The Little Words Mean the Most

Our last night in Paris: on the trail of cassoulet

What the walls and windows had to say: Paris Sunday morning

 

What the Bastille Sunday marché had to offer beginning with a new coat for Marci

and scarves and fresh oysters and coffee from around the world, ground onsite and tasted onsite

breakfast with cold, hard cider in the Marais @ the Breizh café

 

 

a.k.a. Bill's favorite crepe house

Our room with a view, a short walk from Notre Dame

They call it Cherry.

Rented from Guest Apartment Services, Paris.

Retro Tour, Paris: motorcycling with experts

The RETRO TOUR began at our front door. It rained the whole way ... and then THE SUN! Went uphill to Montmartre. Visited the wall painted with "I love you" in all languages. Ended just beyond the Eiffel Tower, in time for a good lunch. We adored everything about this: the sidecars with warm blankets, the vintage clothing of our guides and drivers, being outside not inside, the frequent stops for photos, and the excellent company of these Parisian entrepreneurs who used to all do something else and were advised, "Find something to do with tourism." This is their bright idea.

A lighter lunch Saturday, at Clover Green, Paris

A well-regarded chef with several establishments, each different.

The blessedly brief lunch menu offered certain items, either with or without scallops or chicken: small portions of well-prepared and beautifully presented vegetables. And a dessert.

Drunk with a Collioure white, very floral. The coffee came in bathtubs. Sim One's plate had cheese-flavored ice cream and magenta clovers. One of our best meals so far.

Remains of the day: Paris

This was the same brasserie where in 2016 these two, lower right, Marci and Jonathan, mourned the loss of the US presidency to a court jester, ushering in an era of "I don't know and I certainly didn't vote for him." For the camera, they reproduced their visages that day. The other night, for dinner, we sat next to a jolly table of Parisians. Sim One mentioned, in French, "We're Americans." The man replied, "Well, no one's perfect." He meant "you have a court jester as president." We apologized for the current state of affairs. He accepted, on behalf of France. ¶ Jonathan and I went to the Galeries Lafayette, to try to replace his winter coat. We were exactly one week too late for the sales. All the winter stuff was gone. The ceiling, however, remains sublime.

To Versailles, with expert private guide, Laurent, of Context Travel

    Context Travel Art & history expert, Laurent; thank you, you are deeply informative and wonderful to spend time with. Sim One and I had visited Versailles before. It was no more than a big building on that first visit. This time the building was "in context." The creation of the court at Versailles (we learned) was essential to the evolution of modern France as a nation respected by the world. It was the brainchild of the Sun King, Louis XIV, a brilliant politician who became king at age 5 and survived repeated attempts to dispose of him thereafter. It is good to be king, yes? Except you must lock up your spices with your personal key, to prevent poisoning. OK, lesson learned. The queue we skipped, because we had Laurent, a licensed private tour guide. The Sun King "logo" was everywhere. The residence. Merlin and Forrest, our companions. A hunted stag turned into a fountain. Bad selfie.

The horror prejudice & complicit government can achieve together

Wikipedia: The Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation (English: "Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation")^[2] is a memorial to the 200,000 people who were deported from Vichy France to the Nazi concentration camps during World War II. It is located in Paris, France on the site of a former morgue, underground behind Notre Dame on Île de la Cité. It was designed by French modernist architect Georges-Henri Pingusson and was inaugurated by Charles de Gaulle in 1962.\

The names