Paris Encore 2022 - Market Encore, Fountains and Giraffes

Wednesday, May 4, market day in the neighborhood, encore! Our days start slowly, as they always include Rick’s trip to the boulangerie for breakfast items. We will miss the wonderful, fresh, and sometimes still warm, baguettes that we have each morning. Not to mention the pastries!

The market was happening again today, and we wanted to check it out. Well, it was a shadow of its Saturday self. Like Saturday Market on a strict diet. Lots of empty spots, and not the crowds we’d seen on Saturday. Still plenty to look at though. 

There were plenty of food stalls, but on this day, it seemed like more books, housewares, clothes, knitting and sewing supplies were there compared to Saturday. If you lived here, I guess you’d know which day to look for which vendor.

I took a photo of a decorative fountain at the end of the market street. When I was reading up on Shakespeare and Company in Rick Steves’ Paris guide, I saw a photo of a fountain just like the one in our neighborhood. His book explained the origin of this fountain and many others around town. They were donated to the city by English philanthropist Sir Richard Wallace, who spent most of his life here. Wallace donated 60 fountains beginning in 1862, after the Franco-Prussian war. The aqueducts had been destroyed, and this would give the residents access to water.  There are hooks around them that held metal drinking cups up until the 1950s. The four nymphs represent sobriety, simplicity, kindness and charity. Based on Wallace’s design, another 44 fountains were installed around town, making a total of 104. You can buy a guide to help find them all. Ours is 2 miles away from the one near Shakespeare and Company, so I was quite surprised to see a similar fountain there.

The young woman standing next to the fountain had just finished filling her water bottle when I walked up. You can barely see the water trickling in the center of the statues.

We Metro’d over to Rue Mouffetard, a charming market street in the 5th Arrondissement, to find lunch. The street is narrow, and chock full of shops and restaurants, so it was bustling on this nice day.

Our restaurant was facing the square at the top of the street. La Contrescarpe served a tasty lunch. Rick had a Croque Monsieur, which is an open-faced melted cheese sandwich, with ham in this case. I’ve been ordering Salade Niçoise for lunch often, and it’s funny that every restaurant so far has had canned tuna in the salad. At home we make it with seared tuna. Almost always, a little basket of baguette slices is served with lunch and dinner. No butter, no olive oil and balsamic vinegar, just dry. But it’s always very fresh, with a crunchy crust, tender inside. It doesn’t take much getting used to.  Rick’s glass of Chardonnay was 4,50 euros, while my glass of plain tonic was 4,90. Go figure.

Next stop, the Grande Galerie de l’Évolution. We walked over to the Jardin des Plantes where the museum is located. There wasn’t much of a line to get in. The museum had a great display of the animals of the savannah in the center of a 3-story atrium. The lighting changed periodically during our visit - sometimes seeming dark and mysterious, and sometimes sunny. At one point, there were claps of thunder and flashing bolts of lightning outside of the glass ceiling. A whale skeleton was suspended in the atrium too.

There were lots of families visiting the museum, and kids of all ages were agape at the wonder of it all. Even old kids, like us.

We walked through the Jardin des Plantes on our way to the Metro. So many flowers, so little time.

Next time, we visit Vaux-le-Vicomte Château, out in the country.

Paris Encore 2022 Some Washing and Some Walking

It was laundry day for us, so we loaded everything into one of our empty suitcases and wheeled it the few blocks to the laundromat. We’re on the 8th floor in our building, but in France it’s called the 7th floor. The first floor is “0”. Our building has tiny elevators, thank goodness, carefully fitted into the stairwells of the 1910 building. The button for the first floor is marked RC, which stands for rée de chaussée. It’s the roadway, or street level. I’m sure my high school French teacher said it had to do with where the horse-drawn carriages pulled up.

We noticed wonderful mosaic tiles on the floor of level “0”, but could it be mosaics of fleas? Our neighborhood mascot, perhaps? Remember our street name, Picpus? Scratching at flea bites? Anyway, they’re very tastefully done.

We arrived at the laundromat with some trepidation, knowing that this would be a very foreign and mysterious place to us, with directions that we wouldn’t understand. There was no attendant in sight, but there was a gentleman washing what appeared to be commercial-sized quantities of towels. He helped us figure out how to select a machine, then go to the central payment station and pay, then go back and start the machine. Whew! All is well, and washing is underway.

Some patrons load up the washers, then step out for un café, and know just when to come back. We don’t dare leave, unsure of the protocol. There are about 20 washers, but only 8 giant dryers. One young woman has filled four of the dryers with her laundry, leading one of the other patrons, an older gentleman, to meet my eyes, and roll his own, in exasperation. I shrug my shoulders. What if there are no dryers for us? Our concern was needless, because she was done by the time we needed them. Catastrophe avoided.

After about an hour, we were ready to take our clean, and almost dry, laundry back to our apartment. We had the last of our roti chicken for lunch, and swore never to buy a whole chicken at the market again. Since we don’t have a real kitchen here, leftovers are nearly the same thing over-and-over. 

We decided to spend some time walking on the lovely Promenade Plantée, now called La Coulée Verte René-Dumont. It’s a three-mile partly elevated train line that was repurposed into a garden walk. I had been there in 2006, and was anxious to revisit it. Rick discovered that the park intersected our Boulevard Picpus about a mile from our apartment, so we headed out to find it. 

Through an old tunnel in the park. There are sculptures here and there, and a fountain on each side, formed with boulders.

The elevated part of the park is quite nice. Beautiful flower beds, sculptures, pools, arbors. It’s a nice place to sit and relax, and we saw plenty of people doing just that.

Notice the sculptures around the top floor of this building along the promenade.

We wandered back through the streets to our place. Dinner was at a local restaurant. The dinner was good, but the desserts were even better. Crème Brûlée for Rick and Mille Feuille for me. The waiter helped me with my pronunciation. It’s mee fouya. 

Paris Encore 2022 May Day and Monday

Sunday, May 1. It’s Labor Day in France. We were told there would be a demonstration in Place de la Nation, near here. We walked by it late morning and saw some preparations for a gathering - blockages on the street and certain areas taped off but didn’t see any protesters. Later in the day there was a lot of police car activity in the area. We saw, on the news, that some of the peaceful protests in Paris and elsewhere had turned violent, and tear gas was used to disperse the crowds. This wasn’t just Labor Day in France, but it looks like most countries in the world celebrated either on Sunday, May 1, or on Monday, May 2 this year.

We had lunch in the neighborhood - good moules-frites (mussels and fries), which is a common dish here. Most of the shops were closed. The grocery store was open, at least for part of the day, and we noticed that the alcohol aisle was blocked off. We weren’t sure if that was the standard on Sundays, or if it had something to do with the holiday.

On every corner, there were people selling little bouquets of lily-of-the-valley. Muguets des bois in French. May 1 is also known as La Fête du Muguets. In France, and especially in Paris, the tradition of giving bouquets to loved ones goes back to 1561, when King Charles IX was given a bouquet as a gift.

The next day we were ready to hit the ground running, or at least strolling somewhat quickly.

Our Metro map will be worn to tatters at the end of our 2 weeks. Each day we strategize how to get to places we want to see, and how to combine a few sights in one trip. Metro tickets are inexpensive at 1,69 euros for each person, each way, so it’s a very affordable way to get around. If we were here longer we’d get Metro passes, which would save a little time and money.

First on our list was a visit to Shakespeare and Company bookstore. From the Metro stop, we walked a few blocks to the store, passing Square René-Viviani on the way. The flowers were beautiful here, as they have been everywhere. Roses are in bloom all over Paris. There are so many multi-use city parks or squares, and always lots of people, families, pets enjoying them.

Roses and tulips don’t bloom simultaneously in our neck of the woods!

Shakespeare and Company is an English-language bookstore that’s been in existence in Paris since the 1920s, although it started at a different location. It’s a funky warren of rooms, with a few couches, a piano and a desk with an old typewriter, in alcoves here-and-there. In the past (and maybe still?) starving writers, poets and philosophers might sleep here. There are books from floor to ceiling, some used, some new. In earthquake country this would be a dangerous place. 

Tour buses drop hoards of visitors off to look around. Some buy, but most just look. We were determined to buy something here and look what I found! 

Rick Steves’ headquarters is just 45 minutes away from our house in Washington, but I needed an updated version of his Paris guidebook anyway, so why not get it here?

From there we walked the block or 2 over to see how Notre Dame was doing. It still is under major reconstruction, after the fire on April 15, 2019. There are temporary walls all around it, keeping visitors away from dangerous construction materials and heavy equipment, and posters showing updates of the renovation process are on the walls. Sadly, the gardens and Deportation Memorial are blocked off too.

We’re not very good at selfies!

Notre Dame is on an island in the Seine, Île de la Cité, and I hoped to find a restaurant on the island that I’d been to before. Sadly, I left my notes at the apartment, so I couldn’t find it! We found a place on the next island, Île St. Louis, called Pain d’Épices, translation gingerbread, where we had a nice lunch. Rick was on a search for seared duck breast, and found it here, with a nice orange sauce. 

Our next destination was Rue Crémieux, called “the most colorful street in Paris”. We made our way over to it from the island, passing a busy boat harbor, and walking by an area with a few tents. We haven’t seen many people living on the streets here, but it is known to be a problem in Paris.

It’s hard to see in the picture, but the building in the distance looks like its losing the top section.

We found Rue Crémieux in a busy business area of mostly modern buildings. It’s just a single block between two streets, and the houses were built in 1865.

We were surprised that the colors were so subtle. It was still very quaint, with a cobblestone lane, and flowers and plants in front of each house. If you do a Google search on Rue Crémieux, many photos have been colorized to make this look more dramatic. 

So, with the help of our Metro map, we figured out how to get home. I’m always surprised to find out how close we really are!