Before our adventure driving to Normandy, I felt that the best course of action would be to move back to the Left Bank near Rue Mouffetard and Place de Contrescarpe. The plan was to spend the rest of the day and the evening in the area that we had enjoyed last July, in order to take a quick Uber to the Gare de Lyon train station early Thursday to pick up our rental car and begin our drive to Normandy
Wednesday began with the usual pastries and Lattes down the street. We packed up and headed to the Lobby, check out and ordered an Uber. We proceeded to our next hotel, a stopover economy hotel on the edge of the Mouffetard area. Our previous walk through the area was in July, no students, it was like night and day. Students from the nearby Sorbonne were everywhere around the Place de la Contrescarpe and the entire neighborhood. Our room at the Hotel Apolonia Mouffetard Hotel was not ready so we headed toward the Seine near Notre Dame to find a light lunch and kill some time until our room was ready.
I am reposting a passage from the journal of our trip last July for anyone reading this who might have missed it:
In Hemingway’s novel “A Place in the Sun” he writes about his early life with his first wife and their young son when they lived just off Pl Contrescarpe at 74 Cardinal Lemoine. We walked the few steps to get there and I took a photo of the building and commerative plaque on the exterior wall. A Place in the Sun was never quite completed and was published posthumously by his family. My favorite passage from the book takes place in this apartment:
“In the spring mornings I would work early while my wife slept. The windows were wide open and the cobbles of the street were drying after the rain. The shops were still shuttered. The goatherd came up the street blowing his pipes and the woman who lived on the floor above us came out onto the sidewalk with a big pot. The goatherd chose one of the heavy-bagged black milk-goats and milked her into the pot while the dog pushed the others onto the sidewalk. The goats look around, turning their necks like sight-seers. The goatherd took the money from the woman and thanked her and went on up the street piping and the dog herded the goats on ahead their horns bobbing. I went back to writing and the woman came up the stairs with the goat milk. She was the only customer for the goat milk in the building…..We had little money but then we never thought of ourselves as poor. We did not accept it we thought we were superior people….we ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.” It reminds me of our early, carefree years together.
I made a reservation at a nearby restaurant that we planned to visit in July but cancelled. Le Petite Perigourdin located down the hill between our area and the river, turned out to be just as good as I imagined. We both ordered the roasted chicken, breast for Janet, leg and thigh for me. I ordered the Aligot, whipped potatoes with butter and cheese presented table side by the waiter. The potatoes were smooth and buttery with enough cheese to bind the mixture together as the server presented the dish in huge portions to let it slowly run down from the pan to the plate next to my chicken. Janet, dutifully documented the show on her iPhone. Her Ice Cream concoction for dessert was delicious. I ordered an old stand by that I was eager to try, a Soufflé Gran Marnier. It was light and very good. We headed back up the hill to our room and climbed into bed to rest up for the next day’s drive.
