Dreaming of France -- Arc de Triomphe and The Tourist

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
Maybe we can all satisfy our yearnings for France, until we get there again.
Today was the last day of the Tour de France. I love watching it on television so I get a little glimpse of France every day. The last stage in Paris took place in the evening so they could include a light show. The sun had a hard time complying though, as it seemed to stay up til 10 Paris time. Chris Froome, a Brit, won the Tour and he seems like a nice enough guy.
Once it finally got dark, the organizers cast lights onto the Arc de Triomphe behind the podium.
Here's a copy of a photo from the Daily Mail in the UK.

And here's a link to part of the show. It's definitely worth watching if you didn't see it.

Also this week, I saw a movie that at least began in Paris. It's called The Tourist and stars Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. Have you seen it? The scenery in Paris just feels so French! And then they take the train to Venice, so what's not to like it?

Jolie is gorgeous and Depp does so well playing a math teacher from Wisconsin. I'd never think he could play an ordinary character. 

Here's Jolie in a Paris cafe from a blog post called The Collider.

And here she is walking on a Paris street. Doesn't she look elegant, a throw back to the women in the Cary Grant movies of the 1950s.

I'm still participating in Paris in July hosted by Thyme for Tea and Bookbath.

Dreaming of France -- Chocolat

Here's a new weekly France meme. Please join in. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it

Maybe we can all satisfy our yearnings for France, until we get there again.
Last week my 20-year-old daughter was home from college for the week. I realized that she was missing some vital information from her education. She had never seen the movie Chocolat.

 It has been a long time since I'd seen the movie and even longer since I've read the book. What I remembered about the movie was a woman and her daughter move to a French village and start a chocolate shop. I also remember Johnny Depp was especially luscious. This was still true, but I noticed so much more.
The movie opened on an empty-looking French village with gray stone buildings and cobblestone streets. People poured into a cold stone church while a woman and her little girl in red capes and hoods arrived in town along with a brisk wind. They brought change with them.

What caught my attention this time was the chocolate as it was poured from a pitcher into a cup, or as it was stirred in a big pot, or as the actors bit into each piece of chocolate. The chocolate seemed like the star of the movie -- decadent and sensual.  Juliette Binoche plays the main character Vianne. Throughout the movie, in the direst of situations, her skin looks like porcelain and she wears scooop-necked blouses that show her ivory décolletage. Her face glows with pink on the apples of her cheeks. Vianne seemed so much more alive than anyone else in the movie.
And maybe because I'm older, or mabye because Johnny Depp has received so much more exposure, he didn't wow me this time in Chocolat.
I'm reading one of the sequels to Chocolat right now, Peaches for Father Francis, and  I'm curious about the differences between the book Chocolat and the movie. I may need to read it again.
If you haven't seen the movie or read the book, give them a try.