Check out the two previous adventures: November 20 and November 21.
We haven't had a report in a while but things have calmed down enough to write up a few activities. Joe returned to Chicago and is enroute as we write this. Carolyn and Paul ventured to the Alps for about a week. Veronica remains to supervise her in-laws.
Due to Dick's business trips this week to London (Monday) and Rome (Wed night/Thursday), the pictures have been somewhat sparse. Never fear, Veronica is learning to use his digital camera so we should have beaucoup du photos as usual. While Dick was out, the gang did a lot of the usual stuff like long days at the Louvre, the Eifel tower, etc. In addition, Paul and Carolyn learned to wander the city in search of the funky stuff. Yes, there are vegetarians in France. (Dick could have told them that as his Berlitz teacher has been a vegetarian for 20 years and, being French, smokes!)
Here's a few shots and commentary:
Paul and Joe venture to the dreaded cave (a French name for a very musty and dirty basement room where Dick and Pietrina keep all of their overflow stuff). Here they are trying to keep the boxes from falling on them. Gravity won:
They were there to retrieve Pietrina's Christmas decorations and we are proud to say that our Parisian apartment is now appropriately attired for St. Nick's visit. Pietrina hates to go down to the cave but fortunately forsaw this problem 30 years ago and had children who don't know better that she can send off on these errands.
Paul and Carolyn visited the scenic northern Parisian neighborhood called Montmarte earlier in the week. Joe and Veronica ventured there on Saturday. Here's a few shots in front of the signature church, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart (le Sacre-Coeur), visible from our back street. The building gleams on the highest hill in Paris because the stone it is made from bleaches with age.
And of course, our senior visitors:
Dick and Pietrina have been up here many times, but this was the
first time they climbed to the top of the dome to take many
photos of the local area. To learn more about this interesting
church, click
here.
Next we browsed through these historic streets where Picasso and Einstein worked (as commemorated in the Steve Martin Play, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, named after a bistro in the area). One stop took us into the oldest church in Paris, St-Pierre de Montmartre.
Since we were in the church mood (and more importantly, we were getting good sun for nearly the end of November in this northern clime), we headed down to the Isle de la Cite (where Notre Dame is) to see the much smaller flamboyant gothic chapel called Sainte Chappelle, a St. Louis's tiny religious space which is mostly stained glassed walled as you can see from this picture:
OK, there is some construction going on. This is Paris. They're fixing the John the Baptist window. (You knew it was missing, didn't you!) To be fair, the scaffolding is coming down this week from Notre Dame and she looks good. Photos later.
Despite the fact that we were travelling to our third church of the day, our subway train was delayed when a young French girl got very piqued by having her pocket picked. Apparently we haven't ended all evil in Paris yet, but we are working on it.
Our next stop was to take the Seine boat to see the other sites from water view. While waiting, we lounged in this park, once its own island before being appended to Isle de la Cite. This is the spot where the head of the Knights Templar was burned alive by the King. While we were there, no one got burnt.
In the far background, you can see a women in red sitting on a lawn chair. That, of course, is the well know Parisian model Pietrina Schmitt with her first daughter-in-law sitting to her left. Joe is behind the tree--don't ask. You are seeing almost all of what was once its own island.
The picture at the top of the page is an artsy shot meant to honor Lady Veronique who was observing me edit the pictures afterwards. This was taken on the same bench as above.
The boat ride was predictable for Dick and Pietrina who have been on it many times before. Joe and Veronica stayed on the top deck and came down at the end pretty frigid from the post-sundown wind.
Returning to the apartment, we met our favoriate Parisian wanderers: Paul and Carolyn who had a day at the Père Lachaise Cemetery and local gardens, Picasso museum, etc. and we all went off to dinner at our favorite Italian restuarant.
Then Paul and Carolyn were off to Gare de Lyon to take the overnight train on a sleeper car to the Alps.
Sunday, the four of us started the day at St. Roch's church, a historic building (same architect as the Louvre) about a five minute walk towards the Tullieries garden from our apartment. Then it was brunch and a trip to the airport to put Joe off on the plane back to Chicago.
Then the three of us were off to the Bois de Vincennes, a very large park at the east edge of Paris where Veronica took this picture which we are thinking about using in some form on our Christmas Card.
Then it was off to the Hotel de Ville, one of the most ornate buildings in town (and our city hall). The excuse was that Dick's newspaper, Le Figaro, was sponsoring a massive book signing by hundreds of book authors. The real reason was to let Veronica see the inside of this usually closed building that tourists (and even Parisians) hardly ever get to see. She agreed that this building's large hall beats the Versailles hall of mirrors (which it copied). We didn't take pictures today because the place was jammed. Here's a picture we took in September that just hints at the ornate splendor of this building:
Then it was down to the Left Bank where 100 galleries were having some special opening, most of which we missed but did wander into more souvenir shops before eating Greek and winding our way home.
Stay tuned for upcoming adventures.
Can't get enough? Check out the two previous adventures: November 20 and November 21.
