Paris Parks

If it weren't totally obvious how much we love the Paris park system, I have to tell you we just spent most of a week dragging a friend from one park to another, plopping him down on our pique-nique blanket with wine and cheese, and exclaiming "Isn't this fantastic!" And truly, it is a good time.

Place des Vosges

Jardin de Reuilly

More of our pictures of sundrunk Parisians here and there

Paris parks are not only places where you can huff flowers or promenade yourself. If there's sunshine, there is essentially a big, happy, relaxed party on every lawn in every park, where you can read, nap, have a meal or an apéro, people-watch, dodge flying toddlers, and otherwise just enjoy the life.

This may be a common experience in large cities, where people tend to live in tiny apartments without any green space to call their own. But as far as we know, it is not very common in Minneapolis, where many people have their little patch of land and stay within their fences. At home, we don't hang out among strangers nearly as much; so we were really surprised to find that we liked being two of a hundred or so people sitting around together. Not necessarily paying any attention to each other, but relaxing in proximity. At least for us, the Parisian habit of really using and enjoying public spaces, with the rest of the public, is new and different and enormously pleasant.

We have repeatedly vowed to each other to start a pique-nique ritual when we get home. Frankly I'm not sure it'll be quite the same if we can't be in a giant field with a ton of other people, but we'll try. Expect to see us spreading out the big yellow blanket somewhere in Minnehaha Park later this summer.

Jardin de Reuilly

One of our first pique-niques in Paris was at the Jardin de Reuilly. Remember? It seems like so long ago. Saturday we returned. After visiting many, many squares and parks in Paris, we've developed favorites for different purposes. Jardin de Reuilly is a strong contender for number 1 in the sitting in the sun, eating, drinking and doing nothing category. So here we go again- a beautiful day, lying on the grass, feelings of calm and well-being. How about another shoddy panoramic photo to illustrate the scene?

from the bridge
I think I'm the shadow in the upper right

Please note our lovely new cheap polyester tablecloth. 

Light and compact, it's always ready when the pique-nique mood strikes.

Parc de l'Île St-Germain

It's still very nice out in Paris, thanks for asking. Last weekend visited an island in the Seine just outside the southwest border of Paris. l'Île St-Germain was used for military exercises until the 1980s when half was developed into housing and the other half turned into a park. It's got that hidden-refuge-within-the-big-city feel to it. And flowers.

Cherry, apple and whatever else trees have been flowering like crazy lately. 

one of the many gardens is dedicated solely to lavender

it smelled good

some roads and parts of the old military buildings were used as design elements

A large strange statue. We pique-niqued at the base of the hill.

Meudon

Meudon is a town/suburb a couple kilometers to the southwest of Paris. It is home to a large national forest as well as an observatory. The observatory was built in the late 1800s, on a high plateau called the Grand Terrasse, which was once the grounds of a 16th century château. The grounds are still well maintained and provide a sweeping view of Paris. 

a 360 degree panorama

Meudon Nation Forest                          observatory                                       precipice                                       Meudon/Paris

the view to the east, overlooking Meudon and Paris

Lia on the edge of the terrasse and the observatory to the west

The high temperature was about 20ºC/68ºF- perfect for the year's first pique-nique. We found a noble tree in a corner of the terrasse, far from the park guardhouse with its "Pique-Nique Interdit" sign. How can you ban picnics? 

The tree would have shaded the southwest corner of the château, had it not fallen into disrepair and been burned down in 1870 while it housed occupying Prussian soldiers. 

As you can see, the dappling was perfect.

After lunch, we struck out into the forest. The trees are just starting to sprout leaves.

one of the many patches of white wildflowers throughout the forest

Avignon

Here are some pictures from our short trip to Avignon during fall break. This is the city in Provence where the popes were based for a few hundred years when things in Rome got a little too hot for them. While in residence, the popes fortified the city and built themselves a pretty impressive palace, and everything is fairly well-preserved as far as I can tell. If you imagine a cross between a stereotypical medieval city and Southdale mall, you will have a pretty good idea of what Avignon is like today.

Our original plan involved renting bikes and riding them to the Pont du Gard, the very famous Roman bridge and aqueduct about 25 kilometers away. When we arrived, however, the famous Mistral wind rendered that not such a great idea. So we wandered around the city, got a bunch of stuff at the market, and had a picnic at the Rocher des Doms park right above the Palais des Papes. By luck, we got together with a friend from the University of Minnesota who is working in Montpellier this year. And we went for a good long walk outside Villeneuve-lès-Avignon on the other side of the Rhone river. Here are some pictures of these exciting events.

 

 I should say Avignon is well preserved with the exception of the famous bridge, which people got tired of rebuilding in the seventeenth century or so. I guess there is a well-known nursery rhyme about dancing on the bridge of Avignon, though neither Jeff nor I had heard of it. 

Lunch! terrine, cheese, olives, tart, baguette, wine.

 Flattering shot of me with Provençal tart.

 The olives were definitely good. Jeff thought they were fabulous. 

I ate two and almost liked them, which is high praise considering how I generally feel about olives.

You get a great view of the countryside from the Rocher des Doms. You can get an idea of that and of what the wind was like from these little videos Jeff took. I later read that due to the Mistral, most trees in this area grow leaning towards the south.

 That second video shows part of the Palais des Papes. This is the biggest gothic castle still standing. Here are some more photos of it.

This is the Fort Saint André near Villeneuve, seen from our walk near the river. 

It was built by king Philippe le Bel towards the end of the 13th century to help keep the popes in line.

Walking around the countryside near Villeneuve. It was nice to get outside of an urban setting for a while, and even the big parks in Paris are full of people most of the time.

So that's the news for the moment; today we are reading books in the apartment and listening to the rain on the roof.

Seasons and Mushrooms

If you've been bowing at the altar of the internet gods for us, we thank you - we do now have real internet in the apartment! Everyone will be shocked to hear that the long wait was the result of an administrative mix-up, and our internet had been activated without any notification being sent. Ah well, bygones.

I'd mention all the very lovely food we've been eating, but Jeff is going to tell you more about that later. I will restrict myself to mentioning that the pig's ear salad at l'AOC. It is amazing: rich and caramely and sticky with a little balsamic vinegar, and not chewy at all. Truly wonderful, and that's coming from someone who is not that adventurous in her choice of meats.

The weather here has been gorgeous - cool, dry, and brilliantly sunny - so we've been trying to soak up as much light and flower power as possible before winter sets in. As you may have noticed, we are great fans of the city parks for our picnics and walks: any average day can be brightened up by an interlude in the Place des Vosges, lying on the lawn with a thousand other people.

Last weekend we went to the Bois de Vincennes, a very large park on the eastern edge of the city. This was originally a royal hunting preserve conveniently located outside the Château de Vincennes, later turned into a military training ground. Louis-Napoleon turned it back into a public park and added trees and lakes, and now it's a lovely place to spend a nice Sunday afternoon.

At the Parc Floral in the Bois de Vincennes, we also visited an exhibit on mushrooms. You may not be aware that this is the Semaine Nationale du Champignon, but it is, and even if you are not French, American mushrooms surely deserve some celebration, and maybe even a hug.

They're pretty high on my favorite food list, anyway, so off we went. We saw a few hundred different kinds of mushrooms in little trays: some tasty, some hallucinogenic, some that could shut down your kidneys or induce heart failure. Disturbingly, most of them looked very much alike. I left the exhibit convinced that mushroom-hunting is best left to professional mycologists.

There were also some mushrooms that smelled convincingly of something else: kerosene, ink, etc. Here I am, checking the garlic-scented mushrooms.

Okay, that was slightly exaggerated for effect, but they really did smell very strongly of garlic.

The Parc Floral has a lot of nice gardens, as you'd guess, and some interesting plants, including a giant rhubarb.

They also had a corner full of pine trees that smelled for a second like the North Woods. We were already feeling a little wistful after seeing the Santeri Tuori video installation at the Institut Finlandais, a very large-scale time-lapse projection of a forest going through the seasons. So we are currently planning a trip up to Bretagne (alias Brittany), which we think will be a lot like the North Shore but with oysters and medieval things. That will be the week after next, assuming the trains are running.

If everyone out there could just think a little harder about our home internet getting hooked up, I think we could make it happen. A few moments of silent meditation. A quick muttering before a shot of Beam, perhaps. Orange, as the formerly state-run telecommunications company is known, says it takes about 15 days to get things going. How is this possible? If someone could offer a reason I would be happy to wait the time needed to rev up our internet. Any explanation more than a shrug and a sympathetic smile would be sufficient. Anything to get this image of a guy waiting 15 days to press our Internet Button out of my head. Reasoned explanations not being regularly forthcoming over here, I am ready to resort to supernatural means. Thank you in advance for your prayers and small animal sacrifices.

In more cheerful news, we visited a lovely park. There is an old elevated rail line running from Bastille to Bois de Vincennes that has been converted to green space called the Promenade Plantée. While we haven't walked the entire length yet, we did explore far enough to reach Jardin de Reuilly, a beautiful collection of gardens surrounding a wide green space. Parks in Paris tend to be tight, formal affairs, without a lot of open spaces, so the big lawn is a welcome novelty.

The lawn has a footbridge arching over it. It's cool. Lia inspected the gardens. Satisfactory.

We pique-niqued with goods bought at the Bastille Saturday market. The bees and wasps were diverted by the release of decoy ham.

Another reason to love Paris was found at Reuilly- free sparkling water! Eau pétillante, all you the bottles you can fill, for free!

Today we visited Uniqlo, a fashionable yet bargain-priced clothing store based in Japan. Clothing is really expensive here so we are trying to find the good cheap stuff. I think only rich tourists shop at the regular clothing stores. Everyone else is buying €5 knock-off Converse from sidewalk vendors or shopping at H&M and Uniqlo. We bought jeans for €10 each. After shopping we grabbed some sandwiches and ate them on the steps of the Opera. While eating, a pigeon shit in our bag on our new pants. I was displeased.(no photo)

Right now, Lia is doing some heavy cinema theory reading while lamb stews away on the stove and I try not to drink too much wine before dinner. Our colds are waning. I have a new guitar. This weekend we are going to check out an exhibit at the Institut Finlandais. Something about forests.