Saturday, May 19
These steps are where we started the day, going to the country without even leaving Paris. Following the suggestions in an article from Travel and Leisure, we took the Metro to Place de la Porte de Bagnolet in the 20th and found the village called La Campagne a Paris, a group of turn-of-the-century houses set up on a ridge. There were actually four different sets of stairs linking the houses to the streets below, and climbing them made me think of the Filbert Steps in San Francisco, where you can also get glimpses into little slices of yards as you pass by. Each house on the circle was unique and well-cared for in the Nantucket tradition, with every flower pot and door knocker perfectly chosen for overall effect. And how completely different it was from the busy and touristy, though beautiful, area of the apartment. Heading down from the village, we located the medieval church, shown to the right at the top of the street, and more importantly, the recommended old-fashioned boulangerie where we had the recommended chocolate eclair, and truly a truly delicious one at that. Then our long walk took us back along the edge of Pere Lachaise Cemetery though we were too late to go in, along Boulevard Menilmontant and rue Oberkampf, through the Bastille along rue de Charonne and finally to the Place des Vosges, where we rested our tired feet in the most tranquil of settings. My new walking sandals already have more miles than I ever would have thought possible.
posted by Judy at 5:50 PM|link
Friday, May 18
Les Annees Pop, the current show at the Pompidou, looks back at the 60's, a wonderful view of things I knew firsthand, like blowup chairs, the covers of all the Beatles albums, the Bob Dylan poster with the multi-colored hair, and the pale pinks, yellows and blues of Tupperware. And there was the satisfaction of being able to walk from room to room and immediately identify the artist by name, of course including this Robert Indiana 'Love' piece, thanks to all those trips to the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo. The architecture on display from Archigram and Cedric Price, among others, fascinated me as it must have also fascinated the Pompidou architects, serving as their inspiration for the Pompidou's exposed structure and bright colors. Throughout the show, I caught myself dancing a bit to the background music of the Beatles, the Monkees and the Kinks. The only thing wrong was, I didn't expect to be so much a part of a retrospective.
posted by Judy at 6:31 PM|link
Thursday, May 17
This is how it looked out the window above the kitchen table with the spire of Notre Dame peeking over the rooftops. We set out to walk along the length of the Viaduc des Arts, unused elevated railroad tracks on Avenue Daumesnil, where we walked along the upper level linear garden called the Promenade Plantee and returned on the lower level, looking into the ateliers and shops fitted into each of the viaduc arches. Heading back towards the house we stopped at Place de la Bastille to shoot the statue, 'genius of liberty', a memorial to those who died in the street battles of July 1830 that led to the overthrow of the monarch. And the skies were glorious blue with only the occasional gray cloud.
posted by Judy at 4:10 PM|link
Wednesday, May 16
Close to home, we spent the day exploring not more than a few blocks from the apartment. Leaning out the window, a shot of Notre Dame and its flying buttresses shows just how close it is. Under the Parvis of Notre Dame, the big plaza directly in front of the church, is an archaeological crypt containing ruins of the original Gallo-Roman city excavated in the late 60's. The center model shows the foreground of Notre Dame around 1750 when it looked quite different, with buildings on the bridge and the area in front occupied by a hospital. After exploring 2000 years of history in the crypt, we came
out and back across the plaza to enter Notre Dame itself. We lit a candle, joining it with other flickering candles reflecting the prayers and faces of hundreds of visitors and listened to the songs of the mass of confirmation that was taking place. Outside again, we sympathized with the tired visitors resting beneath the statues on the front of the church, remembering our long walks from the past few days, and headed across the street to Le Fourmi Ailee for the specialite de maison, Apfel Strudel aux cepes. The very mild mushroom flavor heightens the apple sweetness, and with a cream sauce just like I remember from the prune whip of my childhood, it's a perfect end of the day treat. Such a wonderful day makes me agree with the words of the Ani DiFranco song that is playing while I'm writing, 'I've got everything I want and still I want more'. I guess what I mean is that I want these days to continue to be so interesting, to teach me new things, to share with someone special and just to continue.
posted by Judy at 7:00 PM|link
Tuesday, May 15
Visits today brought back memories of working on the Buffalo Architectural Guidebook. We went in search of contemporary architecture, starting with an old favorite right in our neighborhood, L'Institut du Monde Arabe. The day was just bright enough to make most of the solar screens close up and to allow Peter to get this neat photo looking through to the Pantheon and Montparnasse in the distance.
From the austere elegance of the Monde Arabe we moved on to the gargantuan Bibliotheque de France. The central courtyard was planted with natural undergrowth and trees three-stories high, and since people weren't allowed in this forest, it felt like something out in the wilderness, a powerful contrast to the rectangle of
four L-shaped towers making up the building around it. Across the entire front of the library was the largest set of stairs we ever saw, like huge bleachers from which to view the Seine.
Crossing the river from the Bibliotheque, our final stop was Frank Gehry's American Center, sadly vacant and in need of cleaning, but with the wonderful curves and intersections seeming to foretell later buildings like Bilbao. Hopefully plans to reopen it as a museum for world cinema will be successful because it has a fabulous setting right on the edge of Parc de Bercy.
posted by Judy at 6:00 PM|link
Monday, May 14
Paris is a city of serendipity. It's easy, as we did today, to start with no specific plan and end up having had a day of wonderful new discoveries. Crossing over the bridge at the far end of the Ile St. Louis, we walked down along the Seine. When the pedestrian walkway ended we crossed over and walked a block in to discover the Gare de Lyon right in front of us. The main floor was full of the bustle of people coming and going on the pointy-nosed, highspeed trains but upstairs under the high glass roof, the waiting room and its restaurant, Le Train Bleu, was just as it had been during the Belle Epoque in the 1890's. After expensive coffees, though worth it to get this picture of elegance, we headed back toward the Seine and continued on into the Parc de Bercy, a
modern park as large as the Tuileries. There was much to inspire my Charlestown roof deck, though I may have to settle for a smaller size watering pot than this one in the photo on the right. The pot turned out to be some sort of garden storage and was just one of the many intriguing features of the park which also included a small pond with a family of baby ducklings, a little glade of birch trees and even a small vineyard. Just beyond the park we discovered
another newly developed area called Bercy Village, which included a movie theater, office buildings and a small marketplace similar to Boston's Quincy Market. The shops had us wondering whether we'd suddenly been transported to the Gardener in Berkeley or to any one of the ubiquitous Restoration Hardwares, but we did find the requested house numbers for 1510 Hinesburg Road and
Bingham Brook Farm. We ended the day on the new Meteor Metro line, a completely computerized train that seemed really high speed and high design. And we were treated to this sunset to end the day of wandering and surprises.
posted by Judy at 6:10 PM|link
Sunday, May 13
The final changing of the guests. This is the story of the departure that almost wasn't. When I left early in the morning to meet Peter, I locked the apartment door behind me, turning the key twice around as I always do. Meg and Jason got up at a more reasonable time, packed and decided to pick up some fresh, hot pain au chocolate for breakfast before heading off to the airport. Luckily they had this little bit of extra time, because no matter what they did, the second set of keys would not open the locked door from inside. Checking the web to see that Peter's plane was late, they knew we'd go with the backup plan of seeing them off at the American gate, rather than coming immediately back to the apartment and to their rescue. So they were locked in with no hope of a yummy breakfast, wondering if they were ever going to be able to get out and to the airport in time for their return flight. But desperation led to shouting down to passers by on the street below, in English since it was too complicated to explain in French, dropping down the keys wrapped in a washcloth, and then persuading the good samaritain who answered their plea to climb the five flights of stairs and unlock the door for them. The happy pictures of Meg and Jason departing and Peter arriving demonstrate that all's well that ends well but who would have thought such a thing could happen on the way there.
posted by Judy at 2:26 PM|link
