Paris | Au revoir

All good things come to an end, or, as the French say, "toute bonne chose a une fin."

Our final day in Paris took us to the city's very top and bottom. We started at the bottom: The Catacombs.

A short walk from our usual breakfast spot, the Catacombs is a famous underground ossuary housing the bones of many of the people originally buried in Paris' largest cemetery, Les Innocents. During World War II, Parisian members of the French Resistance used the tunnel system as a headquarters of sorts. Having some of this history in mind, Heath was initially pretty excited about the tour. That changed when we saw a sign stating that walk-throughs usually took about 45 minutes. As we began our descent down the windy staircase underground, Heath looked a tad bit nauseous.

For comic relief, there was an American professor and her daughter tagging along and the mother kept wanting to give Heath dissertation advice. Hilarious.

Here are some of the pictures from our underground adventure...








From the Catacombs we hopped on the train and headed directly to the Eiffel Tower. The first thing you notice at the base of the tower are two lines...one long and one short. The long line is for all the people interested in taking the lift (or elevator) to the "second floor" roughly 50 stories up. The short line is for all the putzes who think the stairs are the way to go. We were just those putzes.

It's funny because Heath was all about the stairs and was kind of teasing me for lagging behind. No shock to any blog follower: I'm not much of a stairs girl. But when we got to the second floor and needed to take the lift to "the summit," the tables were turned. Heath was NOT a fan of the elevator or, as he put it, the death trap. When we got to the very top he was hesitant to even go too near the railing. I managed to pull him over for a couple pictures. If he looks a little worried in one or two, now you know why.

[eiffel's structure]





[me in the cage]



[eiffel's views]










After our descent, we caught our breath in the little park next to the tower. From Eiffel we stopped to view the Grand Palais further along the river. Alas, we never made it to the Latin Quarter — next trip!

[the park]




[towards the palace]







Our restaurant of choice this evening was Bofinger, near Bastille Place. Highly recommended by several co-workers as well as our guidebook and Michelin guide, Bofinger opened in 1864 and has served some of the most well-known Parisians since. Our experience didn't necessarily live up to the hype. The building itself was gorgeous, and the food was good, but not GREAT.

I had oysters, salmon with spring vegetables and then chocolate mousse. Heath had pumpkin soup and the beef tartare, which essentially looked like a big, uncooked hamburger patty. After unsuccessfully trying to convince me to switch with him he did manage to dive in and enjoy it. He did not finish it, but he made the best of it. He followed up with the same dessert I had...we obviously didn't pay close attention to each other's orders.

[bofinger]



So now we're back in the room, packed and setting multiple alarms so that we don't miss our plane tomorrow. We're ready to head home and hug our dog. :-)

[our little corner of paris]



[views from our room]

Home

No, we aren't home yet, but I [Heath] just finished Marilynne Robinson's recent book by that name. Robinson previously won a Pulitzer for her book Gilead, which I absolutely loved. The book is narrated by John Ames, a pastor in his late-seventies who knows he hasn't long to live and will be leaving behind his middle-aged wife and seven-year old son. It's a highly introspective work, as the reader learns about Ames' family history - his grandfather was a fiery abolitionist preacher during the Civil War, his father a more staid mainline pastor - and also his musings on life, love, and God. I go back to some of the passages in the book time and again - Robinson can be just that insightful, her prose, at its best, really sparkles.



In any event, Home is in some ways a very different book. It's set in Gilead, Iowa, and the Ames family is present here too, but this time Robinson focuses primarily on their dear friends, the Boughtons. The story revolves around the relationships between Glory and Jack Boughton, two disenchanted, middle-aged siblings, and their dying father, Robert, during a short season when they are all home together. But if Home is thus more interactive than Gilead, the two books share similar themes - perennial disappointment and perennial hope - as well as a similar pace: agreeably slow. Robinson's meta-reflections might become tiresome if they weren't couched in such a subtle portrait of everyday life in rural America. At first I wondered if the characters here were believable - they seemed, at moments, almost too allegorical - but by the end of the book I was sold.



The bottom line, then: read Home, but be sure to read Gilead first. And let me know what you think.

Paris | Day 4

Perhaps we'll just chalk it up to my poor shoe choice, but today was more of a lazy day. :-)

After a leisurely, decadent breakfast in our park (again, provided by Le Pain Au Naturel) we decided to start with the Louvre. As it turned out, we started and ended with the Louvre.

[our breakfast]



[our fellow feasters, the piegons]


In a word, the Louvre is...overwhelming. Heath and I spent a lot of time discussing how it has so many amazing pieces of art to see, but it's almost too much to take in all at once. It's especially difficult when you're fighting slacker highschool kids for space in front of prime real estate such as the Mona Lisa. You end up in an environment where people are either in your way or you feel like you're in theirs. We tried to spend at least some time in each of the three galleries.






The highlights: The Mona Lisa, of course; Winged Victory of Samothrace; Venus de Milo; the Code of Hammurabi; the Sphinx; and the palace itself.

[highlighted...]






As you now know, we also like to pick some of our own unconventional faves. In addition to feeling a sense of comraderie with the sculpture of Marathon shortly before he died, we enjoyed these pieces:








So, after all these stairs and standing and walking and sidestepping people who don't understand the signs restricting flash photography, my feet and I needed a rest. Heath was happy to oblige, so we found another spot on the Seine which turned into a lovely couple hours in the sun. We kept time by the clock on the Musee d'Orsay across the river and headed to the Metro just in time to make our dinner reservation.





Tonight's dining choice was another Mike&Mary/Michelin guide selection: La Regalade. Another quaint neighborhood spot, we were literally elbow to elbow with another couple — a museum curator from Wellesley College in the states and her very French husband. They were vital in helping translate the fantastic menu.

This was by far my favorite restaurant of the week. Heath had scallops as his first course, followed by a caramelized pork dish and then this decadent chocolate dessert. I had a smoked salmon salad as my first course, this extremely tender beef cheek with carrots and dijon mashed potatoes as my main dish, and then fresh strawberries with a very light cheese. SO GOOD! No, really...SO GOOD!!



[and for those of you wondering, we are intentionally not taking pics of the food itself. we're trying to 'blend' as much as possible...]

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel. Tomorrow is our last day and we plan to go out with a bang: The Eiffel Tower, the Catacombs and exploring the Latin Quarter.