I Prefer Paris

Chartres

Last month I went to Chartres for the day and didn’t get around to writing about it. Enjoy!

My friend Tammy spent last week in Chartres doing a workshop about spirituality and the church. Always eager to go someplace new, I took the one- hour train ride from Paris to meet her right after her workshop finished. I figured what better way to learn about the cathedral than from an enthusiastic friend who was probably busting to tell someone what she learned all week. I arrived on Saturday afternoon at 12:30PM and could see the overpowering structure from the train window before I pulled into the station. It was a half sunny day with dramatic clouds coming in and out with a breezy temperature of about 68 degrees.

The magnificent Chartres French Cathedral built between 1194 and 1220 is one of the finest examples of French Gothic style architecture. One of its most famous features is the174 stained glass windows. An interesting fact I learned was during WWII the windows were taken out and hidden to protect against German bombers. It was added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1979.

As we entered the Cathedral, which was practically a second home to Tammy now, I was awed by the scale and scope of it. The cool, dark silent atmosphere was sobering. Tammy explained in great detail about the windows and I stared in awe at the natural light streaming through breathtaking colors of ruby red, royal blue and mustard yellow glass. I could’ve spent hours deciphering the intricate patterns inside the fleur de lis, diamonds, and circle shapes. She also showed me the famous labyrinth on the floor. I’ve heard the word labyrinth over the years but I was always too embarrassed to admit I was clueless about what it was. A labyrinth is similar to a maze and it has an unambiguous through-route to the centre and back and is not designed to be difficult to navigate. As we walked the labyrinth, Tammy said that one of the magical things about walking a labyrinth was that it helped collect your thoughts and centered you.

Viewing large churches always make me hungry, along with most everything else, so we settled in an outdoor restaurant facing the cathedral. We had a hearty French country meal for a decent price of 17 euros each. As we devoured a scrumptious fruit laden tiramisu we noticed a beautiful bride and her dapper groom posing for wedding pictures in front of the cathedral. It was so romantic!

After we strolled around the charming town that didn’t have too many cloyingly cute touristy shops (Thank God!), we found some fun things to buy. I bought a sac of pretty blue stained glass rocks and I also found this delightful newly opened antique shop. The owner, a chic 30 something woman with fabulous candy striped fabric shoes I couldn’t take my eyes off of, was vivacious and shared about the eclectic items in the shop which many I coveted. I bought a birthday present for the ever so hard to please Vincent: a calendar from 1904 with an illustration of a nun on the front to advertise aspirin. Vincent was highly influenced by the sisters and his Catholic school upbringing so it was the perfect gift.

After a satisfying day of history, religion, shopping and eating we returned to Paris.
What more could one ask for.

Vincents Nun

 

Madonna Confessions Tour

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Madonna’s Confessions Tour at the Bercy Stadium kicked off its 4-night run in Paris last night. I bought my tickets tres early, at exactly 9AM the day they went on sale and had been looking forward to the concert since April.As usual the press has been rife with reports of Madonna’s blasphemy against the Catholic Church and other outrageous behavior committed in the Confessions Tour that made me even more eager to see the concert.

The Bercy in the 13 Arr., is a large, characterless stadium much like Madison Square Garden in New York. I got many a stare from wearing my red Madonna Girlie Show T-shirt from about 10 years ago. The 30’s to 40’s crowd were tarted up gay men and their faghags, straight festively dressed women and slick Euro-Trash couples speaking mostly French and English. Although it was a cool 60 degrees outside, the airless stadium was hotter than July (literally and figuratively) and even Madonna later in the concert complained about the heat.

The 8:30PM scheduled concert started exactly on Diva time at 9:15PM.
The stage went dark, the crowd screamed and Madonna/Esther/Madge-MEM stepped out of the world’s largest disco ball that had been suspended from midair and brought down to the floor. This set the tone for a non-stop, unpredictable, exciting and thrilling joy ride of a concert. MEM looked fabulous, dressed in black Equestrian garb and she disciplined her sexy bare chested male dancers with her riding crop while riding them like horses. She mostly sang songs from the Confessions on a Dance Floor CD but threw in some fun surprises like Lucky Star, La Isla Bonita, and one of my favorites, Like a Virgin. She totally reinvented the old songs with new musical arrangements, which made them fresh and sometimes almost unrecognizable. She shaked shimmied and rolled on the floor for almost two hours and she did more acrobatics than dancing to show off her flexible Pilates perfect body.

Madonna used themes of war, violence, religion, politics, hunger, child abuse, and Aids but sometimes the message heavy themes diluted the entertainment factor of the show. Ironically, the so-called controversial
moment where she comes out impaled on the giant cross singing “Live to Tell” came across flat and heavy-handed.

Some of the best parts of the concert were at the end when MEM came out in a white cape that had Dancing Queen written on the back of it which also lit up when she opened it. The finale was a rousing, disco pumped version of “Hung Up” with MEM showing off her amazing body wearing a pink leotard that revealed half her very firm naked buttocks.

Leaving the concert dazzled, exhausted and invigorated, MEM had more than showed this die-hard fan a good time.

 

Eye Prefer Paris Movies

Last night I went to the MK2 Bibliotheque, my favorite Paris movie theater complex by the Francois Mitterrand Library.

The theater is located in an interesting part of the city in the 13th Arr. and is unlike most of Paris. When you get off the Bibliotheque metro stop on the new #14 line, you ride 3 long escalators up to a vast complex of new modern glass buildings on newly built streets and outdoor cafes with that are English Pubs, pizza joints, and Micro breweries. The architecture was well done but not distinctive. For all its modernity and the cafes trying not to be French, I couldn’t help feeling like I was not in Kansas/Paris anymore, but maybe in a well-designed Cleveland industrial park instead.

It was about 7:30PM and it was still clear and sunny and the light was hitting the glass buildings in a way that was ripe for picture taking.

A Tree Grows in Bondage?

The MK2 Bibliotheque is cinephile’s dream come true, housed in a huge glass complex with 14 luxurious and comfortable theaters. There is also a café, a restaurant with good solid food, bookstore, DVD store with a superior collection of popular and hard to find DVD’s, and a movie memorabilia store. I especially like the restaurant with it’s all red modern spacious interior and hip diners. It is one of the few restaurants in Paris where the tables are spread out enough so that you don’t need a chiropractic adjustment because your shoulders have been cramped for two hours like in most Paris restaurants. It’s fun to spend the day here and I have had many enjoyable ones combing through the DVD store finding DVD’s I’ve never seen before, having a long relaxed un-cramped lunch and parking myself in a Lazy- Boy type seat to watch a movie.

I saw a Colombian film called “Rosario” about a hard living beautiful young woman living in Medellin who struggles with her life of drugs and prostitution. It was a well-done, highly emotional drama from a female character’s point of view that showed the world of the Colombian drug trade in a way I’ve not seen before.

 

A Weekend in the Country

This crisp, sunny morning I woke up and opened the windows on my courtyard garden and while I was taking in the fresh smell of the greenery and flowers, I heard Piaf playing in a neighbor’s apartment. Paris doesn’t get any better than this.

My friends Deborah and Olivier (she’s American, he’s French) invited me to spend the weekend at their house in the country with their son Dylan and their dog Lulu. Their house is in the start of the Perche region near the town of Brou about two hours west of Paris. With all the time spent coming to Paris in the last 30 years, I have not seen very much of the rest of France and welcome any invitation to do so. I arrived Saturday afternoon and driving from the train station, the area was flat and very rural, and the roads lined with dry looking wheat fields are mostly narrow and one lane. Because the area is so flat, the sky overtakes the region with a mixture of thick gray and black cumulus clouds with the sun streaming in and out making for a dramatic landscape.

Their house is a 17th century farmhouse with a barn on a large, open field with an endless view of the countryside. It was a crisp, mostly cloudy day and we had a lunch outside surrounded by fruit trees growing peaches, plums, and apples. The plums were ripe and Deborah later picked some and made confiture. They also had a vegetable garden with tomatoes, squash, zucchini, and pumpkins.

After lunch we visited their neighbors Fernande and Robert who run a small farm across the way. Ferdinand and Robert were a robust, elderly couple in their 80’s who had been farmers all their lives. In fact, Fernande had never been to Paris. We toured the farm with its old barns, turkeys, chickens and livestock. An unusual treat for a die-hard city boy.

The rest of the day we sat outside playing cards, backgammon and Quiddler. Quiddler is an instantly addictive game, which is a cross between Scrabble and cards. Memories of past family game playing going from innocent to ugly came up. My closet competitiveness came out and I demanded that we play until I won, no matter how long it took. (It took till Sunday, 4PM). Shockingly, I spent a mostly electronic free weekend with no TV and no computer and managed to have a fulfilling time without them.

Deborah and Olivier made a delicious dinner of filet de boeuf cooked on Olivier’s outside fire of sticks and rocks, accompanied by produce from their garden, fantastic local home made sausages, and local chevre.

Sunday we went to a disappointing flea market in a nearby village and returned to Paris in the late afternoon stocked with Deborah’s plum confiture and bundles of fresh sage and oregano with the smell permeating my suitcase. As I spread the confiture on my toast this morning, I thought of how much I enjoyed the French countryside and want to return soon.
Please take a look at my photo albums from Nice and Beauvais on the right sidebar.

 

Yes, I Cannes!

The Cannes Film Festival was always a glamorous fascination for me, so I decided to checkout Cannes and see what all the fuss was about.

More upscale and compact than Nice, I walked the famous Croisette(beach promenade) expecting to spot a famous celebrity babe in a bikini but no such luck. The best reminder of the festival was a staircase that had each year’s winner etched in between the steps. I passed the legendary Carlton Hotel where all the stars stay during the festival and all the chic designer boutiques like Hermes, Cartier, Dior, and Chanel. I enjoyed lunch in a nouvelle Asian restaurant , appreciating the view of the crowdless beach. As this was my last day on the Cote d’ Azur, I was sorry I didn’t have more time to explore Cannes.

I want to thank Katherine and Jeroen at the Hotel Windsor for taking such good care of me during my stay and I highly recommend the hotel if you are planning to go to Nice.

When writing a blog, one never knows the impact you have on other people out in cyberspace. A reader, Tom Barnhart, who was my mortgage broker from New York, posted a touching comment, saying because of my blog, he got in touch again with his old college roommate from France who he had not seen in over 16 years. You can read the comment by clicking on to “comments” on the bottom of the Oh, So Nice post.

Hotel Windsor 11 rue Dalpozzo, Nice 06000
Tel. 011.33.(0)4.93.88.59.35 www.nicehotelwindsor.com

Can you guess who this is?

 

Nice News

I’ve been enjoying perfect, warm days of sunshine, and surf and perfect nights of delicious dinners and breezy moonlight walks on the beach promenade. Nice has been a delight of fun experiences too numerous to write about in one posting. To give you a taste of what I’ve done, I am going to list the highlights of my trip.

Culture
The MAMAC Nice, the modern museum of Nice, is an impressive museum with a first class collection of contemporary works by Andy Warhol, Jim Dine, Robert Rauschenberg, and French born Niki de Saint Phalle. It also focuses on the Nice school of artists including Yves Klein. There was a stunning must see show of Jean Pierre Raynaud’s works from the last 30 years.(Photos below)

Villa Kerylos located in the seaside village of Beaulieu sur Mer is a 19th century, gorgeous villa based on the noble Greek villas of the 2nd century. It’s luxurious rooms filled with extraordinary furniture and rich detailed mosaics and murals made this one of the most special experiences of my Nice visit.

MAMAC Nice, Promenade des Arts, Nice 06300
Villa Kerylos, Beaulieu sur Mer

Restaurants
La Petite Maison with extraordinary food, casual fun atmosphere, and a chic international crowd made it my favorite restaurant in Nice.
Le Tire Bouchon in the old town, is a small, intimate restaurant with excellent Nicoisian food, friendly service and a terrific value with a 3-course menu for 28 Euros ($36).

Le Petite Maison, 11 rue St. Francois de Paule
Le Tire Bouchon, 19 rue de La Perfecture, Old Nice

Sights
I visited the lovely villages of Eze and St. Paul de Vence. These charming mountaintop gems are medieval villages with winding mosaic paths, white stucco walls, and breathtaking vistas. Although they were overrun with tourists and bad art and crafts galleries, I still highly recommend them for their beauty and charm.

Shopping
The only worthwhile shops are in the old town, which have Provencal and Nicoise products such as hand made soaps, local olives and olive oil, herbs, candles, and spices. I stocked up on burlap sacs of fresh lavender and Herbs de Provence. I found black toilet paper, which I bought for a friend who has everything at a fun bath shop.

La Maison de Olives, 18 rue Pairoliere, Old Nice
Peches Gourmands, 15 place St. Francois, Old Nice

 

Oh, So Nice!

As much as I love empty Paris in August, I felt the need to get away for some fun and sun. After feeling intense peer pressure from my Parisian friends who could not believe that I wasn’t taking a holiday in August, I succumbed to their wishes and gladly announced that I was taking an 8-day vacation in Nice. With reactions of horror, bewilderment and approval of choosing Nice, they wished me bon vacances and good luck fighting the crowds.

Vincent and I arrived on Tuesday morning to the Hotel Windsor, a whimsical, old world hotel in an ideal location close to the beach and center of town. The lovely tropical garden and pool area make this hotel a special oasis in the middle of an urban commercial area. A local artist, who painted a tropical mural behind our bed and adorned the wall with a funny, horrifying stuffed animal sculpture, had recently redone our room.

Nice is strange combination of worn Belle Époque architecture suggesting a bygone era of elegance and the crass commercialism of a New Jersey boardwalk resort. I loved walking around the quiet back streets discovering the wonderful buildings, and the lush gardens and foliage. As far as the dealing with the over abundance of tourists, I turned it into a fun exercise in people watching. I marveled at everyone from the overdressed Euro women wearing enough gold & glitz to make a rap star look demure, to kids sporting the latest in over the top hair treatments and tattoos.

As we settled in we discovered excellent restaurants, great culture and swimming in the delicious, my favorite color blue Mediterranean. Further details in my next posting.

 

Vaux le Vicomte: A Candlelit Wonderland

I’m a former jaded New Yorker who is now becoming a jaded Parisian. I found something that stopped me dead in my tracks from becoming a jaded Parisian.

On Saturday night, a carload of my friends and I got adventurous and ventured 45 minutes out of Paris to the Vaux Vicomte. The Vaux Vicomte is a lavish chateau built by Nicolas Fouqet in 1661. It was the finest chateau and garden in France of its time and was the setting for one of the most famous fetes of the 17th century.The famous fete became the undoing of Fouquet and he was imprisoned right after the fete and remained until his death. Fouquet was a patron of the arts and Moliere, Madame de Sevigne, and La Fontaine were frequent guests.

The drive was a re-creation of a middle America drive with acres of flat,  boring farmland and hamlets of fast food restaurants and cheap chain hotels. My romantic notions of France being so different than the U.S. started to disappear. As we were driving in this wasteland, I couldn’t believe a 17th century grand chateau was anywhere in the vicinity. As we turned off to the narrow road with its arc of tall trees where the chateau was, I was now convinced we were coming upon something special. As we arrived, my heart stopped for a moment: in front of me was this fairy tale castle lit up by thousands of candles.

We toured inside first with dark,romantic rooms dripping with candles. As I explored the splendid interiors with hand-painted ceilings, rich tapestries, and regal furniture, I was anxious to return to the outside and the gardens.

Once outside, we settled on a stone bench in a perfect spot with a gorgeous view of the back of the chateau and the gardens.The formal gardens designed by Le Notre, are almost a duplicate of Versailles, although these were built first. We strolled to the Champagne bar located in chic white tents perched on the top tier of the grounds. We sat on white canvas lawn chairs sipping our champagne. The crisp night air, the unusual shaped moon beaming, and the chateau with the glow of candlelight made for an unforgettable evening.

 

Paris Plage and Crepe Suzette:One New Tradition, One Old One

When something is over hyped, I tend to resist it with a 10-foot pole.The Paris plage is one of them. Curiosity and something new to write about broke my resistance and I finally checked it out.

The Paris plage is about a two-mile stretch of man made beaches with sand and chaise lounges, and other outdoor activities planted on the banks of the Seine every summer since 2002 from mid July to mid August. I entered by Pont Marie, near Ile St. Louis on a breezy half-cloudy/half sunny Thursday afternoon at about 3PM. Although large outdoor events with many activities and crowds of people is not my cup of java, I approached it with a reporters state of mind. The first thing I saw were boule courts with happy people bouling away heavy metal balls in the sand. The overall theme of it seemed Polynesian and next was the free massage station with its Bali looking stage set with bamboo mats, and colored gauze curtains. I promptly took my place in line for one, but after seeing eight people in front of me and only one masseuse, I decided to keep on walking. I passed a fun children’s sand park with a lovely mermaid sculpture, an outdoor café with royal blue umbrellas and pretty colored paper Japanese lanterns, and finally the beach. The sand was real and the chaises looked very comfortable. I was tempted to pass out on one for the rest of the afternoon but I was on assignment. Things like this usually reek of Coney Island but the tasteful restraint of the design and execution turned this possibly dreaded experience into a pleasant surprise.

Crepes are one of those funny things: they are everywhere but a really good one is almost nowhere. I shun the street ones after having a two-day food poisoning incident from eating one a few years ago. After many mediocre tries in various cafes and restaurants, I finally hit the jackpot a few months ago right in my neighborhood. With an obvious name like Creperie Suzette, one would immediately dismiss it as a tourist trap. Luckily I didn’t and gave it a try, and boy, am I happy I did. The small inside is cute with one long community table with a high banquette and high chairs on the other side but I sat outside on rue des Francs Bourgeois. I ordered the crepe with bacon, cheese, and potatoes and out came a dark brown, square looking like a Richard Serra edible sculpture. I finally found the perfect crepe with it’s crispy outside and smooth, creamy inside.

Finding a new tradition and the best of an old one, I was very happy.

Paris-Plage – Until August 20
Crêperie Suzette 24 rue des Francs Bourgeois 75003

 

Paris Match and Mon Vieil Ami

My sister in-law arrived from Oslo on Saturday afternoon armed with real Norwegian smoked salmon in her bag and all I wanted to do was to chow down on the salmon all weekend.

I wanted to show her the town so I got off my lazy a— and we went to see the Exhibition Artistes et Stars: A Collection of Photos by Paris Match at The Musee Jacquemart Andre. The museum hidden behind the busy, commercial boulevard Haussmann is yet another gorgeous, 19th century hotel particulier (private mansion) turned into a museum space that has an odd mix of works of the French 18th century school, Dutch and English masters, and the Italian Renaissance.

The Paris Match photos were displayed in intimate, dark walled but well lit, rooms and they were small, jewel like portraits of artists, actors, dancers, writers, fashion designers, musicians, etc. It is one of those rare shows where every photo was meticulously shot and showed it’s subject (most who have been photographed hundreds of times before) in a unique way I had never seen before. Some of the highlights were the entry photograph of Jeanne Moreau holding a stuffed crow, The Beatles combing each others hair, a stunner of Grace Kelly in Capri pants sitting on overturned row boat on the croisette in Nice I believe, Coco Chanel in a chair with a lion in front of her wearing Chanel jewels, and my favorite of all, a black and white close up of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret on a pebbled beach. I could see where maybe Annie Leibovitz gets some of her ideas from.

My sister in law is a serious as a heart attack foodie, so I did serious research in finding just the right restaurant to impress her with. I selected Mon Vieil Ami on the Ile Saint Louis because I had read good things about it from both sides of the Atlantic. Our already late hour reservation at 9:30PM was pushed to 10:05PM which dampened my first impression. Once, we were seated everything else was perfect. We sat on a long communal table in the black walled dimly lit dining room and the genial, attentive service by the pleasant, attractive wait staff started to dry off my first impression. Chef Antoine Westermann’s adventurous but still on the classic side Alsatian food was savory, delicious, and rich but not heavy. Some of the dishes we enjoyed were a pate encroute with foie gras, chicken tagine with artichoke hearts, dorade with slow roasted seasonal vegetables, and yummy desserts including a modern Peach Melba and coffee granita on top of coffee ice cream. We drank an excellent bottle of Chinon with the meal. We walked across the Pont Marie full but not stuffed watching all the colorful activities on the banks of the Seine.

By the way, I found out the name of the incredible back-up singer I raved about in the Rolling Stones post: Lisa Fischer.

Musée Jacquemart-André 158 boulevard Haussmann 75008
Mon Vieil Ami, 69 rue St.-Louis-en-l'Île, 75004
(33-1) 40.46.01.35