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A Parisian Miscellany

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We are in Paris all week for work, and most of the sightseeing we will be doing will be snatched minutes between meetings and venue and site visits. So I’m just posting some of my favourite pictures of all the super recognisable places that don’t need any much explaining into this post and will probably share it at the end of the week. Paris has such a famous skyline that hardly any of these buildings and monuments need a title, let alone a description.

The Eiffel Tower seems to have received a fresh coat of paint in readiness for the Olympics. It’s looking the best I’ve ever seen it. It is however, all closed off around the base, so you can’t walk around underneath it like normal at the moment, and most of the long park behind it (where one goes for that typical long shot of the Eiffel Tower) is all closed off in readiness for the Games also – they are erecting grandstands along the park and we think this is the venue for beach volleyball? But haven’t been able to confirm that – scratch that, it’s confirmed. Beach volleyball is happening in that park.

L’Arc de Triomphe…

Views from the top. Obviously I couldn’t go up with my fucked up knee… stupidly there is an elevator that will get you most of the way to the top, but given the AdT is on the world’s craziest and most notorious traffic roundabout, to get to the base of the monument, you need to go down a significant flight of stairs, go under the roundabout in a pedestrian walkway, and then up another significant flight of stairs to access the lift that goes up the monument. Well, done Paris. Yes, you’re an old city, designed without accessibility in mind, but that’s fucking stupid.

Train station under the Louvre to get to the CBD.

No one ever sends home their happy snaps of the Paris CBD… wonder why that is. Honestly, could be the downtown area of any modern city.

Market stalls lining the Seine… these are so typically, ‘Paris’ to me. I remember them so well from my first visit here in 1995. Back when I had 28 rolls of film to last me for a six month trip and taking photos was done sparingly! So I recall seeing mundane things like market stall and not taking any photos of them because we needed to save our shots for more interesting subjects. I also remember the processing cost when you got home, oh and the stress that the airport security x-ray machines were going to trash all your treasured images. I really should go dig up all my old travel pics and digitise them somehow.

A half hour spent shopping at La Samaritane… went in to see the peacock murals, came out having utterly brutalised the credit card! Spontaneous luxury shopping centres and unmedicated ADHD are a powerful combination apparently. 😉

Nearly bought a Tiffany key to go with my other ones, but it was only in rose gold, and my other two are yellow gold. It would have made a nice collection: Home, Paris, Fifth Avenue in New York, but I don’t do rose gold. When Mr K bought me that first key, I warned him that keys come in bunches…

Love the peacocks.

French jewllers… Van Cleef & Arpels. Beautiful and timeless pieces.

Back outside and heading back to the hotel (not sure which day)… I love that they haven’t modernised all the Metro signage.

More magasins along the Seine, selling touristy bits and pieces…

… and this one stall selling French Michelin guides from every year from the 1960s.

Early morning pics of the Louvre… where only crazy people (and Chinese bridal parties with their photographers and stylists), venture this early.

Mr K taking a selfie.

The Musée D’Orsay from the bridge.

Notre-Dame is still under repair… they were hoping for it to be open by the Olympics, but they’re looking to be six months behind schedule on that one and it’s now aiming to be open by Dec 2024. I wonder how different it will feel once it’s completed.

It’s truly an iconic building and it’s hard to believe that at one point in it’s history, the city considered tearing it down to avoid the cost of upkeep.

I’m not sure about the super modern colour scheme that Paris has chosen for their Olympics, it certainly makes the city look bright and different for the locals, but for visitors? I feel it detracts from the city’s old world charm.

Thus ends our week in Paris.

Only other observation I wanted to make note of, is that the Charles de Gaulle Airport is a full on dump compared to other international airports. It also feels stupidly haphazard with weird exit processes… mostly around VAT tax refunds etc – which all need to be done *before* you check in your suitcases, creating a crazy hectic and illogical situation where you have heaps of people lined up with enormous trolleys to get paperwork processed across two levels of the airport which has elevators barely large enough to put one person and one airport trolley into, and the little guys handing out cash refunds never asking anyone to show them the actual duty free purchases anyway, because who has time for that when you’re processing paperwork?! Weird.

We managed to see quite a bit of the city while we were here. Which was great.

Musée D’Orsay

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Buying timed tickets to visit museums seems to be the necessity these days… which works okay, if you are travelling just for leisure, I guess and you don’t mind planning out your every single day of what you are doing on your vacation. But when travelling for work, and finding you might have a few hours to squeeze in something cultural – having to have pre-purchased tickets weeks in advanced leaves you at the mercy of some pretty mercenary resellers, mostly found on Trip Advisor links.

We did manage to get tickets for the morning we suddenly had available, but they were general entry and untimed, so that puts you in a different queue to get into the building, and that can mean ages waiting in lines. Thankfully at 0900 on a Saturday morning, the queues weren’t too intolerable and we were able to visit the Musée D’Orsay somewhat spontaneously after all.

Van Gogh self portrait.. another one. Oil on canvas.

Bedroom At Arles.
Vincent Van Gogh, 1888, oil on canvas… this is my favourite Van Gogh painting. I just can’t get over the texture he created which you an only see in person. This painting utterly fails to translate in reproductions.

The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise, View of the Chevet.
Vincent Van Gogh, 1890, oil on Canvas.
Mr K’s favourite. Something to do with a Dr Who episode? Huh?

Chrysanthemums.
Claude Monet, 1878, oil on canvas. Part of the Doctor Gachet collection, I quite liked this painting even though it isn’t typical of Money and has an odd perspective.

The Starry Night.”
Vincent Van Gogh, 1888, oil on canvas.

La Guinguette a Montmartre; Le Billard en bois, La Bonnie franquette.
Vincent Van Gogh, 1886, oil on canvas.

Fritillaires couronne impériale dans un vase de cuivre.
Vincent Van Gogh, 1887, oil on canvas.

Blue Water Lilies.
Claude Monet, 1916-1919, oil on canvas.

En norvégienne, also called, La barque à Giverny.
Claude Monet, 1887, oil on canvas.

Femme au fichu vert.
Camille Pissarro, 1893, oil on canvas.

Foyer de la Danse.
Edgar Degas, 1872, oil on canvas.

Not sure what to make of Degas, I’ve always admired the work and the spaces he depicted of the opera world and the ballet school always lent themselves to beautiful compositions – very elegant and feminine. As I get older though, I wonder whether he was a sneezy presence (like Trump at a beauty pageant) walking in like he owned the place and ogling half-naked, very young women… many of whom were expected to be congenial to patrons of the arts. :/

Blue Dancers.
Edgar Degas, 1893, oil on canvas.

The Ballet Class
Degas, 1874, oil on canvas.

La Place Valhubert.
Armand Guillaumin, 1875, oil on canvas.

La Dame aux éventails.
Édouart Manet, 1873, oil on canvas. The model is Nina de Callias, she was a musician and artiest herself.

City Dance and Country Dance.
Pierre-Augusta Renoir, 1883, oil on canvas.

Le Cathédrale de Rouen. Also called, Harmonie Bleue et Or.
Claude Monet, 1894, oil on canvas.

Woman with a Parasol Facing Right, and Woman with a parasol Facing Left.
Claude Monet, 1885, oil on canvas. The mondella was named Suzanne Hoschedé who was the daughter the impressionist collector Ernest Hochedé, but these were not meant as portraits. His outdoor figures were attempting to capture the landscape as the subject.

Henri-Edmond Cross.
Maximilien Luce, 1898, oil on canvas… I quite like this one, it’s amazing how much detail is conveyed with such frugal brush strokes and no blending to speak of. Beautiful.

Le Quai Saint-Michel et Notre-Dame.
Maximilien Luce, 1901, oil on canvas.

Georges Seurat’s Palette from 1891… what a cool object to have here – obviously it’s oil paint on timber.

The museum has imagery all around the place of the ‘Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’, which is one of those annoying things museums seem to do these day to create interest – but of course it isn’t here, it’s at the Art Institute of Chicago. They do have some very small studies that were done for the painting though. These are barely A4 in size, the full painting is 2m high and 3m wide.

Circus.
Georges Surat, 1890-1891, oil on canvas. This work is considered incomplete as Surat died prematurely while working on it. I’ve often wondered about the curatorial choices that go into displaying some of these well known or important works – but apparently Surat chose this blue frame himself.

Couple dans la rue.
Charles Angrand, 1887, oil on canvas.

La Seine à Herblay.
Maximilien Luce, 1890, oil on canvas.

Entrée du port de la Rochelle.
Paul Signac, 1921, oil on canvas… this one was an unexpected little gem that I just loved. The colours are so vibrant and beautiful, and again, such beautiful texture created by the brushwork.

Jardins publics: L’interrogatoire.
Édouard Vuillard, 1894-1936, oil on canvases.

Et l’or de leur corps.
Paul Gauguin, 1901, oil on canvas. I have little affection for Gauguin – partly because I don’t really enjoy his style, but also because I think he just spent years in Tahiti shafting native women. :/

Jane Avril Dancing.
Henri de Toulousse-Lautrec, 1892, thinned oil paint on poster board.

The Robe.
c.1982, distemper on flannel (?)

The restaurant was closed but looked very funky… love the colourful chairs.

Logement prolétaire (Proletärkarsern).
Eugène Jansson, Stockholm, 1898, oil on canvas.

La pointe d’Andey, Vallée de L’Avre.
Ferdinand Hodler, 1909, oil on canvas.

Portrait de l’artist au fond rose.
Paul Cézanne, c. 1875, oil on canvas.

Hercules Kills the Birds of Lake Stymphalia.
Antoine Bourdelle, 1880-1910, bronze.

Le Belier Retif, also called, Belier African.
Antoine Bourdelle, 1909, bronze.

Monument à Jean-Jacque Rousseau…
La Philsophie (centre), with La Verite et la Nature.
La Gloire et La Musique (sides).
Albert Bartholomé, 1910, sculpture en platre

Jeunesse.
Aristide Maillol, 1910, marble.

Judgement de Paris.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1914, Platre (signed and dated Renoir).

Les Nubiens, also called, Les Chasseurs d’Alligators.
Ernst Barrias, 1894, platre.

La Roue de la Fortune (Wheel of Fortune).
Edward Burne-Jones, c1875-1883, oil on canvas.

Mercure inventant le caducée.
Jean Antoine Idrac, 1878, marble.

I didn’t get the description for this one… I liked her, even though the poor dear looks like she’s lost her portable! Selfie Queen.

Polar Bear.
Francois Pompon, c.1923-1933, stone.

Pompon famously worked with Rodin, but chose animals as his focus. This bear was one he watched pace in a cage at the zoo in the Jardins des Plantes, and was carved from a 3 tonne stone… every bit of it that wasn’t polar bear was removed and he is remarkably sleek and modern looking, even today.

We had to bail on the Musée D’Orsay, as we had skipped breakfast and were getting seriously hungry. Went for a bit of a wander to find lunch… on the way, the famous: Sorbonne University.

Lunch Bistro, chosen by Mr K;

Very nice choice. Many bistros will have a daily menu that gives you choices of two or three course meals at very reasonable prices – this is how Parisians often order their lunches, rather than a la carte. So we took that option. Jambon et fromage crépes, steak au poivre for Mr K, boeuf bourguignon for me, crème caramel for Mr K, and I spoiled myself with a crème brulee. Delicious and now we’ll be skipping dinner too!

Lunch at Le Train Bleu

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This famous restaurant was conceived in 1900 around the time of the Universal Exhibition. At that time, it was the Gare de Lyon’s station buffet, which later became Le Train Bleu. It was a famous architect named Marius Toudoire who was responsible for the Gare de Lyon clock tower and the façade of the building who was entrusted with the design and works of the restaurant. The management of the railway company wanted to create an unmissable gourmet expierice for people travelling through the Gare de Lyon.

The station buffet was opened by then French President Emile Loubet and became Le Train Bleu in 1963, the name apparently a tribute to the ‘Paris-Vintimille’ line from 1868 on Le Train Bleu (the legendary train that services the towns along the Mediterranean Coast and the French Riviera). The decor of the restuarant retains that sumptuous ambiance that the Belle Époque (c.1871 to 1914) is so famous for.

It’s like a time capsule…

The restaurant is quite large and has a large lounge/bar area as well, so I looked up to see how many diners they can seat and it’s a huge 200 people that can be seated here at any time. That is quite a considerable number of people and certainly explained the general hustle of the place; totally consistent with being in one of Europe’s very busiest train stations. I also learned at this time that Le Train Bleu is a two Michelin Star restaurant. Seems 2024 is accidentally becoming a ‘Big Year o’ Fine Dining’.

Naturally, we decided to stick to our resolve to drink as much champagne at every opportunity while in France… the Bollinger, always a good choice (for breakfast, lunch or dinner!), was delicious and moorish.

The meal started with a small purée of herbed carrot that wasn’t on the menu… very tasty!

I spent more time looking at the ceilings than at the menu!

Just beautiful!

Mr K looking very happy with his wash… bit of Bolli before lunch will do that.

M. Alain preparing Mr K’s entrée, table side…

Devilled eggs and Petrossian caviar for me; herbed Green Asparagus with vinaigrette for Mr K…

M. Alain returned to prepare Mr K’s main meal table side also… I thought these staff members were wait staff, but it seems they need to be capable chefs too.

Pork medallion Mignon, with champignons for me; braised lamb shoulder with garlic and potato au gratin for Mr K…

Delicious so far – and large portions! Like, pushing American size portions.

I was amazed at how quickly they could turn the tables over. There were loads of people waiting for tables when we arrived. We had booked this on the recommendation of some colleagues before we left home, so had no trouble getting seated but many were standing around for quite a long time waiting for a table to be vacant, but I swear the party opposite us finished up and paid their bill, a new party of diners were being seated within about 3 minutes… impressive.

I had had an elegant sufficiency so passed on dessert, but Mr K had ordered the Iranian pistachio soufflé served with Turkish sour cherry gelato at the beginning of the meal, (as is usually the case with soufflé!). I had a tiny taste, and it was delicious! Seriously, it was a next level super tasty dessert – likely due to the complete lack of chocolate! 😉

A lovely long lunch in a gorgeous restaurant – certainly would recommend it to anyone coming to Paris as an opportunity to step back in time, and have a lovely meal in absolutely beautiful surroundings.

Le Calife Seine Dinner Cruise

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Since learning we’d be in Paris leading up to the 2024 Olympics for work, I’ve been following some Americans who moved to Paris on YouTube – their channel is called “Les Frenchies”, (yes, I know… but what can you do?), and they have some great, up-to-date content for people visiting Paris. One of the things they highly recommended, was something I thought would be way too touristy for my liking, but based on their frequently voiced dislike of highly touristy experiences, I thought we’d give it a try. So, I booked us a dinner cruise on ‘Le Calife’.

Seeing we are now staying in Saint Germaine (*wipes away faux tears* – it’s lovely, but it’s not the Georges V!), we had only a short 350m walk to the Pont des Arts, where ‘Le Calife’ is berthed.

I love this! I wonder if this was dedicated before she passed away in 2020… ‘On 23rd September 2021, “The ‘Place Juliette Gréco’ was inaugurated in Paris. It can be found beside the Church of Saint-Germain-de-Paris, in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.” Bummer.

This is not out boat.

This is our boat. Le Calife was originally built in Belgium in 19as a cargo carrying ship and has large twin stream engines, but when this type of transportation became less popular it was sold to an enthusiast for restoration. It apparently took 18 years to restore and transform it into a restaurant; it has its original engines still operating. The ship is all fitted out with red mahogany, brass and other decorative details, including seriously vintage stained glass lamps from 1789… which I will no doubt mention later!

Square du Vert-Galant…

Pont Neuf…

We were welcomed aboard at 20:00 with a glass of champagne, and a set menu with several delicious choices for each course…

Our delightful waiter asked us if we would like a bottle of red wine or white wine, all chosen by the chef… we had both chosen meat for dinner so opted for a bottle of red. Which may or may not have been a bit of a mistake, because we didn’t realise that we weren’t going anywhere until 2045, and the first course of dinner wouldn’t be served until roughly 21:30..!

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris… still under masses amounts of scaffold as the restoration after the 2019 fire, but expected to reopen December 2024.

A nod to the teams of people working on the Cathédrale…

L’entrées… the vol au vent of chanterelles with foie gras and morel mushroom sauce for me, the Label Rouge salmon fillet gravlax with fresh cheese and herbs for Mr K:

Ah, there they are, the fabulous antique stained glass lamps through the verandah of the boat. A lovely touch, but perhaps not so practical when it comes to photography reflections!

The mains… Rossini style beef tenderloin, with foie gras, Dauphinois potatoes and roasted vegetables for me, and Lamb shoulder confit, with seasonal vegetables and baby roast potatoes for Mr K:

Just as dinner was being served we sailed into view of the Eiffel Tower. Gorgeous! I particularly love the stained glass motif they have incorporated into the lighting! 🙂

It is a striking element of the Parisian skyline for sure. A little after these pictures were taken, we swung around and the tower started to ‘sparkle’ as they have the flashing lights going for five minutes on the hour every hour… kinda gave up on the photos by now though.

The underside of one of the several bridges we went under… complete with reflections of someone’s dinner. 🙂

Dessert… Lemon cheese cake, with lemon cream, lemon sorbet and limoncello for me, and Chocolate lava cake, custard and Madagascar vanilla ice cream for Mr K. The lemon on lemon with a lemon motif was really quite good!

Alas we were back to the quay all too soon; not really it was just before midnight. The dinner cruise was really lovely. The food was nice, but we made the mistake of doing this *after* we’d had the fanciest meal of our lives at Le Cinq! When will we learn… you don’t go China straight after you go to Japan and you don’t go to a *good* French restaurant the night after going to a internationally famous three Michelin star’d French restaurant!

Jungfrau Railway

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So today is going to be full of cable cars and trains… because that’s why we are here! Mr K is keen to go to the top of Jungfrau via the cog railway even if the weather is still promising to be utter shite, because it’s the highest railway line in Europe. It has a 9km long line that passes through a tunnel dug into the mountain of Jungfrau that connects Klein Scheidegg to Jungraujoch, which is the top most accessible point in all of Europe.

The view front he breakfast room was leading us into a false sense of security – the snow had disappeared overnight and it was looking positively balmy out.

First we had to go find the park and ride at Grindelwald… I was amazed at the enormous facility they have here. A four story parking building with thousands of car parks, a shopping centre, and ticketing outlets to buy all the cable car and train and cog railways tickets, to get around the area. To take a train from Interlaken to the top of Jungfrau takes about 2 hours in total. To get to Jungfraufrom Grindelwald is about 20 mins on a cable car to Eigergletcher, and then another 20 mins on the cog railway. The network is extensive…

We were taking the 360° panoramic cable car up to Eiger where we change to the railway. Each cable car carriage seats about 24 people and I imagine in busy periods, they’d be packing every seat. We travelled up with about 12 people and back with about 8… so there was heaps of space for swivelling around and taking photos.

The views were surreal… the snow made everything look black and white, even though I haven’t dumped any colour info from any of these photos.

The Eigergletscher station where we transferred to the cog railway.

Travelators, cable cars with plush leather seats, smooth concrete walls, modern trains with video monitors and a voice over in multiple languages, and no noisy ker-chunk, ker-chunk, as you went up the mountain??? This doesn’t match with anything I remember from 30 years ago!

Once we got into the tunnel, things started to look familiar… but man did this train move fast!

Got a better view of it once we arrived at the top and got off for a walk around. Jungfraujoch is at 3,464m above sea level and is the saddle between two major mountains – Jungfrau itself, and Mönch (both at close to 4,000m). This facility is the highest accessible point in Europe, so they call themselves ‘Top of Europe’.

I’m a little concerned at this point with the blue lights and the chain curtains (trying to look like moving aurora) that the experience up here has been ‘Disneyfied’. >.> We shall see!

And the weather outside is absolutely frightful! Snow piled up beside every door and temps of -14°C but with winds of 40kmph, it says it feels like -35°C with the windchill…. and I’m so not stupid enough to go outside in that!

No, nope, no fucking way!

Food options were surprising limited – oddly a canteen that was selling shit tonnes of cup o’ noodles to Chinese tourists, a serve yourself Indian curry cafe and a ‘Swiss cafe’ that turned out to have all the deep fried food in the land. Lunch choice made entirely based on where had the most seats and the quietest children! lol.

So I remember this place as having an ‘ice palace’ with some tunnels of ice, and carvings of eagles and bears and a few other things, and various exits to the mountain so you could go tobogganing or dog sledding (neither of which activity was available today – understandably!). But now it’s all full of neon lights and smooth graded paths.

And then there’s this… which I am unsure what it is supposed to be? Glowing yellow edelweiss and timber deer, and…

… a weird arse snow globe the size of a fridge! Yeah, all the stuff in it moved and the lights changed and I have no idea why it is here as such a huge feature in the Discovery tunnels.

There was a little bit of history, mostly about early explorers and the hardships of building the first tunnels.

This is Mr K’s, ‘confused tourist’, face.

Then the Ice Palace section with the Ice carvings … I quite liked this one.

Penguins in Europe make no sense!

Someone on the design team has a sense of humour:

He actually went outside… however briefly! I, did not. Mountain weather report included below so I can pull this up as evidence next time I am questioning either, 1) his sanity, or 2) his intelligence!
(PS: he never reads anything I write here anyway.)

The Saddest Ice Bar at the Top Of the World with No Barman. :’(

They have convenient provided this wall sized backdrop that you could stand in front of for an excellent selfie if the weather was as dreadful as it is today.

Eventually, it was time to head back to Grindelwald… at one point a train conductor came along and punched our tickets – I wasn’t expecting that given we had to scan ourselves in and out through turnstiles on the way up and down. Unlike any other train conductor I’ve ever seen – he was giving passengers chocolates after the exchange!

The views on the way down were just as beautiful…

Grindelwald…

Thus ended our train adventure to Jungfrau.

In the end I was kinda glad we couldn’t go out cavorting in the cold… when packing for this trip, I was super distracted, visitors in the house and things were a bit hectic. I pulled out my hiking boots (twice) and swapped them (twice) for these little Blundstone farm boots; rationalising that they are good for walking around town in wet weather when full-on hiking boots aren’t needed.

I haven’t worn them since GNW last year and hadn’t noticed at all that the rubber soles had completely deteriorated! Fair enough too- I bought them at Yass in 2005, they were a boy’s size 3 and cost me barely $70, but have done great duty… but today they just gave up the ghost and I must have been dropping bits of sole rubber everywhere I went! Nearly every trip, I take old sneakers with me and say I’m going to throw them out and I rarely do – they always come back home again, and some have even gone on multiple long trips with the intent to throw them away. But these ones were so totally trashed, there is no way I was wearing them another day, let alone taking them home. So into the bin they went!

I need new shoo-hew-hew-hew-oos!
Luckily we are heading to Paris next week, and I understand this might be a nice place to go shoe shopping! 😀