Skating in Paris: Grand Palais and the Eiffel Tower

Paris, a winter sports city? It's certainly no Zermatt, but you can do some skating in some pretty fabulous places. This holiday season, we skated at both the Grand Palais, and the Eiffel Tower. Both of these were temporary rinks set up just for the holidays. The rink in the great hall of the Grand Palais is supposed to be the largest in France. By contrast the rink on the first deck of the Eiffel Tower was pretty small.

One small tip for the organisers of both these skating events: next year, invest in a skate sharpener!

Skating under the vast 1900 glass and ironwork roof of le Grand Palais.

Hot soup at the Marché de Nöel on the Champs Élysées after skating at le Grand Palais.

Skating on the first deck of the Eiffel Tower

Itinerant in the Jura

Finally we got out of Paris and did some skiing in France. Something we haven't managed for... oh, two years now. This year was pretty bad for snow in Europe. The slopes were green in January, and there were stories of people going to the beach instead. Our Christmas ski plans had to be postponed: plans for la grande traversée du Jura: a 180 km trail of groomed cross-country tracks linking villages along the Swiss-French border in an area that I have heard described as the "Siberia of France". As the March holidays approached, this so-called French Siberia remained stubbornly balmy and snow-free. Mid-February, the famous Transjurassienne, a weekend of combined world-cup and amateur races, was cancelled due to lack of snow. Then finally about three weeks ago, the temperature plunged - well, to be precise, it dipped to just below freezing - and the flakes flew. I made bookings for train and accommodation; something not easily accomplished at that moment, attesting no doubt to the fact that we were not the only ones in whom the long-delayed and eagerly-awaited snowfall inspired optimism.

I had visions of zipping along on endless kilometres of perfectly groomed tracks, of being regularly overtaken by veritable crowds of European skiers: European skiers with flawless European technique, European skiers with superb fitness, European skiers with bright form-fitting lycra. That was not the way it was. An enduring winter storm whipped up ferocious winds with driving snow that in short order covered and then obliterated the tracks that the grooming machines vainly laid down before dawn each morning. Elegant European technique was useless; European lycra, inadequate. Only Canadian plodding and doggedness, well-envelopped in stodgy Gortex in solid MEC colours, could hope to advance. Laborious trail-breaking in deep heavy snow and route-finding in a formless white-out were the order of the day. We encountered few other skiers. I felt quite at home.

If it sounds like we ought to have been miserable, we were not. We were giddy just to be out in the snow. And it was not uninterrupted blizzard. We did have moments, even hours, of clearing when the lovely country-side of rolling hills and forests, fields and villages, revealed itself. One glorious calm morning, before the winds and snow picked up again, we even did experience, for nearly two full hours, the other-wordly feeling of kicking and gliding along in perfectly groomed track. And I should mention that we travelled light, with tiny little packs. Large enough for a jacket and a water bottle. No need to travel à l'escargot, with your shelter and supplies on your back. In the Jura, any gîte or chambre d'hôtes will, for a nominal fee, arrange to have your bags transported ahead to your next destination. That part was not very Canadian, and I can tell you we very much enjoyed that. We may have been denied immaculately groomed trails, but we did ski light.

I suppose that hypothetically there would have been adequate space in our small packs for a sandwich or two as well, but that would have been superfluous. When around mid-day we were beginning to feel cold and wet and weary, and above all hungry, out of the fog would loom a restaurant, and we would go in, and as often as not there would be a fire, and we would order the menu, which is to say the whole nine yards: appetiser, main course, dessert and/or cheese, bottle of wine, and coffee. We ate, of course, very well. The Jura is famed for its food (obviously, as the same can be said of every region on France), particularly for its cheese and cheese dishes. One place we stayed, the indomitable lady of the house (une femme d'un certain âge as they say) explained in detail in local origin of every dish; for example, the beef for one course, served in a light gravy or broth, was allegedly from a cow raised three kilometres away. I don't recall the name of the cow, but she liked to listen to Mozart and gregorian chant: hence the succulent tenderness of the meat, which was certainly remarkable. And I must mention the fried eggs I had at la jolie Combe, which the host kindly made me for breakfast: eggs from the farmhouse "just across the valley", without exception the best eggs I have ever eaten, with a dark rich-coloured yolk and full of flavour. It may seem odd given all the dishes and courses that we ate during our Jura trip that I would dwell on the fried eggs, but there it is: I would go back just for those two eggs.

Everywhere we stayed was a converted farmhouse. In former times, the ground floor of these structures was dedicated to stables and farm animals; now it is given over to tourists. (The conversion must be rather straight-forward, as apparently it is not necessary even to change the music.) The variety of these adapted farmhouses is quite wide: from rustic and cosy with old photos and ancient farm implements, to elegant with art on the walls (and posted prices for those in the market for contemporary paintings) or glassed-in verandas heated by a pot-bellied stove. Only one place was a disappointment: it had all the charm of a utilitarian youth hostel, but it was the exception. The lovely places that I would recommend to anyone considering a trip to the region are the following: la maison de Teiss, la Dalue and la jolie Combe.

The village of La Pesse.

Typical metrological conditions. It is hard to tell from the photo whether it is blowing snow or blowing ice pellets. At any rate it is not blowing rain. We did experience all three.

A moment of clearing!

We're where?

Sign posts had to be scraped free of snow before they could be read.

Fondue at la Dalue. Jurassian (Jurassic?) fondue has only two ingredients: Comté (a cheese) and a local white wine. We were told the wine was Côte du Jura, but that is a joke. I think.

Breakfast at la jolie Combe.

Three large slabs of comté: comté fruité, comté ancien, and comté encore plus ancien.

le bar panoramique à l'opéra Bastille

We finally attended an opera at opéra Bastille (le roi Arthus by Chausson). The opéra Bastille is much more interesting on the inside than the outside of the building suggests. And the bar panoramique probably has the best view in Paris. It is hard to see in this iPhone panoramic photo, because it makes everything, except Silke's nose, but including the glass wall itself (which is not actually curved), seem smaller that it actually looks, but you can see the towers of Notre Dame, the Panthéon, the Eiffel tower, and canal and many other landmarks.

place de la République, January 11

There are a zillion photos of the demonstration on the web. But for the record, here are a couple of mine.

Place de la République

Boulevard Voltaire

le 7 janvier

Place de la République, le 7 janvier

Saveur du Canada

At la Défense, there is a huge mall, le Quatre Temps. It is open Sundays, a rarity here. (By the way, la Défense is a high-rise area on the outskirts of Paris: http://courses.umass.edu/latour/2010/ladefence/JillianHaswell%20La%20Defense.html .) At the mall, there is a "hypermarché", Auchan. A hypermarché is like a supermarché, only bigger. We went there, both because we really needed to get school supplies on a Sunday, and nothing else was open (Saturdays were busy with school and music lessons so it wasn't possible to go then), and because we were able to find obscure items there, such as a lab coat for Silke for her science class. I'm sure that there must be other places in Paris that sell lab coats, but darned if I know where they are. The food section of the hypermarché is vast. I now know where I can go to get unusual Asian or South American ingredients, provided that I am willing to trek all the way out there (actually it's not so long to get there, thanks to the fast and frequent RER A train.) Particular kinds of Asian or South American are not the only varieties of ethnic food that they have however: for the first time ever, anywhere, I saw a "Canadian" food section. Here is a photo. Not entirely sharp, and a bit distorted because I had to use the panorama feature on my iPhone, but you get the idea. (You can double-click on it to get a larger version.) Let's see. . . maple syrup - well of course. . . pancake mix, cheesecake mix, brownie mix, popcorn, peanut butter, Hersey's chocolate sauce, marshmallows, immense jars of Tabasco sauce (I've never seen one that big in Canada!), beef jerky, Reese's peanut butter cups, instant porridge. Oh dear, I'm afraid that the French don't think that Canadians eat very good food!

A Sunday afternoon at the park: chariot races and a French Navy attack submarine

As Sunday is the only day of the week without school and conservatory, we intend to do something recreational every Sunday. This week, we visited the parc de la villette. La villette is the largest park in Paris. Really, it is a super-park, unifying several themed parks, as well as museums, theatres, galleries, a science world, the as yet uncompleted Philharmonie de Paris, and many many other things (such as a submarine, but I will get to that).

Some photos:

That thing in the background that looks like a giant bicycle wheel coming out of the ground - that's what it is. Other giant bicycle parts sticking out of the ground can be found nearby.

Chariot races! This looks so cool. Really they are a special kind of tricycle, hinged such that they are steered by pulling on the reigns. The children race round and round in their chariots. Sadly, this was only for small children - I was much to big. Even Jerome was too big.

This is l'Argonaute, an actual decommissioned attack submarine. You can buy tickets and go inside, from one end to the other! There seems to be hardly any space inside for people - hard to believe that it had a crew of 40.

Silke (and Jerome) inside l'Argonaut.
No, she's not talking on her phone, she is listening to the audio guide.

Although small by submarine standards, l'Argonaute is still an immense machine; clearly it wasn't moved here by truck. In fact, there is a canal through the middle of the parc, and l'Argonaut arrived here by sailing up the canal. A canal incidentally that was built by Napolean, as much to improve the water supply to Paris as to provide transportation for industry.

To get from one side of the park to the other, there are high bridges, under which boats can pass, but also, in the summer, there is a moveable bridge, which is basically a motorised dock, with trees. Here is a short video of it in action: