In Bruges

If you haven't yet, go watch the movie with Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes: it's a dark comedy that takes place in Bruges, Belgium, and is basically the reason we spent 3 days in this medieval town a little out of our way.

The images in the background would be of Bruges (and it looked very similarly grey and dark and cool when we were there, though a Twitter friend was there a week later and it was in the 90s, hot and sunny).

To get there, we took a first class high speed train from Paris to Brussels (the cost was surprisingly similar to 2nd class--1st class included lunch). The views of the French countryside were beautiful, and only confirmed that we need to visit the rest of the country of France someday.

Then, we struggled in the Brussels South or Midi train station (South and Midi are the same station, and no, that's not at all confusing, dear Belgium) to figure out how to buy tickets in the machine. Luckily, a friendly tourist helper in a yellow "?" shirt (universal sign of help!) politely informed us that we were in luck: July was a special travel deal month in Belgium: half price for train tickets! But, we would have to stand in line and purchase them from a person, since our American credit card, even the one with the chip instead of the strip, doesn't work in those machines.

Rick Steves did warn me about that, but clearly I forgot.

We stayed in the Hotel Navarra, a hotel that was originally a 17th century mansion, was renovated in the very late 18th century in anticipation of Napoleon's visit (he never showed). It was a Red Cross center during WW1, a student dorm in the 1970s, and the hotel was renovated again in the 1980s and early 2000s, to be a fabulous, and inexpensive, 4 star hotel. 

 

View from our "garden view" room at Hotel Navarra



Bruges was lovely: it was grey, cool, and rainy for most of our stay, alas, but we still enjoyed walking the streets along the canals, tasting beer, and our 40 minute bike ride along a dirt bike path by the canal Napoleon had built to the tiny town of Damme. 

 

Some canals are not along streets---a very Venice-like view here.

 

Walking on cobblestones for a week is a bit of a work out on ones calves.

 

The Tower: Mike climbed it, while I waited in the square, reading the International New York Times.

 

No one wears helmets in Belgium or Amsterdam.

 



 

 

We skipped the hotel breakfast, and ate twice at our favorite venue in Bruges, Books and Brunch, where we had delicious, home cooked (the owners, a husband and wife, took turns in the kitchen, with the husband making breakfast) hot meals, surrounded by books (ok, they were in Dutch, but there were English books upstairs).

We did see the tourist sights in Bruges: we toured the De Halve Maan Brewery (and tasted the beer); we skipped the Friet (French Fries) Museum, but did visit the Chocolate Museum (where you get free tastes).  We also saw the Michaelangelo statue, Madonna and Child, at Church of Our Lady. For those who saw Monuments Men, this piece plays a big part.

We drank delicious Belgium beer, of course, at a local brewery and at the oldest pub in Bruges, Herberg Vlissinghe.

While the beer in Damme was served in bottles and mugs at a cute sandwich shop called Tijl and Nele, it was still yummy!

We returned to Bruges after a few hours, and after a lovely dinner with Michael's friend Rebecca and her boyfriend (Belgium: it's such a small country that she came from the south in Brussels, he came from the north in Antwerp, to meet us in Bruges), we took some evening pictures of the town square.

Was Bruges worth the visit? Oh, yes. Despite the rain and chill.

Neighborhoods, or Arrondissements, of Paris

Paris is divided into arrondissements, neighborhood areas, each with its own flavor: each neighborhood has a number and a name. 

[Map is from http://www.parisnet.com/parismap.html: visit there for detailed descriptions of each neighborhood]

 

We stayed in the 5th arr., or the Latin Quarter, home of the Sorbonne, the Pantheon (lots of famous people are buried inside),  and the rue Mouffetard (below), near where Hemingway lived with his wife and son in the 1920s. I loved this neighborhood: it has the old medieval streets with many cafes and shops. 

 

 

 

 

The above is the Pantheon: the dome is under construction, and since it had to be covered during construction, an artist had the brilliant idea to collect selfies from 4000 people.

 

 

rue Mouffetard. In the rain.

 

Crowds watching the July 4th World Cup match. I think that was the France vs. Germany game. Let's just say, the Dutch were MUCH MORE visibly into soccer than the Parisians, but there were many cafes with crowds on the streets looking in.

 

 

Our hotel was also on the border of the 6th arrondissement, Saint Germain. This area has many more cafes and shops, and includes the fabulous Cluny Museum. That is also where the Luxembourg Gardens is, as well as our favorite church, St. Etienne du Mont.

 



 

We also visited the 7th arr (the Eiffel Tower area), and the 14th arr., or Montparnasse, all on the Left Bank of the Seine.  If we ever get to visit Paris again, I'd say we'd still choose the 5th, or maybe the 6th arr: both neighborhoods felt the most "Paris" to me. Rick Steves, in his travel books, promotes the 7th, closer to the Eiffel Tower, specifically the rue Cler neighborhood, but while there are a few streets that look medieval, and rue Cler, a pedestrian street with restaurants and shops, is lovely, as is the ritzy area around the Rodin Museum (it's where Edith Wharton lived),  the neighborhood is too Upper East Side, and not enough like Brooklyn. I'm a Brooklyn girl at heart. It's beautiful, though.

 

We also, of course, visited neighborhoods on the right bank: arr. 1 is called the Louvre, for obvious reasons, and only a prince could live there; arr. 3 is the Marais area, which was a little seedy, but also charming: it reminded me of the Lower East Side. We got the best falafel sandwich there (it's the Jewish, and gay, neighborhood), and we saw the Shoah or Holocaust memorial. The Picasso Museum was sadly still under renovation.  The Ile de Cite (where Notre Dame is) and Ile de St. Louis are also in the Marais area, though they are literally separate island in the Seine, and have a very different feel.  Ile St. Louis is charming: old, dignified apartment buildings, and a rather upscale shop area. We walked through it a few times, but couldn't find the famous ice cream shop (we had passed it one night, but it was too cold for ice cream; trying to find it again was impossible).

 

We walked through the Pigalle, or the northern part of the 9th arr, and took a picture of the famous Moulin Rouge windmill, but that section, at night, was a little too 42nd Street.

 

 

 

The 18th arr., or Montmartre, is beautiful: high up on a hill, with Sacre Couer as its main tourist site, it's charming, with winding streets. It looked very much like some towns in Italy.  It's a bit far from many of the tourist sights, and the restaurants were a little pricey, but it's a lovely neighborhood. We did have dinner in the busier street in Montmartre, I didn't write down the name, but it was yummy. We sat outside next to a family from Tennessee who had rented an apartment in the area.  It would be a beautiful, and quiet, apartment no doubt. I'd consider it if we visit again: it felt like a locals neighborhood: I'm fairly certain that the Tennesseans and us were the only tourists there considering all the lovely French conversations I tried to listen to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 











Paris at Night

One of our most difficult challenges after arriving in Paris was staying up late enough for it to become dark. This happens in northern latitudes shortly after Summer Solstice. Yes, we all should suffer so. :)

When we come back, it should be in April.

The Seine at sunset

Even after sunset, the glow continued long enough on our first night that we gave up on light switches being toggled on at Notre Dame. As Stacey notes in a separate post, we were tired from the flight and the fight to stay awake during our boat ride on the Seine.

Rue Soufflot from Place du Pantheon

As we adjusted to the long days, it became easier to remain awake. To be honest, though, Paris is luminous day or night, rain or sunshine. I think luminous is the right word. One of my struggles leading up to Stacey's Paris-themed birthday party in December was finding a calendar that seemed to reflect the qualities that sparked Stacey to wake up one morning and say we should go to Paris. The selection in local shops was dominated by something called "Paris Glitz." Paris does sparkle, but that's not where the deeper magic lies.

Eiffel Tower -- same vantage, zoomed to highlight awesome clouds

The brightest light we witnessed in Paris was the glow on Stacey's face as we encountered, in the rain on Rue Cardinal Lemoine, the plaques marking spots where James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway lived -- this, after a more intentionally mapped visit, without rain, to the apartment of Gertrude Stein earlier in the day.

Side entrance to Saint Etienne du Mont -- not midnight, but it was dark and the streets were damp.

For another post: Paris in the Rain, featuring Stacey's umbrella. She generally does not like having her picture taken. We discovered in Versailles that given a colorful prop, Stacey will ham it up for the camera. Luminous.

Notre Dame, in the night, with the lights finally switched on

Art and Public Spaces in Paris

Yes, I loved absorbing the art in the museums (particularly l'Orangerie and D'Orsay, and the Rodin--the Louvre was too crowded to do much more than glimpse works over hundreds of heads). But it was the architecture, the gloriously beautiful buildings, public spaces, public art, that moved me more.

 

 

 

THE Mona Lisa.

 

The crowd taking a picture of the Mona Lisa (I thought so much of Don DeLillo's most photographed barn in America during this trip)

 

Venus de Milo had a similar fan club: I was able to get this close only momentarily before a tour group leader asked me to move so her group could stand there and listen to her read what sounded like the Wikipedia entry.

 

The Conciergerie: once one of the first royal palaces, later used as a prison. Marie Antoinette was one famous prisoner.

 

A view from inside the Louvre.

 

The Champ de Mars (a public park), walking toward the Eiffel Tower.

 

Outside one of my favorite museums, Musee de l'Orangerie. Inside are Monet's water lilies.

 

Rodin's Garden, outside the Rodin Museum. Here's The Thinker with the Eiffel Tower in the background.

 

Leaving the Eiffel Tower, we walked back along the right bank of the Seine (that pink scarf is the only thing I bought in Paris besides food--from the street market near our hotel).

 

The Tuileries Garden, next to the Louvre. A beautiful formal garden.

 

View from the Basilica of the Sacre Couer in the Montmartre area of Paris.

 

The steps of the Basilica of the Sacre Couer.

 

Symmetry and echoes

For me, one of the most rewarding parts of our travels are the echoes of past travels, and connections within the same trip. Dinner on our first evening in Paris began with an aperitif -- something red, with a bit of sparkle. This is how our first dinner in Venice in May 2008 began -- something red, with a bit of sparkle.

Fountain at Jardin des Tuileries, early on our first full day in Paris

 

This trip echoed within itself, sometimes in photographs, some of them arranged for (minor) dramatic effect. The top image shows our feet propped up on the edge of a fountain as we rested early on a walk that would take us from home base through the courtyard of the Louvre, the Jardin des Tuileries, the Rodin Museum. The one below is those same feet, same shoes, propped up on a wall at Zandvoort after a long afternoon of walking the beach. That beach, so far as that goes, felt similar to the long beach we walk during our regular visits to the Oregon Coast. Like Newport, but different.

Tired feet at the beach in Zandvoort

Our trip to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam on the second-to last day of our travels included some Van Goghs --from the same genius whose work was on display at the Rodin (the sculptor donated them to his own museum), Musee d'Orsay (which had borrowed some paintings from Amsterdam for its exhibit), and of course the Van Gogh Museum, which had also visited. It also included a surprising image of the Nieuwe Haarlemse Sluis on the Singel, painted in 1871 by Matthijs Maris. Maris had taken the location of one of our lunch snacks in Amsterdam (broodje, pepper sweets and wine) and imposed a Paris skyline in the background. Images of the Paris skyline were etched in our own backgrounds from the time we began planning the trip.

The painter claimed he painted this in a week to make a quick buck

Another painting at the Rijksmuseum was of the St. Bavo church in Harlaam.

Even at the time this was painted, it is unlikely the painting was physically next to the organ

From a distance -- amid heavy crowds, something looked familiar in the painting. It was the same church we had visited the day before on the initial stage of our journey to the coast. The 1636 painting, by Pieter Jaenz Saenredam, shows part of a painting of the resurrection of Christ to the side of the organ. This painting is gone now -- lost to the desecration wrought by Protestant iconoclasts who took over Catholic churches back in the day.

Organ at the church of St. Bavo

Stacey's posting about the first day triggers more echoes in my own mind and heart. The journey continues, even after it is finished.

First Day in Paris, July 2nd

Now that we are back in Bend, I have time to go through some photos from my actual camera (rather than the one on my phone) and reflect on our trip, a trip that was a celebration of my 50th birthday.

"They" (those researchers that Paula Poundstone mocks on "Wait Wait" each week) say that the most joyful part of a vacation is the planning of the vacation, more than the actual vacation. I'm not so sure I agree with that, but I admit that the planning, and the reflection, are part of the pleasure for me. Blogging about the trip is a way to keep track of the trip, and remember some of the (shareable) highlights.

Our first day in Paris was perhaps one of the more exciting days because the sun was shining (rare for much of our trip), and it was our FIRST TIME in Paris. Even though we were jet lagged, and hadn't slept, we stayed up late that first day. We arrived in Paris in the morning, and was in our hotel by early afternoon. We had plenty of daylight to see the city since the sun didn't set until after 10pm: this was a little disconcerting at first, but eventually, we counted on those long days of day light (even though it meant staying up late to see the sunset). Our room wasn't ready yet, so we took a quick one hour walk around the neighborhood while we waited.

We began our day by walking toward the Seine and Notre Dame, about a 10 minute walk from the Hotel Agora Saint Germain, passing by Le Metro, a café that was just so---Parisian:

 

Then, returning to our hotel, we walked by the famous Shakespeare and Company bookstore, and visited Saint Severin, a church famous for its stained glass. 

 

 

When the room was ready, we fought the urge to nap, and went out again, deciding to take a one hour boat ride in the Seine: while it was beautiful, and an easy way to see so many of the sites we were planning to visit that week (the Louvre, Musee D'Orsay, the Eiffel Tower), the rhythm of the boat nearly put us both to sleep.

 

 

 





After the cruise, we walked to Luxumbourg Gardens, then to a pedestrian alleyway near Blvd. St. Michele for a dinner of couscous, and finally, a sunset walk along the Seine again (and remember, sunset is at 10pm). We successfully fought off jetlag that first day.

 

 



 The picture above is of one of the many bridges over the Seine where people (tourists?) have placed locks with their names on the lock to lock their love for ever. This has caused bridge failures.  (Interestingly, the bridges in Amsterdam have only a handful of locks, so presumably the Dutch cut off the locks each week to avoid the same fate.)

 

Thus ended a long first day in Paris, a city I truly loved.