Today was our last full day in Paris – how time has flown.
We went for mass in Notre Dame
– we’d checked out the mass times when we were there previously. It was an interesting mass. The previous day, the cathedral had hosted “La ceremonie d’adoubement des nouveaux Chevalier et d’investiture des ecclesiastiques et dames de l’Ordre equestre du Saint-Sepulcre de Jerusalem”, which I presume means the investiture of the new knights and dames of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. I looked the name of the order up subsequently; at the time I read the notice I thought it was the “Order of Saint Sepulchre” and was thinking how strange it was to have a saint with such a name… pardon my (lack of) French indeed. Anyway, the mass appeared to be a celebratory mass for the new knights and dames, who filed in procession down the aisle to their reserved seats in the front of the church. The celebrant was Cardinal John Patrick Foley (a US Cardinal), the Grand Master of the Order.
The other unique feature of the mass was that it was sung in Gregorian chant, so the Gloria, Kyrie, Agnus Dei etc were in Latin. I remember thinking how pleased my dear mother would be – she’d know all the words and probably could sing along quite comfortably.
After mass, I had wanted to see St Chapelle – but was confronted by a fairly long queue. So we had lunch instead at a café on the Left Bank, opposite the Notre Dame. It was a pleasant little seat, with a good view of the river, and the buildings on the Ile de la Cité so although the restaurant was pretty pricey for the rather average food we got, we were nonetheless fairly happy.
I realized from scrutinizing my guidebook that we were only a block or two away from the Shakespeare and Co bookshop. So as soon as I’d downed my “Belle Epoque” crepe (bananas, chocolates, almonds, and four huge globs of Chantilly cream) I popped off to see the bookshop whilst my friend went off to another flea market. I’d read about the bookshop in my guidebooks and I must say I wasn’t disappointed. First, it was open - in Paris on a Sunday - and pretty crowded too! There was a quiet buzz about the place, people standing about the door looking at the Seine and the Notre Dame - a pleasant place to be.
Shakespeare & Co is an antiquarian bookshop, and indeed it reminded me of the old second hand bookshops down Charing Cross Road in London. But there are new books too, and a good section just inside which features books about France (all in English of course). The very thing I was looking for! So I bought a book (mentioned in an earlier post; now you know that I did edit my posts before putting them up) entitled “Sixty Million Frenchmen can’t be Wrong” by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow, an attempt to explain “what makes the French so French”. We all know the French Paradox – they drink lots of wine, cheese and other fatty foods and yet have low obesity and few heart problems. Likewise, although the French seem to have high taxes, restrictive labour laws, large public sector etc etc – the economy still seems to be doing pretty well (in relative terms), with high labour productivity. The authors’ theory is that the reason why France works is the harmony between the “spirit” of the French and the structures they have given themselves, and the book spells this out in greater detail. I could have bought more books if I’d wanted to, but time was short and the weight of my baggage a weighty issue indeed. I was rather pleased, though that the book bears a “Shakespeare and Co” stamp on it.
The rest of the day was spent museum visiting, to maximize my museum pass (especially since I couldn’t go into Ste-Chapelle).
Started off at the Louvre, where I’d decided to look more at the French paintings and early European paintings. There was another contemporary art exhibition going on at the time by Jan Fabre
and the exhibits were scattered throughout the Louvre – so when I went into this huge room of old European paintings to see a coffin with a peacock head and tail sticking out.
I was running late after rushing through the French painters, but I could not resist and just before I left, went to take a peek at the Leonardo paintings – the Madonna of the Rocks, Virgin & St Anne and the one and only Mona Lisa. There were some “da Vinci Code” moments, I must admit. I checked out the weight of the Madonna on the Rocks and speculated whether it would be indeed possible for an elderly man with a bullet wound to insert a secret message behind it. As for the Mona Lisa, the best picture I got was of the crowd around her. (Note: After coming back to Singapore I discovered that the Louvre actually has a thematic trail on the “Da Vinci Code” which includes their comments on the factual elements in the book.)
I had planned to meet my friend at the Rodin Museum and so I rushed there. By this time, I was pretty exhausted, having rushed from place to place and wandering around the Louvre without many opportunities to take the weight off my feet. The Rodin Museum,
like the Picasso museum, is in a huge old mansion. But the difference is that this was not being renovated and there was a great difference indeed. It was a pleasure to walk through the beautiful rose garden to the statue of The Thinker in the middle. The museum was closing soon so I had only a few minutes to rush through the rooms (it said that it was closing at 5.45pm but in reality they chased us out with about 10 minutes to spare).
We went that night for dinner at Restaurant 404, recommended by Eric as one of the best North African restaurants in Paris. It had a great atmosphere indeed and we were fortunate to get in there by 8.05pm. We were seated together with a couple who had not made a reservation (I have not sat with another group at a restaurant since my student days in London). But it was easy to see why they did that – the place had many reserved seats and it filled up pretty fast. By seating us together it was more likely that we would be served and leave at the same time, so there would be a whole table of 4 released, giving them more flexibility. I enjoyed the dinner – had a tagine of duck and apple which I rather enjoyed. We had dessert and also some mint tea, which I’ve not drunk since I was in Dubai (really must remember to do it here in Singapore, especially as I have a pot of fresh mint just outside the door!).
But we could not stay and soak up the atmosphere. Back to the apartment to pack!
Incidentally, for the whole of our stay in Paris, I never did manage to get online. Most of these posts were written off notes done during our stay there and then posted once we got back to Singapore.
P.S. Ok, I admit it! I also had to see the spot where the big inverted glass pyramid and the small little pyramid almost touched. Here it is.
p.p.s. I am also not unaware that the "Grand Master" phrase has Da Vinci Code echoes.
We went for mass in Notre Dame
– we’d checked out the mass times when we were there previously. It was an interesting mass. The previous day, the cathedral had hosted “La ceremonie d’adoubement des nouveaux Chevalier et d’investiture des ecclesiastiques et dames de l’Ordre equestre du Saint-Sepulcre de Jerusalem”, which I presume means the investiture of the new knights and dames of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. I looked the name of the order up subsequently; at the time I read the notice I thought it was the “Order of Saint Sepulchre” and was thinking how strange it was to have a saint with such a name… pardon my (lack of) French indeed. Anyway, the mass appeared to be a celebratory mass for the new knights and dames, who filed in procession down the aisle to their reserved seats in the front of the church. The celebrant was Cardinal John Patrick Foley (a US Cardinal), the Grand Master of the Order.The other unique feature of the mass was that it was sung in Gregorian chant, so the Gloria, Kyrie, Agnus Dei etc were in Latin. I remember thinking how pleased my dear mother would be – she’d know all the words and probably could sing along quite comfortably.
After mass, I had wanted to see St Chapelle – but was confronted by a fairly long queue. So we had lunch instead at a café on the Left Bank, opposite the Notre Dame. It was a pleasant little seat, with a good view of the river, and the buildings on the Ile de la Cité so although the restaurant was pretty pricey for the rather average food we got, we were nonetheless fairly happy.
I realized from scrutinizing my guidebook that we were only a block or two away from the Shakespeare and Co bookshop. So as soon as I’d downed my “Belle Epoque” crepe (bananas, chocolates, almonds, and four huge globs of Chantilly cream) I popped off to see the bookshop whilst my friend went off to another flea market. I’d read about the bookshop in my guidebooks and I must say I wasn’t disappointed. First, it was open - in Paris on a Sunday - and pretty crowded too! There was a quiet buzz about the place, people standing about the door looking at the Seine and the Notre Dame - a pleasant place to be.Shakespeare & Co is an antiquarian bookshop, and indeed it reminded me of the old second hand bookshops down Charing Cross Road in London. But there are new books too, and a good section just inside which features books about France (all in English of course). The very thing I was looking for! So I bought a book (mentioned in an earlier post; now you know that I did edit my posts before putting them up) entitled “Sixty Million Frenchmen can’t be Wrong” by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow, an attempt to explain “what makes the French so French”. We all know the French Paradox – they drink lots of wine, cheese and other fatty foods and yet have low obesity and few heart problems. Likewise, although the French seem to have high taxes, restrictive labour laws, large public sector etc etc – the economy still seems to be doing pretty well (in relative terms), with high labour productivity. The authors’ theory is that the reason why France works is the harmony between the “spirit” of the French and the structures they have given themselves, and the book spells this out in greater detail. I could have bought more books if I’d wanted to, but time was short and the weight of my baggage a weighty issue indeed. I was rather pleased, though that the book bears a “Shakespeare and Co” stamp on it.
The rest of the day was spent museum visiting, to maximize my museum pass (especially since I couldn’t go into Ste-Chapelle).
Started off at the Louvre, where I’d decided to look more at the French paintings and early European paintings. There was another contemporary art exhibition going on at the time by Jan Fabre
and the exhibits were scattered throughout the Louvre – so when I went into this huge room of old European paintings to see a coffin with a peacock head and tail sticking out.I was running late after rushing through the French painters, but I could not resist and just before I left, went to take a peek at the Leonardo paintings – the Madonna of the Rocks, Virgin & St Anne and the one and only Mona Lisa. There were some “da Vinci Code” moments, I must admit. I checked out the weight of the Madonna on the Rocks and speculated whether it would be indeed possible for an elderly man with a bullet wound to insert a secret message behind it. As for the Mona Lisa, the best picture I got was of the crowd around her. (Note: After coming back to Singapore I discovered that the Louvre actually has a thematic trail on the “Da Vinci Code” which includes their comments on the factual elements in the book.)
I had planned to meet my friend at the Rodin Museum and so I rushed there. By this time, I was pretty exhausted, having rushed from place to place and wandering around the Louvre without many opportunities to take the weight off my feet. The Rodin Museum,
like the Picasso museum, is in a huge old mansion. But the difference is that this was not being renovated and there was a great difference indeed. It was a pleasure to walk through the beautiful rose garden to the statue of The Thinker in the middle. The museum was closing soon so I had only a few minutes to rush through the rooms (it said that it was closing at 5.45pm but in reality they chased us out with about 10 minutes to spare).We went that night for dinner at Restaurant 404, recommended by Eric as one of the best North African restaurants in Paris. It had a great atmosphere indeed and we were fortunate to get in there by 8.05pm. We were seated together with a couple who had not made a reservation (I have not sat with another group at a restaurant since my student days in London). But it was easy to see why they did that – the place had many reserved seats and it filled up pretty fast. By seating us together it was more likely that we would be served and leave at the same time, so there would be a whole table of 4 released, giving them more flexibility. I enjoyed the dinner – had a tagine of duck and apple which I rather enjoyed. We had dessert and also some mint tea, which I’ve not drunk since I was in Dubai (really must remember to do it here in Singapore, especially as I have a pot of fresh mint just outside the door!).
But we could not stay and soak up the atmosphere. Back to the apartment to pack!
Incidentally, for the whole of our stay in Paris, I never did manage to get online. Most of these posts were written off notes done during our stay there and then posted once we got back to Singapore.
P.S. Ok, I admit it! I also had to see the spot where the big inverted glass pyramid and the small little pyramid almost touched. Here it is.
p.p.s. I am also not unaware that the "Grand Master" phrase has Da Vinci Code echoes.
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