Flying Over Alsace

Apologies for jumping around from Alsace to Paris and back to the wine-making region, but I have one more short story.

Alsace is a region that has many small quaint-looking villages relatively close together and surrounded by large patches of vineyards.

We got to see this for ourselves when we went up on a 15-minute helicopter ride of the area.

The Lavatory Business

Pink toilet paper printed on the wall

Having walked around Paris for more than three days, there are some washroom tips to pass on.

The Louvre is wonderful as there are many pit stops in the massive museum. Musee d'Orsay only has a few, but then again it's relatively small. Petit Palais's restrooms are hard to find, but definitely has one in its cafe at the back and downstairs.

However, when you're walking along Boulevard Haussman and think you can use the loo at Au Printemps department store, you might want to hold it.

That's because on the first floor there is a washroom -- but you must pay 1.50 euros ($1.83) to use it.

When I found the place, there was a short line up and the woman at the reception -- yes there is a reception area -- was alternatively collecting the money and cleaning the stalls. Sounds totally unhygienic doesn't it?

Nevertheless once you pay the 1.50 euros, savour every moment in your stall.

In my case, one of the walls was covered in either a wallpaper or painted with stacks of pink toilet paper and above the toilet were little decorations and reading material behind a glass case (which
hardly made it useful).

This is what you get for 1.50 euros

So I took my time and then my business done, I walked out to use the tap to wash my hands and leave.

I was pretty annoyed at having to shell out for the privilege of using the loo, but when you gotta go...

Later that afternoon I arrived at Place Vendome, where high-end jewellers Chaumet and Van Cleef & Arpels first opened their boutiques and the Ritz Hotel are located.

In the middle of the square is the Vendome Column featuring Napoleon on top. It was modelled after Trajan's column to mark Napoleon's victory in Austerlitz in which he gained a new bride, the Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria after he divorced Josephine because could not bear him any children.

In any event, Napoleon is standing with a laurel wreath around his head and holding a sword in his right hand and a globe with the statue of Victory in his left.

I only dared to window shop at the jewellery boutiques and besides, they seemed to be doing a brisk business with customers inside.

The stylishly marbled loo at the Ritz Hotel

However I wandered into the Ritz Hotel to take a look.

It's sad to remember this was the last place Princess Diana was at before she was killed in the fatal car accident almost 15 years ago.

The hotel is a bit cramped, but very elegant. Perhaps cozy is the best word.

There's a narrow hallway and there's a discreet icon of a woman's silhouette indicating a washroom!

I pushed the door open and was impressed to find a sophisticated powder room in a semi-circular format with three rooms furnished with pink marble.

What a pretty and clean loo! And even better, it was free.

Parisian Sweet Treats

The charming window display at Laduree

There are too many tempting sweet things to eat in Paris, from the little cakes and pastries to pain au chocolat...

But my favourite at the moment are macarons.

Apparently this is the proper name for them, not to be confused with coconut macaroons which are small cakes made with ground almond and dessicated coconut.

Laduree was established in 1862 for fashionable Parisians

Perhaps I like macarons because they have shells made from meringue, a combination of egg whites and sugar that must be carefully prepared to ensure success.

And Paris has a few confectionary places that do excellent macarons, and I tried two of the more famous places, Fauchon and Laduree.

The latter is the queen of macarons since it has been around since 1862. The store and restaurant on Champs Elysees are undergoing a renovation now and so a pop-up store on the sidewalk is doing its best to serve eager customers (ie tourists) who patiently wait in line. But it has many other locations around town including the basement of the Louvre complex and the airport.

Apparently Laduree sells some 15,000 macarons everyday which is a pretty amazing feat. And perhaps the vast majority of the consumers are not French.

It was Pierre Desfontaines, the second cousin of the Laduree founder Louis Ernest Laduree who came up with the idea of putting two meringue shells and joining them together with ganache filling in the early 20th century.

The pistachio, peppermint and Ghana chocolate macarons

I bought three to try -- Creme de menthe or peppermint flavour, Ghana chocolate, and a relatively new one called "incroyable" or "incredible", featuring two pistachio-flavoured shells and the filling is almond marshmallow. The last one has a nice texture, though the filling is not as intense in flavour as the first two. Nevertheless the macarons are very good, but the meringue shell is on the crumbly, crispy side.

The company also has a range of non-edible merchandise, particularly having a partnership with Hello Kitty. There are 15-euro notebooks with covers featuring colourful macarons with the infamous feline head, and even boxes to hold macarons with Hello Kitty's face on them.

Meanwhile Fauchon also does some good macarons, and I tried blackberry or cassis, caramel and chocolate praline in a bronze colour. The fillings were intense in flavour and not as crumbly as Laduree's. However the selection of flavours is smaller, but perhaps easier to decide which ones to try, non?

Caramel, cassis or blackberry and chocolate praline macarons

Too bad Hong Kong's humidity is so high, particularly in summer otherwise I'd bring some more back home to sample.

Oh well -- perhaps best to savour and remember in Paris.

Laduree Champs Elysees
75, avenue des Champs Elysees
75008 Paris
+33 (0) 1 40 75 08 75
www.laduree.fr/en

Fauchon
24-26 Place de la Madeleine
Paris 8eme
+33 (0) 1 70 39 38 00
www.fauchon.com

Pretty Art, Provocative Art

The Grand Palais taken from the window at the Petit Palais

Near the obelisk are the Grand Palais and Petit Palais. A friend on Facebook encouraged me to check out the Petit Palais and it was a nice surprise to visit. Even better it was free admission!

The two are located across from each other, and while it is smaller in size, the Petit Palais is just as grand and ornate, particularly the entrance.

The grand foyer of the Petit Palais

It is a museum housing an interesting mix of paintings and sculptures, furniture and paintings from the Renaissance and medieval periods. Many of the paintings were depictions of daily life which gave good insight into the time they were made. One in particular that stood out was Newborn, where in a bare room, a wife sits up on the bed resting and watches as her husband who does some kind of manual labour, sits on the edge holding their newborn baby gingerly in his hands and smiles proudly.

There are some well-known artists displayed here too, like Pierre Bonnard, Mary Cassatt, Auguste Renoir and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. Claude Monet's Sunset on the Seine at Lavacourt was a highlight, featuring a grey-blue sky illuminated by a brilliant orange sun going down and its reflection is in the river.

The museum also has several sculptures dotted around the place, and one beautiful one was Antoine Bourdelle's Penelope made of bronze, dated 1909. While it's in an ancient Greek pose, the proportion is such that it focuses more on the lower half of her body, in particular the drapery of her dress. The piece looks very modern, on the verge of being Cubist.

A very ornate Petit Palais, across from the Grand Palais

Also interesting were pieces near the foyer, such as this gorgeous Mosque-style lamp from Joseph Brocard (1831-1896) made of enamel and gold. There was also a statue of a woman from the early 20th century holding a leash tied to a small monkey, reminding me of footage I saw of Misia and her friends who also played with a pet simian at Musee d'Orsay.

Following the theme there was also an elaborate clock by Jean Moisy and on the base were an orchestra of monkeys wearing outfits a la Madame Pompadour and playing instruments. How bizarre!

Nevertheless the pieces of furniture were very beautiful, with inlaid wood and other materials as well as carvings.

Another highlight of the place is the garden at the back and a small cafe where you can enjoy the view as you have lunch. I did just that, having a sandwich and fruit salad.

A statue of a woman with her pet monkey

Then it was off to the other side where I saw a giant poster advertising an exhibition on photographer Helmut Newton that was held over until July 30.

After paying 11 euros (the Louvre was 10 euros, Musee d'Orsay 9 euros), it was disappointing to find it was a small show and featured mostly his earlier works from the 1960s and 1970s. I am more familiar with his work from the 1990s in Vogue magazine.

In any event there were some interesting tidbits about him I didn't know:

He was born Helmut Neustadtler in Berlin in 1938 and escaped the persecution of the Nazis. He somehow made his way to Singapore where he worked for the Singapore Straits Times. Wonder what kind of photography he was doing there!

Then two years later he moved to Australia where he served in the Australian army and in 1946 became a naturalized citizen and changed his name to Helmut Newton.

A few months before his death in 2004, Newton was quoted by Newsweek as saying:

More simians dressed up a la Madame Pompadour on a clock

"Some people's photography is an art. Mine is not. If they happen to be exhibited in a gallery or museum, that's fine. But that's not why I do them. I'm a gun for hire."

His wife June made a rambling documentary, following him around as he did photo shoots or in a bathrobe in hotel rooms, talking on the phone to editors about taking on assignments.

At one point he says on the phone that his rate is $10,000 and then in another scene says directly to the camera that he's just made $10,000 and is going to buy June some jewellery.

Pretty obnoxious.

But it was more interesting watching him working on his photo shoots and explaining why he arranged the shot in a certain way.

Monet's Sunset on the Seine at Lavacourt

One of the models shown a few times is Cindy Crawford and in one scene she's in a bathing suit and heels, walking down the stairs in a deliberate way. He said that he liked looking at her muscles and the shape of her legs as she did that.

He also liked to nap in the afternoons before a shoot and the image of the photograph would usually come into his head then. He was so specific about the shoot that he'd only take about six shots which drove editors crazy because they were expecting a whole roll of film. But he wanted to make sure he was in total control of the shots.

And his photographs are provocative.

Penelope by Antoine Bourdelle

In one from Vogue France 1968, a model wearing a fur coat stands next to a bear on its hind legs. In another called Evi the Cop 1997, there are two shots of the same woman in the same pose -- one where she is fully clothed as a policewoman, the next only wearing her police shirt and shoes.

There are large-scale photos showing several models walking together in a studio with clothes on, then without.

"The 'big nudes' began in 1980 and were inspired by police identity photos of German terrorists," said Newton in 2003. "I intentionally made 21 of these images until 1993."

He also took portraits of famous people, such as Yves St Laurent, Princess Caroline, Prince Albert and Princess Stephanie of Monaco, David Lee Roth, Salvador Dali, Catherine Deneuve and Andy Warhol.

In the documentary he is seen shooting Luciano Pavarotti, and after the session is over, the opera star turns the tables on Newton and makes him take his shirt off as he shoots the photographer.

A poster of Helmut Newton's exhibition

There are also some eerie photographs of mannequins -- very realistic ones -- in provocative poses dressed up in lingerie in a variety of settings.

Each picture tells a story -- some kind of fantasy that involves sexuality and identity.

Newton seems intent on getting some kind of reaction from the viewer, be it disgust, shock or satisfaction.

And even 50 years later his images continue to provoke, so he must be pleased with his accomplishments.