Jardin d'Acclimatation

Today we took Eli to the Jardin d'Acclimatation in the Bois de Boulogne. The Bois de Boulogne is a 2,000-acre park just west of Paris. That's over twice as big as New York City's Central Park, but I guess the comparison isn't quite fair since the Bois de Boulogne is outside the city. To get there, we took the RER commuter train across Paris and then a short walk. Part of our walk was on the boulevard de Neuilly, which is on the axis from the Louvre and Tuileries along Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe to La Grande Arche de la Défense. Neuilly-sur-Seine, by the way, is a really nice suburb of Paris; it's one of the exceptions to the general rule that these are hellholes.

Anyway, the Jardin d'Acclimatation is part of the Bois de Boulogne. It used to be a special area for displaying exotic animals and, briefly, "primitive" foreign cultures. The latter use is attested somewhat by the continuing presence of the Musée Nationale des Arts et Traditions Populaires (National Museum of Folk Art and Tradition), which we visited years ago and recommend. Nowadays, the Jar d'Acc is an amusement park. You pay a flat amount for entry and then you pay more to go on rides. It's directed at children and their parents; teenagers would be pretty bored here and were not much in evidence. It was shockingly understaffed by American standards; there were no officious, liveried individuals overseeing the playgrounds and only about half the rides on the midway were manned at any time.

Eli particularly liked the river ride, which consisted of a boat going through a narrow canal. We rode twice. It was very relaxing. He also went on some carousels and played in a playground. There were actually two playgrounds, one for children about eight or older and one for smaller kids. Eli had a lot of fun at the little-kids' playground. He also went in a playhouse, where he enjoyed interacting with the French kids. We ate lunch in the Jardin at one of the handful of cafés. They all served pretty much the same food. Eli got lots of French fries off our plates.


In case you are worried that Ally and I didn't get to have any fun of our own, don't: we rode some carnival rides ourselves, ones that Eli was just too small to venture aboard.

After a short shopping errand in Neuilly to get flavors of Mamie Nova pudding unavailable in Les Batignolles, we ventured into the touristy heart of Paris. Our ostensible goal was to get ice cream cones at Berthillon, the foremost glacier in Paris. Although Berthillon ice cream is sold all over town, the original store is on the Île Saint-Louis. We stood in line and got our cones (Ally: red peach; Sam: blueberry; Abe: rhubarb and wild strawberry, which costs more than the other flavors--Mary will remember this I think). Eli continued his inexplicable refusal to try ice cream. We just don't know where we've gone wrong with him.

The only places more touristy than Île Saint-Louis are on the Île de la Cité and nearby, so of course there we went. We sat in the park behind Notre Dame so the slow eaters could finish their cones and we could give Eli something he would eat (an apricot). We then got out of there, having heard way too much English and seen way too many cameras, and made our way home.

Ally made us chicken saltimbocca accompanied by sugar snap peas (from Kenya, of all places) and a Lebanese-inspired lentil-rice mixture she developed herself. As usual, excellent. Ally and I were excited to dig into the chocolate-orange zest Mamie Novas we'd brought back from Neuilly, but we were still haunted by the Irish Cream container we'd seen in a trashcan. Where is that flavor sold?