I spent ten days in France from October 17 to October 25, 2006, mostly in the Paris area at the Conrail hotel, near the Gare de Lyon railway station, but also with French friends outside the city, including near the town of Fontainebleau.  The weather was mostly cloudy with some rain, but it didn't put a damper at all on the great time I had.   Being a train lover, and also a book lover (because there was a nice bookstore in the train station), I went to the Gare de Lyon train station every day. 

Inside the station, was Le Train Blue (The Blue Train) restaurant, which at night took on an eerie glow from the lighted blue of the name above the restaurant.  There was a bustle and swarm of people about, some riding the subway, others the regional trains.  In France there are spectacular super trains, called the TGV (Le Train Grand Vitesse), and others which can cover huge distances, in amazingly short periods of time. 

The train to the right appears to be a SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français/National Society of French trains), but there can be no doubt that it is fast), goes purportedly from Paris to Dijon France, famous for its mustard, and as capital of the Burgundy region) half the country away in significantly less than two hours.  I mulled doing a day trip, just to ride that super fast train, but my stay was too short, and also, Dijon in the eastern part of France is supposed to have a very wet climate.  So I decided, given the cloudy, misty situtation in Paris, not to make the wetness worse.  Instead, I opted for museums.  One day, I went to Musée D'Orsay (the Impressionist Museum) with a poet-friend from my area in the United States, and a lover of all things French.  She was visiting the same time I was; indeed, had rented an  apartment for a month.  We saw inside the museum on the lower level, the famous sculpture called Ours Blanc (Polar Bear) by Pompon, who had been an associate of Rodin, and Camille Claudel.  This sculpture was first exhibited at the Salon D'Automne in 1922.  D'Orsay is particularly known for its many spectacular impressionist paintings from Monet, to Van Gogh, Gaughin, and sundry other masters.

At the Musée Marmottan Monet, there is a wonderful collection of Monet paintings, including the famous "Impression Soleil levant" (Impression of the Rising Sun), and many paintings by other impressionists such as Boudin, Gaughin, Morisot, Renoir).  On the way to this museum after exiting from the Muette subway stop I turned around to a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower, set off by an Insolence by Guerlain perfume advertisement -- a strange juxtaposition of images that seemed just right for the moment.  One can notice a trace of sunshine on the facade of the buildings in front of the Eiffel Tower.  Because during this October period which I chose for my vacation, sun was malheureusement, as the French would say, rare, one had to be especially agile with the camera, to get it in a picture during unexpectedly blissful moments when the sun was inclined to sneak a few beneficial rays of light to Paris, otherwise known as the City of Light.   Of course, notwithstanding the string of cloudy, misty days, evident in this particular October period, there is so much culture and excitement in Paris, that it is a City of Light, without any sunlight.  So imagine what Paris is like when the sun does choose to shine!

One day, particularly dark and with its share of sprinkles, I was sitting at an outdoor table, at the Place des Pyramides, having coffee and a snack, not far from the Louvre, when the the sun made a surprise appearance, casting a brilliant ephemeral glow on a statute of Joan of Arc (by Emmanuel Frémiet, 1874), and voilà, there to the left, with lightening speed, this poet-photographer took his shot. 

In particular, in the distance, behind the sculpture, is the Sacre Coeur cathedral (which some years before I'd climbed breathless to the top), and another of the Eiffel Tower, though don't be deceived by the appearance of nice weather, as I resurrected these few photos as well as the one of a water exhibit near the Centre Pompidou (in the string of six photos below) from that trip to Paris from that earlier time.  On the current visit, I did go to the Centre Pompidou, but did not take many photos there.  Afterwards, I wandered off, and ended up at the Notre Dame Cathedral (construction of which purportedly began in 1163).  Later, I passed one of those kiosks, that are seen all over Paris, filled with les journals -- Figaro, le Monde, Match, L'Express, and sundry other magazines and books. 

I stayed at the Corail hotel À deux pas from the Gare de Lyon train station for a few days. I love that expression "À deux pas" since it translates literally to mean two steps, but actually, I was a few blocks from the train station.  The expression in French simply means being very close to something.   And of course, very close, is a relative term.  My room was small, but the hotel both clean and pleasant (not to mention the merits of inexpensive), and when I looked out the window, it had a nice view of a movie theater across-the-street. 

Notice my photo of the facade of that theater again has sun in it.  I had, during this trip to France, perfected the reflex of grabbing my camera and taking a picture the instant there was light, the end result of which, when I look through my photos, is the illusion that the sun was shining more than a modest amount during my trip.  Ten years from now, when I look at some of these photos, might I forget how cloudy, drizzly it was?  My hotel in Paris, the Corail
was within walking distance from quite a few famous areas.  One of them was the Bastille with its statue.  

One night I went to the Bastille neighborhood (photo to the right) to see a spectacular performance of Hector Berlioz's Les Troyens at the L'Opéra de la Bastille, the home base of the National Opéra de Paris.  Interestingly, this Opera House was not built until 1989, and did not see its first performance until March 17, 1990 with Berlioz's Les Troyens, so what I was privileged to see performed was for Parisians an exciting sort of deja vu.  It helped enormously to be able to count on those surtitres (supertitles), because I can read French, but there was no way I
could understand oral French, sung.  The Opera itself is in five acts and is quite long, so is infrequently performed.

Earlier in the day, I enjoyed walking in some of the neighborhoods, near where I was staying, like the one to the left with the ever-present tabac store, where the French mix the sale of stamps and tobacco. 

And below to the right, a narrow street in Paris, like so many others, that gave an almost medieval feel (A brief history of Paris goes back to the third century B.C.).

Throughout my visit, I loved, not just walking above ground, but also riding The Paris Metro -- first opened in 1900 -- which had many lines, filled with world famous attractions.  At quite a few of the  stops, there were musicians playing.  They might be jazz oriented, or maybe just through an accordion, evoked a feeling of nostalgia, something in the music for that instrument, which at times feels inimitably French. When I visited Rome a few years ago, there were also street performers in the subways.  It is not that common in the United States.