Tourism Note, with an Endorsement

An attentive reader asks: did I do France on my own, or on tour? The answer is yes to both—Paris on our own, and Provence on tour, a point which invites a bit of expansion. The operator is an outfit called Archaeological Tours out of New York—a one-woman organization (well; with a small but devoted staff). We don't carry pickaxes but we do tend to favor assorted ruins. The trips are well-organized and imaginatively planned, but the real draw is the professor/lecturer; AT has a high-quality stable of these, well suited to their particular assignments.

It's a niche market, with a loyal following: some people have taken 20-30 trips with AT; we've taken nine. Part of the fascination is wondering how the heck she stays business: lots of her tours go to places a lot gnarlier than Provence, and she seems to have a political crisis or a natural disaster (or both) on her hands somewhere all the time (most recently, she had a tour set for that part of China where the earthquake hit; they revised the itinerary, and went ahead).

Yes, yes, I know what they say about packaged tours; I have said most of them myself. But there is a great deal to be said for walking the territory in the company of someone who really knows what s/he is talking about. And for a traveler, there are few things sweeter than sticking your bag outside the door in the morning and having it reappear as if by magic in a distant city that night. For the right taste, highly recommended.

Provence Travel Note: Artists

Art note on the south of France: as extras beyond Roman ruins (infra), Provence offers trace of Van Gogh (at Arles) and Cézanne (at Aix-en-Provence). Not the art itself: I didn't notice any Van Goghs at all in Arles, though you can see any number of sights that look pretty much as they did when Van Gogh painted them (plus one obviously phony “yellow house”). Though how the locals put up with all that blue-and-yellow in the tourist bric-a-brac is beyond me.

Aix, too, does everything it can to squeeze a few dollars out of the local deceased celebrity. And unlike Arles, Aix actually has a bit of the artist' work. They don't brag about it much, and with good reason: a panel says “we don't want you to think this is just the rejected or the forgotten,” but one suspects that that is exactly what it is. There are lots of “Cézanne did x here” sites. There is even a Cézanne studio which you will like or not, depending on your taste—a sort of a glorified junk shop full of stuff that either was or should have been there when the artist was at work. I thought it was pretty cool myself: did a nice job of conveying a bit of flavor of what it might have been like when the painter himself was in occupancy.

Undocumented extra: it's hardly essential, but I must say it added frisson to leave Provence for Paris and the Musée d'Orsay, where you can see all the Cézannes and Van Goghs that you cannot see at Aix or Arles.

Provence Travel Note: Roman Ruins

Another France travel note: before Paris, we spent some time tromping the Roman ruins in Provence. Executive summary: on the off chance that you're looking for a place to get started on Roman ruins,I'd say this might be the place. Granted, it's not Rome and it doesn't have a Coliseum, but it's got an elegant sample of just about every type of building you might want. I give the prize to the aqueduct at Pont du Gard. You've always heard that the Romans were great builders, but you don't really believe it until you stand under these arches and recognize how they built these things to transport the water over miles and miles, all gravity powered, and enough to support great cities. I've never been anywhere near so close before, and it is a wonder to behold. Mrs. B might vote for the theater at Orange and I can't quarrel: surely the most completely preserved I've ever seen.

And that is just the head of the hit parade. You've got baths and an amphitheater at Arles; also the hint of a forum, some bits of a city wall, and more than a hint of circus. You've got another amphitheater at Nîmes. You've got a pretty well laid out community at Glanim, and a couple of upscale villas at Vaison. Several good archaeological museums, including a wonderful marine museum at Marseilles.

And the surroundings are easy to handle (at least in May; I bet it miserable in the August heat, or the winter winds). Communities are pleasant and prosperous (though I read somewhere lately that the Czech Republic now his a higher per capita income than all of France excluding Paris). Worth a visit, as Michelin would say; hey, worth a side trip.

Restaurant: Reveillon at Marseilles. Down-homey, good on codfish and duck.

Et in Akkadia Ego

It's too late to do anybody any good, but I can't resist offering a word about the Louvre's “Babylon” show, which closes June 2.

In one sense, it is a marvel, something that perhaps only the Louvre (or perhaps the Shiekhdom of Dubai) could bring off. The core is any array of objects from the Ancient Mesopotamian, spanning the millennia from 2000 to the time of Alexander the Great. They're intelligently displayed with a lot of helpful commentary (although too much of it has to be in the vein of “we have no idea.”) The space is pretty tight for the crowds it handles, but that is perhaps inevitable any more with any blockbuster show.

But all this undoubted achievement is shadowed over by two kinds of marketing hype.

One is the very idea of “Babylon”--as if the near 2000-year span represents one civilization, even if in one place. The designers themselves seem to have a bit of a guilty conscience—they gloss over the 900-pound gorilla of Assyria which inserts itself in between the two separate and discontinuous Babylonian hegemonies.

The other is a bit more devilish. The Babylonian collection itself,though stunning, is fairly small—one long room. Evidently the marketers told them they couldn't mount blockbuster show on so small a res. So the planners fleshed it out with another corridor, devoted to cultural responses to Babylon. The fulcrum here is the Biblical book of Revelations, represented by an impressive array of illustrated manuscripts; then other stuff down throw the ages, including a Brueghel Babel, a Blake drawing of Nebuchadnezzar as he becomes a beast, and even a bit of D.W. Griffiths film.

This is all good fun and some of it is first-rate stuff, although hardly as stunning as the first part. The trouble is that the relation between the two is only notional. The author of Revelations himself can hardly have known anything about the “real” Babylon, except as filtered through a highly stylized Biblical tradition, already several hundred years old. Everything else is even farther removed.

It seemed to me that the crowd thinned out pretty fast after the first cramped but brilliant corridor. Can hardly blame them. There is only so much culture you can take in a day, and after the ancient finds, the second batch seemed like something of an afterthought.

No Wonder the Grass is so Green

Overheard in Paris:

--SHE: Oh look, there's a sign for the Tuileries.
--HE: That's "toilettes."

Coup de Souffle

The headline says:

Cape-vert, archipel à couper le souffle

Right, couper le souffle. Let's pull out the old pocket dictionary here:

à couper sûr, certainly

coup de chance, lucky hit

coup de fion (slang) finishing touch

coup de pied, kick

coup de poing, punch

coup sur coup, one right after another

...and 20-odd more, but no couper le souffle. No, wait a minute, folks, here's Google translator with “couper de souffle” = “breath.” Well, so much for my old pocket dictionary.

But it still doesn't make a lot of sense.

What I Learned Last Week in Provence: It's the Salt

There's a reason caramel taste so good in the south of France: sea salt. Once they tell you, you know. Subtlety, complexity, a distinctive tang. As they say on the Simpsons--it's a party in my mouth, and everyone's invited.

Compassionate Tourist Advice of the Moment

There is a clean, free, restroom in the basement of Louvre Antiques, across the street from the Louvre (link)--Louvre Antiques, which may also be the most overpriced junk shop on the planet. Look for the maps, and locate the yellow (lower) level.

Snooty French Service

A word about snooty French service: it's gone, or almost. With one exception (infra), every server I've met here has been cheerful, helpful and polite. My only complaint is that they all seem to speak English, so I don't get a chance to practice my dreadful French. Or if the server doesn't, the guy behind you in line does, and will chime in to help.

Only exception: the five-star Pigonnet Hotel in Aix-en-Provence, where they were mostly sullen and passive aggressive in the old-fashioned way. I was loudly American in the old-fashioned way, which didn't help.

Otherwise--hey, the guy who serves me my espresso in the morning flashed me a smile of recognition when I came back on the second day, and said "au revoir" when I left. What kind of country is that?

The Neil Diamond Effect Hits the Columbian Guerilla Movement

Paris newspapers are giving a lot of ink to the death of a leader of FARC, the Columbian guerilla group. More about just why in a moment, but first I want to pay attention to the new FARC leader, as described in this morning's edition of Metro: "Un 'Intello' prend la tête de Farc"--an "intello" (sic?) takes the helm at FARC.

His name is Alfonso Canon. Metro says he "is an intellectual communist, considered the ideologue and the strategist of the movement." He's 59; he studied anthropology and law after entering the university in 1968.

Excuse me, but isn't this an instance of the Neil Diamond effect coming to the land of revolution--another tired old guy famous for showing up, still fresh in the memories of other tired old guys who grew up with him? Maybe they could book him with the Kingston Trio, on PBS.

And by the way, why do the French care? The answer is Ingrid Betancourt. You've forgotten Ingrid? The French have not. She is a sometimes Columbian politician and anti-corruption activist, kidnapped and held captive by FARC since 2002. Turns out she is a French citizen (via marriage); the French government has been working to effect her release. Her picture is on poster in front of the Hôtel de Ville.

Champs-Élysées Watch

Ladurée, the high-end French candy store, and McDonald's, the American purveyor of salt and fat,are catty-corner across from each other on the Champs-Élysées. But if you go into McDonald's, tourists do not press their cameras against the window to take your picture.

Senegali Hawkers

You know the Senegali street hawkers who have populated the tourist sites of Europe for the past generation? And you know they are apparently from some sort of Muslim sect whose doctrine seems to center on the sale of tchatchkis to visting Americans? I first saw them outside the Louvre in the 70s. They'd work in a team; one would stand lookout while the other spread out his picnic cloth. He'd peddle until the watch yelled a warning; then he'd grab it all up in a bundle and run away while the police chased--not very enthusiastically, I must say, for I never saw them catch one.

If it is a sect, today I think I discovered the mother church. Its on Rue de Montmorency at the corner of Rue de Temple in the Marais. There are a bunch of "bijouterie fantasie"--costume jewelry?--shops. There's always a gaggle of the Senegalis--okay, maybe they are Ghanans going to and fro, in an out. They've got duffels an wheely carts. They show every signs of being street men back for restocking.

Only two thing puzzle me. One, a lot of these shops seem to be run by Asians--Japanese? Are they part of the action, or am I looking at the wrong shops?

And two--aside from the wholesale district, where are the hawkers? We haven't been back to the Louvre this week but we've been all over the city streets--past Notre Dama half a dozen times--and we have yet to see one of those guys actually out there hawking his wares.

The French and their Kids

I wonder if perhaps the French are at their best with their kids. The Brits bully their kids and the Italians aee bullied by theirs, but the French seem to strike the right note. Last week, we shared an antique archaeological site with flock on a school outing. They were energetic and giggly but why not? They were kids. They were scrambling around to identify particular objects for their worksheet. They were focused and purposeful, but also polite: they would wait their turn, and say "merci" when you stepped out of the way (and not only can the little nippers speak this amazing language, they can read it as well, which never ceases to amaze). Altogether, a design feature, not a bug.

But I do remember some years ago being at a chichi private luncheon party over in the seventh arondissement; midway through the meal, a door flew open and a shadow hurtled past. Quick as a flash, our hostess abandoned her guests to follow. On explanation later, we learned it was the daughter, maybe 20 or 25, just home from the morning of a critical exam; evidently things had not gone well, and the first thing the child wanted to do was to run home to maman.

More on French Food (With a Swipe at California)

I said the other day that Californians don't need to go to France for great food (link). I think I'll revise that: you don't need to go to France for great cooking. But we've been shopping in the street markets for the past few days here in Paris, and I am reminded again of a guilty not-so-secret: California ingredients are not as good as they should be. Granted we are the vegetable basket of the nation, but way too much of our stuff is watery and bland. And it's not just Safeway: in the Palookaville farmer's market, there is really only one guy who consistently delivers the kind of stuff you find every day here in Paris, or, come to think of it, in Florence or Rome (can't say about other places).

It must be doable. There is one great wine bar in Palookaville. I eavesdropped one night while the boss undertook to explain to the new server what a great job she had. "Anybody can whip up a fancy recipe with stuff from the supermarket," he said. "We are the only restaurant in town that takes care about our ingredients." Right enough, and if you take care with the ingredients, you don't need the fancy cooking.

Fn.: just had a super espresso at the brasserie at Rambuteau and Beaubourg, southwest corner.

Great Moments in the Paris Métro

I'm remembering my first trip to Paris back in the 70s. I was in a Métro station out on the Rue de la Convention, looking more or less like a clochard. A cop stopped and asked for my papers I dutifully presented my passport and my carte orange. He asked me how long I had been here. Mustering up my best French, I responded:

Je suis arrivé demain

He snapped a salute and cracked just a glimmer of a smile as he responded: "Bonjour!"---and sent me on my way. It was ten minutes or so before i realized I had told him "I arrived tomorrow."

Something Else I Learned Today: Polished Corners

Per the BBC's Quote, Unquote, I learn that there is a British girl's school that urges its charges to "be as polished corners of the Temple." Cf. Psalms 144.

What Happened to "Let Them Eat Cake"?

Basic French bread—the simple baguette and bâtard—sells for 85 cents euro. In a town where takeaway hot dogs go for five euros and votive candles go for two, that's cheap. The basic product has much to recommend it: crusty and chewy. But it tastes like air, perhaps leavened with just a soupçon of sawdust. And it's not that the French have lost the knack for bread: a lot of the pricier stuff is just wonderful. All of which makes me wonder: do we have some subsidy action going here—some sort of basic lifeline that goes back to a time when bread was, oh, say, 85 percent of their income on food?

[Uh, 85 percent? Actually, I have no idea. I'm sure it was a lot higher than today, but exactly how high is above my pay grade—and in any event, I suspect subject to controversy.]

What I Learned Today: Nepal

Nepal has 59 recognized ethnic groups (link).

Any Day Above Ground is a Good Day

Birthday dinner last night with Mrs. B's buddy and husband---if by "dinner" you mean salad and cheese and paté and Champagne. We were all in a merry mood and why not? It's Paris in the spring.

But more than that--for some reason or other, we had the good luck to be aware of our good luck. We're all in our 60s or 70s surprised, nay flabbergasted, to be prosperous and in good health and, yes, still alive.

I believe Epicurus says that the right attitude towards the end of life is gratitude. And if you aren't grateful, he adds, why would you want life to go on anyway? And he says that one of the marks of a good life is sharing a meal with good friends.

Spring Sunday in Paris

A lovely Sunday morning in Paris, temp in the 20s, a bit muggy, lightly overcast for protection against the sun. Ibegan my day with a café in a café: the garçonette seemed annoyed that I didn't order more. "Fromage? Jambon?" Non, et non. Two Asian guys at the next table, conversing with intensity and gestuculating with cigarettes (the pack says: FUMER TUE: smoking kills--makes me think of the signs that Freud admired on the power lines of italy: touch and you die).

I'm not hip enough to judge business here, but it didn't look great. From the line outside the Pompideau, you'd infer that the dollar is trading at a nickel to the Euro and that everyone is on vacation--but on second look these are all locals, queueing up for some sort of film festival. Further on, you see that the double decker buses are full topside only. In the touristy cafes along the river, the omelettes and salades appear to be flying out of the kitchen, but you can probably get a table if you wait a minute or step next door. As you listen, you realize that an awful lot of them are not speaking English, or at least not flat, hard mid-western American. In the Shakespeare & Co bookshop, American paperbacks sell at a premium of about 50 percent on the home price. The thinking man's equivalent of the Big Mac Index? Anyway, not much of anybody seems to be buying.

We did pick up a bottle of Champagne so Mrs.B can help a buddy celebrate a birthday; later, we'll flatten the cashflow with a free concert at Saint Eustache.