March 23 Through 27 – French Classes and Sightseeing

We are spending the first two weeks of this long tour of France in Paris where Mary is taking two weeks of French classes.  Mornings are classroom and afternoons are emersions with lunch in between.  The emersion part of the classes consists of field trips to various parts of Paris.  Paul may come on a few but for the most part it will be just Mary and Tanguy, her instructor. 

The object of the emersion classes is to visit places of interest and have discussions or read the information.  To try to increase French comprehension. 

When not out on the field trips Paul is staying in the hotel and working on travel items and movies. 

Monday, 03/23 – Musée L’Orangerie.  The building is the former Orangerie (giant greenhouse where they grew fruits year-round for the French kings.).  The museum is the home of the giant waterlily paintings by Monet.  Paul joined us for this trip.

A few other paintings in the museum.

Young Girls at the Piano by Renoir

Flowers in a Blue Vase by Cezanne

The House Bernot by Utrillo

The Houses by Soutine

Fallen Tree by Soutine

The nearby Place de la Concorde

Tuesday, 03/24 – Petit Palais.  This building is only called “Petit” because it is smaller than the Grande Palais just across the street. 

Grande Palais

The interior of The Petit Palais is grand and beautiful.

Some of the ceilings in the Palais.

Some interesting heads (from both sides).

We wandered through the art exhibits.  Sculptures.

And all types of art and artifacts.

Wednesday, 03/25 – Musée Carnavalet.  This is a new museum for us and Paul decided to come along.  The Carnavalet is the museum of Paris and tells much of the history of the city.  A rather grand staircase in the museum... 

and a courtyard.

We primarily visited the section on the French Revolution…but it didn’t seem too conducive for photos so we just took a few photos of other areas. 

The walk from the restaurant to the museum took us through an area with flowering trees and flower beds.

We were near the Place de Vosges with cafés and covered walkways.

Many cafés have lots of flowers...that are not real.

Then we stopped at Carette's for some of their wonderful hot chocolate before going back to the hotel.

They don't skimp on whipped cream.  And this was for a single hot chocolate.

Thursday, 03/26 – Latin Quarter.  We have wandered parts of the Latin Quarter before but Tanguy is helping Mary check out a few places…many that are new to her.  Bouillions were started as simple kitchens to feed workers in the area.  They eventually went out of style but are now making a comeback.  This one is one of the originals and the architecture of the façade is beautiful.

We walked by the front gate of the Sorbonne.  We saw this during a driving tour but Mary got a much better shot today. 

We also wandered by the Pantheon but didn’t go in.

The Eglise Saint Etienne du Mont (Church of Saint Steve of the Mountain/Mount) was new to Mary.  A small but pretty church.

Across from the church was the Lycee (School) of Henri IV.  This is one of the most exclusive schools in France.  It is on the site of a former abbey and the tower if the Tower of Clovis, first king of France.

We also walked past a small part of the old ramparts or city walls. 

It’s a lovely day.  A couple of photos around Paris.

Friday, 03/27 – Montmartre Guided Tour.  Today we picked up a guide in the Montmartre district.  The plan was for Mary to try to understand an entire tour in French.  The guide spoke almost exclusively French during the tour.  Mary understood some and, when she was lost, Tanguy translated. Where we met our guide. 

One of the pretty streets we walked down.  Apparently, there had been discussions about closing the street to traffic but the neighbors were not happy as many of them had cars, as you can see from the photo. 

Mary met Chocolate, the local rabbit in one of the neighborhoods.

And was also some chickens in this “rural” part of Montmartre.

We stopped by the Wall of Love.  They were doing some restoration on it.  The wall has 312 different ways to say “I Love You” in many languages.

Nearby was a small park with beautiful remains of an old wall or building.

Lots of sidewalk cafés in the area. 

But most of the area is just beautiful neighborhoods. 

And we had views of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. 

We also stopped by a vegetable and fruit market and a square that were used in the movie, Amélie.  A French movie from 2001 that was filmed in many locations in Paris.  Mary remembers seeing the film in French.  She was taking French classes at the time.

There was interesting art scattered around the area.

We saw an old mill, now a restaurant,

more flowers,

the Maison Rose restaurant (at the top of this street on the left),

a new small garden, Jardin Junot,

a small vineyard,

and the Au Lapin (rabbit) Agile restaurant.

We followed a tour group down one of the small streets in a pretty neighborhood.  The guide gave a short talk and then started singing.  It appears there are tours where the guides sing.  We ran across this group more than once when the guide was singing. 

We ended in a garden with views of the Sacre Cœur.

Another view of the Sacre Cœur from our walk.  

From there it was time to head back to the hotel.