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2nd May 2000 Paris
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2nd May 2000- Our 30th Wedding Anniversary.
Tuesday was to be Versailles day. Weather forecast was for a fine day with 20c. Turned out to be bleak, windy and cold! Cheryl almost died of cold, and has had a bad chest cold ever since (It's now Friday evening and we are in Rapallo). We managed to buy her a windcheater as we were leaving Versailles, but it was far to little too late. Well, off we set from the hotel with instructions as to where to find the Post Office. Twenty minutes later we arrived, and joined a queue that would do Australia Post proud. Ches commented later that one of the attendants was on for a chat with a customer, and was indifferent to the queue, which almost ended in the street. Meanwhile, I located a stationary/bookshop/newsagent-doesn't quite look like anything in Australia except maybe our newsagencies 40 years ago. When Ches finally joined me, we bought a road map of France in preparation for our trip south the following day.
Again we headed of to the RER station which was beside the Seine River. Nature called-an delivered an experience. This was our one and only experience of a self-washing/flushing toilet. You put your money in the slot and the door opens. Upon entering and locking the door you are confronted with a toilet set 20cm off the floor. After a deep squat, you complete your exercise, only to realise that the toilet paper is immediately behind you (I advised Ches to get the paper first before sitting). You would need to be a contortionist to complete the exercise while sitting. Anyway!!!!!, exercise completed, you exit the toilet and close the door behind, at which point it is locked against further use until it has mechanically emptied the bowl and been washed and disinfected. Would love to see a queue of women waiting patiently!!! Speaking of which, I lost track of the number of times I saw women exiting cubicles in men's toilets, and strolling out past the urinals (Including Musee d'Orsay).
Finally off to Versailles. Knock your socks off vista as we turned the corner from the station, albeit Ches was clutching her backpack to her chest, and trying to shelter from the wind, behind me. Cobbled stoned enormously wide avenue leads up to the main courtyard. Lined every step of the way by Africans selling concertina postcards-chanting their sales pitch, which could have been in any language, for all I could tell. They were rugged up and even wearing gloves, it was that cold. We joined a queue, again with hordes of Huns and Vandals. Everywhere we go there are huge parties of German tourists, and we are beginning to believe that they rival the Americans when it comes to loudness. You can hear them a mile off, while most other people you have to listen carefully to detect the language. Anyway, 45 minutes later we made it inside, only to find that it was packed. Considering that Versailles used to house 20,000 people in its heyday, there had to be many thousands there this day. In almost every room, we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a guided tour in a language we didn't understand. We were forever trying to find a corner from which we could take our time to look around. The rooms were overwhelming in the size, although I had been more impressed by Napoleons rooms at the Louvre-at least in terms of furnishings. The highlights had to be; looking out the windows on the flowerbeds in spring bloom, and the Hall of Mirrors. Spring flowers in Paris have been stunning everywhere, and here where they are laid out on a grand geometric scale, was the ultimate. Took lots of video out the windows to bring it all back later. The Hall of Mirrors was on a scale that I had expected, but I hadn't prepared myself for the fact the mirror technology back then, plus 400 years of wear and tear, makes for a slightly ....
I don't know how to complete this sentence without sounding like an American tourist. I guess I had expected this to be a brilliant room with shinning mirrors and gold or gilt frames and decorations etc. I had thought it was a room that had been restored and/or maintained in a pristine state. Also, to be fair, we had been told that it was particularly special, in the late afternoon with brilliant sunshine (the room runs along the western wing), and it certainly wasn't that. In fact, looking out the windows, you couldn't see more that 300 metres through the mist. Nevertheless, Versailles was special.
We managed to buy Cheryl a windcheater in town and found a fast food shop in a mall. They made up baguettes to order-hand in a disposable rubber glove and dip into the containers you select. A baguette and a hot chocolate warmed us up for the return journey (about half an hour). I had been preparing myself for not getting to see any Monets on a large scale. To get to the Museum, we would have had to connect with the Metro, and head back in the same direction as Versailles, so we settled on a flying visit to the Musee d'Orsay. With only two hours, we decide to limit ourselves to the Impressionists collection on the top floor. Cannot believe that at 3.00 pm there are still half-hour queues to get into almost everything. Wonderful collection of Van Goghs, Renoires, Monets and Lautrecs. The sad thing is, that four days later, they are all beginning to fade from memory. We contemplated buying the catalogue, but decided instead to buy some individual art books when we return home. Not as good as the real thing, but it should trigger memories. I did not even contemplate filming or photographing-I left that to the American tourists.
When they threw us out, we headed for the subway for a hasty trip home to change and go out for our anniversary dinner at La Fermette Marbeuf 1900. This almost turned into a disaster when we hopped on the wrong metro, and ended up in Montparnasse. The connecting metro to get back home could only be accessed by a kilometre walk above ground through peakhour traffic. We arrived back at the hotel at 7.30, and were due at the Restaurant at 8.00, and it was over near the Arc de Triomphe. Arrived half an hour late, which was probably a good thing. While service was initially slow, it meant we were able to linger for hours in the most amazing belle epoch restaurant. The story goes that in 1975 or thereabouts, they were tearing down a masonite and formica wall to extend a room in a lunch cafeteria, when they discovered this amazing painted glass, tile and wrought iron walls and ceilings, in belle epoch style. They decided to take their time and restore the room in its entirety. In 1982, an inspector from a government department paid them a visit, inspected the room and announced that he had discovered another identical room in another part of Paris, and the building was to be demolished. The owner bought the room at auction, and took two years to move it and reconstruct in an adjoining room at the restaurant. In 1983 it was listed by the Government, and opened as a restaurant in 1985. Can't even begin to describe the decor-just wonderful. We took photographs and were given photographs by the staff. All the painted glass ceilings and walls are back lit, and there are only a few very small spotlights to accentuate the wrought iron columns, so the lighting is subtle. Even the photographs won't do it justice, but for some strange reason, while I find it hard to picture in my minds' eye some of the wonderful impressionist art of that afternoon, I have no difficulty seeing these wonderful rooms-particularly the one we dined in. And then there was the food!!!! A gin and tonic for Ches and my Vodka on ice were slow in coming-but what the hell, we had this room to "drink in". Wine is a real killer in France-for the most part I could be drinking cask wine for all I knew, but there is little for under 380ff. A French passenger on our flight from Hong Kong had warned that the price of wine is steep because of government taxes. To be honest, the wine we had at both the Eiffel Tower and la Fermette was no better than most $20.00 wines back home. The food however, was something else again.
Ches started with a Tarte Legumes (A tart with summer vegetables and basil) which she said was delicious. I had Terrine Volaille, (Chicken livers coarsely chopped rather than a smooth pate)-wonderful. For mains Ches had the Magret Canard (Duck with mango and ginger) while I had Selle Agneau (Saddle of Lamb with snake beans). For desert we had Delice (soft chocolate cake-somewhat like a mouse), mine with mandarin-I couldn't help myself: it was my jaffa heritage coming to the fore. We lingered over coffee, and noticed that the tables all turned at least once (except for ours). It was full when we arrived, and the twenty restaurants we had passed on our way down the street were barely half full. On leaving, our dining room was still close to full, but the other restaurants were now empty. It really is one of THE restaurants of Paris.
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