Adventures with Julia

Here are 2 photos I missed from our time in Stuttgart.  Sent the post prematurely.  Sorry.

The park and public buildings behind our hotel in Stuttgart. It was the first warm Friday afternoon and everyone wanted to be outdoors.

A pretty garden in the Stuttgart park. Reminded me that our garden at home must be blooming too.

Saturday, April 7, 2018

We wake up to a free morning with no planned activity. Yahoo!! I get to work on the blog right up until 2pm, when we check out and retrace our steps to the train station.

The entrance to the Stuttgart train station.

We have now learned a thing or two and easily find our 2:54pm train to Paris on track 9, car 12, seats 83 and 84 and have time to kill.

We sit in the Stuttgart station in front of the Paris train. Soon we will board.

Waiting to board the train to Paris.

The French train to Paris was very smooth and much faster than the German train to Stuttgart. Mark clocked our fastest speed at 319 kilometers. Rather like flying low. Much faster than we went in the helicopter, which cruises at 120 knots. THe countryside literally flew by. There was spotty wifi however, so I looked at the scenery and did some writing.

Paris made Stuttgart seem slow. So many people traveling at top speed in every direction. We quickly left the station and hired a cab to take us to our hotel, the Relais Christine, near the left bank of the Seine. We arrived about 6:30pm and checked into room 51 on the third floor. We are in a small B&B suggested by our agent, Martina. The 2 rooms make a small, cozy compartment that affords a quiet view of a birch tree with song birds. We can have the windows open and not hear street noise.

The street entrance to Relais Christine, our B&B on a tiny street in the Left Bank.

The garden between the wall and the front door to our B&B, Relais Christine

There is a “Honesty Bar” in the B&B living room. We happily helped ourselves to a couple of scotch whiskeys. For dinner we ate at a small French restaurant, Le Caveau du Palais, 4-5 blocks from the hotel. We both went for escargot for starters. For mains, I had scallops with artichoke and Mark had shrimp and calamari risotto. Both dishes were just right. Bed was an easy choice for our next stop.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

We slept in this morning and had a leisurely breakfast in the hotel. Then we walked to the Notre Dame Cathedral for 10am Mass. It was a very traditional service, with strong organ music that sounded like Bach and Gregorian chanting by high pitched young voices. Incense was used excessively, but it was absorbed by the huge building before reaching the congregation.

Inside Notre Dam Cathedral looking out a rose window.

The long nave of Notre Dame Cathedral, during Mass.  Mark took this shot then walked outside, leaving me behind.

There were at least 200 people attending the Mass, and thousands of tourists parading around the interior sides of the building. I was in the congregation, while Mark was one of the tourists. We met at the end of the service and began walking.

A view of Notre Dame Cathedral

An unusual view of Notre Dame with buttresses all around.

We walked and walked. I had on sandals and was not really prepared for a hike. Also, the day was getting warmer and I was over dressed for the warming day. After making it up to the Louve, we walked back to the hotel so I could change shoes and tops. Much better. Mark, meanwhile, had come up with a plan.

Mark at the Arch de Triumph.

A selfie in front of the icon of Paris

Now we headed for the Eiffel Tower, with the idea of seeing the Arch of Triumph along the way, I wanted to walk on the Champs Elysees and see Tuileries Gardens. After walking many blocks, we realized the tower was still a long way, so we hailed a guy driving a golf cart “limo” and he drove us up the Champs Elysees, around the Arch of Triumph and stopped for a photo of it. Then he took us to the Eiffel Tower viewing point where we got a good photo, but were still not under the tower. I remembered being able to drive around the tower and walk under it. None of that was possible now. Between construction and police roadblocks, the scene is not appealing at all. I was very disappointed. Back down the Champs Elysees we went toward Tuileries Gardens. Before getting there we had the driver stop at a restaurant that looked appealing. We paid him and went to have a late lunch at L’Alsace on the Champs Elysees.  How uptown is that! Again we ordered a dozen escargot, then a bowl of mussels and finished off the meal with a pork dish that included a meaty ham hock, 3 different sausages, thick bacon, a slice of ham, potatoes and sauerkraut. It was way too much food, but we stuffed ourselves and decided to call it dinner too.

The permanent ferris wheel at Tuileries Gardens. We enjoyed a ride along with many others.

Now we were needing to walk off the meal. We continued back toward Tuileries Gardens and took a turn on the huge, slow moving, ferris wheel. It was a pleasant ride. Our short term cabin mates were a couple from Massachusetts.

A nice view of the Eiffel Tower and the Seine as seen from the ferris wheel.

Twice around and back on the ground, we continued through the gardens and along the Seine to the pedestrian bridge, Port des Arts. We stopped to sit on a bench for a few minutes and started talking to a young man from Mumbai. He was writing love notes on small locks he intended to attach to hundreds of others already adorning the light standards on the bridge.

Sheehan, an Indian from Mumbai, enjoying the moment with us about buying love locks for the bridge.  He took the diagonal photo.  New photo tips.

Our love lock on the pedestrian bridge, Pont des Arts, connected to Sheehan, our new Indian friend’s lock

I offered to take his photo as he attached the lock and before you know it, I am taking videos of him attaching each lock and talking about the love of his life as he does. We got to having a lot of laughs and he insisted on buying a lock for Mark and me to do the same. So, what the hay, we did, and have a video of us writing on a lock, installing it to the same light standard and tossing the keys into the river. With hugs all around, we sent him home to Mumbai happy.  Mark bought me a bunch of tulips from a bridge vendor and we have enjoyed watching the open in our rooms.

Yellow tulips we bought on the pedestrian bridge. The look nice in our compartment and remind us of home.

Back in our compartment, we relax, sip on another whiskey and settle in for the evening.

Mark relaxing in the tiny living room of our compartment.

Monday, April 9, 2018

Tuileries Garden with the trees in spring foliage.

Our last day in Paris.  We have another leisurely breakfast and walk through Tuileries Gardens to Musee Orangerie to see Monet’s lilies. I remembered them from years ago and wanted to see them again.  This was our only museum stop and it was not a large one.

Claude Monet’s Water Lilies in the Musee Orangerie in Tuileries Gardens.

The lilies were as wonderful as I remembered.  The 2 oval halls, which contain the 8 panels, have been built to Monet’s  specifications, including a vestibule to create a space between the noisy world outdoors and the peace the Lilies evoke.

Monet’s lilies are presented in 2 oval settings. This is the first.

Close up of the water lilies. The brush strokes can be seen.

There is no horizon, no sky, no people, no ground. The elements seem to merge in a composition without perspective.

Weeping willows with clouds

A close up in the willow oval.

The flowers create a rhythm, an image of nature evoking infinity, peace and harmony.  The First oval contains only lilies and water.  In the second oval room, Monet has included weeping willow trees.   Together the 2 rooms evoke a sense of the different times of the day-from sunrise in the east to sunset in the west.   Monet first conceived the work in 1909 and worked on the panels fro 1914 until his death in 1926.  He considered his Water Lilies the culmination of his life’s work and wrote: “Nerves strained by work would relax in its presence, following the restful example of of its stagnant waters, and, for he who would live in it, these rooms would offer a refuge for peaceful meditation in the midst of a flowering aquarium.”

We arrived early and had few people interrupting our view.  It is a sublime experience I encourage you to visit if/when you come to Paris.   THe museum has a lower level that house works by Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, Derain and others.  It is a small museum, comfortable to visit without being overwhelming.

Having no other plan, we wandered about the city in the rain.  Each with our own umbrella, we were fine for some time.  Found a lovely outdoor restaurant with heaters and shared a French Onion Soup and Duck liver with chutney and toast.   Not too much food.  After lunch, the rain increased and we decided to go back to our compartment in the Relais Christine.   We enjoyed the cozy space with the cheerful yellow tulips we purchased the day before and settled in.  Mark read and napped and I worked on the blog.  Birds sang in the willow tree outside our third floor windows.

At 7pm, we went out and wandered around the neighborhood in the rain looking for Italian food.  We found a place that had what we each wanted on the menu and went in.  We were the first customers of the day, and had a fun conversation with the waiter, who understood only a little English.  We settled on a rocket and artichoke salad, pizza for Mark and spaghetti a’rabiatta for me.   Just what our stomachs wanted, comfort food.

Back in our rooms, we packed for our 7:30am departure and went to bed.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018  My birthday

The yellow tulips Mark bought me.

Mark remembered and even gave me a card.  Very sweet of him.  I took the yellow tulips down stairs and left them at the front counter for other guests to enjoy.  We had breakfast and met our airport driver.  We enjoyed the  one hour drive through and out of the city to Charles de Gaulle Airport and checked in at British Airways for our flights to London and then San Francisco.   I will have a long, but mostly uninteresting birthday and arrive in SFO at 9pm still on the 10th.