Half a day of delights

After an uneventful flight (the best kind) we arrived at our hotel in our favourite neighbourhood of Paris: Boulevard St. Germaine.  The hotel is next door to our first major dinner stop, Le Procope (about which more below). The hotel is called the Hotel Left Bank, and is a very comfortable small hotel near everything we have planned for this part of our trip.  For example, Notre Dame, where we will hear some serious organ tonight, is about 15 minutes by foot.






Our first significant stop was to the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages.  Housed in a 13th century castle smack in the heart of the Latin Quarter (so named because it is the center of higher education in Paris, and for centuries, Latin was the common language of instruction), the museum houses a fantastic collection of art of all types from that era.  One room collected battered heads from the gallery of the kings of Judah from Notre Dame, preserved here after a restoration project.  One in particular bore a compelling resemblance to a certain basso and voice professor at UNM.






The prime attraction at the Cluny is The Lady and The Unicorn, a collection of stunning tapestries woven in Flanders from French designs about 1500.  There are six altogether, each about ten feet tall.  Five of the six are related to the five senses, and the sixth is called To My Sole Desire not to be confused with My Soul's Desire):

And now for our first serious dining adventure of the trip.  When we discovered that our hotel was next door to Le Procope, which has been in continuous operation at the same location since 1686, and that they still serve an item that was on the menu then, I knew what I would be having.  But first, a 330 year old restaurant has to have a history, yes?  This one seems to have originated the idea of a "literary restaurant", where future big-name writers would hang out.  Think names like La Fontaine, Voltaire, Rousseau, Beaumarchais, Balzac, Hugo, and you'll get the idea.  But also think a name like Bonaparte.  Young lieutenants are not known for having pockets full of cash, so when Napoleon found that he couldn't pay for dinner, he left his hat in pawn.  Apparently lieutenant headgear isn't as pricey as his meal, because it's still there.

My meal?  Tète de veau (calf's head).  Actually quite tasty, and not nearly so strong-tasting as I expected:

Finally, to put some of you at ease, the general feel here is very normal.  We have seen only one show of force, and that was the Prime Minister's residence.  We're having a ball, and wish you could be enjoying it with us.  This blog will have to suffice, I suppose.

Note on spelling: no, we haven't lost our minds--we've only lost our computers, sort of.  In the interest of travelling light, we left our laptops behind and like Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, are depending on the generosity of our friends; in this case our hotel hosts.  But surprise--French keyboards are different, and the built-in auto spell check/correct is different (neighbour/neighbor, for instance).  I'll catch as much as I can, but I'm begging forgiveness from the outset.

Note on images: because I'm using borrowed computers, my image editing tools are limited; we'll see how long I can stand it.