July 2025 – A Traveling Fool

July 27, 2025

April in Paris: A Walking Tour of the Marais

This was my final day in Paris. When I was there as part of the Grand France River Cruise with Avalon Waterways in 2021, I had scheduled a walking tour of the Marais. But I had miscalculated how strong my back would be just three months after having a little surgery for some melanoma next to my spine, so ended up canceling that time.

I don’t know what it is about the Marais, but trip after trip to Paris, it has either rained when I wanted to check that area out or my back wasn’t up to it. This time, it was chilly and raining on and off. The walking tour was entirely outdoors. The idea was that we would get an orientation tour and could then explore further on our own.

Our meeting point was at the southern end of the Pompidou Centre across from the Dali mural. The Pompidou Centre had opened in 1977 as a multicultural complex to house several different forms of art in one location. It was named after Georges Pompidou, who had been the President of France from 1969 to 1974. The centre is closing in September of 2025 until 2030 to complete a major renovation.

From the Pompidou Centre, we walked to the Hôtel Soubise. It was originally built as a mansion (hôtel particulier) for the Prince and Princess Soubise in the 1700s. The site upon which it was built had once been a semi-fortified 14^th century property of the Templar Knights. It has a baroque exterior and a rococo interior. It currently houses the Musée des Archives Nationales.

Next door was the Hôtel Rohan. This was also built in the 1700s as a home for the son of the Princess Soubise. It is now part of the National Archives.

A short, wet walk from there was the Musée Picasso. I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of modern art in general, but I do like Picasso’s blue period very much.

The main thing about Picasso that intrigues me, however, is that a husband of one of my mother’s first cousins, Raoul Aglion, used to know him. During World War II, Raoul was an attaché to General Charles de Gaulle and after the war, he went into the French diplomatic service. Eventually, he was located in Los Angeles at the French consulate there. This was when he met our cousin.

I knew Raoul in the final years of his life. He had an accent much like Charles Boyer and was a very kind, charming and fascinating man. Since I have always been fond of history, I was completely enthralled by the stories he told of his life. A treasured book in my collection is one that he wrote called Roosevelt & de Gaulle: Allies in Conflict, A Personal Memoir. He doesn’t talk about Picasso or the Disney brothers in there. But he kept me quite entertained with stories about them in my younger years. He also owned several Rodin sketches that always intrigued me when I would visit their home in Beverly Hills.

The Musée Cognac Jay is an 18^th century mansion which contains art and furnishings from the 18^th century. It is definitely like stepping back in time and walking around in someone’s home. I plan to go back there for a thorough visit in the future.

Another place in which I definitely want to spend some quality time during a later visit to Paris is the Musée Carnavalet, which is the museum of the history of Paris. It too is in a former mansion. This one dates to the 16^th century. The items contained in the museum date from prehistory to the present day. They include archaeological finds as well as art and historic pieces.

In the Place de Vosges, which is the oldest planned square in Paris, dating to the 17^th century, is the Maison de Victor Hugo. He lived there from 1832 to 1848. His most famous works are the novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables.

After taking a look at the exterior of the Hôtel de Sully, which is the headquarters of the National Monuments, we ended the tour shortly before we would have reached the Hôtel de Ville. This is the City Hall of Paris. It had just started raining again, so I grabbed a taxi and headed back to my hotel. At that point, I wasn’t sure I would be venturing out again and wanted to just have a nice, quiet lunch in the hotel.

I had made friends with the bartender in the hotel’s restaurant. It was quiet at lunchtime, so she was able to chat with me, while keeping an eye out for other customers. She was from Moldova, which was where a cousin of mine’s wife was also from. She impressively speaks, Romanian, Russian, French, and English fluently.

I had a Tartelette Chevre Tomate. This was a small, puff pastry tart with goat cheese and tomato. With that I also had an order of escargots and final glass of the lovely Champagne, Chambord, and citron concoction that she made with a dash of mint.

After my lovely, leisurely lunch, I noticed it was getting nicer outside and I perked up enough to venture to one final destination. This was to the church of Saint-Germain l‘Auxerrois. The current building is a medieval church directly across from the Louvre Palace. It was originally built in the 13^th century and modified in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. From 1608 to 1806, it was the parish church for inhabitants of the Louvre. During the reconstruction of Notre Dame, the cathedral’s regular services were held at Saint-Germain l‘Auxerrois.

The original church on the site was built in the 5^th century. This was replaced in about 560 with a larger church. That church was destroyed by the Normans in 886 and then rebuilt. By the 13^th century, it was considered to be too small and was rebuilt into the current church. During the Wars of Religion, its bell was rung on the night of 23 August 1572 to signal the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre. This was when thousands of Huguenots, visiting Paris for a wedding, were murdered by a mob.

I found it to be a very pleasant church to visit, with vestiges of its entire history. Some of my Parisian ancestors just might have spent some time there. It was the right age and location. I also found a statue of Saint Denis, the fellow who was beheaded on Montmartre and then walked around carrying his head until he finally dropped dead at the location where the Cathedral of Saint Denis now exists (and where most of the French royalty has been buried).

I sauntered back to the hotel and got myself ready for a very early departure the next morning. Whenever I leave Paris, I always have a tinge of sadness. But I always know that I will be back again.

July 18, 2025

April in Paris: Glorious Sainte Chapelle

I had a very leisurely tour of the Conciergerie during which I sat and contemplated my surroundings in the chapel and revisited much of it while retracing my way back to the entrance. The exit was right next to it. I then had time for an equally leisurely lunch.

I walked just one block to a café called L’Annexe situated just across the street from the Palais de Justice. Their food was quite good and the staff very friendly. The fellow who waited on me told me that people tended to line up at the entrance of Sainte Chapelle about an hour before their scheduled time. So I did just that. They ended up being about a half hour off on their timings and so, although my ticket was for 2:30pm, I didn’t get in until 3pm.

I have visited a lot of basilicas, cathedrals, churches, and chapels in my travels. Many of them have been quite beautiful. Sainte Chapelle is truly one of the most stunningly gorgeous I have ever seen. It is very much like being inside of a jewel box. It is one of the last remaining parts of the royal palace (along with the Conciergerie) and was built in the middle of the 13^th century by King Louis IX (the future Saint Louis) to house the most precious relics of the purported Crown of Thorns and a fragment of what he believed was the True Cross.

Back in medieval times, great value was being attributed to such relics. The owner of these items held considerable prestige. After spending two years in negotiations with the Emperor of Byzantium, Louis managed to get his hands on the Crown of Thorns. A couple years later, he acquired roughly 22 additional relics, including the piece of the cross. He then decided to build a building special enough to house these treasures.

The building consists of two chapels. The upper chapel connected directly to the king’s apartments and was reserved for the king, his family and guests. The lower chapel served the palace staff. The lower chapel is quite lovely itself. But the upper chapel is breathtaking.

Fortunately, after standing in line for an hour and a half, walking around the lower chapel, and climbing the steep turnpike stairs to get to the upper chapel, there were a few chairs along the edges of the room. When I managed to get one, I leaned back and took the photo included here looking straight up at the ceiling.

The first time I had seen Sainte Chapelle, I was completely overwhelmed. This time, I knew what I was about to encounter. However, it had been completely and carefully cleaned a few years ago, so the effect of those incredible windows was even more amazing than I remembered.

The gallery of relics was restored during the 19^th century after having been destroyed during the French Revolution. The reliquaries and the shrine were melted down and most of the relics disappeared. The Crown of Thorns, however, managed to survive and became housed in the treasury of Notre Dame in 1806.

After taking my time in the upper chapel and venturing out onto the balcony, I returned to the lower chapel and roamed around in there before heading out. They had several stalls selling keepsakes, which I also perused. I didn’t see anything I couldn’t live without, so I left with just the photos I had taken.

I returned to the Café L’Annexe to have some hot chocolate and some chocolate mousse before starting the walk back to the hotel. On my way, I stopped in at a Merci Jerome! boulangerie/patisserie/café on just the other side of the Seine after crossing the Pont au Change and purchased some takeaway items for dinner. That way I could just go straight to my room and stay there. I still had about a glass and a half worth of a nice, light Reisling in my little fridge. It went quite well with my dinner.

Next time – A Walking Tour of the Marais

July 11, 2025

April in Paris: The French Equivalent to the Tower of London — the Conciergerie

I had a combined ticket to Sainte-Chapelle and the Conciergerie. I had to have a prearranged appointment time to get into Sainte Chapelle. This was for 2:30pm, so I had plenty of time to tour the Conciergerie and have some lunch before getting into line for Sainte Chapelle. I would have thought that, since it was Easter Sunday, the number of people visiting both places wouldn’t have been large. But I was wrong. The lines for both were quite long.

The Conciergerie is one of the oldest remaining parts of the Palais de la Cité, which was from where the French kings of the Middle Ages lived and ruled. It was transformed from a palace into a prison in the late 14^th century and remained so until after the French Revolution.

The Salle des Gens d’Armes is the first room that is entered. It is a very sizeable hall and is part of the original palace (1302). The next room I visited was the kitchens (1350-1364). This had four gigantic fireplaces allowing the cooks to make meals for hundreds of people at a time.

The Salle des Gardes was built around the same time as the Salle des Gens d’Armes. This room originally was an antechamber for the Grand Chamber, where the King would decide on how to dispense his justice. It then became the location of the Parliament of Paris. During the Revolution, it was the location of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

A portion of the Salle des Gens d’Armes was raised and separated from the rest of that hall and given the name of Monsieur de Paris, which was the executioner’s nickname. This connects the Salle des Gardes to what they call the Revolutionary Rooms. A gift shop is now contained in this space.

In the prisoners’ corridor are three tiny rooms. The first contains the desk of the clerk, who was responsible for recording prisoner details. The second was the office of the concierge, who was the prison director. The third was the Grooming Room, where the prisoners would have their hair cut before execution.

Other than during the Great Terror (April to July 1794) about a third of the defendants held in the Conciergerie managed to escape the death penalty between 1793 and 1795. Upstairs in the Salle des Noms the names of over 4,000 people tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal at the Conciergerie are listed. A handful of tiny cells line the short corridor to a rather small room where some of the most significant political trials were held.

Coming back down the stairs I entered the chapel. This was used as both a prisoner’s chapel and as a shared cell. During the Great Terror, sometimes as many as 600 people were crowded together in this room waiting for their names to be called to be transported to their place of execution.

The most important prisoner was Marie Antoinette. She was transferred to the Conciergerie on the night of 2 August 1793 after being incarcerated for ten months in the Temple prison. Her actual cell was located behind the altar of the chapel and was converted in 1815 into an expiatory chapel by order of Louis XVIII, younger brother of Louis XVI. The definition of expiatory is as an atonement for a wrongdoing or sin.

When I visited the Conciergerie back in April of 2000, the cell of Marie Antoinette was presented as they thought it might have looked when she was a prisoner there. They even had a mannequin dressed as her seated in a chair with her back to the viewer. The area was roped off. This time, the cell was presented as a memorial and we could walk around in it and view the memorials and paintings on the walls.

The former queen was kept under constant surveillance, day and night. She wasn’t allowed to write most of the time. Her trial began on the morning of 14 October 1793. On 16 October, at 4am, the death verdict was announced, followed by her being transported in a heavily guarded cart to what is now the Place de la Concorde and executed at 12:15pm. The possessions she was said to have left behind at the Conciergerie are contained in display cases at the back of the chapel.

The final place for me to visit in the Conciergerie was the women’s courtyard. This was where the female prisoners were allowed to take their daily walks, surrounded by two floors of dungeons.

The Conciergerie remained a prison after the revolution and was eventually made a part of the Palais de Justice. By 1862, it was classified as a historic monument. Portions could be visited by 1914 and all prison activity ended in 1934.

Next time – Glorious Sainte-Chapelle

July 4, 2025

April in Paris: The Marvelous Musée des Arts Décoratifs

On my way to the Louvre that morning, while passing the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, I had noticed that there was a McDonalds directly across the street. Although I normally eat the cuisine of the country I am in, I wanted to get a short, quick lunch in between museums. I headed there once I left the Louvre from the same entrance I had entered it.

This McDonalds was different from those I have experienced back in the US and in Canada. But it was very similar to a couple I have visited in other countries. On four sides of a forest of floor-to-ceiling poles were touch screens where orders could be entered. Once the order was complete, the user would just touch their debit card to the screen and then get a receipt. Without a debit card from a French bank, however, I received a ticket to take over to a window to then pay with a credit card.

The entire time I was in Paris, all of the cafes and restaurants showed the customer an electronic device which the customer then touched with their debit card to pay the bill. Again, because none of my friends or I had debit cards from French banks, they ended up printing out the bill from the device and presenting it to the paying party. They then either took the credit card (or cash) with them to the cashier, or we would be directed to go and pay the cashier. At the hotel, of course, we could just charge the meal to the room.

Many restaurants here at home will have you touch a credit or debit card to a handheld device to pay, so I was fascinated by the fact that it only seemed to work specifically for debit cards in Paris. Americans often tend to expect that things will operate the same way in other countries as they do in the US. That is rarely the case. We need to be able to adapt.

For everything where I had booked advance tickets, I had the ticket on my phone. But I also printed out all my tickets before I left home (and had the printouts with me) just in case my phone didn’t want to cooperate. There is never a problem at home, but I just didn’t want to take the chance of not being able to get in because my phone balked.

The Musée des Arts Décoratifs was created in the 19^th century to be a source of inspiration for artists and craftspeople. They own millions of items such as furniture, tableware, objets d’art, clothing design, jewelry, glass, ceramics, toys, and more. Not all items are on display at all times, especially not the more fragile, such as clothing, photographs, and drawings. They also have entire rooms from different periods that have been moved to the museum and set up there.

The museum occupies portions of three floors in the Rohan Wing, six floors in the Lefuel Wing, and seven floors in the Marsan Pavilion of the Louvre Palace. The permanent collections cover eight centuries of the history of French style, innovation and creativity.

I decided to start in the Middle Ages (13^th century) and see how far I could get before needing to go lie down somewhere. Fortunately I was quite close to my hotel, so wouldn’t need to walk far once I was done. I managed to cover the entire third floor of both the Lefuel Wing and the Marsan Pavilion. This contained items from the Middle Ages, Renaissance, 17^th and early 18^th centuries.

While much of the Louvre had been overcrowded, I was pretty much alone in most of the rooms I was exploring in this museum. I hadn’t been alone when I came in, so I surmised that we were just interested in different parts of the collection. I was able to take my time and even had empty benches on which I could park myself for a while here and there to contemplate what I was seeing and also to decide what I wanted to photograph. There was even a room with great views of the opposite side of the palace from which I took some photos. After the faster pace at the Louvre, this was pretty relaxing.

Beginning with altar pieces and items from the Gothic period, there was also a great 15^th century bedroom. Next came some friezes from the castle of Vélez Blanco. There was the Early Renaissance and Late Renaissance in the next few rooms.

The 17^th century and early 18^th century had some beautiful pieces of furniture, paintings, and ceramics. There was also a ceiling from the Hôtel de Verrue and the entire study from the Hôtel de Rochegude. In France, a hotel can be either a lodging or a mansion or a city hall. These hotels were mansions.

I was standing on the third floor of the Main Gallery, looking up at the fourth floor (which was even larger and covered the rest of the 18^th century plus the 19^th and Art Nouveau) when I realized that I wasn’t certain I could even get up the stairs, much less tour the entire floor. Save that for a future visit.

So I departed through the gift shop and headed west along the Rue de Rivoli to a café that was just a block before the street to my hotel. The hotel had given the staff the night off for the Easter Weekend, so I couldn’t eat there. That was okay. I think that if I had gone to my room at all, I might not have left it again until the next morning. As it was, I was too pooped to remember to take a photo of my dinner and can’t, for the life of me, remember what I had.

Once I did get to my room, I finished off the remaining glassful of one of the small bottles of wine, leaving the final glass of the final bottle for the following night. Then I slept like a baby and didn’t need to get up until 8am the next morning.

Next time –The French Equivalent to the Tower of London — the Conciergerie