Discovering More of Paris

Bonjour

 I think this Email will be much too long. I’m starting off with that thought because I am going to include two days’ worth of thoughts into one message and then just include one set of six photos. For those of you who think I’m very long winded, I don’t mind… look at the photos and delete the Email without reading all the text. I write these emails as much to solidify memories as to pass them onto anyone who wants or doesn’t want to read them. Even having said that I will admit this is a long pile of thoughts for anyone but me to read, so I suggest you either read it in stages, like chapters in a book or maybe just look at the pictures and like I already said, delete the rest.

  Saturday July 12th

We are leaving Paris tomorrow for our drive around France. I am actually feeling quite happy about that. It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed this last 3 days! I’ve enjoyed them tremendously and that’s the reason I’m happy we’re leaving. Joani and I have taken in so much in such a short time that the drive to the mountains will be a way to clear my head and assimilate what I have seen. Today we got up, had breakfast and went to the Musee d’Orsay.

I haven’t read that this is the largest collection of impressionist art anywhere but I have a hard time believing that there is a larger collection in the world. There are several rooms that held collections of up to 40 paintings of groups of 2 to 3 artists at a time, but the piece de resistance was the Loft ( 5^th floor) that held between 250 and 350 paintings by artists such as Monet, Renoir, Seurat, Degas, Manet, etc., etc. The list went on and on. There wasn’t one or two paintings by each artist either. Each artist had 5 to 10 paintings representing different periods in their careers. As we were walking through this large studio I was constantly amazed at the size of the collection. How could they amass this amount of unbelievably expensive art under one roof?  

 I haven’t yet mentioned my idol either. Vincent Van Gogh was one of the artists who shared one of the rooms. He shared his room with Gaugin. It was 3 large rooms containing 40 to 50 canvases. I would guess that 20 to 30 of them were done by Van Gogh. I really have to say that again……20 to 30 Van Gogh canvases. I remember 5 or 6 years ago a lost Van Gogh was found and put on the market. It sold for something odd like 67 million Euro or some extreme sum like that. What would a room containing 20 to 30 Van Gogh paintings be worth without even discussing the worth of the Gaugins in the same room? I hate to put a monetary value on art. I really believe that it is up to what the buyer or buyers pay on a piece by piece basis. But I saw billions of dollars’ worth of paintings today and it was unbelievable. The only disappointing part was when I told Joani which 2 Van Gogh Canvases she could buy for me she just laughed and walked away. Go figure. I bought 2 posters directly from the Museum of the ones I wanted and will frame them myself but I bet it won’t be the same as having the originals. The first two photos below are from this morning because the Museum doesn’t allow photos of the older paintings contained inside. So there is one photo of a sculpture by Rodin

and one of the exterior of Musee D’ Orsay.

 In the afternoon we walked up a mountain. At least it seemed that way. Joani wanted to see the “Sacre-Coeur”, one of France’s most important Roman Catholic buildings. (So our eyewitness guide says) I wanted to see Marche aux Puces de St- Ouen (the oldest and largest flea market in Paris) and we both wanted to see the Moulin Rouge.

You know…where Nicole Kidman made her claim to fame. Anyway I’m not sure on this but it seemed to me that the Moulin Rouge was two thirds of the way up a mountain and the Sacre-Coeur was at the top. We climbed and rested and climbed and hydrated, climbed a little more, rested a little more, hydrated a little more and then finally made it to the top. People have described me as a fallen Catholic and if that is meant to say that I have fallen from some height, I believe that in this climb I should almost be back up again.

 The next 2 photos are one of the Moulin Rouge

and one of the view from the Sacre-Coeur.

If you look closely at that one you can see most of Paris laid out below the Basilica.

 The worst of all this climbing was that the Flea market was down the mountain on the other side of Paris. So as most of you are aware, I’m pretty nutty and Joani (bless her heart) loves to humour me so we descended down the mountain on the opposite side of the city to see a large flea market that turned out to be a major drag. Sure it was enormous, no doubt about that but had not one thing we were even slightly interested in. So tired and hungry, we decided that rather than walk home we would try to ride the Paris subway. I could really stretch that out but truth to tell. We found a subway stop easily and got on a train that took us 2 blocks from home. How odd…3 hours of walking-15 minutes by subway. No photos because the market was a dud.

 For those of you sick of hearing about art, churches and flea markets, take heart, we are heading for the mountains and a mountain stage of the Tour De France.

  Sunday July 13^th

 We had breakfast and headed to the train station where we were picking up our rental car. I believe I said this last year when we were in Spain, but I love the concept of driving through European countries. It just seems so……..Foreign!!

We spent approximately 5 hours getting to our hotel in a small town called Le Thillot and the drive was a blast. We took our own CD’s and rocked our way from Paris to the mountainous countryside.

We booked our hotel 5 months ago on nothing more than an internet rumour of a possibility that the Tour might be coming to this town, and confirmed today what we had only hoped. The person who checked us in to our rooms told us the Tour would be going by 100 meters from the front of the Hotel. But that wasn’t good enough, so after checking in, we drove out and found out that we could hike up the mountain to a place where the road goes around a sharp turn and the riders won’t be able to go too fast. This will be a blast.

On top of that the hotel turns out to be a beautiful old mansion and our room is about 4 times the size of the entire apartment we had in Paris. The entire Hotel is ran by an elderly couple and we ate a home cooked supper made by the wife tonight and will also have breakfast here tomorrow before heading up to see the boys on the bikes.  A couple more photos; One of the lovely old manor we’re staying in

and one of Le Thillot showing how they are decorating the town in anticipation of tomorrow’s Tour arrival.

 Having tons of Fun

 Garry