Souillac

After a six-hour-long drive, we arrived in the tiny town of Souillac, in the Périgord Noir region, where the estimated population is about 4,000. They seem to stay inside most of the time.

Souillac was the site chosen by the Benedictine monks of Saint-Pierre d'Aurillac to establish a priory in the 10th century. Two centuries later, a large Romanesque abbey, Sainte Marie de Souillac, was built, but which due to wars was later completely ruined. In the seventeenth century the Benedictine monks of St. Maur rebuilt the Sainte Marie abbey church and buildings.

Our bed-and-breakfast hotel, in a building from the 16th century, is pleasant and their breakfast buffet is scrumptious and plentiful. It's on the quiet Place Saint Martin, right next to what's left of the Saint Martin church. Every Friday they set up a nice street market. We also visited the Sainte Marie de Souillac abbey and Place du Puits, whose old drinking water fountain still works.

There's not that much else to see in Souillac proper, but it's a great base to explore the region because of its proximity to most of the destinations in the area.

La Toussaint

La Toussaint, or All Saints, is a Catholic holiday celebrated on November 1st, in which the Church honors all the saints, known and unknown. Allegedly, during the period of Toussaint, peasant families would gather to harvest potatoes. Many children would miss school, which led to the progressive introduction of the holiday.

This may or may not be true, but the fact is nowaday French schools take a 10-day break around La Toussaint, which this year is from October 24 to November 2. So we're forced to go on holiday.

When we started planning this holiday we decided to stay in France and head south. First we'll be in the southwest of France, in the town of Souillac, near medieval treasures such as Sarlat and Rocamadour, and the famous Lascaux caves and other prehistoric sites. And later in the week we´ll head to Cabrières, in the southeast, near Nîmes.

At the Jardin des Tuileries

The Tuileries Palace—which no longer exists—was a royal palace built by Catherine de Medicis, the widow of Henry II of France, after his death in 1559. The name comes from the workshops that had previously occupied the site, which used the clay from the land to make roof tiles (tuiles). The palace, located at the west end of the Louvre, became the royal residence of many French sovereigns, and during the French Revolution Louis XVI and his family were brought to Paris and kept under surveillance at the Tuileries for two years. When Napoleon Bonaparte came into power in 1799, he made the Tuileries his official residence and, later, the Imperial palace. The palace's last resident was Napoleon III.

To conmemorate the Grande Armee's victory at Austerlitz, Napoleon Bonaparte built in front of the palace the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, a majestic triumphal Roman arch that was modeled after the Arch of Constantine in Rome. On top of the arch were placed the famous Horses of Saint Mark, the Triumphal Quadriga from Saint Mark's Cathedral in Venice that had been taken by Napoleon in 1798 (and which had previously been stolen by the Venetians from Constantinople in 1204). The Horses of Saint Mark returned to Venice in 1815 following Napoleon's downfall and were replaced by another quadriga depicting Peace riding in a triumphal chariot led by gilded Victories on both sides.

The following picture shows Hippolyte Bellangé’s 1862 painting “Un jour de revue sous l'Empire 1810,” which captures a military review in the courtyard in front of the arch at the height of Napoleon’s empire.

The Palace was set on fire during the Paris Commune of 1871 and its ruins were demolished in 1882. The arch still remains, as does the Tuileries Garden, which had become a public park after the French Revolution. Centrally located between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde, it is one of the places where Parisians love to promenade, meet, and relax.

We were there last weekend during one of the last warm, sunny days of this autumn. From the park you have some impressive views of the city, and we also witnessed a beautiful sunset.

The park has two distinct areas: the Grand Carré is the open part of the garden that surrounds the large round basin, and the Grand Couvert, the part covered with trees. There are two very nice cafes, the standard merry-go-round, a playground, plus an area with trampolines that the kids simply love.

Back to work

During the summer, before leaving for Paris, I worked on a technical editing project for Microsoft via Aquent, one of their vendors. Aquent called me again to work on another editing project for Microsoft that should last at least till the end of the year. I'm really glad that I'll be working with Office.com, the same organization I used to work with in Seattle.

The sent me a Microsoft-approved laptop from Seattle, which was delivered to my apartment by DHL, and they issued me a smart card so that I could log in to the Redmond office with the proper credentials, which I had to pick up at the Paris Microsoft office. So after figuring out how to take the RER C train, which is also known as the spaghetti due to its confusing system, I made the trip out to Issy-les-Moulineaux, a suburb of Paris on the banks of the river Seine, where the headquarters for Microsoft France and Microsoft Europe are located. The offices consist of three buildings that resemble ships' bows and are connected by courtyards, creating the appearance of a trimaran. and were specifically designed to meet Microsoft's needs for "a space that was emblematic of the progressive nature of the technology business, but also one that was highly flexible and functional," according to Arquitectonica, the architectural firm that designed it.

After a few hiccups with setting me up in the MS system, I was finally able to start. How great that I could do this all the way from Paris!

Breakfast at Starbucks

The new Starbucks next to our building finally opened a few weeks after our arrival. Of course Starbucks is a big a deal in the U.S. and especially in Seattle, where it was born, but they had only been in France since 2004 and had never made a profit. 

Sure, you'll see many tourists who want to feel at home or walk around like celebrities with big coffees in their hands, and young locals who want free wifi, but in general Parisians, with their ubiquitous cafés, look at Starbucks with contempt.

On Sunday mornings they sold pancakes, so we decided to try them. There too the baristas use name tags and customers have learned to stand in line, place their orders and find a table when their orders are ready. The pancakes weren't great, neither was their espresso, so we never went back.

Le Vigny

On Tuesday and Thursday mornings the school's Parent Association hosts a coffee/get-together at Le Vigny, a café and brasserie just up the street from the school, in the corner of Boulevard de Courcelles and Rue Alfred de Vigny. Generally a small group of people meets for coffee and conversation after dropping off the kids at school. We enjoy sharing stories of what brought us all to Paris and to this particular school.

Dianny and I have become regulars and are usually there at 9. By now the waiter in the picture knows us and, after exchanging "bonjours," brings us our usual espressos. In keeping with French tradition, we do not address him by his name, just Monsieur.

The café gets its name from the street it's on, Rue Alfred de Vigny, named after a 19th century French poet. Just a short block behind this cafe was the workshop where the Statue of Liberty was built in the 1880s. A gift to the United States from the people of France, it was designed by French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi and its metal framework was built by Gustave Eiffel.

Le Vigny publishes their daily lunch menu on two ardoises, small, portable blackboards, one of which is right behind where we usually sit (and written by someone who mastered French cursive). So while we're having a morning coffee I'm already thinking about lunch.

Another visitor

We had a new visitor this week, Dianny's good friend Lourdes, from Colombia. We took a very long walk across Paris that started at the Arc de Triomphe, down Champs Elysees, where we cut between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais and over the beautiful Alexander III bridge. Then along the Seine over to Place de la Concorde, known as the Place de la Révolution during the French Revolution, where King Louis XVI was executed. Ironically, before that it was called Place Louis XV, in honor of Louis XVI's predecessor, and it showcased an equestrian statue of Louis XV.

After stopping to see the statues that represent French cities, we headed down the street to the Place de la Madeleine, site of the Madeleine Church, which was designed in its present form as an antique temple to the glory of Napoleon's Great Army and was inspired by the Maison Carrée, a Roman temple in Nîmes, southern France.

After lunch we headed to the city's 4th arrondissement where we stopped at the Hotel de Ville and then across the Ile de la Cite to the left bank to Rue Saint Séverin, where we had the best raclette for lunch. We then walked up to the Pantheon, stopping first at the Place de la Sorbonne.

Lourdes, we enjoyed your visit and your beautiful smile. Here are a few random pictures for posterity.