DAY 26 - TUE 3/26 - Pere Lachaise

Our day started pretty serendipitously by meeting a famous French actor, Tcheky Karyo, this morning at the Nemrod, our favorite morning cafe. He came in with a big guitar case and a suitcase and he had a shock of thick grayish hair. You couldn't help but notice him. He stood at the bar next to us, and something got us talking. We didn't know he was famous until Guillaum, the Barman, asked for his autograph. Tcheky was born in Istanbul to Jewish parents, raised and lives in Paris, and has been in many movies and won several awards (you can check him out on the Internet). The most famous movie he was in was 'Addicted To Love' directed by Griffin Dunne, where he played the "Frenchman", of course. He was charming, and told us he is currently making an album 'Ce lien qui nous unit.' Then he had to run off to an appointment.

We went off to the Optique store for an adjustment to Jills's glasses, and later on to Rue Montorgeiul, one of our favorite areas nearby to have a bite to eat, seeing pretty uniforms, kids playing, local garbage cleanup, fish mongrels, and pretty people.  We also stopped in to L'Eglist St. Eustache, which we passed a dozen times at the beginning of Rue Montorgeiul but never ventured in, and honestly, it is one of the prettiest most ancient churches we've seen, worth a peek.
                       

                             

Tcheky had told us he lives in the Belleville area of Paris, and that it was an interesting and artsy area to walk around...very ethnic. I had read about the area and it wasn't at the top of my list, but because he told us about it, we decided to go and explore it. We took the Metro to the Belleville stop and found the area very scruffy and run down and we were in the middle of Paris' Chimatown, not exactly where we wanted to explore. But our books told us about all the artists that live and work in this quatier, who open their ateliers to the public in the spring. As we kept walking up the hill on rue Belleville, it seemed to brighten up. 

We came upon the place where it is said that Edith Piaf was born, literally on the sidewalk. We did see a small picture of her on a building at the given address to honor her, but the building was being renovated with scaffolding all around.

We kept walking up this steep street toward one of the highest points in Paris, looked at the map and realized we were just a few Metro stops away from Pere Lachaise, the huge cemetery where many famous people are buried. This is a must do and something we did want to visit, and since we were so close we decided to hop on the Metro and go there. The cemetery is huge, impressive, and beautiful. 

                                                 

They don't make it easy to find the famous graves, though, so we strolled and hunted around for several hours and did find a few: 

James Morrison (with flowers and photograph)...

                                             

Chopin...

                                             

Edith Piaf...

                                             

Moliere...

                                  

And a more recent one, in memory of those lost in 2004 in an Air France plane crash in Jamaica Bay, NY...

                                  

At the end of the day we were looking all around for the tomb of Modigliani, and both roaming among the tombs in the indicated area.  When I looked up, there was no one around, not even Marty. There I was in this maze of tombs, all alone...it was very eerie. But then Marty's face appeared from around a huge mausoleum, and we were together again, but we never found Modigliani. 

By now it was starting to get dark and colder and the cemetery would soon be closing. We certainly didn't want to be locked in the cemetery for the night, so we hightailed it back to the main entrance, and agreed we would have to return to this amazing place.

                                                 

Back in our neighborhood, Marty was cold from being out in the cemetery all afternoon, so we stopped at Le Nemrod, standing at the bar for a Chocolat Chaud (hot chocolate), when his phone rang. There he was, in a French cafe, taking a call from the Manager of the Scarsdale Public Works Dept. who was calling to confer on where the town should plant the replacement tree in our front yard where the big old tree had fallen down in the storm in October. That was pretty amazing, and comical too.

                               

We had an 8pm reservation at Josephine - Chez Dumonet a few blocks up on Cherche Midi. This turned out to be our very favorite restaurant in Paris so far. It's a very old, classic, cozy and charming bistrot, and the food.....oh la la! Well there is not much more we can say! The restaurant has been here since 1898 and has never changed its decor. Chef Jean-Chrisian Dumonet, has been here for the past 20+ years. He is absolutely charming and gentile and invited us into his kitchen to see what they were creating and we took some pictures. His brother was the Chef at the Carlyle Hotel in NY, and is now the Chef at the Union Club in NY. 

At this time of year Jean-Christian has black truffles on the menu as it is truffle season. He brought us 2 glasses of delicious white wine and, even better, delivered 2 ample chunks of truffles to taste, with some great crusty French bread, sprinkled with a pinch of fleur de sel...we were now officially in heaven! 

                                  
 
Then came another amuse bouche and we were now ready to order our meal. We couldn't
resist the truffles, although the prices were staggering, but you can order Demi (half) portions. So I had the egg with toast points sprinkled with those black gems...you don't need much to get that wonderful luxurious musty flavor! Marty had the best pâté de compagne with Cornischons (baby pickles). Then he had the Mille Feuilles Avec Pigeon (thin layers of potatoes in a circle, crispy like a leaf, with braised tender juicy pigeon slices in between and a wonderful wine reduction sauce). I had the Confit de Canard (duck) which was divine. Then we topped it off with a classical dessert Mille Feuilles which was to die for! All this washed down with a delicious Haute Medoc.

During the evening, we couldn't help meeting a daughter, mother, and grandmother sitting next to us. They were also Turkish, like Tcheky (that's ironic), and also spoke perfect English, but they were tourists in Paris, a central place for their reunion. The grandma is 84, lives in Istanbul, and was very cute. The vivacious mother, Banu, is a psychologist by profession, but has been sailing literally around the world on her sloop for years, solo, and now with her New Zealand boyfriend. And the daughter, Deniz, is a nano-neurologist living in Portland, Oregon and yearns to become a Dr., loves it there, and does not want to be a vagabond like her mother. She wants to settle down and 'build' something. 

 For dinner they all surprisingly ate huge portions of red meat, including steak tartar which was mixed in front of them. They were all charming, and if we ever want to go to Istanbul, Banu has an apartment there for us. Let's go for it!

Then Marty noticed this stunning French woman sitting nearby, mainly because she had the classical long legs that went on forever, and she was movie star beautiful, and he wanted to get her picture...he is making a study of these beautiful French women with the classic 'uniform' (short jackets, skin tight jeans, high boots), and long legs. Eventually we got into a conversation with Francois and Sophie, and they were delightful. Francois had lived in the States for several years, and they both spoke English fluently. He is in IT marketing, and Sophie had been a model and was now looking for a job in web marketing. They have an 18-month-old daughter. They actually came and joined is at our table, and we chatted with them for about an hour, until after midnight, about the economy, the job market, and the culture differences between France and the US, and we said that we might try to get together again while we are still in Paris. Marty got Sophie's photo, so he was a happy camper, and then they went off on their 'moto' into the night...

                    

All in all, it was an interesting, varied, and fabulous day!