Camping La Belle Etoile, Melun

Paris has but one major campground, in the Bois de Boulogne. It is nice, multi-national, but pricey, out of the way, and, despite being within the Peripherique, involves quite a commute to get into the central city. An alternative, we discovered, is Camping La Belle Etoile, in Melun, to the City's south (near Fountainbleu), about 30 miles. RER takes you from Melun to the Gare de Lyon about every 8 minutes, quickly and inexpensively. Plus your RER ticket is good for the Metro and buses the rest of the day. So La Belle Etoile could be your Paris base camp, either in a motorhome or in one of their many rentals, from platform tents to cabins to chalets.

Le Duc in storage at La Belle Etoile; 7E a day

Heated indoor pool

Store, cafe, etc.

Huge playground: 2 bouncey house, 2 trampolines, climbing wall, swings,
petanque, table tennis, and much more

Thus

And thus

Adult torture/exercise site, one among several; the whitish tree, center-right, is
actually on the other bank of the Seine

Clearly they warrant another star, a beautiful one

L'Appart: Farewell To Paris, Again

And so came the fateful day of departure, June 20, Rebecca and Penelope to CDG and a long flight back to SFO, and Vicki and I back to our camper Le Duc, parked at a campground in Melun, south of Paris, to continue our European Campaign 2019. Rebecca and Penelope were ready to get back home, I think, despite the end of the sabbatical and the long season of exception and excitement. For Vicki and me, the apartment was a pretty nice respite, although getting back to Le Duc seemed something like returning "home." Rebecca had rented the apartment way back in 2018, for two months. We spent the latter month with her and Penelope, after Jeremy returned to Menlo Park. The apartment was on Rue de Faidherbe, in the 11th. Here are just a few pix...

Shares an entrance with the newer adjoining building

Fortunately, there had been some upgrades and renovations

Third floor view of Faidherbe

2nd bedroom (a third was locked-off)

1st bedroom

Dining

Living

Could have passed for a Chagall

Bath major

Bath minor (larger, but no loo)

Ditto

Ample kitchen

Kitchen view; a nice park/playground was under the trees to the left

Kitchen again; washer and dryer, no less

Entrance

Beautiful place, not without its eccentricities, but in an area
we like very much 

Petanque!

It's not the national pastime, unless you're over 60, in which case it is. We have watched it played, mostly in western Europe, but all over the world, really, and I have for a long time wanted to know more. Happily, Rebecca found a petanque teacher (in real life he's an art dealer) who offers introductory lessons, and she booked us a private lesson on one of our last nights in Paris. In a park on Cite.

Me, delivering

P receiving instruction

Whatever it was, the instruction worked; here's P celebrating
a great shot

Rebecca

Three players; the team of Penelope and
instructor won; Vicki served as the crowd

Group selfie with instructor; thanks, Rebecca!

Paris By Night

One of the must-do's is to go for a walk after dark in Paris. It really is beautiful, and we've done it before, several times, sometimes deliberately, sometimes not. I had been reading John Baxter's Five Nights in Paris, fun intellectual reading but not at all practical, and was keen for the walk. Basically we did the traditional thing, which is walking the river from the Louvre downstream till you've seen enough of the Eiffel Tower, then back upstream to Notre Dame, or, now, the Hotel de Ville or Cite. Being 70-somethings, we remembered to take a nap, eat a light meal, wear comfortable shoes, etc. We also factored in that, being close to the solstice, dark doesn't come until 10:30 or so. It was a fun walk, despite the fact we didn't get back to the apartment until 1:30.

Full moon, no less!

Musee d'Orsay: Berthe Morisot

We first became acquainted with the work of impressionist Berthe Morisot at the Marmottan-Monet Museum in 2014, where they had collected many of her works for an exhibition. The day we were at the Orsay was the opening of that museum's first major exhibition of Morisot works, 6 or 7 rooms, 50 or so paintings. About a third of the paintings were from museums, world-wide, many of them famous; the rest were from private collections, from all over the world. It must have been quite a challenge to curate! No better illustrated than by the fact that Manet's portrait of her had to stay with its collection in the Orsay, downstairs and across the tracks. See below. I took only a few pix, mainly because the rooms were crowded and intense and because the paintings from private collections generally prohibited photography. Nonetheless, a rare privilege to see so many of her works in one place.

Woman and Child at a Balcony, 1871-72; from the
Bridgestone Museum, Tokyo

Her Marine, 1869; Lorient, in Brittany; Manet pronounced this a masterpiece;
she later married his brother, Eugene, and was known and admired by the leading
painters of the day; National Gallery of Art, DC

 

La Psyche, 1876; Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Summer, or a Young Woman by a Window, 1879

Three titles, this one: In the Garden, or Women Gathering Flowers, or In the Bois
de Boulogne; 1879, National Museum, Stockholm

 

La Lecture, 1888; perhaps her daughter Julie; St. Petersburg (FL)

 

Lucie Leon at the Piano, 1892

Julie Manet at the Violin, 1893; her daughter; private
collection; Berthe Morisot died at the age of 45, caring for
her sick daughter

Downstairs and across the tracks, as I said, in a permanent
collection, is Manet's 1872 Berthe Morisot au bouquet de
violettes

Another great visit to another great place!