The weeks are flying by now. The mainland Europe leg of our trip is almost over.
I still have to do updates for the Spanish cities of Toledo and Zaragoza.......but already we're here in Paris, home of the Eiffel tower and so much more.
So, firstly how did we get here from Zaragoza? Having become fed up of long train trips Lizzie thought it would be a great time saver to fly to Paris instead of using the train. Problem number one - no flights to Paris from Zaragoza. We get around this by getting a train to Barcelona and booking a a flight from there to Paris......to cut a long story and a very long day short. We left our apartment in Zaragoza at 7am and opened the door of our new apartment in Paris at 8.40pm........after 2 bus rides, 4 trains and one plane. Not exactly a time saver nor a money spinner. The apartment is in the 17th Arrondissiment - which means its on the right bank of the Seine......but well away from any of the tourist areas. In a way that's a good thing. It means that our area is very quiet at night and that means a good nights sleep. Something that we didn't get in Zaragoza and were praying for here. We have a small apartment, nicely decorated, but the building it's in need of a good lick of paint.......and a good handy man!
The metro is about 400 metres from the front door and since the Paris Metro is the best metro system in the world....so they tell us.....you're only a short ride from anywhere in Paris. We've been here for five days now and have been giving the Metro a right good flogging. It costs 1 euro 90 for a ride or several rides in one direction with a time limit of 90 minutes. We've also been doing a lot of walking.
We have tried to avoid the crowds by doing "alternative" sight seeing and leaving some of the big, obvious tourist traps such as the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre alone. Don't get me wrong, we have seen them - just haven't been inside.
We didn't go up the Eiffel tower because we'd rather have pictures with the Eiffel tower in them, rather than standing on top of the tower taking photos of the rest of Paris.
And as for the Louvre....number one on the list for tourist destinations/attractions in Paris....too busy, too long a queue. The art collection in the Louvre only goes to 1850 and my interest lays with more modern art and photography. We decided instead to go into some of the smaller museums and galleries in Paris.
And there are many alternatives.....just google art galleries in Paris and you'll see. Many of them are free and they have some very good art inside. We visited the Paris Museum of Modern Art on the right bank of the Seine at 11 Avenue du Président Wilson and spent a couple of hours there....for free. There are some temporary exhibits that do cost money to go in to, but the permanent exhibits are free and its a big space to explore.
The price is right - come on down!
From here you're a short walk across a bridge to the left bank of the Seine and low and behold - here is the Eiffel Tower.
It was named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
Constructed from 1887-89 as the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair, it was initially criticized by some of France's leading artists and intellectuals for its design, but it has become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognisable structures in the world. The Eiffel Tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world; 6.91 million people ascended it in 2015.
We took a few photos from the bottom but were not spending hours joining the queues to ride the lift to the top.....and my knees could not manage the alternative - all those metal stairs.
For those of you who are fans of the Woody Allen film - Midnight in Paris - many of the film locations are accessible and we've seen a few of them. It won't mean much to those of you who haven't seen the film but we saw the famous restaurant Maxims where the films main character Gil meets Toulouse Lautrec. We thought about dining there and then saw the price list......over a hundred and twenty kiwi dollars for a steak dinner. Too rich for us.
We also saw the bar where Gil first meets Hemingway and the magic steps of the church where Gil is transported back to the 1920's.....and a few other places I won't bore you further with.....except to say that he also bumps into Salvador Dali.....who spouts on about his vision about a Rhinoceros.
In Montmartre is the Dali Museum and indeed there are 2 sculptures there of his rhinoceros. The exhibition space for his works it tiny though and hardly worth the 11 euros 50 each to look through a museum for 20 minutes tops. Some nice items, but not worth the entry fee.
Paris is a lovely city......but expensive.....so anything that costs nothing or is cheap is a welcome addition to our to do list.
We visited Montmartre Cemetery (free to enter unless you're dead in which case you pay for the privilege of being buried there)- a vast and very historic place with family tombs and a few famous - but now, of course dead, celebrities of old. The painter Degas is here and Alexander Dumas - writer of the Three Musketeers, as is Vaslav Nijinski the famous Russian Ballet Dancer.
Almost every tower in Paris has a fee to pay in order to climb it for a panoramic view of this city of lights.....however, Lizzie found out that there is a department store called Printemps which has a rooftop terrace cafe on its ninth floor with stunning views of Paris - including the Eiffel Tower. And the best thing is that being a department store there are no stairs to climb. Just hop on the escalator to the top. Of course it's free to go to the cafe - Perfect! Unfortunately the day we visited it was very grey and overcast.
But it wasn't a complete disaster as Lizzie bought herself a red beret and matching gloves.
We've also visited several Photography galleries.
A. Gallery on Rue Léonce Reynaud, 4 - is a small gallery on the ground floor. Located in the 16th arrondissement, close to Pont de l'Alma, between the Palais de Tokyo and the Fondation Yves Saint-Laurent - no fee to look around. Currently there is an exhibition titled Best of the West featuring several top photographers. Photo portraits are of the likes of Mike Tyson, Barak Obama, Steve McQueen, Al Pacino, David Bowie etc. Large format prints - very nicely displayed.
Another gallery - Gallery Les Douches - is on a back street at 5 Rue Legouvé. When we arrived, the door was locked, but press the buzzer and they let you in. The gallery is on the first floor - no lift, so no use for wheelchairs. Again it was free of charge and featured photos by two women photographers - Vivian Maier and Berenice Abbott.
I had not heard of Abbott before - she got her start in photography as a dark room assistant to Man Ray. She learned how he set up his photo shoots and went on from there to be a photographer in her own right......and a good one at that.
Vivian Maiers story is amazing and sad at the same time. She was an unknown in the photographic world almost until her death. During her life she would come to amass a group of storage lockers stuffed to the brim with found items, art books, newspaper clippings, home films, as well as over 30,000 negatives and 3,000 prints and a huge quantity of undeveloped, exposed film. Due to non-payment of rent on her storage lockers, her property was forfeit and auctioned off.
Most of which was purchased - as an unknown item - by one John Maloof for the princely sum of US$400 at auction in Chicago in 2007.
Thankfully Maloof, a photography buff, went to great lengths (and personal expense) to get Maiers images out into the world.
At this time Vivian was still alive but almost destitute - bouncing from homelessness to a small studio apartment paid for by a family that she once worked for. In 2008 she slipped on a patch of ice and sustained a head injury. Although expected to recover she died in a nursing home in April 2009. She had no family.
I had already seen the documentary film - finding Vivian Maier and purchased one of the books of her photographs so I knew quite a lot about her. Her speciality was documentary / street photography. She worked as a nanny and would take the children in her care on field trips around the city and photograph anything that took her fancy. By accident almost she ended up documenting, in her photographs, over 50 years of american history. And yes....I am a fan.
The final photography gallery we visited was Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, Ville de Paris at 5/7 Rue de Fourcy, 75004 Paris. For the first time on this trip we had to queue (40 minutes) to get into a photo gallery......and pay 8 euros to get in.
But there were exhibits by 7 different photographers over several floors of the building.....the star of which was Herb Ritts.
Ritts was a friend of Richard Gere before either of them became famous. He took photos of Gere which later gave him a foot in the door of the world of photographing celebrities. In the 80's and 90's he took photos of many celebrities and also took a series of fashion and nude photographs of fashion models Naomi Campbell, Stephanie Seymour, Tatjana Patitz, Christy Turlington, and Cindy Crawford. He worked in black and white and made some iconic images. Sadly on December 26, 2002, Ritts died of complications from pneumonia at the age of 50.
So after having not much luck at finding photo galleries on the rest of this trip I almost overdose on them here in Paris. Wonderful!
Cathedrals and churches dominate the Paris skyline and we visited a few including the Cathedral of Notre Dame - made even more famous by Victor Hugo's story of the Hunchback of Notre Dame and also Sacre Cour.
Notre Dame is on the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris - on the banks of the Seine.
Sacre Cour - A popular landmark, the basilica is located at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point in the city.
My knees screamed at the very thought of climbing all those steps up the hill to Sacre Cour. Thankfully for 1 euro 90 you can ride the funicular to the top......which we did.
To the side of Sacre Cour is a lovely little square (Place du Tertre) surrounded by cafes and artists who want to either paint your portrait or sell their paintings to the public. Just off the square is L'Eglise St Pierre de Montmartre - free to enter, this church is a quiet haven from the tourist bustle and has some lovely stained glass windows. As a bonus, in the hall next to the church was an exhibition of art. Mainly paintings but also a few small sculptures.....all for sale of course.
From here we called in to an Irish Pub for a pint of stout and a cider.....at 8 euros each (about NZ$12.30 a pint) we had just the one each and left. From here we wandered from square to square down the narrow lanes and cobbled streets of the old part of Montmartre.
We visited the Pigalle area - this is not a nice place to be in as it's the red light district of Paris - but is also the home of the Moulin Rouge so worth a look as long as you go in daylight. Later in the day, I am told, certain "ladies" are out in force to coax the unwary into the clubs with the promise of 2 drinks for ten euros. Once inside, the lady then asks if the person they have conned into coming into the club would like to "buy a lady a drink"? Most people think ten euro for 2 drinks....so yes we'll buy you a drink. She then goes behind the bar and comes back with a 300 euro bottle of champagne and if there are any disagreements a couple of burly bouncers appear on the scene to enforce payment.
Needless to say, we didn't venture into any clubs.
Another day...naturally we strolled along the left bank of the Seine and indeed it is charming.
The banks of the river are populated by artists wanting to paint or sketch your portrait.....or 2nd hand book sellers......sellers of vintage post cards and posters. It's really nice. I love this part of Paris near to the Latin Quarter. I could spend all day browsing the books and taking photos.
And at this time of year, autumn, the trees that line the Seine look magnificent in golds, reds and browns. If you're not already a poet or an artist - this is enough to make you want to be one.
Here in the Latin Quarter is a fantastic little book store called Shakespeare & Company, founded by an American - George Whitman.
Shakespeare and Company has been here at 37 rue de la Bûcherie, Kilometer Zero, Paris since 1951. Originally called Le Mistral - Whitman changed the name in 1964 on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth to honour both the Bard himself and a bookseller he admired, Sylvia Beach, who’d founded the original Shakespeare and Company in 1919. Her store at 12 rue de l’Odéon was a gathering place for the great expat writers of the time—Joyce, Hemingway, Stein, Fitzgerald, Eliot, Pound—as well as for leading French writers. German soldiers enforced the closing of the shop in 1941.
But it's not just a bookshop. The original owner George Whitman, an American, allowed aspiring writers and artists to sleep between the bookshelves of the shop when they were struggling for money. The only proviso was that they would spend 2 hours a day working in the shop, read a book a day and produce a one page autobiography. It's estimated that since it opened about 30,000 people have slept and worked in the shop. Not all of them made it as writers and artists. However, such people as Alan Sillitoe, Robert Stone, Kate Grenville, Sebastian Barry, Ethan Hawke, Jeet Thayil, Darren Aronfsky, Geoffrey Rush, and David Rakoff have stayed at the shop. These guests are called Tumbleweeds after the rolling thistles that “drift in and out with the winds of chance,” as George described. A sense of community and commune was very important to him—he referred to his shop as a “socialist utopia masquerading as a bookstore.” George died in 2011 at the age of 98 and the shop is now run by his daughter Sylvia Beach Whitman (named after the owner of the original Shakespeare & Co.).
We visited the shop yesterday and I purchased a book about Whitman and the history of the book shop and includes some of the one page autobiographies. I am only about 20 pages in so far but it looks like an interesting read.
I went to bed last night thinking about this wonderful shop and the ideals of its founder.......to wake at 3am with an urge to write something down.
I hate poetry that doesn't rhyme......always have....always will. Yet, the words that came to me in the space of about 2 minutes was one of those terrible non-rhyming poems.
A short homage to Shakespeare and Company
"Octobers end.
Golden leaves crunch underfoot on pavements wet with rain
Their last hurrah in the dappled fading light of Ra's ancient orb
As Hugo's gargoyles gaze down upon the riverbanks lined with purveyors of nostalgic words
Swathed in scarves and coats
Heavy against the approach of winters promised chill
For winter brings death
But here in the Bards house of books - George Whitmans' reality
Readers breathe new life into the written word
Literature's dream lives on - its pulse is strong
And Beats to the words and worlds of Ginsberg, Burroughs and Kerouac
These walls a haven to writers and artists in need
It is indeed - the ever beating heart of this city that is.....Paris."
We visited the shop again today and bought two more books. More unwanted weight for the suitcases......we're going to have to mail some of our belongings home.
Everywhere in Europe there has been a strong police and or military presence on the streets and in railway stations and airports. They don't seem to be taking any chances when it comes to the possibility of terrorist attacks. Funnily enough though until today we had not seen any here in Paris. There are private security men on the doors of department stores checking bags on the way in, but a strange lack of military on the streets compared with other cities. We saw these guys (above) in 3 different places in Paris. Seemingly they were the only military personnel available.
As mentioned earlier there are a lot of art galleries in Paris. There is also a lot of street art and performance art which pops up in various places. We were on our way back to the Metro one day and the street was blocked off for this massive robot like puppet coming down the middle of the street following a group of people passing suitcases back and forth and others in colourful tin soldier style outfits playing drums . What it was about I have no idea what it was about, but it looked like a lot of fun.
Now in our final day in Paris we decided on an easy day. Just two metro rides to visit more dead celebrities. This time at Le Pere Lachaise Cemetery where you'll find the graves of such people as :-
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière ( 15 January 1622 – 17 February 1673), was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature. He would perform in the plays he'd written right up to the end of his life. He suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis and whilst performing one of his plays had a coughing fit and started haemorrhaging on stage. True to the old motto - the show must go on - he insisted on finishing the play before being taken home, where he died.
Back in those days actors were not allowed to be buried in sacred ground (a cemetery) and he was buried in a side plot where unbaptised infants were laid to rest.
In 1792 his remains were brought to the museum of French monuments and in 1817 transferred to Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, close to those of La Fontaine. Jean de La Fontaine ( 8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695) was a famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century.
Not far from these two French writers is the grave of Oscar Wilde, or to give him his full name, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900). He was of course an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is remembered for his epigrams, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays, as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.
Other Famous people buried here include the composer Chopin, singer Edith Piaf and lead singer of the Doors Jim Morrison.
For me, Paris is all about the pavement cafes. There are hundreds if not thousands of them. The price of a cup of coffee varies widely though so it pays to shop around. The cafes with the best pavement presence, in the busiest and most stylish parts of the city really rev up the prices. If you can it pays to go a couple of streets back for a better deal.
And that brings us to the end of our stay in Paris.
We catch the Eurostar train tomorrow and spend the next six weeks tripping around the British Isles.