Vive La France!

I might as well start what is surely to be a long post on our 2-plus weeks in France. We've been in Paris about five days, and have discovered the beauty of the New Orleans-esque cimetières. Stumbling upon the Cimetière de Montparnesse and the grave of Camille Saint-Saëns was the first of the solemn, quiet, and shady fun. We visited Cimetière de Passy and both Fauré and Debussy's graves, as well as the Cimetière de Montmarte and Nijinsky's grave...the cimetières are so beautiful and the statuary completely amazing.

We've had some outstanding French food at a couple of quiet restaurants, and the deeeeeelish bread (thankfully baked in the US, aussi!) at the boulangers et pâtisseries. I love how every block has the boulanger, the charuterie et boucherie, the veggie stand, the toiletry shop, etc, etc. The experience of daily shopping has so much more of a community feel than going to a giant supermarket. We even had to find the electricity shop to buy batteries- a tiny little place that sold only electrical things like light bulbs, etc- sort of an Old World Radio Shack...including a young guy behind the counter who wanted to speak English and tell us how he learns it from listening to American music...

Other highlights have included the Palais Garnier, and the out of the way Domaine de Marie-Antoinette at Versailles, which no one seems to know about (yay!)...

Our first night we stayed near the Louvre, and the surreal Coney Island amusement park nearby. I also did not expect our lovely view of Paris from the hotel room to include le Tour Eiffel bursting into a show of Las Vegas sparkles at midnight! Apparently that happens every hour until about 4am! Hahahaha! We've spent the last few night au rive gauche in St Germain in a little hotel with a great view of Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre....and of course a glimpse of the funny ferris wheel near the Louvre in the foreground.

The heart of Parisienne culture seems to be people watching and cafe fare at the extremely smokey brasseries. A delightful unfortunate idea: the clouds and clouds of cigarette smoke are deal-breakers. Pardonnez-moi, mes amis Parisiennes, mais cesser de fumer!

D has a business meeting here in Paris Monday, and that afternoon we rent a car and venture to the Loire Valley to Saumer; and a stay at the lovely Château de Verrières for more explorations...

D has been taking yards of pics...will post lots later...

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Ok, back now from a lovely dinner at a tres cool restaurant non-fumer I found called Giufeli south of the Cimetière de Montparnasse. Very chic and very small and very casual, and the young chef greets you, yum, yum, yum....

Earlier we'd gotten a call from a business associate of D's to join him and his wife on their rooftop flat at the base of le Tour Eiffel for the Bastille Day fireworks. Well, there ya go. And lemme tell ya, the French are très sérieuse about their fireworks. Holy mackerel. I've never seen anything like it. A little pic D took is above from the breathtaking evening. The crowd below spanned the whole of the Champs de Mars...with a light show on the Trocadero. The music was surreal: medleys of West Side Story, the James Bond and Star Wars themes....where was Gloire immortelle?

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Today brought us to both l'église Saint-Gervais and Saint-Paul Saint-Louis...beautiful, tranquil, cool (on such a hot day) and full of incense and quietude. Ah...

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I will upload many pics or a link to Flickr later, but another cool thing is the river boat culture...there are beautiful gardened river boats with tiny cars atop for touring through the intricate river systems no doubt, or just living la vie en rive, je pense. Just like the gypsy river boats in Chocolat!