I visited Paris February 11-13. On Friday evening I met up with my roommate from sophomore year, Marguerite, upon arrival in Paris. She was on an exchange last year; she lives in Paris and goes to school there at Sciences Po. It was so exciting and wonderful to finally see her again! She showed me her apartment then we went to have galettes for dinner at a place called La Faste Breton. Galettes are a specialty of Britanny (Bretagne en français, its inhabitants are bretons), and "faste" doesn't mean quick, but auspicious or luxurious. Galettes are a lot like crêpes, but they're made with buckwheat flour, and they typically have a savory filling, so they're more of a meal than a dessert like crêpes (though I'm not opposed to making a meal out of crêpes :) ). After dinner, we walked along the Seine for a little while, taking in the beautiful City of Lights at night. We made our way to the Louvre. The LOUVRE!!!!!
On Saturday I walked to Notre Da(h)me and met other Notre Da(y)me students there. I loved the exterior decoration and sculpture on Notre Dame perhaps more than the interior. The central tympanum depicted Christ's final judgment, a scene that is practically ubiquitous in France. I think what really amazed me about this was to see the small scale of incredible detail in the context of the large scale cathedral itself. Take for instance this section around the door:
Each of those cities (not to mention each of the other sculptures) is interesting in itself and has its own unique character, and this is a tiny fraction of the entire church. But it's a fraction that makes a contribution to the overall shape of the building. In addition, the exterior sculpture really makes you stop and think about what sort of building you're entering before you do so. That is something that we could use more of in our modern American churches. The interior was gorgeous but the experience of it was perhaps diminished by the huge stream of tourists moving throughout. The ridiculous mid-20th-century altar plopped in the middle of a Gothic masterpiece also stung. There was a neat polychrome wooden sculpture frieze around the back of the church showing scenes from Christ's life.
After Notre Dame, we headed to the Conciergerie, also located on Île-de-la-Cité, in the Seine. This building used to be a royal castle, beginning in the late Middle Ages I believe. Saint-Chapelle, a royal "chapel" (it's quite large) renowned for its stained glass windows, is attached. The Conciergerie was used as a prison during the Revolution. The visit was mildly interesting, but not really a must-see site. We ate lunch at really good Italian restaurant, where I had lasagna that was much like what I am used to, but it had a different sort of cheese on top. During the afternoon, we walked to the Louvre, through the Tuileries garden, then down the Champs-Élysées, stopping to shop along the way. We stopped in the Louis Vuitton store, and being wet, backpack-laden, and under-dressed, we felt like we were breaking some kind of rule by being there. At the end of the Champs was the Arc de Triomphe, which was much larger than I had envisioned. I kept wishing that it was the end of July, and that I was watching Mark Cavendish and friends sprint to the finish of the Tour de France. One of these days...
Next was round two of the Tour Eiffel, and this time I got to see it sparkle close-up, which was really impressive. I was sooooo happy to be in France at that moment. We then went to dinner, after which I left the group to meet up with Marguerite and a few of her friends. The guys also attend Sciences Po, and one of them also studied in the United States last year. He went to Texas. He is now a fan of American football. I never thought I would meet a French person who follows football, but there you go. The girls were both in medical school. I tried to speak a little in French, but that didn't go very far. I often spoke English with everyone, but they spoke French a fair amount to each other. It was hard to keep up, but overall the evening was very enjoyable.
On Sunday morning, Marguerite and I went to mass at St. Germain de Pres, which is close to where she lives. It was moderately-sized and quite old-first built in the 9th or 10th century if I remember correctly. It had some interesting Romanesque capitals that had more recently been painted, probably as close as possible to how they were originally. There used to be an abbey associated with the church, but one of the tragedies of the French Revolution-the widespread destruction of French patrimony-struck the religious community.
As I mentioned earlier, the little time that I had Sunday afternoon was given over to the Louvre. I wandered a little through the Greek sculpture section, seeing the Venus de Milo and fragments of a pediment from the temple of Zeus at Olympia, among other things. I remembered learning about that temple in one of my classes. From there I headed to the Italian art section so that I could see the Mona Lisa. Here's the unfortunate thing about the Louvre: they know that you want to see the Mona Lisa, but it's almost as though they encourage you to walk past many works in order to get to it. From the entrance of the wing in which it is housed, there are signs posted pointing you toward the painting. I got the impression that I would soon find it, but I just hit sign after sign, and meanwhile there was the Greek art (I took my detour), some Botticelli frescoes, a room full of glorious 15th century Italian work, then a massive, long hall that displayed most of the remaining Italian art. The room with the Mona Lisa was about a third of the way down the hall. Of course you have the choice to stop along the way, but that setup is unfortunate, especially the hall. They can't not use that space, but it's just not that great for showing paintings.
The 15th century Italian room had some breathtaking Madonna and Child paintings by Botticelli, Fra Filippo Lippi and a couple other artists. There were also a few works by Fra Angelico and some other works that had been discussed in one of my classes last semester. Other highlights include da Vinici's Virgin of the Rocks and Veronese's Wedding Feast of Cana. The next section I saw was the large-scale French work of the 19th century, including Liberty Leading the People. I also really enjoyed the works by Ingres in the Louvre. After that I was out of time so I headed to the train station. The pluses at the Louvre far outweighed any of the slight minuses.
On the way to the train station, in the subway, there was a small group of musicians playing Pachabel's Canon in D as well as a statue of the Virgin Mary from the 12th or 13th century, I can't remember. She was just hanging out there on the platform, in the subway. France, you apparently have more culture than you know what to do with, and I love you for it. I also heard that you have to audition to perform in a Paris subway station. So Paris gave me a nice farewell, and hopefully I will be back there to see the start of Paris-Roubaix and again to see other things that I missed, like Sacre Coeur and the Musée d'Orsay.
In more recent news, I went to a movie here for the first time last Friday. I saw a French film called "Les femmes du sixième étage" which is "The women from the sixth floor". It was a comedic drama, and it was quite funny. The women of the title are Spanish women working as housekeepers in Paris during the '60's, and they were big characters. The main story is how the employer of one of these women is enchanted by them and romantically attracted to his housekeeper. I didn't find the man very likable, but overall the film was good and very French, though I'm not sure exactly what I mean by that.
And that's that! I'm headed to Lyon this weekend. We'll see how long it is before I write about that :)
