April 18, 2023 to April 19, 2023
Three Blazers in Paris
After an uneventful flight, I am back in Paris for about ten days until the start of Act III, a journey to the south of France. Now that intermission has officially begun, there will be few announcements/posts until Act III begins. Unless of course something occurs that I deem to be of great interest to the Cycle Blaze community. And a Cycle Blaze meet-up certainly meets that prerequisite.
Lyle McLeod and Kirsten Kaarsoo contacted me a few months ago with questions about bikes and trains in Paris. And it turned out that there would be short overlap at the start of their latest tour when we all would be in Paris. Voilà – a meet-up. We rendezvoused at their hotel near Gare de Lyon and took a crowded metro ride to one of my favorite special occasion restaurants in Paris, located in the 11th arrondissement. It’s not a fancy place but, as one renowned chef described, “casual, comfortable, raucous and delicious.” Having gleaned a bit of their personalities from their journals, it seemed like a near perfect choice for Lyle and Kirsten.
The chalkboard menu offered a variety of small plates to share, and we ordered most of them. Over the next two hours, the conversation flowed freely and the plates kept coming, capped off with dessert and espresso. It was a delightful evening, as these CB meet-ups usually are – bonding over the shared enthusiasm of travel on two wheels. After making plans to meet the following day for a cultural outing in west Paris, we headed back to the Metro and went our separate ways.
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The second outing of our fab trio was to the Fondation Louis Vuitton, an art museum housed in an amazing Frank Gehry-designed building located in Bois de Boulogne. Not only is the building itself worth the trip to the west end of Paris, the current exhibition, “Basquiat × Warhol. Painting four hands” was one on both our short lists of “Things to See in Paris.” Though they were two artists of different generations and medium, Basquait and Warhol were mutual admirers and in 1984-85 they created about 160 paintings together, working in tandem – hence four hands. The exhibition includes 80 canvases as well as sculptures and works with/by other artists active in the downtown New York City art scene in the 1980s. The pieces ranged from humorous to poignant, each revealing the collaborative energy with which they were created. I found the whole exhibit remarkable, and very moving.
After viewing most of the 300 works and documents on display, we took a short tour of the building and decamped to one of my neighborhood haunts for beers. Dinner was at my apartment, an iconic French meal harvested from the neighborhood shops: roast chicken, potatoes and haricot verts - accompanied by wine, preceded by cheese and followed by pastries. And throughout, a string of stories, laughter and talk of our coming adventures. It was all a delight.
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1 year ago