Uma

Love reading your wonderful trip report!

TDudette

Great photos and excellent reporting. My words to hub at first sight of Versailles: "No wonder they had a revolution!"

We too managed a huge circle in Montmartre!

Hope to find that you got to Jacquesmart-Andre!

TPAYT

Loved the dappled light and the way you photographed it in the first photo of day six.

Scootoir

Good one TDudette. On our trip to Versailles in 1996 DH kept whispering in my ear "Dig him up and cut his head off again".

sap

Thanks all for the continuing words of encouragement. It keeps me going when my brain hurts from trying to grab memories before they slip past the synapses.

TDudette: I did not make it to Jacquemarte-Andre -- definitely bummed about that. It's at the top of the Next Time list.

TPATY: It's so funny you say that because Phil apologized for the photo and said, "I just couldn't do anything about that dappled light." He almost deleted it unti I told him it was worth keeping.

Part Two of the Tale of Two Quarters demain matin with hope that I don't offend any lovers of Le Marais.

sap

PARIS DAY SIX - A TALE OF TWO QUARTERS, A STORM AND A GOLDEN TOWER
Sunday 6/12/11

PART TWO

After a break at the apartment and a repast of bread, olives & cheese, we felt ready to explore the lower Marais. I was mostly looking forward to the Carnavalet, a free museum in two adjacent mansions that is devoted to the history of Paris. I had heard that they have a particularly good section on the Revolution.

"Marais" is French for marsh. Exactly like the lovely little Isle St. Louis nearby, it had been a neglected area where only sheep were grazed until the aristocracy drained the land and moved in to do their gentrification thing. Well before Louis XIV led a mass migration to Versailles, King Henry IV attracted 17th century nobles to the Marais when he built the Place Royale, now the Place des Vosges. In 120 years, over 500 mansions were built (then called hotels before English speakers changed the meaning of the word). Richelieu, Descartes, Pascal and Molière - it was all happening at the Marais.

After the Revolution, the mansions were converted to workshops, warehouses and apartments as the working class moved in. The area soon became a center of the clothing industry.

The Marais is also known for its large Jewish community which has been here off and on since the Middle Ages (depending on whether the king of the moment kicked them out or welcomed them back -- usually for political or monetary reasons, either way). One of the greatest tragedies of the neighborhood and a stomach-twisting eternal shame to the entire city was the betrayal by French citizens and police during the Nazi occupation when Jews in the Marais were rounded up en masse and eventually sent to the gas chambers. We're talking entire families. Schools of children.

A large gay community filtered into the Marais in the 1980s, along with young, single bohemians and middle-class families attracted by the low rent. So, now there were Hasidic Jews in black hats and solemn coats sharing the sidewalks with men in studded leather holding hands while they munched kosher pizza. Trés cosmopolitan. As the new residents spiffed up the place, they of course garnered a little notice. The trendy boutiques began to set up shop, forcing delis and barbers out of business one by one. That apparently remains the tug-of-war status today. Once the bobo Parisians designated the arrondissement as the new hot spot, it triggered the gentrification process all over again. As the rent increases, the real bohemians and working class families are picking up and moving on to cheaper pastures.

I had heard such good things about the Place des Vosges. "It is Paris' oldest square. . . a beautiful Renaissance plaza filled with art galleries and restaurants under the arcades." Well, that may be, but we couldn't see past the large lawn tableau of jeans and t-shirts sprawled all over every square inch of grass. It looked like a college campus on the first warm day of spring. Meanwhile, the arcades were blocked off by chatting mamans with strollers. We did manage to nab a bench for a few minutes of shade and Wi-Fi.

Oh, well. There was always the Carnavalet. Not. I checked my notes. It was only closed on Mondays, always open on Sundays -- except this was Whit Sunday, i.e., Pentecost. (The French are primarily secular unless a Catholic holiday is involved.)

This day was having more ups and downs than the streets of Montmartre.

What we needed was some refreshment. A unique pick-me-up, a local specialty so we could get a real flavor of the neighborhood. I had it: Falafels! I love them. The guys will love them. What's not to love about a falafel? I somehow neglected to remember that Phil doesn't exactly do backflips over chickpeas and cucumbers. It was the only thing he ate that month in France that he didn't really like.

Before feeding on falafels, we stopped briefly at the interesting and secluded little Square Georges-Cain. This archeological graveyard was the most peaceful part of the Marais. Roman columns, stone rosettes and marble figures lay rather randomly strewn among plants and flowers, or leaning against stone walls. Some of the pieces are leftovers from the Carnavalet, while others were brought here from the burned Tuileries Palace. We liked it much more than Place des Vosges.

Apparently, it's all still happening at the Marais and along Rue des Rosiers in particular. I couldn't tell you much about any unique or charming characteristics of the quarter because all we saw were wall-to-wall tourists, hipsters, yuppies towing well-dressed children and middle-aged Parisian women. Most of them were eating falafels. The Parisians apparently came to shop, eat and loiter simply to see and be seen. The crush of humanity was worse than the Place du Tertre, worse than the interior of Versailles, worse than my local mall the week before Christmas. There wasn't enough space to look down and see your feet to determine if they were actually moving. The crowd flow on the narrow street seemed to lift you by the shoulders and carry you along.

I noticed that the women around me held their large designer bags in front of them as shields, pushing determinedly into the melee. All I had was a flimsy, little cross-body square that wouldn't have covered my face. I was thinking a stale baguette would have been useful to slash my way through. (French bread turns to metal by late afternoon, a chemical transformation worthy of Nicholas Flamel.)

The worst of it - and this happened repeatedly - was when a chic madame would suddenly meet a friend and stop in midstream to squeal and kiss-kiss on both cheeks, backing up the people behind her like dead leaves against a log. A log stuck in the corner of a swamp.

Is it perhaps only this way on a Sunday? Should I have come on a Tuesday at 10?

Back at the apartment checking for any bruises we may have sustained in the battle to get out of the Marais, we counted our losses and discussed a new strategy. Face it, Plan B had mostly been a bust.

Since this was our last opportunity to see the city at night, the Eiffel Tower light show was clearly a priority. (Monday night was not an option since we had to catch an early train to Avignon on Tuesday morning.) No sooner had my spirits improved at the prospect of redeeming the day then we heard the rain. I whipped back the curtains and stared in disbelief at the floating umbrellas and wet cobblestones below. I was beginning to feel targeted by Louis' Greco-Roman gods.

We tried to wait it out, but it just came down harder. We dashed through the downpour to pick up crepes down the street and then waited again. As the sun set around 10 p.m., there was still no let-up and I was practically pacing the apartment, ready to release a torrent myself (whether in the form of swearing or tears, I'm not sure). Paris had been unseasonably warm and sunny for weeks before we arrived. They were having a drought until we stepped off the plane.

Looking at my face, Phil sighed and said, "What the hell. Just grab the umbrella and I'll get the wine." And so we toasted the City of Light in the dark, in the rain.

Feeling far, far better than I did before as we watched the lattice tower sparkle against the inky sky, I leaned against Phil's wet shoulder and thought that the prophecy of Dickens' Mr. Carton had surely come to pass: It is a beautiful city and a brilliant people. But, geez it had been a long, long day.

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TPAYT

I have to bring up the "dappled light" photo again to ask where it was taken? We know we've seen it, but are having a hard time placing it. Was it at The Delacroix Museum?

Sorry about all of the rain, but sometimes we have taken some gorgeous photos of Paris in the rain when "the pavement shines like silver" as they sing in Les Miz. So, you will always remember The Eiffel and be able to tell a great story of your adventure in the rain.

ParisJo

One of the best trip reports I've ever read! I love the extra details and your perseverance when plans needed changing (which they always do, don't they, lol).

The pictures are beautiful and gave me very bad PPD (Post Paris Depression)

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your trip with us.

Jo

sap

Hi,TPAYT. That's Le Mur des J'taime, the "I Love You" wall in Le Square Jehan near the Abbesses Metro in Montmartre.

TDudette

ttt

denisea

Your pictures are incredible. I have enjoyed your T/R...and am glad I have never bothered with the Marais. I will say we were fortunate enough to have seen Place des Vosges in the snow on Christmas with no crowds. We didn't stay long, so I haven't really seen any more of the Marais...maybe that's a good thing after your T/R and Kerouac's recent thread on rue de Rosiers.

crefloors

This is a delightful read. It's been four years since my last trip and just looking at your pictures is taking me back.

TPAYT

Thanks sap----I sure was off in my guess. We went to Montmarte on our first trip to Paris in 2001 and haven't gone back during our next 6 trips. #8 coming up, I think we'll take another look.

Nikki

Hearing about the crowds makes me realize there are some advantages to traveling to Paris in the winter and early spring, when I have gone.

Treesa

Thanks, sap, you're one talented writer and raconteur.

Scootoir

sap--you have such a way with words: (French bread turns to metal by late afternoon, a chemical transformation worthy of Nicholas Flamel.)

LowCountryIslander

sap...just loving your report. I too ran into the museum/post office/SNCF boutique clousures on Pentecost last year. I never figured that into my plans but it wouldn't be an adventure without a little adjustments thrown in, you just had alot of adjustments all in one day!

sap

Thanks all. Just entertaining the troops. My guys are both such funny characters that I hope to provide them with a worthy record of their adventure, too.

PARIS DAY SEVEN - IN MEMORIA DI MATER LUTETIA
Monday 6/13/11

PART ONE

Our last day in Paris was like a stroll through time. As we walked the streets of La Rive Gauche from the Latin Quarter through Luxembourg to St. Germain-des-Prés, we traversed the ancient roads of Gallo-Roman Lutetia, weaving back and forth through the millennia between our world and theirs. While the medieval, Renaissance and 18th centuries are most visible on the Left Bank, with a little imagination we could still sense the distant Roman heartbeat 2,000 years under our feet.

After coffee and chocolate chaud at La Patisserie Viennoise (the hot chocolate being almost as good as Angelina's), we walked down the street to the Cluny. This was one of our favorite museums in Paris, as much for the clever, sensitive manner in which they display their collections as the objects themselves. The sculpture, stained glass, tapestries and artifacts cover the centuries from Gallo-Roman antiquity to the 1500s. Many pieces have been so harmoniously integrated into the space they occupy that the old stone walls feel like part of the exhibit. The museum is housed within a 14th century abbey that was built upon the remains of Roman baths. Some of the museum rooms incorporate the Roman frigidarium with a 50-foot vaulted ceiling. I had originally planned to spend maybe an hour at the museum, but we easily enjoyed ourselves for more than two.

For us, the first highlight of the Cluny was the room with the original early 13th century Stone Heads of the Kings of Judah from Notre Dame. They had been ripped off the cathedral by a mob during the Revolution, who thought they were the kings of France. In 1977, all but seven of the 28 heads were found during construction of a bank's basement near the Opera Garniér. They had all been carefully buried facing in the same direction, where they remained undiscovered for nearly two centuries. The 2 ½-foot decapitated heads in various states of destruction and decay are now mounted on stone supports along stone ledges, still looking regal despite their traumatic experience. (They were long ago replaced with replicas on the facade of Notre Dame itself.)

We soon entered the museum's cavernous, vaulted, Roman frigidarium, constructed in 200 A.D. The primary exhibit in the baths is the Pillar of Nautes, featuring the oldest carvings in Paris. It was found under Notre Dame in 1711 and formed part of an altar. The pillar is dedicated to Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, several other Roman and Celtic gods, as well as the Emperor Tiberius. (I guess they wanted to cover their bases.) It had been created on behalf of the Boatmen of Paris, Nautes Parisiens, a powerful Gallo-Roman guild that has given the city its coat of arms depicting a white boat on waves against a red background. A compatible motto was added much later, "She is battered by the waves, but does not sink." Part of the pillar's significance is that it demonstrates that Romans were not completely successful or even interested in wiping out Celtic deities. Then again, the Romans were known for adopting other cultures' gods so they could add to their own list of potential benefactors.

The Roman legions first moved in to take control of the local Celtic fishing village in about 51 BC after they won the decisive Battle of Alesia during Caeser's conquest of Gaul. Either eliminating or subordinating the Parisii tribe that had been here since 250 BC, Julius Caesar renamed the city Lutetia, meaning, "place by a swamp". The Romans then immediately began to do what Romans do best: design and build.

In addition to building over the Celtic fishing village on the Isle de la Cité, the master architects decided that the Mons Lutetia on the Left Bank was a good spot for their classic grid plan, high enough to avoid the flooding Seine. Their settlement included baths, at least one theater, a forum and an amphitheater. By the 3rd century, it had grown to 284 acres with a population estimated from 5,000 to 8,000, though many Gallo-Roman cities were much larger, particularly Lyon and Narbonne. (We know the hill as Montagne Ste. Genevieve, where the Pantheon mausoleum now sits. It was much higher and steeper then.)

Other areas of the Cluny we enjoyed included the Romanesque and Gothic rooms with fragments of columns and capitals, carved ivories, frescoes and statues.

There was a special temporary exhibition upstairs related to swords. Joey, in particular, enjoyed it very much. They had numerous medieval weapons on display, including the famous swords of Charlemagne, Roland, Durandal and Joan of Arc, along with sword-fighting techniques in books and video. They also featured screens that would loop scenes from Monty Python. (Joe is a big Monty Python fan.)

Besides the exquisite chapel ceiling with its Flamboyant Gothic arches (under which a Paris doctor once purportedly conducted dissections), the tapestries are what bring many to the Cluny. The most famous of those are the six in the set depicting The Lady and the Unicorn. The museum has cleverly placed them in their own room on the walls of a rotunda and one can therefore turn in a slow circle to admire Taste, Hearing, Sight, Smell and Touch. The colors are definitely still vibrant and the symbolism is complex. Unfortunately, this was the last room we visited and it had grown rather crowded by then. On my next visit, I would plan to make this my first stop instead.

Much of our pleasure at the Cluny was simply meandering through the atmospheric, delicately-lit stone rooms with their little treasures. It was not as grand and overwhelming as the Louvre, nor stylishly avant-garde like the d'Orsay, but somehow more simple, graceful and peacefully reverent, like a reflection of the old abbey itself.

Diagonally across the street from the Cluny baths on Rue Racine was a Roman theater, quite close to the present-day Odeon. (So you could attend a play after your time at the spa.) Just south of the Cluny is the illustrious Sorbonne, a university founded in the 13th century that gives the neighborhood its old nickname as the Latin Quarter. Excavations have revealed several Roman layers here, too, since it lies between two parallel Roman roads, Blvd. St. Michel and Rue St. Jacques. Expanded by Haussmann's renovations in the 1860s, St. Michel is now the larger street, but St. Jacques was the main Roman artery. Houses had existed where the Sorbonne is today, so the remains include a Roman well, which is now in the center of Place de la Sorbonne, surrounded by student cafes.

Over a few streets on another Roman road, Rue Monge, we picked up bread and picnic accoutrements at Eric Kayser to supplement the wine and cheese we had stashed in the backpack. To boost our blood sugar, we ate a portion of it at a quiet park called Square Paul Langevin before heading up the medieval Rue de la Montagne Ste. Genevieve. This old Roman road once led to the Forum on the hill.

On the other side of the hill, heading down Rue du Cardinal Lemoine, we came to No. 71 where James Joyce borrowed a friend's house hidden at the end of a courtyard path to write Ulysses in peace & quiet. A few doors down at No. 74 is where Hemingway first lived with Hadley in conditions so cramped that he rented a garret room around the corner so he could likewise be alone to write. And from there, cutting across the tiny Rue Rollin and down its flowered steps, we came to the Arenes de Lutece where we rested our feet while Joe spent a ridiculous amount of time photographing pigeons.

It was peaceful and quiet at the Arenes -- a couple of other tourist families, a pair of young lovers enthusiastically contributing to Paris' romantic reputation. Like most Roman ruins, it did require a great deal of imagination to picture what it must have been like in its day. Built in the 2nd century, this was the second largest amphitheater in Roman Gaul. There were 10,000 seats for spectacles that included circuses, gladiator fights, musical performances and theater.

By the 3rd century, Goths, Vandals and other Germanic tribes had begun to attack, so the Roman-Gauls withdrew to the smaller settlement on the Isle de la Cité and increased the fortifications. Emperor Julian renamed the city "Paris" in the 4th century. Before long, poor old Lutetia abandoned on the hill sank to her knees in the dusts of time. The theaters, baths and forums became quarries for building materials until they were simply forgotten.

In 1869, construction unearthed the remains of the amphitheater and Victor Hugo led a campaign to save what he could. The city has since transformed the Arenes de Lutece into this leafy park, popular with students from the Latin Quarter, soccer-kicking kids and old men playing boules.

Retracing our steps back down Rue Rollin, we turned into the Place de la Contrescarpe. It was just past midday and the cafe-centric zone was humming as terrace chairs spilled out toward the fountain from opposite ends of the circle. The name of the square comes from the word "escarpment", which meant an earthen wall enclosing the moat against the medieval city wall. The square had been just outside the wall and thus a little more wild and uncivilized, rather like being on the other side of the tracks. Despite its reputation for grittiness (or maybe because of it), is has long been associated with writers. In the 16th century, Rabelais drank at the taverns, About 200 years later, Balzac roamed the neighborhood in search of inspiration for his novels and Victor Hugo used the southern edge of the area as a setting in Les Miserables. During Hemingway's time, the cafés and bars were still rather scruffy hangouts for writers and artists and he, too, mentioned the square and the neighborhood more than once in his stories.

From the square, Rue Mouffetard extends south into pedestrian cobblestones. It also retains a slightly scruffy quality, though its street market is quite popular among both Parisians and tourists. Locals call it La Mouffe. The River Bièvre was here where skinners, tanners and tripe butchers worked, hence the word "mouffle," which is Old French for "stink." Fortunately, it was paved over in the 19th century. Now, La Mouffe and its neighboring streets are lined with restaurants, cafes, boulangeries and fromageries, so the scent is mainly a blend of coffee, baguettes and cigarettes, with an occasional whiff of Camembert or the old Frenchman at the next table who hasn't had his bath yet this week (often confused). Oh yes, and urine, but it's a rare street in Paris that doesn't give off that pungent background note.

Though it's seemed slightly more downscale and tourist-oriented to me, Phil liked this area nearly as much as our own Odeon neighborhood and we plan to be back someday when the market is in full swing and the sights, sounds -- and scents -- are swirling at even higher levels.

(To be continued.)

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TDudette

ttt

PatrickLondon

>>Is it perhaps only this way on a Sunday? Should I have come on a Tuesday at 10?<<

Yes: there's a risk the Place des Vosges may become another Place du Tertre, at least on a Sunday. And you're not wrong about the gentrification of the Marais; on my last trip I noticed that the initial bobo artification seems to be ever more rapidly giving way to blandification - yet more generic beauty product and shoe shops, while the interesting and different (the antique musical instruments on rue du Pas de la Mule) are vanishing.