Paris Journal 2013 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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As I sat on a
park bench waiting for Tom, who’d gone back to the apartment for a warmer
jacket, I realized that the scene before me was beautiful. In many ordinary moments in Paris, it is
easy to forget that the surroundings are often lovely. The stately and
elegant fountain of the Place Saint-Sulpice was in front of me. It has been restored, and the water flows
in sheets from the upper basin to the middle one and on to the lower
basin. The lions are as fearsome as
ever, even as they lounge about on the middle basin. When Tom came
back to the square, we walked up to the boulevard Saint Germain, passing the
covered, enclosed marché Saint Germain
along the way. I’d already
shopped at the marché earlier in
the day. I’d almost forgotten that it
is open on Sunday mornings, until 1:30PM.
In reality, some of the vendors close a bit earlier than that. When I was there at about 11AM, the whole market
was buzzing with busy shoppers. I’d headed
directly to the Sanders fromagerie
first, because there I can (and did) buy Salers cheese, milk, orange juice,
eggs, and fruit preserves. I bought a
baguette from the North African bakery booth.
That bakery doesn’t have the best baguettes, but on Sundays, we can’t
be so choosy. If it weren’t
Sunday, I’d have crossed the street and bought a baguette at the newly
refurbished bakery on the corner of the rue Mabillon and rue Guisarde. My shopping
foray caused me to miss the half hour of organ music (11:30 to noon) that
occurs between masses at Saint Sulpice.
No matter. I’ll be there next
Sunday. Soon after I
stowed my purchases at the apartment, Tom was ready to walk. So off we went. We knew that FNAC
Digitale and Darty would not be open on Sunday, but we wanted to walk by them
anyway so we could make note of the hours.
One thing we want to buy at Darty soon is a drip coffeemaker. That goal
started us along the boulevard Saint Germain so we just continued on to the
end of it. This boulevard
is one of the later Haussmannian boulevards to be created. Much of it is built up to a higher
elevation than the surrounding streets, probably so that the boulevard would
be more or less levelled out. But there
are vestiges of older streets here and there, abutting the boulevard,
creating these unusual spots where the pedestrian has to descend a step or
two or three to the older street levels in order to access an adjoining
street. In a couple places, the step-down
occurs on the boulevard itself, not even on an abutting street. One of the
places where the step-down happens is along one side of the Place Maubert, by
the rue Maitre Albert and on one side of the rue Frederic Sauton. The first thing
I think whenever the Place Maubert comes into view is, “This is the place
where they burned Protestants to death.”
Indeed, there is a History of Paris marker alongside the steps down to
the rue Frédéric Sauton that admits this sordid history. Here’s a rough translation/summary of what
the plaque says about Place Maubert: The name “Maubert” was a corruption of the name d’Aubert,
the abbot of Sainte-Genevieve in 1161.
Before the creation of the Sorbonne, it was a center of
education. Albert, a German Dominican
friar and bishop called “le Grand,” taught here. A bread market at the end of the Middle Ages, the Place
then became a site for public executions, especially in the 16th
Century. Numerous Protestants,
including the humanist Etienne Dolet, were burned alive here. At the beginning of the 19th
Century, the Place was home to a myriad of lowly occupations: secondhand clothes dealers, people who
replaced chair seats, ragdoll makers, ragpickers, those who sold tobacco
recuperated from cigarette butts, or scavengers who sifted through the sewage
flowing along in the gutters. Reconfigured in the 19th Century, the Place
still had several old houses at the corner of the rue Frédéric Sauton. What a past
this Place has! Even though
many shops are closed on Sundays, we enjoyed window shopping. The Tahitian travel agency at number 28 had
a few fabulous shell necklaces on display, and we also admired an art supply
store that seems to have everything a visual artist could possibly need. As we neared
the end of the boulevard, the streets leading to the Seine were much shorter,
and had some interesting sights like little ethnic restaurants that we never
expected to see. One, for example,
named Dolan, features Uyghur cuisine (in French, that’s ouighour). The Uyghur, or
Uighur, people are in Central Asia, mostly in western China. Genetically, they are about half European
and half Asian. Originally of mostly
Buddhist and related faiths, today most Uyghur people are Muslim. Some Uyghur people live in places like
Kyrgystan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey. They are a Turkic ethnic group. Their cuisine
is known for its noodles topped with sautéed lamb, tomatoes, onions, green peppers and other
vegetables. This is one dish featured
at Dolan. Uyghur food also entails
lots of onions, peppers, eggplant, celery, carrots, tomatoes, and apricots,
as well as grilled meats such as lamb, beef, chicken, and camel. Like Indian and Pakistani cuisine, Uyghur
basics include naan. Where the
boulevard Saint Germain ends at the Seine, across from the Pont de Sully, is
the Arab Institute. Across from it,
where the boulevard Saint Germain and the rue des Fosses Saint-Bernard come
together, is a brasserie named L’Institut.
We’ve dined there on a few occasions at the end of long walks. Yesterday, we did the same. At least on Sundays, L’Institut serves
lunch/dinner all afternoon, non-stop.
We had a late lunch that was substantial enough that we didn’t need
dinner. Tom had a big
omelette with fries and salad, and I had roasted almost-half-chicken with
puréed potatoes and salad (only 11.50euros!).
It was all very good, and reasonably priced. After a nice
long walk back to the apartment, we both rested and even took naps, trying to
recover from lack of sleep during the night before (thanks to that neighbor’s
television playing all night). In the evening,
we walked through the Luxembourg Gardens and the parks to the south of
them. All three parks were swarming
with people. And why not – there is no
park more beautiful than the Luxembourg Gardens, I think. When we’d
almost completed our circuit through the parks, we sat in a couple of those
ubiquitous metal chairs and enjoyed the setting sun. The Gardens were supposed to close at 7:45PM,
so at 7:20, we started walking toward the apartment, but we stopped in the
Orangerie to check out an exhibit featuring the work of several artists. One of them makes some fantastic bronze
statues of panthers. We only had
enough time to breeze through the exhibition quickly, so we’ll have to go
back and spend more time with it before it leaves on September 8. But for now,
there’s more shopping to do. Friends
are coming over this evening. A bientot! |
Monday, September 2, 2013
Fountain
in the Place Saint Sulpice.
The
side of the Place Maubert that is for parking
motorcycles and scooters.
On
the left side of this photo, you see the three steps down to the rue Frédéric Sauton, where it
intersects with the rue Maitre Albert near the
boulevard Saint Germain. Note the slight bowing out of the facades
of the first two buildings. This is an
indication of their age. They may well
be half-timbered buildings that have been covered over.
At
a Tahitian travel agency at 28 boulevard Saint Germain, this glorious shell necklace was on
display. I think it is beautiful, but
would be uncomfortable to wear.
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