Autumn was slow in coming to France this year, but it has finally arrived and with it a shift in our approach to enjoying life in Paris and travels in France.
On the road, we reach our destination earlier as sunset creeps toward teatime. We are more kindly treated in small-town hotels. In Paris we linger longer in museums as though the rain outside makes us more interested in art and history. In restaurants we return to culinary classics as though we’ve lost a taste for street food. We renew our interest in theater, concerts and opera. We abandon café and bar terraces to smokers. We find ourselves admiring each other’s scarves. We arrive more on time for dinner parties. On some Sundays a lengthy brunch becomes our main meal of the day. And have I got a brunch suggestion for you!
Brunch and beyond
Benoît Castel: Bread, Brunch, Pastries in Eastern Paris
Brunch at Benoît Castel Ménilmontant, a pastry shop and bakery in the 20th arrondissement, is an ideal place to begin weekend wandering in the increasingly gentrified neighborhoods of eastern Paris. We came for the bread, we stayed for the brunch, and only later did we taste the heart of Benoît Castel’s trade, the pastries.
Paris Street Talk: Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 11th arrondissement
Where to after brunch? Some call it a no-go zone full of potential Islamist terrorists. Others pretend that the neighborhood is just one big hipster playground. What’s really going on at the eastern end of Jean-Pierre Timbaud? Here, in a two-part illustrated vignette, is what two American travelers discover as they explore eastern Paris after brunch one Sunday afternoon.
Part 1: Chadors, Communists, Cannibals
Part 2: The Wall of 3 Crowns
Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages: Magical Unicorns and Gothic Sculpture
When it fully reopens at the end of 2020 upon completion of a 5-year restoration and reconfiguration project, the Cluny Museum will regain its place among Europe’s premier museums of medieval art and among Paris’s major museums. Already, the project is bearing fruit in the form of two concurrent exhibitions that explore some of the mysteries of medieval art and culture: Magical Unicorns (until Feb. 25) and Birth of Gothic Sculpture (until Jan. 7).
Other exhibitions in Paris
The Army Museum at the Invalides reveals (until Jan. 20) just how complicated and illusory peace can be with the exhibition In the East, War Without End, 1918-1923.
The Museum of Jewish Art and History examines the life of Sigmund Freud (until Feb. 10).
Masterpieces from the Mellon collection from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts are presented (until Dec. 2) in the exhibition Country Life at the Museum of Hunting and Nature, a surprisingly beautiful and often ignored museum in the Marais.
Even if, like me, you were never particularly attracted to the work of Miro, you’ll nevertheless be drawn in to the measured evolution of the artist’s work in a major retrospective at the Grand Palais (until Feb. 4).
On the book shelf
English writer Annabel Simms recently published Half an Hour From Paris: 10 Secret Daytrips by Train. I’m wary of the use of the word “secret” to describe destinations that don’t involve Indiana Jones or certain bars. The book is nevertheless a welcome addition to the guidebook shelf. It provides detailed itineraries for DIY walking tours that will be of interest to curious travelers looking for lesser-visited areas of the Paris region. Among them, well-known sights such as Château de Vincennes, Malmaison and Bagatelle and little-known towns and villages such as Lagny sur Marne, La Ferté sous Jouarre and Igny. The book is a follow-up to Simms’s An Hour From Paris, reviewed here on France Revisited.
I’m even more wary of books that claim to tell us how to do anything like a “local” than I am of those that set out to reveal “secret” locations. Still, it’s no secret that one can eat quite well in Paris and that Clotilde Dusoulier knows her way around her local food market and around the kitchen. Tasting Paris: 100 Recipes to Eat Like a Local, her latest book, may have more appropriately been subtitled 100 Recipes to Eat Like a Local’s Parents, but thankfully many of the dishes their parents ate remain on tables of Paris today. With a trio of chocolate-dripping profiteroles on the cover, handsome illustrations inside, and little cultural tidbits at the start of each recipe, there’s a user-friendly feel to this book. The recipes may not be ultra-complicated, still, it helps to have a good local food market and to know some culinary secrets before undertaking them.
Driving in Europe
For those planning on driving in Europe, here’s some basic information (pdf) that will help you correctly select the appropriate fuel for your vehicle.
The Curious Tasting & Travel Club
The Curious Tasting & Travel Club has several small-group tastings and other events in the works, including tasting in Paris on Nov. 7, 13, 21, Dec. 6, 14, 19. Upcoming tastings involve Rhone Valley wines, whiskey, foie gras, smoked salmon, champagne, pastries. Contact me directly to be added to the list to receive event details.
Happy travels always,
Gary
Oct. 29, 2018
Gary Lee Kraut
Editor, France Revisited
www.francerevisited.com
gary@francerevisited.com