After a very full day with Richard’s cousins, on the next day, we slept in, barely made it to our hotel’s (expensive but delicious buffet) breakfast, worked out in the pool, and got a late start on gadding about. We moseyed over to Les Deux Magots (The Two Flies, as in, two flies on the wall discussing “don’t you wish you knew what”), the notable cafe where many famous arts and literature luminaries hung out back in the early twentieth century. We enjoyed a very nice lunch, and sat on the terrace in the sun watching people walking by either arm in arm or having heavy discussions, and often smoking, smoking, smoking. I had forgotten how much the French smoke. We hardly ever see or smell it in the US.

 

We braved the cobblestones to visit the church of St Germain du Pres, since it’s the place from which the neighborhood we stayed in takes its name. It was lovely, with the religious artwork all large churches or cathedrals in Paris contain, but really what we liked best was the adjacent garden, where we sat for a while and did more people watching.

 

That evening we again had dinner at Colvert, but the beef we’d ordered was more than we could eat—and they wouldn’t let us take it back to our hotel fridge for whatever reason (!!), so the restaurant came down a notch in our esteem. This is unusual in Paris; all the other restaurants we visited let us take away our leftovers.

 

Later in the evening we made our way over to our old stomping grounds in the Latin Quarter on Rue de la Harpe and had drinks and ice cream at Monk: La Taverne de Cluny, a bar worth checking out as a must when in Paris. We specifically visited because they had jazz manouche on the schedule for the evening, as they often do. This is “gypsy” jazz in the style of Django Reinhardt, which we love, and had intended to try and hear as much as possible while we were in Paris. Years ago, we’d been to a dinner club far from the Latin Quarter on a Sunday night where they had an open mic for jazz manouche. There had been several young men playing who were remarkably good, better than some of the musicians we’d paid to hear back in the states. But this didn’t seem to be on offer anywhere this time around, and the guys playing at Monk were pretty good. We slowly sipped our drinks to the music until we were ready to go back to our lovely hotel and pack for our move the next day.

 

The move went smoothly enough; our next hotel, because Hotel d’Aubbusson was only available for eight nights, was Hotel Baume, not far from Jardin du Luxembourg. I had booked Baume because we could get a double room with a terrace; a little more room than Aubbusson and a space to sit outside, and in my planning fantasy, enjoy breakfast and maybe people watch. Well, that image was quickly quashed. The rooms were okay; the bedroom was smaller than the one we’d come from, and had a street view, the better part of which was the large cement plaza in front of the Theatre Odeon just up the street. On good days, the plaza was filled with tables and the café served the hundred or so people enjoying the sunshine. But that was not where our terrace was, so if you wanted to see the plaza and the bland facades of the building across the street you needed to stand by the window. Aside from that, there were no cafes within a couple of blocks, which was a bit of a disappointment.

 

And the terrace? Well, it was very small and had huge chairs too big for the space plus a table, all covered due to recent rain, and a lot of plants so that you couldn’t really see anything else. The reason for that was that the terrace looked out on a narrow space between the hotel and two other buildings. There was no view, and it rained most of the time we were there, so there was no opportunity to use the terrace; the chairs and table remained covered. We’d paid a little extra for a room with a terrace, but of course the hotel wasn’t responsible for the weather. Sigh. The lobby was dramatically furnished in almost garish colors and uncomfortable looking furniture, which perhaps would be considered “modern.” In hindsight, although the hotel was somewhat nice, and the personnel there were very accommodating, given there are few cafes nearby and no views to speak of, I think we wouldn’t stay there again, despite the monetary savings. It would probably be all right for someone on their first trip to Paris who is fine with walking a couple of blocks to find a restaurant. The hotel serves only breakfast and lunch and late afternoon appetizers, but not dinner.

 

We went for a walk through Luxembourg Gardens, always lovely, and had Italian gelatos at a crowded little shop on the other side of the park. Dinner was a fantastic Vietnamese takeout, from Le Saigon d’Anita, which Richard procured on a rainy walk and we ate in our small “living room.” That was  one of our most delicious meals in Paris. Not really that surprising, since the French had settled in Vietnam.

 

On our tenth day in Paris, I was excited to meet up with Janis Daly, another author form the US and also a book promoter, who had done a book club promotion for me a couple of months previously. We again visited Procope and Janis’s book club pal Bonnie joined us as well. It was a delight to get to know each other in person, especially in the rarefied atmosphere of Paris. We planted the mental seeds for a historical fiction panel together with another author, Ginny Moyer, at a bookstore near our home next January, too. And, I managed to get out the door of Procope this time without falling over!

 

That evening, I had gotten classical music tickets for us at Sainte-Chapelle, an exquisite chapel built in the mid-1200’s by King Louis IX. It’s on the Ile de la Cite’ about a block from Notre Dame, and is a not-to-be-missed site, even if you don’t go for a concert. The two-story stained-glass windows are particularly impressive in the late afternoon, but since we were arriving at 8:00 in the evening in late September, the light from sparkling chandeliers inside was more striking than light from outside. Getting into the building was challenging with my scooter, as we had to go through a security gate, so Richard had to take the scooter apart. Then, glad that the rain had stopped, we followed a circuitous outdoor route to an indoor elevator.

 

Music played in Sainte-Chappelle is enhanced greatly by the remarkable acoustics. I had selected this night because Mozart and Schubert were on the program, among other classical composers. Soon after we settled into our seats, and heard the first number played by a string quartet, a female singer was introduced, and she began to sing an aria. And then another aria, and another. Richard put his face near mine and whispered, “Did you know it was going to be opera?” I whispered, “No, I didn’t see that; I just saw who the composers were, but now that you mention it, it may have said ‘arias.’” He gave me a look that said, “Wish we would have known,” which I silently returned with a shrug saying, “Oh well; I agree.” We are not opera buffs and our previous instrumental concerts at this venue have been transcendent, and for us, this one was not. She had a pretty good voice, but I thought it was strange that she needed to watch her iPad to sing the most famous “Ave Maria” ever written. There’s a pretty good restaurant, Le Mistral, just over the bridge across the Seine toward the Marais neighborhood, and it has long hours, so we were fortunate to get a late dinner there and ironed out some disagreements we’d had, while enjoying a very nice seabass. Yes, even on vacation, it’s possible to have disagreements, but talking them over quietly in a café is not a bad way to come to an understanding.

 

Next installment: Our last three days in Paris