October 23, 2021 to October 28, 2021
Three CycleBlazers in Paris
Friday, October 22
I first met fellow CycleBlazers Kevin and Sunyoung in early September, shortly after we both arrived in Paris and before the start of our respective tours. I'd managed to get a Pass Sanitaire at my district town hall and they'd biked in from their nearby campsite to see if they would have similar luck. Although they struck out on the Pass Sanitaire, we enjoyed a nice picnic lunch and promised to reconnect in October when we were both in Paris. I'd been following their journal, and reached out to Kevin shortly before they were due back in Paris. And that was the beginning of a delightful few days spent bonding over bikes and bombing around Paris.
My first assignment was to search out a bike box(es) for their return home. I headed over to my local bike shop and saw with dismay piles of cardboard stuffed behind a drain pipe, waiting to be carted off by the French recycling truck. Sure enough, they'd received five bikes the day before, but the boxes were too cut up to be useful. They were unsure whether they'd get in more bikes, but took my name and number just in case. Less than two hours later, they called me back and I soon had an BIG bike box in my living room. Progress had been made!
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Sunday, October 23
Kevin and Sunyoung successfully navigated French train travel with bikes and arrived in Paris mid-afternoon. Their hostel was fairly close by and we agreed to meet at my apartment to make plans for dinner. There, we shared bike stories and starters before heading out for Italian at a nearby restaurant. We were enjoying each others company and after deciding to hang out together for the next few days we explored options for their time in Paris. It was Sunyoung's first time in the city - she wanted to hit the highlights and was also interested in visiting some art museums. They were headed to the Louvre in the morning, and we made plans to meet up afterward.
Kevin provided a nice narrative of our activities over the next few days in his journal so I'll mainly summarize and add a few pictures, which are mostly of Kevin and Sunyoung at various sites around Paris. It seems a bit like scenes from the movie Up in the Air, with real people instead of cardboard cutouts.
Monday - Thursday, October 25-58
Monday was cold and rainy, a perfect day for visiting one of the plethora of Paris museums. Except most museums are closed on Monday. Kevin and Sunyoung were unable to get into the Louvre without a reserved ticket, and we decided to meet at the Musée de l'Armée. This year marks the bicentennial of Napoleon's death, so it seemed fitting to add in a visit to his tomb.
After the museum, we warmed ourselves with a hot Vietnamese meal and then made our way to Champs de Mars and the Eiffel Tower for a bonafide Paris Tourist experience. I took them through the quiet neighborhoods of the 7th arrondissement on the way back to my apartment where, after some discussion, we booked our museum tickets for Wednesday and Thursday. Kevin and Sunyoung left with the bike box in tow - but I'm sad to report I neglected to get a photo of them hauling the box through the streets of Paris.
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Wednesday, October 25, Fondation Louis Vuitton
On Wednesday afternoon we took the Metro to the Bois de Bologne, located on western edge of Paris. Our destination was the Fondation Louis Vuitton, a museum exhibiting works of major French and Russian painters collected by two Russian brothers, Mikhail and Ivan Morozov. The Morozov Collection is the second in the museums series "Icons of Modern Art" and includes works by Cezanne, Picasso, Matisse, Gaugin, Bonnard and Derain, as well as noted Russian painters such as Larionov and Serov. At one point Sunyoung asked me if the paintings were real, not quite believing that she was viewing original work that she'd seen so often in art books. Though smaller in scale, the exhibit reminded me of the Barnes Museum in Philadelphia, demonstrating how individual collectors can inform and enhance our appreciation of art.
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Thursday, October 28, Double the Museums, Double the Fun
Today we were definitely in the Paris tourist groove, starting with visits to the Musée d'Orsay followed by Musée L'Orangerie. The Orsay is housed in a former train station and is best known for its collection of French impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces, the largest such collection in the world. The permanent collection at Orangerie includes Monet's Water Lillies murals and today had special exhibits by David Hockney and Willem de Kooning.
After our immersion in impressionist and modern art, we took a long break in the sun, enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee and conversation at an outside café in the Tuileries. Reluctantly pulling ourselves away, I led Kevin and Sunyoung through Saint-Germain-des-Prés to Taschen Book Store, a favorite of mine, where we browsed through large format picture books on art, architecture and pop culture. We capped off their last evening in Paris at the Le Crêpe Rit du Clown, with Kevin sending us off in style with his flaming Calvados dessert crêpe.
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As I write this, we've changed the clocks back to standard time and closed the book on October. Tomorrow I return to North Carolina. Among the highlights of the past two months are the times spent in the company of fellow CycleBlazers - in Salzburg, Munich, and Paris. I look forward to meeting each of them again, as well as other fellow travelers somewhere along the way.
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