Paris Loves Me

The REAL Carnavalet

2010-01-27T07:07:00.000-08:00

Oh, goodness. How do you say "I am mortified" in French?

Of course, the photos from the last post were not, as advertised, the Carnavalet. They were the Hôtel Sully, also in the Marais. What puzzles me is how I didn't glom on to that fact while I was putting up the photos -- because when I couldn't find this, it should have been a dead giveaway that I was barking up the wrong hôtel.

This is the wonderful staircase that Virgina featured on her blog and made me remember how much I enjoyed the Carnavalet in the first place and sent me down this garden path. For some reason, these photos weren't loaded onto my hard drive, I had to go digging for the actual CD and I guess I was just too lazy to do that on January 20. I beg a thousand pardons and hereby try to make up for it with actual photos of the actual Musée Carnavalet.

Random window, the sort of shot that I love to inflict on folks.

If you are big on decorative and interior arts, you will feel like you've died & gone to heaven while you're here. I must confess, these periods in history are not the ones I find most aesthetically appealing, but the little girl in me who loved playing with a dollhouse still loves to stand in the midst of these perfectly-reconstructed rooms and marvel at all the details. (I apologize for the quality of this photo -- they do not want you to use a flash inside the museum, and so my little point and shoot struggles mightily in these conditions. I've dinked around a bit with Photoshop on some of these and it helps, but this is as much as I could do here. You CAN make my photos larger by clicking on them, if for some reason you'd like to.)

This woodwork utterly delighted me. What a cheerful, merry place this room must have been.

My favorite thing about the Carnavalet was a small art gallery that was tucked away somewhere in the back -- I've no idea how I even stumbled onto it, but I am so happy I did. It truly was just about the most delightful small collection I've seen assembled into one place in Paris. I was a bad tourist that day and if there were any guides or notes about the theme of this gallery I didn't write them down. The Carnavalet is dedicated to the history of Paris, and these pictures all definitely fit that theme. Historically, they seemed to fall in the fin de siècle/Belle Époque era. (If anyone has more information/corrections to offer here, I'm glad to hear them. Frankly, I'm feeling a wee bit too lazy to do much research this morning. (I'll leave that to Peter -- he's much better at it than I am!)

Anyhoodle -- a few of my favorite paintings from this gallery:

Gustave Dennery -- La rue Auber sous la pluie (1889)

From the sound of things, Parisians can really relate to this one about now.

Right in my wheelhouse:

Eugène-Louis Gillot -- La vitrine d'une marchande de mode (1910)

Ahhh. This is what Paris is all about, non?

And one of my favorite faces I've ever seen in a painting:

Portrait of the actress Jeanne Samary, by Louise Abbéma

I just LOVE her.

What an amazing, wonderful face. That's the face of a woman I could be best girlfriends with. According to the legend under the photo, if I read it correctly (it's en francais), she was a comedienne who specialized in servant and soubrette roles, and was murdered at a very young age. I have always meant to find out more about her -- she is absolutely compelling to me. I've seen some other portraits, including one by Renoir, but I like this one best. The artist was a woman -- perhaps she had the same response to Mlle Samary that I did.

So that's it. I hope I've made up for my tremendous gaffe last week! I promise to be more careful from here on in!

January 20

2010-01-20T20:52:00.000-08:00

Dear Virginia has posted some pictures of the Musée Carnavalet on her blog of late. The museum occupies two 15th-Century mansions in the Marais, one of which was at one point the home of the wonderful Madame de Sévigné, justly famous for her vast and entertaining correspondence, much of which survives and gives us one of the clearest records of aristocratic France at that time. (I have a book containing a collection of them, but I keep not reading it. Shame on me.)

Virginia posted this photo the other day, which I recognized instantly. It made me smile, remembering what a beautiful building it was, and how much I'd loved that staircase. I stood on it for quite a while, as I recall. I'm not sure why I didn't take a picture. So glad Virginia did.

So here are a few more of the Carnavalet, to expand the theme. (Please forgive my tendency toward arty detail shots. I get very transfixed by patterns in architecture.)

The museum is wonderful, a little-known gem, and should not be missed. Plus, getting there is a great excuse to have a little wander around the Marais, which is never a bad thing.

OY! I am soooooo embarrassed, but I believe Virginia is correct -- this is the hotel Sully, NOT the Carnavalet. Oh, dear -- it's been so long since I've been to Paris that my memories are getting fuzzy. Now I have to go seek out some actual photos of the actual Carnavalet.

Bonne Année!

2010-01-01T07:00:00.000-08:00

The best way I can think to start off a new year is with pictures of Paris -- since I can't actually be there to enjoy it in person.

These are from November 2007, which was my last trip. I cannot believe it has now been more than two years since I was in Paris -- the very thought of that makes me heart hurt a little. Considering my first trip was August of 2005 and between then and the November of 2007 I managed to squeeze in four, to have now gone for more than two years is heart-rending. But circumstances, as they say, intervene. Things are looking good now for May, and thinking about it lifts my spirits considerably.

It was cooooooooold this trip. It may have been colder than when I was here in February of that year. Love that long winter light -- even in the dead of winter in Austin (such as it is), the light never gets that steep. We're just too far south.

I don't ride ferris wheels, but I sure like looking at them.

(One of these days I'll figure out how to make the photos post larger. Until then, click on them for a better view.)

Especially in the cold winter dusk.

It will be warm when I'm in Paris next, and I'm glad of that because I'm not naturally a cold weather person (which is a grand understatement). But there is a wonderful chilly melancholy about Paris in the winter that I really do love.

December 7

2009-12-07T08:16:00.000-08:00

It has been gray and cold and drizzly and miserable here for what seems like days. Probably it's not very long, but I am a sunshine girl -- I do not like the cold weather (I've been in misery thanks to my Raynaud's) and a couple of days without sunshine is enough to make me extremely blue. And blue I am. I feel like this:

Except without the wings, of course.

This angel was in Saint Sulpice. (It's a dreadful picture and I apologize for that, but I took all these photos with a little Canon A60 point & shoot that I bought prior to my first trip to Paris in August of 2005. I've accumulated some skill at getting it to do what I want it to, there are manual settings I can futz with, but I'm no photographer and mostly I just let the camera do its best.) This is from my February 2006 trip, when it was bitter cold and gray just about the whole time I was there.

This is the plaza otside Saint Sulpice, which is a pretty intriguing old church. (Someone tried to tell me once about all the mysterious connections it's supposed to have, apparently it figures in that DaVinci Code nonsense but I really couldn't care less. It's just a beautiful old church.)

Funny how I could spend a week in the cold Paris gray and feel pleasantly melancholic but still very happy, but three days of cold Austin gray and I want to crawl into my bed and never come out again. Context is everything...

Inspired by Virginia

2009-11-03T06:46:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite blogs is Virginia Jones' Paris Through My Lens. Virginia is a wonderful photographer and she uses her skills to illuminate Paris and other parts of France, a place she obviously loves as much as I do. Yesterday she inspired me with a post about the juxtaposition of the artwork and the architecture in the fabled Musée d'Orsay.

The d'Orsay isn't my favorite museum in Paris -- I'm much more of a modern & contemporary art person, so while I appreciate the beauty of all this gorgeous 19th Century (-ish) stuff, it doesn't really tug at me like the things you might find in the Palais de Tokyo or (my favorite museum on Earth) the Tate Modern. Or a new great favorite, the Modern in Ft. Worth -- I had a delirious afternoon there earlier this year, in a delighted stupor of architecture worship and art overload. If you can get there, GO!!

The most wonderful thing about the d'Orsay (to me) is that is used to be a real, live building before it was a museum -- it was a train station and thank heavens the resourceful Parisians decided it was better to save it and bung a lot of art into it than tear it down and lose an irreplaceable and extraordinary example of fin de siècle architecture.

Forthwith, some of my favorite photos from my visit there, in August of 2005.

Aristide Maillol -- The Mediterranean

Aristide Maillol -- Ile de France

François Pompon -- Polar Bear

I think the bear might have been my favorite thing in the whole building -- isn't he delightful? (Not to mention that his creator was named "Pompon!" How fun!) Click on the captions for more information about the works. As you can see, even in the Musée d'Orsay, my eye goes to the most modernistic of the artwork. Everyone raves about the passion and emotive qualities of Rodin's sculpture, but I'm much more moved by the serenity & simplicity of Maillol's.

So thanks, Virginia, for inspiring me to look back on these great works!

April 24

2009-04-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

Look closely at the bikes in this photo.

I took this on my first trip to Paris, in August of 2005. For some unfathomable reason, I saw this several times while I was there -- bikes with hopelessly bent wheels chained to subway gates or some other structure.

Were they injured after they were locked to the gates? Are they waiting there for someone to pick them up & fix them, or perhaps scavenge them for parts? (They seem perfectly good other than the bent wheels, and the wheels can be replaced.) Are they abandoned? Are they art? I never figured it out.

April 15

2009-04-15T08:12:00.001-07:00

This is my friend Billy, who lives in Paris.

I do not believe he was born in Paris, he went there when his person, Nicole, moved to the city.

He's a gorgeous fellow, incredibly sweet, and he's a Thumping Cat. Petting is all well & good, but if you really want to make Billy happy, you thump him. Smack him rather like a bongo drum all up & down his back. I don't know why it makes him happy, but it does. Good enough for me.

Billy lives here

with his person, Nicole. Nicole is the sister of my old & dear friend Dominique, with whom I often stay when I visit Paris. For years, this is the apartment where Dominique & her son lived, and on my first trip to Paris I stayed here with the two of them. Small apartment, very close quarters, and still -- amazing hospitality from my friend. Dom & Seiya have since moved two doors down to a much bigger place, and now Nicole is living in this apartment again (she'd sublet it to Dom while she was living out in the 'burbs for a while). I've stayed here a couple of times on my own, because Nicole is frequently out of town and when my visit coincides with her leaving I get to stay in her adorable little apartment in Montourgueil and pretend I'm an honest-to-god Parisian, and she gets someone who can take care of Billy while she's away. Everyone wins, especially me. The only thing better than wandering the streets of Paris all day long is coming home to a sweet cat who's happy to see me at the end of said day. He's got quite a good loud purr, does Billy.

This post is inspired by this cat

This is my angel, my darling, my beating heart, my Shine. Today is her 6th birthday. (Well, today is her birthday observed. She was a rescue cat and so I'm not sure of her exact birthday. Her vet & I made an educated guess.) Shine is not French, she is Texan through and through, but I do think she'd do very well in Paris. She's friendly and gorgeous, and black & white is always chic. Happy Birthday, my babycat.

April 10

2009-04-10T07:18:00.001-07:00

This is a little English-style pub called le Bombardier just behind the Pantheon in the 5th. Before I visited Paris in October of 2006, someone I know who had just been there told me about this place and how much they'd liked it. Perhaps it's silly to seek out an English pub in the heart of Paris, but sometimes a good pint of Guinness hits the spot more than a glass of wine, and I like to have options.

My friend gave me a rough outline of where the pub was, but not the exact location, so I wandered around for a while trying to find it. But first, I visited the Pantheon, and I took this picture from the roof of that amazing building, not knowing that it's what I was taking a picture of. I just thought it looked picturesque, so I snapped a photo. Sure, I can read the sign now, but while I was taking the photo, not so much.

After I left the Pantheon, I wandered for a good hour searching for the bar, asking folks if they had heard of it & getting no info. I actually wound up pretty far afield and eventually went into a hotel lobby where the super-spiffy concierge looked it up on the computer, made ah-hah noises, and printed off a map for me. And yeah, I'd been mere steps away when I started the whole journey -- it's literally just around the back of the Pantheon. Had I turned right instead of left when I came out of the building I would have run right into it. Doofus.

I went back and had a couple of pints while I read a copy of the NY Times Sunday Magazine I was toting around in my purse. The bar staff were all British expats who of course spoke my language as well as fluent French. I find that I need to make a couple of little islands of English-speaking while I'm there to give my brain a rest from the effort of French, so I have stashed away a couple of location like this where I can duck in & not feel bad about speaking English for an hour or so. Sad but true. Maybe if I work a little harder my French will be better by the next trip. Need to break out the Pimsleur CDS again.

May 14

2008-05-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamed I was shopping for produce at an open-air market in Paris. Actually, last night I dreamed I was teaching people how to shop for produce at an open-air market in Paris: always say bonjour, never touch the produce unless the seller hands it to you, etc. I was very smug, in my dream, about my ability to communicate with le vendeur, and he was very charming and gave me some complimentary strawberries. Even in my dreams, Paris loves me.

Now I must buckle down and make this dream come true. No Buy still holding, although I have been tested by a big sale at Yoox.com. I got a decant of Tubereuse Criminelle in the mail yesterday from an advertiser on my Style Spy site, which was delightful and reminds me how much I want a full bottle of that fragrance, and I have to go to the Palais Royal for that. My first bell jar, although not my first Lutens. It's not a perfume for everyone, but oh, how I adore it. I plan on strolling out of the boutique with my shopping bag in my hand, positively reeking of slightly perverse tuberose chicness, and having a glass of wine at one of the sidewalk cafés here in the garden. Must hold onto that image.

It's going to be a long summer...

photo: Mary Twiss Connolly

May 10

2008-05-10T08:22:00.000-07:00

Here's a good article about some architecture in Paris. Putting it here mostly to remind myself to check them out in October. I also need to explore the Institut du Monde Arabe, designed by Jean Nouvel, one of my favorite architects.

He's also responsible for the Fondation Cartier and the new Musée du Quai Branly, both of which are amazing. I can't believe I'm staring down the barrel at my fifth trip and have still never been to any of these places. Disgraceful.

photo:greatbuildings.com

May 8

2008-05-08T06:17:00.000-07:00

A view of the Louvre from inside the Orsay. Paris is so filled with artistic masterpieces that you can throw a rock from one museum to the next. And a lot of it isn't even in museums

Fabulous sculpture & art everywhere you look, just lyin' about the place, as Eddie Izzard would say.

This was the most amazing installation in the Pantheon called Leviathan Thot, which I totally lucked into on my visit in October 2006. This? Was unbelievable. Huge and spooky and almost irresistibly touchable (I did not. I didn't wish to be hustled ignominiously out of the Pantheon.), it took up much of the main chamber and poor little ol' Foucault's Pendulum was dwarfed by comparison. The artist's name is Ernesto Neto, and the sculpture is made of what looked like the pantyhose of Gargantua, sewn together and filled with tiny styrofoam beads.

More from inside the Pantheon:

As we wended our way to the top of the Pantheon (the view from which is not to be missed -- there are not a lot of places to be that high up in central Paris), we passed many little secret alcoves and nooks. This image still haunts me -- a room full of spare sculpture parts, tucked away and waiting for... what? This image is much brighter than it was in real life, a flash was necessary to get any of the detail. A dark room filled with shadowy gestures and secrets.

All photos mine.

May 6

2008-05-06T06:35:00.001-07:00

Views from my window in the Artus Hotel during my first trip to Paris in August 2005.

Looking south down the rue de Buci.

Looking north at the Blvd. St. Germain.

In the first photo, the street that intersects rue de Buci at the orange awning is the rue de Seine, which is where the current top pick for my stay in October is located. It's a 6th floor walk-up, which is a bit of a challenge and may go a long way to explaining the extremely reasonable rental price. The rest of the way is explained by the tininess of the apartment. So -- tininess and steps, but I'm not very big and I have very strong legs and since it's located a dangerously short distance from the rue Bonaparte location of Ladurée, I figure any opportunity to burn off all the palmiers I'd eat is a good idea.

I've gotten word from the agency about the cost of the rental and I have the money to hold the apartment for a week in October right now. I do not, however, have the money for the airfare, which is a problem. Don't yet know how refundable things are with the agency, but if I don't have a ticket it seems silly to have a place to stay. OTOH, I have to do one or the other of them first. Oy. There's also the question of do I wait to buy a ticket in hopes that prices come down a little. In the past, there's always been that golden hour for air tickets -- book too early and you pay too much, book too late and they sock you for waiting until the last minute. But with gas prices the way they are, part of me is thinking that it would be a good idea to get a ticket as soon as I can, despite the fact that everything I'm looking at for my dates is over $1000. I don't think it's going to come down much, and it's likely it will continue to go up. When I total up all the money I need to have to do this and not be miserable, it makes me waver a little. But when I think about an indeterminate amount of time without another Paris visit, it makes my soul hurt.

So. More belt-tightening. Ignoring the e-mail from Neiman's this morning about the private one-day sale with lots of wonderful things going for 40% off. (It will be even more difficult because I have to physically go to NM today to pick up a load of pre-shopped stuff for a client that I'll be delivering to her tomorrow. This is going to take more willpower than Weight Watchers...)

I loveloveloved the quartier pictured above. It's a very specific part of Saint Germain, and while it was certainly a little bit touristy, it just has the most wonderful feel. It helped that the first time I was discovering it it was August, and therefore a little more quiet than it would have been normally. There is an open-air market on the rue de Buci, and my first morning in Paris I popped up and got ready, then I bought a peach at the market and after wandering for a few minutes, I stood in the courtyard in from the the church of Saint Germain and ate my peach in the Paris morning light. It was the most delicious peach I have ever eaten.

May 2

2008-05-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

Thinking a lot about the weather for the next trip. I was in Paris in October of 2006, and it was absolutely gorgeous -- as I recall I was comfy in a cardigan or light jacket most of the time. I'm hopeful it will be the same this year. I was stunned by how cold it was last November, especially since I'd been there in October the year before and it had been so mild. That's when I took this:

which was one of the more delightful finds in all my Paris trips. This is the patio of the museum café of the Musée d'Art Moderne, which is located in the Palais de Tokyo in the 16th. This is an absolutely wonderful small museum of 20th Century art (all my favorite stuff) that is small enough to explore very thoroughly in an afternoon but large enough to give a real "museum" experience. After I wandered through there I decided to have a little late lunch and headed for the cafe. I purchased my glass of wine and my quiche lorraine (and probably a pastry) and headed outside, where that gorgeous view surprised me. It was pretty blissful. Tucked away and quiet, I really felt like I'd found one of Paris' little secret hideaways. From there I wandered on to the Trocadero and across the Pont d'Alma to the Tour. It was a lovely afternoon.

Thanks to dear Tracey, I've been exploring my options for rental apartments on Lodgis, and am pleased to report that it looks as though I can get something just perfect for a reasonable price, provided I get my ducks in a row early enough. There seem to be some really good places available in Montorgueil, which would make me very happy. I've come to really love that neighborhood, where my friend Dominique lives.

This is the nighttime view from Dom's front window. She lives on rue Marie Stuart, and the cross street (going left to right) is rue Montorgueil. It's a wonderful neighborhood, pedestrian only, filled with great shops and grocery stores and since I've stayed there so much it feels like coming home every time I visit. It may have actually supplanted St. Germain as my favorite quartier, if for no other reason than there are hardly any tourists there. (On the other hand, I could still be talked into an apartment on the rue de Seine, which I also saw in my web explorations.)

Yesterday I found an IRS website that allows you to calculate the amount of the refund you'll be receiving due to the stimulus package. Turns out it's going to be enough to get my lodging mostly paid for, which makes me very happy. (Now I just need to not spend it on anything else!) There is something deeply satisfying to me about knowing that the money that Our Clueless Leader and his Squad of Flunkies are sending me in order to "stimulate the economy" is actually going to stimulate the economy in Paris. Hah. Take that, W.

May 1

2008-05-01T07:58:00.001-07:00

It's May Day. I've given myself a good spritz of Diorissimo to celebrate, but it is a very gray day here in Austin. Gray days here seem like a mistake, whereas a gray day in Paris always just seems sort of atmospheric and moody. I've been there in cold weather a couple of times now, and while I certainly prefer not to be shivering and having Raynaud's episodes, there is something about that steely gray winter light that does really move me. Maybe because we just don't have it here, we're too far south.

The photo above was taken in early evening last November, just after I'd left the Orangerie on a Sunday afternoon. It was my next-to-last day and I was feeling melancholy about it, so I was very in sync. I loved the glow of the lights on the Crillon -- someday I'll stay there. Maybe. It might be less fun to stay somewhere so very tourist-oriented than to scoot around in the back streets of my favorite neighborhoods and feel like I'm getting away with something and slowly becoming Parisian.

At any rate, it was very, very, very cold that day. Am hoping October will not be quite so bone-chilling.