The Last Tour Day

Rodin's "Thinker" thinking:  "Why do I sit out here in the weather when that continental terrorist Napoleon Bonaparte gets to sleep in glory in the Hôtel des Invalides under a gold dome?

Tuesday

Last night was the farewell dinner, at a restaurant near the hotel - “organic steakhouse,” one whole wall was cuts of meat behind glass doors; upstairs, where we ate, was one whole wall of wine bottles, behind glass doors.  I've been sticking to fish, for the most part (we almost always have two options to choose from for the main dish), and had a really terrific salmon in a really terrific sauce. 

And so we embark today on our two-day (sold to us as a three-day) tour extension in Paris; this just means we get to stay in the hotel for two extra nights and have two days on our own.

But let's cover yesterday, which started with a breakfast in the hotel (Hotel Chateau Frontenac*) that was as good as, or better than, the one in the Toulouse hotel, which was pretty great.  We were hovered over by waiters, and the maitre d' fussed unnecessarily over everything.  Abbey didn't get a napkin at her place, so went over to another table to get one, and the maitre d' came over to insist that he should have been able to get her a napkin.  I don't want to make more of this than necessary, but this hotel, from the lobby to the restaurant, is run by men who seem to put a good bit of distance between themselves and guests.  Almost everyone else we encountered in our other hotels were women, who were much more personable – as if they were simply dealing with another human being, not royalty.

Anyway, we had a break re: our typical early start:  Ahmed, our driver, had gotten up early to fill in for another driver who had an airline transfer – and had gotten caught in traffic.  Forty minute wait.  Terrific!   Another croissant!  Then onto the bus and over to the Rodin Museum.  You may remember that among his many famous sculptures is “The Thinker,” his most famous.  He lived and worked during the second half of the 19th century, much of the time in the building which is now the museum.  Our museum guide I think was new; very knowledgeable, but unable to be concise.  I always give a lot of leeway to people who have made the effort to learn English (or any second language); so no problem.

The Gates of Hell **

Anyway, Rodin was interesting in that he was a real artist – he followed his artistic vision regardless of the consequences, and the consequences were, in what seemed to be a lot of cases, rejection of his commissioned work and not getting paid.  I asked the tour guide afterward about this, and she said that Rodin's career and fame came to the point where people would commission works and accept whatever he created, because now they had a Rodin.

The original casting of "The Thinker" is in the garden here (see top) and also at the top of "The Gates of Hell, representing Dante as he considered the underworld.  Rodin never 'finished' "The Gates of Hell;" he never felt he had gotten all the figures right and in right relationship.  There's a psychodynamic story in there somewhere.

The most memorable of the works, for me, was the first one we saw, “The Burghers of Calais.”  In the 14th century Britain tried to take Calais (closest point in France to Britain and a big seaport) but failed, starving the populace into a stalemate.  The result of this human interaction was that Calais would send six prominent citizens to the English as sacrificial victims, and in return the British would not destroy the city.  Nineteenth-century Calais wanted a statue to commemorate these six, and Rodin gave them “The Burghers of Calais” - not a heroic tableau, but six starving people expressing the terror and despair anyone would feel in their position.  It's a brilliant piece of work, but it's in Paris and not Calais because it was rejected.  And so we massage history.

The Burghers

One more story:  Early in his career, Rodin made a life-size statue that was so perfect, ordinary and human that he was accused, publicly and at length, of making a plaster cast of the model and casting the statue with that.  This just wasn't done, and anyway, statues needed to be muscular, mythic, dramatic (which Rodin did in other statues – see “The Thinker”).  Anyway, Rodin never made a life-size statue again.

Preschoolers at the 
Gates of Hell

By the way, there was a whole class of 2-3 year olds touring the Rodin Museum.  Go figure!

Then back on the bus and through traffic to the Seine boat tour.  Because of the traffic (lots of major bridges/roads/plazas closed to prep for Olympics) we were late, and had to wait 45 minutes for the next sailing.  We got off the bus, and said goodbye to our driver who was off to pick up another tour.  Everyone seemed to like Ahmed a lot, and the goodbyes were touching.  Then wait wait wait and then on the boat.  It was a typical one-hour Seine boat tour by Bateaux Mouches, which Caroline told us means “fly boats,” as in housefly.  More about this old company, and why they're “fly boats,” here.

It was a smooth ride up the Seine almost to Ile de la Cite (where we could just see the steeple of Sainte Chapelle but not Notre Dame); then we turned around and sailed downstream to Pont de Grenelle, where there is a quarter-size replica of the Statue of Liberty in the middle of the river.  We turned around, and could see the Statue and the Eiffel Tower looking like they were right next to each other.  A real tourist photo moment.

And boy, did they take photos.  We had gotten there late, which meant early for the next boat, and we had seats on top in the front row.  Good seats – until the photo ops started, and then there was an endless stream of selfie-ers packing the deck right in front of us.   First one at a time, then two – and Mom/Abbey got up and asked them to move somewhere else.  But then it was open season, especially when we were anywhere near the Eiffel Tower.  We could still see a lot, especially the sides of the river, but it was frustrating to have the forward view blocked.  And, for some reason, every one of the picture-takers was a well-dressed Asian.

There are a lot of bridges over the Seine.  Here you can see some of them, because the selfies have not yet begun.

Then we were back at the pier, off the boat, and up on the street.  We had the afternoon “on our own.”  Our hotel was about a half mile away, so we walked.  Our first (of many) experiences of walking in Paris, which includes crossing streets and avenues.  There are red/green pedestrian lights at every crossing, and plenty of pedestrian crosswalks (“zebra crossings” the British call them), so in theory, it was easy and safe.  And it pretty much was, except for the annoying habit of Paris drivers to come speeding up to a red light and stopping suddenly.  When you're in a crosswalk, in an unfamiliar city with crazy traffic, that's a little scary.  But we made it.

Everyone – again, we're all “a certain age” - was tired, including us:  we had been on the go, up and down, pack and unpack, on a schedule, absorbing tons of fascinating things for almost two weeks.  We had just finished our last “thing” and had hiked a half mile or so in a brand new place.  I think Abbey took a nap; I worked on the journal and probably dozed as well.  Then to our last dinner.

We gathered in the lobby and walked to a restaurant – the aforementioned “organic steakhouse” restaurant – that we had passed in our wanderings last night and decided was out of our league.  The group entered, sat down upstairs, overlooked by the wall-to-wall wine cellar, and had a great dinner – beef  bourguignon or salmon steak.  I have been choosing the fish pretty much every meal and the salmon and sauce were excellent.

Our tour guide keeps track of our dinner choices, and puts little half-size sticky notes down on the table next to us indicating what meal we get.  Apparently, the word for “fish” is “poisson,” which always made me think that the note said “This is Gary.  He gets poison."

And just like that, it was over, and goodbyes were said.  Abbey and I had had long discussions over the tip we were instructed to leave by the tour company; the words “extortion” and “hidden fees” were used liberally, and I'll skip the politics of tips right now but will be glad to take them up at another time.

Caroline and her dog

To be clear, our guide Caroline was superb.  A guide is so much a part of your life when you're on a tour like this, any difficulties can wear on you.  As experienced tour guides (although not on that level), we gave her an A+.  She had a cheerful, breezy way about her, always smiling and laughing, which was remarkable given the responsibility she had for our experiences and well-being.  Her knowledge and understanding of the places we visited, their history and culture, was very deep and very wide, yet she never lectured; it was like a light conversation that happened to contain everything we needed and wanted to know.  She was always cheerfully focused on those around her, but willing to share bits of herself, too (for instance, she has rowed since college (“anyone could be on the rowing team!”) and now that she is older rows longer races – including on the Canal du Midi – rather than sprints).  

Anyway, that part of the trip was over.  Now, two days in Paris.  Ha!  Off we go to scratch the surface.

NOTES:

* - I've spent way too long trying to find a connection between this hotel and the one in Quebec of the same name.  They were built around the same time, and probably named for a French nobleman of the seventeenth century, a colonial Governor of New France, who, "despite a record of misgovernment, managed to encourage profitable explorations westward [from Quebec] and to repel British and Iroquois attacks on New France."  The Chateau Frontenac in Quebec is one of the most unforgettable sights in Canada. 

** - This is not the original casting, the one done by Rodin and his team.  That is in the Orsay Museum, which we visited the very next day, but didn't see because it wasn't done in the Impressionist style.