When the Paris high is lower than Seattle's low....

...it's almost time to go home! Amidst reports of record-breaking hot weather in Seattle, we listened to the steady drip drip drip of rain today - then went out in it anyway.

The Sunday market at Place de Bastille, always a lively scene, was almost as crowded as ever, and you had to be careful to dodge the umbrellas. We bought a slice of farm-made Brie, a small Charentais melon, some small sweet green plums, a bottle of Beaujolais Villages red, and a long baguette topped with poppy seeds. The bread man sliced it in half so it would fit into a bag that could be kept dry for the trip home.


(No pretzels at a Paris market, so far as I know - these pictures are from Salzburg!)

And tomorrow's holiday is...

...Assumption Day, freely acknowledged by Parisians to be the deadest day of summer. We hope at least one Sunday market will be up & running as usual.

Today the streets were very quiet, except near tourist gathering places, and even in a well-known and well-loved neighborhood bistro the lunch crowd was sparse.

We lingered a long time over lunch because a spell of heavy rain sent water running down the streets and splashing off outdoor tables. When it finally stopped, the afternoon turned bright and clear.

Museums are open even if the shops are not. On Thursday we went to Rouen, to see the cathedral, and also to see a special exhibition at the Musee des Beaux Arts - "Impressionists in Rouen." Someone had a brilliant idea to assemble paintings by all the Impressionists - famous and otherwise - who spent time in Rouen, and the result is attracting visitors from all over.

Highlight of the exhibition is the room which features at least 10 of Monet's pictures of Rouen Cathedral, painted at all different times of the day to show how light changes the look of an object from hour to hour.

Two of the cathedral paintings belong in Rouen (part of the museum's excellent collection of Impressionists) and two or three are from the Musee d'Orsay. One came from the Getty, another was visiting from Boston, and still another is on loan from the Serbian National Museum in Belgrade. It was exhilarating to look our fill at the paintings, then walk a few blocks down the hill to the cathedral itself, which is undergoing a careful cleaning process to restore the original colors of its limestone facade.

Rouen is worth a trip, with or without a special exhibition. In spite of heavy damage during WWII, its medieval center survives, and there are imaginative new buildings to fill in some of the blank spots. We stayed overnight in a small hotel near the center, and particularly enjoyed a lunch of the local specialty - crepes (both savory and sweet.)

CPR for the blog...

Although I was tempted to delete the last post, so I could re-use the title, I published it anyway, almost ten days after writing.

It seemed easier to blog on the spring trip, partly because Leah was so involved in journal-keeping. Here in Paris, where I've already had as long a stay (3 nights) as anywhere else since leaving home, I'm aiming to get back in the groove.

The new bank card DID come, delivered to Salzburg by FedEx, as promised, last Thursday. My host and hostess (who probably worried about having me on their hands for weeks if the card did not arrive) rejoiced with me; and after I returned from the nearest ATM with cash in hand, we celebrated with a glass of Poire William.

In Salzburg it rained. "Now you know why Austria is so green," said my host. All through the trip weather has been either hot or wet, or cold, without much in between.

Only someone from the Northwest would expect temperate weather in July and August. In Paris mornings are fairly cool so far, but by mid-afternoon people who left home in sweaters and jackets look very much out of place. Today it seemed there might be a thunderstorm to cool things off, as dark clouds piled up all afternoon, but tonight it's clear outside, and the only breeze anywhere is from a big fan stirring the living room air.

Everything you have heard about Paris in August is true. Even in heavily-touristed areas, most of the small shops and restaurants are closed for "les vacances," leaving courteous little signs on the door with a reopening date. Here in the 17th many shopowners cover display windows with brown paper before leaving for the beach or the mountains, and some blocks have nothing but blank storefronts. The good bakery and the butcher/deli are both closed, but Monoprix is open and lively (and air-conditioned!)

Upside of all this is that you can cross streets without taking your life in your hands. Yesterday the "velib" (rental bike) stands were all nearly empty, as people rolled through Paris on two wheels, taking advantage of light traffic.

I found the Sunday crowds - at Place Bastille, where every cafe was full after the morning market shut down, and at the Pinacotheque, a museum near the Madeleine, where it was the last day for an extensive retrospective of art by Edvard Munch.

Titled the "anti-cri," the show was an energetic effort to show that Munch did, after all, do something besides "The Scream" (called "Le Cri" in French.) And it was fascinating, because he DID produce masses of work, in many media, over a long and prolific artistic life. I particularly liked the woodblock prints he did early in the 20th century. Although many were monoprints, with just one color added, he often went back and hand-colored later versions, with some very interesting results. Toward the end of his life Munch even got interested in film, and at least one grayish, blurry, jerky production survives.

Today it was on to the Orangerie, the only place to see Impressionists in Paris just now (because the collection of the Musee d'Orsay is on tour while museum renovations are underway.)

Last time I was in the Orangerie was almost 30 years ago, when it held all the Impressionist works, and displayed them very badly ("skying" is the term - you could get a very stiff neck from trying to see the paintings.)

Eventually the museum was extensively remodeled, primarily to display Monet's huge "Waterlilies" panels in a large oval room all their own. They are the main reason to visit the Orangerie - I think the Musee d'Orsay carried off the best of the rest of the collection, leaving behind only a few gems and a lot of nice little paintings by famous artists.

It's one of the few museums open on Monday (another is the Cluny, a really marvellous place.) One aim of this sojourn in Paris is to lengthen the list of small out-of-the-way museums I have seen. On Saturday I made a good beginning by visiting the Musee Balzac in the 16th. It's interesting because it is one of the few buildings remaining from when Passy (now a very elegant district full of tall Belle Epoque apartment buildings) was the country - a place where Balzac could write and edit feverishly to make publisher's deadlines, and hide out from his creditors. Not many people find the museum, which is just as well, since rooms in the 18th-century house are very small.

I do have pictures from Paris, but not on the computer as yet. This shot was to test the zoom on the new camera, to see if it would pull in the view of the ruined fortress above the village.
(On the "Friends of Torockoszentgyorgy" Facebook page, another recent American visitor suggested we create an "I left my heart in TSG" bumper sticker...