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.

Vintage Postcards from Paris

If you love Paris, you’ll love this exhibit. Higher Pictures gallery was showing a collection of postcards from the 1920s by photographer Pierre Yves Petit.  As this was a New York City exhibit  I have no excuse other than the fact that I just discovered it.  But you can appreciate all the postcards from the gallery website, and I'll take my amateur camera out in Paris and see what I can do.

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.

Where to meet at CDG?

The Chaparros arrive March 6 at 8:20 a.m. at terminal 2E
The Kaplan arrives March 6 at 7:35 a.m. at terminal 1 (like as I can figure by searching todays flight).  Terminal 1 is experiencing heavy renovation to be completed 2009?...was it the one that collapsed?

Here is a map of 2E http://www.bonjourlafrance.com/air-france/paris_charles_de_gaulle_airport/cdg-terminal-2e.htm

RER seems to be close to 2E.....so perhaps I should meet you guys at 2E.  See what you can figure.  My this is time consuming.   I'll go get another electronic device and see what Rick Steves has to say.

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.

For the spiritual side - some saints you may encounter in Paris

St Genevieve (Sainte Geneviève) (Nanterre, c. 419/422 - Paris 502/512), in Latin Sancta Genovefa, from Germanic keno (kin) and wefa (wife), is the patron saint of Paris. She was a peasant girl who became a nun, and moved to Paris after her parents death to live with her grandmother. There the young woman became admired for her piety and devotion to works of charity, which included corporal austerities, and a vegetarian diet which allowed her to sup but twice per week. "These mortifications she continued for over thirty years, till her ecclesiastical superiors thought it their duty to make her diminish her austerities," She is invoked against plague, fevers and disasters. And her life style hardly seems appropriate for Paris today!

Saint Denis (also called Dionysius, Dennis, or Denys) is a Christian martyr and saint. In the third century, he was Bishop of Paris. He was martyred in connection with the Decian persecution of Christians, shortly after A.D. 250. After his head was chopped off on Montmartre, Denis is said to have picked it up and walked ten kilometres (six miles), preaching a sermon the entire way making him one of many cephalophores (head carriers) in hagiology. Denis is invoked against diabolical possession and headaches so I’ll keep him at the ready.

And when you were reading previous blog entries you may have noticed a church behind the Stravinsky Fountains. That’s the Church of Saint-Merri (Eglise Saint-Merri), located on the busy street Rue Saint Martin, on the Right Bank. The church is dedicated to the 8th-century Abbot of Autun Abbey, Medericus, who went to Paris on pilgrimage and later died there. In 884 Medericus, also known as 'Merry' was acclaimed patron saint of the right bank..   I love the name, but can’t find why one would invoke it.

St. Rita is one of my favorite saints as she is the saint of lost causes. There is a blog entry in Peter’s Paris (remember the Swede who blogs about Paris). “Just across the street (Boulevard de Clichy) from Moulin Rouge, you can find a very modest chapel, devoted to Saint Rita. The chapel is actually just the ground floor of a building where the great Moulin Rouge promoter Toulouse-Lautrec seems to have lived and worked a couple of years.
Rita is the Saint of “lost cases” and obviously also adopted by prostitutes... The modest chapel, which has just been renovated, is much frequented by representatives of the local professions – we are in what commonly is called the Pigalle area.”

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.

Toy Stores and more shopping

We must not forget to bring back toys for Isabel and #2, and perhaps some for the grownup children as well.  I'm told by About.com Paris Travel that some travellers visit Tumbleweed every year.  In case you can't do that here is a video to tempt you

And here is another one:

Au Nain Bleu ,5 Boulevard Malesherbes, 75008 Paris, France
Frommer's Review This is the largest, oldest, and most centrally located toy store in Paris. More important, it's probably the fanciest toy store in the world. But don't panic -- in addition to the expensive stuff, you'll find rows of cheaper items

So then I Internet stolled over to BHV to check out their toy department and stumbled instead into more Parisian fashion "The Ten Never-Ending Trends of Parisien Shoppers" on Parisien Salon
But the most interesting was the P.S. Musique

So click and listen to some Parisien musique as you get some Internet exercise (with apologies in case this has been posted before - seems sort of familiar?)

St. Merri Quartier

The day we arrive is free museum day, and I really want to walk over to the Pompidou and take the escalator up to the 6th floor to see the view over Paris, especially at night (I think we already have a full itinerary so it should be twilight before we get there).  My old Michelin guide has lots of brief walking tours and they mention the Quartier de  Horloge - La Defense du Temps.  It's "an usual brass and steel electronic clock with a Jack known as the Defender of Time.  On striking the hour, the life-sized figure armed with a double edged sword and shield, confronts the animals symbolizing the elements: a dragon (earth), a bird (the air) and a crab ((water).  So I was looking for a picture and found that About.com Paris Travel has a photo gallery Pictures of Beaubourg so we can tour the area before we get there.  The Stravinsky fountains are wonderfully wimsical and..guess what ?? !! there is our favorite BHV!!!

BHV (Bay Ash Vay)

Maybe this posting should have come before the Quincailleries since I'd heard about the BHV basement with all the do-it-yourself items a long time ago. But I had to explain BHV to Fernando so I thought I'd explain it to my blog readers as well. Plus I got a new laptop computer that I have to get used to before the trip. (My, the type is SO small - do I dare change the resolution?)

In any case, BHV stands for the grand magasin (department store) called Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville. It is located next to the Hôtel de Ville, Paris' City Hall, and very near our apartment. It is famous for its basement which contains a hardware store and even a hardware-themed cafe. By the way, it is owned by the Groupe Galeries Lafayette which also owns the Galeries Lafayette department store and the Monoprix supermarkets.

Why would we want to go to a hardware store? Well, supposedly they have key chains with paris street signs on them. And I think they have other signs in French, like Chat Bizarre and beware of dog.

And they have Paris themed playing cards, if you need souvenirs for someone who plays bridge. They have the Cris de Paris, which apparently are cards with backs illustrating the ancient peddlers and hawkers in a Parisian street market who would cry out: "Herring! Pickled herring! Peaches! Turnips! Look at my berries, my fine wild berries!"

I learned about this from
Colleen's Paris: Made in Paris which also mentions a couple other stores we might want to visit (although they are on the left bank). One is La Tuile a Loup, with handicrafts from throughout France, and the other is Artisanat Monastique, with handicrafts from over 250 French monasteries.

Quincaillerie

I was out strolling in google maps in the vicinity of Crêperie Bretonne at 67, rue de Charonne in the 11th arrondissement (east of the Bastille) because it was one of David Lebovitz's favorite crêperies and I wanted to check out the neighborhood to see if we could come up with some sort of walk over there. In the street view I noticed a store with all sorts of nameplates and latches in the window and thought it might be worthwhile to visit some hardware stores (besides the basement in BHV) just to see what we couldn't live without. If you do a "search nearby" for "hardware" on a google map location, it will pull up a bunch of quincailleries (and no computer stores -- imagine that!). If you want to know how to pronounce that, go to Forvo and you can hear what it sounds like. If you want to get an idea of what sorts of treasures we could find in a French quincaillerie, check out this one: A la Providence Quincaillerie Leclercq, where there are all sorts of knobs and handles and hooks to choose from. TimeOut Paris even has an entry for it. And there's another one down the street: Le Jeune Freres, which specializes in decorative hardware for furniture and doors from the sixteenth century, just in case you have any of that hanging around.

I'm not the only one enthused by quincailleries. Paris Postcard has a posting: Why I love my quincaillerie.