Hello, again,
Yes, we are winding down our lovely Paris vacation. The weather helped us wind down, as the weekend turned cold and rainy, so it was more difficult to get out and go sightseeing. Saturday, as I told you, I was planning to make boeuf Bourguignon, but unfortunately, the apartment kitchen didn’t have a pot big enough to make the stew, so we had chicken again instead. While it was tasty, it wasn’t what I had my heart set on making. When we did go out, Frank pointed out that I could get that boeuf Bourguignon already prepared at the fantastic store next to our apartment. However, I wanted to make it myself….I was more interested in creating the dish than eating it.
Sunday was still chilly and rainy, but we ventured out, anyway. We caught the Metro, and traveled over to the western edge of the city to visit the Musee Marmottan Monet. This museum is housed in a mansion from the 19th Century. The literature told me it had been this wealthy man’s hunting lodge, which made sense, as it is very near the Bois de Boulogne. The Bois is a large park now, but was a forest before. The house was two stories, plus the basement, which held the largest collection of Monet paintings, plus sketches from his early painting days, as well as pictures of his wife and children. I enjoyed that visit very much, as Monet is one of my favorite Impressionist painters.
Although it was raining lightly, the canopy of chestnut trees kept us dry on our walk to the museum.
When we got back home, after dinner on Sunday, the Eiffel Tower was lit up again, so I just had to take the picture, seeing it through a rain-spotted window, from the 6th floor landing in our building.
Today, in spite of the 50 degree weather and 14 mph wind, I went for a walk. I bundled up, then headed toward the river, crossed over to the Right Bank, across the Pont d’Ilena Bridge.
As I walked, the clouds started going away, and the air warmed considerably. I walked further west, as there was another bridge that interested me, called Bir-Hakim. It had an alcove built out over the river, with a statue and some flowers. I had seen it from the elevated train, several times, and I had to check it out.
Further up the street I found a memorial statue, dedicated to some of victims of World War II. This was a more somber experience, as I had read about the round-up of Jews, in the book, “Sarah’s Key”, which was made into a movie, also. Unfortunately, it is a true but sad story of the government of France collaborating with Hitler. These people were arrested by their own French police.
The inscription translates to: ” The French Republic, in homage to victims of racist and antisemetic persecutions and of crimes committed under the authority of the so-called Government of the State of France, 1940 to 1944. Forget Never “.
I won’t go into this incident much more, except to tell you the round-up occurred over 2 days of July, 1942. If you would like to read more about this, I found a good article on Wikipedia, called Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup.
I continued my walk back to the apartment, and it was getting warmer all the time, especially when I got out of the wind. I went upstairs to our apartment; then, after a few minutes of relaxing, Frank and I went out for lunch. After lunch the two of us took another walk, toward the river again, but turned east this time. I have had my exercise today!
Tomorrow we have to pack and get ready to leave. Our landlord arranged for a driver to pick us up at 7:00 a.m. Thursday morning and drive us to the airport.
So I will leave you, for now. I may not get another opportunity to write a blog post, so I will close, hoping you have enjoyed Paris with me this past month.
Oh, an addendum: if any of you are planning to visit Paris, and want to rent an apartment for your stay, I highly recommend this rental agency. Pascal was so helpful, with answering any questions, bringing us another chair when one broke, as well as just being a genuinely nice guy.
The website is http://www.rentalfrance.com. There are 14 apartments in Paris, plus one in Nice, on the website.
Au revoir. We will be home soon.
Dolly
The post Dolly Travels – Our Last Few Days in Paris appeared first on Purple Roofs Gay Travel Blog.