Roses to Paris

  L'Abbaye de Cluny from a garden in front... Entered through the "Frigidarium" of the Roman Baths..which were anything but frigid. The Pantheon-- labyrinthine passageways into resting places of the remains of heroes of different areas of excellence in French history. grouped according to category.  The latest, in the area for Justice, Robert Badinter, a legal activist given credit for bringing into law the abolition of the death penalty in France.  Resting places for philosophers, Voltaire, Rousseau, literary lights like Victor Hugo, heros of the Resistance like Josephine Baker... It was near Hallowe'en, and beside the Coulée Verte -- this humorous floral display. Coulée Verte walk was with Jean-Francois Sights at the Marché Daumesnil near Rod's--many-hued lemons, Coquilles St.-Jacques Mardi contemplating the abundance, artfully arranged mackerel

Mardi from Austin, and I from Portland, flights converging at Heathrow on a Thursday (10/16/2025), we met up without ado after customs and took a cab to our hotel.  A walk over in front of Buckingham Palace, merry crowds milling about, mild weather. No royals in sight, the guard in non-ceremonial garb.  We are white-haired ladies with a few points of pain, back, foot, baby toe to name a few, but we manage to hobble short distances and rest when we can.  So tired we slept maybe 12 hours that first night. Friday Kathryn Mears met us for a walk through the National Portrait Gallery, (favorite portrait:- Toussaint L'Ouverture--painted I think 2009, the guinea hen hat a symbol of liberty as it cannot be tamed) We lunched with Kathrlyn at the Portrait Gallery Café -(by Richard Corrigan as renowned chef) very yummy and beautiful.  We walked over to the Covent Garden area, and the highlight for me was smelling and getting sprayed by our young mother's eau de parfum, l'...

At Louis Vuitton Foundation, was privileged to see this MoMA-owned work (The Red Studio, l'Atelier rouge...) as well as most ot the items Matisse painted within the work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtGiFwAX9q0&list=TLGGquesD7FdOsIyNDA1MjAyNA&t=12s   At Picasso Museum I saw this work of Henri Matisse Marguerite Emilienne Matisse (1894–1982) was the artist’s eldest child, the daughter of his girlfriend and model, Camille Joblaud. Plagued with ill health, Marguerite was only six years old when she developed acute breathing problems that necessitated an emergency tracheotomy.  In the two paintings Matisse created of her, she wears a black neck ribbon to hide her scar. (source  https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/492736#:~:text=Marguerite%20Emilienne%20Matisse%20(1894%E2%80%931982,that%20necessitated%20an%20emergency%20tracheotomy. ) At the Musée de la vie romantique, a special exhibit on the painter Géricault revealed his interest in horses as they we...

My understanding of history is superficial at best.  It seemed to me that in French classes I'd heard that Louis XIV built Versalles out of competitiveness after he'd seen his finance minister Fouquet's Estate with a magnificent gardens, Vaux-le-Vicomte.  Perhaps the machinations of Colbert to bring about Fouquet's downfall were more a source of this inaccuracy ( https://vaux-le-vicomte.com/decouvrir/lhistoire/nicolas-fouquet/ )... My Paris family contact, well-read in French history, said the move of Louis XIV from Paris to Versailles was first a matter of security after a revolt, "La Fronde", to get out of Paris, out of the Louvre--and Louis XIV had fond childhood memories  spending time at the   Versailles   hunting Lodge (oldest part of the current palace) of his father Louis XIII. From the time Louis XIV moved there until his death in 1715, the entire place was a construction site with marble dust and scaffolding, carpenters, painters everywhere, not fini...