Saturday - on my own in Paris

Last night David and I agreed that today I would be on my own during the day and then in the early evening I would come back to the apartment, chill, and then we would have dinner in the ‘hood.

So, we started the day enjoying coffee and croissants out doors at the Cafe Contrescarpe two blocks uphill from the apartment. It sits on the beautiful circular place Contrescarpe which is at the head of the famous pedestrian street rue Mouffetard. It is also the starting point for rue Cardinal Lemoine which goes past Ernest Hemingway's 1920s apartment where he wrote "The Sun Also Rises" and wrote about in "The Moveable Feast," his memoir of his early days in Paris. When we finished our croissants we went to a bookstore and David bought me a copy of “The Movable Feast,” which he gave to me with instructions that I HAD to read it while in Paris. Hum ... I wonder ...

While we were in the area we checked out the Hotel Grand Ecoles, across from Papa Hemingway's place, for future visitors who may not care for the limited space in David's apartments. I then headed down rue Cardinal Lemoine to the bus stop to head over to the art museum known as The Pompidou Center.


While some people hate modern art, I love it, and The Pompidou Center contains Europe’s best collection of 20th-century art. I got there at noon, bought my ticket for 9 Euros and the audio tour. When I was here in 2007 they didn’t have an English audio tour. As you can tell from the photos, the structure is somewhat “different” and it has been described as “exoskeletal,” and was quite controversial when it opened in 1977.

I went to the top, the 6th floor, and slowly worked my through works by Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, Dali, Warhol and others, ending on the ground floor around 4:00. Chilled a bit in the cafe and then decided that I would walk back to the apartment, so out I went.

The weather was awesome. My walk took me past Notre Dame and across the Seine and back to the apartment. I estimate the distance to be about 2.5 miles.

In the evening it was dinner around the corner from Place Contrescarpe at a family restaurant for my first three course meal of this trip: Soup l’ Onion, lamb and a good - read great - American-styled banana split. It was a perfect way to end a perfect day.

Tomorrow, Sunday, we are going on another day-trip out of Paris, this time to visit Napoleon's residence at Malmaison.

So, more to come. Thanks again to David for his help in preparing this post.

Billi Pod
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