Home again -

And still waking up very early (not to mention longing for sleep at 8:30 p.m.!)

Unusually early morning hours are great for wading through accumulated mail. Because of all the bad economic news, I was amazed to find so many invitations salted among the bills & advertising. Came home too late to accept any - no regrets.

Seattle continues in full good-weather mode: few clothes, goofy expressions. After all, this could disappear overnight (just as it does in Paris!) Rhododendrons are glorious. I don't know if they are more opulent than usual this year (because of the cold winter?) or if it's just that I am hyper-aware, since I left town before most were fully in bloom.

I'm still a fan of the Air France flight. Even when the plane is packed full, the service is good, and the food in tourist class is just fine. We landed in Seattle exactly on time Wednesday, and it was possible to watch the landing on the tiny back-of-the-seat TV screen. This is not guaranteed to make me want to fly a very large airplane (or even a small one) but it was fascinating.

No, the picture isn't my favorite Seattle coffee shop - it's the restaurant where I had lunch in Paris on Monday. I could not resist the impulse to add one more Paris picture to the blog.

More Paris promenades -

or, "How do I make the sunburn go away??"

Paris is another place where, if you don't like the weather, you should just wait a bit. Because of the up and down nature of this month - a good day followed by rain or overcast - I wasn't surprised to see clouds this morning after yesterday's clear warmth.

The real surprise was that the clouds quickly burned off, and the day turned seriously hot. Even the natives complained (although they quickly retrieved summer clothes and sunglasses, and most women seem to have tans already!)

Welcoming any stray breezes, I walked along the Seine from the Gare d'Austerlitz to Notre Dame, then on to the Cluny museum. After the museum, I walked further into the 6th, first for lunch, then to find a bus that would take me back to the 17th. Some Parisian buses are air-conditioned, but this one made do with a vent that opened in the roof.

The Cluny, home of the "Lady and the Unicorn" tapestries, seems more beautiful and well-organized every time I go there. Because of large corporate donations, the museum has developed a number of new exhibit areas, and redeployed some of its smaller treasures (ivory coffrets, enamel pieces) to better advantage. And it's always interesting to see how the excavated parts of the huge Roman bath house that first stood on this site continue to be incorporated into "The Museum of the Middle Ages."

Here's a fragment of stained glass, mounted along with many others on a lighted wall in a dark corridor. I like the red feet on the patridges ("perdrix.")

Playing tourist -

Yesterday Paris reverted to gray windy weather, with heavy storm clouds piling up in the afternoon. Rain never happened, but the threat was there.

Today, by contrast, a hot sun came up. I got into full tourist mode by taking the Metro to Bastille, closest embarkation point for the boat trip up the Canal St. Martin. After last year's trip down the Danube, the locks on the canal looked pretty tame, but the long tunnel the boat goes through at the beginning of the trip was attention-getting.


The trip is worth doing, especially on a hot spring morning just before full tourist season. Because some neighborhoods along the canal figure prominently in French mysteries (Inspector Maigret lived on the Blvd. Richard Lenoir) and movies (Marcel Carne filmed "Hotel du Nord" in 1938 in a building that is still called Hotel du Nord, whether or not it actually figured in the movie) canal boats are evocatively named. The boat I was on was the Arletty - the one we passed, about halfway through the trip, was, of course, Marcel Carne.

Boats go all the way to Parc de la Villette, a huge, elaborate park that began to take shape more than 20 years ago, on the site that was formerly the stockyards/abbatoir of Paris.

In 1990, Terry and I took the Metro a long way out of the usual tourist circuit to see the park, which he had read about in Landscape Architecture magazine. We had it almost to ourselves that late October day, because crews were still at work, planting and shaping, and many of the buildings that now draw people to the site were still under construction.


He wanted to come back, to see the trees grown up and the park full of people. He felt sure it would be a hugely important place, and it is - that entire area of Paris continues to transform because of the park.

Across from the end of the boat ride I lucked into a "Brocante" market - antiques and collectibles, rather like the Fremont Market on steroids - or a giant "vide grenier." There were lovely things, but I resisted them all - a small suitcase is a powerful dis-incentive to shopping!

Although the commentator on the boat made sure to direct passengers to the nearest Metro so they could go directly back to Bastille, I just wandered, eventually ending up at a cafe on the corner of Rue de Lafayette and a couple of other streets. Excellent "salad cantalou" - a sort of enhanced potato salad, with prosciutto and a couple of kinds of cheese.


Then I walked on as far as the Gare de l'Est, where I got on a bus that I knew goes somewhere near my neighborhood. Fascinating ride, through some areas I've never visited, and a roundabout entry to this part of the 17th. Without being exactly sure where I was, I managed to get off at a stop that was a short walk to a street that leads directly to Rue de Courcelles, a block from Villa Monceau.

Although it's probably dangerous to think one actually knows a part of Paris, the thought is there!

With the best of intentions...

This is about traveling we DIDN'T do - and why it was perfectly all right.

On the 19th, I posted while people got ready to depart for one excursion or the other, ready to put away the computer whenever it was time to leave for Saissac, Montolieu and points in between.

And then we never made it farther than Soreze, about 3 km from Durfort. With one errand and another, Cathy and I found ourselves looking for a parking place there about 11:30 a.m., long after we had planned to be on the road. One of our tasks was to find a place for a group farewell dinner that evening, an endeavor complicated by unannounced closing days and impenetrable voice mail messages.

Without a lot of discussion, we decided it was a day to stay close to home. After picking up a loaf of bread, we went back to La Cascade, where we put together a satisfying lunch for ourselves and Carolyn, from an assortment of tasty dinner leftovers, cheese, fruit and vegetables. It was warm enough to eat out on the terrace, and we had some excellent wine to make it a celebration.

After lunch came an invitation to visit the house of another expatriate artist, as it was being readied for visitors. Later, since we were already in Soreze, Carolyn suggested we try to visit Mme. Fontanilles, who, at age 97, is still painting portraits, making elaborately-costumed collectible dolls, and writing stories based on their imagined lives.


Her favorite subject is Anais, a little Soreze girl of the 1860's, whose portrait is on the sign above her shop.

Madame and her young home helper were at home, and pleased to have company. We were entranced by her energy and liveliness. She has lived in Soreze her entire life, but now has family scattered through Europe. From Carolyn we learned that during WWII she participated in the Resistance, and occasionally hid downed Allied pilots in her house.

That night we had a festive farewell dinner at an elegant restaurant located in a building that was once an abbey, then a military school, and now contains two hotels and a conference center.


Next morning I had time for a few more Durfort photos, including this one, of the fountain where everyone in town gets drinking water that comes straight down from a protected source in the nearby foothills.

Back in Paris...

Where the weather is clear and warm and it stays light until 10 p.m.

Cathy and I left Durfort Wednesday morning, in time to drive into Toulouse before traffic got totally impossible. We made one or two extra circuits of "Centre Ville" before figuring out how to get the car back to the rental car lot at Gare Toulouse Matabiau, but once we squeezed into the correct lane, everything went well.

Toulouse, called the "rose city" because soft red brick is the building material of choice, is a lively, crowded, multi-racial city that is definitely southern, and definitely more laid-back than Paris. After settling into a formerly grand hotel that we picked for its convenient location - across from the train station - we set off for the main square, where sidewalk cafes and a busy market compete for space. To me the city felt like Southern California, in its heat, its plant material, and the mix of people. We particularly liked the market booths where women in long bright cotton print dresses and matching head wraps sold a kaleidoscopic variety of printed African fabrics.


With only part of a day to explore, we stayed close to the center, but did see the inside of the town hall (impressive 19th-century public building) and visit St. Sernin, a huge, austere Romanesque cathedral that incorporates bits and pieces of numerous earlier churches built on the same site.

After visiting the church, we enjoyed a "citron presse" (fabulous fresh lemonade) at a nearby cafe, where large trees in full leaf gave welcome shade. Later that evening we experienced true Toulousain weather, when a strong wind sprang up, followed by rain showers. By the time we finished dinner, the wind had died down and we dodged only a few sprinkles as we walked back to the hotel.

Next morning we took the train to Bordeaux, a much larger - and more self-consciously elegant city than Toulouse. Bordeaux, where all that lovely wine comes from, has been a port city since Roman times, and has impressive stone buildings dating back many centuries. It's a UNESCO World Heritage city, now busily reinventing its old downtown core into a pedestrian-friendly area that draws big crowds. The taxi driver had to insert a special card into a machine in order to drive us to the front door of our hotel, which was located just inside one of the old city gates. We were there on the Ascension Day holiday, "en vacances" along with hundreds of other people. Again we had only a brief time to explore, and there is much more to the city than we saw. (And all these photos are borrowed from the web, because I somehow never got out the camera.)

Thanks to some friends of Cathy, natives of Bordeaux, we were recommended to a wonderful restaurant for dinner. Although the menu was full of tempting items, we both zeroed in on "risotto avec coquilles St. Jacques" - a creamy risotto topped with five sauteed scallops. Special dessert of the evening was an assemblage of four flavors of Creme Brulee - lavender, rose, violet and "orchidee."

This week Cathy is off to a week's retreat at Thich Nhat Hahn's Village des Pruniers, probably a better way to decompress from a lively week in the Southwest than coming back to Paris. But I'm enjoying being back in the apartment - and definitely looking forward to coming home next week.

Further adventures in Languedoc

On Monday, under clear blue skies, we set off again to explore. This time our eventual destination was Albi, where the two main attractions are the medieval cathedral and the Toulouse Lautrec museum.

However, we also wanted to visit Cordes sur Ciel, a "bastide" (fortified hill village) north and west of Albi, and it made sense to go there first.

Although Rick Steves says to avoid Cordes because it is full of boutiques and shoppers, we found it delightful, because it's still a bit before the season. After a long lunch (longer than we wanted, but c'est la guerre) we climbed up the steep streets, looked in some of the shops, admired the view - and decided Albi would have to wait for another trip!

Today we hope to visit Saissac and Montolieu. Almost ten years ago, I spent a week in Montolieu, a "book village," on a writer's workshop. It will be interesting to see how - or if - it has changed.

Travels in Languedoc

Because we have a car, we CAN travel through Languedoc. (Name comes from the old language here, in which "oc" meant "yes." In old French, "oil" meant yes - later it became "oui.")

OK, no more linguistics. Sunday we drove on tiny twisty mountain roads to a place called Ausillon, where we checked out a "Vide grenier," ("clean out the attic") the French version of a swap meet. Nothing we desperately wanted to bring home (well, there WAS that small green enamel stove, but I can't think of a way it would fit in my suitcase!) but it was fun to look. The new town of Ausillon is nothing special, but the medieval village, up a hill from the vide grenier, was really interesting. We climbed the steep streets and staircases to get right up to the top for a panoramic view of the countryside.

After a wonderful Sunday lunch, at a small restaurant we found simply by driving into a nearby town, we returned to Durfort in time to go to tea with a friend of the household, an American woman who lives in nearby Soreze. Her house, which consists of three rooms, one above the other, is remodeled from a 14th century building, and she assured us that everything in it had come from vide grenier sales.

Here's a look into her kitchen (half of her ground-floor space):