Saturday, May 26
A mere two block walk up the hill from Place Maubert took us to St. Etienne du Mont and the Pantheon. St. Etienne, shown on the left, was begun in 1492 and mostly completed by 1655. It houses some of the remains of St. Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, who led the fight against Attila the Hun in 512. We entered the church from the cloudy outside, but moments later the sun came out, streaking across the side aisle of the church as you see. St. Etienne probably has the most intricate detail of any church we've seen, and because its' stained glass is light in color, it has a wonderfull light, airy feel quite unlike other Paris churches. Crossing the street outside, we entered the Pantheon, which was originally constructed as a church, but was converted to a civic building in 1885 when Victor Hugo's remains were entombed there. It continues as a national monument containing the tombs of many of France's greatest citizens, including Voltaire, Rousseau, Zola and Louis Braille in the crypt on the lower level. The most fascinating part though, is Foucault's pendulum, showing the rotation of the earth. The pendulum is within a ring whose numbers correspond to the time of day. You can see we were there at 15:30 pm Paris time. There's a great video showing how a piece was cut from the center of the dome and replaced with a structure from which the pendulum hung on a wire, down close to the floor as the photo on the right shows. Once the wire length and placement of the pendulum, held to one side by string, were all correct,
the string was burned through with a candle to set the pendulum swinging. And it just continues to swing.
posted by Judy at 5:27 PM|link
Not purposeless but not so planned either, yesterday was an errand and wandering day. In the flaneur tradition, we went where things looked interesting, over on the Right Bank from the Marais up to the Place de Marche St. Honore. We accomplished our errands and stopped in at a number of trendy shops, including Colette where the basement bar specialized in bottled water, with brands available from all over the world. More to our liking was the wine bar, Le Rubis, where we stood at the zinc bar and raised a glass of Morgon (no Chiroubles on the board) to toast Jay and Marcia. The day ended with a stroll back through the Tuileries, pausing for a long time to watch the boatman and kids with long sticks, chasing their boats around the fountain to push them into another sail across to the other side. And all the time we were thinking of the little Meg and Mike who would have loved that so much years ago.
posted by Judy at 4:40 AM|link
Friday, May 25
The sign above, at the Abbesses Metro covering the scaffolding for the station's renovation, provided a good starting thought for yesterday's search to see more of Hector Guimard's art nouveau style. We retraced our steps of five years ago, repeating a walking tour of Guimard architecture that we had done on my first sabbatical. The Chardon-Lagache station in the 16th provided an unwrapped example of his most well-known work, the turn-of-the-century design for the Paris Metro system, with the natural, organic flower shapes of the sign obviously growing into the graceful lights, fluid metal work and warm green color of the Metro station on the left. But the 16th arrondissement has many Guimard buildings as well, and it was fun to spot them among the more traditional gray Paris buildings, with their bits of bright color, fluid lines and often, unusually shaped dormers at the top. I especially liked the colors and design of the numbers on the gateway of the Hotel Jassede, shown in the center photo. The first time we did this walk, we stopped before the end and entirely missed the most fantastic of Guimard's buildings, the Castel Beranger for which he won the first prize for facade design in 1898. Details of the front corner piece, shown in the final righthand photo, give an idea of the incredible amount of decoration which continues over every part of the building, as well as the numerous changes from buff brick and stone, to red brick and even to a blue-glazed brick below. Looking up, the delicate cutout of the eyelid window shade is doubled in the shadow it casts and I wonder what other interesting shadows it makes inside. We ended with coffee in the Guimard-designed Cafe Antoine and marveled over the beauty and attention to detail of all we'd seen during the day. Though it's very different from my usual style, I do love art nouveau.
posted by Judy at 5:30 PM|link
Wednesday, May 23
Seeing Sacre Coeur in the distance yesterday called to us so today we went to Montmartre to see it up close. Using the book, An Architect's Paris by Thomas Carlson-Reddig, for some guidelines we took the metro to Abbesses, the best existing example of Hector Guimard's Metro station design. Unfortunately, or fortunately for those who will be here when the renovation is completed, it was completely shrouded in scaffolding.
Inside we could see new glass being set in the roof and fresh green paint over everything
but a shot of the renovated station will have to wait for another time. From the Metro station we circled around the back of Sacre Coeur, passing through another beautiful park, Parc de la Turure, from which we could actually see back to the Buttes de Chaumont where we had been yesterday. Just below Sacre Coeur, we took a picture of the private vineyard shown to the right, with its vine-covered bower
in the center and then continued on to take this classic shot, shown on the left, of Sacre Coeur from rue Norvins. Before actually going into Sacre Coeur we stopped in the original church on the site to admire its especially colorful, almost modern stained-glass windows where the highest ones looked like something Picasso might have designed.
Then we went on into Sacre Coeur itself to light a candle and as we exited, we heard the contradictory sounds of rock and roll. We headed down the front stairs to find the band, shown to the right on the steps below Sacre Coeur, playing music from the 60's and 70's to an enthusiastic crowd which we joined to rest and listen to a half dozen or so songs. Heading back to the Metro along rue Yvonne le Tac, we stopped for cafe creme in the bar/cafe, le Progres, and then discovered a number of great boutiques on the street. Perhaps I should plan to come back on my own, since I did see another great pair of French shoes, in green a la Grandma Pete. I did manage to pick up a nice present for Marcia along the way and admire some very simple but wonderfully-designed children's clothes at a place called Gaspard de la Butte where the clothes were actually made right in the shop. Montmarte is a place where I could definitely enjoy living.
posted by Judy at 4:39 PM|link
Tuesday, May 22
Between the visits I didn't include in my last post and some more from today, I've got lots to tell about. After visiting Parc de la Villette yesterday we continued on to a nearby neighborhood in the 19th Arrondissement known as Carrieres d'Ameriques, and
the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, site of the former quarries for which the neighborhood was named. And this afternoon we went back there again for more looking and photos. The neighborhood is between Place Danube and the park itself, and reminded me a lot of the area along the Filbert Steps in San Francisco. Instead of steps though, there were steep, narrow streets, called villas, going up the hills between the houses. You know you're still in Paris however because the three cross streets are called rue de Liberte, rue d'Egalite and rue de Fraternite. The upper left photo gives a little of the neighborhood feel. From there we walked on to the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, entering at the top corner and discovering a series of overlooks, populated with sun bathers and general relaxers enjoying the sunny day. From there we followed a downward winding path, through
evergreens that were further reminders of San Francisco and especially the Presidio, crossed a suspension bridge and found a little side path leading up through cave-like openings in the butte to a lookout tower at the top. It's from that tower that the right hand photo of Sacre Coeur, off in the hazy distance, was taken. By the time we got to the Canal St. Martin it was getting late, so we went back there again today to explore a bit more. While Peter took the photo from across the canal of this collection of pretty colored buildings, I explored inside in the
shops, a clothing boutique, flower shop and gift store. And it was just around the corner from here that we had dinner last night, the one that caused me to delay my post, at a simple place called le 25eme Image starting with wonderful kir's made with a peche liqueur instead of cassis. Something to try when we get back home.
posted by Judy at 4:52 PM|link
Missed my usual routine with dinner out, so here is yesterday's post this morning. Our destination was the Parc de la Villette, a modern-designed urban space that is still wearing well. It's a seventy-five acre rectangle bisected by the canal de l'Ourcq with a perpendicular walkway and bridge over the canal connecting the two halves. The northern half is filled by the Cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie while the southern half has la Grande Halle, an immense cast-iron shed with clerestory windows that has the feel of an old train station, and many different park zones created through thematic plantings and level changes. Randomly dotting the park is a grid of twenty-three follies, bright red structures each of a different design and function. The red folly pictured is a pass-through going from the Science Museum to the bridge over the canal. The circular and curvilinear themes used throughout the park, included a wonderful wavy canopy over the main walkway, concrete benches lighted from below with glass circles in the seats, and a variety of paving patterns, including black and white stones set by hand to poke up and make the black ones look almost like mussel shells. My favorite spots were the terraced gardens covered with grapevine trellises and tiny waterfalls flowing down between each step, and just across the next bridge, the jardin des bambous. Its pathways, almost hidden below the bridge, prompted us to search for the stairs down to this overgrown, jungle-like space filled with all different types of bamboo, and to feel like we were among the few to find it.
posted by Judy at 7:33 AM|link
Sunday, May 20
On Sunday Parisians go strolling, in the parks, in cemeteries and on the boulevards, so that's what we did. But first they have coffee, preferably sitting outside on such a nice day as this was. Unfortunately finding a seat at any of the cafes required that je ne sais quoi known only to Parisians, so when we saw the Coffee Company on rue Mouffetard, featuring lattes and smoothies, we knew we were all set. Even though we looked tres Americaine walking along with our grande lattes in paper cups, I thoroughly enjoyed the size and flavor of a Paris equivalent to Peet's. With coffee in hand we proceeded along Boulevard Montparnasse and into the cemetery where we found the interesting and graphic monument in the upper lefthand photo but never could find what we'd come looking for, Jean Paul Sartre's grave. Across Avenue du Maine, we eventually reached the Gare Montparnasse where we climbed the stairs to explore the roof garden covering the entire train station. Quite different from other parks we'd visited, this is an example of contemporary garden design around the theme of the sea, in tribute to the Atlantic bound TGV train. Packed lawns and pathways proved it's success but to me it seemed to be too many different ideas in too small a space. Back down again along Boulevard Montparnasse we paid our respects to the Hemingway haunts,
La Coupole, Le Select and Le Dome, and headed towards home through the Jardin du Luxembourg, shown below.
Though this too had crowded paths, the open expanses of green, and vistas like this one up the stairs and between the trees to the Pantheon, allowed for views that were all your own. Going the last blocks towards home through the narrow streets paralleling Boulevard St. Germain and the Seine, the droves of people walking toward us made it look like everyone was coming from some big event we'd missed. But it was just a human chain of people out enjoying the day and they probably felt the same as we approached.
posted by Judy at 4:49 PM|link
