Paris, 06-08 June 2017

06 June 2017, Tuesday

Lighter activity for us today, D-Day. Cooler weather, blustery winds and a constant threat of rains kept us fairly close to home. We decided to do some shopping and explore around as long as the weather held.

We started by visiting a famous vendor, Pierre Herme, of Macarons – a sweet, meringue-based confection. We bought a box and saved them for wine time later that night.

A little further on we found the flagship Hermes location on 24 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré.

They sell so many Birkin and Kelly bags they’ve had to institute a new shopping policy. If you are there for one of the bags, you have to stand in line (you can see the line of people here, wrapped around the corner of the building). After standing in line for sometimes more than an hour, you reach the front and get assigned an appointment time. They take all your information and then text you your time slot. Apparently it can eat up an entire day.

We could hardly believe the length of the line. The Birkin bags run from roughly $10,000 to $100,000 — depending on the material — and not only are people lining up to buy them, Hermes has also instituted a rule that a single customer may only purchase two bags per year. No hoarders.

We didn’t have to stand in line because people interested in anything aside from bags can be escorted in through another door. I love to admire their silk scarves and cashmere shawls.

After Hermes, we walked back to the train station to head to another part of town. The weather was cold and windy, but we’ve managed to avoid rain (so far).

Pretty street view.

Photos below: Le Jardin du Luxembourg (Luxembourg Garden) in the 6th arrondissement. It was created in 1612 by Marie de’ Medici for a new residence she constructed, the Luxembourg Palace. Today it’s owned by the French Senate, which meets in the Palace.

These gardens are famous as settings in films and literature. From wikipedia: The gardens are featured prominently in Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables. It is here that the principal love story of the novel unfolds, as the characters Marius Pontmercy and Cosette first meet. Henry James also uses the gardens, in The Ambassadors, as the place where his character Lambert Strether has an epiphany about his identity. The final scene of William Faulkner’s novel Sanctuary is set in the gardens. Patrick Modiano heard the news he had won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature via a mobile phone call from his daughter while walking through Paris, “just next to the Jardin du Luxembourg.”

Non-literary references include as the setting for a few episodes of French in Action, the cover of Tame Impala’s 2012 album Lonerism, the title of a song by the band The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger and the gardens and palace being added as a mission in the video game Assassin’s Creed Unity.

Sitting on a bench while the adults admire the flower beds.

Sailboat races in the fountain.

Spring flowers just being set out.

The Luxembourg Palace.

One of the first castings of the Statue of Liberty. It’s tiny.

Purely by chance, we stumbled on Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas’s apartment building, which appears to still be a private residence. We didn’t see any sign that it’s been turned into a museum we could go into.

Stein and Toklas are both fascinating characters and worth looking up. Most interesting to me is that Stein’s apartment in this building once housed a phenomenal art collection.

Here are a couple of old photos I lifted off the internet. Elsewhere, an article called Stein and Toklas’s apartment “the first modern art gallery in the world.”

Stein and Toklas together.

Shortly after that it started raining.

Found a very small outdoor market. Isabella bought a bracelet for one of her friends back home.

Since the weather was unpleasant, we found a place for a late lunch and then decided to call it day. We went back to the apartment to do some chores (laundry, etc.) and then settle in for Wine Time/dinner.

07 June 2017, Wednesday

We got up early and took a series of trains to Versailles. We arrived about 15 minutes before opening. We stood in line to buy tickets, then stood in another line to get into the palace.

Long lines.

Luckily the kids brought some entertainment.

Still waiting ….

Finally in! Now it’s our turn to engage in the combat viewing. (Insert previous Louvre rant about cell phone cameras. What is wrong with people?!!? You jerkwads are ruining it for everyone and your uninspired, poorly-lit selfies are boring. I hate you all.)

Lots of ornate decor and liberal use of gold.

Hall of Mirrors.

I asked Adam to take a photo of this table. The stone (granite?) top is one of the most gorgeous I’ve ever seen. It was semi-translucent and looked like caramel.

Painting depicting the French saving the Americans during the American Revolutionary War at the Battle of Yorktown. France was the first country to officially recognize our independence and status as a sovereign nation. (They were mostly doing it to give a big middle finger to the British.)

Outside in the gardens. We have been here before, back in 2012. Kids today …

Kids nearly in the same spot, January 2012.

On to explore the gardens. The weather was windy and cold, which drove a lot of people back inside. We loved that it was finally not crowded.

Having fun on the walk.

The gardens were the hunting grounds for French royalty. Much of it is still woods.

Walking paths through the woods, fenced off to keep people from wandering.

Holden getting a rock out of his shoe.

None of the fountains were on which was a little disappointing, but they were still fun to see.

Stopping to smell the roses.

Gardens closer to the palace.

The sky getting more ominous.

Photo taken by John: rare glimpse of the entire Mayse family all in one shot. From the back …

… and from the front.

John and Elaine, on the train back to Paris.

Some miscellaneous shots from Adam’s phone: The train yard near our apartment.

View of our building from across the street.

Interior of Pierre Herme, the macaroon store. We bought a few more treats.

Typical Wine Time (i.e., dinner) back in our apartment. We do this every evening. It’s relaxing and saves a lot of money on restaurants.

Adam and John buying bread.

08 June 2017, Thursday

This is John and Elaine’s last day. They fly home tomorrow morning, while the rest of us will stay for another week. The last things Elaine had on her must-see list were the Notre Dame cathedral and the Musee d’Orsay.

Since our itinerary was mostly museums, Josie and Holden opted to stay back at the apartment. We would meet up with them again later for lunch.

We returned to Notre Dame and, getting there earlier in the day, were able to walk right in.

On the way, we passed this fountain. It’s real name is Fontaine du Palmier, but for us it’s “Snot Fountain” because it looks a lot like the water is coming out of the figures’ noses. In the case of the four Egyptian-looking things (one of them pictured below) the water is actually coming out of the mouth, but in all the other figures the water bubbles straight out of the nostrils. It’s rather disgusting. Unfortunately Adam didn’t get a picture of any of the runny nosed figures. (From wikipedia: It was designed to provide fresh drinking water to the population of the neighborhood and to commemorate the victories of Napoleon Bonaparte.)

Walking to the entrance of Notre Dame cathedral. The reason Isabella came with us this morning instead of staying home with Holden and Josie was that she wanted to see the interior of this particular cathedral. Her favorite animated movie of all time is Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

She walked in and said, “Wow, the real one is WAY bigger.” The stained glass windows were familiar though and so was the layout. Disney usually does a good job with that kind of thing.

The stained glass in this cathedral is spectacular and worth seeing, even if you have to stand in line for awhile.

John and Elaine, taking it all in.

They do allow people to walk up to the bell tower but the line for that is around the side of the building and separate from the line to get into the main entrance. By the time we were done touring the lower floor, the line to climb the stairs was so long we decided to skip it. (Also, the main entrance is free but you have to pay to go upstairs.)

So, we left and made our way in the general direction of the Musee d’Orsay. Below: cool old pub that was established in 1766.

We stopped for a snack in this place:

None of us were very hungry but we wanted a reason to sit and rest our feet for awhile before heading into another museum. I had a fantastic bowl of onion soup. Adam and Isabella split a Nutella crepe and texted pictures of it to Holden and Josie, just to make them jealous.

The jealousy text pic …

Musee d’Orsay houses the impressionist collection. It’s my favorite museum in Paris (so far, anyway). Adam and I have been here before, but it was all new for John and Elaine.

This painting has been Adam’s screen saver for years: Claude Monet c.1873 “Poppy Field near Argenteuill” Seeing the original was fun after looking at it on a computer screen for so long.