Thursday in Paris

Thursday 17 October:

Today we met our friend, who was our Paris Greeter in 2015, in his home town, St. Germain-en-Laye. He toured us around the Castle—so pretty!; the park with outstanding views toward Paris; the church; the old town--seriously picturesque and chi-chi. 

We had a very good lunch at La Fringale, before taking the short ride to his house to meet his wife and have dessert. She is a retired teacher, originally from St. Germain-en-Laye. She and I were able to communicate in Spanish, which was fun. Our friend is Breton and they treated us to tea and a delicious Breton cake (oheemgee yummy).

They invited us to visit Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye in Poissy, which we gladly accepted.

It was a short drive to this marvel of modern architecture. The house seemed to float on piers against a beautiful blue sky. It was spectacular! There was a tour group in the house but we dodged around them to see Le Corbusier’s vision in full. Very interesting and well worth a detour, particularly for architecture buffs.

We then toured the Collegiale Notre-Dame Poissy. It’s seriously old, founded in 1016 and rebuilt starting in the 12th century. It is where Louis IX (aka St. Louis) was baptized in April, 1214. The Baptismal Font is in one of the side chapels. 

Afterwards, we walked to the river to see the remains of an old roman bridge. And along the river bank for the idyllic country scenery. And a house where Monet lived from December 1881 to April 1883. They dropped us off at the train station with our gratitude for their time and having shown us marvelous sights.

We had dinner reservations at Josephine Chez Dumonet for 830pm but sadly had to cancel because of Real Life Annoyance #3: a malfunctioning washer/dryer. We’d put the (huge) bath towels to wash when we left but the cycle stopped, and wouldn’t restart, before the rinse. Since there was only one set of towels, we spent our evening at the laundromat. The other reason we cancelled was Tourist Annoyance #2: indigestion from too much rich food and garlic. We ate nuts, olives, and cheese with restorative wine and felt better the next day.