Paris
Wednesday, August 16
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Above and below, parts of
Delacroix paintings that are located just inside and to the right in
the Saint Sulpice church.
The interior of Saint Sulpice.
Font sculpted by Pigalle, in the Saint Sulpice church. Notice the crab on the lower left part of
the font. |
Two days ago, we
walked with our friends Carol and Ron over to the Saint Sulpice neighborhood
to show them the apartment we will be renting in September and to see both
the Saint Sulpice church and Saint Germain des Prés. I was amused by
all the postings of dismissals of various pieces of fiction by Dan Brown,
from The DaVinci Code. Clearly this church in particular was
really not amused by his book. That day we did
have good weather, so I did take the camera along and managed to take some
amusing shots which I will be sharing with you during this next week. The feast of
the Assumption was yesterday, the 15th, so finding restaurants
that are open has been a challenge. We
ended up dining at La Gauloise for a
second time with Carol and Ron. But
the specials had changed and we were able to have the gigot d’agneau (lamb roast) two nights ago. If you ever see this listed as the daily
special at La Gauloise, don’t miss it.
Same with the travers de porc
(barbequed pork ribs) I make a point of checking the specials at this fine
old establishment every time I walk past it. I thought that
with the extended holiday weekend, we would have a break in the construction
noise. But the workers have continued
to slave away every day on the building next to us. The entire store on the ground level has
been gutted and a new façade is being applied. The workers are hurrying to complete the
job before the “rentrée” (beginning of September, “back-to-school”
time). We’re a bit concerned because
it looks like rather ordinary plywood is being used on the façade. We’ll see if it delaminates in the next few
years. Yesterday, we
went on another marathon walk with Carol and Ron. We started by walking over to the
Tuileries, which Carol had not seen.
We went into the Jeu de
Paume where the exhibition was a retrospective of the American
photographer Cindy
Sherman. We decided not to go in
and pay the entry fee, but we enjoyed looking at the art and photography
books in the bookshop. Then we
strolled up the rue de Rivoli for a couple blocks. I think Carol enjoyed the bustling retail
activity there, although it annoys Tom.
Next we showed Carol and Ron the vast and elegant Place Vendome. After I
assisted an older American couple by explaining how to get change and buy
métro tickets, we boarded the super-fast, ultra-modern number 14 métro line
at Pyramides and took it to the end, the Bibliotheque stop. After gawking at the massive, towering
modern national library, we showed Carol and Ron the new pedestrian bridge
named for Simone de Beauvoir, with its view of the new floating swimming
pool, the Josephine Baker, and the right bank section of Paris Plage (the
Paris Beach). We heard
interesting music coming from the lower level of the Simone de Beauvoir
bridge, so we decided to descend and check it out. It was a small band playing rapid folk
dances on traditional instruments.
French people who knew their folk dances were dancing away. I thought they must be professionals, but
it seems they were just people out walking around, enjoying the day just as
we were. Do all French people learn
traditional folk dances in school, I wonder? The bridge
brought us to the beautiful park at Bercy.
We enjoyed the park, but it did start to rain on us so we took cover
under a wisteria vine growing on an arbor.
That wasn’t exactly dry, but it was okay. Then we went into the retail shops and
cafés at the Waiting was a
pleasure because there was music being performed by a couple of students from
the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de After a very
light and restorative meal, we strolled around the church Notre Dame de
Nativité de Bercy and found our way up to the Promenade Plantée, the
beautifully landscaped walk on the top of a former elevated train track
running from the Jardin de Reuilly to the modern opera house at
Bastille. Carol and Ron seemed to
especially like this part of our marathon walk. At about
9:30PM, we boarded the number 8 métro and went home. I was so tired I fell asleep on the
métro. That’s a first for me. |
