Sunday, 10 June, In the footsteps of the impressionists, with kareoke

Written 12 June 2018

Sunday morning (i.e., about 5 hours later), when I pulled up the app, there was the new number and the correct e-mail address, and all the payment info from the original account, and a little box asking "Where to?" Whew. We scarfed down our pastries and went down to the sidewalk, I lined up the trip, held my breath, and tapped "Request UberX," and rather to our surpise, less than 3 minutes later, as promised, driver Mohammed swept up to the curb, whisked us away to the Quai de l'Horloge while answering all our questions about, e.g., where Uber cars were allowed to pick up passengers at airports, waved cheerily good-bye, and drove away! Slick. My phone whistled at me a minute later, asking about a tip (yes, definitely) and a rating (5 stars, of course). When it works, Uber is great!

We were surprised not to see a Canauxrama boat at the landing, just one from Vedettes du Pont Neuf, which was preparing to embark about 120 folks of approximately our age, travelling as a group. We never did find out what the accronym of their organization stood for. Anyway, we were rather early, so we strolled along the quai to see whether any of the boats waiting nearby was labeled Canauxrama, but no, they were all Vedettes du Pont Neuf, which is one of the outfits that run "bateaux mouches," the one-hour tours of central Paris. I decided we'd better ask if they were taking Canauxrama passengers, too, and as soon as I got close I saw that the captain was already clutching half a dozen of the Canauxrama printouts like the one we had. So we piled onto the boat with all the others. Luckily, we didn't want to ride up top, in the sun, wind, and rain (it was supposed to rain but never did), as it was already full by the time we boarded. We did get front-row seats in the inside cabin. Our view directly ahead was blocked, but we had good visibility to both sides.

Here's our vessel, the "Henri IV," viewed from street level before we climbed down to the quai. The quai is right at the foot of the Place Henri IV. At the right is my shot of the place's famous equestrian statue of that worthy, known as the Vert Gallant, because he acquired an average of about a mistress a week between the age of puberty and his assassination at age 57. He was not, please note, assassinated by one of his mistresses, with whom he seemed to stay on good terms for life—it was a political thing.

The place and the quai are on the down-stream tip of the Îsle de la Cité, where Notre Dame and the Sainte Chapelle are located. Once we shoved off, the boat made a u-turn in mid-river to cruise downstream out of the city. The Seine meanders a lot; it describes a sort of inverted U through the city itself, then does a series of sharper, 180° bends east of town. We cruised through two of those, and almost to a third.

During the first stage of the cruise, the guide pointed out all the famous bridges we were passing under, pointing out something I should have noticed—that the more arches, the older the bridge. The Pont Neuf (which means "new bridge") is in fact the oldest bridge in Paris. It was once the shiny new, and very first, stone bridge and has therefore outlived all its predecessors. Each bridge has unique ornamentation, so I took a photo of every one, but I won't cram them all in here.

At the left here is the center section of the Museée d'Orsay housed in an old railway station. Its façade is still ornamented with the names of all the cities you could get to from there. At the right is a sort of edgewise view of the Alexandre III bridge, showing both one of its gilded columns and one of the decorative medallions on its sides.

We passed, on the right bank, the headquarters of the actual Bateaux Mouches company—like Kleenex, its name has come to be applied generically to all its competitors as well. I have no idea why they have a life-size shiny silver T. rex skeleton on the roof of their offices, and I never got a chance to ask.

And, of course, on the left bank, the Eiffel Tower. Counting the Pont Neuf itself, we passed under 14 bridges in Paris proper and several more behond the city limits. Some of the most notable were the double-decker Bir-Hakeim (commemorating a battle; the Metro uses the upper deck), the Pont de l'Alma (where a statue of a Zouave serves as an informal flood gauge), the Pont Mirabeau (named for a poet and decorated with lovely statues; my shot of the angel with a trumpet came out too blurry), and of course the Pont des Arts, the footbridge famous for the bazillion padlocks lovers attached to its wire mesh railings (and to other padlocks when the mesh was fully occupied). Unfortunately, the weight of the locks became such that the pilings supporting the bridge were beginning to sink into the river bed, so a few years ago the authorities cut them all off. Of course the locks reappeared almost overnight, so they cut them all off again and have now replaced all the wire mesh with plexiglas. You still find a few padlocks here and there where the ornamentation on some bridge happens to offer purchase.

Here's the Bir-Hakeim, at the left. At the right is the small model of the Statue of Liberty that the U.S. gave to France in thanks for the large one they gave us. It stands at the downstream tip of the Isle of Swans in the Seine.

From the center of the city as far as the first lock, the banks were lined with houseboats—some converted barges, some custom-built. Beyond the lock was a long stretch without them, but they resumed farther along. At the quai in Paris, I saw a yellowish wagtail. Outside the city I spotted city pigeons, wood pigeons, crows of some kind, one magpie, cormorants (both mature and immature), black-headed and herring gulls, one yellow iris, morning glories, yellow water lilies, a chestnut tree in bloom, a catalpa (or perhaps a Pawlonia) in bloom, lots of virgin's bower (wild Clematis) in bloom, ducks (all mallards, I think), swans (some with cygnets), lots of other trees (willows, poplars/birches, sycamore maples, alders), a green kingfisher on the wing.

Also beyond the city we began to encounter rowing crews. I show a men's four on the left and a women's four on the right. I also spotted one crew of eight, a couple of doubles, and one single. Some of the crews were coed; some used coxswains and some didn't. Later in the cruise we came across small groups of kayakers.

As we passed through the only lock on the cruise, I went forward through the curtain we weren't supposed to pass to get this shot off the bow of the far door of the lock opening to let us out (you can see the opening in the distance, just below the top of the rail. Our boat took up just over half the lock's width, but as you can see from the photo, two or three more of the same size could have fit in ahead of us.

At this point, the Seine flows northward, outside the city but skirting its western boundary. cluster of skyscrapers in the right-hand photo is part of the ultramodern "Défense" neighborhood (the neighborhood was called La Défense, for historical reasons, long before its modern development; it has nothing to do with actual defense). The famous Grand Arch de la Défence was set too far back from the bank and were down to low to be able to see it as we sailed by.

Then the countryside got rural-looking again, but we were almost to our lunch-time destination when I finally spotted the first of two hérons cendrés, "ashy herons," very similar in size and color our our great blues.

And here, barely visible, I'm afraid, over the heads of our shipmates, is our lunch destination itself—none other than the Restaurant Fournaise, the very establishment at which Renoir painted Luncheon of the Boating Party! The large group had reserved the balcony, so we were relegated to the downstairs terrace, but Rachel Sinnett will still be green with envy!

The setting is not as rural, of course, as it was in Renoir's time. At the right is the view of the development across the river. And, actually, what you see here is only half the river. The restaurant is actually on a long narrow island, quite near the downstream end, so only a few yards behind it is the other branch of the Seine. The island has a "real" name, but it's now widely known as the Island of the Impressionists, because so many of them hung out and painted there. The setting of the painting is a Sunday lunch, so we were glad to be there for lunch on a Sunday. the boat's tour guide explained that it was the invention of the metal tube as a container for oil paints that made it possible for painters to leave the studio and go out to paint from nature, on location. Before, they had had to mix their pigments as they went and to use them before they dried up.

Fortunately, the restaurant has not turned into the tourist trap it might have. The food was not bad at all, and only one menu item (the house cocktail) was named for a character in the painting.

At the left here is David's crab salad topped with guacamole (a flat cylinder just starting to slump toward the camera) and at the right my "tartare" of crayfish tails. Actually the crayfish tails were cooked, but the julienned cucumber and apple mixed with them were raw.

The service was only a little slow.

As you can see from this photo of David at our table, we were just one step from the river's gravel tow-path, so the people-watching was pretty good, as a steady stream of folks passed by in both directions, some with dogs (all friendly, well behaved, and obediant but nonetheless strongly tempted to forage under the tables for crumbs).

We both had the same main course, tournedos of faux filet (variously translated as "sirloin" and "ribeye") with morel sauce and fingerling potatoes. Quite good, if undersalted.

For dessert, I had a "fraisier," which is two thin layers of cake separated by whole strawberries embedded in pastry cream. This one was in turn topped with a bright green sugary glaze. David chose the chocolate option and got layers of chocolate cake separated by layers of chocolate ganache and topped with a strawberry. Strawberries are in season now, and they are so much better than American strawberries.

The restrooms were upstairs, so I had a good excuse to go up there and, on the way back, to stick my head out the door and get a couple of photos of the balcony. The one at the left is from the "upstream" end, looking in the direction Renoir faced. You can still see the famous orange-stripped awning.

At the right, I'm further "downstream" looking in the same direction. I think this is where the models sat, but instead of the fringe of the awning, all you see is a wooden frieze.

In the upstairs hallway was this paining, which gives a better view of the place than I could capture. Note, though, that the artist must have been out in a boat to get this angle. The outside staircase that slants up to the balcony at the left-hand side of the painting is still there but is now a dead end. You have to go inside to get upstairs.

Here, at the right, is my best shot of the exterior. You can't really see the red awning we sat under, because it's edge-on to the camera, between the clearly visible red awnings and the tow path.

Then it was back to the boat for the somewhat longer cruise back to the Pont Neuf, longer because we would be cruising against the current and we might have to wait our turn for the lock.

To entertain us on the way back, the cruise company had laid on an accordionist who occasionally sang and who regaled us with French standards all the way back. I love that kind of music, so I was spellbound the whole time. I was amazed, though, at how few of the songs I had ever heard. I was betting he'd open with either "Paris Skies" or "La Vie en Rose," on the theory that this was a tourist cruise, but in fact it was a cruise for French tourists. He did eventually play "La Vie en Rose," but "Paris Skies" never came up.

He did hit a few I knew, and when he spotted me in the front row belting along (as was everyone else) with "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien," he asked me where I was from, handed me the mike and insisted I sing the whole second half of the song! Fortunately, (a) Edith Piaf had almost as narrow a vocal range as I do and (b) I remembered all the words. He also played a Jacques Brel number that I love; the words of the verses are really fast, and I don't know them all, but the chorus is great. It goes (in my translation) "I'm telling you now, I won't go any farther, and I'm warning you I won't go to Paris. Besides, I abhor all musical parties, the "waltz musette," and the accordion!" Everyone belted that one, too.

A French lady nearby know almost all the songs, so I spent a lot of time trying to read her lips and was able to pick up the choruses of several numbers. I struck up a conversation with her during one of the accordionist's breaks, and she explained to me that the repertory he was playing was not that of the well-known recording artists that I know (like Piaf, Brel, Georges Brassens, Charles Aznavour, and Yves Montand) but the standards that are played and sung at French weddings, banquets, etc. I took notes on as many numbers as I could, so as to look them up later.

It was 6 p.m. by the time we arrived back at the Pont Neuf, so rather than heading home, we strolled around the nearby Place Dauphine, still on the Isle de la Cité, and settled on La Rose de France for an early and light supper, having already done the full three-course thing at lunch. I'm pretty sure we ate at the same place once with one of our young travel protegés, either CJ or Niece Julia.

We both had a salade compagnard—mixed greens, excellent red and yellow cherry tomatoes, dry goat cheese grilled on toasts, sliced raw ham, carrot shreds, boiled potatoes, walnuts, and an organic hard-boiled egg. Excellent. Note the perfectly boiled egg, with center still slightly dark and no green around the yolk. Then we split a tarte Tatin—an upside-down caramelized apple tart, with half-soured cream on the side. The food was good, but the waiter was downright lackadaisical.

We still didn't have our transport passes, and it had started raining again, so we Ubered home.

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