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.

The cool came back, just like that!

I'd seen the predictions.  The change was not unexpected.  Still, when it happened, we were excited.  The heat wave lifted, just like that!

View from our friend's home-exchange vacation apartment.

As if Mother Nature made a flick of her wrist, her weather wand sparked, and a stiff yet gusty breeze magically appeared in the early evening.  A few dried leaves on the sidewalk flitted this way and that.  Minutes later, the rain that had been threatening broke through the heavy atmosphere.  The thermometer dropped ten degrees F.

The air, which had been laden with bad ozone, became light and cool again.

All of this happened as we sat in Eclectic with our friend, W, having drinks.  The panoramic view of the riverbank through the restaurant's sweeping windows presented far away lightening bolts, big raindrops splashing forcefully, dramatically, on the pavement, people -- smiling -- dashing for cover.  Other people sauntering, delighting in being suddenly wet and cool.

The staff threw open Eclectic's two doors.  The cool breeze was a welcome addition to the air conditioning.  We heard thunder sounding as if it were in a muffled echo chamber.

Having drinks at Eclectic, in Beaugrenelle.

The three of us were so comfortable and happy at Eclectic that we decided, after an hour of drinks, to stay for dinner.  Tom and I ordered the Friday special:  moist, soft poached salmon -- with rice for me, and with fries for him.  W had a Burratina appetizer and indulged in the delicious bread.  W asked me what Burratina is; I replied that it is like Mozzarella, only much better.  One web site calls Burratina's taste "dreamy."

Afterwards, we went to Monoprix because W still needed a few necessities for the apartment where she is staying on the right bank, in the 16th, almost directly across from Eclectic, where we were drinking and dining.  She is doing a home exchange for her vacation, so a young Parisian family is enjoying Sanibel Island right now.

The Beaugrenelle Monoprix renovations have been completed since we were last there.  I'd say the renovation is a big success.  It is what you'd expect a Parisian grocery store to be -- attractively chic, practical, and reasonable.

View of the Statue of Liberty and Front de Seine from our
friend's home-exchange vacation apartment.

The walk from Monoprix to W's home-exchange apartment wasn't long.  We crossed the Seine on the Pont de Grenelle, where the Statue of Liberty stands, passed the Ogre restaurant that Tom and I would like to try sometime, and continued around the corner to the apartment building -- which was very similar to a building where we once had a home-exchange apartment for a few weeks, years ago.  We had exchanged our former rental house in Gulf Shores for that apartment, so that must have been somewhere between 2003 and 2008.

That apartment, too, belonged to a young Parisian family.  But their small children are now nearly grown ups.  That's what happens when a decade flies by.

The view from W's place is splendid.  The Seine, the Pont de Grenelle, the Statue of Liberty, and the Front de Seine.  If you lean out the window, you can even see the Eiffel Tower.

I could sit there for hours, watching the barges go by and the tourist boats turn around the Statue of Liberty end of the Ile aux Cygnes.  But we left after a brief visit and walked back down the avenues.  We'll see W and others on Wednesday.

By the time Tom and I were home, we'd walked 4 miles.  Not bad, considering that the first third of it was in 100 degree heat (but only 29 percent humidity) and air full of bad ozone.

Today, the air is clear and cool (in the 70s), with a pleasant and persistent breeze.  Peace.

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.  

Seizieme et Quinzieme -- so nice

September 10, 2015 -- We were strolling along the avenue Mozart in the 16^th arrondissement, when I noticed that we were at the intersection with the rue Serge Prokofiev.  Mozart eclipsed Prokofiev in breadth and grandeur.  Prokofiev was even overshadowed by the prefect Claude Erignac, who had a plaza named after him in this spot that is also home to the gendarmerie (police station) for the arrondissement.

Place du Prefet Claude Erignac

The Place du Préfet Claude Erignac is a gracious yet modest Art Deco space.  Shade trees protect it from the sun, and its setback from the avenue gives it relative calm.  With the police station right there, and its location in the middle of the chic 16^th, it is a place where you might feel safe and relaxed enough to take an afternoon siesta on a bench.  One gentleman was doing just that.

I’d mentally mapped out an hour and forty minute walk for us – up to and across the Pont Mirabeau, uphill on the rues Rémusat and George Sand, right along the avenue Mozart, and back downhill on the rues de l’Assomption and Boullainvilliers to the Pont de Grenelle.  Most of this territory we’d seen before, but we’d not been over there this summer.  And some of the streets we’ve not yet explored.

There aren’t so many major attractions in the 16^th, and that’s the way this arrondissement’s residents like it.  Calm.

So who was this prefect, Claude Erignac, whose name is important enough to have a Place that overshadows Prokofiev’s street?  I consulted Wikipedia.

He was not a prefect in the mainland of France; he was prefect on the island of Corsica.  He was not from Corsica originally, but rather from Lozere, in the south of France.  He went to Corsica to take the job of prefect of the southern part of the island in 1996.  On February 6, 1998, he was assassinated.  His murderer – a Corsican nationalist -- was found guilty three times and then sentenced to life in prison.

In the summer of that year of 1998, Tom and I were given the task of chaperoning a study abroad session for some Ohio State University students in Bath, England.  The program was only six weeks long; so when it ended, we still had a month and a half before Tom had to be back on duty, teaching, in Ohio.  Why leave Europe?  We just decided, “Let’s go to France!”  

Fortunately, this apartment in Paris, which we’d just heard about in mid-February 1998 while canoeing on the Sanibel River, became magically and immediately available to us that August.

That’s how we started summering in Paris.  This is our 18^th summer here.

As we turned down the rue de l’Assomption, I thought perhaps we’d never walked on that street before.  But then I saw an unusual red brick building with white gingerbread trim, and I remembered it from one of our first summers – from one of our first walks up into the 16^th.

Sister Marie Eugenie de Jesus is a founder of the Religious Order
of the Assumption, headquartered on the rue de l'Assomption.

The rue de l’Assomption seems to be home to a number of substantial properties owned by the Roman Catholic Church.  One is named for the nun who started the religious order of the Assumption.  Her image is emblazoned on a couple of the buildings.  Such an icon. 

When the rue de l’Assomption ended, we crossed the Place du Dr. Hayem and began our way down the rue de Boulainvilliers.  We passed by the huge, round Radio France building, which is still undergoing some renovation, and by the amusingly named Café de l’Ogre.  An “ogre” is probably what some people called the Radio France building when it was first built.

We admired the Statue of Liberty again, this time from the right bank foot of the Pont de Grenelle.  I realize now that Liberty is facing west and south – she is facing in the direction of her big sister Statue of Liberty in New York.  (Paris is far north of New York City, and obviously very far east of it.)

We finished our walk with the very familiar rue Linois and avenue Emile Zola.  In the evening, we were out again on the avenue Emile Zola, making our way to dinner at l’Épopée.

That’s where Tom especially wanted to go.  

I know that my favorite restaurant this year is l’Alchimie.  I asked Tom what his favorite for this year would be.  It took him a while to decide, but then he said, “Le Pario.”  Le Pario has exceptionally inventive and delicious food, and the service is ultra-professional.  The décor is elegant, and it is a true haven with real air conditioning on a hot summer evening.  I can see why he selects it.

But we both are very fond of l’Épopée. 

Dinner began with a mis en bouche of crème fraiche, herbs, and tomato purée.  It was exceptionally good; it awakened the taste buds.

Our starter course of chicken and mushrooms in a pastry was fine.  But the main courses stole the show.  Mine was a tender piece of cod, encrusted with peppercorns and served with softly cooked, colorful veggies and a carrot purée.  Tom’s was a tasty beef filet.  We shared a dessert of profiteroles with rich, dark chocolate sauce.

Cod encrusted with peppercorns, served with veggies and pureed carrots.

Cool, early autumn air greeted us as we left the restaurant.  This year, I am enjoying September in Paris more than ever.  That’s because we’re in the 15^th, living among Parisians, in a very civilized fashion.  We’re here in this sunny, familiar apartment, in a good old building where we know the neighbors, and they are nice.