Thursday, 27 April 2006

At the request of Rachel we made a special trip today to the Cimetiere du Montparnasse to take a picture of the tomb of John Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Although quite a large cemetery, it is, in fact, the smallest of the Paris graveyards. Nonetheless, we managed to get lost.

I wanted to see the tomb of Alfred Dreyfus, but after an hour or more of searching we decided he was as much a nonentity in death as he had been in life. We had better luck with Sartre and de Beauvoir who are entombed within 10 metres of the entrance to the cemetery and are obviously visited frequently by bored looking school groups.

This cemetery was planned by Napoleon outside the city walls to replace the numerous congested small cemeteries within the old city. French cemeteries are beautifully maintained; lovely places for a picnic and better toilets than you find in the downtown shopping areas. We strolled around with our luncheon baguettes admiring the many interesting and outstanding tombstones. One of the most fascinating is that of Charles Pigeon depicting the French industrialist and inventor in bed with his wife! Oh yes, they are both fully clothed (see picture).

Not far from the cemetery is the Tour Montparnasse, Europe's second-tallest tower. Paris's tallest office tower it somehow does not seem out of place like the area around La Defense. We went to the top in elevators that claim to climb to the 56th floor in 38 seconds. Bruce, always the stickler, timed it and found that it took more than a minute up and down. There was no sense of movement and the viewing room is quite good with, of course, spectacular views over Paris. We really weren't sure that it would be that exciting and Bruce had commented that he thought we would probably be dissapointed - we weren't. Heclimbed the last three flights of stairs to the outdoor viewing platform on the 59th level. It was cold and windy and oddly the view was less satisfying than that from three stories below.

And now a lyrical ode on "les pommes de terre," or the potato. In Tasmania we are blessed with a range of potatoes that are not available on the mainland. However, the range does not include Jersey Royals. Now Virginia and her Pommy friends at the WEA have been waxing lyrical about these for as long as I can remember. We have managed to get them when we have been in England about this time of year and regretfully I have to say they come up to the standard at which Virginia has always described them. This trip to Paris we seem to have hit the jackpot. For the very short season (about a month) that the potatoes are available it has been cheap dining since Virginia is happy with a kilo of these every few days. Having dispelled the myth of the wonderful Cox's Orange Pippin apple and the superb Plaice, both of which turned out not to live up to either of our expectations, it was a delight to find that we got it right with the humble spud.