Sign
my guestbook. View
my guestbook. ←Previous Next→ Paris Journal 2007 Home
|
Window
in the
Balcony
with a typical Paris view; no high rises. |
Wednesday, September 5 Yesterday after working we went to do our shopping at
the Marché St. Germain, just up the rue Mabillon a bit. I was very impressed with the quality of
the fruits, vegetables, meats, fish, and dairy products, and I was surprised
that the individual vendors all seem to take credit cards. Sometimes the food at the outdoor markets does not look
so fresh to me, and the fish certainly does not smell fresh. The Marché, totally enclosed, brightly lit,
and air conditioned, is very different.
And the vendors are more permanent, of course. It is really more like a bunch of high
quality shops under one roof, in one big space. There must be some kind of quality control
at work here, too, because there were no exceptions – every vendor’s goods
seem to be top notch. We bought eggs, cheese, orange juice, country terrine,
skirt steaks, bananas, cantaloupe, potatoes, and mushrooms. I made steaks with mushrooms and sauce and
light lyonnaise potatoes for dinner later on. But before that, we took another walk over the
Passerelle des Arts, through the courtyard of the Louvre, up into the first
arrondissement, past the Banque de France, to
explore a couple of galeries, or covered shopping passages, called the
Vivienne and the Colbert. The Vivienne
was especially nice, and it claims to have been in continuous operation since
its inception, with no breaks needed due to lack of business. Business is good in this part of town. The French stock exchange, the Bourse, is
nearby. Because the Tuileries is huge,
there aren’t many other parks in the 1st arrondissement. There is the park at Les Halles, and there is
the Palais Royal. We decided to walk through the Palais Royal
on our way back. The flower beds in
the middle of this park are nice, but the grass is inaccessible and there
aren’t many places to sit and enjoy the garden part of the park. The allées with the dirt open space and
rows of chestnut trees are fine, and they provide space for young people to
work off their energy. But this park
is not really all that usable by all that many people. Walking home, we went through both courtyards of the
Louvre. In the arched passage between
the two, a recorder and flute duo were playing, sounding heavenly in the
acoustics provided by the palace structure.
These performers were two young men who looked quite professional;
probably graduate students in music. A
similar young man was playing a dexterous and subtle classical guitar in the
other archway, as we headed for the Passerelle des Arts. Later in the evening, Linda called (Linda and John of
Sanibel are staying in the 9th arrondissement). We made plans for drinks and dinner this
evening. It turns out that they, too,
went to explore the Galeries Vivienne and Colbert yesterday! I’m sorry we didn’t run into each other. I just finished reading Diane Johnson’s Into a Paris
Quartier, which is about the neighborhood where we are staying now (and where
we were last September), the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter. Diane is the novelist famous for her books L’Affaire, Le Mariage and Le Divorce, about an American woman
who gets involved with a French man.
Diane divides her time between She’s done her homework, and she knows the neighborhood
well. I thoroughly enjoyed her
masterful work. I also admire her
intense curiousity about her surroundings.
She works hard to find answers to all of her questions. Her writing is excellent, although maybe
not as entertaining as Sarah Turnbull’s (Almost
French). Like Sarah, however, Diane knows her part of She claims that there is only one high-rise, the ugly
Montparnasse tower, in Not so. There is a clump of high rises in the 13th,
inside the Peripherique, but just barely. And then there is Beaugrenelle and the Front de Seine
in the 15th. These
high-rises are not all that close to the Peripherique; in fact, they aren’t
far from the There are, of course, the towers of the modern
bibliotheque Mitterand in the 13th on the Seine, and the tower at
Jussieu (click here for
photo and info), a part of the There is another cluster of towers inside the
Peripherique in the 19th arrondissement, just north of the Bassin
de la Villette. I think that some of these monstrosities were constructed
under the controversial presidency of François
Mitterand. |
