A cool museum on a hot day

August 3, 2018 -- The day was warming early, so I departed early, hoping to have time to relax and cool down before my friends arrived at the wine museum yesterday.

I walked up the rue de Lourmel, soaking in the old, unpretentious 15th arrondissement charm which Lourmel still exudes.

Walking from the 15th to the 16th on the Pont de Bir Hakeim.  Notice bike
lanes down the middle.

A woman and her little girl stopped me at the rue Rouelle intersection.  I could see her bracing herself, facing the need to ask for directions in French.  I sensed that she was an American tourist, so I said, "You speak English?" after she'd stopped me with an "Escusez-moi."  She smiled and relaxed immediately.  She asked me where the Hotel Adagio was.  I knew exactly, and told her to turn right on rue du Theatre, the next corner, and keep going until she was almost at the river.

I am frequently stopped by people who need directions.  Usually, they are French speakers.  This was the first American who stopped me in a long time.  I wonder why more francophones ask me for help than do anglophones?

At the boulevard de Grenelle, I crossed to the northeast side to stay in the shade.  As I passed the big Castorama hardware and housewares store, I peered through the windows to get an idea of its size.  Yes, this seems like a big and useful store that is capable of filling the void that Zola Color left when it was replaced by Boulanger two years ago.

View from the Pont de Bir Hakeim.

I crossed the Seine on the double-decker Pont de Bir Hakeim.  No wedding photos were being made that early in the day, but surely there would be some in the afternoon.

At last I reached the bottom of the hill in the 16th arrondissement.  The wine museum was straight ahead on the Square Charles Dickens, at the end of the rue des Eaux (street of the waters).  Balzac's house was up the hill, slightly to my left.

In French, I greeted the young man in the arched entryway to the museum and told him that I was waiting for friends.  He graciously invited me inside and showed me to a seat in the wine tasting room, which was empty at that early hour.  I waited for about 20 minutes, just the right amount of time to cool down from the walk.

My four friends arrived and we had a great time touring the museum.  When we came upon some plaques with the French lyrics for old drinking songs about wine, three of us (the women) sang them, making up the melodies as we went along.  The museum managers, if they could hear us, were probably wondering if we'd already been drinking.  But we had not; we just know how to have a good time.

I recommend this museum because it is well organized and informative.  The collections it houses are interesting, and the ambiance of an ancient wine cellar is perfect.  Yes, mendicant monks of the Minims order carved the caverns and stored wine there starting in the 15th Century, and continuing right up to the Revolution, when their monastery was destroyed.  Then limestone for construction of Paris buildings was mined there.

Here are some photos from this cool museum:

The wine tasting room.

Bottling Champagne.

The cooper (barrel-maker).

Napoleon usually had a glass of wine before going into battle.

The museum has lots of nice collections of things, like these bottles and glasses.
I especially like the green glass bottle that includes a helping hand.

In the 19th Century, France wanted to build its wine export businesses.

Napoleon III asked Louis Pasteur to find out what made wine go bad and how to prevent it.

If you can read French, do not get the museum's English audio guide.  Its narrator is a bored young American man, and my, does he ever sound bored!  He also said "copper" instead of "cooper" when speaking of the one who makes barrels; that annoyed me.

After the tour, we were offered a glass of wine, which comes with the price of a ticket (13.50 euros).  We sat around talking and savoring the wine for an hour.  When it was time to walk home, I opted to walk along the Ile aux Cygnes with my friends, even though the route was longer.  I showed my friends how to reach the end of the Ile at the Pont de Bir Hakeim, where one bride and groom were being photographed.  We continued along the leafy way on that island, which must be a few degrees cooler than the streets.  We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways at the Statue of Liberty on the Pont de Grenelle.

Beautiful chocolate and hazelnut dessert at La Villa Corse.

I slipped into the Beaugrenelle mall for a couple blocks of air-conditioned walking.  The rest of the route was desert-hot, all the way to the Thomas cheese shop on the rue du Commerce where I bought fresh milk for my morning coffee.  Then at last I was home.

In the evening, Tom wanted to go to La Villa Corse, on the Boulevard de Grenelle, because we remembered dining there in the deadly heat wave of 2003, when that restaurant turned on its air conditioning.  Temperatures reached 104 degrees F in 2003.  Yesterday's temperature only went up to 93 degrees, with low humidity.

The restaurant's air conditioning was not on.  Somehow, we felt okay, sitting at a table in the noisy open window.  The food was good (sea bass and vegetables), but not particularly outstanding.  The shared dessert was beautiful and delicious.  But the restaurant was too expensive for what it was; the value was not great and the menu was quite limited.  So that's why only one other couple was dining there!

Tom walked me back to the rue du Commerce after dinner, and then he went for an evening walk, solo.  He'd had no exercise all day; he was not interested in going to the wine museum.  He'd just been sitting at the computer, working on the latest Norton textbook.  Tom is disciplined.

Now we are facing two more days of this second heat wave of the summer.  Hopefully we will get some relief from the heat on Saturday evening.  We know how to keep the apartment cool, even without air conditioning, and the humidity here is nothing like Florida's.  The temperatures drop into the 60s in the wee hours, so we begin each day, knowing that we will be fine.

Feasting without reservation

We'd been walking.  We were hungry.  It was dinnertime.  We had no reservations.

Still, when Tom asked about dinner, I suggested that we go to Le Blavet.

The Pont de Bir Hakeim was formerly called the Viaduc de Passy.  It is on the
opposite end of the Ile aux Cygnes from the Statue of Liberty.

Two decades ago, when we first dined at this little restaurant, Madame la Patronne would have frightened us with a scalding glare if we walked into her place without a reservation.  But she retired years ago, and Le Blavet is now much more relaxed -- like the river it is named for.

Without a reservation, we thought we'd be anonymous at Le Blavet (as real restaurant critics should be), but the chef periodically came out of the kitchen, stood behind the bar doing something, and kept looking right at me, like he was trying to figure out if I was really that person from Florida who continues to blog about restaurants in the 15th arrondissement, summer after summer.

Croustillan de Chevre at Le Blavet.

We've never met him in person.  He, like some other shy chefs, stays in the kitchen almost all the time.

At Le Blavet, two fixed price menus are offered.  The food is extraordinarily consistently excellent.

I ordered from the 27-euro fixed price menu, and Tom ordered from the 36-euro menu.  Each includes a starter, main course, and dessert.  No problem -- we brought our appetites with us, and we'd just walked four miles.

Sole Meunière at Le Blavet.

I started with a croustillant de chèvre -- a thin, crispy pastry wrapped around a deliciously warm little chunk of goat cheese.  It came with an onion "confiture" that was identical to the onion "chutney" that accompanied Tom's terrine de foie gras.  Both starters were delicious, and amazingly identical to the ones we remember from previous years' dining at Le Blavet.

Tom ordered the classic sole meunière, which came with the classic accompaniment, white steamed potatoes.  Sometimes sole meunière is served in a slight pool of clarified butter, and sometimes it is not.  I'm not sure which is more "correct."  The version at Le Blavet is served without the pool of butter.  The server did not offer to de-bone it for him;  that's just as well, because we de-bone our fish ourselves (maybe they remember that we do?).

Magret de Canard at Le Blavet.

My main course was a classic magret de canard.  It was wonderful.  It was superior to the magret I'd had at another, nearby restaurant recently.  The sauce was sweet and sour, with apples, and the accompaniment was a gratin of potatoes dauphinois.

We each had crêpes, but they were of different kinds.  Mine was two folded crêpes, one with dark chocolate sauce, and the other with rum sauce.  Plus there was a dollop of whipped cream and a small scoop of French vanilla ice cream.  

Le Blavet is on the Rue de Lourmel, south of the Avenue Emile Zola.

Tom's was a flat crêpe with roasted apples and a Calvados sauce, with vanilla ice cream.  

Fortunately we'd started dinner early, at 7:30PM, because the restaurant was hot and full by the time we left.  A large group of 20 or so people occupied the larger dining room.

This morning, I persuaded Tom to go to the market at Grenelle with me.  He needed a shirt and some socks, and believe me, these markets have the best prices for those kinds of things.  We meandered through the dense crowd at about 11AM, and Tom was successful in finding and buying what he needed.

We enjoyed looking at the Oriental rugs in the market, and in the window of a closed rug store on the Boulevard.  Caution:  do not buy Persian rugs in Europe now; you cannot take them home to the U.S. because of the current sanctions against Iran.

Most shops are closed on Sundays, except for those that sell food.  The latter tend to stay open on Sunday in this neighborhood because of the Grenelle market (which is on Sundays and Wednesdays, until about 1PM).  

Walking along the Ile aux Cygnes, in the middle of the Seine.

So we went to the grocery and bakery, and came home to have a "picnic" lunch before this final stage of the Tour de France.  The Tour comes to Paris today, and I adore watching all the helicopter views of La Capitale.

Au revoir!

Warm day, cool night

View from the Pont de Bir Hakeim

August 23, 2017 – On a perfect summer day for walking along a quiet stretch of the Seine, we started from rue Linois and made our way along the cobblestones of the left bank up to the Pont de Bir Hakiem.  Along the way, we admired attractive houseboats and then noticed a large metal thing on display.  

To satisfy my curiosity, I read the lengthy explanation on the sign posted under the thing, which turns out to be the nose of a former ocean liner named the France.  Here’s a translation:

The Nose of the France is at the Port de Grenelle

Today, of this fabulous ship that was totally dismantled in India in 2006 in the workshops of Alang, there remains only this piece that has braved the waves of all the oceans. 

The former FRANCE in numbers:

Launch: 1962

Nose of The France

Length: 315 meters

Width: 33.7 meters

Draw:  10 meters

Passengers: 2,032

Crew:  1100

Number of bridges:  12

Average displacement when loaded:  57,600 tons

Speed:  30 knots

Power:  160,000 ch

The France that became the Norway, is no more, but a new liner is being built.  A team consisting of enthusiasts, counting among them thousands of professionals in the conception and exploitation of cruise ships, mobilized to take on this ambitious project and offer to France a new emblematic liner, with a human scale, modern, ecological, luxurious, really innovative, and of a different design.

In the milieu of all the contemporary liners who, for the most part, resemble it, this new FRANCE will be a perfect illustration of “the French exception.”

See www.lenouveaufrance.com.

We climbed up to the street level to take the Bir Hakeim bridge to its mid-point, where we turned left onto the Île des Cygnes.  As often is the case, a team of Japanese wedding photographers was there in the middle of the bridge, photographing a Japanese bride.

The sun was almost hot, so we were grateful for the many old and new trees along the island.  When we turned behind the Statue of Liberty to take the Pont de Grenelle to the rue Linois, the sun blazed in our faces. 

So we ducked into the Magnetic building of the Beaugrenelle Mall for a block of air conditioned walking.  The mall is still popular; it shows no sign of declining. 

Sweetbread ravioli with mushrooms in pecorino cream sauce at Bacco

We rode the escalator in the impressive, modern atrium, up one level to follow the mall to its other end.  We then exited at the east end and found our way across the busy Place Charles Michels to the shady avenue Emile Zola.  Tom entered the bakery near the Place Alfred Dreyfus to buy a baguette.  There he continued a conversation he’d been having with the baker – about the different French and English words that mean sour, tart, and acidic.

There is something satisfying about having a conversation with a French baker about how to describe how something tastes.

Vitello tonato -- fine slices of veal wrapped around minced tuna in mayonnaise
with veal juice, vinaigrette emulsion with capers, and eggplant caviar.

In the evening, we took another long walk – down to the noisy rue de la Convention, southeast to the rue Brancion, northeast to the peaceful Place d’Alleray, and northwest on the rue des Favorites to that imposing square in front of the town hall of the 15^th.   It was a short walk from there to our restaurant destination, Bacco, on the rue Mademoiselle.  Somehow, we arrived exactly on time, at 8PM. 

At Bacco, we were remembered and greeted warmly, even though the restaurant was already filling up with locals and several tourists.  I think this was the first night the restaurant was open, following its vacation closure.

Seared red tuna with lobster bisque, springroll with sweet-and-sour sauce,
with a salicornia tempura.

The kitchen at Bacco is partly visible through a window into the bar area of the restaurant.  I watched four tall men working away diligently back there.  A special amount of time and effort was spent carefully and artfully arranging the food on plates on the counter under the window.

As beautiful as they were, our starter courses were each somewhat bland.  But the main courses were both beautiful and tasty.  Tom’s risotto with prawns was especially nicely spicey.  My red tuna was cooked perfectly – mi cuit.

Spicey risotto with prawns.

I was glad that I’d reserved our table well in advance, because this restaurant was practically completely full when we were served our first courses.  The manager thought we were waiting too long for our dinner, so she gave us a free glass of wine and a new bottle of water.

Days are growing shorter.  Daylight was gone when we walked up a brightly lit rue du Commerce toward home.  

Paris: an international city

September 15, 2015 -- More and more, Paris is becoming an international city.  More and more, English is used to communicate with people from so many different lands who find themselves in the City of Light.

Signs with less-than-stellar translations into English are common; English is a difficult language.  However, well-funded public agencies in France should be able to come up with passable translations. 

The Pont de Bir Hakeim is named for a battle that took place in Libya in 1942.

Yesterday, Tom and I were stopped dead in our tracks by a sign posted in a construction zone around one of the entrances to the La Motte-Picquet metro station.  This is an important station because several metro lines come together here.  It is also the station that is near significant landmarks like UNESCO and the Eiffel Tower.

RATP, the agency that runs the metro, the trams, and the bus system in Paris, is state-owned.  It is a huge operation in the Île-de-France region, with 3 billion passengers per year.  But now it has grown even beyond the region; it operates transit systems elsewhere in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

So RATP can afford to have top-notch translators.

Take a look at this sign:

The first sentence is translated into unintelligible gobbledygook.  The second sentence has a decent translation.  Did two different people translate the two different parts of one sign?   The first part of the sign is not particularly difficult to translate.  The translation should be, “Travelers who have a ticket should enter on the other side of the boulevard.” 

“Munis de” isn’t too tough to translate.   Literally, it means “furnished with,” but it makes more sense to say “who have a.” 

“Prendre l’acces de” literally means “to take the access from,” but it makes more sense to say “should enter on.”

The last part of this sentence’s translation was done properly; “l’autre côté du boulevard,” does mean “the other side of the boulevard.”  Oh, yes, the translation is also correct for “un titre de transport,” which simply means “ticket.”

I do not know if the Spanish translations are good.  Perhaps one of you dear readers could tell me.

For the English translations on this sign as a whole, we’d give RATP a C-.  Actually, Tom said he’d give RATP a textbook.

Tom's umbrella and scarf

I remember years ago when there was only a sign in French on the access at the other side of the boulevard.  Consequently, lots of foreigners (including us one time) would enter there, and then would have to exit and cross the boulevard to use the other entrance, where they could buy a ticket.  At least RATP is now making an attempt, however feeble, at communicating in other major languages.  

Still, on RATP’s report card, we’d comment, “Room for improvement.”

One of the places where RATP operates the rapid transit system in Africa is Algiers, Algeria.  We dined in Algeria last night – or as close as we can get to it in Paris.  That is to say that we dined at Le Tipaza, the restaurant on the rue Saint Charles which is named for a town on the coast of Algeria – a town known for its sandy beach.

We adore Le Tipaza.  The service is professional and friendly; the décor is beautiful, exotic, and uncrowded; and the food is high quality and excellent value. 

I wanted a lighter dinner because we’d had brunch at Eclectic earlier in the day, so I ordered the Grillade Royale (samplings of lean grilled lamb, beef, and merguez sausage) with homemade, healthy ratatouille, and then a light and refreshing homemade crème caramel for dessert.  Tom had a similar Grillade of grilled meats, including beef, and fries.  Then he had a magnificent order of profiteroles.  Oooh la la. (Photo below.)

The profiteroles at Le Tipaza.

Fortunately, we walked for a total of two and a half hours yesterday.

But I did also take the time to check out Heather Stimmler Hall’s most recent Secrets of Paris newsletter.  She included an article about what Parisians can do to help the Syrian and Iranian refugees.  A few of the refugees from the latest massive surge into Europe are starting to show up in Paris. 

We have not seen these refugees at all, but Heather has noticed a growth in the encampment of recent immigrants in the 13^th arrondissement on the banks of the Seine.  That makes sense because the Grand Mosque of Paris is over that way; refugees would logically camp out where the support of the Mosque is nearby.

Heather points out that “In France, those without passports or visas are called ‘sans papiers’ (or Without Papers), not ‘illegal aliens.’  While they are waiting for their asylum requests to be processed, they are not allowed to work and must rely on the State and charitable organizations for everything including food, housing, and medical assistance.”  [I note that we use the term “undocumented” as well as “illegal aliens” in the U.S.; “undocumented” means the same as “sans papiers.”]

So it is important, initially, to support charitable organizations who help refugees who are not allowed to work, initially.   In her article, Heather lists charitable organizations who are helping in France.

Of course, soon there will be 10,000 more Syrian refugees in the U.S. (in addition to 1800 who are already in the U.S.), and they’ll need help, too.

One day in church on Sanibel a couple years ago, a man asked me about France’s role in the history of Syria.  I looked into the subject and wrote about it in my Paris Journal on September 11, 2013.  Upon re-reading it, I see why France should have a major role in providing refuge for Syrians.

Take a look, and see what you think.