Walking in Paris

When the sound of children playing in the hallway goes from cute to rage-inducing; when you've heard, all too clearly, your neighbor urinate for the eighth time that afternoon; when the same wall-sharing neighbor is just playing "Empire State of Mind" over and over and over at top volume- you might need to take a walk.

It's a common refrain that Paris is a great walking city. From the general feelings evoked by passing through neighborhoods to the infinite details contained in each one, Paris is a great place to perambulate aimlessly. However, it's also enjoyable to stroll with intent. There are many walking guides available to lead you around Paris. Many offer such amazing sights as Notre Dame! the Louvre! the Eiffel Tower! Kind of dull and predictable. These are great things to see, but do you really need help finding them? If the disembodied voice of a Rick Steves audio guide in your ear is your idea of a good way to experience Paris, you might be beyond hope. 

There are a couple problems with most Paris guides, walking or general. First is the number of famous sights. The checklist is long enough to eat up any vacation time. It's stressful business seeing everything you are supposed to see, let alone taking a chance on something lesser known. Second, many guides refer to outdated, clichéd notions of Paris: "Bohemian Montmartre" "Artist's Enclave Montparnasse" "Elegant Champs Élysées" Look around when you reach Place du Tertre in Montmatre- these are not bohemians, they're from Ohio. And while the H&M on Champs Élysées is my favorite outpost of the chain, it lacks the moneyed grace of the Avenue referenced in many guidebooks.

What Lia and I have been searching for are guides written for people who are going to be in Paris more than one week. Something more than a list of who died/lived/fought here. We recently found one in an obvious but kind of unexpected place- the City of Paris website. Paris.fr has a large collection of walking tours for every investigative inclination- parks, history, neighborhoods, monuments, etc. We have done two walks thus far, and both have been great. The first was the Butte-Aux-Cailles neighborhood walk. The second, which we did yesterday, was an exploration of "parks secret and romantic" in the 7th Arrondissement. The website offers some information in English, but the bulk of it is in French. I have found the Google Translation Toolbar an effective alternative to actually learning the language.

First stop: Square Récamier, a beautiful shade garden tucked away in the low middle area of the block. It was the first time we have ever been the only people in a park in Paris. 

We will be back when things bloom.

Lia near the entrance

moss!

 Lia at an entrance to Le Bon Marché, the first department store in Paris, founded in 1852, near Square Récamier. The tilework, from 1876, advertises ribbons(rubans) and lace(dentelles).

Heading west on rue de Babylone, we visited le Jardin de Catherine Labouré.

La Pagode cinema, founded 1896.

Lost stuffed animal and moss on the wall of the Rodin sculpture garden. 

We recommend the Rodin museum, but did not visit on this walk.

the golden dome of l'Hotel des Invalides- the military history museum

signs on power generators parked on Boulevard des Invalides

partial translations:

left: Don't urinate here, thanks.

right: Watch the cables when pissing!!! There's juice(electricity)!!!

There's a great place for pissing 10 meters to the left!!

The 7th is home to many embassies and government offices. 

Why did we send a Floridian?

lightpost and entrance of Ministry of Defense

Basilica Sainte-Clotilde

I'm guessing that's Ste-Clotilde impaled on the middle peak.

a typically beautiful church

visible hair on a female religious figure struck us as uncommon

sculpture in the park in front of Ste-Clotilde

 we argued about textual analysis

At 4:30 on Sunday afternoons, Notre Dame offers free concerts of sacred music featuring a different organist every week. Yesterday we heard Marcel Dupré's "Symphonie Passion" performed by Alain Bouvet. It was a relaxing end to a pleasant afternoon. 

the organ at Notre Dame Cathedral

Rouen

Yesterday we went to Rouen with Pa Swope and Colleen, where we went to the very justly famous cathedral. Notre-Dame de Rouen is interesting for many reasons: it is about nine hundred years old; it was briefly the tallest structure in the world; it has inspired artwork in such people as Monet, Flaubert, Huysmans, and probably piles of other people; and it has been through fires, tornadoes, and World War II but is somehow still standing, mostly intact.

There's also a row of statues in the back part of the nave. I'm unable to find anything that explains what they were doing there or where they normally reside, but they seemed like strange, serious apparitions who had gotten misplaced somehow.

We also visited the birthplace of Gustave Flaubert. Or, as I should say, Gustave Flaubert!!!!!!

Possibly I was more excited about this than the others, but fortunately the Maison Flaubert is also a museum of medical history, so there were many grisly artifacts to entertain them. The most amazing relic for me: the original Loulou, who stood in all his stuffed glory over Flaubert as he wrote "Un Coeur Simple" ("A Simple Heart"). Here is a photo I stole from another site:

credit: http://ecoles.ac-rouen.fr/

Butte-Aux-Cailles

January 16 we did a walking tour of la Butte-Aux-Cailles, a neighborhood in the 13th with a cozy, village-like feel and several quiet, picturesque enclaves.

Around the corner from the main drag of la Butte-Aux-Cailles is the Square des Peupliers (Poplar Square), a collection of beautiful, envy-inspiring houses.

a very old birdhouse

Don't we look right at home? 

Further south, on Rue Dieulafoy, a row of cute houses, this time in bright colors- a rarity in monochromatic Paris.

on Rue de la Fontaine à Mulard, a utilitarian baker's sign.

Also on Rue de la Fontaine à Mulard, a building with some nice decorative tiling and tenants who waved back when photographed. Bonjour!

Moving west, we walked down Rue Brillat-Savarin, named for Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin- lawyer, politician and, most importantly, gastronome. He's the author of The Physiology of Taste who famously stated, "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are." He also has a delicious cheese named after him.

This area is called la Cité des Fleurs, due to the floral street names. 

Here is Lia on Rue des Glycines (Wisteria Street).

Le Musée de la Chasse et la Nature

Pa Swope and Colleen have been in town this past week, so we've been mostly busy hanging out with them. They have gamely accompanied us on several walking and eating adventures, to be continued tomorrow at the Bastille outdoor market. We haven't done a full post on the market yet, but someday we will. For now I will simply mention, probably for the tenth time, that it is amazing, full of products that are difficult, impossible, or illegal to obtain in the States, and packed with people.

Anyway, despite the joy of our face to face presence, today my father delicately noted that we have not updated our blog recently, hinting that our readership might be disappointed. Unfortunately we haven't taken many pictures this week, so I don't have anything very recent to offer. But digging into the photo archives, I did turn up some pictures from a post we intended to write and forgot, on the Museum of the Hunt and Nature.

This is probably one of our favorite museums in Paris right now. Most of it is organized around the animals involved in the hunt, both the targets (like wild boar, wolves, deer) and the helpers (falcons, dogs). For each one, there's a little cabinet with tons of little drawers. You pull them out and find paw prints, a scat model, a fable from La Fontaine involving that animal, drawings, poems and cartoons. Looking into an eyepiece, you get a 3-D image of the animal's habitat. Around these smaller displays, you'll find stuffed specimens of the animal, the weapons used to hunt them, and sculptures or paintings of them both from centuries ago and from the modern day. We found the presentation to be incredibly fun and engaging.

Lia checks out the wolf cabinet.

Baby boar

Highly decorated falcon

The owl room kinda freaks me out, honestly

There are also rooms full of very wicked-looking hunting weapons: crossbows, spears, guns, swords, daggers, everything. If it can kill an animal, it's probably there.

There's taxidermy throughout the building, including a giant hall covered with the mounted heads of all kinds of hoofed creatures, boars, lions, tigers, and bears, and surrounding many smaller beasts. And sometimes it turns up in unexpected places.

 Fox taking a permanent nap

And here we are in the room with the giant polar bear.