We’ve settled into a little apartment in Montmartre for the week. This one’s on the 7th floor (Americans, read 8th), but fortunately, there is a functioning ascenseur (elevator), because this time in Paris, we had to bring ALL our luggage back from La Rochelle, including every book I’ve bought since we got here. We still have plenty of opportunity to climb stairs. Our nearest Metro stop is 112 steps below the street entrance. (There’s a sign.)

Courtney spent one night with us before flying home on Sunday. Here she is still looking happy even after tramping up and down the hills of Montmartre.

After we saw her off at the airport, we had an excellent conversation with the philosopher-cum-cab driver, who drove us back to the apartment. As usual, David primed the pump by asking a question in English that I translated into French, which always gets things going. Then if there’s a lull, he’ll offer another question for me to translate. Monsieur Taxi insisted that David and I haven’t just visited another country. By staying a while and living as we have, we’ve actually added a second culture to our native culture and have been enriched by it. Not just because it’s French, although he was certainly proud of France, but simply that le voyage and l’histoire–which means both history and story–have more to offer a person than cars or houses or any other material thing. I’d love for you to leave your opinion in the comments section, but we certainly agreed with him.

In that spirit, we decided to go have a look at a bit more of what Paris has to offer, like l’Arène des Lutèce, where intergenerational groups play soccer (le foot) in a first-century arena. Here’s a bit of the beautiful square right next to the arena.

A few blocks further is the Jardin des Plantes, where we saw this . . .

Eventually made our way over to Ile Saint-Louis, where we found the restaurant Aux Anysetiers du Roy for lunch. It was like time travel back to the Middle Ages. Here’s what’s on the wall on the way up to the WC.

The building was constructed in 1617, and the walls were eventually painted to add to the ambiance, although if I understood correctly, only about 100 years ago. Still. Impressive, non?

And here’s the sink. You turn on the water with the knobs on the side of the tank.

After lunch we crossed the bridge over to Ile de la Cité and decided to check out the Crypte archéologique du Parvis Notre-Dame, so a bit more of that surreal sense of existing in multiple eras at once–ancient stone walls all around and several super cool 3-D touch-screen displays that allowed you to swoop in on Notre Dame and see it at various points between 1163 and 1350:

Ended the day on our little balcony with this view, (slightly zoomed in):

M. Philosophe-Chauffeur reminded us that everyone can learn something new every day–that history is everywhere. There’s a story behind every painting, every church, every garden. You just have to give yourself time to hear it. Happy learning!

L’automne est arrivé and is making itself felt even here in France. The color is not as dramatic as in New England . . .

. . . where we are usually to be found in October. But there are the occasional flashes of color, like these  . . . whatever they are . . . on a tree in le jardin . . . 

But mostly, the heat has lost its intensity, the mosquitoes are gone (WOOHOO!) and the days are shorter . . .

We took advantage of a gorgeous afternoon to climb la tour Saint-Nicolas with Courtney. We only had time for one tower, and la tour de la Lanterne has recently closed for renovations and won’t reopen until sometime next year.

Courtney does not love heights, so of course we climbed the tallest of the three. Love all the stairs going every which way. And of course, the view . . .

But perfect weather like we had that day is becoming the exception. The cool and the occasional rain showers make us appreciate les arcades de La Rochelle and, last week, les passages couverts de Paris . . . 

We’re choosing to eat à l’interieur instead of à l’exterieur . . .

And of course l’automne makes us feel like curling up with a good book . . .

The changing season signals other changes as well. Tomorrow is our last day in La Rochelle, and that feels strange. We’ll fit in one last lunch at Les 4 Sergents, courtesy of our kind landlords, and I’ll have one last French lesson with my fabulous tutor, Natacha, who has become another good friend.

The past few days have found me wandering in and out of tourist shops, buying a Charente-Maritime calendar and reproductions of watercolors of the towers and the sea, strongly tempted by other touristy knickknacks to which I wouldn’t have given a second glance a month ago. All in an effort to hang onto something precious, I guess. But of course a refrigerator magnet is not an adequate substitute for this place and these friends. So, we don’t know when, but God willing, we will certainly be back.

We’re here in Paris with Courtney this week, heading back to La Rochelle tomorrow. We’ve visited many of the usual sights, including la tour Eiffel, where we were able to stand on one of the sections of the new glass floor which just opened this week on the first level. Since it’s about 57 meters from the ground (American translation: about 187 feet), it was a little unnerving–and Courtney wouldn’t do more than put the toe of her shoe on it long enough to take a picture. She’s not a fan of heights, so the first level is as far as we went. On the plus side, no interminable line for the elevator to the summit.

One Paris treasure I had missed until now–Palais Garnier, also called Opéra Garnier–is right around the corner from our apartment, so we walked over there this morning.

Lots of gold here, too, like Versailles, but far fewer tourists. I think a few postponed their visit because the auditorium was off limits today, due to a rehearsal. Still absolutely worth it. I LOVED this place, especially the Grand Foyer, where the wealthy patrons used to chat each other up between acts (and maybe still do) . . .

Absolutely stunning.

I love the story of this room, the Sun Room–meant to be the vestibule of a future Smoking Room–and it’s companion, the Moon Room. In all the hurry to finish on time, there was a mistake and the decorative schemes of the two circular rooms were reversed. “So that’s why, if the Smoking Room were finished, you would go through ice to show that you are going to light a cigar, and through fire to show that you are going to eat a sorbet!” said the architect, Charles Garnier.

Fascinating place. There’s even a room with models behind glass of previous set designs:

It’s not all gold . . .

But it is all gorgeous, absolutely from top . . .

. . . to bottom, even the floor!

There seem to be fewer tourists, now that we’re into October, so my patience has had no big challenges this week, which is probably good, since that is not always my strong suit. But today I was inspired by this that David forwarded to me from Richard Rohr:

At the end of our street, which is called Five Points Road, five streets come together. The stoplight at this intersection seems interminably long. One day, as I was impatiently waiting and waiting for the light to turn green, I felt God saying to me, “Richard, are you really going to be any happier on the other side of Bridge Avenue?”

Now it has become my daily meditation place where I get to practice living right here, right now. If I can’t experience God and love and happiness and everything that matters in this impatient moment, I probably won’t experience it on the other side of Bridge Avenue either. As Catherine of Siena said, “It’s heaven all the way to heaven, and it’s hell all the way to hell!” ∼ Richard Rohr

Wishing you peace, patience, love and “everything that matters” no matter what side of the street you’re on!

Wow. It’s October already, which means only about three weeks left in France. We WILL come back, but with no firm plans to return, Father Time is clamoring for my attention.

Rather apt then that Saturday Jacky and Pascale took us to Noirmoutier (where the salt is harvested that goes in my favorite butter). This was an adventure that ended up being very much about time. They picked us up at 9:30 for a full day of fun. I had put my camera in the trunk–oops–so missed a few photo ops on the way, including . . . a random Bactrian camel sighting! Yup. Several double-hump camels hanging out in a field at the side of the road.

No worries, though. This day offered plenty more to see.

We left when we did specifically so we would get to Noirmoitier in time to take le passage du Gois, a 4.5 km road that is underwater except for a couple of hours at marée basse (low tide). Arriving on the island, we stopped to take a few photos and were just in time to see these go by:

The people you see walking out on the sea floor are out there to pêche à pied (“fish on foot”) which means to dig for mussels, scallops and the like, but they have to keep an eye on the time as well. I zoomed in to take the photo below and then cropped to enlarge further, so the people in this photo are actually WAY OUT THERE.

If you do lose track of time and/or underestimate the speed of the returning tide (faster than you think), you may need to abandon your car and scramble up one of these:

(Check out YouTube for videos of those who have taken their chances with the tide. Search Passage du Gois and you’ll find plenty.)

Noirmoutier is a good two hours from La Rochelle, but Jacky drove with his customary good humor. Pascale had done her homework, navigating through all the rondpoints  (roundabouts), which was fortunate, since the GPS was not terribly trustworthy, and actually insisted several times that we were driving through the middle of fields! Pascale had chosen le chemin des écoliers (the scenic route)–literally “the way of schoolboys,” but we did stay on the roads.

Pascale had also prepared the entire pique-nique. (Sometimes we’re allowed to contribute wine!) This was our third pique-nique with them—here are the first and second–and this time she was holding out for an actual table, preferably à l’ombre (in the shade). Again, timing was everything. After directing Jacky up and down various lanes to no avail, we finally found the last empty table in here right before several other groups came looking.

We took our time and enjoyed it thoroughly. After the usual multi-course feast, we headed out . . .

. . . for a walk sur la plage . . .

. . . and a little scrambling over the rocks . . .

Then a bit more touring around the island before heading back to the mainland, this time over the bridge, and a final scenic stop here:

The gleaming light on the sea tells us it’s time to call it a day.

There’s a story told in one of the French novels I’ve read in the last few weeks, where a game of sorts is explained.  Each day you wake up, and the bank has put into your account 86,400 dollars. There are only two rules: 1) You can spend them however you like, but anything you don’t spend by the end of the day goes away. 2) The bank can close your account at any time without warning. So, how would you spend it? The man in the story answered much as most of us likely would: he’d spend it to give pleasure and happiness to himself and those he loved, and even to those in other places that he didn’t know–he didn’t think he could spend that much day after day after day on just himself and his loved ones.  The twist in this supposedly theoretical game is that it’s real, and we all have an account with the «banque magique». We are given every day 86,400 seconds of life to spend as we choose, and aren’t seconds of life even more important than dollars?*

Many thanks, yet again, to Pascale and Jacky for spending theirs with us. How will you spend yours?

*Translated and paraphrased from Et si c’était vrai . . . by Marc Levy