A Dog's Life

"I'll have the Filet"

Waiting for the bus!

Parisians love their dogs!  They go everywhere - in restaurants, stores, trains, metros, bicycle baskets - dogs are part of life. They are well-behaved - usually more so than their human companions. The ubiquitous "piles" on the street are the result of the two-legged animals being thoughtless!

When Jacques Chirac was Mayor of Paris, he deployed an army of "motto-crottes" - city employees on motor scooters with vacuums to clean up the mess.  More recently Paris Mayors have turned to fines with an army of enforcers - up to 200 Euros.  they "say" this has worked! City Hall recently declared that Paris was "No Longer the Dog Mess Capital of the World!"  Now there's a slogan for a City!  

It may be my imagination but I think the problem is less than in the past.  BUT - watch where you walk in Paris!

Helping at the Cake and Bread stall at the Farmers' Market

METRO DOG!

Helping with the Shopping!

Last Trip to the Street Market - How sad!

Flower stall at our market.

I have a lot of catching up to do in recording our time in Paris - but I had to post this about our last trip to the market in front of our apartment. This twice a week farmers' market has been a great plus for this apartment location and a big reason we will be coming back. The apartment has a lot going for it but this street market is the icing on the cake -  "c'est la cerise sur le gâteau!"

I'm going to miss tomatoes that taste like tomatoes; our talkative Algerian olive and spice merchant; fresh vegetables and fruit of every description; cheese vendors with too many choices; butchers with everything including charcuterie; and  I cannot forget the baker with our favorite chocolate pear cake - plus this is all at our doorstep.  We rarely make it to the Sunday Market near home in San Diego but we MUST get there more often.

GIANT white asparagus!

The spice merchant deserves more discussion.  He has every dried fruit and nut known  to man, spices of every description, and at least a dozen different olive preparations.  These "recipes" include olives with couscous/olive oil/basil; couscous/dried tomatoes/olive oil/spices; parsley/spices; couscous/anchovy/herbs; etc. They are all good - even the one with anchovy paste!  He always said that these were his recipes.  Maybe/maybe not - his sales skills deserve more comments!

"Our" olive merchant!

Our olive supplier could sell anything to anyone.  He always remembers us as we walk down the line of stalls and speaks to me in English - he always gives samples.  He treats everyone the same - like they were long lost friends. His usual sales pitch - given with a smile - is that the product your are considering is from his garden in Algeria. With a smile on his face, he told the woman next to us that the dried cranberries (that said Ocean Spray on the sign) were from his garden in Algeria.  Then he said they were from Canada - but she replied that she had seen cranberry bogs in Maine!  The world is indeed small.

Our market is not that unusual - they are all over Paris on different days of the week.  As it is often said, Paris is really just a collection of villages!

Concert at Sainte Chapelle

Sainte Chapelle

On Friday night we went to Sainte Chapelle with Megan, Philip, Linda, Bob, Peggy, and Tom for a concert by Les Violons de France.  The selections were Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Massenet's "La Meditation de Thais," and Saint-Saens' "The Swan"  from Carnival of the Animals. (This "YouTube" link is of Frederic Moreau, Director of Les Violons de France, playing La Meditation. He was the soloist we heard play La Meditation on Friday night.)  The concert was amazing - the violin soloist and director, Frederic Moreau, was....incroyable!

The setting for the concert enhances the music - Sainte Chapelle is almost indescribable.   Pictures never do it justice.  The chapel was built by Louis IX (Saint Louis) to house his collection of relics including the Crown of Thorns.  The church, completed in 1248, is considered one of the highest forms of Flamboyant Gothic architecture.  It also contains the most important collection of 13th Century stained glass in the world, according to many experts. After seeing it, you would agree!

In 1971, Marie-Elisabeth and I attended a concert at Sainte Chapelle on the night we were engaged in Paris!

A Walk Through Père Lachaise...Cemetery

Unknown Person - is it the old man reflecting on the life of the young man?

That's right - a tour of a cemetery!  Père Lachaise is one of the most visited sites in Paris - in fact it is reputed to be the most visited Cemetery in the world!  It is the resting place of the "who's who" of French society - as well as many well-known expatriates from the rest of the world who made Paris their home - or who just happened to be in the City of Light when they "met their end."  There are moving sculptural tributes to those who perished in the Holocaust and forced labor camps.

Père Lachaise is also part of the history of the Paris.  The Commune of 1871 culminated here with the execution of  175 "Communards." The wall where they were executed became a symbol of the French Left.  This was the first uprising by the working classes since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.  The executions did not end the repression - many executions, prison sentences, and deportations to New Caledonia, the French penal colony in the South Pacific, continued after the fall of the Commune.

During one of our stays in Paris in the 1990's, I read the book  Paris Babylon - The Story of the Paris Commune while sitting on benches near the sites talked about in the book!  The wall in Père Lachaise is very real to me; the book gave me a better understanding about the deprivations during and after the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War and the conditions of the working classes in this neighborhood.

But the cemetery is more than history, the home of 300 cats, or the last resting place of the famous and infamous.  It is a beautiful setting - a park-like expanse with trees and hillside paths that wind between the beautiful and quirky funerary art!  Headstones are more than a plaque on the ground.  There are elaborate sculptures, family chapels, and even a touch of humor!  A recent tomb of an artist has a plaque that says - in French  - Alone at Last!

I have been taking people on tours of Pere Lachaise for many years - the first tours were for Marie-Elisabeth's students from her summer program at the Sorbonne.  Later I did tours for both of my mom's "Tina's Travelers" trips to Paris. Since then, I've taken friends and family on a walk through time and history in this interesting site of French/Parisian history.  I found a way to give people an oversight of this massive cemetery without stumbling around for hours to find the sites they would find most interesting.  I concentrated on people Americans would know along with lesser known "Permanent Parisians" with interesting stories or unusual funerary tributes. There are so many stories in Pere Lachaise - one could study the cemetery for years.  

Frederic Chopin - The Tomb says "Fred Chopin"

The founding of the cemetery is a good story in itself.  People were traditionally buried in church yards in Paris.  Unaware of the sanitary issues, more and more burials took place to the point the bones were protruding from church cemeteries.  The final incident that caused a furor was when caskets broke through into the basement of a building adjoining a church burial ground.  Napoleon ordered that new sites were to be found and no more burials were to take place in Paris church yards.

Pere Lachaise - originally known as the "Cemetery of the East"  - was owned by the Jesuits.  The confessor of Louis XIV - Pere Lachaise - lived on the site.  The property eventually fell into private hands.  A clever city planner, Nicolas Frochot,  purchased the property from the Baron Desfontaines for a bargain basement price - 18 years later Frochot sold the Barron a plot for his own burial that was 282 times the price he had been paid for the entire property!

Frochot also came up with a novel way of attracting people to use the Cemetery - which was at that time out in the country and far from Paris.  He moved famous people to Père Lachaise!  Moliere, La Fontaine, Heloise and Abelard were moved.  The trend continued so that Père Lachaise is THE place to be buried in the French capital.

Jim Morrison - The bust has been stolen, graffiti has to be constantly cleaned, the site is fenced, and is often guarded!  Is he really here?  Mr. Mojo Risin!   

I could go on for pages on the stories of some of the tombs - but I will end with a partial list of those buried here:

• Moliere
• Chopin
• Bizet
• Balzac
• Yves Montand 
• Edit Piaf
• Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas
• Jim Morrison (The Doors)
• Sarah Bernhardt
• Isadora Duncan
• Rossini
• Pissarro
• Poulenc
• Oscar Wilde
• Proust

Oscar Wilde - a plastic barrier had to be erected around the base!  A tradition of kissing the tomb with lipstick was causing the stone to deteriorate - it could not be cleaned!!! 

Pere Lachaise - worth the visit!

Our Front Door Market - Blvd. Edgar Quinet

A familiar looking shopper?

Don't worry - they remove the heads!

The busy street market on Blvd. Edgar Quinet is on our doorstep!  It is open on Wednesday and Saturday mornings with more vendors on Saturday.  There is everything imaginable - and then some!  We take our rolling shopping bag and fill up on all kinds of things - tomatoes that taste like tomatoes, carrots that are tender, olives of every description, cheese (goat, sheep, cow), fish, meats, bread.  The butcher and charcuterie vendors have all kinds of prepared dishes for our lazy side.  The quality and freshness are what makes shopping in France so wonderful!

Fresh vegetables of all varieties!

Fish or shellfish anyone?

....Maybe octopus?

Morille (morel) mushrooms

Roasted chicken, ribs, and potatoes

You can't forget flowers for the table?

May 1 - Labor Day - Place des Vosges...and Politics

Place des Vosges on a busy Labor Day

The last few days have been both busy and lazy - a nice mix.

May 1 was Labor Day in France and in most countries except the United States.  Most businesses were closed (except restaurants/cafes) so we took the opportunity to visit the Place des Vosges with Bob and Linda Thomas.

The Place des Vosges is one of our favorite squares in Paris.  It is a favorite spot to people watch, read, people watch, window shop in the art galleries, and - did I mention people watch?

The square was originally Place Royale due to a former castle on the site.  After the French Revolution, everything "royal" was removed - not only the name was changed but the bronze statue of Louis XIII was melted down - a copy is in the square today.  Place des Vosges is named for a province in France that was the first to pay taxes to the new Revolutionary Government.

The square is the first planned square in Paris and the first royal program of city planning in Europe - Henry IV built the square between 1605 and 1612.  What was new for the time was that the King ordered all of the 35 buildings to follow the same design. The square has been the home of many famous people in French history - Victor Hugo's home is in one corner of the square and is now a museum.  Cardinal Richelieu lived here until he built the Palais Royal - reportedly because he got tired of all of the dueling under his window on the Place.

Since we were near the Place de la Bastille, we decided to watch one of the traditional Labor Day marches that was ending in the square.

This year the marches and rallies had a political overtone since the Presidential elections are May 6.  The Bastille was the site for the Socialist rally with a few "Parti Communiste" members thrown in for good measure.  When the march arrived in the square, they circled around the column in the middle - a symbol of different events of the Revolution of 1830 - (also know as the Second French Revolution).   The entire Square is a commemoration of the First Revolution when the Bastille Prison was stormed by the people on July 14, 1789.  As a result of its history, the Place de la Bastille is a traditional place for protests, marches, and political rallies.

Place de la Bastille
Labor Day March

Labor Day 

Politics continued on Wednesday night when we watch the televised debate between Sarkozy and Hollande - three hours of debate - mostly one on one - no sound bite questions from bland moderators.  Actually it was 3 hours of name calling - they obviously don't like each other very much - no pretending otherwise. Realism in French politics?   I still love the fact that there are no ads on television or radio - only news and this is strictly monitored so each candidates gets exactly the same amount of time in "like" time periods.  The election is on Sunday  but all campaigning must end on Friday night!!!  And I thought I was avoiding political rhetoric by coming to France.....!!!

St. Sulpice and Polidor.....

Spring in Luxembourg Gardens

Sunday April 28 was a day of church, organ music, food, and friends! The day started with mass at St. Sulpice, the second largest church in Paris - (Notre Dame is the largest).  We almost didn't leave the flat since it poured with rain in the morning but the weather got better as the day progressed - except for gale force winds at times.

We made our way in the rain to St. Sulpice.  The church was opened in the 17th century and is the second on the site.  One of our reasons for attending was for the 150th anniversary celebration of the "Grand Orgue."  (As the son of a church organist, I can't help but love organ music!)  St. Sulpice's organ is one of the finest in France. More on this later.

St. Sulpice figured prominently in Dan Brown's novel (emphasis intentional) The Da Vinci Code.  So many tourists on a pilgrimage to the places in the novel came to St. Sulpice that the church posted this notice:

(...) Contrary to fanciful allegations in a recent best-selling novel, this [the line in the floor] is not a vestige of a pagan temple. No such temple ever existed in this place. It was never called a « Rose-Line ». It does not coincide with the meridian traced through the middle of the Paris Observatory which serves as a reference for maps where longitudes are measured in degrees East or West of Paris. (...) Please also note that the letters « P » and « S » in the small round windows at both ends of the transept refer to Peter and Sulpice, the patron saints of the church, and not an imaginary « Priory of Sion ».


Not surprisingly Ron Howard was denied permission to film in the church for the movie of The Da Vinci Code.

We met San Diego friends Linda and Bob Thomas after mass and walked to Polidor for lunch.  This restaurant was opened in 1845 and was frequented by Hemingway, Henry James, Victor Hugo, Max Ernst, James Joyce, etc. It is NOT gourmet but lots of character.  You sit at tables with other patrons crowded into the tiny space.  Food is basic but good -you are there for the atmosphere - very "funky" and "Left Bank."  One of the scenes in Midnight in Paris was filmed here when the Owen Wilson's character met Hemingway.  A picture of Woody Allen is taped to the front window of Polidor.  Yes - the restaurant has become a tourist attraction but it is still fun!

Polidor Restaurant

Bob and Linda returned to their apartment and we took a short walk in the Luxembourg Gardens - the tulips were blooming and the horse chestnut trees were starting to flower in both white and pink - alternating sun and white clouds gave the scene an ever-changing perspective.  Since the afternoon organ concert at St. Sulpice was at 4pm, we decided to pass the time at a cafe overlooking the Gardens. The mint with green tea was served in a teapot with the "real stuff" - no tea bags in sight!   A small dog sat at the table behind us - never making a sound.  Humanity walked down the sidewalk in front of us - ah - one of the main reasons I love Paris - the art of living perfected!

The Dog's Life in Paris

The organ concert was amazing - the nave of the church was nearly full and some of the side aisles.  Six prominent French organists, including two from Notre Dame, played selections that started with composers from the 17th century and progressed to the present. Daniel Roth, the principal organist at St. Sulpice since 1985, actually started the commemoration at the mass in the morning with an extended series of compositions for the prelude and postlude. Roth is the latest in a long line of famous principal organists at St. Sulpice that includes Marcel Dupre and Charles-Marie Widor.  The Tocatta (link to listen) from the 5th Symphony of Widor is one of my all time favorites!

Every Sunday at about 11:30 the door to the organ loft opens and you can wind your way up the narrow spiral staircase to the organ loft to meet Daniel Roth and watch him play the massive five register Cavaille-Coll organ constructed in 1862.  We did this two years ago - quite an experience.  The view of the nave from the loft is not bad either!  During the concert, the announcer indicated that they had just finished cleaning ALL 7,000 pipes - they were removed and lined up to be cleaned one at a time!

The concert was memorable and a fitting end to our first Sunday in Paris this trip!