A fine museum and a fine dinner

June 29, 2017 – The Petit Palais is a stunningly beautiful museum in the middle of Paris.  Admission is free, yet the permanent collections include very important Impressionist and other paintings.  The size of the museum restricts how much can be displayed at once, and the City of Paris resists the urge to clutter this place devoted to showing off its Fine Arts collections.  Works are rotated; every time we go to the Petit we see works that are new to our eyes, and we see old “friends.”  I have the impression that the City of Paris has lots of storage for artworks not currently on display at museums.

The garden in the Petit Palais, as seen from the cafe.

The Petit Palais building itself is a work of art, meticulously maintained.  Its centerpiece is a round, central garden.  Facing the garden is an inviting café, with food and beverages served cafeteria-style.  We started our visit there, because it was lunchtime.  Mine was a piece of steamed cod on a generous bed of peas, carrots, and small lima beans.  Tom’s lunch was basically desert:  a lemon tart, a piece of orange pound cake, and coffee.

Our walk to the museum took about a half hour, but it was interrupted by a haircut for Tom.  We were walking up the rue de la Croix-Nivert, right past Look Coiffeur, the barbershop run by French-North Africans where Tom gets at least one haircut every year.  I suggested that he stop there if the barbers weren’t busy, and they weren’t.  I told Tom I’d wait near the “improper lion,” a name that we Cooleys have given to a statue in the Square Cambronne, a few blocks to the northeast of Look Coiffeur.

I entertained myself with people-watching and playing with the settings on my aging camera (Nikon Coolpix S6800).  I’d only been waiting about 25 minutes when Tom appeared.  His haircut looks good.

The "improper lion" statue in the Square Cambronne.

After we walked around the back and side of the École Militaire, we explored a street that we’d never yet walked along (imagine that!) – the rue Chevert.  This is a quiet lane that stretches between the École Militaire and Les Invalides.  On it we noticed the Hotel Muguet, a well-located three-star accommodation with air conditioning.

The Hotel Muguet on the rue Chevert.

The next section of our stroll was up the calm, western edge of the Esplanade des Invalides.  Then we crossed the mad intersection Quai D’Orsay to traverse the Seine on the most beautiful bridge in France, the Pont Alexandre III.

When it was time to walk home after our leisurely museum visit, we chose to walk along the Seine even though rain clouds were threatening.  Amazingly, the dark shapes passed us by, one after another.  We were unexpectedly dry when we reached our neighborhood, where we ran a few errands before going inside to rest up for dinner at Le Blavet, a longtime favorite resto that is a 12-minute walk from our apartment.

We had a dinner of classics:  paté foie gras for Tom, and tartare of salmon for me, then sole meuniere for Tom and duck breast in sweet-and-sour sauce for me.  Finally, dessert was an apple tart with ice cream for Tom, and a rich, dark moelleux au chocolat for me.  It was a fine feast, which we enjoyed in the table set directly in the resto’s front window.

Tartare of salmon.

Duck breast in sweet and sour sauce

Sole meunierel

Moelleux au chocolat.

Apple tart with ice cream.

In the news, we notice that Donald Trump will be here in Paris for Bastille Day.  While it is a grand tradition for the President of France to invite a President of another country to sit with him during that holiday’s main events, I have difficulty imagining President Trump sitting through the very long, somber military parade that takes up the entire morning.  Then there is a garden party in the afternoon at the Elysée Palace.  I predict that Melania Trump will wear a wonderful garden-party dress, and Donald will wear the usual somewhat ill-fitting suit.  Also in the afternoon, the two main TV stations (France 2 and 3) each have a journalist who, together, interview the French president.  In the evening, the City of Paris puts on a stupendous fireworks display and concert.  It’s the best.  It’s incredible.  It’s yuge.  Really yuge.

Some entertainment that we were looking forward to this week was a big-band jazz concert at the Luxembourg Gardens on Saturday evening.  But alas, I read online yesterday that it has been cancelled due to security concerns.  Darn.

We’ll carry on, however, walking and walking, enjoying the delightful sights and sounds in the city.