November in Paris: Nikki's trip report

More! More! More!

I decide to stick close to home. The métro strike is scheduled to last until Friday morning, so I spend this Thursday afternoon in the neighborhood. I pick up a copy of Pariscope from the news seller around the corner, and of course he and his friend want to talk about Obama. There is a bakery on the corner, but it is never open while I am there. On the rue des Batignolles just a block away, there are two more bakeries, and I visit them both. I stop at the charcuterie for paté and cheese and sliced Bayonne ham and dried sausage and salad, and at Franprix for bottled water and smoked salmon. I pick out clementines and avocados from the produce store. Everything goes into the wheeled cart I found in the apartment and I bring it back for a wonderful lunch.

While I am out, I notice a poster on the window of a local café, the Point Bar, advertising an “apéro-concert acoustique” this evening at 7:00, so I plan to go there early enough to get a comfortable seat and hear some music.

I arrive at the Point Bar as the band is setting up. There are some comfortable couches and I ensconce myself with a Coca Light and the little black notebook I have purchased at the gift shop across the street to use as a travel journal. The band consists of two guys with guitars, a drummer, and a singer in a sports jacket and glasses who starts singing “On Broadway.” The singer’s girlfriend is snapping photos, and another guy is shooting video. A woman sitting at the bar is dressed in red socks, a red sweater and jeans. Everybody else is wearing black jackets. Me too.

The kid with the ponytail plays a pretty good blues guitar. The band takes a break and he goes up to the woman in the red socks. Maybe she’s his mother. It would explain the enthusiastic clapping and gesturing. Most people there seem to be friends and family of the band. Most people are drinking beer.

An attractive young woman sitting on a barstool doesn’t notice when her sweater rides up and her jeans ride down. Say no to crack. The two guys next to me notice and one of them covers his eyes in mock horror. They are speaking English to each other, but neither is a native English speaker. Everyone else in the bar is speaking French.

I leave during the second set and head out for a late dinner at a restaurant down the street from my apartment: Brun de Zinc, at 28 rue Truffaut. I am the only customer at 9:30. The two people working there turn off the television and turn on the music when I sit down. They want to talk about the election. I start with tartines d’escargot, sort of like a garlicky grilled cheese sandwich with escargot. Then I have duck pieces in potato purée. A whole wall of the small restaurant is painted in thick oil paint with a sunny scene from the South of France. I skip dessert because I have goodies from the bakery waiting at home. The check comes to 20 euros.

Please continue

Friday morning I head to the Latin Quarter for a course at the Collège de France. One of my objectives for this stay in Paris is to expose myself to as much as possible in the French language. I have discovered the wonderful free courses at the Collège de France through downloads on iTunes, and I went to two of the lectures when I was in Paris in March. The courses are taught by distinguished scholars in various fields, who speak on topics pertaining to their areas of interest and research. There is no fee and no registration, and the courses may be attended in whole or in part. Information, podcasts and class schedules can be found at www.collegedefrance.fr.

This morning’s class is L’image médiéval, taught by a professor of art history. I am spending much of my time these days attempting to fill in the gaps in my knowledge, and art history represents lots of gaps. I am sure I am getting something out of this lecture, but who knows whether the points I am taking are those the professor is actually making? Everything is being filtered through my obstacles to comprehension. But this is true when I listen to lectures in English as well, when there is no language barrier but other distractions intervene.

Today’s class covers medieval theories of art, including the aesthetic philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. It moves on to discuss the degree of liberty medieval artists had and the limited resources by contemporary writers on the subject. Most people in the packed hall are taking notes, and I try to do this also, but I find that I lose my concentration on the lecturer’s words when I try to write at the same time. For the final half hour of the two hour class I find myself looking at the pretty pictures and thinking about lunch. Of course I remember feeling this way in law school too, except without the pretty pictures.

For lunch I walk down hill one block to Le Pré Verre, 8 rue Thénard. I get the formule, which includes a first course of eggplant with feta, cinnamon and greens, and a main course of steak. The basic formule is 13.50 with a supplement for the steak, including a glass of wine or mineral water. I believe the menu changes daily.

I hear only French in the restaurant, unlike my first visit at dinner three years ago. The young waiter is wearing jeans, a black tee shirt and white sneakers. He has the same haircut as my husband Alan, only with less necessity. I notice that I see more gray haired women in Paris than I do at home in the US. People are mostly wearing black or other dark, muted colors, with one exception: red. I see red shoes, sweaters, eyeglasses, umbrellas, coats, scarves. This makes every group of people resemble a National Geographic photo exercise: put something red in every shot.

You must have just missed Cousin Muffy tripping in her Roger Vivier shoes on the Rue de Ecoles whilst running to Balzar to get some booze.

Miss Thang au Lait de Gin

Enjoying your report and photos. (While packing).

Nikki - I am so envious! Good for you to enjoy November in Paris for 2 weeks. How nice to stay in & explore an arrondisement you are not familiar with. The apartment looks great. I would be enjoying a cafe au lait every morning on that balcony. I'm anxious to learn about your experiences in the 17th. Now that you attended a class at the College de France, would you recommend one to other travelers?

I'm so enjoying your report. More please!

You feel about November the way I feel about February. You have planted a seed of an idea!

Wonderful report, please continue

Dinner Friday is at Aubergine, 46 rue des Dames, near my apartment. When I arrive there is just one other party in the dining room, a young English couple. They ask for some translation help and we get talking. They are in Paris for the first time, celebrating the girl’s eighteenth birthday. She tells me they went to a bar on arrival and while they were sitting there, a very large man came in and called the bartender over to him and they started fighting. Then a small Chinese lady came in and started hitting the large man with something. Other guys came over from the bar and joined in the fight. Welcome to Paris.

The young English guy wants to talk about the election. So does the bartender. The restaurant starts to fill up and the bar becomes very lively. Everyone is kissing the bartender as they come and go. I enjoy my dinner very much. I start with poêle de champignons de saison, mushrooms cooked with parsley and pepper. For my main course I get confit de canard and pommes sarladaises. The check comes to 33 euros including a coca light and a bottle of fizzy water.

The bartender brings me the check with a shot glass. He tells me something about vodka. It is pinkish-orange. Wasted on me, sadly, as I don’t drink, never have wanted one. I take a sniff. It doesn’t smell like alcohol; it smells like apricots. I love apricots. I’m in Paris. I take a sip. Not bad. More sips. I finish it. Are pigs flying?

Saturday morning I walk to the marché biologique, the weekly organic market on the boulevard des Batignolles. I buy cheese galettes and a rotisserie chicken and paté made from duck and from rabbit. It will be nice to have food in the apartment. My daughter Eileen and her boyfriend are arriving later today.

After making a wonderful lunch from the things I bought, I take the bus to the Opera Garnier to see the ballet. The bus comes right away. A little girl and her father sit across from me. They get up at their stop and leave the girl’s red backpack on the seat. Monsieur, I call out, votre sac! I catch him just in time. Disaster averted. It is easy to imagine the contents of that bag. My older daughter still travels with the most precious of those contents from her own bag. She is 25.

I arrive way too early at the Opera. Many tourists are sitting on the steps and I join them there. When the women of a certain age start arriving arm in arm, wearing sensible shoes, I go up to the entrance and find my seat. A family with two little girls is seated in my row. The usher brings two large red velvet cushions for them to sit on.

The ballet is Les Enfants du Paradis, the Children of Paradise, based on the classic French film produced during the German occupation. In preparation before I left home, I rented the video and watched it with the subtitles, then listened to the commentary, then watched it without the subtitles and listened to parts of the commentary again. I’m really glad I did that; it enhanced my understanding and enjoyment of the ballet greatly.

The music is an original score in a contemporary style. The ballet is also contemporary and, as would be fitting for a story about a mime, there is a lot of mime. In the movie, a major theme is the development of the French theater, and there are scenes of rules being broken as theater evolves. People speak during pantomime and cross the boundaries of the stage and the audience during melodrama. Here, in the ballet, there is speaking by the dancers, and dancers cross over into the audience. During the intermission, a dancer dressed as a mime comes and stands in the aisle next to me before I notice him. He is pretending to write something, miming my actions as I write in my journal. The people around me are laughing.

When the second act begins, it breaks from the style of the first act. It opens with a classically choreographed ballet set to classical music. I remember what I learned from a band conductor some years ago: that the reason there is so much ballet music from operas is because of a rule at the Paris opera. No opera could be staged at the Paris opera house unless it contained music for a ballet.

I am thinking that this work, written to be performed in this hall, has a classical ballet set within it as a nod to this tradition. In a ballet about a movie about the history of Paris theater, this is a statement about the history of Paris dance.

I could be wrong, of course.

I feel the same way about November, January and February for that matter!
I think I could spend the whole season in Paris quite happily.

Please continue with all the details...

As the ballet ends and I leave the opera house, there is a band playing outside, dressed in what appear to be pink jumpsuits.

The streets in front of the grands magasins are mobbed on this Saturday afternoon. An enormous crowd squeezes onto the bus. I worry that I won’t be able to get out at my stop. Nobody can get on. Traffic is very heavy and the bus moves slowly. I send a text message to Eileen saying that I might get to the apartment late. She is meeting me there but does not have a key.

When the bus finally gets to my stop there are others getting off, and we all push our way out together. Eileen and her boyfriend have just arrived when I reach the apartment. They have been café hopping since arriving from the airport. We continue that activity with dinner at l’Endroit, near the Square des Batignolles, where we enjoy some good steaks, and drinks afterward at Point Bar.

We get a very late start Sunday. Eileen and her boyfriend go out to find pastries for breakfast but find that the bakeries are both closed on Sunday. We have a fine lunch anyway, made from the provisions I’ve bought at the market. We then walk to the bus with the intention of transferring to another bus on our way to the Centre Pompidou. At the transfer point, however, we wait a long time before we notice the electronic sign that says there has been a detour and the bus won’t be stopping here. We give up and take a taxi. The driver gets lost in the tunnels and parking lots around the museum, and finally I see a sign for a pedestrian exit, pay the driver and escape from the cab. For all I know, he’s still driving around down there, lost forever, like Charlie in the MTA.

After this inauspicious start, however, we all really enjoy the modern art collection at the Centre Pompidou. Eileen is studying art and I like listening to her thoughts and ideas about the works we are seeing. I spend some time looking at “The Muse” by Picasso. There are two women; one is painting and the other one, darker, is sleeping. I wonder which one is the muse. I say it’s the one painting, giving the ideas to the other woman as she sleeps. Eileen says maybe the muse isn’t in the painting. Ah.

We have dinner at the brasserie Wepler, 14 place de Clichy. We all order off the 21 euro menu, which includes an appetizer and a main course. We have oysters, excellent seafood risotto with saffron, rascasse (fish) in a wonderful buttery sauce with fresh tagliatelle and lemon confit, pork with apples, sanglier (wild boar). Terrific rolls to mop up the sauce.

Place de Clichy seems worlds removed from the quiet Batignolles street where I am staying. Bright lights, big city. But I walk the few blocks back by myself while the younger members of the party wander off on their own to explore the nightlife.

Nikki, this is prefect.

Anselm

Monday we get another very late start, but this time there are croissants for breakfast. We head out well after noon for the Emil Nolde exhibit at the Grand Palais. There is a line and we wait for half an hour or so to buy tickets. The exhibit is beautifully lit; the paintings seem to glow. We walk to the Pont Alexandre III for some photographs, then we part company so Eileen and her boyfriend can go to the Tour Eiffel and take a cruise on the Seine while I go back to the apartment.

Dinner is in the neighborhood at the Bistro des Batignolles. I order a “fantaisie” of salmon and shrimp, then magret de canard. Salads look good and I think I might come back some time later in the trip for lunch, but I never do.

Tuesday morning I say good-bye to Eileen and her boyfriend, who are flying back to Edinburgh. It is Eileen’s last week of a six month stay in Edinburgh on a student work visa after graduation. She will be back in Massachusetts in time to pick me up at the airport when I fly home.

I am heading to the Comédie Française to see Le Mariage de Figaro, the play by Beaumarchais on which the Mozart opera is based. I ordered the play to read in French before I left home, but I haven’t studied it thoroughly. I manage to review the first two acts in the morning, and those are crystal clear to me. I wish I had reviewed the rest, but I manage to follow the plot. Very entertaining production with good comic acting.

The gardens of the Palais Royal have construction blocking off some areas. The courtyard with the black and white pedestals is closed off. There are some odd rusty giants (robots? Buddhas?) lined up along one of the allées. There are few flowers and the garden looks somewhat bleak. A couple of other people are wandering around with cameras, as I am, looking for shots. It is the first mostly sunny day since I arrived; some people are sitting in the garden in the patches of sun.

An orchestra is playing outside the Comédie Française. As it gets dark, they play Khachaturian’s Saber Dance, pack up their instruments and leave. I sit for a while on a bench but the clochards on the other side are invading my personal space, so I go to a café across the street to pass some time. I am meeting people for a get-together at 8:00 and I have some time to kill. I order a drink and write in my journal. People outside are walking with umbrellas now. So much for the sunny day.

By the time I get up to leave, it has stopped raining. I make my way to the brasserie Gallopin, 40 rue Notre-Dame des Victoires, across the street from La Bourse, the stock exchange. The taxi driver has a guitar on the front seat. I wonder whether he plays to entertain himself while waiting for fares. The dinner here is a get-together for people from the Fodor’s message board. There are people who have traveled from London, Florida, and Nova Scotia. Very interesting conversations, lots of good humor. More faces attached to names and more boundaries crossed from virtual reality to real life.

Gallopin has a 24 euro menu for two courses, 29.5 euros for three courses, and 35 euros for three courses plus wine. I have a cake made of cep mushrooms with pork crackling, which I like very much. This is followed by an odd and unsuccessful “tandoori de volaille” which is neither Indian nor particularly French. For dessert I have an excellent mouelleux au chocolat, a dense chocolate cake melted in the middle.

I'm enjoying every word. You travel the way I would like to, if I were exploring on my own. Alas, my husband is not as interested in the arts as I. Next time you go, I'll volunteer! Excellent writing.

Wonderful report Nikki.

More, please?

Joining the chorus. How swell.

I noticed the rusting Giants in the Palais Royale pix. Do you think they are permanent?

Thanks for the encouragement, everyone.

Photos are posted at http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=he0tnm3.67hlxu63&x=0&y=luafdl&localeid=en_US .

Julie, there was a link posted on the thread I started with my photos by an alert reader who identified the sculptures: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/dap/dap/html/photos_mascaro.htm. It appears that this is a temporary exhibit which was scheduled until November 8, although it was November 11 when I was there.

Miss Thang, so that was Muffy who almost knocked me over in front of Balzar. I wish I had known.

ENjoying your report Nikki. I didn't realize when we were having dinner that you were staying in one of my friend's apartment. I hope it's available for me next year!

Thanks for all the hard work you did organizing.

Nikki, I'm really enjoying your report. EJ

Wednesday is a day at home. It is the halfway point of the trip. After much conviviality for the past four days, I will be alone for the next seven. There is nothing on my schedule today, and I spend the day sleeping, reading, writing. I walk to the bakery, the charcuterie. No restaurant meals today.

The apartment manager calls to see how things are going. At that exact moment the computer stops functioning. The manager comes to see if he can figure out the problem and he does; it is a faulty connection, solved by removing a splitter from the plug. While he is there, we hear the children upstairs, and he asks if the noise bothers me. Not at all. Nor does the piano playing. Every apartment I have rented in Paris has had some music seeping in from neighbors practicing. This makes me feel very much at home.

Later, from the bedroom, I hear a baby crying and the sounds of someone practicing the violin. Coincidence or cause and effect? On the whole, however, the apartment is very quiet and there is virtually no street noise.

I am really enjoying the Batignolles neighborhood. I see parents walking their children to and from school each day. The shops, cafés and restaurants within a few blocks of the apartment are very convenient and make for a cheerful environment. It is a bit more work to get around the city than from other, more central areas, but this has given me the opportunity to spend time going through areas I have neglected on previous trips.

The buses I take almost everywhere pass through the busy area around the grands magasins, which are already decked out in holiday lights—Printemps in glittering silver, Galeries Lafayette resplendent in gold. I reflect many times on the construction of the buses, which seem designed to accommodate the fewest possible number of seated passengers.

Dinner chez moi consists of camembert, cold chicken, a salade mixte from the charcuterie with cucumbers, olives and feta, and an apricot tart. This is not suffering.

Thursday I head back to the Collège de France for a course on ancient Roman civilization entitled “La religion, la cité, l’individu.” I have time before the course begins so I browse in a record store and score a used CD of the new Sanseverino release, and a few other used and new CDs at a good price.

The lecture addresses the role of the cité in Roman civilization and distinguishes between the different types of urban areas and the different roles of people living within them. Very interesting, although once again I wonder whether the points I am taking away from it are strictly the ones being made by the professor.

After the class, I take the bus to the Bastille, where there is a large antique and brocante show along both sides of the Bassin de l’Arsenale. I enter into a covered area with fancy furniture and jewelry but soon move to the outdoor area where there are many stands selling bird cages, binnacles, bustiers and boxing gloves. I have enough of this stuff: wooden coffee grinders, enamelware chocolate pots, old copper. I have lost the acquisitive urge, at least temporarily. I look at old newspapers and sheet music. Prices seem high. I am chastised for using my camera, which takes away a great deal of the appeal of the market, and I leave without purchasing anything.

Chocolate at the Opera Café is 3.80. I think of it as rent. I spend some time writing in my journal and watching the passing scene. Then I take the bus toward Faidherbe Chaligny and walk down the rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine. I hear music coming from a café, La Liberté, and I sit at an open table outside where I can watch the two women creating the music: a singer and a cellist who plays alternately sitting and standing. Their music is full of good spirit and energy and I stay a while.

Then I walk toward the restaurant I have chosen for dinner: Au Vieux Chêne, 7 rue du Dahomey. It is 8:00, and that is when the restaurant is supposed to open, but the staff are all sitting at a long table having their supper when I come inside. I am invited to have a seat while they finish.

I’m here for the grouse. I have been told by one of the people at the Fodor’s get-together that they had grouse here, and I am determined to try it after going to Scotland last summer and seeing the land that is managed for grouse hunting. I have also been watching the Scottish television series “Monarch of the Glen,” in which one episode is devoted to getting freshly hunted grouse onto tables in a London restaurant. I assume this restaurant in Paris came by their grouse with less drama.

I start with a terrine of joue de boeuf (beef cheeks) with foie gras for 10 euros and then have the grouse cooked two ways: confit of thigh and roasted breast with quince and celery for 24 euros. Terrific cooking. This comfortable, small restaurant is a place to which I would happily return. There is a lively bilingual birthday celebration going on at one table. At another a woman is seated by herself and ends up in a heated discussion with the waiter and leaves. It is possible she is drunk.

Nikki wrote (inter some very interesting alia): " I wonder whether the points I am taking away from it are strictly the ones being made by the professor."

Acute observation. Your mind is your own territory, where you reign supreme.

If only.

On Friday I go again to the Collège de France for the class in medieval art. This session focuses on the role of the artist. Evidently the creators of medieval images were viewed more as technicians, as craftsmen, than as artists. We look at several pictures that contain images of artists within them and look at the connections made between artists, scribes, and the people who commissioned their work.

After an hour and a half, the mind wanders. Is it the effort of concentrating on the French, on the medieval art, or is it lunch? The large lecture hall is unavailable today, so the class is being held in a smaller one. It is standing room only. The overflow is in another room with speakers broadcasting the class. At the end of the class, the professor reminds the group that he won’t be there next week. The next class will be in quinze jours. This appears to be a quaint French way of saying two weeks. Clearly it won’t be in fifteen actual days, since that would put it on a Saturday, when the school is closed.

I take the bus toward the Bastille, with the intention of having lunch at l’Ecume, a restaurant I had enjoyed when I stayed in that neighborhood in March. I find however that the restaurant is gone. I remember hearing good things about the one across the street, the Baz Art Café, 36 boulevard Henri IV (www.bazartcafe.com), so I walk in and give it a try. This could be the best meal of the trip. For 15 euros, I get a ragout of escargot in a wonderful rich sauce with a terrific pastry crust, then a stuffed filet of sabre (fish) with mussels in a saffron cream.

Friday evening I have a ticket to a concert at the Opéra Bastille Amphithéatre of music by Karlheinz Stockhausen. This concert is part of the Festival d’Automne, an interesting schedule of music, theater, cinema, and dance events all over Paris. The amphithéatre is a smaller hall underneath the main opera hall, with unreserved seating on benches. I get a seat in the front row. I like the leg room, but I also like the intimacy of the performance without audience members between me and the ensemble.

The first piece is entirely on tape, including voices and electronic sounds. I wonder why we are all listening in the dark. There is polite applause when it ends, partly because it is hard to tell exactly when it does end. The second piece is performed, this is more like it. A trio of clarinet, viola and bassoon play standing at music stands and periodically each player shifts to the next stand. Occasionally other instruments put in appearances around the hall. The piece seems to be about the interaction among the musicians.

The third and last piece, after the intermission, is very entertaining. Each of several instrumentalists plays (and acts!) a substantial solo. The trombonist is playing on his back. Doesn’t this collapse his diaphragm, I wonder? The flutist makes sounds I could never replicate, at least not intentionally. All the soloists play fantastically under very challenging conditions.

The electronic sounds which accompany the live musicians seem to me as though they would be very distracting. I wonder whether the musicians feel they are playing with the accompaniment or against it. Some of the effects sound as though they could be coming from the adjacent métro station. Others sound like a huge swarm of mosquitoes.

The community symphony in which I play premiered a piece last year by a local composer in which there was a taped electronic accompaniment to the live music. The large setup of computers and speakers that the piece required blew a fuse in the middle school auditorium where we performed, and we ended up doing the piece without the electronic component. It felt distinctly like something was missing. I’m wondering whether this Stockhausen piece would feel the same way without the electronic elements or whether it would be a relief if the fuse blew in the Amphithéatre. All in all, however, this is a very enjoyable performance with great musicianship

l’Ecume is gone? Really, as in closed for good?

Great report, Nikki, thank you.

Saturday I go again to the marché biologique on the boulevard des Batignolles. This time I decide to get more ambitious and buy a duck breast filet to cook for myself. I also buy a rotisserie pintade (guinea hen) and some vegetable paella. I wait to buy some jars of organic Italian artichoke and olive paste at a stand where a woman has a small baby slung across her chest. An older woman standing beside me says to the young mother, “c’est du très bon produit” (very good produce). She isn’t talking about the olive paste.

I return with my goodies to the apartment. Since it is Saturday, the painter is not in the entryway of the apartment building. He has been there every day since Monday, and the small entryway is not finished yet.

This evening I have been invited to the rented apartment of Anselm and Margriet, two of the people from the Fodor’s get-together, for dinner. I bring an apricot tart, and they cook and serve all sorts of wonderful things from the markets. They have a wonderful apartment in the Marais, with a great dining room complete with fireplace. Just the thing for a dinner party. We talk about language, life, politics, and our imaginary friends. Delightful.

Sunday morning I walk toward the Square des Batignolles and arrive at the square just as people are getting out of church. There are many families with young children and the atmosphere is festive. There is a brocante market to stroll about and it is a much less claustrophobic environment than the big show at the Bastille had been. Less high end merchandise, and nobody seems to mind me taking photos.

The park is filled with parents and toddlers. They have all come, it seems, to visit the ducks. Interesting, colorful ducks they are too.

Lunch is olive bread, cheese and paté from the organic market.

I take the bus after lunch to the Théatre des Champs Elysées, where I have a ticket to see the opera Cosi Fan Tutte. Before the performance there is an introductory talk, and I have signed up to go hear it. We are directed to walk around to the rear of the building and go through the entrée des artistes. Down a long flight of stairs into a dance studio set up with chairs for the conférence.

There is the expected number of people wearing red coats and sweaters and scarves amid the sea of black. There seem to be fewer gray-haired women here, though, than in the crowd of a similar age at the Collège de France.

What I get out of the introductory talk: The couples in Cosi Fan Tutte switch partners when the two men come in disguise to attempt to seduce the two sisters to prove the women’s fidelity or lack thereof. The new couples are more alike in temperament than the original ones but at the end everyone returns to their partners, underlining the point that love is better when two people complement or complete each other than when they are too much alike. And when the two men boast of their attributes, a moustache is not just a moustache.

My seat for the performance is in the last seat in the first row. There is no orchestra pit. I am sitting in the trumpet section; I can literally read their music. This perspective feels familiar. The orchestra is young and good-looking. This is less familiar. The gorgeous woman on timpani is chatting up the two trumpet players. The equally gorgeous pianist is practicing. They are playing period instruments. Well, I don’t know about the timpani. The pianist has a long scarf that dangles past the keyboard. Better her than me. And my piano teacher would have made me take off that dangly watch. The bass player’s instrument has a fantastic carved scroll.

The guy sitting next to me has brought a libretto. There are surtitles in French, however, which makes a libretto unnecessary. The conductor, whose face I see clearly from my vantage point, conducts with much enthusiasm and joy. The production is sparkling and great fun to watch.

At intermission, a woman squeezes past me to compliment the timpanist. A tuner comes to tune the pianoforte. A knowledgeable English couple explain to me the difference between a pianoforte and a harpsichord: the pianoforte hits the strings while the harpsichord plucks them. They ask the tuner who made the pianoforte.

The trumpets have removable pieces. They are all laid out on cloths in front of them, labeled “si, mi, fa.” The players put the right piece in for the key of each part of the music. This requires constant switching among them. I had been thinking the trumpet parts looked boring, and they certainly had lots of measures of rest to count, but switching instruments for every sequence of notes would keep the music simple by necessity.

After the opera I take the bus to Place de Clichy. It is Sunday night and I know the brasserie Wepler will be open as it was last week. I order the seafood risotto I had enjoyed last week, and then have the porc à la normande with apples and wonderful cheese-laced potatoes.

Leely, yes, L'Ecume is gone. There is another restaurant in its place.

(bookmarking)

Enjoying the trip report very much! I agree about November and February. The only thing that makes February a little bit better is I have a birthday to look forward to! I am missing Paris terribly and this is both a good temporary fix and torture!

As I leave the apartment building on Monday I see that the painter is back. He has extended his work from the entryway through the door into the hall. Progress is being made.

Today I have my last class at the Collège de France. This one is about Gaul in the aftermath of Caesar’s conquest. I know next to nothing about Gaul, but I have been reading about ancient Rome, so I figure I might get something out of this. The large lecture hall is completely filled and the professor gets applause when he enters the room; he is apparently a favorite of the students here.

The class is devoted to a discussion of “the gold of Toulouse”, a reputed treasure brought to Toulouse from a raid on Delphi in Greece. The lecturer analyzes historical sources and contemporary texts to get at the truth behind the legend. It is very interesting, and I regret that I do not get a number of cultural references and the very dry wit of the lecturer. Jokes are the hardest things to translate. The woman next to me looks toward me when everybody laughs and I smile along with the joke, wishing I got it.

After the class I walk to Place Maubert. It is too early for a Paris dinner, but I have opera tickets at 7:30, so I go to the Café du Métro and order a salade Auvergnate, with ham, cantal cheese, walnuts, oiled potatoes and greens for 12 euros.

I take the bus to the Bastille and enter the opera house. I have not been in the main hall here before. I am seated in the orchestra (well, not actually next to the musicians as I was yesterday, just in the ground floor section). The balconies appear to be extremely high and far from the stage. One would need opera glasses up there.

This is my second Mozart opera in two nights, but this production of The Magic Flute is as different as possible from yesterday’s production of Cosi Fan Tutte. It has been staged by the Catalan theatrical company La Fura dels Baus. The scenery is a set of huge inflatable mattresses. There are women with light-up breasts. People are singing lying down. Carnival balls are released and bounce all over the stage. This injects a new degree of apprehension into the theatrical expression “break a leg”.

Reviews of previous incarnations of this production said that the spoken dialogue had been replaced by readers on stage reciting seemingly unrelated texts. This has been eliminated for the current incarnation. The story of the opera is absurd, so an absurdist interpretation does not seem so out of character to me. It also seems to fit the hall. The ceiling actually resembles the inflatable mattress, at least to my eye.

There are cheers and boos both at intermission and at the end of the opera. I have been looking for reviews in the press, but haven’t found them yet.

I'm really enjoying reading your lovely report. Thank you.

I can't entirely tell: were you a boo-er or a cheer-er?

A lovely report; I've enjoyed it and your pictures.

Brava, Nikki! With you in spirit.

Thank you everyone for the kind words. It is my intention to finish this up before I have to drive to New York tomorrow for Thanksgiving.

Leely, I was applauding but shaking my head in bafflement. It was an enjoyable experience.

Great read Nikki! Thank you for giving us the restaurant names & addresses plus the cost of a meal - makes for great notes!
Looking forward to the finale`.

wonderful report!Have a happy thanksgiving, Nikki.

Nikki - I'm weeping...why did we opt for Prague this year....why did we give up November in Paris.... Never again I say!

Tuesday is my last full day in Paris. I have tentatively scheduled myself to go to a free lunchtime concert at the Eglise Saint Roch, but it is Mozart and I’m thinking I can miss it, I’ve filled my quota of Mozart the past two days. So I take the bus to have lunch at the Café Constant, 139 rue St. Dominique, in the 7th arrondissement. I arrive before they start serving lunch but there are several people drinking at the bar, and the bartender invites me to sit at a table until they are ready to take my order. This small restaurant does not take reservations, so I had wanted to get there early to ensure a seat. But seats remain available throughout my visit.

I order from the menu, which is 16 euros for two courses, either entrée/plat, or plat/dessert. There is only one choice for each course on the blackboard. There is also a full carte. I start with moules de bouchot, tasty mussels from the bay at Mont St. Michel. Then I have tourte de faisan, sauce grand veneur (pheasant in pastry with a rich game sauce), and this is outstandingly delicious.

After lunch I walk to the Champ de Mars with the idea of relaxing in the park and taking photos of the Tour Eiffel. People keep stooping in the puddles and trying to get my attention. I know this is a scam in which a person pretends to find a gold ring on the ground and gives it to you, then demands money in return. So I keep walking and don’t respond. After a couple of these attempts it becomes comical, like something out of Mad Magazine. People are falling over in front of me left and right. This is not relaxing.

So I take the bus to my next destination, l’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Saint Germain, across the Seine from the Louvre. I am here to see the exhibit “Academia, qui es-tu?” in the venerable art school. I enter the courtyard of the school and see students having their lunch at a long picnic table. It is not exactly picnic weather, but it isn’t actually raining at this moment, which is as good as it gets.

The exhibit is in the chapel. Art of all types hangs and is placed everywhere: ancient, classic, modern, contemporary, ethnic. Photographs by Richard Avedon and Robert Mapplethorpe and drawings by Picasso hang above a bronze sixteenth century Tibetan lama and a first century marble torso of Venus. There is art in every nook and cranny, densely layered like a cabinet of curiosities.

Students are sketching around the chapel. Sofas at both ends of the room allow visitors to sit and hunt through the photos in the catalogue to identify the works on display. This is the antithesis of the white walled gallery.

I have printed out a long explanation from the school’s website outlining the thought behind the exhibit. I don’t think it is just because it is in French that I find it impenetrable. Something about the question in Plato’s academy being “who are you?” and about art creating a dialogue, and about contemporary art creating that dialogue in a radically different cultural environment than that of earlier art forms. Fair enough, but how does this explain the overwhelming cacophony of periods and styles?

As I am riding the bus home, a car drives up alongside the bus and honks its horn continuously. At the traffic light before Opéra, the car’s driver starts shouting at the bus driver. “Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait?” asks the bus driver. It is never made clear to me what the car driver thinks the bus driver has done, but the two drivers exchange information. The bus driver remains admirably composed. Was there a collision? I missed it if there was.

An older gentleman getting on the bus throws up his hands. “Il ya a toujours quelque chose ici!” (It’s always something.) He strides off the bus in disgust. Finally a determined Parisian lady walks up from the back of the bus and makes if clear to both drivers in a forceful voice that “il faut quitter!” Her point is made, the bus driver insists to the car driver that indeed he has to leave, and we drive off.

This is the second bus incident I have noted. Earlier in the week, I was riding a bus that was about to cross a bridge over the Seine when we passed a lamp post that had been knocked over, presumably by a bus that was stopped in front of it on the bridge. Our driver stopped the bus on the bridge to go talk to the other driver, then got back on the bus and drove off.

Every day on the bus, I pass the Gare St. Lazare. I used to have a poster of a Monet painting of the station in my college dorm room, but I hadn’t realized the connection the area had with the Impressionist painters until I read a little book about the Impressionists’ Paris in my apartment. Many of them lived and painted in the area, which had been reconstructed during the redesign of Paris by Baron Haussmann in the nineteenth century. The enlarged station and the new broad streets named after European capital cities were seen as symbols of the changes caused in Parisian life by urban growth and industrialization.

The bus stop where I transfer is on the very spot painted by Gustave Caillebotte on the Pont d’Europe, crossing above the tracks leading from the station. I consider attempting to duplicate the angle in a photo, but the electronic sign at the bus stop tells me my bus is approaching. The progression of technology in this city continues apace.

I stop at the bakery for a last apricot tart, go back to the apartment and dine on the lovely leftovers, pack my bags and cap off this week of French culture by watching American TV shows dubbed in French before I go to bed.

I have ordered a shuttle to take me to the airport Wednesday morning from World Shuttle (www.world-shuttles.com), and it arrives just five minutes after the time I had specified. I am the only passenger and we get to the airport quickly, although I see that traffic going back into Paris is very heavy. The plane is not full and I have a comfortable row of two seats to arrange my stuff and read and write. Unlike my flight from Boston, this plane has no seatback video. This means there is more space under the seats in front of me. It is a tradeoff: no French movies, but greater comfort.

The plane arrives on time in Boston, I am on the curb half an hour later, and Eileen is there to pick me up. It’s really cold in Boston. Back to reality.

This was magnificent! Thank you for sharing. I'm so excited for my trip to Paris next month now, I'm trying to contain myself from screaming in my office. Thanks for the inspiration and all of the information!

Happy Thanksgiving

Fantastique! Thank you, Nikki.

Thank you Nikki. Your report is wonderful. Reading it I felt transported to Paris!

Lovely, Nikki. Thanks. I so enjoyed reading about your peaceful two weeks in Paris.

We are getting nonstop service from Pittsburgh to Paris in June and it makes me want to fly back more than ever.

Thanks for all the nice comments.

Dee Dee, I see that I neglected your question from a few days ago about the College de France. I would absolutely recommend the classes to someone whose French was up to the task and who had interest in any of the courses. The lecture halls have been recently renovated and are very comfortable. You can just walk into any class without feeling out of place. You can listen to the podcasts on the website to see whether the classes sound like something you would enjoy.

Nikki - thank you for your reply re College de France. I think I may give it a try. My french is intermediate at best, but I find the thought of sitting in on a class most intriging. I'm contemplating a quick trip to Paris in January (I so need a Paris fix!) I will check out their courses offered and give it a try. Thank you again for your wonderful trip report. I have enjoyed it.

Hi Nikki. So glad to have been directed here since I'd missed it before. How fantastic ! Good for you, just going off and doing all this on your own. You are so organised ! It sounds as though you ate extremely well throughout - did you research all the restaurants, or were many just ones you passed and liked the look of ? I love the idea of cheese & snails on toast

I would have liked to have seen that production of 'The Magic Flute', even though I dislike Mozart. I saw La Fura dels Baus a few times some years ago and the first production is still the most exciting performance I've ever attended. And I see they are doing a Ring cycle now too !

Caroline, I had researched some of the restaurants, and others were recommended by the apartment owners as places they enjoyed in the neighborhood. The list of places I wanted to try was at least ten times as long. Got to go back then.

What a lovely apartment Nikki..I am still reading your trip report but I was curious to see and read about the the neighborhood.

Did you take the taxis when you ventured at night?

I did take taxis at night when I was out of the neighborhood. There were plenty of places to walk to in the neighborhood if I wanted to stay closer to home for supper.

nikki I was out of town while you were writing up this fantastic trip report. I have been home sick today and this has been my chicken noodle soup. It made me feel better than cold medicane. Thanks for an awesome mind trip to Paris.

Theresa in Detroit.

Nikki, Thanks very much for this beautifully written report. We are staying in the same apartment this Spring, so I really enjoyed your details about the neighborhood. We are really looking forward to exploring the area.

How far was the nearest bus stop and metro station?

The nearest bus is about three blocks away (two on the way home), and the metro is maybe four blocks. I spent a lot of time studying bus routes before I went (and after too), and found that a very good way of getting around.

Thank you, Nikki, what a lovely report. You are a wonderful writer and your vivid words transported me to your own very musical, and unique, version of Paris.

Also, I must thank you for the apartment link. I will be going to Paris at the end of March and will be staying in the 7th, but have already put in a request with my husband for another Paris sejour for my 50th birthday, in July of 2010. The apartment in Batignolles looks wonderful, and I do think it is time for me to live in, and explore, another part of the city.

Also thanks for the link to the College de France. I do not believe I am ready yet for that (I am in my fourth semester of college French), but perhaps I will try it next year.

Merci, mille fois.

Wonderfully written trip report, Nikki! I had been thinking of giving up a week of my time in Paris to explore other cities, but am reverting to my original plans of spending 2 weeks in Paris after being inspired by your report. Merci beaucoup!

"The nearest bus is about three blocks away (two on the way home), and the metro is maybe four blocks. I spent a lot of time studying bus routes before I went (and after too), and found that a very good way of getting around."

Thanks again Nikki, I think I will do some homework on the bus system. We have only been to Paris once before, and I did get a little sick of travelling underground all the time. We tried the bus once, but got a little lost.

I see the #81 goes directly to the Opera Garnier from the La Fourche stop, so that will be one trip we can make by bus.

My husband thinks I am a little nuts spending all this time planning little details, but when the trip goes off without a hitch, he is happy.

The 66 bus is even closer, on rue des Batignolles, and that goes to Opera also.

For information on bus and metro lines, the ratp website is very helpful: www.ratp.fr.

When you get to Paris, get a copy of the map "grand plan lignes et rues" from any metro station.

Will you be back this November?

Yes. You?

arriving the 12th leaving the 17th

I will be there then. Sounds like a plan.

Still with you in spirit. Thanks for a nice nice reaport!

Does the apartmetn have a lift?

Yes, there is a lift.

Nikki, I came across your report by chance. Terrific as the last. Did you like this apartment as well as the one on Rue Mornay? It looks lovely. We rented the one on Rue Mornay and enjoyed it very much. Where do you find the price for the Truffaut flat?

Nikki this is what I need:
I need
• It to be close to the metro or bus since Art is no longer the best walker.
• TV with American channels
• Stores nearby incase Art cant walk he can go get some treats.
• Computer or WIFI

There is a bus stop two or three blocks away. The metro is a little bit further.

There is TV with some stations in English, such as CNN and the BBC. Not regular American channels, but I don't think you are going to find that in Paris.

There are two wonderful bakeries a block and a half away, and a charcuterie with all sorts of prepared foods. There is a small supermarket three or four blocks away. Also a nice bar or two (where I felt comfortable alone) within two or three blocks and some nice neighborhood restaurants.

There is a computer with internet access.

Is Art going by himself? I am not the best walker either, and I managed nicely. For me, the most problematic thing in the apartment was the bathtub. It is a fairly high step to get in and out of it.

It is booked during the time I want to go!

Oops, back to the drawing board.

Nikki - I am narrowing down my list I will post what my choices are!

Hi Nikki, I didn't see this report last year and just read it now. Very inspirational. I am going to Paris this November, my daughter KC is there for the year so I am squeezing in an extra trip. Never been in November. Not that this year will necessarily be like last year, but did you find it warmer than Boston? In general how does it compare with March (I know you've been in March and that's usually the month I go in) - I know it will be dark earlier, probably colder too. Are fountains and things shut off for the winter? Also, how far in advance did you get your tickets to the ballet? So many questions.

Isabel, I have many answers but just one question: when are you going? I ask because I am going again from November 7-20.

I thought Paris was a little warmer than Boston, but I just checked the history at www.weatherunderground.com, and I see that on average it is colder than Boston. I must be remembering through rose colored glasses. I just wore my leather jacket the whole time, even though I brought my winter jacket also.

I bought ballet tickets a few weeks before I left. Looking into it right now for this year.

Fountains were running, according to my photos.

How does it compare to March? I don't really know. A bit colder and darker, I suppose. The sun sets around 5:00 in November and around 7:00 in March. But my emphasis isn't on outdoor activity in either month, so that didn't make so much of a difference to me.

Sue, I just noticed your question.

Rates for the rue Truffaut apartment are on the website:
http://www.rentalapartmentparis.com/Reserve%20Your%20Paris%20Vacation%20Now.htm

I did like this apartment as much as the rue Mornay one. I am staying at the rue Mornay apartment when I go back to Paris next month. The rue Mornay apartment is a little more centrally located, but the rue Truffaut apartment is in a more residential neighborhood and a little closer to neighborhood food stores and restaurants. The apartment itself is equally comfortable and attractive.

Nikki - we are just going to miss each other - I arrive on the 20th. Too bad. It would have been fun to have dinner. Of course since we both live in Massachusetts we could actually do it here sometime. Maybe this winter.

Your report does have me psyched (well more psyched than I already was). I'll have to check into ballet tickets. I can't really do a play or anything requiring understanding since French since my French is so bad, but ballet would be wonderful.