Hidden Paris - Fontainebleu

Hidden in the sense that it is not in Paris at all, the Chateau taking up the central part of the genteel town of Fontainebleu is a 40 minute train ride from Gare de Lyon, but it was a fabulously sunny day and definitely time to get into the green after winter's grey.

Smaller and older than Versailles, this palace of the French monarchs is undergoing some building restoration work at present so the Pope's rooms, so called, were closed, but the rest was open; room after room of gorgeousness, a veritable feast and a study in royal interior design over the centuries, including throne rooms, a ball room, library, reception rooms, Marie Antionette's bed chamber (another one), and many of Napoleon's personal effects, dinner services, campaign tent, jewels.

The gardens are extensive for strolling, picnicking, boating, and the like. A great day out when you want to escape the traffic fumes and Tom Cruise filming helicopter chases for Mission Impossible 6 in the skies of Paris.

Hidden Paris - Basilica St Denis

It's difficult to hide the world's first Gothic building, but if you put it in a northern suburb of Paris with a certain reputation, then it's hardly surprising it has taken me five years to get around to visiting it.

Joking aside, this is a magnificence that everyone should see at least once: huge vaulted ceilings, beautiful rose window, and the main draw: the fabulous, mostly marble, tombs and mortuary effigies of the Kings and Queens of France.

Word of warning. It may be 20 degrees outside, but the church is absolutely freezing, especially the crypt, so wrap up unless you like you want to catch you death, so to speak.

Fascinating to see and a real test of my memory as I didn't take the rather time consuming tour and had to drag up my rather shaky knowledge of French history. Noses and staffs broken during the Revolution, the grim tale of Henry IV's head, and the real mummified heart of Louis LVII await you.

I was particularly taken with the lions and dogs on which the monarchs and their spouses rested their feet. Some were comical, such as dogs pulling on their mistresses cloaks, and some were down right odd, as if the sculptor had never even seen a real lion, which indeed, he may not have. One was even a ferret.

Coffee in the sunny square afterwards before heading back to line 13 was not only welcome, but essential.

Hidden Paris - Opera Garnier

 Sumptuous in the kind of golden glory that the French excel in, the Garnier Opera House is a must see for so many reasons, even if you don't like opera that much. It is a veritable eye-dazzle.

Although the entry for an unguided tour is a little steep at 11 Euros a person, it is well worth an hour of your time, if like me, you still point your toes and fancy yourself dancing the ballet. One sweep down the highly polished marble stair case should do your performing princess ego no end of good.

Principal among reasons to come here are the art works: Rodin's statues at the foot of the grand staircase, their feet turned gold by so many passing and reverent hands, and Chagall's magnificent ceiling in the auditorium.

It surprised me how may of my fellow visitors completely missed it, busy as they were taking selfies. I stared up at it for ages, studying each element of angel, goat, violin, and all the Paris landmarks cunningly included in his trademark palette. Super!

Hidden Paris - MK2 Grand Palais

I shouldn't really be telling you this, but the cinema in the Grand Palais is the very best and most comfortable in the whole city. It's located on the corner of the building nearest the quai and is so easily missed, even by people who have lived in Paris for decades. It generally shows three different films a day and is the classiest place to sit back and enjoy that I know of. Just keep that to yourself.

Vermeer at the Louvre

Small and perfectly formed, this is a truly lovely exhibition of umpteen Vermeers and contemporaries, thoughtfully hung by subject matter to facilitate comparisons.

Save yourself trips to London, the Netherlands and Germany etc., buy tickets and queue up for ages even though you have a ticket. Take a friend to talk to, or a good book.

Patience is certainly rewarded, but please be tall to see over everyone's head, or be prepared to wait for those gaps in the crowd and tour groups when you will have the Lacemaker and Milkmaid et al to yourself.

Enjoy these jewels while they shine in Paris and ask yourself why all the windows are on the left.

Hidden Paris - Musee Bourdelle

If you are sloping around Montparnasse looking for a peaceful spot, go no further. This small museum, built around Bourdelle's atelier and adjoining buildings, has beautiful courtyard gardens packed with his sculptures, as well as large exhibition halls with the same, including plaster casts.

Bourdelle was a student of Rodin and there are some influences to be spotted, but mostly his work is massive, muscular, even the women, and substantial. If you like your bronzes this bold, you will enjoy this hugely.

It was encouraging to see students sketching on a sunny day. Oh, and it's free to visit, plus you may be greeted by the smiliest  and most welcoming museum staff in Paris.

Cy Twombly at the Pompidou

In London at present the Tate is showing a major Robert Rauschenberg retrospective. In Paris, his friend and travelling companion, Cy Twombly, is the Pompidou's new show for the winter.

I struggle with expressionism. I imagine this is because it is hard for me to translate the expression of one person's feelings in an art work into my own feelings, as my main currency of expression is words, a much clearer medium for ideas in my training. So, hello Twombly, who uses plenty of those, even if at times they are vague, illegible and hard to figure; at least they are signposts of sorts.

If you have a good acquaintance with Greek myth, then you will certainly 'get' most of the middle to later works here. The only question then will be whether you like the images. And I have to say that I do, certainly the works from the second half of his career. For me, he definitely improved with age. I was smiling more and more as the show progressed.

Twombly is variously described as daring, confident and so on, and this is plain in his brush and pen strokes, which have fluidity and great control. You might find yourself saying 'a four year old could do that', and in some cases they can and do, such as the early crayon drawings. But look again, there is so much more to these scribbles, Twombly has met Picasso's challenge, to re-learn to draw like a child, full on and so successfully; take Achilles' shield or Ra's boat for example.

The Pompidou has assembled an excellent selection of his work, which is largely in series of paintings, that have travelled from the US, UK and elsewhere to be here. My favourites were the huge late Bacchanalia, and Blooming series. Go choose your own.

And now for the nit - I have a particular bug bear about the use of the word poetry in relation to art. With Twombly, who made many works in response to poetry, that is perhaps a forgivable slip, but a painting is not a poem, not even if it's genesis is occasioned by reading Homer, Keats, Spencer and so on.

So, I grit my teeth when I read a quote from Restany at the start of the free brochure: 'His handwriting is poetry...' No, it's not. It's handwriting. Equally I was annoyed to see the series of flower photographs described as 'succinct poems'. No, they aren't. They are photographs. Describing art as poetry, poetic, a poem, is so unspecific as to be meaningless; a bit like describing a poem as a picture.

Ben at the Musee Malliol

Mildly amusing for about an hour if you want to dodge a rainstorm, but the bon mots and mots drole about art tired me out pretty quickly. Yes, he has nice hand writing. Yes, he is witty, but honestly, unless you are a die-hard fan, I'd give this a miss. He's been doing pretty much the same thing for over fifty years now. Time to move on, I think.

Plus the rather childish, boy talks about sex red boudoir installation, had me yawning. Nothing shocking here. I should have known what I was in for when the first wall piece explains his fondness for women, Once, perhaps, radical. Now, to be frank, a bit dull.

Oh and the permanent collection...lovely portraits, pastels and sculpture, but I can do without a bronze with legs akimbo and totally biologically accurate (female, of course). I'm not a prude, but I know what I look like, thanks and I'm not sure it is art or radical.

La Rentree

Everyone is back. Not everyone went away. Things are starting to happen in Paris. Again. I am being bombarded by notices of what's on art openings, theatre, exhibitions, poetry readings. There is just too much to choose from. Help! Cultural overload for the months ahead. Wait, is that a thing now?

I love my life. Just not sure when I am going to be doing any writing any time soon. Oh wait! That's what the Eurostar is for. Bonne Rentree.

Paris in August

What? You are not going on holiday?

I have been working in Paris for five years, but still the French habit of taking most, if not all, of August as holiday eludes me. Why would you want to vacation at the most expensive time of the year if you didn't have to? Parents with school age children, of course, are excepted as they have no choice. I am no longer in this group and neither are many French people, and yet, they still disappear from Paris to, mostly, the south of France, all at the same time.

Why? Do they like each other that much that they want to go away together? Isn't the point of a holiday to get away from it all, not take it all with you? I must be missing something in my strange 'so British' ways.

The Paris that is left behind by this exodus is a quiet place, tranquil, and actually quite pleasant, even if the boulangerie is closed and the pavements a hazard of lost tourists one can easily trip over. There is little competition for the terrace and the streets are calm. You can find somewhere pleasant to sit in the park, even a free bench, which is something of a joy compared to the rest of the year.

The only price to pay is being treated as a tour guide by random visitors who try out their two words of French before sighing with relief that they fortuitously picked a local who can speak English so well. Ha. I seldom bother to enlighten them, and sometimes, if I am feeling especially wicked, I am not that helpful. My Gallic shrug is coming along nicely, thanks.

I intend to enjoy this circus paradiso for a few more weeks yet. Salut!

The war against graffiti

Graffiti as art, protest. The tag. The meaningless scrawl. Banners, flags, candles.

Since the Charlie Hebdo attack the Place de la Republique has seen it all, for reasons that sadly repeat themselves. Every now and then Paris has a fit of civil pride and decides to clean the whole lot way. La Liberte is a beautiful statue. She looks good when pristine. It won't last long, I know that, but today, her toilette was in full swing. I imagine things will get back to normal fairly soon. This photo was taken ten days ago. It seems an age.

Hidden Paris - a three church walk

Not exactly hidden,  more hiding in plain sight. Here's a suggested walk to three of Paris' outstanding churches.

Start a Saint Chapelle, the private chapel for the French royal family, located in the confusing complex of court buildings that is the Palais de Justice. Astonishingly beautiful stained glass awaits you in the King's chapel. The peasants worshipped in the lower chapel. Two tier church building at it's Gothic finest. I challenge you to find the carving of Eve being born from Adam's rib.

It will be crowded with tourists and is steep at 10 Euros for a look see. There is even known to be quite a queue on the street and you have to submit to X-raying your bags and walking through a metal detector, but that's a small price to pay for all this sumptuousness.

Next, make you way back to the river via Saint Severin. A huge church often overlooked, but don't miss it. The stained glass at the back of the church is well worth your while.

Finally cross the road to Saint Julien le Pauvre, one of Paris' oldest places of worship,complete with an icon screen. It's small and you might be lucky enough to avoid a tour group with no manners. Take a break in the adjacent park and then go book browsing at Shakespeare and Company.

Allow about two to three hours and enjoy things many people miss. Religious affiliation not required.

Hidden Paris - Musee Guimet

Have you been to Angkor Wat? No, me neither, but it's on my list of must sees. In lieu, many of the sculptures are to be found in Paris, who knew?

Well not me until I went to the Musee Guimet, which is the Asian art museum, packed with mainly devotional works from Japan to Tibet, which means lots and lots and lots of Buddhas. Fabulous.

I realise it's not exactly hidden as it is right next to Metro Iena, but it was new to me.

There are temporary exhibits as well. The current freebies included Japanese prints, featuring the predictably salacious with graphic translations, and a wonderful room size bamboo weaving by Shouchiku Tanabe.

A great way to spend the afternoon. Highly recommended, except the tea is ludicrously over priced. Pity that as I was in the mood for some Oolong.

White Riot

It's approaching summer in Paris. Of course, it's raining. It has, in fact, rained all week. Angry people have been kept indoors. When it stops raining and they're all been to see the flooded quais, as the Seine has burst its banks, they decide to do something else. In this case, demonstrate against, well, everything: the police, the state, the employment law changes, and anything else you care to think of. I inadvertently ran into the latest manifestation at the Canal St. Martin this afternoon.

The first thing I heard of it was the clump of the police down the street where I was window shopping in the rather chi-chi boutiques and ateliers of hand made goods. I'd just finished my yoga class, so I was feeling rather Zen. Surprised, I backed into the nearest doorway as the riot police passed me. They looked rather hot and fed up. It's quite hard running in all that gear. There was much panting. I asked their leader what was going on. He made a typically French sound that meant something like, "yet more bullshit".

I followed the squad up onto the canal street. They had taken position across the street, riot shields and batons in place, and tear gas at the ready. The reserves were on the bridge over the canal. Facing them were the black clad protestors: anarchists, communists, others. Mostly they were young men ski and gas masked, but there were young women in the crowd and older men. They were well prepared.

My attention was taken by a group kicking in a closed shop's window just yards from me. They easily broke the glass, kicked in more of it, entered the premises and started carrying out the contents. Not looting, just destroying. I saw a young woman smash a computer screen on the pavement, alongside her comrades busy breaking paving slabs into chunks of the right heft to hurl at the police. Rocks, cans, bottles, emergency flares, firecrackers and the like were raining down on the police as the protestors grew more and more defiant. They moved towards them for a face off, shouting slogans all the while.

Then the police opened fire with tear gas rounds. Half a dozen. More. Deafening. And the gas itself is stinging to the eyes and throat. I retreated to the street below the canal. The police advanced. The protesters legged it. Not all of them got away. Two were wrestled to the ground by the police and arrested. More tear gas was fired. The protesters regrouped and the whole thing started again.

I wasn't entirely sure what the tactics of either side were: the protesters wanted to march and have a fight, the police were determined to stop them. No announcements to disperse were made, but then, I didn't stick around long enough to find out how it all ended. After about twenty minutes of photographing the scene, I became concerned I might be caught up in it. I was, after all, dressed in my usual black (leather jacket, legging, t-shirt) and I was wearing my rather clumpy biker boots. An easy confusion might have been made.

Just a few streets away, Saturday afternoon continued as normal: Parisians went on shopping, eating and drinking, peacefully protesting against something in Place de la Republique - this week the vegans calling for the closure of abattoirs - while the Caribbean carnival made its way down Boulevard Beaumarchais. Such different sides of the city, it's hard to reconcile them.

Anslem Kiefer at the Pompidou

Kiefer’s work is always monumental. That’s why one piece of stacked shipping containers, filled with unfurling rolls of photographically imprinted lead, takes up more than a floor’s height in the atrium of the Pompidou. It’s why this show of 150 works goes on for room after room, some containing as few as three canvases, such is the scale.

Wear sensible shoes and don’t expect to be able to sit down very often. This is a marathon, but a very worthwhile one. It’s a huge and impressive survey of his work and certainly bears more than one visit to take it all in. I particularly enjoyed the vast landscapes and architectural paintings, and the installations behind glass.

The early rooms deal with the German past, including the Nazi uniform paintings which first brought him to attention. Later a recurring motif is the snake, which slithers its way from painting to sculpture and back again.

Much here is narrative, including books incorporated in paintings and painted books, and it is fertile ground for letting your imagination run riot. Make up your own stories, while admiring the muscularity of the paint work, even flowers have a thickness and strength that command one’s attention.

Hidden Paris - Musee Zadkine

Making good on my promise to visit Paris' less well known museums this year, I started with the Musee Zadkine, housed in his former home,  just a hop, skip and jump from the Luxembourg Gardens in the 6eme.

It is small and perfectly formed, and a lovely way to pass an hour looking at beautifully serene and gentle sculptures.

You can easily see the influence of his friend Modigiliani and later Cubism. It was hard not to reach out and touch the sinuous forms.

Seek out the tranquil green courtyard  and enjoy everything for free. There were only two other people there when I visited. Thank you Paris.

Nous sommes Parisians, but I’m not gawping

It’s been ten days since the terrorist attacks in Paris. A week and a half in which something approaching life has continued, but people have become variously scared, defiant, distrustful.

The present concerns are whether the political response of bombing the hell out of Syria is wise, and resistance to the French government’ s move to constrain personal freedoms. For the French, Liberté is a very serious tenant, even in a state of emergency.

On a daily basis these things concern me much less than my neighbours. Je suis Paris, but I have long since given up on active political engagement as it does no good to my health. I cannot over-fill my mind and heart or they will break completely. That’s why I will not be going to Place de la Republique to look at the growing shrine to the dead. It’s the reason why I do not join the collective mourning.

My only contact with public expressions of grief and outrage was the floral tributes at the school gate next to my apartment building  It was hard to avoid the white flowers, candles and messages from the pupils for their murdered music teacher. And impossible to side-step the girl walking towards me one morning last week, carrying a perfect rose, her expression of sadness not one any child should know.

Musee Albert Kahn

When the heat bouncing off the stone is too too much, it's time to seek out the shade. In all sorts of hidden places in Paris there is plenty of greenery, as in here at the end of line 10 at Boulogne Billancourt.

As I am currently plotting a small Japanese creation, this was the spot for a little gardening homework, rest and reflection. Not only is it a lovely stroll garden, but there is also a French fruit and roses garden and a more classically English garden with some fine specimen cedars and conifer wood.

Water is everywhere as pond, rill, stream, waterfall and cascade, all controlled to fall in pleasing harmony. Enormous koi cruise the main pond. A fringe of tadpoles edged a runnel.

It's the perfect place to forget the city, if you can close your ears to the traffic noise for a while, sit back and dream. Super Sunday.

Mona Hathoum at the Pompidiou

Ha! So Paris gets an astonishing show before London. Happiness all round and bad luck the Tate, you have to wait until 2016.

Mona Hatoum's work, in one hundred pieces here is wonderful. But then I am a sucker for anyone who does things with maps. I recall first coming across her many years ago - the film of her colon, I think as a Turner prize contender - it is challenging and well executed, and here it is again in it's own little round space in the first gallery.

Here are videos (not often enough with seating, so mind your back if you want to watch them all, or make like the 60s and sit on the floor), installations, photographs, drawings and for some reason, some enormous cheese graters. You may groan a little at her terrible punning titles (Grater Divide, and Light Sentence), but there should be something for everyone, except the squeamish. Those not fond of offal should look away now.

Her life story and the exploration of her Lebanese identity and the violent dislocations of her homeland are the major subjects of her work. She uses all kinds of materials including human hair, woven, balled and embroidered with - watch our for the gentle tickle as you walk through one of the rooms.

Her fascination with mapping is displayed in projections on paper, glass beads, bars of olive oil soap and thread bare carpets. We didn't learn to do anything so ingenious when I studied cartography at University, more's the pity.

Not that I could exactly sneak it out under my coat, but the red globe I would happily take home and I admired the craft and tapestry skills of the women who made Twelve Windows.

It's on all summer, so pick a less than scorching day if you don't want to get heat stroke making your way to the top of the building (the exhibition space is air conditioned) and hithee.  Enjoy. I will be doing so many times in the coming weeks.