16 February 2006

That Paris trip

Montparnasse, 6:00 p.m. — not Saint-Aignan!

We left for Paris in rain at 10:00 a.m. but it stopped just as we drove into Paris at about 1:00 p.m. We had lunch in a Vietnamese restaurant in the 13th arrondissement and went shopping at Tang Frères supermarket as planned. We even had time to go do a little errand over in the 5th on the rue des Écoles before heading over to Montparnasse to see the movie at 4:00. All that worked out as planned too. We parked in an underground garage at the Gare Montparnasse (10 euros for three hours).

All these films were playing

We picked our American friend Mimi up at her hotel in the Marais at 7:00 -- believe it or not, we found a parking space there, just across the street from her hotel, with no trouble. It was a small space, but the little Peugeot fit in just fine, and it was even legal. Mimi was surprised that we were driving; she said she thought we were brave. We don't mind driving in Paris, though parking isn't always easy.

The Tour Montparnasse

It had started pouring rain in Paris about 6:00 p.m., just as we got out of the movie theatre. We got in the car and drove over to have dinner at a restaurant called Le Petit Prince de Paris, over in the 5th not far from the Sorbonne and the Panthéon. We'd been there once before on friends' recommendation, and we wanted to go again. It wasn't a mistake.

I had a salad of mixed greens with thin slices of duck breast and foie gras in it. And then I had rognons de veau aux champignons à la crème (veal kidneys with mushrooms in a cream sauce) as my main course. Walt had bow-tie pasta with escargots as his first course, and broiled sea bass filets as the main dish. The wine was a 2003 Petites Roches Chinon red from Charles Joguet's winery, which we visited last October. It was very nice, I thought.

Montparnasse street scene at nightfall

We ended up leaving Paris at midnight and driving back to Saint-Aignan on little country roads. It was still pouring rain when we left Paris, but it let up some when we were about an hour out of town, near Milly-la-Forêt. We drove down through Bellegarde (nice château) and Orléans.

At that point we thought better of driving through the forests of Sologne, where there are of course a lot of trees as well as a lot of wild animals along the roads. There had been strong winds and there were small tree branches down on the pavement even in the towns. I thought the forest might be worse. We drove on to Blois along the Loire and then south from there to Saint-Aignan. The only animals we saw were some rabbits and a couple of big white owls. We got home at 3:30 a.m.

6 comments:

  1. Your photos of Paris turned out well-enough to make me homesick for the city of light. I see that Brokeback was still playing;-)

    How did you like the Petit Prince the second time? I'm thinking about going there in May, it's near our hotel.

    I've only seen one white owl in my life, I think they are beautiful. It's fitting that you saw owls, since you were "night owls" to get home so late.

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  2. Fist time commenting. Keep up the good work with details of adventures and outings around St-Aignan. I read todays events and happened to look up your "le Petit Prince de Paris" located on Rue de Lannau. It just so happens I will be going to France for a month and the first week there will be an appartment rented on Rue de Lanneau, probably accross the street from the restaurant. The other reason I read your adventure is because I have rented a house "gite" in Selles-Sur-Cher. J'ais un fraire qui habite a Tours, et je voulais etre asser pres de luis, et d'autre fammille a Montargis. Keep up the good work

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  3. Selles-sur-Cher has a nice little town and has a great outdoor market on Thursday mornings. It's not far from several châteaux -- le Moulin, Valençay, Saint-Aignan, Chémery, Montrésor. And then there are Chambord, Blois, Chenonceau, and Amboise not much farther. Not to mention the château at Selles itself.

    Yes, the restaurant Le Petit Prince de Paris is at 12, rue Lanneau in the 5e, about halfway between the Panthéon and the Place Maubert.

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  4. Evelyn, I often see those big white owls here late at night. I'll be driving along a road in the country and suddenly an owl will fly up from the side of the road and be just a big white wingspan that almost fills the view through the windshield. They are quite impressive -- big white angel wings in the dark.

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  5. I just wrote you a nice note, but it suddenly zapped into cyberspace, and - just like the victims of Captain Jonathan Archer’s transporter beam device – never reached its destination, so it’s forever floating in the air. Anyway, I had written that I had only very recently discovered your blog, but I have gotten quite attached to it. It's got a very 'homy' touch to it. I am not much of a cook, a lousy one as a matter of fact, so lousy that I’ve had to hire a cook to get this family fed adequately, but I do enjoy your cooking. My hubbie has recently bought seven seasons of the Stargate series, incredibly boring because now we have to watch that every night, but right now I am quite content, because as they watch, I’m sitting next to them on the couch with my laptop, and read your stories about cooking, and household stuff, and France and all that. I visit France every summer for a month, and I kind of like to read your take on it. It’s just very human, I guess, the way you write about it. Just a little note to let you know there must be lots of people out there that really enjoy what you’re writing.

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  6. Thanks for a wonderful dinner BUT mostly for such fine company.

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