Richard’s cousin Katherine had told us about a walkway Paris had installed atop a no longer used elevated railway, so we decided to check it out on a Sunday afternoon. It’s called Le Coulee Vert, the green gully. That’s a little odd because it’s way up in the air, but that’s the translation we kept getting when we looked it up! Our GPS said that there was an entrance at a particular place, which seemed to us to be near one end, and we thought this would be our best starting point. We took a cab there and had to hunt around for the actual access and eventually found a stairway going up a couple of flights, so Richard carried my scooter up all those stairs, heroically. (It weighs about thirty pounds, not horrible but no small feat.)

The walkway is stunning in places; it’s paved the entire distance, great for my scooter, and takes you through many a green canopy, punctuated by lovely places to sit and rest, and a few art installations along the way. When we got near the far end we discovered two places we could have ascended to it more easily; one had an actual elevator, another had a zigzagging ramp through a garden, and at the very end, it gently sloped down to street level on its way past a lovely park! So, next time, if there is one, we’d start at that end, but honestly the park end is the prettiest, so, a beautiful place to end up.

We followed this with the tasty and unusual lunch at Mademoiselle Angelina by the museum at Luxembourg Gardens, which I described in an earlier blog, and that evening we had a dinner reservation at Au Clairon des Chasseurs (The Hunters’ Bugle) on the hill near Sacre Coeur church in the 18th Arrondisement. In the daytime, the plaza in front of the restaurant is often an open air market for local artists, and we’ve purchased a couple of nice pieces of artwork there in the past. The kind and helpful maître d’ at the cafe was a ringer for Billy Bob Thornton; if you’d told me he was his brother I would have believed it. The restaurant was hosting a couple of jazz manouche guitarists, and when we arrived they played one Django Reinhardt piece and from then on played numbers that were clearly for older American tourists, old standards from the 50’s and 60’s mostly (like “Volare”), which was a disappointing turn for us, the seekers of old timey French jazz. Dinner was okay; the pommes frites (French fries) were particularly good but the rest was not memorable.

The next day we visited the Eugene De la Croix museum and were a bit surprised to find that it was mostly a display of artwork done by artists who copied or emulated De la Croix, with some paintings by De la Croix that were copying other artists’ work, which apparently was a very popular thing to do back in the day. It seems that most of De la Croix’s work is in other museums! The display was in his old home, so that was interesting, and one of his old sketchbooks was there (that was my favorite aspect) along with some of his belongings. Ho hum.

We visited Saint-Sulpice, the second largest church in Paris, besides Notre Dame. It was full of large posters about its inclusion in many works of art: books, operas and so on. I hadn’t known! It really is a glorious edifice, and I would have guessed it to be even larger than Notre Dame if I hadn’t looked up the stats. There was a funeral about to begin so I felt sorry that they actually let us tourists mill around while the bereaved filed in.

That evening we visited La Coupole, a famous restaurant where many American celebrities of music and film frequented in the 1920’s to 40’s and later. It’s always fun; the waiters are a kick, and the food is always good. I had hoped they’d have one of my favorite champagnes, Billecart-Salmon (named for the color, which is more of an apricot), which you rarely see in the US. Once many years ago when we’d been there at happy hour, they’d had it for seven francs per glass, which is cheap! We still had an enjoyable time, with a different glass of bubbly.

On our last day, I was excited to visit one of my bucket list destinations, Shakespeare and Company, an English language bookstore near Notre Dame. We waited in line to get in and then browsed around; it’s a rabbit warren of rooms full of books for sale. I selected The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo to buy and told the clerk that I was also an author and handed her my three different bookmarks (one for each book). I said that if she could pass them to their buyer, I’d be most appreciative and would love for them to carry my books if possible. Her response was one of quiet elation; “Oh!” she said, as if I were a person of note, and as soon as my transaction was complete, she took the bookmarks back to the buyer or manager. I was pleasantly surprised. As to the book I bought, although it’s been quite popular, I didn’t really enjoy it much. It was about a fictional celebrity and her life, but it read like a Hollywood gossip magazine and had little depth, despite touching on some serious issues. (Sorry if you loved it; to each her own.) Oh well. Life is short and I’m getting picky about the books I read!

That evening we had reservations for a small jazz bar, Chez Georges, and hailed an Uber since the evening was rainy. As with many jazz clubs in Paris, the music was accessed down a steep winding staircase to the basement, but once we got down there it was cozy. We were there for: you guessed it, jazz manouche, although the main musician, Debi Botos, refers to herself as a gypsy jazz musician and plays “Hungarian gypsy jazz,” which she learned from her family of Hungarian musicians. Since the word “gypsy” has fallen out of favor in many places, given that the Roma consider it a slur, I don’t use that term anymore, but Ms. Botos certainly has a right to use it. She and her fellow musicians were quite good, and we enjoyed their set along with a charcuterie board and, of course, champagne.

Then it was time to finish packing, since we had to be at Charles de Gaulle airport at 8:00 the next morning!

Au revoir, belle Paris!

Next: On to Edinburgh!