La Rive Gauche

Today we did very well considering it was our jet-laggy second day with only small portions of Diet Coke to keep us going. It started with a smashing breakfast from the bakery a few doors down from our apartment. I don't know what makes French bread so much better than anything else you can buy in America ever. I do know what makes the croissants good—butter. What I don't know is how they can get so much of it into a single croissant.

Our big achievement for the day was a long walk around the Rive Gauche (Left Bank of the Seine). The last time we were in Paris we hardly touched this area, so it was a treat to see some new things. It was also an extraordinarily beautiful day—about 75 degrees and sunny, with an occasional cloud passing through. We started with a walk along the Seine, then visited the Jardin des Plantes (Botanical Gardens).

Many of the plants were past their prime for the season, but the dahlias were at their peak. I'm also astounded at the level of grooming the French gardens get. Everything is immaculately clean, and they make hedges even out of the trees. It's a different aesthetic of gardening than I'm used to, but it's breathtaking to behold. It also indicates one reason why things are so beautiful here. Nothing is too much trouble. The French are capable of great patience and attention to detail. That's probably why their bread is so good.

We also visited the Panthéon, originally designed as a Christian church but then nationalized during the Revolution to become a monument to the heroes of the French nation. In the crypt we visited the graves of Voltaire and Rosseau, of Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Emile Zola, and of Marie and Pierre Curie.

From there we went to the gardens of the Luxembourg Palace. Built in the early 1600s by Marie de Medici (mother of Louis XIII and regent of France during his minority), it now houses the French senate.

The gardens are even more exquisite than Jardin des Plantes, and the French know how to enjoy them. Of course it was a gorgeous day for early October, and everyone knows that the weather probably won't last long. But I was moved by how many people come to the garden just to sit—some of them talking with friends, some alone with a book or newspaper, many just drinking in the beauty. It was a great lesson in an important part of La Vie Parisienne—slow down, take your time, enjoy the day, chew your food, breathe, relax. The only place this doesn't apply is in traffic.

By now we were dragging, so we took an hour to walk our last fifteen minutes back home, watching the fountain and the people watching the fountain at St. Sulpice, listening to a jazz trio outside St. Germain des Prez. After a long, leisurely dinner at the sidewalk cafe right by our apartment (deep fried camembert with honey, grilled duck for me, poached salmon for Ev), we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower, then fell into bed about 11:00. Tomorrow will be slower, I'm sure.