Down to our last couple of days. We had no more museums to check off, and had seen all the monuments that we could handle, so we decided just to wander around and take in the scenery. There’s probably no better city anywhere for that. We went up the hill to the touristy side of Montmartre and stopped by the Place du Tertre (“mound” or “hillock”), where parts of Amelie and Midnight in Paris were filmed, and seemingly home to every street artist in Paris.
Dozens upon dozens of artists milled about trying to induce you to stand still for a portrait, sort of like the caricaturists at Disneyland. None of them advertised a price; that, presumably, would be the surprise once the portrait was done. We kept moving, and went down Rue Lepec and past the Le Moulin de la Galette (“biscuit”). This was built in 1622 and once was the venue for a cabaret frequented by Van Gogh, Utrillo, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Renoir. Prior to that it was a flour mill owned by one Debray. Legend has it that he was strung up on its sails and spun to death after trying to defend Montmartre against invading Cossacks in 1814; his widow had to collect his scattered remains in a flour sack in order to bury him. Hmmm. I dunno. That’s their story and they’re sticking to it. Anyway, it’s a beautiful spot.
Wandering further down the Butte, we came upon this view of Sacre Coeur which I thought was pretty neat. It’s odd, but for all the narrow streets and scrunched up traffic, the Parisians don’t do a lot of horn honking. It’s like everyone is resigned to a creeping pace and just don’t get that frustrated.
As we were on the eve of November, the trees and plants were starting to turn and the color display was pretty nice throughout the city.
We thought the Jardin des Plantes would be a good bet, so we hopped the Metro over to the University area. This originally was Louis XIII’s “Garden of Medicinal Herbs,” established by two physicians in 1626. Today, it is the city’s botanical garden, with 2,000 species of plants from all over the world. It didn’t disappoint.
This was a lovely park to walk through. I was reminded of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, as there were paths all over, a natural history museum, a small zoo, and an arboretum. There was a bit of Disneyland here as well, in the form of the animatronics shoe tree.
There were hundreds of shoes dangling from this thing (more extensive than shown above). At first, we thought it was the local equivalent of tossing sneakers over power lines. But when we stood under it, the darn things were talking. The picture at the right shows the hinged toes of this particular pair; they flapped up and down as they “spoke.” There were others that had similar openings and movement. We don’t have a clue as to what they were saying. Likewise, we don’t know whether it was for kids or adults. It would have been right at home in the old Tiki Room at Disneyland.
All that walking builds up an appetite. Boulangerie to the rescue. Sadly, eating like this, we’ll never look like the gal to the left. Ah, who cares?
Fortified, we started angling towards the Latin Quarter and passed by the Pantheon. OK, another monument, but you can hardly avoid them. Originally commissioned in 1750 by Louis XV as a church, it remained unfinished due to lack of funds until 1789. Two years later, it was turned into a secular mausoleum for the “grands hommes de l’epogue de la liberte francaise” (great men of the age of French liberty). Since then, it has entombed Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, Zola, Jean Moulin, Braille, and Marie Curie, who is the first woman occupant (reburied there in 1995). We just looked at it from the outside.
If we had a goal this day, it was to find a couscous restaurant for dinner. When we were students back in the day, that was the only meal we could afford when we visited Paris. Back then, Moroccan food was really cheap and filling. The guidebooks had a number of them listed, but the first two we located (after much walking) were both closed, as in out of business. So much for 2011 guides. We sat down on a bench to rest the dogs and to ferret out more options. Looking across the street, I saw the absolute perfect lineup of shops, all in a row. The locals of this neighborhood really have it good. I’d love to pick this whole block up and drop it in Los Angeles.
From the extreme left, a grocery, a fishmonger, a beef butcher, a poultrymonger, a pork butcher, a cheese shop, a wine shop, a bakery, and a café. Yum. We continued to wander and stumbled upon perhaps the world’s fanciest fire station. You’d expect a Rolls Royce pumper to come out of that place.
As it was getting on towards evening, we went back towards the Universite de Paris, figuring that cheap couscous would be found where students hung out. Finally, on Rue Monge, we found what looked to fill the bill. Reasonably priced and many varieties of couscous. It turned out to be a Mom and Son joint, the former running the front and the latter manned the kitchen. We were the only ones there for quite a while, and only one other table was occupied that evening. It was only okay. I think our memories are colored by the fact that we were so happy to get anything to eat as students that we thought it was gourmet at the time. Frankly, we do couscous at home that is better than what we got, but then Loni is a dynamite cook. Still, we enjoyed it as our last night on the town. We were planning to eat at the apartment the following night before we were to leave.
It was odd. Throughout the dinner service (all done by Mom, a 75-ish woman), Mom said virtually not a word and we felt about as welcome as ants to a picnic. Then, just when she brought dessert, she asked where we were from. We told her Los Angeles, and it was like a switch went on. She started talking about how much she loved movies. At least, I think that’s what she was saying. She was speaking rapidly and with an accent I couldn’t fathom. It turned into a comedy routine with her saying something, looking at us for a response, us laughing and nodding as if we understood, and her then peeling off a gale of laughter before starting in again. It went on for at least ten minutes. I was afraid she was going to say something serious and we would follow up with grins and nods, but apparently we pulled it off. She was a real character. But I never felt more completely incompetent in speaking French.
Sigh, a whole month and I still can’t parler worth a darn.
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