Journey with Django: Paris!

On September 17th, Simon started a tour of Norway and Sweden, opening for Chip Taylor who had a few huge hits as a songwriter including "Wild Thing" and "Angel of the Morning" (he's also actor Jon Voight's brother, and uncle to Angelina Jolie).

I decided to take a side trip to Paris for a few days with Django to visit our good friends Ann and Bill (from Los Angeles) who've been living in France for over a year. I found a reasonable fare on the Eurostar fast train, then a flight to Denmark where we would stay with Simon's mom for the remainder of his two week Scandinavian tour.

The fast train is a marvel. You can get really good deals if you buy tickets in advance and go from London to Paris in two hours!. If you took a bus it would take 8-9 hours. The train goes up to 200 mph!

Here's Django checking out the scenery whizzing by.

Paris. Ok, first things first. Cafe au lait and pastry. Yum!

About coffee in France. You can get a predictably good cup of coffee just about anywhere, as long as you order a cafe au lait (On my first trip to Paris several years ago, I made the mistake of ordering a cappuccino and it was the only bad coffee I've ever had in France. Those French are damn proud, so don't ask for foreign coffee for God's sake!). It must be some kind of birthright, a nice cup o' joe. Maybe the coffee making practices are nationally standardized, because a cafe au lait tastes pretty much the same everywhere you go. Luckily, it's yummy, especially when accompanied by pain chocolat!

Django and I returned to this cafe on another day and had baguette sandwiches.

In the subway.

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The subways in Paris feel a lot less civilized than the Underground in London. I think the French in general are less "civilized" than the British, but I'm not sure if that is putting it right. There is a very distinctly different energy to the two cities despite both being very cosmopolitan and geographically close. Honestly, I have a strong preference for London, or better put, I really like London, and I really don't care for Paris too much. London is a huge, vibrant city with anything you want and an abundance of wonderful parks. So you can get away fairly easily to a quiet space. Paris strikes me as a very frenetic city with no place to rest (except for the cemetery, which I loved-- see below...) It is beautiful though, and you can hardly turn around without running into some wonderful historical site. I think I would have preferred Paris about 100 years ago or so, or maybe in the 1950s...

There is something admirable about the French attitude though -- they tend to put up with less crap and will protest and take to the streets on issues that effect their lives. My friend Ann also told me that it's the Parisian way to fight with your neighbor over any big or small issue, but at the end of the day, you are still friends and there's no problem. If you don't fight, you must not care!

A nice day in the park. We were extremely fortunate with the weather during our visit. It was in the 70s and sunny everyday. Unfortunately we were both fighting a flu and I had very little energy for two of the four days, so mostly stayed in.

At the Parc des Butte Chaumont, a wonderful park with waterfalls and a belvedere sitting atop a rocky island.

View from the top. Montmartre in the distance.

View of Montmartre (where many 19th and early 20th century artists including Renoir, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, and Dali lived and had studios). The charming hill is also home to the Sacré-Cœur Basilica. (also the setting of the films Amélie, La Vie En Rose, and Moulin Rouge)

I would have liked to visit Montmartre but thought better of it, what with our cheap travel stroller and all those (damn) charming cobblestones.

The bustle of a sprawling multi-street flea market. I didn't have the energy, or room in my luggage to browse, but it looked pretty cool.

Ah, Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. For Django, we called it The Stone Park.
You could wander for hours and not see all of the stones. It is the largest cemetery in Paris at 118 acres (I have just read that there are 300,000 people buried there!)

Ann, Django and I went for a walk on an absolutely perfect weather day. The smell of fallen autumn leaves was in the air and it was utterly peaceful.

We didn't bother picking up the map at the entrance which tells where all of the famous people's graves are. We decided to keep our eyes open for Jim Morrison's grave, and Ann knew the general vicinity. At one point I had the bright idea of following some aging hippies (they'll know where his grave is!), but we lost their trail after a bit.

So many amazing neo-gothic mausoleums.

Django wandering in and around the graves. Ann came up with some clever game for him where the point was to stay off the stones. Worked rather well.

Many of the sites are in an advanced state of disrepair.

Ann and Django enjoying a bagette.

Django showing that he was ready with backpack to go out with mama on our last day there.

The Seine

Notre Dame Cathedral. No matter what angle you take a picture from, you just can't capture the grandeur and impressive scale of it.

Now THAT'S a door!

So impressive, but again, you just can't tell how huge it is from a picture.

There were these little birds outside the cathedral that would land on your hand and eat. Django kept saying he wanted to try, but shied away from it, understandably.

The Jardin du Luxembourg

I want that apartment. Yeah, the one on the top floor. Or what the heck, I'll take the top two floors!

Django having some water (out of a wine glass no less) at the most overpriced, mediocre French diner we had the misfortune to stroll into. There was a communication problem (not mine I will maintain) and the waitress brought me an extra entree that I didn't order. We kept it after she rolled her eyes at me, and tried to make the most of it. I wouldn't have ordered the pommes frites (that's french fries) if I'd known they were over 7 bucks for a side order! The irony is, I was trying to get an inexpensive lunch by going there.

(while writing this, Django just saw the picture and asked "What was Django drinking, water or wine?" After I said "water", he said "no, Django was drinking wine!" I can assure you he wasn't...)

Django and mama enjoying some truly scrumptious gelato.

Back to the Seine. This is a walking bridge where couples, in an expression of their unbreakable bonds of love, write their names on locks and secure them to the fence.