Australians in Paris

Paristocratic II: 1^st November

Paris invokes praise ‘big’ time. We’ve enjoyed it from rue to rue, avenue to avenue, boulevard to boulevard, through and through, from its chimneys to its crypts. No wonder the Greeks named one of their better-looking Gods after it.

Even though its public transport system works a treat and one can traverse the city in matter of minutes, only at the pace of the pedestrian and with the mentality of a flaneur can one begin to appreciate its myriad delights, make eye contact with its nuggets of pleasures, which include the Parisians themselves who must be the best dressed and best looking (certainly the sexiest) on the planet. People watching is one the unacknowledged pleasures of Paris.

One of the things we’ve most enjoyed about Paris, is its museums, so much so that we’ve almost become tired of looking. We visited the Louvre and were overwhelmed by its welter of paintings. Two stood out though: a John Constable, of Weymouth beach and Eugene Delacroix’s “Liberte”, surely the world’s greatest political painting. One arm of the Palais Royal contains the Musee les Arts Decoratifs, which not only contains a conspectus of Jean Debuffet's work (Colin’s favourite painter from the second half of the twentieth century) but also one (well, two if you count Mark Newson’s chair) of the few Australian artists we have encountered (a reminder that Australian artists rank fairly low on the league table of global culture), namely, Anne Dangar, an interesting ceramicist, whose pots and plates owe much to the aesthetic of Fauvism and Cubism; definitely a ceramicist to resurrect.

We also visited the Pompadour Centre, Musee D’Orsay (it goes without saying, even though much of it was closed) and the Musee d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, which had been thrown into chaos by its Basquiat retrospective and which many of its most interesting rooms were closed. This did not include however the Raoul Dufy celebration of electricity—a wonderful example of mural art. Our favourite museum though was on our doorstep, just around the corner from our apartment, the Musee Carnavalet and which distils within its more than a hundred rooms the history of Paris. Visitors to Paris, genuinely interested in the city’s history and the provenance of its ‘personality’ should not miss it.

Our Paris Top Five

Colin’s

i) The Bateau Bus, especially that stretch of the Seine between the tip of Ile de Cite and the beginning of Ile St Louis.

ii) The views from the Centre Pompidou’s balconies and outside escalators.

iii) Shakespeare and Company Bookshop

iv) Ile Saint Louis

v) Jean Debuffet’s Galeries Lafayette much better than the original

Claire’s

i) Views through the tiny windows of the tower of the Musee des Arts Decoratifs both outwards towards Jardine des Tuileries and the Eiffel Tower and inwards towards Place du Carousel and the Louvre Pyramid

ii) Autumn trees changing colour in Place des Voges (treetop view through windows of Victor Hugo apartment)

iii) Musee Carnavalet experience including hedge gardens

iv) Promenading in the Luxembourg Gardens Sunday afternoon

v) Marche Bastille at closing time Sunday—clementines at 1 euro per kg (see Alexis's photograph)

Alexis's

i) Seeing Audrey Tautou in the Marais

ii) Bon marche Bastille, for the wonderful fresh produce

iii) Larry Clark's first retrospective ("Kiss the past hello") at Musee d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris

iv) Availability of quality wines at supermarche and cheap cigarettes at Tabac

v) Awesome graffiti and street art

PS: Our stay in Paris was superbly 'accommodated' by Michele at rentmyhomeinparis.com , discovered by Alexis with her excellent online research skills and tenacity.