It was September ‘07, we were still in Cape Town, “watching” … as Joyce kept singing … “the whales go round and round” beneath our apartment on False Bay where we had spent the summer. We had now been away from our home on Key Biscayne since June, implementing our “Hurricane Evacuation Plan”. With nary a hurricane on the horizon, the time had come for us to pack and return home…but only just in time to unpack, repack and prepare ourselves for our next adventure - a month in Paris!

The decision to take this Gaelic sojourn and to undertake it at a bizarre time like November was dictated by three factors:
• The first was that summers in Paris or, for that matter, any other place in “La Belle France”, is impossible. The country is overrun by tourists. Renting an apartment during the summer vacation season is not only astronomically expensive but it is virtually impossible to obtain a decent place for a stay of more than seven consecutive days. This is particularly true for Paris where, in addition to the lack of vacancies, costs tend to range between $300 and $500 a night for a tiny three-room non-air-conditioned flat measuring less than 400 square feet. So we ruled out that idea and shifted our stay to the least popular season in Western Europe, namely the late, late fall when the weather usually turns foul, and the fowl are smart enough to have flown to warmer climes. By that time, the fall colors have gone but, most importantly, the kids are finally back in school and the tourists and tour busses have thinned out.

• The second factor had to do with losing Frequent Flyer Miles. This requires some explaining. Those who really know Joyce won’t believe this, but she found herself afflicted by pangs of guilt! Here is why: she loves Africa and the wildlife as well as other kinds of adventure travel experiences in the third World; I, on the other hand, much prefer interesting cities, epitomized by places like Paris, Leningrad, Vienna and other first world destinations. When we married, we had made a solemn pact to alternate our vacation venues between the bush and the Third World when it was her turn and an urban setting for my turn. What could be fairer? It shouldn’t surprise anyone, however, that after a dozen or so years under this system, I somehow always missed my turn and the bush saw a lot more of us than did the great cities of the world. I am not going to seek an exhaustive accounting of the matter or prepare a spreadsheet, but in all fairness, the imbalance had grown to such an extent over the last three or so years that even Joyce was now overcome by remorse. So she plunged into the maze of records she meticulously keeps of our air travels and, after several days of intense consultation with “Joyce-the-Travel-Agent” (aka Joyce Klein) and the customer service apparatus of the various airlines, she was able to dredge up enough “Frequent Flyer Miles” on Air France to get us both a free round-trip ticket between Miami and Paris. What really made this second factor an imperative, however, was the fact that these miles were about to expire and we would lose them if we did not use them… That was unthinkable!

• Finally, the third factor that led to the decision to spend a month in Paris was that we had always wanted to see what Paris was like as a resident rather than as an overprotected guest of some hotel. To this end, we decided to rent an apartment. We acted on that idea during April, when we spent a couple of days in Paris on our way to Timbuktu. We found a charming but tiny apartment in the Marais District near the Hotel de Ville (Paris’s City Hall) and, in accordance with local customs, we paid a non-refundable deposit for the apartment, right then and there, equal to 50% of a month’s rent to hold it until November.

Lest we were prepared to lose the deposit and the Air France ticket we had to make good on our plans. Unquestionably, we were committed. The reality of this fact sunk in with stark clarity when, on the morning of the day of our departure from Miami, after we were nearly all packed and ready to set up housekeeping in Paris, we received an e-mail from Air France advising us that our flight had been cancelled…Voila!

We immediately called Air France, but no one was answering the phones - not even a recorded message - nothing. All we could find out from the various news channels was a blip that a labor strike was disrupting air travel in and out of France.

As all efforts to communicate electronically utterly failed, we decided on a more direct approach. We drove to the airport and reached the Air France desk. Indeed, there was a strike, but no one seemed to know how long or how extensive. One fact was clear: our flight was cancelled. But all was not lost. The agent mellowed a bit and gingerly advised us that we could catch an LTU flight scheduled to leave in about four hours. This would get us into Dusseldorf, where we would change planes and ultimately reach Paris - and on the very same day we had planned, albeit 8 hours later. As two of these four hours had to be factored in for the cumbersome check-in procedure, we had only two hours to drive back home, finish packing, get a taxi and return to the airport. Needless to say, it was a frantic rush.

Now, LTU is a German discount airline. There is little question that it had managed to be very successful in stretching the art of low cost flying to its ultimate limit. Thus, LTU did not charge for the seatbelts or the use of the toilets. But the airline charged for everything else. The drinks, the food, the movies, the earphones and anything else that wasn’t essential for safety or for propelling the plane through the air required a dip in one’s pocket. The space in which we had to be squeezed into and exist for the nine or ten hours was a masterpiece of efficiency. We were jammed into seats at best designed for flexible dwarves…but even they would have had to adapt to the gymnastics of virtually right-angle seating and impossible in-cabin maneuvering.

Moreover, the plane was chock-a-block filled, seemingly beyond capacity. The availability of toilets, in particular, was a matter that required a great deal of strategic thinking, careful timing and ultimately a surfeit of tact and patience while waiting your turn in precarious discomfort. All this lovely hospitality was administered with Teutonic terseness, with which LTU is, of course, genetically endowed.

By the time the plane took off, we were looking forward to a sleepless night, feeling distinctly like we were part of a large herd of cattle. Eventually, we landed in Dusseldorf and stumbled through the unloading and cumbersome transfer process from LTU to the Air France flight that would bring us to our final destination in Paris. By the time we landed there, it was after 4:00 PM, but at least on the day we were initially scheduled to arrive. Not bad considering that instead of an eight hour delay, we might have been stuck in Miami for days! Fortunately, the taxis in Paris were not on strike and the cab driver did not complain about the weight and bulk of our baggage. Instead, I got into my usual dialogue with him centering on our respective memories of the Second World War and on what an idiot we have for a president. We had a little trouble finding the Rue du Bourg-Tibourg, but the driver eventually found it after consulting a well worn book of maps he kept under his front seat, hidden like a secret weapon. With parking on one side, the street was about half a lane wide. The most innocuous delivery vehicle would block the pavement and trigger a symphony of horns and angry shouts from anyone who wanted to pass. The French have never been shy in voicing their displeasure. We just happened to be one of those deliveries and, by the time we reached our address, it was the middle of the afternoon rush hour. Any ambition we might have had for the driver to stop long enough to help us carry the bags “upstairs” evaporated, given the parking and confusion on the street. So, there we were in front of No 10 Rue du Bourg-Tibourg with two huge duffel bags, two carry-on cases and miscellaneous other bags all piled on the sidewalk. We had been transformed into pitiable street people, paralyzed by the thought of how we were going to schlep all this stuff up three floors, plus a fourth flight of steps (more akin to a ladder than stairs) inside the two-story apartment. These final, and most gruesome, steps were the steepest and had to be clambered up on all fours in order to reach the bathroom and sleeping quarters.

It had taken us over two hours to reach our flat. The traffic into central Paris from CDG had been horrendous…as was the spectacle of these two world traveling Miami bumpkins pushing and pulling their two overstuffed duffel bags and other belongings up four flights of stairs! But we made it! Indeed, we were able to proudly proclaim, like an earlier American dough-boy hero who had landed in France during WWI: “La Fayette, we are here!” The only thing missing was an American flag and a place to hang or plant it. Though it was a different time, a different war and a different place, it still felt good to evoke the spirit of kinship and friendship that has intertwined the history of my two favorite nations.

It was leaving at 19:00 hours, that’s 7:00 PM for us non-Europeans, and we were starved. Deciding not to unpack or to even explore our apartment, we went downstairs to the cute little bistro that occupies the street level of our building in the hopes of a full and well-deserved dinner. The place was busy, but empty of patrons. The owner was still setting up for dinner and informed us unceremoniously that he wouldn’t be ready until 19:30 hours.

As we did not have enough strength left to climb the steps to our apartment yet one more time, we stayed in the street and checked out the stores on either side of the restaurant for the next half hour. It had been a grueling day that had actually started the previous day, but it did not take more than five minutes of strolling along the little street to get us sufficiently revived, and to realize the magic of the place where we had decided to set up housekeeping. The little street was full of people. The daytime worker-bees had given way to the strollers, couples checking out restaurants, bars, gift shops, or other leisure destinations…all amidst bicycles, motorcycles, skate boards and mini Smart-cars. There were lots of tiny shops, right there at our front door. A fine chocolate store next to the restaurant where we were going to dinner in a few minutes; a liquor store directly across the street where, a few days later, the owner insisted that I taste his Sancerre, there was also a very famous tea shop…but we did not know that until much later…a funky shoe and apparel store and, of course, a Japanese restaurant like so many that have ubiquitously proliferated on the streets near our apartment. We could see that our little street opened on a small square filled with majestic but virtually denuded sycamore trees and surrounded by bistros, brasseries and other kinds of eateries. One establishment, catty-corner from our front door, was a wonderful combination bakery and Salon de Thé where we could have a croissant and café-au-lait for breakfast while purchasing our daily Baguette. The neighborhood was absolutely perfect!

Seven thirty arrived faster than we could have imagined. We pushed ourselves into our little bistro called, appropriately, “Le Coude Fou” (The Crazy Elbow) to lay claim to our reservation. The place was extremely animated and already filled beyond capacity. We got this tiny table and it was clear that, while there were choices, they were limited to the dishes on the menu and a few “specials” chalked on the blackboards posted on the walls of the establishment. There would be no negotiation, and everybody was way too busy to accommodate substitutions, diets, allergies, religious taboos and ethical or other exotic considerations…the menu is the menu end of discussion. Wine, of course, was a different matter - one had the choice between the “House Wine” (OK but not great and relatively cheap) and the “wine list” (Much better, a lot pricier and only in full bottles.)
The bread and the butter on the table reminded us why we had wanted to visit France! Don’t obsess over carbs, just delight in the taste and crunchiness of the bread. Coupled with a good Pommard, it doesn’t really matter what else is for dinner. Indeed, I don’t know what we ate that night, except that by 10:00 PM, we pushed our way out of the bistro and had no problems in negotiating the three stories to our flat.

The bed was comfortable. The two-story apartment was like a doll house. It was charming, remarkably functional, but unbelievably tight. The lower level contained a tiny kitchen equipped with dishwasher and a washer dryer unit. Also on the lower level was the “living room” furnished with a couch, not quite large enough to have someone sleep over, but large enough for Joyce and I to curl up to watch a bit of television. There was even a table between the living area and the kitchen where four adaptable people could theoretically sit and have a meal. The upper level was largely occupied by a king-size bed, two night stands, a tiny desk, some closet space and the bathroom. The latter was jammed into a 25 square foot space which was a masterpiece of efficiency. The shower/tub was so designed that we could indeed fully soak our bodies, provided that we maintained the embryonic position that got us into the hot water to begin with!

The need to cram ourselves into the small apartment and the resulting discomforts was more than offset by its charm. The ancestry of the buildings on our street date back to the 1600s and, in fact, many are 400 to 500 years old. I have not been able to secure the history of our particular building, but there is little doubt that it must have been built between 400 and 500 years ago. During its life, it must have been gutted a few times. Today, it is in beautiful condition, structurally impeccable, with the ancient ceiling beams and all indoor walls white-washed. All the windows have been replaced, all the plumbing is internal, the floors are new and the hot water is seemingly inexhaustible.

But our nest was not perfect. Although the concept of equipping the tortuous circular stairway between floors with light timers might save some energy, to be caught on these twisted stairs in pitch black darkness without any lights whatsoever is not a pleasant experience. Neither did we completely bond with the interior staircase between the lower and upper level of our apartment. It was configured more like a ladder, making it necessary sometimes to climb or descend on all fours instead of like Homo sapiens and the beam of the first floor ceiling at the base of the stairs made it necessary to duck every time we descended.

Yet the apartment was well equipped, even though the clothes dryer took forever and TV was limited to either French political stuff, which we found hard to follow or “SKY News” from England which was shallower and even more repetitive than CNN. More importantly, the apartment had no second means of egress, nor did we spot anything that would guide us in the event of fire. But then again… we like to live dangerously.

But the major flaw of the place did not surface until later during our first night there. By the time we had left the bistro, unpacked a little and gotten ready for bed it was past 11:00 PM. We had been traveling a very long time, we were jet-lagged, we were in culture shock, we were physically exhausted and we were not quite used to our new home yet. Clearly it was high time to call it a day, go to sleep and hope to be fresh as daisies in the morning. Alas, as dreams started to take shape and the healing twilight between sleep and wakefulness was in full bloom, we heard some noises in the street. They grew louder and louder, reaching a crescendo around 2:00 AM. By that time, the reveling was out of control and the street had become a regular Mardi Gras. To think that this might be a repetitive nightly occurrence had us terrified, having visions of white nights for the entire month. As it turned out, what we had heard was the annual celebration of All Saints Day, namely the French celebration of Halloween! For the rest of the month, the street was actually quite peaceful.
The next morning, after a completely sleepless night, we were even more tired than when we went to bed. Joyce was in an understandably lousy mood. She had not had breakfast, and the $30.00 cup of coffee made the croissant stick in her throat. The service was unnecessarily slow and entirely too terse – borderline rude, I thought. No, Joyce was not happy - shocked by the 36% added to the check for “Value Added Tax”, the hefty mandatory “service” fee and other mystery charges. This did not include, of course the 50% disadvantage we suffered from the Dollar’s pathetically weak position against the Euro. We were outraged. We walked across the street and then past the eateries on the little square, noting that they were already setting up for “Dejeuner” - the meal many French consider the most important event of the day. This activity was really not surprising. After all, the noon hour was approaching…half the day was gone!

I sensed dark clouds welling up inside Joyce, and I must confess to having many of the same misgivings. Clearly, her patience with the City of Lights had reached its limits. She was fed up with Paris as well as the French work (you will pardon the expression) ethic…they were rude, greedy and made everything a hassle…and everything was so expensive. Looming in her mind was the thought that spending an entire month here was a terrible idea. As her disposition soured further, I was prepared for the worst. But then, the rhythm of the city started to take over. Our walk took us across a few small streets, bumping into some adorable French doggies as we walked around the little square, finally emerging on the Rue de Rivoli in front of the magnificent Hotel de Ville (the Paris City Hall). There, we checked out the plethora of women’s boot stores. Perhaps this was the turning point for her, for me, it had been the little café-festooned square downstairs from our flat, picture-postcard charming with hardy sycamores softening the hard edges of the paved areas. The trees were still shedding their last leaves, endowing the place with the kind of light and mellowness only found during a Parisian fall day. Whatever the reason, Joyce’s mood flipped and flopped and, like in Robert Louis Stevenson’s masterpiece, she morphed from an increasingly grumpy Hyde, into an exuberant Dr. Jekyll. The metamorphosis was complete when she announced the beginning of her quest for a pair of very sexy knee high boots. Without a break in her walking pace, she suddenly exclaimed: “Damn it, I LOVE THIS CITY! I hate this city, but then I get out here on the streets and I am addicted all over again.” She then launched into this profound dissertation over the meaning of “addictive love” and how Paris met all of the criteria of a very badly behaved lover who you swear never to see again but, as soon as you are in the same room, you succumb to all their many charms. As such, a love/hate relationship is our basic underlying emotion about the City. We have been in Paris many times and, even without a serious agenda, it is never been boring. Today was no different. There weren’t enough hours in the day. Shopping, even with the outrageous perambulations of the Euro, is always a fresh and exiting experience. Again, it’s addictive. It is impossible not to shop and, like a sot deprived of his (or her) hooch, one purchase leads to another and another and yet another. You can’t just buy the latest style in boots, you also need a short sexy skirt to go with them…and then, of course, you “must have” at least four pairs of colorful “bas collants” (clinging panty hose) which are soooo very de rigeur this year. And then there are the fun furs, the whimsical sweaters and the more serious Haute Couture overstock emporia where a knowing eye trumps unaffordable prices.

Her ending exclamation that day, after we brought the boots and other purchases back to our flat and she was beholding the total ensemble was, once again: “I love this place!” This was the signal for action. Tomorrow, we were ready to tackle Paris with an open mind and an open wallet.

While our apartment turned out to be even better than we had expected, it was its location that we found to be truly amazing. When we had first seen the area in April, we were driven there by the realtor/rental agent. It was early evening and, except for the little square upon which the Rue Du Bourg Tibourg opens, the place did not make a lasting impression on us beyond feeling that it was centrally located and we could easily walk to almost all of our favorite neighborhoods. Our little square fronted on the famous rue de Rivoli, the boulevard that flanks the right bank of the Seine and links Place de la Concorde, the seat of France’s Government, with Place de la Bastille, a favorite venue for Guillotine executions during the Revolution. Across from our square was the imposing “Hotel de Ville”, Paris’s City Hall, which dominates the Seine River one block away. A little further up, the Seine splits to create two islands built up during the dawn of the city when the Parisii tribe settled there in 52 AD. It was then called Lutecia by the Romans until Clovis, a King of the Franc Tribe, defeated the Romans and made the larger of the two islands, the Ile de la Cité, the capital of France. The island is a major orientation point. Within a short walk, one can visit the extraordinary landmarks that fill the island, including, the dreadful “Conciergerie” prison where the accused, after being tried and condemned under the Terror phase of the French Revolution, were made ready to face the guillotine. A little further along, there is Notre Dame Cathedral. It stands like a beacon of Gothic architecture evoking the life spans it took to build this treasure. It is also a fearsome symbol of a place where religious fervor is matched by the human suffering. The ghost of Quasimodo still hangs around the gargoyles.

Notre Dame is very visible from great distances and from all directions. It truly acts like a beacon. However, like all the majestic cathedrals of the world, entire medieval villages are tightly clustered at and around its spires, so that the views of the cathedral, which can be seen from a great distance, disappear when one gets closer, being replaced by the more intimate views of the small and ancient buildings that make up these villages. Then as one emerges in front of the cathedral, it rises dramatically in the air to its full height incredibly enhanced and exaggerated by the contrast with its immediate surroundings. This was our experience, as we walked the tortuous cobbled stone narrow streets of Ile de la Cité towards Notre Dame. The experience of suddenly emerging on the little square that serves as foreground to the cathedral was absolutely mind-blowing. Whether this element of surprise and high drama is planned or accidental, we will never know. However, modern architecture or contemporary urban designs have been unable to replicate this effect.
Still within easy walking distance, one reaches a bridge that links Ile de La Cite with the smaller Ile St Louis. Ile St Louis is predominantly a residential neighborhood. Its central spine is a very quaint, very busy and almost medieval street called “St Louis en Ile”. It is famous for a cheese “artisana” that may or may not be related to “la Ferme Saint-Aubin. There is also a renowned ice cream parlor called Berthillion which is a hole-in-the-wall shop, far more anxious to have all the other merchants plaster the Berthilion name on their store front than in operating an ice cream parlor. We had to stand precariously on a crowded sidewalk to consume our ice cream cone. But the street does have a few good restaurants. We had an excellent meal at a very popular bistro called “Mon Vieil Ami”. It only took a week to get a reservation.

Directly across the Seine at that point, still within walking distance of our flat, is what I consider the heart of the Left Bank. The key landmarks there include Boulevard St Michel (“Boule-Mich”, as it’s known colloquially), the magnificent Luxembourg Gardens, the Latin Quarter (“Quartier Latin”) with the Sorbonne University at its core, the Odeon, which is generally recognized as France’s National Theater, identified with such icons as Jean Louis Barrault, Madeleine Reynaud, Sarah Bernhardt and other such illustrious performers. Symbolically, however, the center of gravity for the left bank is undisputedly “St. Germain des Prés”, the famous Abbey built at the end of the first Millennium at the intersection of Boulevard St. Germain and Rue de Rennes.

The ancient Abbey has, over time, become engulfed by a neighborhood packed with restaurants, cafés and bistros. One of these happens to be our favorite eatery, “Brasserie Lipp”. Having eaten there many times, I seldom fail to order the ”Choucroute Garnie” an elaborate concoction of sauerkraut braised in white wine with a bunch of sausages and smoked meats. Only the Alsatians do this right, and Lipp does it excellently!

Back on the Boulevard St. Germain, a short walk brings us back to the Seine and Ile de la Cité. In the process we amble through Paris’s principal antique district. It’s a fairly large area of maybe 20 blocks which is replete with enough genuine period furniture and furnishings to regally decorate several large Chateaux on the Loire. All the “Louis” are well represented, but so are the Directoire and Empire styles. I even spotted quite a few pieces from the Georgian, Regency, Tudor and, of course, the Victorian eras. The shops in the district complemented the furniture with arrays of bronze and porcelain “objets d’art” such as clocks, vases, paintings and even some clothing, all of which endowed the area with the feeling of standing in a very beautiful and very expensive Bric-a-Brac emporium.

After crossing the Seine from left to right bank we finally, were back in our very own neighborhood: the Marais. The Marais is a huge Arrondissement, with an interesting history that encompasses the lives and deaths of quite a few kings, and offers a number of slices through the many layers of French society. The role of the Bastille as a prison, and its storming during the revolution, has left an indelible mark on French history. No one can deny the beauty and elegance of the arcaded Place des Vosges, which gloriously proclaims its royal antecedents when King Henri IV named it “Place Royale. The five to seven-story private hotels that are arrayed above the arcade further attest to the wealth represented by the area’s ultra bourgeois population. Originally, at the turn of the millennium in the tenth Century, the Marais was a marshland. It was cleared by the Knights Templar in the Twelfth Century and the district became home to much of the Parisian Bourgeoisie, extending well into the XVIII Century. I am sure that the Marais holds a great deal of interesting history in its annals, with tales undoubtedly involving echoes from the De Vinci Code. The area today seems like a cross between New York’s SOHO and Greenwich Village. There are a large number of art galleries, artsy shops and a substantial number of high-end fashion boutiques very successfully mixing tradition with the latest in interior décor and furnishings.

The next morning, knowing that we had an entire month to explore Paris, we set out on our missions! We knew the city reasonably well. Moreover, Joyce had been collecting a ton of magazine articles and, as usual, she had a strategic plan AND a spreadsheet on the ready before we ventured forth. The Plan was really very simple: The central theme was to divide Paris into bite-sized pieces (adjacent Arrondissement) to explore each day, focusing on food, museums and, of course, shopping! Of particular interest was her plan to eat at restaurants that had sprung up in recent years using museums as their venue. It was a way to dine excellently while sating our cultural appetite. Our targets were the Louvre, Le Centre Pompidou, the Musee Dorsey, the Palais de Tokyo and Le Musee du Quais Branly. Starting with these five destinations, Joyce had marked out at least three groupings of fashion shops where she hoped to find this magic combination of a bargain yet something that is precious, unusual and, most of all, unique. One was in the Montparnasse area, the second was closer to the left bank around the Rue d’Alesia and the third, on the right bank, was Joyce’s old stomping ground, the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore. My responsibility was very simple. I had to deliver Joyce to all these destinations, on foot or via Metro. (It’s not that taxis are outrageously expensive, it’s just that they are very hard to find). My other responsibility was to find appropriate eateries beyond those in the Museums. I was like a kid in a candy store!

The destinations that could be reached on foot involved pleasant walks in a magnificent city full of famous historic buildings, manicured parks, gilded monuments and public works. The major problem was to restrain Joyce who, like a poodle straining on its leash, had to sniff out every tantalizing storefront. For all other destinations, however, the preferred transportation was the revered Paris Metro. It is like a board game. The system seems complex at first, but once you’ve mastered it, it is Sesame Street simple, while maintaining the illusion of a challenge. In short, we found it easy to navigate throughout the city, both on foot and by Metro, without help or recourse to taxis.

My second job, namely to find appropriate eateries, was a different matter. Sleeping remained a challenge; for some strange reason, be it jet lag or something in the water, not falling asleep until 2:00 am seemed to have become a permanent condition. As a result, we decided to become truly French, dine at 9:30 or 10 pm and refuse to face the outside world before 11:00 AM. Breakfast didn’t really matter, as we were able to brew some coffee (to go with our baguettes) in the apartment. The lack of sleep had slightly dampened our appetite, and we had settled in on a pattern that consisted of one “important meal” each day. It was either “Dejeuner” or “Dinner”. As to where that would be, beyond the very special establishments sporting Michelin-crowned Chefs, Parisian restaurants generally consist of two types. On one hand, we have the “Bistros”. They tend to be small and very overcrowded. Typically, they will have 30 to 50 covers, require reservations, and have their own personality, often with some sort of interesting history to go with it. They tend to be individually owned, and the chef is often multi-tasking the reception, the preparation of the food and the business aspects of the operation. Bistros offer fairly complete menus, a good wine list and, based on today’s value of the dollar, a typical meal, including an Entrée, (appetizer), a Plat du Jour (the main dish) and Dessert, can be gotten for about 150 USD for two. Some bistros specialize in regional dishes, and this should be known when reservations are made.

On the other hand, there are the “Brasseries”. They tend to be larger and usually do not take reservation…its first come first serve. The menus are more varied and the Alsatian origin of brasseries, as a class of restaurants, shines through the fare and eating protocol.
While bistros extol the virtues of the quaint and intimate, where they usually take on the personality of their owners, Brasseries appeal to a more gregarious crowd, and have gone to no end in making high drama out of their dining areas. Paris is full of large and famous brasseries, usually housed under magnificent art nouveau and art deco glass domes, where formally black and white clad, long aproned waiters parade food that has a distinct back-on-the-farm character. Typically, this is where one is apt to find such dishes as Duck Confit, Choucroute Garnie, Boudin Noir et Blanc as well as the more common Celery Remoulade and Foie Gras. We have never failed to engage in banter and conversation, in French or in English, with both patrons and waiters in the brasseries we visited. One is always squeezed so tightly around the tiny tables that, before long, everybody in the restaurant becomes an intimate friend with whom to swap tastes of wine and stories. Our favorite Brasserie has always been Lipp near St Germain des Pres, the ancient XII century Abbey which sits at the intersection of Boulevard St Germain and Rue de Rennes. The brasserie is quite famous, has its own winery in the Alsace and is strangely reminiscent of a very busy and frenetic New York deli, inclusive of the good humored rudeness for which these establishments are known.

Paris has both high-end bistros and more modest ones. One of our favorites in the latter class sits on the Rue du Cloitre in the shadow of Notre Dame. It is tiny, incredibly romantic and it consistently serves perhaps the best Boeuf Bourguignon I’ve ever tasted. At the other end of the scale, another one of our favorite eateries is “Benoit”, recently acquired by Alain Ducasse, with a promise to leave things as they are. That’s very good news, because I can attest to the fact that this fairly large bistro happens to make an excellent Cassoulet, in spite of the Michelin star it has earned! I could not resist eating there and trying the dish, as I had committed to cook a huge Cassoulet and sundry related dishes for some 70 of our closest friends after we returned from Paris. In fact, my critical shopping mission was to bring back enough Duck or Goose Confit to toss in the pot with the Navy Beans and the other ingredients that make up this traditional concoction.

As I had previously mentioned, and in accordance with Joyce’s Strategic Plan, we tried the restaurants housed in the museums. Each had unique qualities. “George”, located on the rooftop of Le Centre Pompidou, Paris’s Museum of Modern Art, provided a marvelous panoramic view of Paris. With lots of Lucite furniture, bizarre touches like blown fiberglass caves around groups of tables and waiters and waitresses selected for their looks, the place was supremely light, modern and sophisticated. Its fare was delicate, with great attention expended on the presentation of the food. The dining ambience was almost garden-like. The Museum, however, was another story. The ever-practical and plebian Joyce can only take so much modern art before she starts to decry the “con-job” perpetrated upon the public by an artist that can pass off a totally white, room size canvas as “ART”. When she started having “Fred Flashbacks” (you’ll have to ask her for more details), I had to take her outside for some retail therapy.

In contrast, the restaurant of the Musee d’Orsay was remarkably sumptuous, with a heavily frescoed gilded ceiling and a magnificent alignment of very impressive Chrystal chandeliers. The restaurant, which had been a palatial formal ballroom at one time, overlooked the Seine, providing diners with a continuous spectacle of industrial barges, tourist-laden “Bateau Mouches” and other sundry watercrafts plying the lazy waters of the Seine. We found the food at the d’Orsay to be unremarkable and clearly subordinated to the magnificence of the elegant space where it was served. However, the beauty of the room, coupled with the amazing traveling collections always on display here at one of our favorite museum made it all worthwhile.

On to the Palais de Tokyo, which makes contemporary art look old fashioned. To say that it was cutting edge is a gross understatement. The building, located across from the Trocadero and designed in similar Baroque style, must have seen former glories, probably during the 1930s. More recently, after the millennium, it had been stripped to its bare building elements. Everything in the interior of the building - walls, ceilings and floors - was unfinished concrete. The dining area, called “Tokyo Eat” was bare concrete as well, and did not appear to offer much promise. It looked like a cross between an Army mess hall and a high school cafeteria. Yet, the service turned out to be excellent, the wine was of very high quality and the “Plat du Jour” happened to be Cassoulet! I kept thinking about this colossal non-sequitur that mixed the neoclassic exterior of the building with its “Avant Garde” cutting edge super-brutalistic interior – mixed together with a good old fashioned peasant Cassoulet. What a bewildering combination of visual, environmental and culinary experiences! This is the Paris I love, an uninterrupted series of surprises that continue to pop up as one moves through the city.

The Louvre outing was a disappointment. We visited the Louvre during the transportation strike and, because of a shortage of workers, the traveling exhibit from Persia was closed, but we had no trouble finding the Mona Lisa, the Victory of Samothrace and the dramatic depictions of David’s monumental tableaux of the 1800s, singing the glory of the Napoleonic era. But our quest that day also included “Le Grand Louvre”, the museum’s premier restaurant. It was located under I.M. Pei’s controversial but ingenious entrance Pyramid; we had trouble finding the restaurant at first, as it was almost hidden in one of the corners of the busy glassed-in central space. Its entrance, beyond which we could see the elegant tableware and white tablecloth bedecked tables, was in serious competition with the check room and one of the little coffee shops used as a pit stop at each corner under the Pyramid. It was around 2:00 PM by the time we were done with the exhibits, and we were ravenous by that time. Unfortunately, Le Grand Louvre had finished its Dejeuner service, the menu looked quite ordinary and not worth coming back for, and we found ourselves on the street looking for a good place for our mid-day meal – not exactly an insurmountable task in Paris.

But the best, as the poet said, was yet to come. We had not yet tried out the one which held our greatest level of anticipation. The restaurant is called “Les Ombres” (The Shadows), evocative of the fact that it is located in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, fronting on the Seine, on the roof of Paris’ newest Museum - Le Musee du Quais Branly. This was not the place for a quick lunch. It was an extravagant evening in the company of the Tower, which entertained us for ten minutes every hour after 10:00pm by twinkling exuberantly as it had done during the Y2K celebrations. The food was among the best we had tasted, certainly during this visit to the City of Lights. This was where, for example, I learned to appreciate the idea of making a veloute out of chestnuts and celery root, and to fuse Oriental with Western cookery in unusually novel and exiting ways. Champagne, the quaff for the evening, was not too shabby either in properly “fusing things together. As we stumbled, fully sated, towards the taxi stand around 1:00 am, we passed what looked like a fur store. It was closed, but Joyce found a local who informed her that this was a famous and very fashionable overstock establishment…just like the kind she had been looking for. Clearly, we had to come back when the store was open – oh yes, and we had not visited the Musee itself.

The museum, dedicated with much fanfare in 2006 by Jacques Chirac, was designed by the French Architect Jean Nouvel. He developed a “Living Wall” over 600 feet long and 40 feet high on part of the exterior of the building. Given that this living wall is made up of plants, there is a bit of nervousness about its future…but time will tell. The museum is quite large, housing 267,000 objects in its permanent collection, with 3,500 on display. Joyce was thrilled, as the museum features indigenous art from tribal cultures and civilizations from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. Artifacts were gathered together from all the French Museums, including the Louvre, to make it one of the most comprehensive collections in the world.

We spent nearly five hours with the exhibits before we embarked on the real mission of the day - to find the fur store again and pursue Joyce’s quest for some sort of fleece. This time, the store was open and Joyce had bonded with a New York type sales lady who was irresistibly persuasive. She eventually walked out of the store with a beautiful and impressively fashionable leather coat, artistically adorned with clusters of fur.
While we continued to pursue our quest for the perfect meal and restaurant, a date kept looming in our conscience: Thursday, November 15TH. It was not our anniversary, the French revolution was not involved nor was the end of World War II, none of the saints have earmarked that date for special treatment. The significance of that date was more profound - the French Government and related entities have formally designated that date as the day on which the Beaujolais Nouveau comes out. We had prepared for this before we left Miami by reserving a suite at the “Chateau de Bagnol near Lyon, in the small town of Villefranche s/Saone which happens to be the epicenter of the Beaujolais Wine region. We were looking forward to joining the locals in the annual celebration of this monumental event.

Alas, it was not to be. What started as vague rumors became stark certainty and reality. It was clear that the French transportation workers, including those employed by the SNCF and the Metro, were going on strike on Wednesday for an indefinite period. We were booked on the TGV that day to Lyon and would be relying on the Metro or a taxi to take us from our flat to the Gare de Lyon. But taxis had already disappeared. Just like their relatives in New York City, at first sign of rain or strike, they evaporate mysteriously and were not to be found for love or money. With the Metro & the TGV equally immobilized, we had to face the fact that we were hopelessly doomed to spend the rest of the month within an area around our flat, confined by the distance we could cover on foot.

When disappointment hits in Paris, find a new restaurant! So we hit the sidewalk, and started to walk along the Seine. We passed “Le Theatre du Chatelet”, one of the great Paris venues for musical theater and a place dedicated and made famous by the Empress Eugenie. As one would expect, the square where the imposing theater is located is surrounded by restaurants and is constantly full of life. It was a logical stop for us to find an eatery. It was a Hobson’s choice; there were lots of eateries, all unfamiliar yet all looked alluring. We were tired and hungry enough to make an impulsive spreadsheet-less selection, and we settled on a smallish brasserie called Aux Vieux Comptoir, meaning “At the Old Bar”. Not only did the brasserie have all the dishes I had been lusting for, namely Boudin and Confit of duck, I was able to get into a conversation with the lady behind the bar. Her name was Anne, she was from the Alsace region, acted with good humor like she owned the place and turned into the perfect hostess when she started to call me by my erstwhile French diminutive: Pierrot! As if we didn’t know it, she reminded us that the Beaujolais Nouveau was coming the next day and that Aux Vieux Comptoir was going to have party, reserved only for their best friends. We must come. Not to worry about reservations, her friends will be shoe-horned in. And so, the next day as promised, it was November 15 and “Le Beaujolais est arrivé!” (The Beaujolais is here)!

We were in the mood for a good party. It was, therefore, natural for us to gratefully embrace Anne’s invitation to “Aux Vieux Comptoir”. As instructed, we got there around 8:30 PM and the place was already packed. Anne was there, as was Josh who we had met the day before and who was the all around helper in this tiny operation. Anne seated us temporarily at a tiny café table near the door and next to the singer and accordionist and, after about half an hour of moving tables around, moved us to a regular table. Josh distributed song books to all the patrons, and it wasn’t long before the gregarious spirit of the entire room manifested itself and everybody broke out in song. I met a Frenchman who looked about my age. I wasn’t long before we got into a conversation about WWII and the Resistance. He giggled my memory by humming some bars from “le Chant Des Partisans” and we wallowed for a few minutes in nostalgia. I was familiar with about half of the songs in the song book and joined with rest of the room in bellowing the tunes and words with which I was familiar. Joyce got with it and tried in vain to hum a few bars. Since each of us had three bottles of “Nouveau” to absorb, it wasn’t hard to imagine how this small restaurant of 50 or so covers had turned into a reveling crowd of more than a 100 drunks. Poor Anne. She was like Joan of Arc defending her domain. The doors were being beaten down by others wanting to join the fun, and the accordionist was the hero who was charged with blocking the doors against the invasion. As the celebration reached its crescendo, we heard a louder disturbance at the door. A dozen uniformed men forced their way into the restaurant. They were fire fighters. Our first thought was that some safety law had been violated and they were closing the place down. Mais Non! The French Civil Service would never do this on Beaujolais Nouveau night. I should have known better. Our new Firefighter friends were all sporting sommelier cups around their necks, not firefighting gear. They were here to beg for wine! This they did by enlisting the accordionist and forming a chorus adding even more life to an already drunken boisterous evening. The walk home around 2AM was quite pleasant. The chill in the air was refreshing and for me, at least, the songs had been a wonderful journey into memories.

Five days later, on November 20, it was time to celebrate Joyce’s birthday. I decided that she (hmmm, or was it me) was entitled to at least one visit to a restaurant that had earned three Michelin stars. So we had lunch (as dinner reservations were not to be had) at L’Ambroisie, located in one of the Hotel Particulers in the Place des Voges. The name is taken from Ambrosia, the substance fed by mortals to the Gods. The meal was remarkable, with a mousse of chestnuts and celeriac; the dishes were amply seasoned with truffles and other exotic flavors, and everything on the table was done to perfection. However, what really got to us was the interior. There is no other way to describe it, but I felt like Louis XIV. The chairs and couches were heavily gilded wood frames and deep velour cushions. The china was from Limoges, of course. There was no end to the magnificent crystal chandeliers and glassware. As expected, the service was impeccable and friendly without being haughty or condescending.

The regal visit to L’Ambroisie ended our Paris Agenda…at least for this trip. We were able to sample a fairly wide and diversified range of restaurants. I am sure there must be a museum we haven’t seen, but we certainly gave it our best shot. We mastered the art of navigating the city with and without the Metro or taxis, and we found it manageable as long as the weather holds, as it did for us. We even discovered an innovative, very romantic transportation service called the “Batobus”, which plies the Seine during daylight hours with 8 stops in a round trip between the Marais and the Eiffel Tower for a minor fare. We used this water taxi extensively, though I would not recommend it if I were in a hurry.

Indeed, we are addicted to Paris. I know we will see this city again soon. I also know that, until we do, we will miss her!