A Paris Christmas

Christmas Tree, American Ambassador's
Residence

Chris and I have been enjoying ourselves wandering around Paris window shopping (for the most part) and admiring the holiday decorations.   Before his arrival, I had the opportunity with the American Women's Group to tour the residence of the U.S. Ambassador to France to see the beautiful Christmas tree in the grand central staircase of the lovely mansion just next door to the Elysée Palace.

The windows dressed by true French shopkeepers are often real works of art and many this Christmas lived up to those high expectations.  But the decorations at Galleries Lafayette simply outshone everything else.  The theme was polar bears (they've been very popular this year) and every part of the decoration of every window was made of white paper.  And the figures moved!  Inside, in that huge central atrium with the Beaux Arts stained glass dome, was a giant white paper tree to which white paper cable cars were ferrying polar bears back and forth from the balconies overlooking this astonishing sight.  Here's a collection of some of our photos:

The one to the left is a recreation of the dome inside the store but there are piles of white paper pencils piling up from the floor.





















Notice the bear on the right trying to scale the top of the cupboard.











This was about purses.  See the paper ones dangling from the balcony.
















And the giant Christmas tree itself.









 And Chris's grand finale photo montage.

Merry Christmas from Strasbourg

Scene along the River Ill, Strasbourg

If I could send a Christmas card from anywhere in France, I think it would have to be from Strasbourg, which looks like a Christmas village even without the lights!  The capitol of Alsace, a province that has passed between Germany and France on numerous occasions, it has dubbed itself the "Capitale de Noël".  Indeed, the old town center looks like the sort of miniature village one puts under the Christmas tree.

Galeries Lafayette Window, Strasbourg

Our Christmas traditions come mainly from Germany, brought to England by Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, in the 19th century.  And in Strasbourg, the city's rich German heritage and Christmas traditions continue, making Americans and Brits feel right at home.

Strasbourg's main square

Decorated Building Facade

A Teddy Bear's Christmas

Strasbourg Cathedral at night

The city does itself proud, with a giant tree in the main square of the old city and lights and decorations everywhere in the streets.  Candles and lights, cookies of every size and description, special foods (cakes and waffles to name but two), swags and wreaths, and all sorts of Christmas tchotchkes from votive candles on -- all are for sale in Strasbourg's famous Christmas market.  The foods in the restaurants are also noticeably more German.  Sauerkraut suddenly appears as an accompaniment to a number of dishes and the sausages are distinctly different.  Lots more beer around -- and plenty of mulled wine, a great Christmas tradition in both France and Germany.  It was wonderful to experience this very special place at Christmas time.


Thank you for following along with me this year.  I miss you all, but your support has added immeasurably to my confidence in undertaking this wonderful adventure.  My blessings to all of you for a safe and healthy New Year -- a year in which we will once again be reunited.  xoxo

Fête des Lumières

It seems like I barely got the first part of my Lyon journey posted before I was back there again for the Festival of Lights this past weekend.  Dating back to the Middle Ages, it is a celebration of light at the darkest time of the year.  Today, of course, it is much assisted by the twin marvels of electricity and electronics.  Lasting only three days from 8:00 pm to midnight, it draws enormous crowds from all over France and Europe.  Vieux Lyon and the Presqu'île are decked out in colored lights and there are light shows at various places around the two districts.

But these are light shows the likes of which I don't think I've ever seen before.  My sentimental favorite was an installation called Vol de Nuit (Night Flight), based on one of St-Exupéry's novels about a fledgling airmail service in Latin America in the early thirties.  (It was also a wonderful 1933 movie of the same name with Clark Gable, John and Lionel Barrymore, Helen Hayes and Myrna Loy -- for the old movie buffs among you.)  Well, imagine, there's this little plane looking as though it had been carved out of balsa wood and painted gray sitting on a long stretch of grass, for all the world like it was about to take off.  When the lights came on and one could hear an engine revving over the sound system, it

looked like the first photo above.  Then the lights created the effect of air streaming from the engines and the whine of the motors increased and it really seemed to be in flight.  My subsequent pictures aren't very good, but as it moved along the kind of terrain over which it flew was projected on the side of the plane -- here a fox in a forest -- and eventually there were only stars and planets along the side of the plane.

Night Flight

Light Show at Cathedral St-Jean

The facade of the Cathedral St-Jean had a major makeover.  Lights projected across the front seemed to make the stones explode in air and re-form in remarkable ways.  And there was a series of little bulbs in two bushes that mimicked someone kicking a football and a goalie making the save.  There was a dinosaur and across one of the bridges a fantastical boat of lights with the oars (all lights) sweeping the water as if there were really oarsmen rowing.  

It was simply impossible in one night to see all of the light shows.  But there were other delights as well -- for example, vendors selling mulled wine and various pastry treats all along the way.   There was in the end only so much walking this old body could do, however.  So, my friend and I repaired to a lovely cafe where I had a White Russian cocktail (I used to drink those at the Russian Tearoom in New York) and some little chocolate pastries.  All yummy.

18th century textile from Lyonnais loom

The next day, before returning to Paris, we visited the Textile Museum (Musée des Tissus), which I remembered so fondly from my visit with Lloyd 25 years ago.   The examples of silk produced on those little wooden looms are knockouts.  Here are a few.

One other note about Christmas in France -- the French can't decorate a Christmas tree for the life of them.  All the good ones are in English or American stores.  And, even though there are any number of beautiful French Christmas carols, it feels strange, though certainly welcoming, to hear Bing Crosby or Perry Como crooning Christmas ballads as you walk through the Christmas markets.  As the French would say, c'est la vie!

The City of Lyon

Lyon

I have loved the city of Lyon ever since Lloyd and I visited it briefly in the mid-nineties, so I was eager to spend more time there this fall with a tour run by French Truly out of Seattle.  France's third largest city is an architectural, historical and gastronomic treasure.  Sitting at the confluence of the Rhône and Saône rivers, it was a major Roman administrative center known as Lugdunum.  Most of the Roman city has disappeared, but some of the Renaissance  city can be seen on the western bank of the Saône, an area called Vieux (Old) Lyon.  That is where Lyon's silk industry developed in the 15th century.  The area between the two great rivers, the Presqu'île, is at heart a graceful 19th century city and the eastern bank of the Rhône is a very modern 20th century one.
                                                                     

Cathedral St-Jean viewed from Fourvière

Paris has Sacre Coeur, Marseille has Notre Dame de la Garde and Lyon has the Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière built on top of the hill above Vieux Lyon.  It is a beautiful late 19th century church, visible from almost anywhere in the city, and easily reached by a funicular.  From there, one has excellent views down to the jumble of rooftops in Vieux Lyon and across the river to the Presqu'île.

Vieux Lyon, the city's oldest district, was the capital of France's silk industry for nearly three centuries.  It is also the location of the Cathedral St-Jean and the Guignol marionette theater, which was founded here (along the lines of the commedia del arte) in 1808.

Jacquard's Loom

Narrow streets and slender covered passageways called traboules (used for transporting silk fabric in the days when making silk cloth was a cottage industry) define this district.  In the beginning, the looms could only weave cloth of a single color, but in the late 18th century, Joseph Jacquard (who also gave his name to a type of cloth pattern) invented a loom that could read patterns punched into thick cardboard strips (see the roll above the operator's head in the drawing to the left), and revolutionized the industry.  While Lyon boasted 25,000 of these looms in the early 1800s, only three remain in operation today, one of which can be seen in the back of the Saint-Georges Soierie (silk shop), 11 rue Mourguet in Vieux Lyon.  Another terrific silk shop is CathAm Soie, 24 rue de Boeuf not far away; they design and sell modern raw silk scarves in amazing colors.  Most of the silk now comes from Latin America and much of the weaving is done in India.  Globalization indeed!

Traboule, Vieux Lyon

One interesting consequence of Jacquard's loom was the slow decline of silk weaving in Vieux Lyon.  The old hovels didn't have ceilings high enough to accommodate Jacquard's taller looms.  So the silk industry began migrating to a new quarter where multi-story buildings with the requisite ceiling heights were being built.  Known as the Croix-Rousse, this area lies on a hill north of the Presqu'île and is now home to a hip crowd renovating the exceptionally high-ceilinged apartments into lofts.

St-Exupéry & the Little Prince

The Presqu'île, which lies between the two rivers, is a place of gracious buildings centered on the elegant Place Belle Cour, which is said to be the largest in France, if not in Europe.  It hosts public events of all types on the weekends and boasts a plinth topped by a statue of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, who was born here, and the Little Prince.  Sorry for the not so legible photo, but it is magical.  The Hôtel de Ville (city hall) and Musée des Beaux Arts are gorgeous buildings from the Belle Epoque era, the latter with a magnificent interior courtyard but relatively little of interest inside.  My favorite of this area's museums is the Musée des Tissus (the Textile Museum), which houses over 2 million pieces, including the best examples of the Lyonnais silk weavers' art.   It may be boring to some, but I find the beauty of these fabrics simply extraordinary.  The Presqu'île is also home to the most elegant apartments and shops.

Wild mushrooms and fresh green beans in Lyon market

Lyon has a lively culture of open air markets and on Sunday morning, the banks of the Saône River host two extraordinary gatherings.  On the Vieux Lyon side is an artisanal market (Marché de l'Artisanat) that features art work, weaving, jewelry and crafts of all kinds.  Lively and loads of fun.  On the Presqu'île side is a wonderful food market (the Marché Saint-Antoine), featuring both exceptionally fresh produce, meats and fish but also cooked specialities to take away (à emporter).  Not to be missed.

On the eastern shore of the Rhône River, lies a modern city.   We stayed here in the Mon Plaisir district which is the home of the Musée-Instut Lumière.  If you recognize the name, it is because you've heard it before in this blog.  Père Lumière seemed unable to keep himself from building gorgeous Beaux-Arts mansions, one of which Marta and I visited in Évian-les-Bains.   The family home in Lyon, which is now a museum, was the headquarters of the sons' extensive business in photography and film.  Indeed, Lumière was the Kodak of France in the days before digital cameras.  They pioneered a superior glass plate in the early days of photography and then rolls of film and, of course, the movie projector.  It's a wonderful place to visit.

Since I am writing this on Thanksgiving weekend, it seems appropriate to spend some time talking about the very best part of Lyon -- the food!  Because of its central position in France, the cuisine of Lyon has borrowed from the country's best traditions -- creams from the north and olive oil from the south; wines of Alsace, the Loire, Burgundy and Bordeaux; fish from the rivers and the sea; meat (especially pork), fowl and foie gras; and plenty of beautiful produce.  Classic Lyonnais cuisine is fresh, simple and unbelievably good, such as quenelles (ground up fish that is poached and served with a shrimp sauce).  Or the brioche paralinée, which is made with candied almonds to which a red food color has been added.

Typical Buchon in Lyon

Vieux Lyon is a good place to dive into the city's extraordinary culinary traditions.  The classic Lyonnais restaurant is called a bouchon and there are many of them in the old quarter, especially along the rue Tramassac and the rue Saint-Jean.  You can find them elsewhere, of course, but this is the place to start your investigation of these charming eateries.  Chefs with the étoiles (stars) given by the Michelin Guide are also plentiful if more refined dining is your objective.  Lyon is the home of Paul Bocuse, a three-star chef who created the Nouvelle Cuisine revolution in French cooking.  Lloyd and I had the pleasure of dining in his restaurant on the outskirts of Lyon in the mid-nineties, an unforgettable experience.  He's now branched out and has several restaurants with much more reasonable prices in districts all over the city, including one in the Mon Plaisir district.

Mural of Paul Bocuse outside of Les Halles

Lyonnais Pastries
Brioche pralinée in back

I've already spoken of the great open air markets, but there is one covered market that is, in my view, the epitome of Lyon's exquisite cuisine -- Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse not far from the Gare de la Part-Dieu, the main train station in the modern part of the city.  Here you will find the absolute best of everything Lyon has to offer from pastries to fresh meat, fish, fruits and vegetables to take-away foods that taste like they came from a fine restaurant rather than a fast food joint.  There's nothing like it, even in Paris.

       

Candied Fruits, Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse

     
I fully appreciate why tourists flock to the Loire, the Dordogne and Provence, but Lyon is a treasure well worth considering.  More to come about the countryside outside the city...

La Une Revisited

All my resolutions notwithstanding, I can't quite get over this election.  Still in shock.

But there is always Charlie Hebdo.  The satirical weekly news magazine published a cover just before the election showing Obama being chased by two white cops with guns blazing with the headline "Obama:  Once Again a Citizen Like Everyone Else".  But the magazine outdid itself this week with an image of Donald Trump holding a woman by the p---- with the headline:  "Can we trust him with the nuclear button?"

Here it is in all its irreverent glory!  But it does make you think how we look to the rest of the world...

Happy Thanksgiving!
xoxo

Reflections on Elections

Well, it's almost over.  Let us heave a collective sigh of relief!

Even at this distance, the 2016 US election has been hard to watch.  But it has been a stunner for the Europeans.  However much they sometimes like to resent "the leader of the free world", they also depend on the stability and the dependability of the U.S.  And the awful truth is that we look like lunatics from over here.  At a time when their democracies are being challenged by far right (and even some openly neo-Nazi) political parties, they are appalled by the extent to which our democratic institutions are being undermined -- whether it is Russian hacking or claims that US elections are "rigged" or threats to lock up a political opponent without due process or refusals to consider Supreme Court nominees of a democratically elected President of the other party.  If our democracy is in this much trouble, one can almost hear them wonder, what hope have any of them?

Nevertheless, election night is a good excuse for a party.  There will be a giant bash at Radio France, running from 6 pm on the 8th to 6 am on the 9th, called "La Nuit Américaine" (the American all-nighter).  Since Meg Ludlum and I foolishly scheduled a day-trip to Reims on the 9th, I paid a visit this afternoon with a party from the American Women's Group to Harry's Bar where I cast my straw vote.   The tally posted outside the bar (there were some early voters) stood at 404 for Clinton to 150 for Trump.


I plan to go to bed early and set the alarm for 4 am, which is 10 pm EST.  By then the results should have started to come in.   I'll get back in time to catch the post-mortem Wednesday evening my time.



Lest you think that I am living in a fog of election mania, I enclose this picture of a lovely Sunday afternoon spent with Margaret Stanley in the Luxembourg Gardens on October 30.  We had a lovely visit!  Notice how the weather has changed in the last week.  It is now winter in Paris.

More to come...

Bisous à tous

La Une

 
"La une" is the front page of a newspaper or magazine in France -- the first page.   I buy the Courrier International every week, where I find fascinating articles from French news sources and from sources abroad (including England and the U.S.) translated into French.  So it's my Newsweek with a decided international twist.


I've been following the election so closely that I'm now reading articles from four on-line news outlets and, like you, I've been on a rollercoaster ride.  But today, when I picked up my Courrier International, I was buoyed enormously by "la une" for this week.

My apologies for not writing more frequently.  It's not that I've been sitting at home, but that I've been out and about so much and had so many visitors that keeping you up to date on it all has been almost impossible.  November is my month to take a deep breath and bring the blog up to date.

                                                                                       Let's keep our fingers crossed!

                                                                                       Bisous (hugs and kisses)

Marta and Karen's Excellent Adventure

Marta arrived in late August and we immediately set off for an adventure on Lac Léman, the French name for Lake Geneva.  Our destination was Evian-les-Bains on the French shoreline across from Lausanne, which we reached by train from Paris.  A quick taxi brought us to the passenger ferry at Ouchy.  After a short cruise we were in the apartment leant to us by an acquaintance from the Women's University Club.  It was up the hill from the Lake -- what seemed like a short stroll on the way down but proved to be a bit more arduous on the way back up with our arms full of groceries.   Nevertheless, the view was spectacular and when we were sitting on the deck looking at the sky and the ferry on its way back to Lausanne at sunset, we couldn't have felt ourselves to be more blessed.

Carousel, Evian Waterfront

Church, Evian-les-Bains

Evian has a lovely waterfront walkway with restaurants and cafés of all types, a carousel and a fountain in which the children love to play.  The center of town is a pedestrian zone and there are many things to see, including the church with its interesting painting, the casino where we enjoyed a very good dinner, and the City Hall, which was at one time the Lumière Mansion, built by the father of the inventor of motion pictures.

  

Staircase, Town Hall

Lillies, Pré Curieux

One day, we  took the boat to a water garden   called the Pré Curieux.  It is on an old estate and attempts to both demonstrate and educate the public about the importance of wetlands.  The first of the gardens we visited was a formal water garden in a pond full of water lilies and carp.  Beyond that were wild areas and wetlands, re-created with great environmental sensitivity and a real eye for the beauty of a natural landscape.

Yvonne Garden of the Five Senses

On another day, we took the bus to Yvoire, a medieval village a little further up the lakeshore.  It is small, walkable, and beautifully preserved, with a little boat harbor and a small (relatively speaking) chateau.  The owner has created a medieval Garden of the Five Senses, which was simply stunning.  One area was full of fragrant plants, another of colorful ones, and so on.  My favorite was the medicinal garden, with its shady cloister and a tinkling fountain in the center.  It was so utterly peaceful there.

Our trip to Evian was memorable and we returned to Paris refreshed and ready for the rentrée (the official return from vacations) and the bustle of urban life.  One of our best days was the visit to the Gobelin factory for a guided tour.  Gobelin was a Renaissance dyer of great renown and it was around him that Louis XIV created the national company for the manufacture of tapestries and carpets.  When you are expanding Versailles from something like 13 rooms to over 2,000, you can't afford to have the best craftsmen working for anybody else!  Gobelin is still owned by the French government and produces three carpets and three tapestries a year -- chosen from designs submitted by French artists to a Commission whose job is to select the best ones.  The finished products are placed in French government buildings here in France and all over the world (e.g. the embassies).  There is also a group of craftsmen who work exclusively on the restoration of historical tapestries and rugs.  Gobelin runs a school with students from throughout France who have shown an inclination and skill in hand making these items as they have been made for centuries.  It was fascinating.

Studio
Museum of Montmartre

Another adventure was a stroll through Montmartre where we visited the Museum of Montmartre.  This is a museum of the City of Paris (of which there are many) and it had a special show, an exhibition of art works (from posters to paintings to etchings) made in Montmartre during the last few decades of the 19th century, the time that Picasso was living there.  It is in a house where several artists lived at different times and features a studio as it might have been at that time.

In spite of our full schedule, we were never too busy to stroll through a garden or stop for some coffee or tea and maybe a little gouter (a sweet of some kind).  In this photo, Marta is enjoying some ice cream (it was quite warm) and a book.

Altogether a splendid time. Thank you, Marta!

A Trip to England

The concept of a vacation seems bizarre when one is living full-time in Paris.  Nevertheless, I just took one -- a wonderful three weeks in England.

It began with a weekend in London with my cousins Tom and Susanne.  Susanne offered to get tickets for a tour of the state rooms in Buckingham Palace (no photos allowed) and I jumped at the chance, especially since there was an exhibit of the Queen's wardrobe on.  Both her wedding and coronation gowns were there -- incredibly beautiful -- along with some amazing hats and a stunning black evening gown from her younger years.  Lots of photos of her in the clothes as well.  The state rooms are utterly gorgeous and we exited through the lovely garden behind the palace where the early summer garden parties are held.   Incredible to imagine growing up there.

We also visited a museum I had never heard of -- Sir John Soane's Museum at Lincoln's Inn Fields.  Soane was a prominent neo-classical architect (late 1700s-early 1800s) and collector -- of nearly everything -- and, with an architect's genius, managed to put models of his projects and everything else he collected in various specially built nooks and crannies in his town house.  It was left to the nation in exactly the state it was in when he died and is delightfully off-beat.

Then I was off to Cambridge for the International Summer School.  I left from King's Cross Station where, to my surprise, I found my train right next to Platform 9 3/4.  If there are any Harry Potter fans in your life, do take them there if you're ever in London.

At Cambridge, I took a two-week course on international relations, interspersed with lectures on all sorts of subjects.  Two of our four instructors were particularly noteworthy.  John Jackson, an army officer in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and now an instructor at Sandhurst, gave us three days on terrorism and retired UK diplomat Sir Tony Brenton came for two days with a tour-de-force review of the world's current conflicts (hot and cold).  His talk on Political Islam was especially fascinating, with its broad historical review of Islam as both a religion and a recipe for governing: God and Caesar united in the person of the Caliph and his government.  Islam's early successes created a vast empire, which put the emphasis on governing, not always with glowing results.  One dynasty succeeded another.   Eventually, a philosopher and historian named Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) came up with a theory of social cohesion and decay (a kind of medieval Islamic world view) according to which each governing dynasty would eventually weaken and then a new leader would emerge out of the desert to revitalize both the religion and the society.  Known as the Doctrine of the Mahdi, Brenton argues it is baked into the DNA of the Middle East (hence ISIS).  Those of you who read about current affairs more assiduously than I may already have heard of him, but I had not and found this insight particularly interesting.

Not all the lectures were so serious.  One, on British pronunciation of English, was particularly hilarious and ended with this Youtube video that I encourage you to enjoy:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8mzWkuOxz8.  Copy and paste it into your browser.

Tea at The Orchard
 Left to right, Karen, Mardy, Meg, Nancy and Judy

Clare College Garden

In our hours out of the classroom, I found it always a pleasure to pause for a moment in the college gardens -- I particularly like Clare.  Then there was our usual trip to Grantchester to visit The Orchard, where Rupert Brooke lived and where the undergraduates who would eventually form the Bloomsbury Group came out to take tea in the afternoon.  This year we lingered to see the church, which featured at the back a huge poster of James Norton, who plays the vicar in the PBS series.  We also traveled to Ely and heard evensong in the beautiful, inspiring cathedral there.

Ely Cathedral

After two weeks of stuffing my brain with lectures and my belly with the bounteous quantities of food on offer in the Dining Hall, I took off for Stratford to visit Miriam.  I was lucky to catch the last performance of Hamlet at the RSC the day I arrived.  Done with an all-black cast (with the exception of Rosencrantz & Gildenstern and the English ambassador), the play was electric.  Paapa Essiedu, a 25-year-old actor, played Hamlet with exceptional dynamism as the angst-ridden teenager he is and Cyril Nri was a thoughtful, loving father as Polonius.  As usual, the RSC wrung all the humor out of the play, having, for example, Rosencrantz and Gildenstern show up like first-time travelers clicking away with a camera and toting around tins of biscuits shaped like red phone booths that are on sale in every tourist spot.  The grave digger was a hoot -- with definite Caribbean overtones.  During the week, we found time to visit Croome Court, a relatively new addition to the National Trust.  It is a beautiful Paladian building with grounds designed by Capability Brown -- very much a work in progress, but definitely worth a visit.

Norman Tower
Tewkesbury Abbey

Tewkesbury Abbey Choir

Our other big adventure was a cruise on the Severn River from Upton to Tewkesbury, a charming town.  The Battle of Tewkesbury (1471) was one of the decisive battles of the Wars of the Roses in which the forces of York defeated those of Lancaster, but we were there for the Abbey, which somehow survived the closure of the monasteries under Henry VIII.  It is thought to have the tallest Norman tower still existing in
England and it is certainly
beautiful inside.


I can't end this entry without mentioning the abundant flowers that grace every pub and many other places in England.  It makes a summer visit a particular delight.