Paris Journal 2008
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We embarked on another “Cooley marathon walk” yesterday because we had only a little work to do in the morning. Tom wanted to see the Place de la Republique again, after a decade or so. While I don’t particularly care for the area around Republique, I do enjoy walking through the Marais, so this agenda was fine with me. We started out on the boulevard Saint Germain. When we reached the rue de Poissy, I suggested that we try to see the College des Bernardins again. We went, and it wasn’t crowded at all. It is an impressive gothic structure. At one far end of it is the former Sacristy, which seems to be older than the rest. In it we found an excellent display of panels describing the history of the Bernardins and the building, as well as information about the extensive restoration that has just recently been completed. When they were working on the Sacristy, they found evidence of a much older Christian church and crypt underneath, including a couple statues and a couple bodies. So the archeologists did their excavation work first, before the restoration could proceed in that area. The basement area was not open to us, but there were lots of photographs on display, showing the extensive work that had to be done there. There are more gothic arches in the basement, not as tall as the ones on the main level, of course, and the arches are a bit flatter. The pillars supporting these arches take the weight of the whole building, and they were starting to crumble many years ago. The solution at the time was to fill the lower level with dirt, hoping that it would support the pillars and arches down there. Well, it wasn’t a good idea. The dirt just made matters worse, and the huge initial task in the restoration was removing it all. The photographs of this work are impressive. A network of massive steel beams was put in to protect the workers and the building as the dirt was removed and the pillars were re-built. The upper floors were not open to us, but I think that is because restoration work is still being conducted there. The College is now an elegant cultural center, owned by the Catholic Church, but operated as a public building with secular events. We walked on, turning up the rue Cardinal Lemoine to cross the Seine and the middle of the Ile Saint Louis. That brought us to another one of my favorite buildings, the Hotel de Sens, which is now a public library with a lovely formal park next to it. Proceeding down the rue Charlemagne, we had to squeeze through a big crowd of kids that had just been released from the Charlemagne school. It was after 4PM, and I thought that was pretty late for school to be getting out. We zig-zagged up rue Saint Paul, over rue Neuve Saint Pierre, and up rue Beautrellis and rue de Briague to visit the Place des Vosges, one of our favorite squares in the world. We stopped for a very late, leisurely lunch (pie for Tom, salad for me) at the Café Hugo. We made our way over to the rue Turenne and on up to the Place de la Republique. When we started walking through the lower park that makes up half of the Place, we noticed a red ambulance that was just being loaded with a gurney that had a body on it; the body was completely zipped up in a bag. The EMTs were not in a hurry at all, and they all looked sad. I saw one of them put a woman’s elegant, black and silver shopping tote into the ambulance. It contained a red box, of the sort used for gift wrapping a sweater. We heard someone near the metro entrance speak about a woman who had fallen. The intersection that divides the Place into two is very dangerous. There is no crosswalk for pedestrians to go directly from the lower half of the Place to the upper half. They are expected, instead, to use a series of crosswalks that take them pretty far out of their ways. I wondered if the woman had tried to cross outside the crosswalks, in the heavy traffic, and had fallen and been run over. We probably won’t know, but somebody’s mother, sister, or daughter died there yesterday. So sad. We tried sitting in the little park that is the upper part of the Place, but the homeless men there were starting to become rowdy, and we knew we better leave. So we wandered down the rue de Turbigo, the rue Beaubourg, past the Pompidou Center, and on to the beautiful square in front of the Hotel de Ville, Paris’s city hall. I love the Hotel de Ville, and I loathe the Pompidou Center. I think of the Hotel de Ville as the quintessential French building. We crossed the Ile de la Cité right in front of Notre Dame, and visited the park next to St. Julien le Pauvre, the oldest church in Paris. Then it was on down the boulevard St. Germain, past the market, to home in the shadow of Saint Sulpice. After resting for a while, we went out for a late dinner at the Bistrot de la Grille Saint Germain, nearby on rue Mabillon. It was busy, but there was plenty of room for us in the upstairs dining room. We each had the special of the day, leg of lamb, no appetizer and no dessert. It was superbly prepared, and came with a nice pile of green beans and a few sautéed potatoes. A pleasant way to end another good day in Paris. |
Wednesday, September 17
Boats along the Seine at the Port de l’Hotel de Ville.
View of Notre Dame from the bridge near the Tour
d’Argent, the restaurant that inspired the movie, Ratatouille.
Entrance to the Place des Vosges at the rue de Béarn.
Amusing display in a shop window on the rue
Beautrellis.
Termite infested wood discarded near the Place des
Vosges. |
