Books about Paris

 I need to start keeping track of books I’ve read because I requested a bunch from the library but I have a feeling I already read some of them for the 2022 Christmas trip with Juan, Mandy and Louise.  Especially the ones by John Baxter, an Australian who has been living in Paris since 1989.  I know I have read two of his books on Great Parisian Neighborhoods:  Montmartre - Paris’s Village of Art and Sin, and The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris, but have I read Five Nights in Paris: After Dark in the City of Light or A Year in Paris:  Season by Season in the City of Light?  After a while these books all merge together but in the end, I figure that I will end up with a sense of Paris.  I could, of course, start putting the books in Good Reads, but often I don’t finish a book…. 

I am also spending a lot of time browsing through Let’s Eat Paris and Paris in a Basket: Markets - the Food and the People, a book that Penny sent me ages ago.  Several years ago I purchased Let’s Eat France which is an even more monumental book.  Or maybe it’s just that they’ve made the print smaller in Let’s Eat Paris so that they could shrink the size of the book, like Culinaria did with their paperback versions.  You truly need a magnifying glass to read them!

Of course that’s not all I’m doing to prepare for our trip.  OnYouTube I’ve been concentrating on Les Frenchies (I got behind while I was preparing for the London trip) and a new one by a French man, Paris Top Tips.  I’ve been watching Les Frenchies for a long time and can always find them but I can’t seem to remember the name Paris Top Tips.  Soon enough I’ll get back to watching some YouTube in French, like C’est Meilleur quand c’est bon and La Cuisine des Monasteres.  If they speak too fast, I can always slow down the playback to 75%.  Captions generally aren’t a lot of help since they have as much trouble catching the words as I have.

Should I try Duolingo?  I got off on the wrong foot with them when I tried to create an account and discovered someone else was logging in using my email address.  You would think that Duolingo would verify that.  So I changed the password on them and then requested that Duolingo delete the account. I don’t think I’ve been back since… 

Back to Paris

 In April, we’re going to Paris with Camila and the boys (Peter and Silas) because SAS had cheap fares from Boston to Paris and because it coincides with the boys’ spring break (more or less) and because we have to test the French Immersion program at the Milton public schools.  We’re all very excited.  Fortunately we’ll be staying in an AirBnB because last time we did a trip together to San Francisco, we stayed at the Hotel Caza by Fisherman’s Wharf and it’s very hard to spend a lot of time together when you can only sit and vegetate together in the Hotel lobby (which was pretty good but not very private).

The first AirBnB in Paris that we reserved was north of Montmartre in the 18th Arrondissement.  The boys loved its quirkiness and it looked nice and clean but the first floor living room windows were previously a storefront so one wonders how private that would be.  There was a bedroom on the mezzanine which would have been great for the boys but the second bedroom was in the basement via a spiral staircase with a second living room with a sofabed.  The one toilet was also in the basement although there were showers on both the mezzanine and in the basement.  And Rue Hermel is a bit remote from the center (49 minutes walking and 37 minutes by metro to the Louvre) although there were two metro lines we could have taken to downtown.  We survived fine when we stayed at an AirBnB in the 17th with Juan, Mandy and Louise.  That one was 56 minutes walking to the Louvre, although only 24 minutes by metro.

After a lot of thought and more perusing, Camila came across an AirBnB in the 10th Arrondissement that has two bedrooms with two double beds plus a sofabed in the living room.  It only has one toilet but at least everything is on the same floor.  Although it is not as artsy as the Rue Hermel AirBnB, it is closer to downtown (28 minutes walking and 17 minutes by metro to the Louvre) and the neighborhood has more stores and restaurants.  It will be noisier because it is on the second floor on a busy street:  Rue du Faubourg San Martin.  As the name (Faubourg) indicates, it is outside the medieval city walls, beyond the arch of Porte San Martin which was built by Louis XIV in 1674, to replace the one build by Charles V in the 1300s (just fyi).

I, of course, am delighted by the fact that there is a covered market, le Marché couvert San Martin, just a 3 minute walk from the AirBnB (5 minutes for us).  Next door to that is a Franprix supermarket where I am assuming we can have a machine squeeze our own orange juice for us each morning, like we had in the Batignolles.  On Thursday or Sunday I’m hoping we can revisit the Marché Bastille so I can pick up yet another hat.  Penny and I went there on a Thursday in 2011 and were enchanted by all the produce we couldn’t buy and we both picked up cute little wool hats.  When we went for Christmas in 2022 with Juan, Mandy and Louise, I picked up a little cashmere hat, along with a couple of pillow covers.  Maybe if we go on Thursday (we arrive on a Wednesday) we can pick up some produce and cheese as well.  It’s a 32 minute walk from the AirBnB but only 16 minutes by metro.  Although I see that there is yet another market in between: Le Marché des Enfants Rouges, which we haven’t been to and that is open every day except Monday.  Hmmm.  Do you think we could hit both?  Does the AirBnB have a shopping cart?

Books on Paris

 Yes, I got a bunch of Paris guide books out of the library but quickly came to the conclusion that I don't really care for guide books.  They are so boring because they never cover what I want to know or what I might like to see and they really don't provide a whole lot more than a description and an address.

So I took out some deeper books about Paris.  At the moment I am reading The Streets of Paris: A guide to the City of Light following in the footsteps of famous Parisians throughout history.  And I'm learning a lot of history I didn't know, so that's a really good thing, even if I can't remember what I read when I get to Paris.  Now I know that Henri IV was a Protestant from Navarre and that Louis IX was horrid if you were a Jew or Muslim, but a saint if you were the Catholic church.  I learned that Marie Curie was from Poland where she couldn't attend higher education and so came to Paris, that Simone Weil was a philosopher that I'd never heard of, and that Voltaire was probably a bastard.  The author of The Streets of Paris, Susan Cahill, also wrote Hidden Gardens of Paris which Juan is currently reading to find all the playgrounds for Louise.  Will the slides be too cold to slide down?

I've already completed The Only Street in Paris:  Life on the Rue des Martyrs, written by Elaine Sciolino, a former New York Times bureau chief in Paris.  That's also worth reading to give you a flavor of life in Paris and the individuals  who own the shops along this street that runs up to Montmartre.  You'll find out what happens when the fishmonger closes up shop, who's been running the transvestite club at the top of Rue des Martyrs for decades, who owns the bookshops and what a friperie is.  Each individual is unique with their own little quirks.  Naturally you also learn about whom the Rue des Martyres was named after, what Saint Denis carried up the hill (or was it down?), and where St. Ignatius de Loyola started his little band of Jesuits.  There's a story behind each location, something missing in typical guide books, which makes the book much more readable.

Coming up are two books by Eric Hazan:  The Invention of Paris:  A History in Footsteps; and A Walk Through Paris: A Radical Exploration.  Hopefully I'll get around to reading them and reviewing them!

Christmas in Paris 2022

 Yes, we did get to Sicily but the Coronavirus made sure that we spent much of our time commuting on the bus.  However, now we have reservations to go to Paris in December and we have to get ourselves prepared.

First, we'll need to bring flashlights because when we arrive on the 23rd, the sun only rises at 8:42 am and then it quickly sets at 4:57 pm.  Of course the advantage to that is the Christmas lights can shine that much longer.  Although I guess that's not much different from Pittsburgh with sunrise at 7:40 am and sunset at 4:57 pm, same as Paris.  And Boston is 7:11 am and 4:15 pm.  So it's the mornings when we'll want to rush out for our croissants that it will be darker.

I've been looking at Paris Discovery Guide's Christmas in Paris to make sure we don't miss anything special.  Of course we'll have to hit all the Marchés de Noël and do it quickly because we might only have 2 days: December 23rd and 24th, although they say some stay open until early January.  The market at the Tuileries is supposed to be the biggest and liveliest with carnival rides including a giant ferris wheel, in addition to an Artisan Village and lots of food such as mulled wine, roasted chestnuts, sausages, raclette, waffles and crepes.

They say the Christmas season is not the off-season, except for early December, and can get very crowded.  We only hope that the crowds are all French.  The Discovery Guide says that the most picturesque Christmas market is the Marché de Noel Notre Dame, which is open through December 26th.

Devour Tours (specializing in food naturally) lists their 6 best Christmas markets including

Champ de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower has 60 stalls and an ice rink.  It also stays open into January.

Abbesses in Montmarte near the Sacré Coeur.  A small market but there's a carousel (remember in Amelie?).  Again open till January.

Village de Noël at La Défense which the Paris Insider's Guide says is the largest with over 350 stalls and adds:  "If you've never been to La Défense the market gives you a reason to go, especially in the evening when the towering buildings are illuminated. Plan to spend several hours — the variety and diversity of products sold is mind boggling."  It is open until the end of December.

I've never been to La Défense so I guess that means we WILL have to go:  "Getting there is easy, it's the last stop on Metro Line 1, under the Grande Arche."

Some of the markets in the Paris Insider's Guide run only for a short time so we will miss them.  They mention the Marché de Noël des Fééries d'Auteuil in the 16th Arrondissement which has "traditional Christmas figures from Provence called santons."  Unfortunately it will run from December 3-11 so we will miss it.  But maybe we can find santons elsewhere.

These lists will give us a start and if the Christmas Markets in Paris are anything like the ones here, we'll have our fill of them after two.

Today was the Louvre

Unfortunately Penny had to wake me up this morning. It was 9 am and I was still sound asleep. So much for getting early starts. I think we got out of the house around 10:30 and had cafe au lait and croissants/brioche/pain aux raisins at the neighborhood boulangerie/patisserie: Miss Manon. Fernando was shocked to be billed 20 euros, especially since we had paid 15 euros for our dinner of falafels the night before. So I think he will be satisfied with coffee and croissants at home from now on.

Then we started walking down the Rue Saint Antoine to the Louvre, passing shops where I wasn't able to stop, except for one Spanish store Zara. Here's the gmap pedometer map of where we went, where the walk was 5.13 miles, not counting the Louvre.

When we got to the Louvre there was a long line towards the pyramid with a guard holding a sign saying that from that point it was a 1 hour wait. He was also asking people if they spoke French and if so he told them they could go to a different entrance. So we followed the French speakers to the Carousel du Louvre, which is a shopping center connected to the Louvre where there really wasn't a line at all. But first we needed to find a bathroom, les toilettes, but couldn't find one anywhere. Finally a woman showed us to a swanky pay toilet with colored toilet paper for 1 euro. Kind of steep but we were desperate. (Later we found there were free toilettes inside the Louvre.)

We spent a couple of hours in the Italian and French section of the Louvre - saw the Mona Lisa and works by David, Ingres and Delacroix. And we saw lots and lots of people, old and young. I think we took plenty of photos so you can see some of what we saw. By then it must have been 2:30 so we decided to eat in the mall's food court. Penny and I split a dish of roast lamb, carrots and ratatouille (Fernando had his own). It would be nice if American malls had equally good fast food.

Then we came back out of the Louvre, walked over towards Rue Montorgueil and tested out one of the automatic toilettes in the street. It was quite satisfactory except for the hand dryer and the amount of time one had to wait for the toilette to disinfect itself between users.

We visited the cookware store E. Dehillerin and almost bought that big stock pot that Camila needed. Then we went into the food store G. DeTout but didn't buy anything except a few chocolate bars. I'd like to buy some Kushti tea because the tins are so pretty but it is rather expensive.

We had the best time on rue Montorgueil, going into the produce markets where we bought strawberrries, a cucumber, heart-shaped red potatoes, and purple artichokes. Fernando picked up some boudin noir (blood sausage) and head cheese at a boucherie and finally we picked up two kinds of cheese at a fromagerie. This was our dinner. It was about 2 miles from there home and we still had to pick up some wine and bread for dinner and milk for breakfast so we stopped at our neighborhood monoprix, which is a supermarket just a block away.

Tomorrow we might pick up a roast chicken for dinner -- or maybe we should make an omelet with these huge champignons we bought the first day. Then we'll boil our artichokes and undoubtedly find even more food that we can't resist. I better check when the markets are. Maybe Penny and I can run out tomorrow morning to the Bastille market...

Wi-Fi or not?

We've become a bit concerned about the wi-fi in our apartment - will it work, how do we sign on, etc., etc?  A query to the rental company resulted in the advice to bring an ethernet cable...just in case.  So now Cathy has 4 feet of cable to add to her electronics packing.  And I, who had forgotten all about the ethernet cable, just checked out free wi-fi hotspots.  About.com Paris Travel has a list of the city's free wi-fi hot spots by arondissement.  But apparently these only broadcast during the day ?!
And here is a Spotted by Locals site with a goggle map even more populated than ours showing free wi-fi - and that's from 2009 so it should be even more crowded now. "In every part of Paris, there are many free wifi-access points via “Paris Wi-Fi”. In many public spaces, such as parks, gardens, city halls, librairies and museums you can go online wireless for free.
Jessica has been so kind to provide a short tutorial on how to connect to the Free Paris network (source: Paris.fr)
1. Find a point on the map above. Go to it. It will tell you it’s WiFi by the symbol you see in the picture, which looks like purple blobs with the words “wifi” written in it.
2. Select the “Wifi ORANGE” network on your computer. This is the reason no one was having success before with this!!! “Free” is actually the brand name of an internet provider, NOT a description of what it is; hence why it wasn’t working for people. ORANGE is what you’re looking for.
3. Open your browser, type in an internet address, and you will be redirected to the access portal. You can switch to English in the orange box. From there, it’s easy! You just type in your name and email address, and there you go. Two hours of free surfing!"
But let's really hope the wi-fi works 'cause it's a little cold to sit on the grass with our laptops

Craft Shopping in Paris

I ran across another Paris walk at Townmouse's Craft Shopping in Paris. She starts out at the Viaduc des Arts and then goes over to the Marais to Entrée des Fournisseurs, 8 rue des Francs Bourgeois, 75003. This looks like a little fabric and sewing notions store that Camila might love. Look at those darling embroidery scissors!

Then she walks up to La Droguerie, which I assumed was a drugstore but instead is a Paris institution for knitting and crochet. Since it appears to be next to Au Pied de Cochon, we might as well stop by. And then there is one last shop in the area, Des Fils et une Aiguille at 1 rue Chabanais, 75002. What is that? "Sons and a Needle"?

Finally she goes all the way up to the Marché St Pierre in Montmartre (2 rue Charles Nodier, 75018) which we might pass by on our walk up there. So there you have it and I bet Camila wishes she were coming along.

Viaduc des Arts

We had a very nice talk with Diane yesterday and she mentioned that one place they went to that wasn't in the guidebooks when they were last there was the Viaduc des Arts which runs from the Opéra Bastille to the Jardin de Reuilly in the 12th arrondissement. In the 1850s an elevated Paris-Strasbourg Railway (the Viaduc) was built that ran to the Place de la Bastille. By the 1950s it was no longer used because the RER A replaced it. In 1979 they began to think about what to do with the SNCF train station at Bastille (it became the Opera) and the Viaduc which starts at rue de Lyon and follows the avenue Daumesnil. They decided to make the Viaduc into a mile-long planted promenade and rehabilitate the vaults below into shops for artisans and artists; the first section of it opened in 1989.

You can watch a Geobeats video about the Viaduc des Arts. Oh, golly, it's been such a long time since I've watched these Geobeats videos on Paris! I completely forgot that they existed! I'm going to have to go back and review them before we leave!

It would be great to walk along the Promenaded Plantee and then come back along the Avenue Daumesnil. There is even more information at Paris Walking Tours with lots of great photos. I think we should make this trip when we go to the Marche d'Aligre and Le Baron Rouge!

Best Place to Meet at Charles De Gaulle (CDG)

I did a Google search on this and came up with lots of people with the same question. On TripAdvisor, KCNAT from Kansas City (he must be a Pittsburgh transplant) recommended the EASY CDG website for help. Easy CDG has pdf maps of the various terminals, including an overview map and one of Terminal 2E - where Fernando and I are supposed to come in at one of the gates from E28-E47. Penny, it looks like you could take the CDGVAl (CDGVAL, métro automatique gratuit, fonctionne 24h/24 et 7j/7 entre les terminaux) from terminal 1 to the Gare TGV, which looks like it is right next to Terminal 2E. So should we meet you at the CDGVAL station next to the Paris by Train? Rick Steves says the RER and TGV stations are below the Sheraton Hotel, but he also recommends taking the bus... Did we ever buy Rick Steves Guide?

Le Rubis and Le Baron Rouge

Since this is still winter, maybe we should think about oysters. Evidently this is when the oysterman comes with his truck to the Baron Rouge to sell them on Saturday and Sunday. Girls' Guide to Paris has a nice posting on Le Baron Rouge and his oysters, and then goes on to mention a similar restaurant Le Rubis, which is a wine bar. They say "The food is as unpretentious as the wine. Saucisse with lentils, hot saucisson, sauté of lamb with white beans, tripe and tête de veau."

The Girls' Guide says:
In a nutshell: Le Rubis is where to fulfill your fantasy of old Paris while refilling your wine glass.
Price check: Main courses are no more than 12 euros. The only way to overspend here is by drinking too much.

La Chaîne Météo

I just went to Figaroscope and they had an ad from their local weather channel for the forecast for the next 12 days. It looks like there is no rain in the forecast. When we arrive on Sunday there is one cloud (that must mean partly cloudy?) and 10°C (now I have to go look that one up. Maybe I have an app on my iPhone...) which is 50° Fahrenheit. Then it goes up to 13°C (55.4°) on Tuesday and then 12 (53.6) on Wednesday with two clouds. At least that is an improvement over the forecast for tomorrow: "Averses ou intermittence de pluie et neige mêlées; min 0°C ressentie -4°C; max 6°C ressentie 2°C; Vent modéré de nord." The "ressentie" is the "feels like" temperature. Weather in the 50s?? Maybe I won't need that wool coat afterall.

Practical Information in case I lose my notes

Places Fernando wants to go:
1. The Louvre: 10 euros for access to permanent exhibitions; 14 euros for access to that and temp exhib. Closed Tuesdays. 9am-6pm, W&F to 10 pm.
2. Musee d'Orsay: 8 euros. Closed Mondays, crowded Tuesdays. 9:30am-6pm, Thurs til 9:45pm. Entrance C for ticket holders.
3. Eiffel Tower: Lift to 2nd floor 8.10 euros; stairs to 2nd floor: 4.50 euros; lift to top: 13.10 euros. Open every day 9:30am to 11 pm. Lift to 11:45 pm; stairs to 6:30pm.
4. Ile de la Cite - Notre Dame. Free. Daily from 8am to 6:45pm. Gregorian chant concert tuesday, March 8th 8:30pm.
Ste. Chapelle: 8 euros (11 with the Conciergerie) 9:30am-6pm, closed 1-2 pm weekdays. The concerts there are 29-30 euros so maybe the one on the 11th is out.
5. Montmartre.
6. Assiette de Fromage somewhere. L'assiette aux fromages at 25 rue mouffetard? A diner on chowhound says "If you want just a cheese dégustation, try some of the wine bars-caves à manger."

Oh look what we are missing! The Salon International de l'Agriculture runs from February 19-27th and they are supposed to have lots of cheese in Hall 7... I prefer paris has a posting on the Salon d'Agriculture in 2009.

Paris Cookbook Fair

Penny alerted me to the fact that the weekend we arrive in Paris is the last two days of the Paris Cookbook Fair. She sent me to an article in Publishers Weekly that was much too long for me to digest so I had to hurry out right to the source: Gourmand International's Paris Cookbook Fair website. Their website is a bit challenging but I did learn that the Fair is open to the public the last two days (Saturday and Sunday, March 5 & 6) and only costs 8 € for a one-day pass. They have a nice little video about the fair, interviewing participants from all over the world. I had to do a Google search to figure out where in Paris it was taking place: at the new art center Le 104, Cent Quatre, at 104 rue d'Aubervilliers in the 19th arrondisement near the Peripherique (Paris' beltway). You can tell it is far from the Île de la Cité because the metro stops are off in Russia: Stalingrad or Crimée stations.

Eventually I discovered that the French version of the cookbook fair: Festival du Livre Culinaire is a heck of a lot better with loads more information. So I will peruse the site for fun, even if we don't get to the fair that Sunday we arrive. I wonder, though, if they have bag sales of the books they didn't sell at the fair...

Frommer's 24 Great Walks in Paris 2nd edition

My hold on the second edition of Frommer's 24 Great Walks in Paris came through on Monday and I've been quickly perusing it. I was looking for a walk on our neglected Montparnasse and the very last walk "Painters' Paris" covers it. His (or their?) walks are pretty short: the longest is the Iron Lady of Paris at 2.4 miles and 3 hours. So that means we could do 3 a day and if we are there for 6 days, that's 18...whoops, I guess we'll have to do 4 a day.

Walk 3 is "The French Paradox" which allows us to eat at "Au Pied de Cochon" and then have a pastry at Stohrer's. There are quite a few walks in our neighborhood (as though I don't already have plenty of walks scoped out on the right bank). Maybe I'll take it along with us since it isn't due until the 14th. They have 3 walks from the first edition up on the Frommer's website but apparently they are trying to sell all the copies of the first edition before they advertise the second edition.

Bon Appetit's Snob-Free Guide to Paris

I just picked up the March issue of Bon Appetit, the one with the Macaroni and Cheese on the front, and I should ask here if anyone out there subscribed me to it because I don't think I did. But to return to the subject at hand, Bon Appetit has an article on Paris restaurants highlighting a "new generation of fine spots with drinks (natural wines preferably), snacks (from well-sourced ingredients), and a relaxed ambience." Fortunately it is written by Clotilde Dusoulier of the Chocolate and Zucchini blog; unfortunately there are no prices. But it looks like most of them are wine bars (caves à manger) for the young and fashionable crowd and 3-4 of them are further out than one would walk - one might actually have to take a taxi (she doesn't give a metro station). Clotilde doesn't mention that experimental cocktail bar and the strawberry alarm clock so I don't know if we can trust that it is really truly her list. The website has a downloadable pdf to print out and take with you to Paris, which is actually just the magazine pages. I think I'd rather have pastries... or an assiette de fromage.

A $100 Weekend in Paris.

Just in time. The New York Times published The $100 Paris Weekend by the Frugal Traveler. That was precisely 74.29 euros and accommodations were excluded - the author crashed with a friend. Hm. I'm not sure I'd follow his suggestions but maybe we can duck into the Musée Carnavalet since it's not far and is free. And maybe we could check out a Chez Papa nearby, except the nearest one seems to be in the second arrondissement and they also seem to have an awful lot of duck. But he does go to Le Temps de Cerises which is a zinc cafe near our apartment - although he only has a coffee there. We'll have to report on our own $100 weekend, beginning with a Marché, and what does it matter that there are 5 days between our Sunday and Friday night.

Evidently there are more than one Le Temps de Cerises. The one the Frugal Traveler went to is on 31 Rue de la Cerisaie in the 4th Arrondissement. But there is another one that looks more interesting, Le Temps des Cerises on La Butte-aux-Cailles in the 13th arrondissement. The Paris Traveler says it is "a worker’s co-operative restaurant run by a number of people all taking turns doing different jobs." Sort of like Ithaca's Moosewood Restaurant. The Parisien Salon also reviews this restaurant but didn't mention the workers.

Paris Webcams

The closer we get to takeoff, the more interested I am in the Paris weather. Here it is 66 degrees at 1 PM while in Paris, at 7 pm it is 37 degrees and misty. You can take a look at the weather from the Westin Paris Webcam, which is not quite the view of Paris that I am looking for. In fact, it looks downright dreary.

There's another webcam at Paris Webcam Live but it is equally dreary. What does one expect so late in the day? I'll have to research this early in the morning!

Parisian Cemeteries

I don't think there is another city besides Paris where tourists so regularly visit the cemeteries. The cemeteries of Pere-Lachaise, Montmartre, and Montparnasse seem to be in every guidebook. Afterall, they are the resting place of many famous people: Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Colette, Marcel Proust, and Edith Piaf in Pere-Lachaise; Stendhal, Berlioz, Degas and Offenbach in Montmartre; Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Baudelaire, Maupassant, Citroen, Saint-Saens and Man Ray in Montparnasse. And they are all fairly accessible from the city center where the tourists stay and my DK guide to Paris has a nice layout of each one.

On the other hand, I remember how fascinating we found the headstones in the cemeteries in Switzerland and how I spent a morning walking through a cemetery in Munich, watching people cleaning and decorating family graves. Perhaps it is like a park and gives the tourist respite from the hecticity of the city.

But what prompted this posting on cemeteries (I did one before on Pere-Lachaise) was a posting on SoundLandscapes about the Cemetière-des-Batignolles called A Parisian Disgrace. In the city's effort to join the modern car culture of the world, it built an encircling Périphérique or beltway around Paris in the years 1958-1973. And they built it right over the cemetery. It is this posting that leads me to believe that Des Coulam, the recorder of SoundLandscapes is a woman:

Just think about it – at some point a city official, a fonctionnaire – overpaid, over-holidayed and over-pensioned – decided to attach his (it could have only been a man!) seal of approval to the building of a multi-lane ring road – known as a beltway in the US I believe – or the Périphérique as it’s known here in Paris, right over the top of the graves in this cemetery.
It is simply outrageous and a disgrace!

And, as you can see from the photo, it is outrageous. On the other hand, we should be thankful they did not just dig up all the bodies and throw them into the catacombs...

Parisian Sounds

I stumbled across this blog called Sound Landscapes which has a posting on La Cour Damoye, a charming alley/courtyard off the Place de la Bastille, that you will miss if you don't know where to look (through the archway of N°12, Place de la Bastille - or in the photo here, the other entrance at 15 Rue Daval). The blogger is Des Coulam, who has been recording sound on and off for the last fifty years and subtitles his/her blog: My World in Sound – Exploring "that gratuitous, never-ending show for which no ticket is needed": Robert Doisneau.

Go to the SoundLandscapes blog to hear what the Place de la Bastille sounds like (just click on the little soundclip arrow). I hope our apartment doesn't sound like that! (It shouldn't since it faces a courtyard and it is on a small side street.) You can also hear what La Cour Damoye sounds like. You hear people walking by and some traffic in the background. Turn up the sound and maybe you can catch their French! And then go on to explore other postings, such as La Coupole and the Parisian Café to hear what it sounds like in a Paris café.

Shopping for Kids

Oh, my, I guess I should be exploring this a little before we get to Paris. Looking at the map around the toy store that Penny mentioned, Au Nain Bleu, I ran across a branch of the kids clothing store: Du Pareil au même or DPAM. Their website is in English but I think the company is French but the clothes seem relatively inexpensive so they are probably all imported. DPAM has three lines: DPAM kids, DPAM baby and DPAM shoes (sort of like a French Kids-, Toys- and Babies 'R Us) and they have many locations in Paris, one over by the big department stores and one up on rue St. Antoine. They even have books in French for kids. I better make sure I know Isabel's sizes!

And, oh golly, looking around for advice about kids' clothes in Paris led me to this website: Les Coulottes Courtes - essentially a guide and blog to children's fashion: what's up and coming and where to get it. For instance, you can check out the Junior Gautier collection for this summer.

Vingt Paris Magazine offers another list of clothing stores for kids: Kids Clothes for the Fashionistas.

I was walking in Shadyside today (2/15) and went into the small children's boutique called The Pickett Fence to browse. They have clothes from Deux par Deux and they are quite nice. Unfortunately it is a Quebec company and they don't have a boutique in Paris.