From the Bastille to La Villette!

1) Place Bastille from Arsenal;
2) Our boat; we enter into the tunnel in the center of the picture;
3) Me on boat;
4) The start of the underground canal;
5) It’s dark in there!!

Allo! Allo!

Memo to the blogging person … ALWAYS blog before going to bed – makes the mornings SO much easier! So…here we are, recapping yesterday, Tuesday.

First we had some household things that needed doing. While we LOVE being in a flat by ourselves, some of the “hotel luxuries” – like bed making and changing – don’t seem to get done unless you do them yourselves! So, not wanting to spread sheets and towels out all over the apartment, we opted for heading first thing (about 8 actually…) down to the Laundromat around the corner with all the sheets and towels. Met a delightful man named Lloyd at the Laundromat; he is a transplanted American, originally from Puyallup, Washington, but living the past 38 years in Paris. He and his wife live across the street from us, so we may try and get together for wine sometime soon!

Everything clean and relatively dry (at least the dryers only go in one direction here, unlike Venice, when they’d go 20 seconds, stop for 5, and then go 20 seconds in the other direction … certain to set wrinkles all over the place!) It only took a bit over an hour to get things done, and we headed home. Remade made beds and straightened up (plus discovering that R was on his last pair of clean white socks) so doing a load of laundry in the flat…ended up drying clothes all over the place anyway, but at least easier to control than sheets!

Finally got finished around noon, and headed out to the Bastille. At a friend’s recommendation, we had booked on the 2:30 p.m. cruise from the Arsenal port at Bastille, down the Canal St. Martin and out at Villette, and we needed to find the departure point. Beautiful day at the Bastille, in spite of the Opera House, which (in our opinion) is AWFUL … but then we’re MUCH more prone to classics like the Arena di Verona or the Opera Garnier here in Paris. Found the place, but still had about an hour and a half, so decided to have lunch.

Went into the Café de l’Opera; very attractive café, but fairly mediocre food (in my opinion). I ordered a croque Monsieur – a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, with fries (overfried…) and R, saying we hadn’t had fish since we got here, ordered Durade and haricots verts. Well…WHY do they insist on presenting the ENTIRE fish, including its HEAD??? I know some folks like fish cheeks, but why don’t they just ask first? At any rate, R got his BIG fish, all parts included … and I wanted to move to another table! However, he is very good at de-boning and filleting fish … UGH! Of that I did NOT take a picture; just use your imagination!! We followed our meals with tarte aux pommes (apple tart) for R and I thought I ordered chocolate ice cream, but instead got some icecream, some odd sort of sauce as well as a good 4 inches of whipped cream! Ugh yet again! Finishing this (or not, as the case may be…) we headed back to the boat at the Arsenal.

We were (surprise!) the first ones in line when they opened the boat, and were able to sit in the very front row of the boat. (Notwithstanding that it was a cold day and there was a nice, heated indoor cabin!) However…better to see, right?? Boat left at 2:30 p.m. and headed immediately into a LONG (about 2 km) tunnel – going right under the street! The park that we walked along on Sunday, and the place where they have the wonderful market, is directly on top of the tunnel! It was amazing! The tunnel was brick, and had something like 37 openings along the route to provide light and ventilation for the days when there was no electricity. Tunnel originally completed under one of the Napoleon’s---III, I think?! Once we got through the tunnels we went through a series of 4 double locks; very exciting! (As if we hadn’t had enough locks on our boat trip, right Chris & Brenda??) as well as bit damp…Lots of people on the bridges overhead; them taking pictures of us, we taking pictures of them!

All in all, it was a delightful 2 ½ hour trip down to the Park at La Villette. They did let people off there if they wanted, before heading back up to the Bassin. We got off there and walked to the nearest metro station – only a block or two – and headed back to the flat. Quite a journey across town, but we stuck to the metro to make better time than buses at rush-hour; got home about 5:30 p.m.

Decided to have a light dinner, (especially as R had had a big lunch); R finished the roast chicken from Sunday, and we stopped at the Boulangerie and I got a wonderful individual quiche made with spinach and bacon. Quick and yummy, as we needed to leave about 7:30 to get down to Notre Dame for our concert! Made it there in about 15 minutes (RER again…) and already there was a LONG line stretching away from the cathedral.

Just a BEAUTIFUL night, and our camera safely tucked away at home! The moon was almost full, and the cathedral is beautifully lit at night – lots of lovely tree branches … decided to try and go back tonight, but rain seems to have moved in, so will have to see!

The doors of the cathedral were opened at 8, and YEA! Those few of us who already had tickets got to enter directly!! So got EXCELLENT seats just a few rows back from the front. Concert was lovely. Unlike our last ND concert, which was all Gregorian Chants, this was called “Polyphonies medievales Coronoa Christi.” In addition to the 9-man choir that does the Gregorian chants, there was a second choir, 3 men and 7 women, who did the higher ranges. They preformed for an hour and a half, breaking into smaller groups for some songs/verses, and interweaving the singing of all of the choir for others. All in all a lovely performance (although we still preferred the all Gregorian chant concert; very different!)

Got home on a beautiful evening by 10:30 p.m. and was too tired to blog! However, have decided that regardless of how tired, will blog at night, so that we can get moving more quickly in the morning!

And where has all our wonderful weather gone? After weeks of lovely and fairly clear weather, suddenly everything from now until we come home is predicted to be rainy, cloudy, foggy or a combination of the three! Oh well! We brought the umbrellas! This will mean, however, that we will be doing outside things when the weather permits, and inside things when it doesn’t. Think today might be a museum day; not sure! May head to the Louvre for lunch! (Also, Musee d’Orsay is open late on Thursday night; may go there tomorrow afternoon!)

So, on that note, time to get moving!
Much love and more later!

m