Friends from France (we met on Easter Island a couple of years ago) alighted in New York for a few days, and a sturdy dose of Manhattan cosmopolitanism seemed in order. Bob and Leah live in a gorgeous corner of Provence, where they’ve just opened a gite, essentially a Gallic version of a bed-and-breakfast. (E-mail me at TUCKg3@optonline.net if you’d like to get in touch with them about renting.) We met in the lobby of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where a massive exhibit of Turners were on view, over 150 pieces by the British genius who anticipated French Impressionism by about three decades.

Afterward, we walked down to the Carlyle, at 76th and Madison, to check out Bemelman’s Bar. The famously whimsical wall murals are original, painted there in the 1950s by illustrator and children’s book author, Ludwig Bemelmans. It’s a Manhattan landmark, but it’s also as dark as inside a closet and a piano player bangs out Cole Porter at disco levels. We drank up, paid ($75.59 for four drinks!), and quickly left.

Next stop was the equally celebrated and higher-toned King Cole Bar in the St. Regis at 55th and 5th. This was better. How many bars have their own maitre ‘d? As soon as we walked into a room where every stool and chair was occupied, he set about shifting people and squeezing out enough space for us to sit. The decorative highlight is the 25-foot backbar mural by Maxfield Parish, a 1906 Art Nouveau masterpiece depicting the King Cole tale, recently restored at a cost of $100,000. The music was low, the conversation a happy but restrained buzz, the drinks as perfect as cocktails they should be, at about $20 each.