Apr 10, 2025
Yvette’s stay at the Pont Royal Hotel, a former “writer’s
residence” turned hotel and later expanded to its impressive
destination status, was enhanced by her opportunity to interview
the general manager, Frederic Legallois.
The hotel is located on the Left Bank of the Seine River,
where artists and intellectuals of the early and mid-20th century
held court on café terraces in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. This
neighborhood is a postcard-perfect vision of Paris: a grand,
boutique-filled boulevard; café terraces practically made for
people-watching; former residences turned into hotels; antique
shops and bookstores spilling out on cobblestoned
squares.
Yvette enjoyed the hotel staff’s attentiveness to quality
service, the art on display and the jazz performance in the hotel’s
well-appointed bar and lounge. The hotel’s proximity to museums and
gardens allowed Yvette to enjoy the beautifully manicured Jardin du
Luxembourg, which dates back 400 years, and the Musee
d’Orsay.
The Musee d’Orsay, which was originally established with loans
from the Louvre, now claims the largest collection of impressionist
and post-impressionist art in the world. Taking over a former
Beaux-Arts railway station along the Seine River, this Museum holds
masterpieces, which Yvette had an opportunity to enjoy, like
Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” and Edouard Manet’s “The
Luncheon on the Grass” and a very special find for Yvette, the
American artist’s James McNeill Whistler's “Whistler Mother.”