Another lovely day in Paris: Emma and I stopped in at Paul, the boulangerie a block away from our apartment on the Rue de Rivoli, for our usual baguette, croissant and pain au chocolat order. We had breakfast with the boys in the apartment and tidied things up a bit, then got on the Métro to the Champs-Elysées. We started at the Arc de Triomphe end, and took the stairs to the top. Then we walked down the avenue a bit, and stopped at Ladurée for the multi-colored collection of macarons that I have been promising Emma. Macarons, for the uninitiated souls, are small cookies of egg white and almond, sandwiched together with buttercream or fruit filling. They are sold all over Paris, and are simply delicious! Emma, John and I picked out eight flavors, which was not easy to do, while David sat outside on a bench, watching the world go by. After we paid for our purchases and were given an elegant little box in an elegant little bag, we joined him to sample some of our treats. Then we walked a bit further down the street, which is lovely, but full of people shopping at Nike and Virgin Megastore. Without the Arc de Triomphe in the backdrop, one could easily be in New York City.
We took another Métro to the northeast corner of Paris in the 19e arrondisement for the Parc de la Villette, which is a large modern development that replaced decaying slaughterhouses in the 1980s. The park was designed by a well-known French architect (with a little bit of help from Jacques Derrida, apparently!) as a post-modern architectural experiment—he wanted to create space for interaction and activity, rather than for relaxation and self-indulgence, to create a design that would act as a means of deconstructing the traditional views of how a park is meant to exist, and used space and form and their relationship to a person’s ability to recognize and interact. Or so says my guide book!
The result is a trendy collection of green spaces along a canal, dotted with large red linear buildings and topped by a wavy metal awning. The complex includes a science and industry museum, a music venue and a large geode-like IMAX theater, but since all of these are closed on Mondays, the park was rather quiet when we arrived. We were overdue for lunch, and intended to eat at a bistro overlooking a canal, but when we arrived we found that was closed as well. In the end, the only place that was open was a large, slightly run down restaurant next to the museum that served le fast-food…I think the name of it was something like Quick Hamburger. We shrugged, and went it. The menu looked like something out of an urban Burger King, with no vegetarian options in sight. I ordered a greek salad for me and Emma, a chicken salad for David and le hamburger for John. Our bill was only €20, which is almost nothing in Paris, and we took our food upstairs to a balcony with umbrella-ed picnic tables to eat. In the end, the food was actually delicious…our salads had huge olives, hunks of feta cheese, and a red pepper tapenade on them, and David’s had small rounds of goat’s cheese, slivers of pears, and a mélange of beets, all topped with a peppery crispy chicken—likely the best “fast food” we have ever eaten! We finished our meal with a few more of the Ladurée macarons, and headed out to the playgrounds. There are several in the park with names that translate into the Garden of Shadows, the Garden of the Dragon, and the Garden of Things that Scare Children (the latter is full of nothing more sinister than some spooky noises coming out of speakers hidden in patches of bamboo…). We started at the Garden of Dunes, which has huge humps, ziplines, air cushions and big steel hamster-wheels for kids to use in the expense of energy. Ours did just that, while David and I sat in some chairs that were so deconstructed that it took us a few minutes to figure out how to actually use them. Emma and John spent a bit on the zipline, then, after a near-trip-ending accident that involved John and the steel hamster-wheel, met two kids that spoke French and English, and were from Tanzania. The four of them played for quite a while, running around on the humps and jumping on the air cushions, finally returning to us a sweaty, dirty mess. We finally left the playground at 4pm, and waved goodbye to the kids’ new friends.
Next, we took the Métro to Montmartre, a hilly neighborhood in the northern part of Paris known for the Sacré-Cœur Basilica and the former home of painters like Van Gogh, Monet and Picasso. It’s now quite touristy in parts, and there are also parts near the Pigalle Métro stop and the Moulin Rouge cabaret that are certainly not for children (I noticed that David almost crashed right into a Frenchman at one point on our walk as he took a long sideways glance at a newsstand!). We stuck to the parts at the top, near Sacré-Cœur, and took a ride on the little funicular railroad that takes you from the Anvers Métro stop to the top of the hill (though the train car is so tiny and packed with people that you work up just as much of a sweat inside as you would by climbing the hill anyway…). We paused at the top for a view of Sacré-Cœur, then walked to the Place du Tertre, where we splurged and had a portrait made of each of the kids. They were both quite excited to sit for one, even though each portrait took about 30 minutes, and a small crowd gathered around both of them as they sat side by side with two artists working on their likeness. It was quite impressive to see Emma’s eyes come through on the paper like that, and fun to eavesdrop on the conversations about the works, and about the kids, going on around us. One Spanish woman engaged David in a lengthy conversation, in English, about the differences between the two artists, and we talked with two young guys from California about which artist was better (David preferred the portrait of John, but I thought the one of Emma was better…). I had to leave at one point to look for an ATM (I said it was a splurge, didn’t I?), and asked for directions, in French, at a small chocolatier. The woman there gave me a set of lengthy instructions, in French, and spoke rather quickly, but I followed it, then followed her directions and found it with no problem. Thank goodness for those podcasts!
When the portraits were done, we walked a bit in search of a spot for dinner, and ended up at a lovely little spot, recommended by my guidebook, on a terrace just below Sacré-Cœur. The name of the place was L’Été en pente douce, which seems to me to translate into “summer softly sloping” or something like that (anyone?). We sat outside on a lovely little patio under an awning, and engaged in the wonderful Parisian tradition of people watching. David and I shared a decanter of rosé wine and the kids had water with syrup. For their meal, they both had homemade tagliatelli, and I ordered a salmon and spinach quiche. David ended up with un plat du jour, and though it was delicious, we’re still not quite sure what it was. It was billed as a supreme, and when I asked, qu'est que c'est? she said, “uh, like a chicken, but not…” We ordered it anyway, and it was great…some manner of small bird roasted in a saffron sauce and served with roasted potatoes. Yum! We had a great dinner, despite the typically French-service (read sloooooow), but of course how can one complain about sitting around for a long time with a decanter of Touraine on a lovely shaded square at the foot of Sacré-Cœur? I’ll take very slow service in a spot like that anyday!
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