Yesterday we awoke with no plans, except that we’d arranged to have drinks in the evening with the owners of the apartment we stayed in for 6 months when we were here in 2008. The boys went off on their own again, so Suzie and I had a day to pass in Paris just the two of us.
Suzie had researched restaurants on Yelp before we left (she says Yelp is very popular, at least in Paris), so she had a list of relatively inexpensive places that had lots of good reviews. Our target for lunch today was a restaurant called Les Philosophes in the Marais. The 3 line from Levellois goes through the Marais, and we thought we’d have a short walk from our destination station to the restaurant. Alas, we’d made an error, and had a long trek, probably the better part of a mile, from the Sebastopol stop to the restaurant, through the small streets and alleys of the Marais. The restaurant was good, pictures of the food were previously Tweeted, and the bill wasn’t horrible.
After lunch we decided to go to a museum; we’d picked out something called the “Archive Nationales – Musée de l’Histoire de France” which was nearby. First we bought coffees and drank them in a very small park. This was the view from our bench:
The museum turned out to be a bit of a misnomer — it wasn’t the National Archives (those having moved to a more modern building close by), but more just an old “hotel” or private house (the Hotel de Soubise) that had been taken over during the Revolution. It was, however, very beautiful, and almost no one else was in the place but us.
Here is the courtyard and front of the main building:
And a view the opposite way:
The interior was gorgeous, typically ornate and large:
And how’s this for a bedroom?
A chandelier:
Detail from the ceiling above the main stairway:
By this time it was about 3 p.m., and we had four hours until our rendezvous with our former landlords. Suzie wanted to walk to Notre Dame by way of the Ile de St Louis, so that’s what we did, passing this view along the way:
As well as this one, a heretofore unphotographed angle (at least by me):
Passing over the Seine, we noticed a new phenomenon. Couples have started placing what I call “love locks” on the metal fencing of the bridges. Kind of cute but kind of stupid, too; I imagined that at some point the fence would bend and break from the force of the assembled weight or, more likely, someone would come and remove them all. So much for the permanence of love, I guess.
By this time, we were starting to tire out; we’d done a lot of walking. So we found a little brasserie (a neighborhood bar, really) next to the Maison de la Mutualité, and rested there awhile before continuing our trek, which was, in general, designed to get us to the Jardin du Luxembourg and our old stomping grounds at the Alliance Française.
This was a neighborhood we’d never explored before — up the hill from the Rue des Ecoles to the Pantheon — which provided several excellent views:
The Pantheon itself is almost overwhelming, best viewed from afar. Across the street from it is apparently a law school:
We walked further and finally arrived at one of my favorite (perhaps the favorite) places in Paris, the Jardin du Luxembourg. At once incredibly formal and incredibly peaceful, something about it encapsulates what I love about Paris. At one end sits the Senat, a very regal building where, in fact, the French Senate does its business:
And yet nearby are spaces that look like they could be in any Midwestern park — quiet, calm, green, placid, and beautiful:
Suzie certainly enjoys it.
At this point, it was time to get moving … we’d called the kids and told them to meet us at Alesia, and we needed, too, a bathroom break. So we made a stop at the Alliance Francaise, where we took classes for five months. And this is where the nostalgia started to set in.
Up to this point in our trip, we’d been in (mostly) new places. Now we were back in the area where we spent most of our time during our six months in Paris. And it was very nostalgic, happy and sad at the same time. Everything had the feel of indelible familiarity — Rue de Fleurus, the St. Placide Metro station, the 4 line, and especially the area around the Alesia station (even though a number of things had changed — the church had been unwrapped [see here for a wrapped version], the “Pleure Pas Grosse Bete” place was gone, the main restaurant on the circle had been remodeled, the Champion grocery store across the street from our apartment had been gobbled up by the voracious Carrefour chain). But most things were the same — the same press kiosks, the same Middle-Eastern men selling fruit in the same places, even some of the same homeless people.
It got worse when we (actually, my son Andrew) remembered the code to the entrance of our old apartment building, and soon we were back in the place, which seemed utterly familiar. To our delight, our former landlords, who we’d not previously met, but with whom Suzie in particular had frequently corresponded by email, were funny, charming, warm people. We stayed for over two hours, talking about Paris and France and the new book that Sarah (a professor of history at Northwestern) is writing about an infamous French murder case during the 1930s. We also got some good recommendations for things to see on our upcoming trip to Normandy. Then it was goodbye, back on the Metro for the long, long trip back to Levallois.
We’ve been blessed with great weather for walking around — cloudy and cool. Today’s plans are open as well. I for one am getting a bit worn down from all the walking, so maybe today we’ll try to be a bit more sedentary, although it’s hard to be sedentary in a city with something beautiful is probably right around the next corner.
Finally, a question for you readers about my photos this trip. I’m using my son’s computer to view and edit them, and when I put them on line they always look to dark to me. So please tell me, how are the pictures? Too dark, too light, too contrast-y, just right. Input is appreciated. As always, there are more pictures on my Flickr site. Please do view; I put them there for you.
Categories: French, Travel -- France
Tags: Paris France Alesia