Leaving Paris - Arriving Saint-Malo

Paris doesn't make it easy to say goodbye. Our last days we had to go back to the old favorite haunts. The Orangerie filled with those nothing-else-like-them-like-ever wall length Monets and the wonderful Paul Guillame collection d ownstairs, the W.H. Smith Bookstore, around and through the 7th, 6th, 5th and 4th arrondisements, and one more visit to the Musee D'Orsay... (Such a perfect place, I wish they'd allow us to scatter our ashes there.)

Monday 7/26, we packed, cleaned the apartment (Paul got a little compulsive, but it looked great when we left, aside from the sheets and towels hanging to dry all over the bathroom), taxied to Gare Mont Parnasse and were soon on our way to Saint-Malo. Sophie and David had already arrived at our home the day before, thanks to the wonders of internet home exchange and jet air travel. We were so happy to see Anna, mother of Sophie, holding a sign with our names and photo from the home exchange web site. Anna and her husband drove us to the very nice large apartment inside the fortress walls of St. Malo, showed us the apartment and where the car was parked, and left us with keys and a bunch of beautiful fresh veggies and a flower bouquet from her garden. Oops, forgot to mention the apricot and framboise home made jams she left us.

Even on a bright day and with lots of windows, it's still kinda dark inside the walls of a fortified town, and our arrival day and the next were overcast. The sea just outside the wall was beautiful, but the sky was grey. We wondered if perhaps 2.5 weeks was too long to stay, but we remembered that we always feel a certain yuck factor when we don't know what the heck we are doing - so we gave it some time and started getting oriented. Great ramparts, too many tourists, loads of Creperies, a few good restaurants, a small public market, really old church not destroyed by the allies, amazing low tides with long flat beaches tempting one to walk out to distant forts, but watch out for the tides coming back in - signs warn you to stay there half a day til the tides again ebb!

Next day, still overcast, we took the car, figured out the GPS and set off to tour the Cote de Emeraulde, driving west along the beautiful coast line. Families of all ages show up in droves at low tide to walk amazing distances out onto the wet beaches to dig for shellfish.

Note: those teeny tiny dots in the photo are people, there were over a hundred.

We covered four of the many peninsulas that project north into the English Channel and were surprised by the number of thriving resort towns with beautiful homes and beaches.

We climbed the watch tower at Fort La Latte

for stunning panoramic views of the coast line (so hard to capture with a point and shoot), and walked around Cap Frehel.

Brittany is named for the migrant Britons from Cornwall and Wales who settled here about 450AD, but these two forts were used to repel invasions from Brittish and others since the 14th century. Bretagne residents felt they were a country unto themselves, not beholding to France or England.

The following morning the sun shone brightly in a big blue sky. We took the water bus a 10 minute ride across the inlet or outlet to Dinard, a resort town "discovered" around 1850 by an American who built a big home on the cliff with a magnificent view.

He was followed by many more wealthy Americans and Britons. The town focuses around three beautiful wide sandy beaches filled with adults and many playful children running, swimming, digging, building.

A promenade offers a long walk along the beaches and below the cliffs, with breath taking vistas of St. Malo, sail boats, rock outcroppings and distant lands. Paul's camera just couldn't capture the amazing panarama. We are darned proud of the views of SF bay and the GG Bridge, but these vistas were close rivals... unfortunately our camera does not capture the spectacular panorama, so we'll leave it to our memory and your imagination.

We saw ads for an art show called HOPE, so we found the museum and really appreciated it. Not sure why Paul liked the above piece so much, it had beads and sequins, carefully sewn all over it. There were also videos and a huge painting of Obama. The one that touched Danice most, was this photo of a poor donkey adrift in a small boat. Let's hope he had HOPE.

Friday and mostly cloudy, a drive35 km south and west to Dinan. It's Vieille Ville (old town) has beautifully restored (after WWII) half-timber houses

and stone buildings of the earlier 15th to 17th century architecture. The cobblestone streets and stone houses are reassembled from the bombing rubble. As in many areas of France, a church may have walls and apses and towers ranging from the 12th century to the 18th. It's so exciting to see the buildings that represent the investment of so much time and hard hard work and people's lives. That and the amazing scenery are what keep us traveling. Well, but then there's the food too.

Musee D'Orsay and Good Food

We finally made it over to the Musee D'Orsay, even though the DeYoung in SF had been acting like they'd provided sanctuary for just about every impressionist painting the D'Orsay had ever owned, as the D'Orsay is remodeling their 5th floor. So you can imagine our relief to find the side sections of the amazing main floor with almost all the collection intact, and presented in different ways that made one take new notice. There were many rooms filled with most of our old favorites. Only problem was we under-estimated the crowds at 4:00 PM, so we hope to make it back right at opening to see it all before the group tours and afternoon tourists arrive. We were ejected at 5:30, and couldn't actually say we'd been kicked out of better places as neither of us could think of one.

Why did we not arrive before 4:00PM, there is a reason. We had reservations for lunch at L'Agrume in the 5th arrondisement. We had a full bottle of wine which was wonderful with lunch but rendered us sluggish afterwards. So, highly satisfied, full and a bit drowsy, we walked to the Jardin des Plantes for a lovely stroll and sitting spell;

then realizing it was about to rain and the time, we scurried to the Metro and to the Musee.

We have found three small Bistros run by innovative chefs that we've really enjoyed. They are out in the neighborhoods and appear to be populated by locals. The foods are perfectly prepared. To us, some dishes were very special, others merely very good. We went for their prix-fixe lunchs, about half what dinners cost but not the full blown array of courses. After the first one, we learned to order wine by the glass, to remain more spry and alert for the rest of the day.

• L'Agrume in the 5th e. at 15 reu des Fosses St. Marcel. 01-43-31-86-48 Lunch was 2 courses for 16E. The first course was three different appetizers. We should have stopped with our 2 lovely courses, but Paul ordered a poached apricot dessert that will have me forever trying to get that depth of flavor from apricots. (I'm compiling a list of French cooking questions for Jane Greene.) We're returning to this one for dinner Saturday night.
• Bistro Paul Bert in the 11th e. at 18 rue Paul Bert. 01-43-72-24-01. A 3 course lunch was 16.50E, very interesting and well executed. (But beware the Fountainbleu dessert, a rich white cheese whipped with cream and topped with raspberry sauce - we actually left half of it.) We loved the interior, a former Butcherie with tile walls and floors and metal racks on the ceiling from which to hang carcases, but warmly remodeled with friendly service.
• La Gazzetta in the 12th e. at 29 rue de Cotte 01-43-47-05. About the same prices as above. A NY Times article says the chef's experiments and pairings are as progressive restaurants in Scandinavia, Spain and Chicago (whatever style that is) but still personal. We enjoyed this, but would recommend the other two ahead of it.

Here's happy Paul in La Gazzetta:

We prepare breakfast, a few lunches and about half our dinners at home, and always after one of these bistro lunches. Dinner is often a salad with a baguette and some great cheese or Bresola (thin sliced beef) and if hungrier a delicious melon with thin sliced french ham. Salad greens are wonderful here, so we buy them fresh at the outdoor market at Place L'Aligre every 2 days. We have dinner around 9:00, as the days are so long here it's not dark til after 10:00. We add a bottle of Rose, and it feels like a party.

Paul keeps finding English DVD's in our hosts library to top out the evening. We've enjoyed watching: "Dogville" (heavy), two Ken Loach British working class movies, "Breaking Waves" (heavy), " Blue Moon" (light), and "The Human Factor" ( based on a Graham Greene book, so a sad tale of espionage and love).

We do miss San Francisco and our friends, but we are loving this life for a while.

Walking Paris

Anyone who's fallen for Paris knows the Metros are a great way to get around, but walking is the best way to see and feel the city. So on the breezy 75 degree days we've been off to places both familiar and new. Paul's NY cousins' friends gave us a set of walking tours they had just published, and we think they're great - to get us down little streets previously passed by or to view old sights from new directions.

First was a walk from Metro Cadet in the 9th e. through five glass and steel roofed "passages" with lovely tiled floors, built in the 1800's to make shopping more convenient in Paris' rainy winters. Lined with old specialty shops and restaurants, they were very cozy and inviting. But too early for lunch, we pressed on past 17th century churches, a Place with Louis XIV statue (Louis really spent the people's money to leave his marks all over France), for a lovely outdoor lunch on Rue Leopold Bellan built in the 15th century. Then to the Rue Montorgueil, limited traffic and a highly touted food street. We couldn't resist a cherry tart, saving it for a later coffee stop. Onward to St. Eustache church and Les Halles, the park that replaced the Fruit and Vegetable vendors (too big, too much odor, garbage, rats, it was moved to a suburb in 1969.) This led us to the beautiful and familiar Palais Royale, then on to Place Madeline and a Metro ride home.

Next walk was to satisfy our love for Paris' parks, so to an old favorite, Parc Monceau in the 17th. We began at the Arc de Triumph, and zig-zaged past an Art Nouveau Ceramic Hotel, a lovely 1912 department store with stained glass ceiling (now an electronics store), and an 1862 Byzantine inspired Russian Cathedral.

Finally through the elegant gates to Parc Monceau, where Proust did a lot of contemplation. It's a beautiful, not very large park in the style of English gardens with Greek columns just for the fun of viewing them and of course a small lake. As usual, it was filled with playful children with their parents and the elder generation. Everything in Paris is well maintained, providing lots of jobs and peaceful enjoyment.

I was disappointed to see no bridal parties in full regalia as witnessed on earlier visits, but perhaps less likely on Thursday evening. This area of Paris is still the place for the Bourgeoisie with large houses and mansions. We had a pleasant outdoor dinner, then walked back down toward Paris center, viewing from the rear a huge St. Augustin Cathedral in the final light of day. We need to return to see that in the setting sun light. We approached Place Madeline from the north too, a familiar land mark from a view we'd never before seen.

Another walk was inspired by our friend Annabel who mentioned walking along the Canal St. Martin, which we had enjoyed 3 years ago at Patrick's suggestion. This time we started further south, near Place de la Republique, and it was a sunny Sunday. It seemed all the young adults of Paris sit along the canal in the shade of the many trees, to talk, picnic, drink beers, read, write etc. We aimed for the Parc de la Villette in the 19th e., a big well designed park with Cite de Artes and Science, Cité de la Musique, sculptures and open spaces where we heard a really good African rock band, sat on the grass ate ice cream, watched the families and kids, and found out about the free outdoor cinema. The catch is that it starts when it's totally dark, around 11:00 PM.

Oldenburg bike tire and follie in Parc Villette - Taken on previous trip

So we took the Metro part way home and walked the last stretch of the canal to find a good spot for dinner. We did, and had a really nice meal... enhanced by a friendly woman from Finland sitting next to us who helped us decipher the stranger than usual menu. She teaches English, speaks great French, plus Swedish and Finnish. Her traveling companion creates comic books and graphic novels, so Paul had a lively discussion with him. One wonders what the Finns do during those long dark winters. They told a story of summer there, when riding their bikes home from dinner at midnight, they decided it best to wear sun glasses. It had been a beautiful day, great walk, great park, fun meal, and time to take the Metro home and to bed.

Our fourth neighborhood walk, Tuesday, started in the southern part of the 5th e. at Rue Moffetard, a big market street. We proceeded north to Place de la Contrscarpe, a former hang out for drunkards. Down Cardinal Lemoine is one of the buildings where Ernest Hemingway lived with his wife in the early 1920's. A wall plaque with a quote from A Moveable Feast translates as, "This is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy."

Further along we visited the church of St. Etienne du Mont, which is dedicated to St. Genevieve. Her claim to fame seems to be that when Attila and 700,000 Huns were at the gates of Paris in 451, she went to his camp and persuaded him to sack Orleans instead. Doesn't sound so saintly to me, but apparently she also had visions and other miracles to put her into the canonized cult.

Then to the Pantheon, a beautiful temple but not religious, it's a burial site for France's great heroes. The dome is 220 feet high; in 1851, Foucault suspended a pendulum from the dome to perform a sensational demonstration, proving to Napoleon III and the Parisian elite that the Earth revolved around its axis. Scientists already knew this, but this was the first visible demonstration. It's fun to watch.

After lunch we thought we'd head home to our apartment and fan, seeking refuge from the forecast 90 degree heat; but first a long awaited stop on Ille St. Louis for Berthollin's ice cream. Crossing the Pont St. Louis we were astounded to see a familiar looking guy making big energetic gestures at us. Turns out it was our friends from LA, David Musicant followed by Catherine, Alex, Josh and Natalie. We hugged all around and marveled at the coincidence of it, and determined it must'a been the ice cream that had drawn us all to this spot on the globe; they had just finished theirs. What great fun to be in Paris and run into dear old friends! We hugged all around again and set off in our opposite directions - to meet again, most likely, when we convene for our annual Christmas gathering.

The hot Metro was too much to face, so we chose instead a British thriller at the Bastille called, "The Disappearance of Alice Creed", a well put together distraction that kept us cool. (Paul's aside: this is the kind of stuff he finds interesting: the title role in Alice is the same woman, Gemma Arterton http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2605345/ , who played the title role in the other movie we saw, "Tamara Drewe", a romantic comedy; two quite different roles. This is the kind of stuff Danice has to put up with.) After the movie we walked home to a neighborhood bar for Beers with a slight breeze, then to our relatively cool apartment where Paul read the online news and fixed a great meal while I started this posting. Rain is promised Wednesday, a welcome cooler and a chance to test our new 3.8E umbrellas.

BTW - how many spotted the double colons? Any gastroenterologists out there?

A Couple Of Museums

We want to see all the incredible art we can while in Paris, but when it's a breezy day in the 70's it's so hard to stay indoors. We're grateful for the mild weather, but it does challenge us to choose our pleasures wisely.

Yesterday we decided to see a show titled "Du Greco a Dali", at a private mansion on boulevard Hausmann in the 8th, the musee Jacquemart-Andre. We really appreciate Spanish artists so this sounded great. While there was some really good art, there was only one tiny piece by El Greco, and there were some beautiful Dali's. I hadn't before noticed works by Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida and I loved the many they showed. It was one of the few shows containing Picasso's work without using his name in the title. Although worth the trip, it wasn't as good as we had hoped.

So we hopped the #9 Metro down to Muette for a nice lunch and then back through the small park to the Musee Marmottan Monet. (Closed when we had come earlier due to electrical failure.) We were expecting some lovely Monet's but the show they had put together really knocked our socks off. Called "Monet and Abstraction" it explained that Monet was somewhat forgotten later in his life, until the 1950's when abstract artists like Pollock, Stills, Richter, Gotlieb and Rothko realized he had been exploring the use of color and form to capture reality at its most immediate, just as they were. In Monet's late works,"the subject recedes, giving way to visual and memorial sensations translated into paint....he was instrumental in establishing the relativistic and vitalistic principles of abstract painting." The mid 20th century artists made pilgrimages to the Orangerie to see what Monet had done with those water lillies.

The curators hung works by these later abstract artists right next to Monet's. Pollack's work looked almost like those scribbly autumn paintings of the garden at Giverny. Richter's looked like the broad blue pond with an occasional pale water lily. A red canvas by Rothko that "saturated the picture plane with the sheer vibrancy of color" was shown near Monet's Haystack with its "juxtaposition of contrasting pure colors to convey natural light, with all it's variations of intensity."

For me it was an, "Ohmygod!" experience, like "It really wasn't just his cataracts then...". We had given up buying cards and catalogs to dutifully carry home and put in a box with our travel books, but we did buy this catalog to show any interested friends what they were trying to express in this show. If you like impressionism and abstract art, it's a humdinger.

Bastille Day

July 14th dawned with thunder and rain, dampening our hopes to see the fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. Bastille Day is a big national holiday that commemorates the 1789 storming of the Bastille prison, a symbol of the uprising of the modern nation, and of the reconciliation of all the French inside the constitutional monarchy that preceded the First Republic, according to Wiki. So, we had breakfast and still sans umbrellas, decided to catch up on reading, writing and laundry. We were soon interrupted by the entire French Air Force flying very low right over our open front windows. Seems we're on a flight path that extends a straight line drawn right down the Champs Elysees, where the President and other hardy parade-watchers were reviewing French military might.

I daresay it was impressive, but living in a world in which Paul explains that Europeans just do not use energy as we do in the US, and thus sneakily turns off the fan after I fall asleep; then I have to wake up and turn it on while he's asleep, etc. etc., it strikes me as a greater waste of energy than my personal fan.

Later, during a break in the precipitation, we scurried 1/2 block to a local bar/restaurant where we had a very tasty ourdoor lunch, while watching a very long intense deluge, under a very functional awning. The downspout for the entire building emptied to and across the sidewalk right at my feet, so I was pleased I had worn some amphibious beach walking shoes for the occasion. We also got to see about 50 or so camouflaged (but we could still see them) French army tanks zooming right past us down Rue Diderot. The parade seemed to have come to us in the 12th arrondisement. Is this a great city or what?

Late in the afternoon, glory be, the sun came popping out and there was hardly a cloud in sight. Paul fixed us another great dinner of delicious salad with Bresola, Rabbit and Chicken pates and a nice wine. About 8:00 PM we set out with half our bottle of wine and some cookies, headed for the Seine and the best spot to see the fireworks. I had initially thought to see it from the Trocadero, right across the river from the tower, but Benjamin our host warned us it could be too crowded there, eliciting in us fears of trampling. So we walked west along the right bank, pushing to get a good bridge spot closer to the Eiffel Tower. We stopped about 9:30 to grab a good seat on the ledge of the Pont de Concorde. There were already crowds everywhere, but they continued to grow denser until it was finally dark about 10:45. To make us really want it, they taunted us with sexy dazzling twinkle lights all over the Tower, and finally started the explosions at 11:00 PM. While we waited we chatted with fellow bridge sitters, a young girl from Seattle who's an undiscovered Pop Singer, about how Malcolm Gladwell tells us the Beatles got their start, and the guy with her from Vancouver. They had just met at a Youth Hostel and both seemed like good kids and very strong at the requisite body press to pull oneself up onto the high bridge railing without catapulting ones self over. We sat at a lower level and Paul helped to lift me backwards; I don't think it was agile in the least.

The fireworks were great! We should have continued walking further east to be more beneath them, but the crowds may have been overwhelming. The finale seemed to be the best ever in our short lives, but that may just be the magic of the Seine and warm Paris nights talking. Getting a Metro home at the Place de la Concorde was another cause for trampling concern, but Paul held my hand and directed us out of the pack further north to Place Madeline where the station was only slightly crowded. The arriving trains were packed, but 4 people got off, we squeezed on and home to bed, tired but happy.

Walking the Promenade to Bois Vincennes

Last Sunday, we took a beautiful Paris walk, the Promenade Plantee. It starts near the Bastille atop an old aqueduct. It's not unlike the High-line in Manhattan, but much longer. Below, near Gare de Lyon, is the Viaduc des Arts with artisan studios and shops. The Promenade descends to street level in the 12th e. along an abandoned railway line. Some modern apartment buildings seem sliced to fit right up next to the Promenade.

(Paul is rather annoyed that these people did not center themselves on the Promenade. It could'a been a contender.)

Planted in 1988 and opened in 1993, it is a well maintained urban garden that goes on and on for at least 3 miles until one reaches the Bois de Vincennes in the SE corner of Paris.

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The Bois is a very large park, three times the size of Central Park. Originally a hunting preserve for the kings of France, it became a public park under Napolean III in 1860. It is a park in the English landscape manner.

It's filled with lakes, sports grounds, playgrounds, biking trails, flower gardens, meditation, bird watching, lots of woods and getting lost places.

Getting lost is the thing we managed to do - two or three times, depending on who's counting. We tried shortcuts through the woods to get out of the hot sun, and came out 90 to 180 degrees off from the direction we meant to be heading. Thanks to a rare "You Are Here" sign, we finally emerged near the Chateau de Vincennes, not far from which we found a pleasant Brasserie for a delightful Sunday lunch and a nearby Metro station to take us home, proving once again that all is well that ends that way.

Tomorrow and tomorrow: we are happy

Anyone who started our previous post was bound to turn back when we got to the demi and demi. Apologies for all the venting and details; we were going through a brief period of adjustment time-zone wise fueled by a bottle of Rose. Although, if you didn't get far enough to read about the apricots regulating the digestive system, it is a tip that will serve you well and may or may not bear repeating.

Monday it was raining and we had forgotten our umbrellas and couldn't find any in the nearby stores, but then it stopped raining so we forgot about forgetting umbrellas. We bought a Time Out and went to a great Munch show at Pinacoteque du Paris in Place Madeline. We had been to a Munch museum in Oslo and the man seemed depressed, dark, hallucinatory and gloomy, though terribly talented. This show had many beautiful paintings and was a delight.

It's too soon to be truly craving an English language movie, but pre-emptively Paul found one at a great place called Cinema Complexe. We metroed to Bercy and walked past a stunning modern Palais OmniSports into beautiful Bercy Gardens along the Seine in the 12th, emerging at a complex of converted warehouses converted to Bercy Village, a long row of restaurants and a nicely designed Multiplex. We had dinner and really enjoyed a British movie, "Tamara Drewes" which Stephen Frears did based on a graphic novel by Posy Simmonds. For movie buffs, it's a well made film and you care about the characters; kind of like "A Fish Named Wanda" but maybe not that funny. It was strange to hear the delayed laughter as the French people read the subtitles.

Next morning another trip to the public market for more salad, cheese and melons. After lunch, we headed for the Musee Marmottan for a big shot of Monets. It appears we looked like tourists though; walking through the gardens to the Musee a friendly woman told us not to bother, it was closed due to electrical failure. So we reconnoitered and headed for Musee Moderne de Art. It was a breezy, not humid, quite comfortable 80 outdoor, but inside the delightful artwork had to compete with the 90+ degree interior temperature. This has not only blown the idea that we can always find refuge on warm days in a nice air conditioned museum, the place didn't seem to have any ventilation at all. After 5 warm days, we're pretty sure some rooms were above 90 degrees. It was built in 1967, and evidently has neither the thick, cool stone walls of old buildings nor the ventilation of modern structures.

We cooled off walking along the Seine

to the Tuilerie Gardens where we caught the Metro home. We istened to some old LP's our hosts have of Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan and Janice Joplin, (must have been inherited from their parents) then Paul fixed a light dinner. Now Paul is searching our host's DVD collection for a movie with either English dialogue or sub-titles.

Arriving in Paris - July 2010

I now know that if I ask Paul the question, "where should we go this year?" the answer will always be Paris or Italy. Since we were in Italy the past two years, it was Paris this time... (I find it nearly impossible to make rational argument against this option.) So we arrived Friday July 9, at 7 AM, and it was a bit less than magical.

Jet lagged and sleep deprived , we made our way to our home exchange apartment on a lovely tree lined street in the 12th district by 9 AM. Our Paris exchangers had discovered at the last minute they couldn't leave Paris, so they've given us their home and moved in with their parents. Benjamin, a charming young doctoral law student/teacher met us at the door, showed us around, then departed.

We got our PC connected to their wireless network (big cheer!) and discovered that Paris was in for an 89 degree day, no breeze, and a promise of hotter weather on Saturday. We San Franciscans don't remember what that feels like. And the good and bad news about this apartment on the 4th floor in a lovely building is that it gets plenty, truly plenty of sun.

Amadis, the other half of the exchange couple, came by at 7 PM to say hello and pick up her suitcase. She also was gracious and charming. Fortunately for us, both of these smart young people spoke perfect English. Amadis had worked a long hard day as an Administrative Law Judge, during which time, not to be outdone, we had eaten lunch, bought a fan and did what we like to call "assembled" it.

Directions were in 5 languages, made almost no sense and were accompanied by diagrams reduced to 25% - or less. It felt daunting, so we decided to just use our own sleep-deprived brains to figure it out; we all know what fans do. The parts of the base and the telescoping rod didn't exactly fit right, they tossed in an extra piece for a good chuckle in the assembly plant, and just as we thought we had it... a small band that holds the front and back screens together came apart. It was sweaty, grouchy, tired and all-round blah in our little Paris apartment. In the midst of this torture, Paul was sweet enough to smile at me and say, "tomorrow we'll be happy." I gotta love that guy. It took us a while to rise to this challenge, but voilla! (stop me if I'm too French) we tied the front and back grills together with four bits of matching white string in Paul's boy scout double knots, and we had a totally grill protected working fan.

This enabled us to sleep from 10 to 6 with help from Ambien. Up, refreshed, grateful for returned health and vigor we made cafe au lait, slathered french bread with confiture and were soon out the door. Off to the outdoor public market for fresh salad greens, fruits, cheese, fresh bread, etc. Here I found my phrase book French somewhat inadequate. We wanted some apricots, but we only wanted about 1/4 kilo. I didnt know the right word for 1/4, but "demi" had been so successful in acquiring 1/2 kilos of cherries and tomatoes, I thought I'd just apply some simple math and ask for a demi de demi kilo of apricots. First I paid him, handing over a 20 euro note since I couldn't comprehend the price they so rapidly speak. He gave me change and then a bag that I saw was 1/2 kilo. Oh well, many apricots!! We shrugged and walked away; but he called us back and gave us another 1/2 kilo. So it seems he guessed I was adding one demi to one demi to get two demis. I need to learn to say "half of a half" or ..... we just looked up the French word for 1/4 and it's "quart", but the google-voice pronounces it very close to the word for four, "quatre", so we may end up with four kilos of apricots next time. You may know that stone fruit is wondrous at reprogramming the digestive system, but one must caution moderation.

We set out again around 11 to visit some beloved old sites before the day grew too hot. Walking from the Marais district along the Seine to the Louvre, across the Pont des Arts, we stopped mid-span to eat apricots and spotted a myriad of locks attached to the mesh sides of the bridge. Wikipedia tells us these are left by sweethearts to express their love. It began in the 1980's in the Hungarian city of Pec and has spread to various locations around Europe. Live and learn.

On across to the left bank, we visited the gallery where Paul purchased his first four prints in 1972, but alas they didn't remember him. We didn't want to add to the crowds in museums on the weekend, so we pushed deeper into the 7th arrondisement, filled with showrooms and galleries. When we stopped for a beer and snack at a pleasant sidewalk bar a woman nearby working at her iPad overheard our tourist chatter and asked where we were from. She was a lawyer living around the corner and very clear in her opinions. A sampling:

• The French are crazy, they don't like speaking of or flaunting money, they are very sad.
• Everyone knew about Sarkozy taking money, but no one cared or wanted to speak of it.
• Sarkozy's arch enemy is Dominique de Villepin, whom everyone knows will be the next president. (He represented France's opposition to the Iraq War at the UN - remember Freedom Fries?)
• She and all the French love Barack Obama, and he is what France needs but does not have.

We bid her a fond adieu and will wait to see if she is right. So far we do not find the French to be sad.

On through Luxembourg gardens, filled with families strolling and playing, a high school glee club doing a fine job with old pop favorites, the gardens and flowers in full bloom, very idyllic.

As we headed up the hill and past the Pantheon the rain sprinkles began; so we turned back to the river, across the Ile Saint Louis resisting the ice cream for now, and back into the Marais, as the rain drops grew larger and more regular. We scurried into the Metro as the rain pelted down, 3 stops west to our home. The high was only 82. We think we can handle this weather for the sake of this beautiful city.