Our own private lawn at the Louvre...

Last night we had dinner with friends in Paris. The Ms. are always experts at finding the best patios in town. Last year, they had picked a head-on view of the Eiffel Tower, from the Trocadéro across the river. And a spectacular thunderstorm that felt like our own private fireworks, until the downpour sent everyone flying inside - just when we had finished our meal.

This year, we dined in front of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, in the back yard of the Louvre.

Louvre view

Eiffel Tower view

Glasses were literally flying because of an evening wind, service was a bit slow, and the prices high, but you cannot beat the location and the feeling to have your own private lawn with a view of the Louvre on one side and the Eiffel Tower on the other...

At Sunset, it became even more glorious.

But we opted against trying the hideous centrifugal contraption some seem to find entertaining...

This was just a few blocks away from where the new Woody Allen movie started shooting the same day. With first lady Carla Bruni... 

The Tour de France seems to have successfully eclipsed the soccer debacle in my compatriots minds. National pride is restored, with a Frenchman winning today's stage and wearing the yellow jersey. Of course, you have to push out of your mind the fact that everyone else fell and that the riders then went on strike and refused to compete for second place, in protest for the dangerosity of the course. OK, it is the Tour de France, but it was taking place in Belgium. They still went on strike like they were all French. Love it.

Phew

The Tour de France has begun. No need to talk about football anymore...

Back on the French coast

Today millions of people are in the streets protesting the proposed changes to the pension system. Who do you think Sarkozy summons to the Elysée Palace? The presidents of the major unions? Geez. You don't have the French touch, yet. Of course, it is Thierry Henry, one of the stars of the now hated French soccer team. Not just invited, summoned!!! Fast-forward a week. Now it's the Representatives who have requested a meeting with Domenech (the disgraced manager of the national team) and Escalettes, the president of the French Football Federation, who just resigned. Officially they do this to try and "understand what happened". Ironically, it is the Culture commission that requested the meeting. Yes, in France nowadays, culture is soccer. Or soccer is culture. They met for two hours, without the press! All came out saying they hadn't learned anything. Only a few came out expressing their dismay at this use of their time. The only result of this new debacle is that FIFA is really upset at this perceived meddling of politicians in their affairs, and that the French Federation is on the verge of being excluded from the International Federation...

We zip under the channel again to return to Pas-de-Calais, the territory of my ancestors. I've never been there other than to take the ferry to England. My grand-parents were chased by bombs during the war (Boulogne was leveled and all its public records lost) and they never got to return to the rather pleasant life they had before the war. Old photos in my dad's albums show them spending their free time (my grand-ma went to business school in the '20s and was working full time all her life) playing tennis, boating or having fun with their numerous friends on the beach. This time we are to meet a cousin my father has not seen in 60 years and a grand-cousin only met on the phone. She has a son a year older than Arthur. They don't look anything like one another - our common ancestry is too far removed - but they immediately get along like gangbusters. 

Over two days we explore the coast, la Côte d'Opale, up and down.

The coastal landscapes are gorgeous, a sharp contrast to the in-land dullness we drove through on the way up last week. 

The weather too is in sharp contrast to last week. It is unusually warm and sunny, which of course transforms everything. 

I want to settle for the summer in the low-slung cliff-top house on Cape Gris-nez (on the left on the aerial pic), with dark blue shutters, an expanse of grass, unrestricted ocean view, and a cellar built into one of the omnipresent leftover bunkers, that we came across after a short walk through an improbable narrow trail, evoking Provence more than the Northern reaches of France. Anyone care to join me there?

Did I mention I loved London?

Trafalgar Square

The Piccadilly line

The helmet of the Bobby and the tie of the reporter (as in the Spirou et Fantasio comics, which are his way in to French reading and education)

Another highlight was a divine lunch and afternoon in Hampstead. When I was 10, I stayed with the Alexanders, my dad's American friends, who were spending a year in London. Several years ago I went back and found the street where they lived in Hampstead. I didn't try this time and I didn't recognize anything. It was still magical. I had a lovely French meal with a friend.

Then we leisurely strolled trying to get lost on the Heath. The day was unbelievably warm and we entertained ourselves watching the rather risqué spectacle of couples under every other tree.  

Harry Potter trail

Now, here's the real reason of our presence in London: Arthur wanted to see Tottenham Court Road. Something to do with Harry Potter (ask him). So we went.
The square itself is unrecognizable, entirely under construction.

And rather Americanized.

Most street signs are hidden or taken down, but we find a way to immortalize the moment!

And to complete the tour, a little stop in Kings Cross station....

All the employees know where it is and guide you politely to it. All, except the French one at the Eurostar counter, at St Pancras, the station across the street. The lady I asked -without knowing she was French- barely spoke English and seemed to have a very foggy idea of who Harry Potter was (she was in her twenties). She had no clue what the Harry Potter platform could be and clearly expressed that she wasn't paid to know this... But her next booth colleague knew and pointed us in the right direction.