I'm on the train from Cousin Trish's town of Nanteuil on the edges of Paris and Champagne and I'm heading to Gare d L'est, then to wander around the Seine for the day.
It's been such a chilled couple of days with Trish and Terry. Being with them in the 4 storied place made from the local rocks, also used to make millstones. Light, airy, solid. They've done up the top floor as an independent unit. The bottom is the cellars. We sleep on the 3rd and the buzz of kitchen-life happens on ground level.
The garden is full of produce. A big old cherry tree has delivered it's harvest, apples out now, as are quinces and walnuts, plus pumpkins and greens. And the sweetest thing I've ever seen, a plant the size of a tomato bush delivering 'chinese lanterns', beautiful orange poppy-coloured lanterns. Inside is one tiny tomato that tastes something between a tomato and mandarin.
Cuz makes bread, quince jelly, and after our trip to the supermarket all manner of wonderful dishes, washed down with various rouge or in my case, Rose.
We take a drive up river along the deep jade Marne, all surrounded by trees in their autumn splendour. The sloping Hills of champagne grapes are turning yellow in neat wavy lines. Little villages dot the landscape.
Here we see animals. Contented cows eating juicy green grass and a couple of donkeys.
Along the river are barrages, lochs, with boat traffic including long barges that are peoples homes.
Cuz is an opera singer, sometimes doing gigs, sometimes doing other interesting collaborations like with harp, didgeridoo and voice. Mostly the bread and butter is giving voice or piano lessons to private students, including to the very very rich. She even taught the wife of the Director of Jean De Florette and Manon De Source.
On Saturday we went for a drive to Crotte where we visited a well and old communal wash-house where women would once of scrubbed their clothes on the sloping sides, and rinsed them in the spring-fed pool. We also stopped by a crumbling old church that looked over the well-cultivated alluvial plains of the River Marne.
On Sunday we visited Jouarre and a Gallo-Romano church. That had lived and died and lived and died, so many times. And now a small group of Benedictine Nuns are buying it back for the church.
We climbed the church tower and within one of its porticoes was a century by century since 700s account of this church, held together by a thread of strong women, aNd occasionally real enlightenment. But more often it was destroyed or taken away. The more recent being after the French Revolution, the secularisation of France in 1903 and 2 world wars. It seemed fitting to buy some jam or books and make a contribution back to their efforts.
Today I've been out and about in Paris, being a real tourist: Ile De la cite, Pont Neuf and many locks????, Notre Dame from the Inside and Out, Mont Matre up by funicular, around the over-cooked tourist precinct around Sacreceour. Then down again by a more interesting route. Catching more metros, now in the Jardine design Tuileries near the Louvre in the early evening light. I like the metal chairs they have all along the avenues and fountains for people to grab and arrange how they want.
Back home now.
Day 3 - in Paris
Im not catching the plane out of Paris, France, Europe until tonight. I know the next 48 hrs or so are going to be travelling, not arriving in Bankok until 12.30am on Thursday morning and having 6 hrs to kill at Dubai Airport, with time changes etc, so I'm just going to go with the flow.
I sleep in, pack my bags, have brekky with Trish and Terry and then Trish takes me to the station to catch the 11.20 am.
I put my bags into lockers at Gare Du Nord and then hang out at Cafe Du Nord having a salad lunch with wine.
I then take the metro to visit musee d'orsay. This is the hub for the impressionists and beyond. Because of my walking stick I am taken to a quick entry place.
Once inside I walk up to floor 5 directly into the Renoir's, Cezanne, Sisley, Pissarro. Manet.
These guys loved light and the play of light on the environment. They used newly created varieties of Paint in the late 1800s. What was also a departure from painting nobility to painting the everyday, the people, everyday people, rural landscapes, gardens, cathedrals and lillyponds in certain times of the day in certain seasons. Their painting techniques were to give an impression, using a revolutionary approach that broke away from realism and neo-classicism.
I just love it. I can get lost in it. It uplifts the spirit with colour and luminosity. I love those olivey landscapes in particular. (see Fb for pix).
Downstairs were the neo-impressionists that built on the impressionists but played much more with technique, colour, and emotion. Think of Van Gogh for the latter and the pointalists like Seurat for the former. Can't help thinking that pointalism is akin to the beginnings of photography and newspaper printing using pixels to create impressions.
I also saw some Art Nouveau which was an artform absorbed into daily life. This lives on in the Metro today, the signage and the metal work. At the musee there were examples of beds, tables, dressers, lamps, bowls, trays. Always in love with the curve and almost a Japanese sense of detail juxtaposed with space.
Headed off on the Metro, back to Gare Du Nord. Collected bags and headed to Airport on RER line B. I've got my head around Paris transport. I'm impressed! Even if I missed a sardine packed Metro during peak hour, they came every 2 mins, so I just waited for a less crowded one.
now an airhead in Dubai killing those 6 hours.
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