A Postcard from Train Car 4, Seat 36, Paris to Chaumont

And thank God because I almost missed it!

This may come as a shock, but I'm not much of a shopper and there haven't been many times in my life that I have lost all track of time due to shopping. I generally get bored when looking for clothes after about 20 minutes, my attention span is a little longer with home decor, and I actually don't count skincare and makeup shopping as "shopping" because that's more of a sensory event. But on Monday, I almost missed my train to the writing residency I that planned this trip entirely around, all because I got swept up in Le Bon Marché in Paris.

If you're a Le Bon Marché rookie like me, let me tell you right now that when you go to this heavenly department store, you need to plan on being in a fugue state of Parisian decadence for at least 3 hours and it's absolutely crucial that you do it. Cut one of the museum visits if you need to, there's only so much art a person can properly absorb in one day anyway.

Le Bon Marché is the perfect department store experience. I didn't think it could get better than Bloomingdales, but of course it does— in France. You walk through the doors with a calming "Bonjour" from the doorman and into a smooth, cool, marble-accented space. The energy is not frantic at all, no one's breathing down your neck to look at the same rack of clothes, the salespeople are remarkably kind and attentive, the restaurants make little plates of art, bien sûr, and the service is quick and welcoming.

I had two hours to take the metro from my hotel to Le Bon Marché, get a few stereotypically French items that I decided I absolutely needed, and take the metro back towards my hotel to catch my train at Gare de l'Est. I thought it would be a run-in-run-out, 15min max kind of trip. Oh how mistaken I was.

Thankfully, I made it out of the LBM trance and back into reality in time to make my train (barely), necessities in tow.

Said stereotypically French items.

Despite my panicky heartrate, the souvenirs were well worth it. Once seated, I breathed through the palpitations and sat comfortably on the ultra-civilized train, stared out the window, and thought about what to report back on the Loire Valley...

Every railroad I’ve seen that leads in/out of big city looks more or less the same.

We stayed in a cute city called Tours for two days. It was nice, apparently it's nicknamed "Little Paris" but that sort of feels the same as Minneapolis calling themselves "The Mini Apple". Tours is not Paris and Minneapolis is not New York. They're each their own things and Tours's thing seems to be an oasis for students. It was swarming with so much youth that it should be called "Little Boston" if anything.

I probably would have liked it a lot more if I were studying there, I was glad to be busy with other things. On the first day, my mom and I went on a wine tasting. No Sancerre to be found unfortunately, Tours is actually in the Vouvray region of the Loire Valley which has great Chenin, and cheese of course.

Our wine and cheese teacher, Aurelie.

We wine-and-cheesed for almost five hours then drunk-ate a few tapas for dinner and went to bed early... I guess not so dissimilar to the students after all.

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The next day we booked a day trip to Château du Clos Lucé to see Leonardo da Vinci's last house before he died. Apparently he had strong ties with France most of his life, his last patron was French and invited him to live in the Loire Valley to do his work there.

Now his home is a beautiful museum dedicated to his life and work. It's an entire campus that includes tours of his house, sprawling gardens with models of his inventions, a gallery with a lightshow of his paintings, and several restaurants. The whole thing is such an exceptionally well done tribute to him, but my favorite part was looking out his bedroom window and seeing a semblance of the same hills and greenery that he may have seen every morning.

The view out of da Vinci’s bedroom window.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

-Leonardo da Vinci

Cribs, The Renaissance Season.

The next day my mom and I were both ready to get back to Paris. The plan was to quickly return the rental car then romp around and enjoy our last night hanging out before I went to the residency and my mom went back to New Mexico for a few weeks. But trying to drive in Paris traffic ate into most of our day (10/10 would NOT recommend), so we ended up just having wine and charcuterie at the hotel before calling it a day. The next morning, my mom left early for the airport and I took my time getting ready— which brings us back to the Le Bon Marché incident.

Since then I've been settling in at the writing residency, Chateau d'Orquevaux, and OH my god... the next postcard will go into more detail because all I can really say so far is WOW. I’m still in too much shock to accurately articulate how special it’s all been. I've already met such wonderful artists, played with goats, splashed around in the pond, and been inspired every day to sit down at my desk and write something I love.

Waving from my desk through the attic window on the left.

<3 DESK <3

Evening light by the pond.

Where my roomie, Lucie, and I live <3<3<3

The view from my room, I think da Vinci would like mine too.

Lots more on all this later. Until then, sending love always xo.

Izzie

A New Yorker is still a New Yorker in France.