PARIS PROLOGUE

My travels didn’t begin when I began this blog. Even before I retired and began to document my travels here, I had already completed several lengthy sojourns abroad. These travels did not go undocumented. I took photos and kept journals. Sometimes, I wrote emails home from internet cafés.

In 2000, my friend, Deanna Sclar, her Teddy bear, Jake, and I spent three months in France and Turkey. Deanna, an automotive journalist, took extensive video and we always planned to produce a video of our travels. The video camera got dropped along the way and eventually stopped working. We were never able to review the 10 MiniDV cassettes of footage she recorded. Deanna kept the tapes for over a decade and, then, gave them to me. She hoped I would be able to do something with them, as I had a dear friend who was a video editor. I had already started cruising, by then, and didn’t get around to the project, right away. My video editor friend died, unexpectedly. I bought a MiniDV deck, thinking I would edit the footage, myself. By this time, I was spending most of my time in Mexico or on sailboats and didn’t get around to it. Finally, in 2021, when I bought my condo in La Cruz and was emptying out my house in California, I decided to digitize the tapes so that I wouldn’t have to drag the MiniDV deck to Mexico. The tapes were all but useless. Nothing had been recorded after the camera was dropped and the couple of tapes that could be viewed had such short clips that they couldn’t have been edited into anything usable. The video project was a bust.

Jakey Bear in Paris

Still, I wanted to do something to share our remarkable journey through parts of Turkey where most people will never go, many of which have been permanently altered by the Second Gulf War. Since I now have this blog and usually do not write when I am not traveling, I decided to take my readers on a journey back to Paris and Turkey in the year 2000. 

After all these years, it is funny to look at these photos taken with disposable cameras.  There are so few of them compared to what I would have taken with a digital camera or smartphone.  As it was, I filled fifteen cameras and spent a small fortune on developing.  Fortunately, they were also provided to me in a digital format.  The quality is frustratingly poor.

Sept. 6, 2000
Acacias Hôtel de Ville, Paris, France

After spending the Labor Day weekend in Los Angeles, Deanna and I boarded a United flight from LAX to Paris at 16:15. We spent a very uncomfortable night on the plane and arrived in Paris at 11:15. We dragged our baggage clear across the Charles de Gaulle Airport to get cash from an ATM and then got a cab to our hotel.

The hotel was nothing to write home about but it was in a great location, close to the Seine and Notre Dame. We paid FF620 per night for a small room with three twin beds and no view. It was a very old building but clean and at least not dark.

Notre Dame and the Seine

We slept until 21:00 when we got up and went out for dinner. We ate at a small crêperie near the hotel (Acacias Hôtel de Ville, 20 Rue du Temple.) The meal was tasty and we ate in an ancient, arched, crypt-like basement below street level.

After dinner, we strolled up to the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) and admired the sculptures and then across the plaza to the Seine. We crossed the river and were surprised to discover that Notre Dame was right there. We spent awhile contemplating the gargoyles on Notre Dame and then walked around the block, across the Seine, and back to our hotel.

Sept. 7, 2000
Acacias Hôtel de Ville, Paris, France

We were not terribly motivated, today, but we did get a few things accomplished. We didn’t get up until 9:00 and then we stopped for breakfast in a café before we went anywhere. We went looking for a better hotel but everyplace was fully booked. We had to keep looking because our hotel did not have room for us on Saturday night. We looked all over the Marais with no luck. We found a travel agency and managed to purchase tickets to Istanbul. If we had flown directly to Istanbul from Los Angeles, it would have cost $1500. We got round trip tickets to Paris for $600 and, with seven days advance purchase, tickets from Paris to Istanbul for $200. The $700 we saved paid for our hotel in Paris for the week. We were fine with that. We couldn’t get tickets with a changeable return, so we bought the cheapest 30-day tickets we could find and figured we’d buy other tickets to get back if we wanted to stay past October 13^th.

After we bought the tickets, we crossed the Seine and looked at hotels in the Latin Quarter. All of these hotels were full, too, but we finally managed to talk the manager at the Royal Cardinal Hotel into giving us a room for six nights beginning Saturday. We wouldn’t have to sleep on the street.

We ate lunch at the Biere Academie where I had a croque dripping with melted Camembert and a glass of cider. We then headed back to our hotel to tell the manager to hold our room until Saturday morning. We stopped in to see the inside of Notre Dame (not as impressive as the outside), but the line to climb the tower was so long that we decided to come back in the morning.

We went back to the hotel where I napped while Deanna got her hair done. We got up around 19:00 and walked across the Île de la Cité to the quai where we picked up a tour boat and took a sunset cruise along the Seine. After the cruise, we wandered through a fascinating restaurant district in the Latin Quarter and ate dinner at a Thai restaurant, which was just what I needed as an antidote to the Camembert from lunch. We then ambled around the Latin Quarter for quite awhile until we noticed some sort of art party happening on a footbridge near the Louvre. We walked over to see what was happening and met two friendly gentlemen with whom we talked for some time. Then, we continued our walk along the Rive Gauche to the Pont Neuf and along the right bank of the Île de la Cité until we spied the Tour St. Jacques, which we had noticed earlier. We walked over to see that and then headed for the hotel, after buying bottled water in an Asian grocery.

Sept. 8, 2000
Acacias Hôtel de Ville, Paris, France

Arch de Triomphe

While we did not get an early start, we did cover a lot of ground. After grabbing breakfast near the hotel (This was always a process because I generally eat carbs in the morning and Deanna eats only protein, which is generally not part of a French petit dejeuner.), we took the Metro to L’Arc du Triomphe. We took a look at the arch and then walked down the Champs Elysées to the Place de la Concorde where we saw the obelisk from Luxor and looked down towards the Ferris wheel near the Louvre. We rode the Ferris wheel and got a nice view of Paris. The Grand Palais, Petit Palais, and Orangerie were all closed for restoration, so we walked through the Tuilleries Gardens and stopped for lunch at a kiosk there. After a nice lunch, we continued on to the Louvre.

The Louvre is really amazing. Not only is the original building huge, but the new, subterranean entrance plaza and attached shopping mall are also immense. It is all constructed of similar materials and blends very nicely with the original structures.

The Louvre

We toured the section of Italian paintings and saw the Winged Victory and Mona Lisa. We hurried through the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities and took a look at the Venus de Milo. We got a little bit confused looking for the Levantine antiquities and ended up in the new exhibit of the medieval Louvre. While excavating for the shopping center, they discovered the walls of the moat that surrounded the original Louvre (the four buildings surrounding the rear courtyard.) The moat has been excavated and you can walk around the foundations of the medieval fortress. It looks like something out of Sleeping Beauty.

We did finally get to the Egyptian and Levantine pieces. There were lots of glazed tiles and the piece that Deanna and I both liked best was a capital from the temple of Darius I featuring the heads of two bulls. You could see where the rafters once rested.

After the antiquities, we wandered through French objets d’ art and visited Napoleon’s apartments. He had a grand salon and a dining room that seated forty two at table.

By the time we had spent three hours in the Louvre, our feet had had it. We limped to the Metro through the underground mall and came back to the hotel for a nap. We were lying on our backs with our feet vertical against the wall and we both fell asleep that way. It was a wonder we didn’t topple off the twin beds.

After our naps, we dressed for dinner and hurried out to meet Deanna’s friend, Jeanne, at a place in her neighborhood called Rendezvous des Chauffeurs. We had sea snails, roast pork with spinach and crème caramel for dessert. Jeanne’s friend, Anne, joined us for dinner. After dinner, Anne drove us up to Montmartre, where we got a lovely view of Sacre Coeur all lit up and could see the lighted Eiffel Tower and a wonderful view of Paris. Montmartre was a happening place. Anne dropped us at the Gare du Nord Metro station on her way home and we took the Metro home.

Sept. 10, 2000
Train from Giverny to Paris, France

Yesterday, we were wiped out from our day of walking on Friday. We didn’t wake up until 9:00. Once we determined that there was no fountain show at Versailles, we decided to postpone our trip so we didn’t need to rush back for dinner.

We checked out of our hotel and took a cab to our new hotel, the Royal Cardinal, on the left bank. We checked in, dumped out stuff, and then went out for lunch. We had quiche and salad at a bistro across the street and then climbed up the hill to the Pantheon. The sun had finally come out for the first time since we arrived in Paris.

The Pantheon

The Pantheon is a huge and wonderful building erected as a monument to the great men of France. Many famous people are buried in the crypt. We saw the tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau, Zola and Victor Hugo, among others. The dome was crumbling, so the central portion of the building was closed off and there were nets just below the ceiling level over the arcade. In the center, there was a replica of Foucault’s pendulum.

After the Pantheon, we wandered down the Rue Soufflot to the Luxembourg Gardens. By this time, it was very hot and we wanted to lie on the grass. I had brought some painting supplies and I wanted to paint. When we got to the gardens, everyone was sitting on chairs or benches. I couldn’t find a scene I thought I could paint well. We sat in the shade for a while and finally mustered enough energy to continue around the gardens. Almost immediately, we came upon a lawn where people WERE sitting on the grass. We lay down and slept for an hour until it cooled off a bit. After our naps, we continued our circuit of the garden and inspected a lovely series of aerial photographs mounted on the fence. We located the place we were to meet for dinner with the help of three national policemen, bought some water and a bottle of wine, and headed back to our hotel.

We relaxed with a glass of wine and then dressed for dinner. The restaurant, Les Fêtes Galants, was not far from the hotel.  We walked there and had an aperitif while we waited for Jeanne and her friend, Margaret. We ate a delicious three-course meal. I had shrimp salad, veal in a scrumptious sauce, and an apple tart for dessert.

The hotel room was extremely noisy with the windows open and too hot with them shut. The café downstairs was noisy until two or three in the morning and traffic, sirens, and car radios continued the racket until dawn. We shut the window about 4:00.

Today, we got up early because we planned to go to Giverny with Jeanne. The hotel staff brought our breakfast to our room, so we had a relaxed morning getting ready. Deanna gave her Teddy bear, Jake, a bath. We left about 9:30 and walked down to the Seine to catch the bus to Gare St. Lazare. The bus did not run on Sunday. We walked to the Hôtel de Ville Metro station and took the Metro. We had agreed to meet Jeanne at the bus stop, but we were late and didn’t come in that way. By the time we found her and bought tickets, we had to run to the train.  Fortunately, it was on a nearby track.

The train ride to Vernon was pretty, but uneventful. We arrived in Vernon and immediately boarded a bus to Giverny.

Giverny

Giverny was gorgeous! There were aisles of flowers everywhere and a beautiful waterway surrounding the property, lined with bamboo and weeping willows. The lily pond was just like the pictures, although the Japanese bridge was surmounted by a wisteria arbor and painted an obnoxious Kelly green. Monet’s house was simple, but lovely. Inside, it was painted in bright yellows and blues and the walls were covered with Japanese prints. There were big, open windows in all of the rooms. It commanded a panoramic view of the flower garden.

Giverny

The town of Giverny was very quaint and picturesque. We ate lunch in a grove of trees by a stream. The waiter was merely a friend helping out the owner and he made up for being slow by being very friendly.

After lunch, we explored several art galleries and an old Romanesque church. I fell in love with a picture in a gallery, but the gallery was closed. I was about to go back and buy another painting I had seen when the bus came and Jeanne and Deanna rushed to climb aboard. We took the bus back to Vernon and caught the 17:38 train to Paris.

Sept. 12, 2000
Hôtel au Royal Cardinal, Paris, France

On Sunday, we returned from Vernon on the local train which took 45 minutes longer (1:15) than the express. We got back to our hotel about 19:30. We took a two hour nap but still didn’t feel like dinner. We stayed in and tried to sleep. The hotel was very noisy and just got progressively noisier all night.

I got up fairly early on Monday because I couldn’t sleep, anyway. Deanna had put in her earplugs early that morning and was dead to the world. She slept through the alarm, maid knocking on the door with breakfast, and the telephone. I had to get up out of the tub to collect our tray which arrived fifteen minutes early.

Pumpkins on a Tripod

Deanna finally got up when the coffee came, but she needed a couple of hours to bathe and wash clothes.  I went out for a bit. I had felt like a walk since the night before and was going stir crazy. I walked over to the botanical gardens. The flowers there were beautiful. They had a large selection of morning glory vines growing on tripods of re-bar or bamboo. I inspected them carefully because I planned to plant some on my back fence, and I wanted to choose a variety. I decided on “The Star of Yalta” (fuchsia) and another one with a dark purple flower. The “Himmelblau” were nice, too, with very large, blue flowers. They were also growing squash vines on these tripods, which I thought was a great idea, since I had one gourd plant that took up half my back garden. Even pumpkins were growing on tripods and I had to take a picture of the large, orange pumpkins hanging in mid-air. There were a lot of art students from the college across the street sketching in the garden.

The greenhouse and the maze were closed, so I stepped over towards St. Etienne de Mont and passed the Roman amphitheatre along my way. I continued up to St. Etienne du Mont which had been closed when we went to the Pantheon. The church was unusual in that the arcades were almost as tall as the nave and the main course of clerestory windows were actually in the arcades, which made for a very light church.

I came back to the hotel after two hours and Deanna was ready. We boarded the Metro and got off at Cité. We walked to Sainte Chapelle, which is surrounded on all four sides by a palace and, unfortunately, not visible from afar. Sainte Chapelle is an amazing place. It is completely polychromed and the ceilings are blue with gold stars. The lower chapel is beautiful, but the upper one is fantastic. Being a chapel, rather than a cathedral, the whole thing is one elongated stained-glass apse. It is quite tall, with slender ribs and well-restored windows. The effect is stunning. We lingered, trying to drink it all in. The glass and the polychroming were so rich in detail that it was impossible to absorb everything.

Stained Glass at Sainte Chapelle

St. Denis

After Sainte Chapelle, we took the Metro out to the village of St. Denis. St, Denis was a pleasant village despite some rather unfortunate, modern architecture. We went there to see the Basilique St. Denis, which was the earliest example of Gothic architecture. It contains the first rose window and is quite stunning. The portals are almost Romanesque. The church contains elements which date back to the fourth century. St. Denis is buried there, as are all the French kings. We saw the tombs of Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette. There is an impressive collection of funerary sculpture displayed there, as well. The crypt contains remnants of the older churches. The graves were desecrated during the revolution but there were some sarcophagi dating back to the fourth century church.

Sacre Coeur

Upon leaving St. Denis, we got back on the Metro and took it to Montmartre. We got off at Abbesses and strolled over to the Funiculaire, It was getting close to 18:00, so we hurried into Sacre Coeur. The inside was rather unimpressive because they were working on the central dome and had most of the mosaics covered with bubble wrap. Sacre Coeur was not built until 1876 and so is quite clean and modern and does not contain much history. It is very beautiful on the exterior, however, and occupies a fabulous site. It is dramatically lighted at night. I wanted to take a photo at night, so we had a drink on the Place du Tertre and waited for dark. There are many artists painting on Montmartre, but most of the paintings were not very good. I still regretted that closed gallery in Giverny.

The food on the Place de Tertre is expensive and mediocre, so we walked down to the base of Montmartre and had soupe l’oignon and a glass of wine in a café with a lovely view of Sacre Coeur. Once I took my photos, we headed towards the Metro and stopped in a bistro where Deanna had a lamb chop and I had a crêpe for dessert. When the cigarette smoke grew overwhelming, we continued to the Metro and came home.

That night, we decided to try sleeping with the windows closed. It was much quieter and not too stuffy.

Sept. 12, 2000
Hôtel au Royal Cardinal, Paris, France

Today, we took the RER train to Versailles. While the weather was okay in Paris, it was sprinkling when we got to Versailles. We ducked into an Italian restaurant and I ate pizza until it abated a bit. We then walked on to the palace of Versailles. Versailles is a truly amazing display of wealth, although it does not compare to the Russian palaces. Much of the marble in the king’s apartments is faux painting. The palace is quite large and the grounds are extensive. Unfortunately, much of the garden is not maintained. I found the pathways too wide, so that when you looked at a large expanse, all you saw was decomposed granite pathways crisscrossed with ruts. The formal gardens that were planted in flowers were exquisite on a small scale, however.

The Palace at Versailles

After touring the palace of Versailles, we walked through the gardens to the Petit Trianon and the Grand Trianon. The Petit Trianon, Marie Antoinette’s hideaway, was lovely and rather modest. The Grand Trianon was more lavish, and the pink marble and formal gardens were impressive.

The Grand Trianon

After inspecting the Trianons, we stopped for a snack and Deanna ordered a hot dog. What arrived was an entire baguette, containing two hot dogs and smothered in cheese. For FF32, we got dinner for two. We walked back through the gardens to the palace and on to the train station. On the train, we had a nice conversation with a black couple from Dallas. Neither of us were hungry after the hot dog, so we came back to the (noisy) room.

              The Gardens at Versailles

Sept. 14, 2000
Hôtel au Royal Cardinal, Paris, France

The Musée D’Orsay

Yesterday, we got up fairly early so that we could go to the cybercafé but, when we got there, they were closed. We continued on to the St. Michel RER station and took the RER to the Musée D’Orsay. The Musée D’Orsay is really a delight. They have converted an old railway station into a museum. Somehow, they managed to add several levels of galleries without obscuring the wonderful, open architecture of the original building, with its unique dome of plaster roses. There is a large collection of impressionist paintings, including one entire room of Van Goghs. I was able to renew my acquaintance with Caillebotte. There was a marvelous, large painting of three men stripping a hardwood floor. We wandered around in the museum for hours until we just couldn’t take it any more and then we discovered the collection of art nouveau furnishings. All of the items were delicious, but there was one entire room taken from a chateau somewhere that was just fantastic. All four walls featured graceful art nouveau paneling and willowy built-in cabinets and free-standing furniture.

The Eiffel Tower

We didn’t get to the Eiffel Tower until 14:00. We wanted to eat lunch on the deuxième étage but they were only open for lunch from 12:15 to 13:45. We were unable to get a reservation for the première étage, either. By this time, Deanna was ready to throw a tantrum if we didn’t eat, so we walked down to the Seine and ate lunch at a boat that had been converted to a cafeteria.

After lunch, we waited in line for 40 minutes to get on the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower. We went all the way to the very top and could see all of Paris spread out before us. While it had seemed like we had crawled all over Paris, it quickly became apparent that we had visited only a small portion of it. They displayed a very useful series of photographs with a legend identifying all of the major attractions and another series showing which direction to look towards the capitols of all the world’s nations.

View from the Eiffel Tower

I was pretty beat when we returned to ground level but we got back on the RER and went two stops to les Invalides to see the tomb of Napoleon. Unfortunately, the les Invalides RER station is almost a mile from les Invalides and they were closing by the time we got there. We did manage to see the tomb and the domed building housing it, but we missed the museum.

By this time, I was so exhausted that I managed to lose our money bag, containing FF400 and some Metro tickets, in the RER station on the way home. We had agreed to meet Jeanne at 20:00 for dinner so, although the restaurant was rather close, we took a cab. My feet were so battered that I would have cried had we had to walk.

We had dinner at a Tibetan restaurant with Jeanne and her friends, Andi and Iris. The food was a kind of cross between Chinese and Indian and was a welcome change from French cuisine. I was deliriously hungry, having had a small lunch, and would have eaten anything.

After dinner, we went to the cybercafé, which was only a few blocks from the restaurant. I managed to send my email and write a newsletter, although the computer crashed when I sent the message. It appeared to have gone, though Deanna was not so lucky. Her messages kept disappearing. AOL.com did not function, but Juno webmail seemed to be fine. We didn’t get home until after midnight and slept like rocks.