First Week in Paris

Tuesday: We were out and about for the sunrise this morning. I wanted to take some photos from the Trocadero looking towards the Eiffel Tower and knew that it would be impossible to get the shots if I didn’t rise and shine early. It was just great walking along the deserted streets at that hour. Ian went off again for another walk during the morning.

French Army on Parade

Fontainebleau Chateau

Wednesday: We caught the train out to Fontainebleau Station to visit the Fontainebleau Chateau. The first references to the chateau are in 12th Century , all the Kings lived in the palace and all made changes and renovations over hundreds of years. There are something like 190 rooms and 80 hectares of gardens and lakes. After our walk around the grounds we had a great lunch in a local café before I went back and did a tour of part of the interior. Ian spent the afternoon in the local village. The train trip was about 40 minutes (70 miles) from Paris. The trains are just so comfortable and fast.

Thursday: The renovations of the Petit Palais are now complete and I went off to a Yves Saint Laurient Exhibition of his fashion designs from 1957 when he started with Dior up until 2002 when he had his last Collection. He died in 2008. It was a walk down memory lane from Vogue Magazines and interesting to discover his motivation for some of his designs. I’m certainly old enough to remember the “trapeze’ dress. The fabrics were just beautiful. Ian, in the meantime, spent some time wandering through the Palais. In the afternoon we visited the Musee de L’Orangerie which was also being renovated when we have been in Paris before. Two circular rooms house 8 (4 in each) of Monet’s huge canvases each between 12 and 17 metres long. Both rooms have a water theme, the first with water lilies, clouds, reflections, setting sun and the second room is willow trees again reflections at different times of the day. Just amazing. There are other permanent collections here and the current temporary exhibition is Paul Klee which was interesting. Today has been raining so the weather really cooled down. Jacket day.

Friday: Took a long walk out to the Notre Dame where we had our picnic lunch. On the way I saw an Exhibition of Willy Ronis. His Social Documentary photography spanned from 1926 to 2002. Just an amazing collection of social history from France, England, USA, Germany. He said in an interview that was being screened that he stopped photographing in 2002 when I started having trouble keeping the camera steady and didn’t like using a tripod as they are too restrictive. After lunch we went to Place des Vosges which I had fond memories of during a previous visit however was disappointed today it just didn’t seem the same. Guess everything changes. Took a few photos along the way and in the Park. We caught the Metro back. Been watching the French Open, can’t understand the commentary of course which doesn’t matter but we are stunned at how they just move from one match to the other quite often just at set point or even match point and then don’t give results unless the French player wins. I think they are more biased than aussie compares.

Saturday: The luxury of staying in one place for a while is to be able to go back and retake some photos that you can see could be better so this morning we were up early and walked back up to the Trocadero to retake some images up there. After that we walked along the right side of the Seine to Mirabeau Pont. It was lovely along here early in the morning with great reflections in the water. By this time we were ready for breakfast and called into a Café. The coffee is wonderful and breakfast this morning included a freshly squeezed orange juice, yum.

Ian Loves the markets

The main reason we came this way was to go to some markets that we had been to before and found them and brought some home made terrines and fresh asparagus as well as a big bunch of red roses. These markets are just wonderful. We ate one of the terrines for dinner last night. Delicious. We caught the metro back and both were ready for a sleep in the afternoon. Later Ian went off for another walk and I wandered around the neighbourhood shops yet again. We have watched a bit of tennis and saw Nadal beat Leyton last night. There mustn’t have been any French players playing at the same time because we actually got to see the whole of that match.