Where Were We?

Here's how we spent our weekend in Paris before flying out late Monday afternoon.

On SATURDAY:

• We made the pilgrimage up to Montmartre to visit the Sacre Coeur and take in the amazing views of Paris from the top of the hill. We spent some time exploring the neighborhood but cut that short because we were on a tight schedule and were determined to make it out to the cemetery at Pere Lachaise, which is a long Metro ride away from Montmartre. The train ride took us through some fairly grim-looking neighborhoods on the east side of the city and provided a glimpse of some of the social and economic conditions that have fueled recent tensions in Paris. (A few miles further to the east, the neglected, poverty-stricken suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois was the starting point for the nights of civil unrest that spread throughout France this past fall.) In any case, the cemetery, which in some ways seemed as neglected as the area surrounding it, was a beautiful old ruin, filled with the spirits and remnants of departed geniuses and who knows what else. We paid our respects to Stein and Toklas, to Oscar Wilde, and to Jim Morrison as well as Edith Piaf and a few other French luminaries. It was touching to see that Toklas is in fact acknowledged on Stein's (surprisingly modest) headstone. Like all wives, Toklas is memorialized on the back of the stone, but at least she is there. And it was sad to see the vacant-eyed young pilgrims who make their way to Jim Morrison's grave and sit there, before a shrine piled high with candles and cigarette butts and photographs, wrapped up in the impenetrable silence of their communion with the dead. What mixture of identification and desire fuels that communion, we wondered as we walked away? They were all too young to have known Morrison when he was alive. (He died in 1971.) What moves them to reach out to this icon of crash-and-burn rock excess? Perhaps the question answers itself.

• After the somewhat somber tourism of the afternoon, we had a more festive time in the evening, when we headed out with the group from the conference for a banquet and Seine cruise on the famous Bateaux-Mouches. Martha insists that I point out that the Bateaux-Mouches is not famous for its cuisine but for the uniquely lovely views it offers of the city as one cruises serenely down the river at sunset. Indeed, after seeing the dry piece of fish and crack-your-teeth overcooked rice we were served for our main course, my pert partner declared she had finally discovered that it was possible to eat a bad meal in France. It was, nonetheless, a splendid evening of good company and eye-popping views. My cameras batteries had expired at Pere Lachaise in the afternoon, but fortunately friends have shared their postcard-quality photos of the Eiffel Tower dressed in its summer best.

On SUNDAY:

• We spent most of the day on a conference excursion to Monet's incredible home and gardens at Giverny. Pictures will convey more eloquently than words the beautiful place Monet designed to inspire his painting, so I'll post a few in another entry of visual highlights of the trip. Suffice it to say we were thrilled to visit the place after having communed so happily with his water lilies in the Orangerie earlier in the week. After we got back from Giverny, we did some serious cafe-sitting in a joint called l'Ecritoire in the Place de la Sorbonne. It was fun to hang out, snap silly photos with friends from the conference, drink many beers, and feel the excitement building as the time for the World Cup final approached. We had dinner at a place nearby, la Cremerie Polidor, which has been a favorite of Latin Quarter habitues since the 1840s (including Hemingway, Joyce, and Kerouac). We loved the feel of the place (family-style seating, totally un-stuffy atmosphere, waitresses who kept racing out to the bar next door to check on the progress of the game), but the food was a little disappointing. Martha had a spinach & ham salad that was practically tasteless, and I had tripe sausage with French fries that was good but not wonderful.

• However, it's possible that our disappointment with dinner stemmed from other causes. By that point, Martha was experiencing pretty severe pain in her upper left leg that had us both feeling anxious. Indeed, by the time we finished dinner, she could barely walk, so we hailed a cab home to avoid Metro and to make sure we were off the streets by the time the game ended. I was also contending with a heavy period, which is always fun on vacation in countries that still have pit toilets in a few places (such as la Cremerie Polidor). We were tired, distracted, starting to think of the trip home, and silently remembering that Martha's nightmare of hip pain began in the course of a beautiful walk on the streets of another of the world's great cities, New York. Sometimes, perhaps always, life rudely intrudes on the pleasures of our holidays.

• And then, of course, our adopted team, les bleus, managed to blow their World Cup chances with an inexplicable head-butt by superstar Zinedine Zidane. We missed the head-butt and were frankly a little relieved not to have to contend with a night of victory celebrations, but we were disappointed for the French fans. When the game ended, it briefly seemed that we lived in an Italian neighborhood, as there was a good bit of cheering going on, but things quieted down fairly quickly and we went off to bed, knowing that the next morning would be a busy one of packing, postcard-writing, and the other rituals of departure.

And so our Paris interlude wound toward its close.