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MY EUROPE DIARY - Paris 

MONDAY 7 SEPTEMBER

The Louvre.

Wheelchair lift down to ticket hall is a platform that rises for two stories on an immense viagra-powered column to the entrance pyramid and down again. Entrance free for wheelchair users and attendants, and this time generosity genuine.

An inexhaustible fount of wonders.  (AM)

Tyres pop off at regular intervals.  Anne finally sees Mona Lisa in the flesh, or at least in a booth behind plexiglass.

I don't see what she's got to smile about -- she's been bottled for drinking in by tourists.  (AM)

Chris goes ape over Mantegna's Minevera Chasing the Vices from the Garden of Virtue.

Interesting: your head keeps its halo even after beheading - stack of martyrs' noddles glowing vigorously while their torsos quietly bleed.

Get taxi after three-quarter-hour wait.

Rose stays up till 2 doing washing.

TUESDAY 8 SEPTEMBER

Off first thing to walk to bicycle shop chosen from phonebook.  Bicycle shop has gone out of business.  Take taxi to next bicycle shop.  Thirty-dollar fare.  Get new tube with French valve that won't work with our pump.  Walk back to hotel: ten minutes.  Did taxi deliberately take long route?  Surely unthinkable.  Must have been something to do with one-way streets.

Musee d'Orsay

Nineteenth-century art including impressionists. Entrance free for wheelchairs and attendants.  Tyre pops off immediately.  Switch Anne to gallery wheelchair.  Resolve to replace tube with inflated guts of bastards who sold us solid tyres.

Splendid home for a splendid collection, but I'd feel more affectionate towards it if it was more easily accessible.  (AM)

Lots of Van Goghs, Monets (more cathedrals than you can shake a stick at, if that's your idea of a good time), Manets; few Seurats, Douaniers.

Degas' bronzes are better than his paintings.  (AM)

Interesting Monet of sad kid -- Un Coin D'Apartment.

How can anyone be expected to cope with an entire roomful of Van Goghs?

Tyre unfixable.  Go out on rims.  Cross river to Louvre, stroll through Tuileries to Place de la Concorde on rims, seek taxi.  Realise how lucky we were on Monday. Wait hour and a half.

Rose stays up till two ironing.

WEDNESDAY 9 SEPTEMBER

In the morning Rose meets up with Anne-Marguerite Vexiau, French Facilitated Communication (FC, or in French CF) person.  Exchange books.  Find that in Vexiau's book Rose is mentioned for the first time on page 333, where page 334 is the index.

Anne and Chris make a final whip through the Louvre.  A last look at Mona and a complete failure to find the Grecs through the maze of ascensuers.

 Over to meet Rose at

Notre Dame

(front under scaffolding). What's transparent and climbs up French Cathedrals?  The Lunchwrap of Notre Dame.  Chris climbs to top.  You can see the weather coming half an hour off (rain, mostly, in my experience). As Dave Barry says,

The Parisians have  been building historic attractions for more than 1,500 years as part of a  coordinated effort to kill whatever tourists manage to escape the drivers. The key is stairs. Most tourist attractions, such as L'Arc de Triomphe (literally, ``The Lark of Triumph'') and the Hunchback of Notre Dame Cathedral, have some kind of lookout point at the top that you, the tourist, are encouraged to climb to via a dark and scary medieval stone staircase containing at least 5,789 steps and the skeletons of previous tourists (you can tell which skeletons are American, because  they're wearing sneakers). If you make it to the top, you are rewarded with a sweeping panoramic view of dark spots before your eyes caused by lack of  oxygen. Meanwhile, down at street level, the Parisians are smoking cigarettes and  remarking, in French, ``Some of them are still alive! We must build more medieval steps!''

 Anne's tyre falls off for the last time, throw tyre away, tape solid inner tube to rim.  Anne expresses her opinion of tyre salesmen.  Some interest from passers-by.

 Off to wander around the adjoining Isle de St. Louis.

A gourmet treat.  Splendid butchers, splendid fromagiers, splendid icecream houses.  Back to the hotel to pig out on charcuterie and unfortunately unnamed cheeses.

Anne's ratings:

Cities
1. Rome
2. Paris
3. London
4. Dublin

Galleries
1. Louvre
2. National Gallery
3. Musee d'Orsay
4. Tate Gallery

Rose in bed by twelve, then up again till two looking through all the cases just to check that camera is still there.

Next: Bangkok