Chartres - Illumine

Where do I start?  I was in love with France before I set foot in it.  When I was barely 5 and received a 2 franc coin from my Auntie.  When Madeline was read to me.  (I was totally in love with Miss Clavell.)  When my 9th grade French teacher showed us pictures of Chartres.

I FINALLY made it to this amazing place, set in the middle of, and rising up out of wheat fields, that I only saw in photos when I was 14, but that I knew I NEEDED to visit.  And which has since, been designated a UNESCO Heritage Site, for it's amazing cathedral built between the 13th and 14th centuries, which burned down and was rebuilt.  What is more amazing, that it was built in the first place, and it took over 100 years to build, or that it was rebuilt in the space of 30 and yet is still dazzlingly beautiful and awe-inspiring?

The cathedral is truly stunning.  The scale is just unimaginable and the detail and quantity, quality of it's ornamentation renders it beyond imagining, really.  I've been to Reims and Rouen and seen their cathedrals, is it because I was to young, or is it that Chartres is really that much more amazing?

I'll post more about Chartres later, in the daylight.  It's a gorgeous, gracious city under sunlight

but at night, it undergoes a magical transformation.

In the evenings, after the summer sun sets at 10:30, Chartres turns into a magic box of colorful illuminations.

On buildings up and down the town, are projected illuminations of the most charming beauty.

Part stage set, part magic lantern show, the whole city is wrapped up inside a hush of the marvelous.

A treasure box of visual surprises.

Are YOU in love yet?

How did they manage to get my favorite Art Nouveau images so precisely situated to embellish and make almost transcendental an already gorgeous Nouveau building?

And why do these projections of mystical forests give me shivers up and down?

Too bad there is scaffolding in front of the Cathedral that somewhat distorts the various projections.

And that, with the dark, reminds me that I am NOT (yet!) a professional photographer.

Notwithstanding my technical limitations,

the artistry of the projections 

is terribly seductive and engaging.

What kind of magical realm have I entered?

the marvelous world of Chartres Illuminations.  (BIG SIGH!)  I was afraid I would be disappointed, but I WAS NOT!  Truly, truly a Passage Paradis.

France Romance - L'Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay

So why is it that we go to France again?  For the food yes,  for the shopping definitely,  for the fashion,

for the wine, for the history, the art .....and what about.......

for the Romance?

L'Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay is a 40-minute slow train ride from Montparnasse in Paris

a disused abbey that was converted in the 19th century by the French side of the Rothschild family

into a country house hotel.

I checked Trip Adviser and apparently this is a hotel that hosts alot of conferences.

and it is no bargain.  It has an elegant restaurant gastronomique, and a newer, more moderately priced annex with swimming pool.  And according to some of the Trip Adviser reviews, a few service quirks that need to be brought out of the 19th century!  

But if it were 90 degrees in Paris, and there were no air-conditioning in your room (or du climatisation pas trop performant).  How deliciously welcoming would this seem?

If your hotel window were hanging open with curtain flapping in desperate hopes of capturing a faint gasp of cool air from the limpid Parisian night streets.  Instead of the horrendous racket of motorscooters and fire engines.....

maybe you would find the quiet and isolation, the stately echoing beauty of this stone-y refuge

with it's boating lake

and its giant copper beech, a very attractive and TRULY ROMANTIC alternative?????

The good news is that, if you are NOT the type who spends a great deal of their lives draping yourselves around the premises of $400.00/night hotels, the strange truth about the Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay is that its park is entirely open and free of charge to the public.  Boating hire costs a little more.  But what if you could rent a little gite down the road in the peace and quiet of a tidy little village?  And you could pack a little lunch and buzz a little way down the road in your rental car........WHAT could be more romantic than a simple picnic on the grass in this gorgeous place?  And maybe a nap after.  With the one you love?  And noone else around?

You might never look back.

(Sadly my own camera ran out of juice just inside the gates of L'Abbaye so last several pics via Iphone courtesy of M. Paradis.   So excuses for the fuzzy quality.)

L.A. Food Life - Hollywood Market in July

So I think my local Hollywood Farmers Market compares very favorably 

with the Marche Aligre in Paris.

We might even have more and better flowers.  (Did I just say that?!)

Our fruit are pretty impressive, particularly when it comes to size and color 

And we are starting to give the Santa Monica Market (somehow much more famous)  a run for its money when it comes to variety.

It seems the farmers have thought to grow everything for us.

But if they haven't quite, and you are missing/craving something, they always say, you should talk to your farmer and tell him/her to grow it.

I adore these roses.  They are what roses should look like, if you ask me.  And not that livid, rigid, florists/beauty queen version you see in most parts.

What's not to like about a hydrangea?  Can anyone tell me?

My husband is terrorized (or was when he was seven) by these folk who present themselves somewhat ECCENTRICALLY to ENTERTAIN small children.  (Hubby does not find their look entertaining at all!!!!  Why do they DO that? - he says.  With horror in his eyes.)

At the market, not only is it possible to come upon new discoveries in veg, but also possible to discover new ways of seeing them........like little stars, for example?

And speaking of stars and it being Hollywood, we have Goddesses too.

But who has time to ogle them when the produce is so appealing?

Root vegetables continue to hold us in their thrall.....Is it official?  Are radishes the vegetable of the moment or not?  And have you eaten them Mexican style with a squeeze of lime?  (I LOVE!)

I will never tire of purple flowers although purple anything else gives me pause.

We may not be as stylish as the French, but Hollywood seems to have gotten the memo that we should be wearing stripes with our espadrilles this summer.  We just forgot the espadrilles!   But who needs fashion, really, with such beautiful hills all around us?

Which brings us to the next (obvious?) question, have you ever eaten a lemon cucumber?   Organic or otherwise?  (Moi, non!)

The bottom line, it seems to me, is that foraging for food makes people happy.  And balloon animals will never go out of style.  Did everybody have a good weekend?  I did!!!!!!!!  Hope you found good stuff at your market!  Can't wait to go back to mine.