Parc de l'Île St-Germain

It's still very nice out in Paris, thanks for asking. Last weekend visited an island in the Seine just outside the southwest border of Paris. l'Île St-Germain was used for military exercises until the 1980s when half was developed into housing and the other half turned into a park. It's got that hidden-refuge-within-the-big-city feel to it. And flowers.

Cherry, apple and whatever else trees have been flowering like crazy lately. 

one of the many gardens is dedicated solely to lavender

it smelled good

some roads and parts of the old military buildings were used as design elements

A large strange statue. We pique-niqued at the base of the hill.

Le Crépuscule, Chez Nous

Le Crépuscule, Pont de Sully

Le Jardin des Plantes

Not to rub your mostly Minnesotan noses in it, but it's spring here in Paris. I know, I'm shocked too. The experience of a short, mild winter is constantly surprising to me. "It's far too early," I think, as I loll about on the grass, getting way too used to it. While my Minnesotan genes await the inevitable late winter plunge back into snow, ice and cold, my surroundings continue to offer proof that it's not going to happen- spring is here and summer is next. Le Jardin des Plantes is a great place to watch spring unfold. We are within strolling distance and have been dropping by weekly to monitor the progress.

The entrance, with a statue of Jean Baptiste Lamarck, Chair of Botany in the late 1700s, coiner of the word "invertebrate" and developer of evolutionary theory before Darwin was born. 

poppies, tulips and forget-me-nots blooming in the central aisle

more poppies and the most popular attraction, the giant cherry tree

close inspection

closer inspection

standing within the tree is pretty amazing

here's a low quality video of the experience

les fleurs!

Place des Vosges Naptime

The rain started today as we made our way home from exploring the endlessly interesting St-Denis/Château d'Eau area. There are some great cheap food options around there, mostly Turkish and Middle Eastern. Also a small but decent covered market, a fancy pâtisserie called Tholoniat that we've heard good things about, some divey bars, the beautifully old (1860!) Brasserie Flo (located within the coolly isolated Cour des Petits Ecuries), and many warren-like passages devoted to wholesale clothing and/or the sex trade. 

Anyway, this post is not about that. This is about remembering, during the coming rainy days, what we did a couple days ago when it was 70ºF and we spent part of the afternoon lying on the grass in Place des Vosges. Lying on the grass, specifically at Place des Vosges, is a top five favorite activity for us. 

Here is what you would see if you joined us.

so relaxing

Last Weekend

We had a pretty spectacular weekend. 

On Saturday, while pursuing nice, reasonably priced shoes on Rue du Faubourg St-Antoine, we stopped by Le Lieu du Design, which is hosting a food-related design show. There were a lot of fun, quirky and sometimes even useful entries.

Chocolat Chaud-on-a-Stick and Pot-au-Feu Animals

 edible finger puppets and extra-virginal white chocolate Marys

the exhibition space, with Lia and wall of Alessi

tattooed and spiked crabs and clams

 a different view to highlight the Wu Tang detail

savory aperitif cakes to be cooked and served in shells

compound butter gems

chocolate record

As you can tell by the photos below, Saturday night we partied. A couple of Lia's coworkers hosted a cocktail party, fueled by gracious donations of Canadian rye, Italian meatballs, guacamole and champagne, among other things. 

Sunday we attended a performance by Paris native Eliane Radigue at Centquatre (104), a remarkable arts space housed in what was once the municipal funerary services complex. Eliane Radigue is an electronic music artist whose very austere, minimal works use long, slowly transforming, overlapping, modulating waves of sound, sometimes embellished with samples of voice or instruments. It's an exercise in intense listening or intense boredom, depending on your taste. In this interview she explains her creative process and technique: http://vimeo.com/8983993

 Most of her career was spent in front of one of these:

That's not a switchboard operator, it's an avant garde musician.

Unfortunately, she no longer performs on the giant ARP, just a large mixing board.

Here she is after the performance.

art faces

Centquatre is currently home to La Manège Carré Sénart, an amazing carousel made up of mechanical bugs and animals. Some parts can be operated by levers and hand-cranks. It's really cool.

in action:

 We found this gem of a room divider just down the block from Centquatre.

We walked home along Canal St-Martin, which on Sundays is closed to car traffic, making it a lovely spot for a waterside stroll.

Meudon

Meudon is a town/suburb a couple kilometers to the southwest of Paris. It is home to a large national forest as well as an observatory. The observatory was built in the late 1800s, on a high plateau called the Grand Terrasse, which was once the grounds of a 16th century château. The grounds are still well maintained and provide a sweeping view of Paris. 

a 360 degree panorama

Meudon Nation Forest                          observatory                                       precipice                                       Meudon/Paris

the view to the east, overlooking Meudon and Paris

Lia on the edge of the terrasse and the observatory to the west

The high temperature was about 20ºC/68ºF- perfect for the year's first pique-nique. We found a noble tree in a corner of the terrasse, far from the park guardhouse with its "Pique-Nique Interdit" sign. How can you ban picnics? 

The tree would have shaded the southwest corner of the château, had it not fallen into disrepair and been burned down in 1870 while it housed occupying Prussian soldiers. 

As you can see, the dappling was perfect.

After lunch, we struck out into the forest. The trees are just starting to sprout leaves.

one of the many patches of white wildflowers throughout the forest