Paris, Paris in Chicago: Paris Following Us?

It started with the morning coffee at a roasting establishment and cafe called La Colombe, not 100 yards from where we were staying…

Real French Roast, better than most we find nowadays in the City of Caffeine…

It continued at The French Market, also nearby. Remind you of our favorite Parisian markets? Rue de la Gare… trains above, le marche’ below, tres Parisien!

Then it was the Paris Opera Ballet, its banners dancing and flapping from every lamppost in town.

“Paranoia” is not the word; “surprise” will do to describe the feeling we had: Paris was nipping at our heels in Chicago.

I don’t mean Paris the hero of myth. The Paris in question was the living, mythical place of everyone’s dreams: Par-ee. Coffee, markets, dance…

Then it was the “potager”–no mere kitchen garden. A real, Chicagoan vision of a French potager… Art on the Farm!

In actual fact what really surprised us was the ubiquitous ghost of Gustave Caillebotte. It shadowed us through the Windy, Rainy City last week, from the local bank… (Elephant & Umbrella and… isn’t that cute!? look what’s behind!)

… into the Chicago Art Institute…

Hey, look at what I found in the gift boutique…

Plenty to learn about French Impressionism AND post-Impressionism… and no one knows more about it than the curators in Chicago, where the collection is big, big, big…

Talk about ubiquitous…

After our visit to the labyrinthine repository of Culture, we explored many other parts of Chicago and inevitably encountered droves of migratory Parisians (not shown–they sue!).

To continue the Parisian experience we had a reasonably authentic and entirely enjoyable dinner at La Sardine, a very Chicago-Paris “bistro” (I use the quotation marks because this little joint could hold within its walls about 10 normal-sized Paris bistros).

Halibut with green ears, very French!

One of my favorite whites, the mineral-rich Milly Lamartine by Les Heritiers du Comte Lafon. Magnifique!

By the time the jet-lag had worn off we realized we weren’t really in Paris, Paris… but rather in Chicago, Chicago…

And that’s when we decided to run in a kind of marathon. Actually, we didn’t decide to run we HAD to run–for our lives. But that’s coming up in the next installment of “Paris, Paris: Chicago, Chicago.” Tune back in soon…