6/21 - Paris Hotel and Music?
Ginny took her Vanderbilt students to Paris for a week. As usual, Gay and I got to go along! The students stayed in a very nice youth hostel with gardens and courtyards. We stayed in a cool, little French hotel in the Marais district, a great location within walking distance of Notre Dame. The hotel, "Caron de Beaumarchais", is named after the boisterous 18th century playwright who wrote the "Marriage of Figaro" later adapted to opera by Mozart. The hotel is a narrow structure with three rooms on each floor, decorated with period pieces. Interestingly enough, it has an elevator and air conditioning! Website: http://www.carondebeaumarchais.com/
When we arrived on Saturday, the city was packed with people. Walking the streets felt a bit like swimming upstream. Little did we know.....Paris was in the middle of a giant music festival! The music was loud, wild, and not so great. The city was flooded with young people bent on having a great time. One venue sported an obviously very popular rapper with thousands of adoring fans. All I could think of was Snoop Dog on steroids singing gangster rap in French while wearing the top half of a Chicago Bulls uniform. Very bizarre!
Ginny took her Vanderbilt students to Paris for a week. As usual, Gay and I got to go along! The students stayed in a very nice youth hostel with gardens and courtyards. We stayed in a cool, little French hotel in the Marais district, a great location within walking distance of Notre Dame. The hotel, "Caron de Beaumarchais", is named after the boisterous 18th century playwright who wrote the "Marriage of Figaro" later adapted to opera by Mozart. The hotel is a narrow structure with three rooms on each floor, decorated with period pieces. Interestingly enough, it has an elevator and air conditioning! Website: http://www.carondebeaumarchais.com/
When we arrived on Saturday, the city was packed with people. Walking the streets felt a bit like swimming upstream. Little did we know.....Paris was in the middle of a giant music festival! The music was loud, wild, and not so great. The city was flooded with young people bent on having a great time. One venue sported an obviously very popular rapper with thousands of adoring fans. All I could think of was Snoop Dog on steroids singing gangster rap in French while wearing the top half of a Chicago Bulls uniform. Very bizarre!
The following day, the music improved...thank goodness! The streets had been cleaned up by a huge number of sanitation workers who literally shoveled the foot-deep broken glass and trash into garbage trucks and then hosed down the streets and sidewalks. By 8:00 a.m. you would never know there had been a party.
Sunday was a beautiful day. We strolled along the Seine listening to jazz musicians do their thing on the bridges We took a boat ride, ate sweet crepes, and languished in the atmosphere. It was the Paris one dreams of!
Best of all was a Vivaldi concert in the evening at La Sainte Chappelle...violins, cello, base, and harpsichord.
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