Paris, France
November, 2007

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Back to James Writings and Travelogues

Note: as usual, this document will be long, and extremely detailed.
The reason for this is because I write these things for myself, as an aid to my own memories, an effort to get it all down on paper (as it were) before it starts to fade.
Having made this effort, however, I like to share it with others who may be interested, or as an aid to future travelers who may find my detail useful.
It is not my intention to provide any sort of professional travel advice, nor to recount the extensive and rich history of the nation of France nor any of the specific monuments that I have visited.
This is a document of my trip, my observations, my experience.

It is a mystery.

As intensely interested in art, architecture, photography, wine, cinema, history, and global travel as I am, somehow I have never managed to spend a significant amount of time in Paris: a world capital for all of these things.

I can’t figure it out...

No more excuses: let’s go.

Accompanying me on this mission is International Rebecca: trusty Gal Friday and tasty cocktail tester.

The prehistory
One advantage of working in music is that I get to travel on other people’s money, and to occasionally actually see interesting things while I am on the road. A special joy occurs when I know that a tour will have its final date somewhere worth staying. It is on these occasions that I will make plans to linger in whatever thrilling city my caravan of troubadours have ended their latest noisemaking trip.
However, with or without the aid of the virtuosos who pay my wages, I am determined to visit one nation outside of North America every year for as long as I am able to. Thrift and economy are to be carefully balanced with a further resolve to never compromise a full savoring of these trips: it makes no sense to be in an exotic locale and yet not have the resources to live fully while in the hermetic bubble of vacation.
The trip to Paris was booked in July; originally it was to have happened in September, but things were pushed back for logistical reasons.
Rebecca signed on after finding a non-stop flight from Chicago to Paris for $606.
I was a little annoyed when I found out that one of my favorite recording artists, David Sylvian, was doing a rare concert performance in Paris during the September week that the trip was originally scheduled to occur during. Ah well... it was too late to change the dates back.
November it is.

Lodging Matters:

I had originally thought that it might be interesting to rent an apartment for the nine days that I would be in the city of light; I’d heard that there was cash to be saved this way (versus getting a hotel room).
After exploring a number of web sites and comparing the pros and cons, I discoveredthat the cost of a studio or one-bedroom short-term apartment rental in a decent part of Paris is approximately the same as a two-star hotel in a similar neighborhood. I normally stay in two-star hotels anyway: I’d rather devote my resources to other aspects of the trip than to waste cash on expensive hotels whose doors I will barely darken. For me, the hotel is simply somewhere to store my bags, take a shower, and grab a few hours of sleep between adventures. I do not require luxury, just a clean place, reasonably priced. If a hotel is quiet and has clean sheets plus decent water pressure, I am content. More on that later.

So, the apartment rental has the advantage of a kitchen and perhaps a homier feel, but the apartment rental people also all asked for deposits to be paid (sometimes equal to the total rental cost of the entire stay) along with the full rent, in advance. I was nervous about trying to collect a deposit back from some shifty French landlord, even if the apartments were all rented via reputable web sites. Hotels, on the other hand, can be a bit more sterile in feeling, but they don’t ask for a deposit, and the room can be charged on credit for financial deferment. Also, with a hotel, one has the option to simply leave if the accommodations are not adequate. With an apartment, one is stuck there by contract.

Arrondissements of Paris. Memorize this, or be lost.

I eventually chose the Atlanta Frochot hotel in the 09e (that’s the 9th arrondissement, or the 9th of the 20 distinct wards that Paris is divided into). The arrondissements of Paris are arranged like a nautilus shell, or in a spiral. So, the 09e has the 08e and 10e to the left and right, but the 18e above it and the 02e below it. I wanted to be more or less in central Paris, so my goal was to find lodging somewhere in 01e through 10e; this is where most of the action is. However 18e was also acceptable, since this is Montmartre, a lovely part of the city set on the foot of a hill.
My other goal was to find the very best place I could get into for under US $100 per night. The Atlanta Frochot ended up costing me $106.37 per night (split with International Rebecca) and was probably the best I could have done in that price range without leaving the desired areas of Paris.

The hotel had its pros and cons...
The Atlanta Frochot is at the border of the 09e and the 18e. This means that the attractions of Montmartre (in the 18e) are a very easy walk from the hotel. Even closer to the hotel is the Pigalle neighborhood (in 09e; the Pigalle Metro stop is one block from the Atlanta Frochot).
In theory, this is a great location.
However, after arriving, we discovered that Pigalle is the red light neighborhood of Paris. The Moulon Rouge (Red Windmill) is there, as well as dildo shops, peep shows, and scores of little bars where ‘hostesses’ work. After discovering this (of course they don’t tell you about it on the hotel’s web site) we were relieved to discover that somehow, the neighborhood is relatively free of sleazoids and dirtbags roaming the streets, in spite of the very high concentration of porn in the area.

Let us not be enchanted by the reputation of the Moulin Rouge: it is €175 Euro (about $258) to get in, and while they present an air of history and old Parisian charm, it is (after all) still a tits-and-ass revue. Not a single one of the dozens of satellite peep parlors orbiting the Moulin Rouge seems to be able to even dream of offering 10% of the historic appeal that the expensive and famous Moulin revue boasts of. We skipped the Moulin Rouge experience because of the cost, and we skipped all of its lesser imitators because they’re all super-sleazy porn palaces.

What we found most (morbidly) fascinating about Pigalle were the hostess bars. There are dozens of little bars in the neighborhood that may have room for fifteen customers on a crowded night. None of them are on the main drag, they are all on the (otherwise charming) little side streets that feed into the main boulevard. There are three of them in a row directly across the street from the Atlanta Frochot hotel. Walking by, peering discreetly into the darkened windows, there are always three or four scantily clad women sitting on the bar stools, staring eagerly back at the passerby. These hostesses are usually quite trashy looking, and a few of them are -- let us say -- of retirement age (we’ll leave it at that). Of course, we didn’t actually patronize any of the bars in our neighborhood. There was no way I was going to take International Rebecca into one of these places, and even if I were on my own, they were just too creepy for me.
I was curious about what ‘the deal’ was though: were these girls prostitutes, or just hired to keep the guys entertained and buying drinks? Interesting also how there were no girls, at all, on the streets. They were all sequestered indoors, all strictly regulated for the tourists, it seems.

Enough about Pigalle (or Pig Alley as the World War II servicemen used to call it, for obvious if rude reasons).

A random building near the hotel.

More about the Atlanta Frochot hotel:
Forgetting the neighborhood (if you can), the hotel was clean and did not feel sleazy. Everyone else staying there were tourists; it didn’t feel like a place where the local hostesses were welcome, at all. The staff were all friendly and were patient with the mangled French that emanated forth from my quarter-memorized phrase book.
Most of them reciprocated in English that was far better than my French.
It is true: make the effort - that’s all they ask.

The room was clean, but very small.
The two beds were clean and firm.
My main complaints were that the water pressure in the shower was absolutely terrible, and it got worse depending on how full the hotel was. On Saturday there was basically no water at all coming out of the shower. Seriously, almost none. On Tuesday it was almost (sort of) all right. The other thing is that our room was next to the elevator shaft, so every time someone used the elevator it was noisy. Ear plugs to the rescue!
Looking at a map of the building we saw that rooms 60 (ours) and 61 got the shaft, as well as similarly numbered rooms on other floors: 50, 51, 40, 41, etc. Future tenants are hereby warned. We could also occasionally smell cigarette smoke from other rooms (but it wasn’t too bad), and could also hear people in other rooms when they got loud (but this was also not too often). Our view was out the back of the building (by my request, for further nocturnal sonic reduction purposes), and looked like this:

Very Parisian, actually, and if you look carefully in the far distance (a bit left of center in the next pic), you can see the top of Tour Eiffel (Eiffel Tower).

The internet special that I got when I booked the place included breakfast, which is normally an additional €10 per person ($14.72). We indulged in it every day, but if it is not included in your deal, it is absolutely not worth it. You can get much better continental breakfast (called petit dejeuner... or, basically, ‘little lunch’!) at many other places for far less money (see various bits below regarding food!). But starting each morning off with orange or grapefruit juice, croissants, bread, sweet pastries, and coffee (for Rebecca, I don’t touch the stuff) was a good morning ritual, and added to the value of the room. I like to think that we got the room for $99.99 (thusly just under my $100 budget) and paid $6.38 (about €4.33) total for the two breakfasts. That is how I choose to have my brain work.
Of course it was at petit dejeuner (breakfast) on our very first morning that we encountered the only Atlanta Frochot employee who was anything other than nice and helpful... but let’s get into the diary and we’ll come back to that scenario in a few pages.

Monday, November 19, 2007

We left Chicago on American Airlines flight 42, at 5:30 p.m. Everything about this journey was remarkably smooth: even the TSA guy checking passports was sort of peppy and friendly.
The flight was practically empty, and almost everyone on the place got to stretch out over a few seats.
Excellent.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they actually served two meals on the flight; those of you who travel know that airplane food is mostly a thing of the past, and so a second meal was pretty impressive after the almost-surprising first one.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Seven hours time change, plus eight hours and ten minutes in the air: we arrive at Charles De Gualle airport at 8:40 a.m. We were slightly bummed that our passports weren’t stamped at all. The customs and passport guys barely even glanced at us as we entered France.
No questions were even asked of us. No line.
Very smooth.

But...

We were worried a bit about the transport strike that had been making news for the past few days. We had determined that we would have a good time no matter what, but a lack of Metropolitan (or Metro - the Paris-specific subway) trains would definitely add expense and make getting around a bit tricky. We’d planned to get Carte Orange cards, or week-long Metro passes. But with the strike, we weren’t sure. We decided to play it by ear...
I noted the cash in my pocket: International Rebecca and I each brought about $306 worth of Euros (about €200), and I had about €35 left over from my trip to Spain two years ago. I wondered how much cash we would have to blow on taxis if this strike continued.
It turned out to be almost no problem at all: those crazy French love their strikes and revolutions. But, their idea of pissing off the government and striking is to show up for work, and to run the trains more or less as normal, but not charge anyone, thereby costing the government money. This also generates sympathy for the train workers among those people using the trains. Good idea!
So after sussing out directions and getting our bags, we boarded an RER (regional light rail transport) train for downtown Paris at no charge. The train was dusty and filthy, as if someone had swept up an old attic and then dumped all of the debris all over the train, and then exploded a bag of plaster or flour. Some sort of disgruntled strike-related vandalism? I am not sure. All of the other RER and Metro trains that we rode all week were very clean.

From the train, we saw lots of graffiti all along the trip into Paris. One tag said ‘kung fou’, which I found funny because ‘fou’ is French for ‘mad’ (as in ‘crazy’). We also saw a lot of fou trees with inverted color schemes: mossy green trunks, and autumn brown leaves.

The RER connects with the Metro at the huge Gare du Nord station; one transfer to a number 2 Metro train (again free, thanks strikers) took us to Pigalle.
Easy.

Our pre-trip notes said that 09e “is a diverse, ‘in between’ section of the French capital. The Grands Boulevards area of flagship department stores (as well as the original Opera) is to be found in the southern part of the arrondissement. By way of contrast, the fading red-light and cheap shopping district of Pigalle is located in the north of the 09e, closely adjoining Montmartre on the hill above in the 18e. The streets around St. Lazare used to be the Impressionists stronghold in Paris.”
This was more or less true of our ‘hood, except for that we never checked out the St. Lazare part, and we didn't see any particularly cheap shopping in Pigalle, unless 'cheap shopping' is a euphemism for the employees of the hostess bars.

Buttes Chaumont

So, arriving at the hotel and our home neighborhood of Pigalle, all with very little mishap, we were ready to paint this town red... as soon as we conquered our jet-lag and flight fatigue.
They key to defeating jet-lag would be to stay up all day today, even though we’d already been awake for some twenty-four hours (cat-naps only on the plane, unfortunately).
It was mandatory to go out into the daytime air, generate some serotonin, and have a full active day, or else all would be lost.

It was cloudy and cool, temperatures in the 40s, with a light misting rain, or more of a wet fog. This is what we expected, and so we dressed appropriately, and were comfortable walking around. Our destination for the day needed to be something outdoors, but nothing that required thinking, so I mandated a visit to the Parc of Buttes Chaumont in nearby 19e.

I had read that: “Buttes Chaumont is a fantastic world apart from the bustling city, equipped with a 32-meter waterfall, circular lake, 63-meter long suspension bridge, and a series of man-made grottoes that lead up to a Sybillian temple at the crown of the hill. A taste of 19th century surreal city that continues to delight today.”

Buttes Chaumont

The description was more or less accurate.

The park was lovely and mostly deserted. It reminded me a little bit of Parc Guell in Barcelona.
Climbing up and down the hills, we got the first of many, many lower-body workouts on this trip.
Other people were working out as well, perhaps more seriously.
The weather wasn’t condusive to picnics or for playing children, so the only people we saw were the hardcore exercisers: joggers, a guy doing intense sit ups on the edge of a bench, and a fat guy doing clumsy tai-chi at triple speed.
This was one of the few fat people we saw in France. People really do take better care of themselves; a reliance on feet and bikes to get around (instead of SUVs) probably helps a lot.

Leaving the park, we walked toward the Canal St. Martin (in the adjoining 10e). It was beginning to rain a little, but we had brought an umbrella. Walking on Avenue Mathurn Moreau (still in the 19e), we selected D'Antan, the first of many boulangeries (bakeries; there is one on almost every block) that we would visit in the coming week. Sandwiches on baguettes are a standard Parisian lunch, and a wide variety are available, everywhere. Always fresh, made with break baked on the premeis. For €7 we got two great sandwiches, one with brie and the other with chunks of warm curry chicken. We stood under an awning in the increasing rain at a busy circle intersection (or place), and ate the food while watching the bustle of Paris.

By the time we made it to the Canal St. Martin and had walked half of its length, it began to rain a bit more heavily, and the weather soon became unbearable, even with the umbrella. Fortunately, this was the only real rain we encountered on the whole trip.
There are no complaints to be registered with the Parisian weather office.

Canal St. Martin

We ducked into a cafe called Le Chaland (163 Quai de Valmy) across from the canal. This was where we discovered that the Beaujolais Nouveau had just been released. Everyone in Paris was excited that the new wine was hitting stores and cafes right at that time. As soon as we walked in to the cafe, the barista asked us if we wanted Beaujolais - he just assumed that like everyone else, we were eager to try it. We declined. We wanted to warm up, and also we had to stay awake for eight more hours. Rebecca had espresso, and I had a nice cinnamon and orange tea (Twining). Pondering the exotic bottles and the mock-Zummo (see Barcelona travelogue for Zummo education) behind the bar, we also noted that the food coming out of the kitchen looked great. A coffee and tea was €5 (compare that to the sandwiches at only €7!).

Given the rain, we decided to find something indoors to do, so we moved our exploration of Paris’s three big hoity-toity department stores (scheduled for Thursday) up to today (It is Tuesday, if you’d forgotten). One free Metro ride later, we were at Boulevard Haussmann. We had bad geographical information about the first of the three stores, Le Bon Marche, which was said to be smaller and older than the other two (it is the 2nd oldest department store in the world, in fact). We never did find it (we didn’t try very hard). The other two (Printemps and Galeries Lafayette) were worth the trip, however -- and for those of you who know me, consider the source: I haven’t been to a mall or department store in America for well over a decade, and have no interest in doing so! Rebecca was there for the shoes, I was there for the lauded architecture, and we were both there for the legendary gourmet food section.

Printemps and Galeries Lafayette are more or less next door to each other on Boulevard Haussmann, but that said, they’re each a block (or two) long. They’re in the lower part of the 09e, or basically on the opposite end of the arrondissement from our hotel. The arrondissements aren’t very large (particularly the ones closer to the center of town), but the contrast between the southern part of the 09e (where these stores are) and the northern part (where our hotel and Pigalle is) could not be more pronounced. The southern part of 09e, near the border of 01e is full of ritzy shops and high fashion. Wandering further south into 01e, you get to the warren of ritzy streets connecting Place Madeleine and Place Vendome, which are full of extremely expensive gourmet food shops, jewelry stores, four-star hotels, perfumeries, and exclusive clothing boutiques. At Vendome, you're at the Ritz and other five-star hotels.

Printemps and Galeries Lafayette, are a little less spendy, a bit closer to being middle-class friendly. Rebecca’s friend Carrie had raved about the shoe department of Printemps, which takes up an entire (large) floor. I was glad for the opportunity to sit for a while as Rebecca explored. Turns out that she was less than impressed, and she commented that everything for sale there were things she could get at home. Good thing we don’t live in Nebraska, I guess. She did keep gravitating back to the area for one shoe designer, Jonak, whose creations are not available here in Chicago. But, no purchase. Yet.

Galeries Lafayette was more interesting, with their huge Tiffany-style glass dome, and a gourmet food section that takes up an entire floor. This section features deluxe baguettes, a few hundred types of cheese, more chocolate than Willy Wonka could conceive, and an entire aisle devoted to mustard.

Lafayette interior; part of blue dome at top of pic.

I occupied myself photographing the dome, and exploring the movies and books sections in the lower level while Rebecca went after shoes and perfume. After geeking about all of the art books on display, I realized that book shopping in Paris was going to be futile: they’re all written in a language that I cannot read! Similarly, the nine-DVD set of Luis Bunel’s most important films for only €45 sent me into a frenzy of cinema lust, but then I remembered that the European PAL format discs won’t play on North American or Japanese DVD players. Damn.
Rebecca caught up with me; she smelled a bit better than the last time I had seen her (not that she had been stinky or anything).

After Lafayette, we stopped in a store called Mango, where Rebecca got a silk scarf.

It was basically rush hour at the beginning of the holidays in the shopping district. The rain had stopped, and the streets were jammed with people. Men were selling hot chestnuts off of metal plates balanced on top of shopping carts. Sterno in the cart kept the nuts warm and their smell filled the air. Street vendors also sold cravats (ties) and winter accouterments: hats, gloves, scarves. I noticed that as busy as this street was, full of evening shoppers gobling up the latest styles, there was a distinct lack the obnoxious in-your-face Christmas advertising that would have been seen in North Amrica. Sure, Lafayette had a big Christmas tree inside, but unlike North America, where metric tons of oppressive and ridicuous holiday ornamentation is inescapable from Halloween through New Year's and beyond, the upcoming Parisian Christmas was present, but refined. Subtle.

Place Vendome

We made our way north towards the hotel with the intention of discovering dinner.
Before long we were just up the road from the hotel, west of Pigalle, at the Place de Clichy. Like all of the other places in Paris, this big traffic circle has some huge monument in the center, and is also a center of activity: restaurants, shops, theaters. It reminded me a little bit of Times Square in New York; there are a few other places in Paris that have a similar feel. I can’t tell you what the monument in the center of the Place de Clichy is. We didn’t investigate.
And that brings me to one of the frustrating and also amazing things about Paris. There is just too much to see. Every road is festooned with statuary, monuments, amazing buildings, art, history, and culture. There is just too much to take in. Sensory overload at every turn. Someone sweated and toiled to build this monument at Place de Clichy. The statuary is great, and this towering memento to something or other is a real work of art. But in Paris there is so much competing for one’s attention. Even with nine days, only a fraction of the city can possibly be absorbed.

Coming home, I felt like The United States is the most bland place in the world. Even while living in a relatively exciting and dynamic city like Chicago, or even after having visited New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, pre-flood New Orleans, Boston, Seattle, and other spectacular US cities many times each, it is humbling to realize that none of them can hold a candle to the great European capitals, especially Paris.

All of this said, we were tired from having been awake for well over 24 hours, we were tired from walking many miles that day, we were chilly from the damp air, and we were definitely overwhelmed at the array of dining options before us at Place de Clichy. A lot of it seemed geared towards tourists; that was something to be avoided. We wanted somewhere that the locals might dine. But where to go? I’d developed a bit of a grasp on the small section of the city that we’d seen today, but zeroing in on specific excellent restaurants was something that I’d only be able to do with confidence after spending a lot more time in this city. In the end, we chose extremely poorly: we went to some no-name food shack where I got an indifferently prepared chicken thigh on a plate of French fries(!) and Rebecca got a flattened panini sandwich that, by contrast, underlined how great the baguette sandwich she’d had for lunch was. After overpaying for a bottle of water, we were in for €18 (almost thirty bucks) for this crappy meal in the least appealing of all of the eateries at Place de Clichy. We had eight more dinners ahead of us on this trip, and were determined to do better in the future.

Spent €4.05 on a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau and a six-pack of 1.5 liter water bottles (those were €0.19 each!) at the Monoprix grocery store. Compare that to the €1.80 we spent for the same brand and size of water earlier in the day at a street market, and over €4 for a much smaller water in the restaurant. Prices vary widely here. They also charge triple for chilled beverages almost everywhere, so get yours at room temperature and save!

By the way, for less than €3 (under five bucks) that Beaujolais was just fine. You’ve got to love the French attitude towards wine: give it to us good, and make it cheap to boot. The wine here claims to be 12 or 13% alcohol by volume (just like any other wine), but it doesn’t get you as drunk as wine in North America for some reason, nor does it give you a hangover. A tradeoff. Maybe both are due to the wine here being more pure, less tannins or something?

We slept.
Yes, we did.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Mission: Montmartre!

Today’s concept was to stay relatively local again, getting a grip on the immediate neighborhood before expanding into the deeper regions of Paris. Also, I had a plan to buy a Paris Museum Pass, which lasts for six days and costs €60 ($88.73). So with that, we wanted to do all of the museums in a cluster, later in the week. My logic was that starting a few days from now, each morning we would do a museum, and then do other things that are in the immediate vicinity of that museum. This seemed better than racing back and forth around town, especially with the transit strike. So exploring Montmartre was a good idea for today: close to home, and the one museum there - Espace Dali - isn’t covered by the Museum Pass anyway.

But first: breakfast! Petit dejeuner in the hotel ends at 10:00 a.m. I set the alarm for 8:30 before going to sleep Tuesday night. Well, it turns out that the time change was miscalculated, and we woke up at 9:30, making it to breakfast at 10:05... but thinking that it was 9:05. There was no one in the breakfast room, and spying a clock on the wall, I realized the mistake. I did notice a basket of rolls sitting out, so I grabbed one for me and one for International Rebecca, and headed back to the elevator so as to get our stuff and prepare to leave for the day.

And then it happened.

Remember when I wrote that there was only one hotel employee who wasn’t nice to us?

Like a hurricane blowing through a blizzard during an earthquake with a volcano erupting in the distance, some tubby old chambermaid descended upon us, reprimanding us in French, pointing and waving and scowling.
“No parlez-moi Francais” didn’t go too far with her. She kept at it, waving, and gesturing, and talking rapid fire. I had a crusty roll in my hand - was it such a crime to scavenge leftovers five minutes after breakfast hours had officially ended?
Apparently so.
The portly old woman, her grey ponytail flailing madly, eventually insisted (via gestures) that we sit for breakfast, and angrily brought us croissants, juice, and coffee. A she slammed our silverware down on the table, and practically threw our juice glasses at us, we had to eat, we had to eat her way, and we had to eat now.
We ate in uncomfortable silence, afraid to use the wrong fork, the wrong packet of jam, or to eat that last sticky bun. International Rebecca and I were scowled at by our server several more times before we slunk back up to room 60 to prepare for Montmartre.

This experience provides an important insight into the French people. For all of their talk about liberty (national motto: “liberty, fraternity, equality”, and let us not forget the name of that statue in New York harbor that they gifted to the US of A), they’re a pretty conformist bunch, and they are really hung up on etiquette. French people generally stay out of each other's business and do their own thing, but if you break a rule, then they break out the claws, and there is going to be hell to pay. Be it the written law or the unspoken laws of conduct, people will leave you alone until you commit some faux pas, and then you are doomed.
They will chew you up and spit you out and spank you too.
And sit your ass down when eating your bread: rolls on the go are not acceptable.

By the time we left the hotel, the grey morning sky had given way to sunshine. We left the umbrella in the room, as we did on all but one of our further days in Paris (and we didn’t even need it the one day we brought it, but you know, better safe...).

So armed with a small map describing a walking tour of the area, we embarked on Mission: Montmartre.
Montmartre is but one section of the 18e, and it sits on a hill. This Montmartre walk worked out really well, because it begins more or less across the street from the hotel, and ends up in the same spot.
We wandered across the street, past the hostess bars and the Metro stop, and wandered up the gentle slope of Montmartre, the only really substantial butte on the gently rolling Parisian landscape.

The architect.

We walked by, and briefly into, St. Jean de Montmartre cathedral, which would have been noteworthy only if we’d skipped Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, and St. Chappelle (all later in the week - read on), any of which renders a visit to poor St. Jean unremarkable. I did like that there was a little monument erected to the architect outside. That is such a brilliantly European thing, to hold the artist responsible for these great buildings in such deservedly high regard.

The first thing we saw that we liked was rue des Abbesses (rue means road). This quiet little street is very typical of the less touristy aspects of Montmartre. It is just west of a little triangular park (Place des Abbesses), and consists of a row of tiny shops that are quintessentially Parisian. The local crémerie or fromagerie (cheeses), charcuterie (deli items, meats, and pâtés), épicerie or alimentation (veggies, drinks), pâtisserie (delicious pastries), boulangerie (bakery) and even a wine store are all lined up in a row, and you can go from one to the next and get all of the food you need. It all looks fresh and delicious. In addition to your day to day needs, they all have little gourmet specialties too. Tarts in the boulangerie, amazing quiches, or food items that resemble sculptures more than food.

Most of the arrondissements have at least one market street like this. With a little poking around we were able to fashion an excellent picnic lunch for ourselves almost every day, no matter what part of Paris we were in. But I think that rue des Abbesses was one favorite, paling only to when compared to rue Cler, which we’ll come to in a few days.

Climbing steadily up the sloping streets, we passed a sort of small museum that was closed, but which appeared to be having some kind of fashion exhibition. We planned to come back later, but forgot. Missing it was not a huge loss: this day, like every other one, was jam-packed with rewarding experiences and amazing sights, and anything we missed out on was just another drop in the bucket full of cool things to see and do that we could never possibly have time to cram into this trip.

The quaint streets of Montmartre wind upwards towards the Sacre Coeur cathedral, and along the way they metamorphosize into a neighborhood overrun with tourism. In stark contrast to rue des Assesses is the area around Place de Calvaire and Place de Tertre. Little shops that might have been charming when artists lived in the neighborhood fifty or one hundred years ago are now all hawking the same mass-produced sweatshirts, cheap postcards, and tin Tours Eiffel. The restaurants in the area are all overpriced; none seem particularly interesting. At Place de Tertre, artists have easels set up in the pleasantly shady tree-lined square, and you can watch them paint. The problem is that there were twenty artists there when I walked past, but ten were doing cheesy caricatures, and the other ten were all doing really bad (I mean really bad) impressionist knock-offs. It’s a minstrel show for the tourists. “Look how Parisian this is: artists painting in the open air of a picturesque square!”. Allow me to gag. Truly great art seems to grow from the ground all over this city, and can be found almost everywhere one looks. Except for at the top of Montmartre!

Amidst all of this, on a small, hook-shaped street called rue Poulbot that is only half-accessible to cars (a driver will dead-end into a pedestrian staircase just after the bend), is Espace Dali, the area’s small bastion of truly great art.

Fans of Salvador Dali will know that his major works are divided up between a museum in St. Petersburg (Florida, surprisingly, not Russia), and the world’s major museums. Dali fans can also explore a triangle of important Dali sites just north of Barcelona (I did it in 2005, read about it here).
Thus, the Dali museum in Paris has a rather alarmingly small number of original oil paintings by Salvador Dali: it has zero.

Rather, what this small museum (three rooms) consists of is someone's rather impressive personal collection of Dali’s lithographic works.
The artist issued many lithographs of his copious watercolors, block prints, and pen-and-ink illustrations during the second half of his life, and although frequently bootlegged, faked, and plagiarized, the original editions are quite valuable within the realm of serial edition collectors.
Dali liked to illustrate great works of literature (from Don Quixote to Alice in Wonderland to The Bible), and many of his editions were issued as collections: ten different prints of his Alice illustrations, for example, or twelve of his New Testament works. Espace Dali presents close to two hundred examples of Dali’s printwork (fifteen or so complete sets of ten to twelve works each), plus a few dozen of his sculptures, and (at the time I visited) a temporary exhibition offering up the results of an effort to get fashion designers to create Dali-inspired fashions.
At €10 (more expensive per visit than the Louvre!), some people might feel slighted at not seeing The Persistence of Memory (that one is in New York) or Hallucinogenic Toreador (Florida) or the Mae West Room (Figueres, Spain), but Salvador Dali fanatics (my hand is raised) will find it worthwhile.

The museum also has a gift shop which doubles as a fourth gallery, in which rare prints can be bought.
There was a rather snotty ‘art guy’ in there, who clearly knows more about art than you do, and who is better than you because of it. He was quite agitated about something while we were browsing, and was having a (shall we say) intense phone conversation with someone.

Sacre Coeur

I was shamed when some overweight and goofy looking guy in shorts, a t-shirt, and sandals, clearly the sort of American that gives my countrymen such a bad reputation in Europe, interrupted the gallery guy’s phone call to make deep and insightful small talk: “This Dali guy was really a weirdo, wasn’t he!”.
Gallery guy didn’t really respond; he was into his phone conversation.
American guy continued:
“I mean don’t get me wrong, I like it, but I sure don’t understand it!”.
Yeah, way to dig yourself in deeper, doofus.
Let’s just put up a billboard proclaiming how dumb we are.

Here we had the European pretentious art guy stereotype and the coarse middle-American retard stereotype coming head to head.
Fascinating social experiment.

Sacre Coeur was our next stop. This is the huge cathedral at the summit of Montmartre hill, and it can be seen from almost anywhere in Paris.

I am not a practitioner of any organized religion, and in fact I have a lot of major problems with the Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, but one cannot help but to be overwhelmed with something like Sacre Coeur.
From the sheer size of the building to the artistry in the architecture, to the mammoth and hyper-detailed mosaic ceiling, this place is a work of art through and through.
It is free to walk in and look around, which is very much worth doing, but we skipped the tour of the dome (€4.50).

Following our walking tour map, I paused to take pictures of this quaint cafe (regrettably, it was closed)...

Rue St. Vincent, as shot by me (top)
and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (bottom).

Upon returning home from Paris, I took a new look at several recent films that were made in Paris, particularly ones that really show off the city, such as Paris, Je'Taime, Before Sunset, and Amelie.

Amelie in particular was shot almost exclusively in Montmartre, and almost every exterior shot in the film is a location easliy found when wandering around that area. I wasn't particularly looking for filming locations when I was there, but I spotted a few anyway, just recognizing them from memory. Seeing the film again when I got home took me straight back to the day spent in Montmartre.
I was pleased at how many of the filming locations were places that are now familiar to me, including this street, rue St. Vincent (left), which is glimpsed in the film several times.

Cafe des 2 Moulins, as seen in Amelie.

I took the picture on the left of this sentence because I thought it was a nice shot, and was happy when purely by chance, two weeks later, I saw the exact same shot in the movie!

The big stone terrace near the huge Sacre Coeur cathedral (which is also the station for a funicular that gives less energetic tourists a ride up the hill) is also featured heavily in the movie. I even recognized things like the specific train stations that the characters spend time in, and of course I was able to understand that the porn store that Amelie’s boyfriend works in is probably in Pigalle, right at the foot of Montmartre, and right near my hotel. Watching the movie was as close as I got to looking inside any of these fine establishments.

We grabbed some grapes and clementines (€1.07), and a sort of spicy doughy roll with olives baked into it (€2.40) for snacks, and ate them on a bench back near rue Abbesses. It was cool outside, but sunny and pleasant all day.

Montmartre cemetery is up next.

Multiple levels at Montmartre cemetary.

This place is really intense. A modern bridge supporting a major street crosses over one corner of the cemetery, which is in a bit of a depression in the landscape. Looking down upon this necropolis from on the bridge, it is hard to resist the pull towards exploration. We did not even try to resist.

This very old cemetery is built on several terraced levels, with fascinating family crypts at every turn, and tombstones that are further examples of incredible French sculpture crammed into every available inch of space. Walking down stairs and seeing crypts on the levels behind me, I wondered if the bodies under those stones were in fact at a higher altitude than I was.

Some of these graves are so old that the names have worn off of the headstones, and many of them are covered with moss. Some of them have been opened, and some of the grave markers are sinking into the ground. Some of the sepulchers with their little phone-booth-sized shrines are still maintained, with people leaving fresh flowers inside, while others have been forgotten and left to decay. Who was the last person to visit? Who has the key to get inside? At what point did the last relative who cared enough to visit the family shrine also pass on? The iron doors are now permanently shut, the means of opening them as lost as the memory of the people buried below.

Moss-covered gravestone.

Small cobblestoned streets wind through the cemetery, and each of the streets is named just like a proper city street. Signs on the corners indicate which numbered section of the cemetery one is in. Just like a mini Paris - numbered sections of the graveyard recall the arrondissements of the city itself, except that this is a city of the dead.

Walking through the boneyard, it is easy to forget that there are thousands of corpses underfoot; just like the further two cemeteries that we’d visit the following day (see below), Montmartre cemetery has the same feeling as any of Paris’s more mainstream museums. That is to say, it isn’t morbid, it is a place full of beauty and art. Gifts to the dead: a resting place that fills the visitors with an appreciation for life.

Under blue skies the trees shed their autumn leaves upon these monuments to people both remembered and forgotten; they say that you aren’t truly dead until the last person who you met while living has followed you to eternity. How many of these people are forgotten? Do the names etched in centuries-old stone keep these phantoms relevant to history, if there is no one left alive who can remember their voice? Names and dates... who were these people, entombed under their precious works of stone?

Well... some of them aren’t quite so anonymous. All of Paris’s cemeteries provide handy maps to the more famous tenants. I paid respects to Francois Truffaut (1932-1984), and then stumbled across the tomb of Alexandre Dumas, Jr. (1824-1895). There’s a statue of the writer laying in repose on top of his tomb; someone broke his toe off. We found the Russian dancer Nijinsky almost by accident. I looked for further cinematic legends like Georges Clouzot, classical music figures such as Hector Berlioz (1803-1869; someone is still leaving him roses), Nadia Boulanger, and artist Gustave Moreau. Some we found, some we didn’t. These were the people who interested us, and there are a few dozen other people of note keeping Truffaut and his companions company.
The rewarding part wasn’t locating Moreau (or not), but rather in all of the exquisite details that we discovered while searching.

Look at the creepy cat on the lower right!

There is wildlife here too: a big black cat staring at us while sunning itself on a slick marble sepulcher. A huge black raven that perched itself atop the tall spire marking the resting place of some wealthy person whose cash remained behind in the land of the living.
Turns out that the next two graveyards we’d visit would be even more interesting. Read on.

Almost through with Montmartre, we walked by a famous windmill high atop a steep peak, and also found, quite by accident, the home of Surrealist poet Tristan Tzara. We noted the plaque on the building while looking for a street, which turned out to be no street at all. So typically Montmartre - a little path between buildings leads to a microscopic park with an old stone fountain in it, and then a steep staircase meandering partway down the butte. With homes and trees all along the way, the passage felt secret and ancient. We ended our walk at the cafe on rue Lepic. We walked by the Cafe des 2 Moulins (see pic above), another spot where Amelie was filmed, and discovered that it is sort of a dump. We didn’t stay.

The previous day, we’d made ourselves stay up all day, and then went to bed at a normal hour in order to defeat jet lag as quickly as possible.
Still, both International Rebecca and I were dragging ass a little bit today.
We went back to the hotel to rest and to get ready for dinner.

Scary breakfast lady was in the elevator with us!
That was a little bit awkward, to say the least.

From the hotel room, we can just barely see the top half of Tour Eiffel. It is lit up at night, and you can see it from all over Paris. Every night at 7:00 p.m., and then at 8:00 and 9:00, a series of strobe lights start flashing all over the tower, for about ten minutes each time. Weary and tired from our day's walk and from residual jet lag, we were able to see Sparkly Eiffel as we sipped some wine. Rebecca refused to call the monument by it’s proper name for the rest of the trip: monsieur Eiffel’s 300-meter steel monument was (and still is) called “Sparkly”, as far as International Rebecca is concerned.

In spite of my best efforts to remain awake, a little nap seized me.
After I dragged myself back out of bed, I didn’t feel right all evening, groggy and fuzzy of mind.

We took another free Metro train towards a restaurant called La Strasbourgeoise that my friends Christian and Debbie had recommended. It was supposed to be a Bavarian place with a bit of French fusion. The second train we were to have transferred to did not show up. This was the only obvious negative example of the train strike that we encountered all week. We walked from the dead transfer point towards the huge Gare de l’Est train station. The restaurant was said to be right across the street from it.

We found La Strasbourgeoise (5 rue du 8 Mai 1945 in 10e) quickly, and sat down for dinner. Adding contrast to the crappy dinner we’d had the previous night, this restaurant was probably the nicest (and most expensive) that we ate at all week. The maitre d’ was crisp and proper, and the elegant room was decorated with watercolor murals depicting Bavarian country living. As is the case in almost all decent to good to great restaurants in Paris, they offer a prixe fixe menu, which is a good deal if you want a two or three course meal. Rebecca and I found ourselves frequently ordering a three course meal and a two course meal at many of our dinners (the third course is usually dessert, so whomever got that was required to share!).

The prixe fixe at La Strasbourgeoise also included a half carafe of the vin du chateau (house wine), and a salad for Rebecca. Fresh mixed field greens, but with a bit too much mustard dressing. The great thing about France is that the house wine is usually pretty cheap, and it is usually quite good (not excellent), and a bargain at the price. The price tonight was 'included', which can be read by the happily delusional as 'free', so I will take it.

Rebecca’s entree (the French word for appetizer) was a "savory tart", basically a 10-inch wood fired thin crust pizza, served in the traditional Italian style: cheese and ham, no tomato sauce. I asked for a certain duck appetizer that looked good. I noticed that there was a pate option too, but it was €2 more (even when purchased in the prixe fixe), and the duck seemed better anyway. When my food came out, it was delicious, but I was reasonably certain that I was served the pate - and the extra €2 on the eventual bill confirmed it. Anyway, the two slabs of pate had a wafer thin slice of crispy pastry between them, and was garnished with a pinch of sea salt, some anise seeds, a glob of apricot preserves, and some little cubes of something I couldn’t identify and didn’t care for. It also came with a basket of crispy toast.
For our main course (plate in French), Rebecca had a nice piece of salmon with some greens and a potato, and I got what my pal Debbie had recommended, a Bavarian meat plate. This giant silver platter came on a pedestal over a Sterno, and had enough sauerkraut on it to feed the entire German army. Amidst this mass of kraut were boiled potatoes and four meats: a giant hunk of fresh corned beef on the bone, a link of sausage, a wiener, and a fat slice of salami. Normally my beef consumption is almost non-existent. I eat beef less than once per month. And deli meats, although I find them tasty (particularly the corned beef) is something I avoid. But this platter came recommended, and to hell with it - I am on vacation.

So I dug in with relish, and made a pig of myself, polishing off the meat, but barely denting Mount Sauerkraut. Before I ate it, I took a picture of this masterpiece of processed and cured meat byproduct. There was a young and hip French couple at the next table. The woman saw me photographing the chow and cracked up. I am not sure if she was laughing with me or at me, but it hardly matters - behold this monstrosity of gastric debauchery:

Dessert was Creme Brule.
It was good.

I was still groggy from my nap and from my residual jet lag, so we headed back to the hotel.

On the way, we stopped near the hotel at one of the points on our to-do list, The Hôtel Royal Fromentin (11 rue Fromentin) in the 09e. This small inn was said to serve absinthe at their historic bar, a former cabaret at the foot of Montmartre. We were told to visit in the evening for a presentation by the staff on the history of absinthe. Well, the room was empty, the tiny bar had about three seats, and the lights weren’t even on. The place didn’t seem all that historic - if so, it had been remodeled a few times since making history. It looked like any other modern European hotel lobby bar. There were a few bottles behind the bar, but nothing unusual.
We did not stay.

Sully Bar.

Walking back to the hotel, we eventually veered off of the Boulevard de Clichy, which leads from Place de Clichy to Pigalle, and into the warren of little streets that surrounds hotel Atlanta Frochot, our home for the week.

All of the big, nasty, vulgar sex emporiums are on the Boulevard, but getting on to the smaller rue Frochot, there are all of the little bars that I mentioned above, the ones full of hostesses. Bar Lorelei, Mucha Club (like the art nouveau artist), Pub Frochot, and my “favorite”, the Sully Bar (no relation to the Sully wing of the Louvre. At least I don't think so).
Sully Bar is directly across the street from the Atlanta Frochot. The exterior is entirely covered in antique woodwork, above which is a sign in faux-stained glass (just above the flags in the picture), with a more modern neon sign (a big bottle popping its cork, you can work out the symbolism for yourself) above that. Inside is all deep red upholstery, dim lighting, very cozy, very plush.
It is easy to picture artists and poets and philosophers contemplating big ideas in there. I liked to believe that they made amazing and excellent cocktails at Sully Bar at some point in the past.
This place needs to be uprooted and moved to a better part of town so I can check it out next time!

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1001 Things to do with a smoked salmon!

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Last updated: September 10, 2011

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