Birthday in Paris

On my birthday we decided to go to the Musee d’Orsay. We walked along the Seine and admired the bridges. I wanted to walk over the Pont Neuf. Remembering the lovely Juliette Binoche in Lovers On the Bridge, the 1991 film by Leos Carax. It is quite lovely and the one we see quite often when we are walking – often with the Eiffel Tower in the background. Great from a distance. And with the lovely little alcoves for lovers and tourists to rest in.



We continued along the river to the Pont des Arts and realised this is the bridge that is in danger of falling down because of all the locks being pinned to it. Amazing. It glints gold in the distance.

The stall holders nearby are encouraging the practice by selling lots of different sorts and sizes of locks. People were there doing it while we wandered along. And this lovely young woman was playing beautiful music so we gave her some euros.

On to the Musee d’Orsay. We had dawdled along the bridges so arrived about 11am. A fairly large crowd, but not as bad as the afternoon. We hadn’t had any breakfast so did so in the cafe there which is behind one of the old station clocks making for a dramatic image.

It is a wonderful conversion of a station into a gallery. But you still see the station’s bones. I have been reading Edmond White who tells of dining with the woman responsible for the design and the difficulties she encountered.

We saw wonderful paintings. All the impressionists and a terrific exhibition of Van Gogh pictures. A great banner adorned the outside of the museum.

The premise of exhibition was that society had killed the artist. The text accompanying the paintings in each gallery by Roger Artaud were beautiful: “….a single minded concern for every stroke silently and poignantly applied. The common colour of things”. Flamboyant but moving all the same. And wonderful to see so many paintings. I am quite illiterate when it comes to art but you really got an understanding of how revolutionary his painting was. Capturing movement, stars, clouds etc. A great experience.

Coming out we saw three armed soldiers. This is becoming a regular occurrence – and scary. They walk around in threes in camouflage uniforms (not the sort of camouflage to fit in with Parisienne crowds) with loaded rifles pointing down, eyes scanning the crowd. Awful. They’ve been at the airport, on Metro stations and outside Notre Dame as well. Horrible to think it’s needed. From the Musee we came back along the river. Past pet shops and nurseries. Joe took a photo that we later saw was similar to one by Cartier-Bresson.

We wanted to be home and rested before my birthday dinner at Septime. But on the way I bought myself a present. The sac noir I had promised myself in Paris. I had seen it in the window all week. It’s by an American designer. We were served by lovely young people who told us they had lots of friends holidaying and working in Australia. Apparently it is the fashionable thing to do. Here’s mon sac noir.

Finally after a rest we took the Metro for our dinner at Septime. Which was wonderful. Bertrand Graubet was there, looking very serious and working hard in the kitchen. Seemingly with lots of staff.

The waiting staff were all very friendly and when they discovered we were English speakers we had mostly an English speaking person come and explain the courses to us. All of the dishes were amazing. Our photos, taken on Joe’s phone and discretely (no flash) don’t do them justice but I’m including them to remind us of how wonderful they were.




We both think the raw sea bass with shiitake mushrooms and turnip was the best dish but they were all great. We had matching wines as well. We asked them if they could give us a list of the wines and a young man did so for us at the end of our meal while we sat at the bar and had a complimentary glass of whiskey (just what we needed!) Here is what he produced for us.

And to finish up, here are some more pictures of us enjoying a wonderful night. What a great way to celebrate turning sixty.