Pentecost Monday

Who knew the French take Pentecost so seriously?  With  population of 80ish% Catholic, maybe I should have known.  But France is also infamous for separation of church and state, so I did not really consider that everything would be closed Pentecost Monday.  Ee had some errands I wanted to get done so we could relax tomorrow, but everywhere we went we met a brick, or should I say stone wall.  After a Lemon tart and a cup of tea for me and a Coke Zero for JOdi  at Cafe Paul we headed toward the Chateau de Vincennes.  It dated back to before the 1300s and Charles V, St Louis, or Louis the IX spent some time here, but the real work of building the Donjon (the medieval keep) was done by Charles V.  He apparently was a pretty good king and enlarged his territory without much war!.  Imagine that!  Marie DeMedici spent some time here after Henri IV was murdered as did her son Louis the XIII, the predecessor to  Louis the XIV (AKA the  Sun King of Versailles fame).  After Versailles became vogue the grounds were used for a prison, an armory, a manufacturing plant, as headquarter for the Chief of staff of the Armed Forces, until the Germans marched in in 1940 and occupied castle.  They did considerable damage, including demolishing all but one of the 9 towers that were originally built as part of the defense.   The chapelle is lovely and empty, I wanted to break into song just to see how it sounded, but I was afraid Jodi would think I had lost it!  Not to mention the potential reaction of other people visiting the chapelle.   It was a blustery day and we were very lucky, it rained, while we were in the Donjon and we totally stayed dry!  We had looked and looked for downtown Paris while we were at the top of the Donjon, but we could not see a thing.  As we left we decided to get a drink across the street at a little cafe and as we were crossing the street, we could see the Eiffel Tower in all her glory!  I had a lemon drink what was so refreshing, I wish I could get it here!  

Dinner, I decided (Jodi let’s me do that) would be at Verjus.  Verjus ( it means the tart juice from freshly pressed grapes) is a restaurant and wine bar that the couple that formerly run the Hidden Kitchen that I enjoyed so much, opened up last fall.  It is very near the Palais Royale and Le Grand Vefour.  I had no illusions that Jodi would enjoy the tasting menu, so we opted for the wine bar, which I knew had a couple of very American things on the menu.  I started with celeriac dumplings with dan-dan sauce, chives & toasted peanuts. Jodi, the Joe’s shoestring fries with togarashi & ketchup , the togarashi, had her in a dither, but she was soon asking for extra!  Next was buttermilk fried chicken with napa cabbage slaw & micro greens and veal meatballs for me.  Followed by more Shoestring potatoes for Jodi!  For dessert there was a lemon and yogurt cake with macerated strawberries, and roasted rhubarb a dollpop of Buttermilk ( I think) ice cream.  The wine was good, the food excellent and the atmosphere charming.  Though I have to admit to a bit of longing for thr fun times I had at their apartment with 17 new friends!  On the was back I met my own French Ho and fell flat on my derriere.  It was a slo-mo  moment for me and I truly thought Jodi was going to save me, but no I went down with absolutely no grace!  Never fear though , I have enough padding hardly a bruise to corroborate my tenderness. 

Thinking about the Eiffel Tower

Today was market day at my favorite market, Grenelle.  I got up around 0730 and left Jodi snoozing.  When we were here before I bought a couple of pretty cool tops, Alas not tops today.  But It was still fun to see all the lovely fruits, vegetables, breads, and meats for sale!  Only in Paris would they scatter a bit of dirt on the fingerling potatoes to make them look more appealing!   People are amazing in the market, passionate  conversations with regulars, arguments, flirting with the customers.  I really just love the markets! I arrived home, and soon after, we left for church.  We arrived just on time, which is pretty late, so we got a seat in the back.  Never fear, the Notre Dame staff are current with modern times, and there are now video monitors every 15 feet or so.  IT is just not right to be able to look at a screen in Notre Dame!  It is always so very interesting to watch people, and I could do a bit of this during this service because the guest priest was from Africa and I could barely understand any of this French.  It is always lovely to go to Mass there, though, and I found the choir music accompanied by the stained glass in the vaulted ceiling particularly nice this visit.  On the way back frojm church we stopped in the market near here and found some hard cider for Jodi.  She loves it and we have had it before.  We wven found Pear hard cider, which I am pretty excited to try!  Back to the apartment to change clothing and then to the Rodin Museum.  Jodi has wanted to see the

Thinker for seven years and FINALLY she got to see it.  It is always fun for me to see her excited, because that is way off her norm.  But I knew that there was yet another treat in store for her.  I particularly think he did interesting things with eyes, they look so real, at least from a distance.  She loves hands, likes to look at them, observe them, and she gets to know them.  Rodin did several pieces of hands, but there is one called he Cathedral in the museum that I knew she would like too.  So I got to see her excited not once, but twice in one day!  Like many things, it has changed since I last visited, but the art is the same.  The roses were our in all their glorious splendor as well, so  Mr Thinker is in good company.  After our visit to the Musee Rodin we went to the Eiffel Tower to do some photography with Molly Dolly.  There is a rather new monument called the Peace monument, that I had turned my nose up on an ealrier visit.   Upon reading about it prior to this trip I wanted a closer look.  there were people of sevaral nations there, sitting on the grass, listening to music, dancine.  It was pretty cool.  We brought one of Jodi’s great niece’s doll (Molly Dolly)  with us and have been blogging to her too.  It all started because I wear an Eiffel Tower occasionally and she seemed fascinated with it,  so when we went to King’s Island I showed her the Eiffel Tower there.  But now every time she sees a tower of any sort it is the Eikel Tower.  So I thought MAYBE Molly being here might catch her interest and help bring it make sense to her.  We will see.  We loitered there a bit and people watched.  After we went to one of the cheesy tourist traps for dinner, it looked like it might rain and it made good sense to be near a Metro entrance and this one was about 5 steps away.  We shared a capreses salad, which they are doing here with half a tompatie instead of a slice now.  THe verdict is still out for e, but this tomatoe was closer to soggy styrafoam rather than a tomatoe.   I had a piece of steak with bernaise and of course pommes frittes accompanied by a glass of wine.  We were going to have dessert when we got back to the apartment, but had a glass of wine instead to this lovely sunset.