors. It was her private quarter and her favorite retreat. It was furnished with many periodic furniture, but more like a middle class furnishing, no golden statues or velvet curtains. It was very bright and airy.




By this time we were really pooped out. And with closing time approaching, we couldn't see the rest of the Marie Antoinette Domain. We detoured and saw the tiny French Pavilion where the queen held summer concerts for her friends, and her personal opera house where plays were staged. We were about the last group of people heading out the garden. Catching the same train back to Paris with lots of tourists, we got off near Eiffel Tower. This was our last night in Paris, we wanted to go on a night boat tour on the Seine. Had dinner around the Ecole Militair with Rick Steve's suggestion. Le Basquet was modern with decent food. We rested our tired legs here for a while. Table next to us were three people, with a pug under the table. We noticed a lot of places in Paris actually allows pet dogs in the building, especially restaurants. It was very well behaved. At first we didn't know it was even there. Very unlike my own dog! We spied on the dog thru out the meal, it just sat there and slept. We also saw how the French ate cheese course after the entree. This guy had a full plate of cheese, probably 5 different wedges. It came with a mini baguette and butter. That was from of the dessert menu! he devoured that whole thing in about 10 minutes and washed it down with wine!





We left the restaurant around 9:15pm. The sky darkened, so we needed to get to the dock that's right besides Eiffel Tower. As we boarded the boat, the whole tower began to twinkle, on top of the night light. Every night after sunset, Eiffel tower would be lighted. But on the top of the hours for 10 minutes, extra twinklings would be on. It was pure magic, so beautiful. The boat tour came with audio guide, explaining different monuments, bridges, and historic antidotes. Quite entertaining. The boat rides was about 60 minutes, we saw many buildings as we saw in day light, but at night, it had a more mysterious feelings. The medieval towers of conciergerie in light and shadow, and the twin bell towers of Notre Dame in the flood light. I tried to catch glimpse of these images, but the boat was moving to fast, so most of the pictures came out unfocused, but still can get a feeling. It was about 10pm by now and the whole river bank, especially the left bank was busy. People sat by the river, talking with friends. We saw a group doing like a square dance. It felt like this city doesn't ever sleep. The air was still warm with a mild breeze. With the Eiffel Tower sparkling again, we disembarked and caught the metro to the hotel. After so many days in Paris, it was hard to leave. Truly a beautiful city.

Montmaetre & the Louvre, August 29 2007

By now, we are very familiar with the Paris Metro system. We hopped on the metro and headed out to montmartre. It was a more seedy part of the town, charming none the less. We climbed up toward the Sacre Coeure Basilica, and the view was spectacular. It was sunny and clear. We could see all the major sites in the city, from Eiffle tower to the montparnasse tower where our hotel is close by. The basilica itself is actually a fairly new structure built in the early 1900's. The rest of the morning we used Rick Steve's walking tour. This hill top village was once inhabited by artists that enjoyed the bohemian life style. We passed theirs houses, the cafe and restaurants that they used to frequent. Along the way, we saw Renoir's apartment, Picasso's studio, Le Bateau-Lavoir, and van Gogh's house. They are a very humble dwellings. For me, it's like a pilgrimage on this walking tour. To see how they lived and worked thier subjects into the paintings. Toulouse-Latrec's house is about 4 or 5 blocks from Moulin Rouge and also close by vanGogh. The streets were hilly, and some with cobble stones. At times you almost felt like you are back in time. Of all the original wind mills that were on the hill, only two remained. Moulin de la Galette is now a cafe, Renoir's painting of Bal du Moulin de la Galette in the Orsay sumed up the feeling duing the heyday of Montmartre.

We had crepes for lunch, it was a stand right next to the Moulin Rouge, at that stand we saw how French made their hot dog. They used a baguette and a stick to hollow out the center of the baguette, then a hot dog is stuffed into the hollow area and katchup and muster were injected in the there too. The whole baguette was toasted in an oven for a few minutes. I thought that was a great idea.



After the quick bite, we headed toward to Louvre. When we got out of the metro, we realized the station lead directly to the basement of the Louvre, where you see the upside down glass pyramid. Lots of people congregated around the pyramid area taking pictures. I think they all had the Da Vinci Code in their mind! We decided to go outside to check out the building first. On our way out, we saw the remains of the medieval foundations. The new structures were built on top of it. Once we surfaced, the first thing in to our sight is the pyramid in the court yard. Although some people criticized that pyramid does not fit with Louvre, I actually thought it is quite a nice fit. Trying to see the palace through the pyramid giving me a feeling of impressionism, like the paintings by Monet! As we turned around and we could see the arc de Triomphe standing tall on the other side of Champ-Elysees. It is really majestic from all angles. We entered the museum through the Pyramid. Everybody warned us not too be too ambitious at Louvre, so we had decided to just check out only the Denon wing to see the highlights. The first thing we saw was the "Winged Victory of Samothrace". It was placed in the end of a hallway, perched up high on top of stairs, so it was very visible from very far away, definitely a center piece right away. Then we turned right into the wing where they housed Mona Lisa, on the way, we saw Madonna of the Rocks, also by da vinci . The most famous painting in the world has its own room. I am surprised that they let people take pictures with flash. It was a small paingint. The lines were long to the front of it. Her enigmatic smile looked even more lifelike in close up. We saw the huge "Coronation of Napoleon", and "Liberty Leading the People", that's the painting with a bare breast woman waving French flag, I guess a lot of people has seen it somewhere before. We sat down on the rest area of the grand gallery for a while. I was trying to figure out where the curator was killed in the book, but I can't recall the detail, and I can't find any sign where a gate can be dropped from the ceiling. But we did see the famous parquet floor in the grand gallery. The last thing we wanted to see in the museum was the Venus de Milo statue. The ancient Greek floor was the basement, not as many visitors. So I could get up close to the statue. By this time, kids were really tired so we made our exits to the underground shopping area (Galerie du Carrousel) where May bought some perfumes and I got a few boxes of Maxim's sweets.

After leaving the Louvre, we walked to the Concord to visit Orangerie. May really wanted to see the big Monet's water lilies. Too bad we only had about 40 minutes before closing. I quite enjoyed the feeling of being surrounded by one of the greatest impression artist's famous work, you almost feel like you are in the water lilies garden. Especially there were so few visitors! I ran out of time before I can went down to the gallery downstair. Looks like they have quite a few collections by other impression artists. I regretted a bit that we should have come here a bit early.




That night, we had a dinner reservation at a restaurant called Toustem, saw it on the Where magazine as it is the featured restaurant. It is a modern restaurant owned by a chef named
Helene Darroze. Its food was ok, the haut'e French, but the service was nice, one of the servers speak a little English so she explained the menu to us. I noticed that we were the only tourists that night. It was about dusk when we ate. It was early for Parisians. They typically have late dinners. The sun was about to set, and the light reflecting off the Nortre Dame and the river made the whole city shimmered. Very magical. And when we left, the whole latin quarter was busy with dinners and revelers. The later it got, the livelier the city became.

Shopping, August 28 2007

We planned to spend all day shopping. I really wanted to check out some of the gourmet food item, while May was interested in the boutique stores on the Latin Quarter. We went to Galeries Lafayette first thing in the morning cause the department store opens at 9:30. The food market was not as big as I would have hoped for. We ate our breakfast there in a coffee bar. Laurie asked for milk, and they actually serve warm milk. Megan's cocoa is most fancy, with milk and real chocolate syrup separated, and served on a tray. I bought a couple of truffle oils and some fleur del sel (sea salt). Also got a sample package of 6 different kinds of mustard.


After the food market, May and kids went shopping at the clothing sections. Lafayette has a big glass dome in the center of the building, very impressive. But other then that, I found the display and building for most of the merchandise is fairly basic, I almost feel like I was in a Sears. But of course it has a floor for the luxury brand, they all have very nice store display. While May were shopping, I went to check out their Men's building and Home store. Nothing really interesting to me.

Then we walked to Fauchon at place de la Madeleine. The first floor packed with mostly ready to eat items. Everything is very beautifully made and looks very delicious. Kids ordered something and sat there to eat, while I went upstair to check anything I can take home. Not a whole lot of stuff there, but I bought a few more fleur de sal, a sample package of jam (all very unusual flavor, such as strawberry with rose patel), a package of different pates, a can of lavender honey. Fauchon's actually available in many countries, including NYC, I later found out. But it's nice to go into a gourmet store in Paris and shop. Place del la Madeleine also has a whole bunch of other luxurious stores, but we didn't have time to check it out cause May is more interested in the small boutique tucked in small alley in Latin Quarter.





Our next stop is one of the top haute patisserie in Paris: Pierre Hermé Paris, at 72, rue Bonaparte. The store is more like a jewelry store then a pastry shop. With a nice window display almost feel like you're going into a Tiffany. Once in the store, you will be amazed at the glass counter that's full of beautiful cakes and macarons. Pierre Hermé has 2 collections each year, and they will not repeat once the season is over. The only stable is his macarons. Everything looks so pretty, I don't know if I can bite on to any of it, but they also looks so yummy. Because our prior bad experience of Ladurée's macarons, we decided to pass it on here too. That may be a very bad decision cause later I found out there were many very unique available here such as the one with white truffle and hazalnut! But we still picked out some very nice looking cakes. The clerk behind the counter carefully took the cake out from the counter as they were handling a nice piece of art work, then they package them in a nice box, then finally every boxes are put in a very pretty Pierre Hermé shopping bag. As you walked out of the store with that bag, you feel like you just come out from a LV store or something.




After Pierre Hermé, we strolled around the St. Germain, May also wanted to see if there is any store that sells soap cause people told her to buy soap in Paris. But we didn't have any luck in finding soap specialty store. Even Bon Marche only a very limited selection. We were wondering where does people get their perfume soap.


That night after we got back to the hotel, kids didn't feel like going out to eat again, so they got sandwich from the Paul. While May and I went to Aux Lyonnais. I had a very delicious bloody sausage plate. It's not what you would think that my plate has only a piece of big sausage. Instead, it's a small pot filled with shredded meat and sauce, very delicious and unique. I cleaned up my plate cleanly. It is my favorite dish in this whole trip. This restaurant is kind of unique, the host who took us to the table would ask if we wanted to have any drink before dinner, so we ordered champane, then a waitress came to take our order, after we ordered our meal, I wanted to order wine, and she said another person will take my wine order, so the sommelier, who also brought our champane earlier to the table, came later to take our wine order. And then there was another waitress who actually brought the food to the table and took our dessert order.

Notre Dame, August 27 2007

Today we are doing the historic Paris with a modern twist.
We've learned our lessons about French breakfast. We got pain au chocolates and other bread from Paul, the chain bakery, for breakfast. We also got our lunch sandwiches as well. This particular Paul was tucked in the St. Germaine des Pres area. It was early in the morning, so streets were very quiet and peaceful. Everywhere we looked were photo opportunities. The light and the sky from this day make the whole city sparkle, difficult to describe. We came out the left bank and walked on to Pont de Arts. one of the popular pedestrian only bridge. The view looking up and down river was amazing. We finished our breakfast on the bridge and well caffeinated. Walking alongside the bank, we crossed the river at pont neuf and got onto ile de la cite. There was a nice residential area on the west of the island, with virtually no one around. All the shops were still closed. The buildings basking in the morning light was simply stunning. Who is so lucky to be living in those apartments over looking the river? We circled around the conciergerie, the infamous prison during the revolution. Peeking inside the door, it looked dark and damp.




We decided to stick with the sun, and headed toward Notre Dame. People everywhere as soon as we reached the front square. It was a magnificent structures with all the carvings and stained glass windows. The flying buttresses along the side were all heavily decorated. We could even see the gargoyles from the ground. We took a quick tour inside the church. Looking up toward the ceiling, I marveled at the sheer engineering of it. How did they build it? To get all the carving up on the pillar? We exited the church and walked toward the back. There was nice garden with small water fountain. Everyone was hungry already, so we ate in the park, admiring the back of Notre Dame with river Seine in our back. What we really wanted to do was climbed up the bell tower to see the gargoyles, but the line was just too long to wait.






We moved on to Pompidou. Along the way, we passed very busy Parisian neighborhood north of Notre Dame, The beautiful Hotel de Ville on our right. Pompidou was bigger than we thought, with a huge collection. Ranging from paintings to sculptures of all kinds of materials, manipulating spaces with odd and surprising arrangements.. It has an excellent collection of paintings by kadinsky and chagall. Also several Matisse collages. But I think the best part of Pompidou was the terrace on the top floor. It has a great view of the city looking north. On the terrace, there was also a permanent water/statue exhibit with the sound of water swirling. A very nice place to get a break. And of course we have to visit the shop. The stuff it had was quite unique, with modern art in mind. Laurie and Megan both got little phone bijoux. We left Pompidou and got gelato for snack. There were several street performers, one guy has this clear ball that he can almost look like it's suspending in air, quite a visual tricks with his arms and hands. As we left Pompidou to go to the Marais neighborhood, it's like we were stepping back in time.

We already knew where we want to eat today. The restaurant was recommended by our friend. Au petit a fer Cheval was tiny,even in Paris standard; we almost missed it. But everything in this neighborhood was small. I like the way the buildings were cramped together, and how narrow and tight the streets are. Lot of interesting shops dotted the streets.




My destination was Place des Vosege. Marais was where the nobility used to live during the king Henry IV's reign, congregating around this huge square that's the heart of the district. Now the square was very pleasant public park. We entered the square through a narrow gate that was for the carriages. It has fountains, with mature trees shading the afternoon sun. people just hanging around. The palace buildings are still in use for office, restaurants and shops. Some of the very old looking doors, appeared to still have the original door knobs. We lingered in the square to soak up the history and slowly returned to modern day. There were many mansions and buildings that had a historic mark on the wall explaining its significance. We took our time walking the narrow streets, window shopping and admiring the area. I really enjoyed this afternoon. We got to our restaurant to find it packed with people on the outside bar. Surprisingly there was space for sit down dinner in the back of the room. I liked this dinner the most despite its very smoky air. The staff was very helpful, and everything was good. Even more interesting was it's restroom. It's all stainless, very different from the nostalgic atmosphere that's in the dinning area. We retraced our way back to Notre Dame after dinner. Crossing the bridge, Notre Dame was full of light as light of setting sun shone on it's towers. And the conciergerie didn't look as harsh as during mid day. Today was a picture perfect day.

Musse du Orsey, August 26 2007

Another long day ahead of us with the major sights to see today. We were going toward the Musse Orsey area. We made the mistake of having brunch in the Ladurée, according to guide book, another historic establishment. But maybe because we were traveling and not having the time, the services were way too slow. We spent almost two hours there, wasting our precious time on a beautiful Sunday morning. The cafe is right on Champs- Elysees, we took our time walking toward the arc de triumphe. Traffic was light on the streets, still hordes of people around the arc. we lingered around it and walked thru a underground pedestrians passage to get to the circle. We could see La Defense, another famous arc at the far end. And on the opposite side, the oblique, tuileries and louvre were in the distance. Huge French flag hang from the enter of the arc and waving in the morning breeze. Napoleon order the construction of the arc to celebrate his crowning of the new French emperor, and died before it's completion. Megan took several photos here, she has become our budding family photographer. We then started walking toward place de la concorde. That was a long walk, nothing really interesting along the way, mostly souvenirs stores or American chain stores. Finally we got to the plaza. The Obelisk was there to commemorate all the excited during the reign of terrors during French revolution. Marie Antoinette and her husband with thousands of people met their ends here. Today there were people just admiring the sheer engineer of erecting this gigantic marble. We could see Eiffel tower in the distance, and louvre and the tuillerie was a short walk. The Louvre can wait, we headed toward the tower. We talked along the north bank of the river, with tree lined boulevards, and many bridges, admiring the view of the city and tower as it got closer and closer. Unbeknown to us, we passed by the famous tunnel where princess Di was killed. We saw a huge golden flame statue with flowers and many people taking the picture on re de New York. So I ran back to find out that this was the site. We took a good hour on foot to reach Trocadero Square. We go to some drinks and sat at the park with the tower right in front of us. It was thrill to see it so up close. We had a great view from this vantage point.







Just like the Arc de Triomphe, we knew going up the tower was out of the questions with these many people. So we left to catch a RER to go to Musee d'Orsay. We had a lot of expectation with this museum because over the years everyone all said this was their favorite museum in Paris. We spent the rest of the afternoon there browsing in a fairly fast way trying to digest all that's there. Lee's favorite painting by Dennis was Not in the display, so that was disappointing to him. I personally like the van Gogh gallery. There were so many well known paintings there it was almost too overwhelming to see them all at once. I wished we have more time. We got some books at the shop to remember our trip here.







And thanks to our Jim, we knew where we were eating today. It's on our way home anyway. We went back to Saint-Germain-des-Prés cause the restaurant is near there. The time was still early, so we stopped by at the famous Café de Flore to have some drink. The outside tables are full so we had to sit inside. After that, we went to check out the old church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. There was a service going on, so we didn't stay long.



Our restaurant is a tiny place tucked behind the Odeon metro. Took us a while to find it even with the map. It's called Cremerie Restaurant Polidor, supposed to be a popular place with the locals. the interior is stuck in the late 1800's. Big wooden commune tables that the dinners have to share. The staff was friendly and patient, knowing we were foreigners. We all had excellent meals there that night. Lee had something very French. A grilled sausage stuffed with intestines. My steak with shallots was very good and the girls like their chicken and beef stew. Here are a couple reviews about the places, one in NYT and another from paris-bistros.com. It was a good way to summed up the day.