I had a big day in Paris today! I wanted to hit some museums, but it was Monday so almost everything was closed. Manuela Mondo (the world’s best 1960s-style go-go dancer) suggested the Museé des Arts Forains, an odd museum dedicated to the history of carnival arts. She met me at the train and took me to the outskirts of town to see this place (I think to keep the American from getting lost).
Like a lot of private museums, this one started out as a private collection, then was opened to the public on a limited, reservations-only basis. The place reminded me a bit of a French version of the House on the Rock, except that everything here is real (the house on the rock is full of wild re-creations and copies). This place opens up with a big room with a carousel, then as you move from room to room, everything gets bigger and crazier and harder to believe! It was great!
There’s a bicycle pedal-powered carousel from 1897, there’s Josephine Baker’s outfits she wore at Carnegie Hall, Brigitte Bardot’s dress from The Rumrunners, lots of incredible hand-carved wooden carnival horses, vintage pneumatic music machines (Orchestrions in French), and whimsical features everywhere you look, like arms coming out of trees, heads in glass cases framed on the walls, can-can girls cut in half, and more vintage French weirdness than my brain could absorb in a day. I give this museum an A+++, 13/10. So glad they were open on a Monday!
After leaving the Museé des Arts Forains, Manuela Mondo and I decided to walk all the way into town to meet up with everybody.
We walked along the Seine River for a mile or so, then got distracted and sucked in at the Paris Botanical Gardens (the Jardin des plantes, literally, the Garden of Plants). The weather was perfect and the sun was out, so walking through the gardens was a sight to behold. The colors were unreal. The smells were sublime. One of the prettiest sights I’ve ever seen with my own eyes. We kept walking past the garden to find the Labyrinth that Manuela remembered visiting as a kid. We found it, and it was pretty great! At the center/top of the labyrinth maze was a cool gazebo structure built in the late 1800s.
After grabbing a coffee and getting caught in the rain for a few minutes, we walked past rows of city cafes to find Les Viaducs des arts, a unique repurposing of an old viaduct to be an elevated garden walkway (very similar to what they did in New York with the High Line walking garden path).
We then walked through the Bastille district, and I wanted to check in with one of the coolest nightclubs in the world, the Balajo. It was open for senior citizen tango dancing, and so I got to peek in and see this incredible well-weathered art deco bar (where I have had the privilege of playing several times).
From there, we walked to meet Francis and Naela and Manuela’s boyfriend Florian. We had some aperitifs at Francis and Naela’s place before heading to dinner at a great French restaurant in their neighborhood, Aux Bons Crus.
Our dinner reservation was for 9 pm—they eat late here! The food was sooo good, yes, French food is rich and fattening, and—freakin’ delicious! I had some delicious fish with sautéed zucchini and saffron sauce. We all ordered desserts and it was amazing. I also learned a new French term, Trou Normand, which means Norman’s Hole. They take some ice cream or sorbet and mix in an alcoholic beverage, and this creates a gastronomic illusion, a hole, as it were, allowing you to eat more and more fattening items. Genius! Naela and Francis and Manuela and Florian very generously did not allow me to pay. Great folks.
We went back to Francis and Naela’s flat and sat around talking and drinking (y’all, I got drunk again on some very good single malt whiskey, this can’t become a habit), and Naela smoked cigars on the balcony until it got very late. As soon as I finish typing this, I will be fast asleep.
If all this sounds like a great time, that’s because it was. If all this sounds terrible, Paris is not the place for you! As far as I’m concerned, it was the best possible use of a Monday one could dream of. Thanks again, Naela and Francis and Manuela and Florian! I will miss being an honorary Parisian!
PostScript: I checked my steps on my phone as I was lying down for bed: I hit 21,686 steps today—a new personal best for me!
See many more photos and videos at Deke’s original Facebook post part 1 and Deke’s original Facebook post part 2!
