Bubbles in Epernay

As they say "Life is flat without bubbles" and those who know us know that we are partial to that alcoholic drink that fizzes.
So it comes as no surprise that we decided to escape the hustle and bustle of Paris to visit the "Mecca" of fizz enthusiasts, Épernay, the capital of the region Champagne-Ardenne.
It takes about 1.5 hours by train (TER leaving from Gare de l'Est). So far we've figured out that the train system around here comprises Metro (underground system for getting around the centre of Paris), RER services the outer suburbs of Paris and contains 5 lines, TER which is a regional train system and TGV which is the famous high speed (maximum normal operating speed 320 km/h), inter-city trains.

We used TripAdvisor to find a recommended hotel (Le Magellan). It was okay but it shows that TripAdvisor recommendation is not perfect. I think often people are happy with okay things where the price is very good. We were not particularly concerned about the price of the hotel as we only intended to stay over night. This hotel was 65 Euro a night and it was clean and modern inside. It was interesting to stay in the heart of Épernay where a lot of locals used the hotel's bar/restaurant. It was a very laid back hotel but the service was professional.
There is a famous street called Avenue de Champagne.

where you will find the head office of Moet et Chandon. You can do a tour of the Moet caves where the champagne is stored.

A. Bergere

In Ave de Champagne, we found a Champagne house called A.Bergere where we had a tasting of their vintage champagnes and found out that they have a small hotel attached.
They took us on a tour of the hotel and I could see that it was MUCH BETTER than where we were staying and had a cost of about 100 euro per night.
If you are planning to go to Eperney I'd suggest staying here. Their website is http://www.champagne-andrebergere.com. It's in French so if you click on the "Gites" link you can see more about the hotel. Here is a couple of photos of this place (by the way the champagne was so good we bought a bottle).

 Here's the hotel.

The picture on the wall shows the evolution of the grape from a bud on the vine to the full bunch.












Moët et Chandon

You have to visit this place. Take the Vintage option and at the end of the tour you get a couple of glasses of vintage Moët well worth the cost of the visit. Claude Moët started the company in 1743.
The Chandon part of the name comes from a son-in-law who became a co-owner in mid-1800.

Here's a photo of the Moët caves:

It's an interesting experience to walk where hundreds of years ago people like Napoleon 1st walked (he was a big fan of Moët). Here's an example: in the Moët caves there is a barrel of port from Portugal that was sent as a present to Napoleon in 1810. After Napoleon and his mates (I suspect Moet was one of them) drank it dry, they kept the barrel in the cave as a "momento":

Next we asked the guy who ran / owned the hotel we stayed at to organise a taxi to take us on a bit of a tour. We asked that the driver speak English. The driver turned out to know a couple of English words such as "train" (which happens to be the same in French) so for two hours I sat in the front (so I could hear better) and translated what was being said to Jenni in the back.

We wanted to drive amongst the vines and do different things so the driver kindly took us into some Moet vineyards and cut off a couple of bunches of chardonnay and pinot noir grapes (the harvest starts next week so it was "just in time") for us to taste. They've had a wet summer so the vines have grown a lot of leaves and not so many grapes so this year the yield will be low (not sure of the quality either):

The grapes were surprisingly edible but as you can see quite small compared to normal table grapes.















Dom Perignon (1638 - 1715) was the monk (at the Abbey in village Hautvillers) who invented the second fermentation process which gives rise to the bubbles in champagne. Moet and Chandon purchased the abbey in which the monk was buried to preserve it. The village is quite beautiful and worth visiting.
You can go into the abbey, Dom Perignon is buried in the abbey as a sign of respect by the church at the time (they must have loved bubbles too).

There are quite a few wine shops that provide a champagne tasting with some thing to eat (fromage, charcuterie etc). The champagnes we tasted (from right to left) were 100% chardonnay, 100% pinot noir, 100% pinot meunier, a blend of these, then two roses one pinot noir and the last one pinot meunier. Our favourites were the first and last glasses with the blend being the third favourite.

The European Financial Crisis is Over, Thanks to Us

We went to the Fashion Houses Outlet Stores today and single-handedly fixed the European Financial Crisis. After consolidating many purchases the photo below illustrates our half time effort:

The look on my face exemplifies the effort and the exhilaration of the shopping gold medal performance we put in.

These outlet stores are one train (RER A line) stop short of Euro Disneyland and it's appropriate because it is the happiest shopping kingdom of them all.

Where else in the world will you buy genuine (not genuine copies) Salvatore Ferragamo shoes for 100 bucks or Armani Jeans for 80 bucks. We even managed to find Versace trousers that did not shout "VERSACE LOOK AT ME" at 100 dB. Jenni ran amok in the Anne Fontaine store but I managed to persuade her that it would be selfish of us to buy everything so we left some branded hangers in the store for the other happy shoppers to pounce on.

Paris Museums - the rest

As readers from my earlier blog post would note that I'm not a big fan of museums and old buildings. So this blog post is not a definitive statement on Paris museums at all. It's just that we actually took the time to visit a few that took our fancy and they were worthwhile (to a point).

Musee L'Orangerie

This museum (close to the Louvre) houses an enormous set of paintings by Monet that are a sort of "surround" experience. The paintings curve around you and depict the Lilly pond where Monet lived. As you know from my Musee D'Orsay post, I am a very big fan of Impressionist art so the visit to the L'Orangerie was a big surprise and very worthwhile. If you don't like art or Impressionist art then give it a big miss.
As an added bonus this museum also had exhibitions of the early paintings of Picasso, Monet, Renoir etc i.e. before the Impressionist style became well formed and for Picasso it was before his cubist style (which means for me I could actually understand his paintings)

Musee D'Orsay (update)

I forgot to mention the view from the top floor out to Montmartre  and the Sacre Coeur. It's worth taking the time to enjoy it.











Musee Arts Decoratifs

This museum is also close to the Louvre and L'Orangerie. I thought it would be interesting to see how people decorated their homes over the centuries. So in the middle ages furniture and wall hangings were mostly religious in theme and used wood (instead of canvas) and woven fabric (tapestry) to express aspirations and views.
The Renaissance really began in Italy and showed a huge change in subjects and materials. While few folk could create the huge chateau or stately home many could create "stately" furniture and so large, ornate furniture (we'd probably describe it as grotesque, "over-the-top", ridiculous by our current standards). Italy created marquetry, the Germans improved it and the French made it fashionable in the 18th century.

I quite like Art Nouveau and the Toulouse-Lautrec (Belle Époque style) and so I could see in this museum how this style grew out of a reaction to the stuffy, overly-ornate style before it - a bit like children doing anything feasible to annoy their parents.

This museum has some exhibitions on the history of fashion and fabrics. Seeing the various layers of garments that 18th, 19th century women put on was amusing - it must have taken them hours to get ready:

There was a special exhibition of Louis Vuitton products as designed by the LV founder and contrasted with the current artistic director (Mark Jacob). It comes as no surprise that Louis Vuitton was a smart business man and he created the trademark "LV" design that covers all their bags and suitcases so he could patent it and prevent others from copying it - ripping off LV's designs was a big issue in the early days, so long before the Chinese fakes came to market, Louis Vuitton has been protecting its intellectual property vigourously.

Musee Arts and Metiers

Final museum post:
This museum covers the inventiveness of man i.e. the things/machines man has created that make our current world what it is. The museum is housed in what was a abbey/church, so it's quite beautiful inside. If seeing the original thing that Voltaire (essentially a battery - which is also where we get the word Volt from) or Watt (the thing that governed the speed of a steam driven engine - hence its power delivery and where we get the idea of a watt) created, sounds as interesting a watching paint dry, then give this museum a miss.

I was surprised to see how smart the engineers and inventors were during the time of Louis XVI (they did not just invent the guillotine). It is humbling to realise that there were very smart people around hundreds of years ago. If you're a bloke I'd suggest sending your partner shopping while you duck into this place (Jenni came here with me because she's a cool chick and she got a kick out of seeing her mum's sewing machine in the museum).

The first planes and real cars are also here:

 If you look carefully at the picture of the plane you'll see a pendulum over a circular table (and few folks looking it) this pendulum was used by Henri Foucault in 1851 to prove that the earth rotated (how smart is that?)












Pompidou Centre

There is a great bar on the top of the Pompidou Centre where you can sit in the late afternoon, drinking champagne and watching the sun go down over the Eiffel Tower.
Why is this comment here (alongside museums) well the Pompidou Centre (apart from looking like it was designed by a guy who normally designs oil refineries) is really a museum dedicated to modern art - boring as bat shit, but the bar is terrific ... here are some of the views from the bar:

Paris Museums - Musee D'Orsay

I generally avoid museums when on holiday, preferring to enjoy the cuisine (wine, food) and culture (wine, food) of the current, living area we are in. So museums and duomos (churches) tend to get short shrift.

But the Musee D'Orsay is something else (editor's note: this blogger has an unnatural attraction to this museum) and it's a few minutes walk from our apartment...

The Musee D'Orsay is a beautiful building (inside) and it has a wonderful collection of Impressionist Art (think: Monet, Manet, Renoir, Gaugin, Sisley, Degas and Van Gogh).

Let's have some photos do the talking:

Firstly the beautiful building (originally a train station, made redundant by electric trains which were too long for its platforms):

Secondly let some of the paintings do their talking (I didn't take too many as I felt I was being frowned upon):
Here is a Degas pastel - so delicate

 

Here is a Monet which is called "La Pie" meaning "The Magpie" - the bird is not exactly the focus of the painting - I felt a bit sorry for anyone who did not understand the French title describing the painting - perhaps Monet had a sense of humour !
However the exposition of the light on the snow is majestic:

Here's a famous Manet painting "Olympia" - shows great energy and attitude whilst wearing just an orchid

Finally, I reckon this painting is the one on every bottle of Santa Vittori mineral water in Oz !

Check out the image below - what do you think?

Paris Quirks

There is much to offend Australian sensibilities in Paris. For example, there are few road signs (such as parking restrictions (it is common in North Sydney or Mosman to see up to 6 different parking restrictions on a single pole). Parisian drivers park almost anywhere they can. In our neighbourhood there is a small intersection (Rue de Buci and Rue de Seine) yet a Smart car driver saw no problem in parking the car right in the middle of the intersection and other drivers negotiated around it without fuss.
I don't think I have seen a sign indicating the maximum permissible speed which probably explains why some cars seem to travel at walking pace whilst others go for warp speed. However it probably means there is a single speed limit for all streets which makes a lot more sense that the 4 trillion different speed signs in Sydney.
With parking being at a premium it is amusing to see cars "nudge" other cars in order to make enough room (see photo). At a Renault car show room in the Latin Quarter I thought to suggest that they should supply new cars with the bumpers already scratched so the new owner does not have to experience the first one personally.
Below is a typical example of the front and back space for a near-new parked car.

As you can see from these four cars double parked (and the single one above) it seems if you set off your indicators as a "warning" then it's ok to park anywhere:










There is a website www.paris.fr that has some useful information. For example, the city of Paris provides free wifi in 250 locations (the wifi station has the name "Orange"). As readers of my blog know I have not been able to get a data plan connected to my SFR pre-paid SIM so like anyone else in this situation free wifi hot spots become addictive.

ColdPlay Concert

Marina and the Diamonds did a good job of warming up the crowd (it turns out that the Diamonds are not Marina's band but her fans - presumably her band is just something behind her). I'd recommend checking out her music.

ColdPlay, in front of 80,000 fans, at the huge StadeFrance stadium were excellent. Chris Martin their lead is the "main man" and is very much the heart of the band (although the drummer, Will Champion, made his presence known is some manic drum solos). This tour is built around their latest album (Mylo Xyloto - whatever that means, probably computer generated).

A big surprise was that Rhianna came on and sang (YES, to everyone's surprise, she actually did sing in the same key as the music) Princess of China and in the encore she was supported by Chris Martin as she sang Umbrella - she was appreciated by the Parisian crowd and proved all those Rhianna doubters wrong for once.
A novel feature of the concert was that everyone in the audience was given two wrist bands and, as you can see in the photo above, these light up at various times and pulsated in time to the music (or some other rhythm) which involved the audience much more in the performance.

I believe that this concert was filmed and will be released as a DVD. If so, I'll buy it.

One small useful note is that the StadeFrance stadium is in Zone 2 of the RER train system so your Metro ticket, or Navigo card (which is normally for Zones 1 and 2) will allow you free journey to the stadium.

A Paris Find - Rue Montorgueil

Rue Montorgueil

This street has a wonderfully, Parisian atmosphere. It has, more or less, no traffic and a great selection of cafes, fromageries, boulangeries, patisseries, boucheries, poissoneries. If you want to feel as if you are truly in Paris walk down this street, perhaps, stop at a cafe. If you live nearby you could buy your daily food supplies here and enjoy the spirit of Paris.