Rush hour in Paris

Having not lived in a city for the last twenty years, I kind of forget about things like "rush hour." I was reminded last week. I think it was around 18h15 when I left Andy at the Gare de l'Est and headed across town to Montparnasse. I took the Number 4 line, the most direct route and the main north-south métro line across town. I had to ride through fourteen station stops, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with my fellow passengers all the way. I was the only person I saw wearing a mask.

One of the pedestrian tunnels between the subway and the train station. Not a mask in sight.

When I got to my stop, Gare Montparnasse, I had a long trek through tunnels from the métro to the train station. You can bet I took advantage of escalators and moving sidewalks to speed my walk. Hey, I'm a senior citizen now!

Drinks in Paris

After our lunch, my friend Andy and I went up to La Villette and the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (Science and Industry Museum). We spent most of our time there wandering through an exhibit on industrialization across the globe. The museum is huge, I described it as the Pompidou Center on steroids, and it's surrounded by a large park. Once back outside, we started walking toward the Gare de l'Est (where Andy's train would depart that evening). Realizing it was a little farther than we thought, we hopped on the métro.

Me (l) and Andy (r) taking selfies outside The Place To...

We stopped at a café called À la Ville de Provins just outside the station for a couple of drinks in the sun. When the sun dropped behind a building, it started to feel very cold, so we got up and went to have a look inside the station. It's been renovated since the last time I saw it, turned into a huge shopping mall on several levels just in front of the train hall.

We went back outside to a bar called The Place To... Strange name, but the place was nice. Andy and I sat at the bar and had another glass before going our separate ways, he to the station across the street and me to the métro. My train was leaving in just over an hour from the Montparnasse station across town.

Lunch in Paris

I had a couple of ideas for restaurants and a couple of others recommended by friends. Andy wanted to go someplace typically "French," so we headed over to Bastille and a traditional style bistro called Chez Paul. Thanks go to regular reader Bettyann for the recommendation! We were a little early, so we took a stroll around the neighborhood. We were the first to be seated for lunch, but the place filled up pretty quickly after that.

Andy snapped this photo during the first course. I don't know what was going on with my hair...

We both decided to order the menu du jour. If I remember correctly, Andy's appetizer was a salade de maquereau fumé (smoked mackerel salad) with warm potatoes and other vegetables in vinaigrette. I chose gésiers confits avec sauce au Porto (preserved gizzards served in a Port wine sauce). Wine was a demi-pichet (50cl pitcher) of Côtes du Rhône red. Perfect.

One of two waitresses (behind the bar). Friendly, professional, and fun!

We both took the same main dish, araignée de cochon (a tender cut of pork, I'm not at all certain what it's called in English) in a honey/vinegar sauce with a side of thick French-fried potatoes. The potatoes were perfectly crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. We continued with the Côtes du Rhône. Again, perfect.

The room was full of happy diners. There's another room upstairs and another, bigger room on the other side of the bar.

We each had a slice of apple tart for dessert and coffee after. A wonderful meal all around, made even better by the bustling atmosphere, the friendly staff and, of course, the company.

A day in Paris

I didn't take many photos yesterday. It was more fun just being in the moment, reminiscing with my colleague and friend, Andy. And the train ride. Remember, I'm a transit nerd and Andy and I worked together in a transportation policy and planning agency back in the '90s. Early Friday morning, I took a regional train from Saint-Aignan over to Saint-Pierre-des-Corps (just outside of Tours) where I transferred to a high-speed train up to Paris. There was a lot of fog outside, but it was pretty much broken up when we arrived in Paris. The full trip took about two hours, and that with a 30-minute layover between trains.

Windmills in the fog out the window of my train as we zipped along at over 300 kilometers per hour.

I arrived at the Montparnasse station pretty much on time and walked over to a café called Au Chien qui Fume (At the Smoking Dog) on the Boulevard Montparnasse and the rue du Cherche-Midi where Andy and I had agreed to meet. The atmosphere was so typically Parisian and the coffee hit the spot. We spent a good hour gabbing about old times and people we knew before moving on. But first we had to decide where to have lunch.

Chancellerie

This is the Chancery on the grounds of the Château de Chenonceau. I don't know anything about it or why it's there. I'm sure some industrious internet researchers could find out. I like the photo, but I'm not sure about the big tree. I cropped most of it out for this post.

The chancery faces the river. March 2006.

I'm heading up to Paris for the day today. A former colleague of mine is in town and we're going to have lunch together. The last time we saw each other was almost twenty years ago (yikes!) when he and his wife visited us here in the Loire Valley. I'm looking forward to catching up.

Another snack bar

It's a little bigger than the one at Valençay. The snack bar at Chenonceau is a nice place to have a bite. In the nice weather, there has been an ice cream cone vendor there. I don't know if that's always the case, but a cool cone on a hot day while strolling in the gardens can be refreshing. Not on this day, however.

If there were customers, they were inside. March 2006.

It's still just below freezing in the mornings. But our days have been bright and sunny. When the breeze calms down, it can feel quite nice.

Docking bay

Because the Château de Chenonceau is built on a river, the Cher, it makes sense that there would be a place to park a boat. And this is it, just upstream of the castle on the river's right bank.

A long time ago there was commercial traffic on the Cher. No more. March 2006.

Just in case you're confused, when you face downstream, a river's right bank is on your right and its left bank is, well, on your left.