After yesterday's effort of scouting architectural highlights within the city, we were keen for more exploring today. John had found two more self-guided tours, one for Parisian highlights in general, and another of historical alleyways.
We've become quite used to negotiating the Paris metro network. The stations are all extremely well labelled once you are enveloped in the underground labyrinth, and it's just a matter of following the appropriate sign (colour and number) to get to your connection. When we emerged from the Metro station this morning we were immediately confronted by the extravagant Hotel de Ville of Paris (town hall). From there, past some very attractive corner cafes, we were close up and personal with the reconstructions underway on Notre Dame.
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Hotel de Ville
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| Reconstruction of Notre Dame |
It seems amazing that the blaze in Notre Dame was four years ago. It doesn't seem anywhere near that long. Its reconstruction is clearly a massive undertaking. 200 tons of scaffolding are in place to allow for it. 2000 oak trees are being felled in mainly northern and central France to provide replacement beams, 3000 sqm of stained glass windows have to be restored and 41,000 sqm (4ha) of stonework has to be cleaned. It's incredible.
Just around the corner we came across a very quaint and very old little restaurant. It was originally a 16th century townhouse but has been functioning as a restaurant for centuries, often catering for clergy associated with the cathedral. We were invited to peep inside it.
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| Au Vieux Paris Arcole - 15th century |
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| Inside dining echoing earlier eras |
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| Still serving the clergy |
Our wandering continued and we enjoyed coming across a range of interesting sights.
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| Galeries Lafayette had some amazing kitchen displays for its 'fooding' promotion |
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| Fantastically coloured shirts elsewhere, though unfortunately John wasn't tempted |
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| Pompidou Centre - Le Beaubourg |
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| Roman-style arch |
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| The famous Folies Bergere |
Today, for the first time, with no more on the agenda for today, we had time to sit down and enjoy a relaxed lunch. I know, we are a little excessive with the amount of walking and exploring we insist on doing, but it's been immensely rewarding.
Right now our tummies needed a reward other than a baguette sandwich. We were generally in neighbourhoods where there were a lot of restaurants, however many were closed because it's Sunday, and many were ethnic whereas we wanted something French. We came across a board offering a proper French lunch for a very reasonable price. We peeped down the alleyway and were immediately grabbed by the establishment and its ambiance.
It turned out to be a bouillon restaurant, the early 19th century equivalent of fast food. . They seat hundreds, in this case perhaps 300, have very reasonable prices, and a very fast service. Chartier has been running in the same fashion since 1896. You are sent to a free table - there were none when we arrived, it remained full the entire time, and as we left the queue was 20 or 30 deep. The waiter was soon on hand to drop off bread and water, then take the order which he wrote on the paper table cover. Another couple were sat down at our table for 4, and we chatted a little. Food came out rapidly, the waiter referring to the written-down orders as required. The whole place was noisy, busy and vastly fun. The food (I had pig's nose and beef tongue, Karen a duck confit!) was very tasty and generous. A great experience that we stumbled into quite by chance and would totally recommend to other Paris travellers. It's definitely been another highlight.
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| Chocolate profiterole, prunes with ice cream. It was as good as it looks! |
The hidden passages walk turned out to be a bit of a fizzer. What we hadn't realised was that many of the passages were private shopping arcades, and being Sunday were closed. It was a fun walk anyway, but not what it might have been.
We gave it away as we got near to Gare St Lazare, which was the setting for a painting we'd bought last year. We were keen to see exactly where the original historic photo had been taken that became the inspiration for our painting. On arriving, the spot we'd thought it was taken from was obviously not correct, but after a bit of walking around we found the location within a metre or two. We took another as close as we could, but realised later that the photographer had been low to the ground and closer to the subjects.
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Our best effort, suitably tweaked to an evening in 1937
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| And the 1937 original |
At this point we'd done most of the walk, so went back along the Tuileries Gardens, then on the metro and back home. The temperature was still in the high 20s, and we were flagging. I can't imagine being here with the temperature 5 or 10 degrees higher.
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| The Louvre |
On our return we found that just outside our apartment block there was a big crowd of youths who had set up a ramp on the street and were doing jumps to loud cheers and applause when they stuck the landings. Every now and again they had to quickly pull the ramp away to let a bus and even a police car through.
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| Street skateboarding |
We'd thought of going up the Eiffel Tower in the evening, but the website told us that it was currently very busy, and the online tickets were sold out, so we gave it away for this year. I'm sure it will still be much the same as in 1982!
We've had a lovely time in Paris. Our home area of Belleville is very pleasant and proved an excellent base for our explorations. We enjoyed seeing some new areas and new sights, and particularly the Le Corbusier studio-apartment and the bouillon restaurant.
