Brucatos Italy France Belgium 2015: A sunny day in Paris!

Monday, June 01, 2015

Bonjour, from a lovely, sunny day in Paris – and happy June!

Opera Garnier front steps

Me sitting in Box 29!

View of the stage with boxes on the side

Marc Chagall ceiling

My post yesterday talked about Musee Albert Kahn and the fact that we had tickets for a concert at Opera Garnier … just didn’t know for when, which turned out to be yesterday, so it was really good that I remembered!

Opera lobby

So, after a very quick but good dinner at the brasserie Royal Luxembourg, we went back to the flat to try to get a short nap before our evening out. We weren’t very successful, but we both got enough sleep that we weren’t totally exhausted. We left the flat about 7 p.m. for the 8 p.m. concert. Ordinarily, during the week, buses 21 or 27 come along every few minutes. But Sunday, of course is different – many fewer buses, and we didn’t want to be late to Opera Garnier. Caught a 21 bus, and very quickly arrived at our destination. (And we did both wonder about the big set of stairs in front of the Opera house – there were people sitting all over the place, some eating their dinner! Has this become Paris’ answer to the Spanish Steps in Rome?)

Truly ornate; decoration everywhere! Here is a corner!

Another corner above the stage

After the concert, in the rain, at 9:30 p.m.!

Into the Opera House, and it is just as beautiful as ever! (Most of the operas in Paris now take place at Opera Bastille, which is a very modern and not very attractive building!) Opera Garnier is truly a work of art all by itself! I really believe that there is not one square inch of the entire place that doesn’t have some sort of decoration around it! It is very, very opulent, and we both just love it. (Although R doesn’t really like the Marc Chagall ceiling that he painted sometime I think in the 1960’s; I think it’s great!) We were on the first floor, in “box” 29. These are the wonderful, individual boxes that you see in old fashioned theatres, and I’ve always wanted to sit in one! This time, we had seats behind each other, one in the front row, with the second sitting directly behind. The gal showing us to our seat had to literally “unlock” the door to show us in! How fun is that? Lots and lots of red velvet. As it turned out, someone was shown to the seat beside Robert, but nobody came to take the seat next to me, so he was able to move up right before the concert started and enjoy the view from the front row too.

Last night’s concert was performed by musicians from the Opera orchestra, and it was all percussion. Robert hadn’t expected to enjoy it at all, because most of the pieces were very contemporary, but honestly, while two of them were pretty awful, the rest of the pieces we very much enjoyed! There were twelve musicians – 2 percussionists, 3 trombones, 2 French horns, a tuba player, and 4 trumpet players. Unfortunately, once the musicians came on stage, NO photographs, but we did manage to take quite a few of the opera house itself. The concert took about an hour and a half (no intermission), and was terrific – we even got an encore!

When at last we were out of “our” box, we headed back down the stairs – and it was really raining quite a bit! (And it was after 9:30 p.m. and it was still very light outside! We can’t get used to this!) We managed to cross the street, and it only took a few minutes for our bus to come along and whisk us home again. Robert stayed up to do some work; I went to bed.

This morning we awoke to a lovely sunny day with lots of blue sky, and most everything dried out from yesterday’s rainfall.

"Old friend" in the Louvre

R with some other old friends...

Talk about crowds...this is the entrance area

Line out the door and along Carousel du Louvre!

Our first objective was the Louvre, as we had thought about it yesterday, but the crowd was horrendous. So, a bus over to Rue de Rivoli, and we were able to get in Passage Richelieu because we are members of Les Amis du Louvre. Absolutely wonderful, as we just literally walked in, put purse and camera through the metal detector, and voila, we were in!

The Louvre had been working on their near eastern collection for more than a few years, and when I was here in November, they were actually finishing things up, and I was very excited to show Robert some of the things they have done. We do tend to be fairly slow in museums, and are planning a return trip on their “late” night this Wednesday. We wandered for several hours, and then headed to the McDonald’s in Carousel du Louvre to meet our young friend, Nathalie & Pascal’s lovely daughter, Julia, who was meeting us for lunch.

(Note: It was not my intent to take Julia there for lunch, but it was the only permanent landmark I remember in their big food court!) At any rate, we got there about 11:30, and voila, there was Julia! She is SO beautiful – and tall, too! Julia is finishing her degree at the Sorbonne after several years at Toulouse, and is planning on getting a master’s degree in film studies, also here in Paris. She is definitely multi-lingual – truly an amazing young woman!

Julia and me in the restaurant!

And with a glass of wine!

Robert's steak and frites

Not knowing exactly where to go, we left the Louvre and headed across the street to a very nice looking restaurant, and in we went. We got a lovely and quiet table in a corner. For lunch, Robert ordered what looked to be a lovely entrecote (steak) cooked perfectly, with French fries. Julia ordered their vegetable lasagna with a green salad (which smelled very good!) and I ordered their risotto with truffles – which was wonderful! We shared a bottle of Sancerre, and were able to spend several hours catching up before Julia needed to leave. Oh! And of course dessert! R had what the menu called “apple pie” which turned out to be a tarte aux pommes with ice cream, and both Julia and I had tarte citron with very tiny fraises on top – that is, lemon tart with small strawberries on top – delicious!

As it turns out, Julia has a special interest in black and white movies, and it was interesting getting her impressions of some of our favorite b&w movies from the past. We’ve decided that she needs to come to Tucson so we can have a black & white film festival! But all too quickly, Julia had to leave. I hope the next time we come to Paris that we are able to spend more time together! She is truly a joy to be with!

As it was now after 2 p.m. we decided to head back to the flat and take afternoon naps – always a good idea! R still sound asleep, but I’m up now and am thinking of heading out to get some Kleenex and look around the local Monoprix – always a fun idea!